by Ford, Mia
Leia leapt back several feet scared out of her mind. I thought she might even run for it for a second, but I was pointing a cocked and loaded weapon at her. She was as good as dead.
I began to laugh. “Wow… this is hilarious.”
“Don’t…” Leia pleaded as she stood there trembling.
“Oh, you are telling me not to hurt you now? That’s hysterical. After what you just put me through? Do you have any idea how stupid it was for you to come here? You were free and clear. Hell, the entire world thought you dead, and you didn’t even have to deal with the baggage of those two little brats. Plus, you had a nice little sum of money you somehow managed to steal away.”
“I’m sorry… I just…”
“You just, what?” I asked. “You just thought you could break me down, scare me, and make me look inferior to you? Really? That was your big, bad master plan you’ve been working on all this time? What do you think this is? Some reality show?”
I was laughing hard now. I’d drastically overestimated her intelligence. Perhaps she lost some brain cells in the fire; I wasn’t sure. And I no longer cared. I was tired of the games and much more than tired of her. It was time for her to leave this earth for good. And good riddance, as far as I was concerned.
I pointed the loaded gun at her.
“Any last words? I’ll at least give you that little bit of dignity this time. But I’m going to blow your head off. There is no way you aren’t dying this time. And best part is---there is no one who is looking for you. No one will know if you disappear.”
I chuckled at the irony of it. As I stood there pointing the gun at her, I started to admire the guts it took for her to come there and confront me. It was pretty courageous, but also very, very stupid.
The gun… something familiar about it.
As I clutched the handle tightly and prepared to end Leia’s life –again-- I noticed something very strange about it.
“Wait…is this my gun?” I asked.
Looking closer at it, I could clearly see my initials carved just above the handle. It had been given to me by my father when I was a teenager for my fourteenth birthday.
Leia looked down ashamed.
“It is,” I laughed. “Wow… so, you were going to use my own gun to kill me? Wait… let me guess… you were going to make it look like some suicide?”
I couldn’t stop laughing as Leia continued to break down right in front of me. This was the most pathetic revenge attempt I’d ever heard about.
“Wow, you are so incompetent that it’s hysterical,” I said. “What were you thinking? I mean, really? What the hell were you thinking? Did you actually believe this was going to work in any way?”
Leia sobbed. “Please… I’m sorry… I’ll forget about it all. Just let me live and give me my kids. I just want my kids. You can have the money and everything else. I don’t want anything except my kids.”
“No,” I said. “You aren’t getting out of this. But it is touching… it is. You know you are about to die, but you are still worried about the kids. Well, I’ll tell them their nanny had to go home and won’t be back, but she loves them dearly. I’ll make sure they know that you didn’t just abandon them.”
“Just let me go,” Leia said. She was crying uncontrollably now. It was almost sad.
“Just shut up and take your punishment with some dignity,” I said.
Without waiting another second for her to say a word I pointed the gun and fired two shots right at her chest.
Leia fell to the floor hunched over. She barely even groaned.
I was still laughing, the smell of gun powder thick in the air. My ears were ringing loudly from the explosive blast bouncing off the walls. It had been a long time since I’d fired a gun inside. I’d actually forgotten what a bad idea it is without ear protection.
“Well, that was unfortunate,” I said walking over to Leia’s body. “I hope you stay dead this time.”
Laughing I bent down to look at her. She was face down and crumbled into a tight ball. It was a very strange way to fall…
Suddenly, Leia flipped over and she was smiling at me.
“I hope you enjoy prison,” Leia said.
“What—?” I started.
“FREEZE! Drop the weapon and keep your hands in the air!”
A loud, commanding voice entered the room.
I looked up to see three large uniformed police officers standing there with their guns drawn on me. There was nothing I could do. If I twitched a little bit wrong or even felt a sneeze coming on I was going to be filled full of holes.
I sat the gun down and held my hands in the air.
“Get down on your knees!” The cop yelled.
I followed the orders until they had me handcuffed with both hands behind my back. The other officer read me my Miranda Rights. I was almost in too much of a daze to verbally accept that I understood them.
I was done. I was finished. Leia had outsmarted me.
She was standing now with her arms wrapped around some other man. He was in his mid-thirties, handsome, and clean cut looking. I could tell immediately that he and Leia were intimate. I wondered if he might have been the one who did the surgery. I couldn’t think who else she would have told about this.
Leia looked at me just then with the happiest look on her face I’d ever seen. She’d been wearing a wire after all. It was a setup. They’d heard every word I’d said.
I chose to exercise my right not to say a word. It was better than possibly incriminating myself farther. They had me on audio saying everything. My lawyer looked so despondent when he saw all of the evidence against me. He was the best money could buy, but even he couldn’t work actual miracles.
It was the fact that I’d actually tried to murder Leia right then and there. I’d taken my gun after admitting it was my gun and I’d known it was loaded and I’d proceeded to shoot her twice in the chest with it.
