Sapphire Scars: Volume Three

by A. P. Moraez

  “Yep.”

  Leo still hadn’t sat down on his luxury leather chair, and it was making Ash nervous.

  Leo turned his eyes to Eric and the coldness in it threatened to freeze Ash, who was sitting right next to him.

  “It was all a lie,” he started to explain, voice going lower by the second. “Edmund wasn’t who he said he was.” Leo’s lips arched in a contrite smile. “A cop,” he continued, “working with the regional station from the beginning.”

  Eric started breathing heavier, fidgeting.

  A few seconds ticked by, and it was as if their ticking added to the heavy atmosphere that had already been suffocating the room to begin with.

  “Now, Eric, isn’t it your job to do thorough background checks on everyone who is to become involved in business with us?”

  “I did!” Eric cried. “I swear to God there was nothing on him. All the documents and info the team gathered about the guy looked clean.”

  Eric worked as the head of all things intelligence together with a few other hackers only Leonardo himself knew personally, who he’d handpicked to take care of such things. Eric wasn’t the smarter or most experienced of the group, but he was damn smart. So, two years ago, when the idea came to them, it had made sense to make him their boss, since he was in close contact with Leonardo, living under the man’s roof, and could direct the group after direct orders from the man himself.

  “Still, the info was incorrect, as clearly the guy fucked us over and made me lose fucking five million dollars!” Leo’s facade of calmness cracked right there on the last few words as his voice rose to a growl.

  “I’ll check with the guys. If he was working with the locals, they probably had a hand in this. They covered for him and hid info somewhere the team doesn’t have access to.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Leonardo responded after a few tense seconds.

  Nate was at the corner, checking his cell phone, as if he couldn’t be more bored by what was transpiring inside the room.

  “It’s not like I can get my money back; or the goods. And there’s also the matter of Matthew being caught. I’ll have to spend a lot to cover that, as well.”

  “So he’s not dead?” Ash interrupted, relieved to hear the guy hadn’t died.

  Leo flicked a glance to him and shook his head. “He’s in the ICU. We’re probably have more news in a few days.”

  “I’m sorry, Leo,” Eric repeated. “I don’t know how the fuck this happened, but I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  Leo smiled, but it never reached his cold, icy eyes. “I accept your apologies.”

  Ash twisted his neck slightly to the side, smiling at how his friend seemed to sag with relief at how the situation hadn’t turned out that bad.

  So the few drops of Eric’s blood, splashing from his skull right after the silent shot pierced his head, hit Ash right in the forehead. He didn’t even register what happened before Leo was rounding his desk and coming to stand right in front of Ash.

  “You better control yourself,” he said, completely unaffected by what he’d just done. “There’s kids asleep in the house. We don’t wanna make a fuss.”

  Ash’s chest was hurting, body freezing all over, and all he wanted to do was scream. Scream and punch and grab Leo’s gun from his belt and put a hole right through his head. He held back the tears and nodded, though. Then, voice coarse with the acute pain taking over him, he only asked, “Why?” as Leo’s face blurred in front of him, since he wasn’t doing that good of a job of containing the tears falling for the loss of his friend.

  “I don’t do well with incompetence, Ash; you know this.” With that horribly bland answer for having taken a young life — a friend’s life — Leo turned to his son, still unimpressed in the corner. “Get rid of the body and then call Vesuvius and ask for a projection for the next few weeks. We’re gonna have to deal with losing that cargo as well as possible. I can’t afford to lose clients now that the new club is almost done.”

  Nate pocketed his phone and gave his father a nod, then went to a corner where he got a human-sized black trash-bag and some pieces of cloth.

  Ash stared, petrified, as they wrapped Eric’s body and then Nate called Ivan, describing what needed to be done.

  Done.

  He was done.

  IT WAS TIME, this was the perfect night. As soon as the buss taking the kids away on the long-awaited trip to Denver finally took off, Ash shuffled from the window, where he’d been watching like a hawk, and got moving.

  The last thirteen days had been some of the hardest of his life since he’d gotten to the mansion, some four years ago.