What I didn’t know at that time was that Leia had set that up as all part of her plan. Her whole plan was to get me to try to murder her while the cops were listening. So, she replaced the bullets in the gun with blanks.
This not only gave the cops a new crime to charge me with—one with indisputable evidence—but it lent credibility to the crimes of my past that I had also admitted to. I was beyond screwed. My life was over.
As I sat there in the interrogation room talking to my lawyer who was telling me exactly how over my life was, I began to think about the time I’d spent with Leia and how much I missed the beginning part of our relationship. We were actually pretty good together and our marriage could have been something special for both of us, but I was not wired that way. My greed had eventually won out. And in the end my greed had cost me everything.
I should have hated Leia, but I didn’t. She was just playing the cards she was dealt. I was angrier with myself for reacting hastily and setting the fire. I thought it would take care of everything nice and neatly, but in the end it had left too many loose ends. Now, I was going to have to face the penalties.
My lawyer told me I was looking at life in prison as a max sentence, but a minimum of twenty-five years before I was even eligible for parole. People who were convicted of attempted murder, especially of doing it more than once—they could never expect to be let out of prison ever again.
And it didn’t matter how much money I had.
Besides, all of that was now reverted back to Leia. It was just another of the many prices I would have to pay going forward.
The game was over.
Checkmate.
I lost.
Epilogue
Leia
Six Months Later
“Well, kids—we are here,” I said as I opened the door to our beautiful hotel room.
The twins bounded into the room excitedly trying to release all the pent up energy from a long plane ride and a decent drive to the Kona Hotel and resort. But all in all, I thought they handled it all pretty well.
“Wow, this is even
better than I expected,” Taylor said walking into the room behind me.
He started helping the bell boy with unloading the heavier bags. After they were done with the last of them, Taylor gave the young man a hefty tip. The boy smiled and thanked Taylor profusely as he headed out of the room.
“Great job,” I said. “You probably made that kid’s week.”
“Yeah, I used to do work like that when I was in high school, but not for nearly as nice of a place. I know what it’s like to do grunt work and to not have much appreciation thrown your way.”
“That’s sweet,” I said. “You know, we’ve been married two months and I’m still finding out all sorts of interesting things about you.”
“You never knew I did that?” Taylor asked.
“No, I just don’t think it ever came up.”
“Well, that is the fun part about being newlyweds,” Taylor said as he picked up a few of the lighter bags to carry them towards our bedroom. I followed him, listening to the twins jumping up and down on their beds. I knew I should have told them to stop, but I just didn’t feel like telling them to quit being four years old at that moment.
Our bedroom was large with a nice, comfortable looking king sized bed in the center of it.
“Is it safe to say the word newlyweds?” Taylor asked me. “I feel like once you hit thirty, then that word should never be applied to you.”
“Well, then it only applies to one of us,” I joked.
Taylor put the suitcases in the corner and as he walked towards the door to grab the others he wrapped his arms around me and gave me a big, sweet kiss. Then he continued to the front room to get the heavy stuff.
I followed him to lend assistance even though he didn’t ask for it.
As I watched Taylor work I found myself feeling a bit strange about how everything had happened. Just a few short years before it felt like my entire world had collapsed. I’d almost been killed and my body was horribly disfigured. But Taylor found me. He saved me. And he was able to look past all of the issues I had and find the real me. He had fallen in love with me when I was a shell of who I was now.
And thanks to him I had my life back. I had my boys back. I had my family back.
For the first time since I was a kid, I felt whole again. I’d never really noticed how empty I was since my parents’ death until this. There was a hole deep inside of me that I didn’t think I was ever going to be able to fill. But since I’d let Taylor inside, that hole had started to close. I still missed my parents, but it no longer ruled my life. It no longer made me wish that my life was different. Everything had happened for a reason and I was living that reason right now.
I knew my parents would be very proud of me if they were here.
After we got settled in we decided that we would go grab a bite to eat at a restaurant down the street. It was getting too late to do much else since we’d been travelling all day. Taylor had first suggested the idea as a great way to get away from everything, especially after all the madness with Ted that had happened. Plus, Taylor had just finished his book, and he was looking to do a bit of relaxing, which he never suggested.
Ted… I’d hardly thought of him recently.
The plan had worked out beautifully, but I felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants the entire time. There was so much room for error and so many times things could have gone wrong, but I knew the man. I found it strange how I seemed to know him so much better after we were no longer together then I had when I’d been married to him.
I had to smile now, when I thought about it. Ted was in prison. He most likely would never see the outside of prison walls. And that was where he belonged. And I owed so much of it to Taylor. We’d put our heads together and crafted the plan, tweaking and adjusting things about it until it all seemed to flow together like a perfectly constructed puzzle.
And it had worked.
But it was frightening. By the end I was crying real tears. I was in real terror. I kept imagining that at any moment Ted was going to realize that the gun had been tampered with. But he hadn’t.