  It was becoming a cursed pattern in his life, that he never felt not even slightly attached to a place. It had been that way when he left Biscuits, and now history was repeating itself. He surely wouldn’t miss this place. Even if the fear of not knowing exactly where his feet would lead him was there, it was somehow… subdued. He wasn’t a kid anymore, lost in the world. He was a man now. Even if he had to hide somewhere for the rest of his life, finding a simple job where his name would be hard to track, he wasn’t staying here anymore.

  The hand he had clasping the strap of the guitar case trembled as the image of Eric lying dead on that office chair flashed before his closed eyelids for the thousandth time.

  Ash snorted to himself. He’d never kid himself as to the nature of that man. He’d always thought of him as the angel of death for a reason. Only… he’d never have imagined what happened that day. How that monster could so casually take the life of someone he’d been helping raise, who he’d fed and sheltered and clothed for more than five years.

  No, Ash wouldn’t miss this place. The place where he’d been coerced and used in the most degrading and humiliating ways possible. The place where they’d changed him so much, transforming him in something so low, that he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to be himself again. The place that had taken his only friend away from him, as easy as it’d given him.

  Ash shook his head and snapped out of it. He didn’t have time for this. He’d planned this for weeks. Leo and Nate had been out for the last two days, three towns over, finalizing the last touches on their new night club. They shouldn’t be home until tomorrow afternoon. And the kids were away for the week. The house was his, and Ash planned on putting as much distance between himself and this place as possible. Hopefully, he’d be at least a couple states away by the time Leo and Nate finally got home.

  Now the only thing he had to do was rush downstairs and find where Ivan kept the cameras and that laptop. He couldn’t leave before destroying the evidence of what he’d done. He wouldn’t be able to live with the weight of knowing Leo could just decide to leave footage of him committing murder at some police station or something.

  It was weird, but even knowing that the mansion was empty, Ash descended the stairs with care, not wanting to make more noise than necessary. Sometimes this place felt like the very walls had ears of their own. Eyes too. Nothing could go wrong tonight, otherwise who knew what his next opportunity to escape would be? Who knew how many more nights he’d have to have sex with Leo and Ivan, pretending nothing had changed, even if he could barely get his dick hard enough once the memory of Eric lying dead on that chair assailed him?

  No, nothing could go wrong tonight.

  With quick, albeit silent steps, Ash finally got to the narrower, darker corridor that led to the basement. Leo had shared the code with him years ago, so crossing the door and leaving it behind him wasn’t that difficult.

  The faulty lamp that seemed to always flicker whenever Ash crossed under it, unfailingly did just that, and he picked up the pace. The place had always been cold and creepy, even when he’d been here with company. It wasn’t a place where he wanted to dwell alone.

  When he finally reached the correct door, Ash hesitated. He’d never been in there alone; this would be the very first time. Rivers of blood had run down the drain in the center of this room and, if
he closed his eyes, the last moments of all of his victims during the last four years would start playing behind his eyelids like a freaking movie.

  It was no time for sentimentalism, though. No time for emotions.

  He grabbed his copy of the key, punched it into the keyhole, and threw the door open.

  With single focus, Ash marched right up to the metal cabinet on the far right wall and opened it.

  The computer was right there, so he grabbed it and carried it to the nearest metal table.

  He wasn’t expecting it to have a password. Goddammit! Why would Leo put a password on the thing? Nobody that didn’t know exactly what sort of thing went on in this part of the house would ever even have access to it. What was the point?

  He tried a few number sequences, including Nate’s and Leo’s birthdays, but it didn’t work.

  As the minutes ticked by and Ash still couldn’t crack the thing, he started considering his options. He could just take it away with him, but that would only add extra weight he didn’t need. He’d already be carrying the guitar and a bag filled with clothes and the few belongings he’d amassed through the last four years. If he suddenly found himself in a situation where he needed to make a run for it, which wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility, the added pounds wouldn’t be of any help. He could also smash the thing with a hammer or something, but that wouldn’t solve the problem. Eric had once told him how hard-drives were sturdy. What if he left a smashed laptop behind, thinking himself safe, but then Leo managed to recover the data? Nope. Not risking that.

  But what could the password be? It surely had to be something important to Leo, right? It was his equipment.