Even with all the evidence we had against Ted, from my own testimony that he’d tried to kill me, to the testimony from his teenage friend—it was all circumstantial. Even if he admitted what he’d done, the court could always rule that he’d been coerced because I was pointing a gun at him.
But I had to have the gun there for a few reasons. He had to be held at bay so he wouldn’t just attack me and strangle me with his bare hands. Ted was a strong, athletic guy who kept himself in shape. He was perfectly capable of overpowering me. And the gun served as a scare tactic to get him to actually admit what he’d done. He had no reason to admit it otherwise, since I imagined his paranoia would kick in and he would assume I was wearing a wire. So, Taylor and I agreed it would be best to acknowledge this and play around with that.
And it had worked.
I asked myself a hundred times a day how it worked. I didn’t know. I just didn’t know. But it did.
Granted we had Ted for two counts of attempted murder, but it was still not murder. He had not been convicted of murder. Which meant that there was a chance—a very slim chance, but still a chance—that he would get out one day.
I just prayed that day never came.
But if it ever did, I promised myself that I would be ready.
Knowing Ted, as I did, he most likely would not survive well in prison. He was too much of an independent, free spirit. If he ever did get out he would probably be a shell of his former self. But he might surprise me.
I often wondered what it would be like to visit him in a few years just to see how he was doing. Mostly out of curiosity, but a little bit out of a desire to rub his face in it. I would most likely never do it. I was done with him. And my vengeance was finished. I had nothing else to prove to anyone.
My main job now was to be the best mother and wife I could be. And I hoped sincerely, that my boys never wanted to go meet the man their biological father was. I would tell them when they grew up a bit what he did to me. I would never hide who he was or the type of man he was for their benefit.
One day they would make up their own minds whether or not they wanted to see him.
“You ok, honey?” Taylor asked.
We were sitting at dinner. I hadn’t even realized that I’d barely touched my food or said anything for several minutes. I tried to snap out of my thoughts and engage with my family. The boys were both trying their hardest not to fall asleep after picking at their plates for a little bit and Taylor seemed to be mostly enjoying the violinist in the corner. The ambience of the restaurant was so soothing. It was relaxing. And what I’d been planning on doing for most of the vacation was just relaxing.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine.”
I started to pick at my grilled chicken, but I just wasn’t hungry any longer. Thinking about Ted often did that to me.
“Come on, out with it,” Taylor said. He leaned forward putting on his best bedside manner. “What’s on your mind?”
I sighed. “What else?”
He nodded is understanding. “You have to let it go. It’s over. It’s done. You need to move on.”
“It’s so strange. I feel like since we did that, I almost have something…I dunno… like, missing from my life, if that makes any sense.”
“You had a mission. You completed that mission. Now, it’s time to find another one.”
I laughed. “Well, I don’t have anyone else in my life I need to get revenge on.”
“That’s a good thing,” Taylor said with a smile. “You need to find another passion. What do you want to do with your life? You have your family’s company, and that is being handled as always. It’s back in excellent hands now that Ted isn’t around to mess with it. But is that what you are really passionate about doing with your time? You are in a unique position where you can basically do whatever you want that makes you happy. You don’t have to worry about income.”
I nodded. “I know.
I just feel guilty…somehow. Like… I don’t deserve to be here. I didn’t deserve to get the surgery because I had money that my family left me. I almost feel like some sort of hypocrite, but does that make sense?”
Taylor squinted for a moment. “I think so. I don’t think you should feel guilty about taking advantage of an opportunity. Not everyone gets the same opportunities, but you take them when they come along and you hope for the best.”
“That’s it,” I said.
“What?”
“I remember after my last surgery I promised that I was going to help other women like myself who need surgery or medical procedures, but can’t afford it. I’m going to set up a foundation to help them.”
“I think that is a wonderful idea,” Taylor said.
“Yeah, I remember that I was so determined to do it before and then… somehow it just got lost in my mind.”
“Well, you were focused on Ted and bringing him to justice. You made the world a safer place by getting a cretin like that off the streets and behind bars where he belongs. Now, you can do this. Everything has its own natural course to follow, honey.”
“You’re right,” I said.
“Yeah, Patrick is very close to getting that grant to set up that training program in universities across the country. Since you’ve gone public with everything, he says that things are really changing rapidly. In a few years everyone will have access to this type of surgery. And thanks to people like you, they will be able to afford it as well.”
I sat back in my chair and smiled. Taylor always had such a way of putting things in perspective. “Do you believe certain things are meant to be?”
“Like Karma?” Taylor asked.
“Yeah… maybe… I don’t know what you want to call it, but do you believe that some things—even bad things—happen for a definite reason.”
“Like there is a plan for everything?” Taylor thought a moment. I loved to watch him when he was deep in thought. His forehead wrinkled up, his sexy lips would purse, and he would often make a tiny humming noise. It was adorable. “I wouldn’t rule it out.”