  Ash started trying Nate and Natasha’s names, first just their first names, then the full names, but none of them were the answer.

  For just a second, he contemplated trying his own name too, but snorted to himself and didn’t even bother. He wasn’t important to that man. He was just someone to fuck and a tool for killing targets Leo judged himself too superior to meddle with.

  Surely he wouldn’t? No… not even a narcissist of that caliper wouldn’t do something like that, right? But it was Leo he was dealing with, on the other hand…

  With a last sigh, verging on despair, Ash typed in full, capital letters: LEONARDO LAZARUS.

  And lo and behold: the log-in screen vanished and Ash was staring at the main screen, Leo and his two kids staring back at him, smiling on a beach. An outsider would never even imagine that the family portrayed in that photograph could be anything other than normal.

  Ash laughed quietly to himself as he started searching for any heavy folder, since those surely would contain heavy files, as videos usually were.

  His heart did a somersault when he finally found what he was looking for.

  From that, it wasn’t that much longer until he rolled the sidebar far back enough to get to the videos of three years ago.

  Back then, seeing the footage he was seeing now, as he searched for the right video, would have traumatized him and sent him running. Now? Now all that was playing on the screen seemed tamed compared to what he’d done. It didn’t even get close.

  When he found the right file, he stopped just before the part when Leonardo shot the first brother in the face. He didn’t need to go through that particular night again.

  Ash deleted the video, then went to the trash bin icon and deleted it from there, too. That should do it.

  Ash hurried back to the cabinet and put the laptop where he’d found it, after turning it off. He rushed out of there and locked the room behind him.

  The automatic lights lit the whole hallway again as soon as he stepped foot in it. Anxious, Ash retrieved his cell phone from his pants pocket and checked the time.

  Only twenty minutes had passed from the time he’d left his room, surprisingly. It sure seemed like way longer had gone by, probably a result of him having panicked while he struggled with the damn password.

  Great news, really. The less time he wasted, the longer his chances of getting sufficiently away from this place so that when the men returned, he’d be safe.

  The beeping of the security system locking the door to the basement behind him sounded way louder than he was expecting it would, and it caused Ash to jump.

  It was silly. He was alone here. There was nothing to fear.

  Right. Now all he had to do was get back to his room, get his things, grab his gun and car keys, and get out of there.

  It was early in the night yet, but it was a dark winter night. The forecast had even announced heavy snows to some parts of Colorado. Clouds heavy with snow had probably covered the moon up there in the sky, since tonight the usual moonlight filtering through the stained glass windows in the living room just wasn’t there. It gave the place a creepy vibe Ash was just anxious to leave behind for good.

  He took the stairs two steps at a time and, soon, was back to his room. After grabbing his backpack and guitar case, and making sure his gun was securely hidden and behind his back, he turned around, no hesitation, and left.

  Ash was actually quite optimistic. The hard part was over and done with. Now all he had to do was get to the car and drive as fast as possible, away from this place.

  “Who’s there?”

  Ash practically came out of his skin when Natasha’s voice reached his ears.

  He’d completely forgotten about her. Not his fault, really. The girl had always been pretty much like a ghost. Never interacting much with him or any of the other guys, her brother aside. When she wasn’t receiving private lessons from the many teachers Leo’d hire for her, she would be alone outside in the gardens, sometimes talking to herself. The rest of the time, she’d spend locked away in her room.

  As the white globes that filled her otherwise empty eye-sockets zeroed in on him, Ash froze. For a second, startled by her very presence, he forgot she couldn’t see.

  As he calmed down, eased by the notion that she couldn’t tell that he was leaving, Ash found his voice.

  “Hi, Nat. It’s Ash.”

  “Oh, hi,” she replied with a cheery voice. “I didn’t know you were home.”

  “That’s two of us. Why didn’t you go to Denver with the others?”

  She snorted. “That trip stopped being fun, like, six years ago.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “I thought you were going with dad and Nate to the new club. Didn’t they invite you to come with them?”

  Ash cleared his suddenly dry throat and took a few steps toward her, until he was standing right in front of her, who had her back to the doorway to her bedroom.

  “No, actually. They said it was only a matter of details now. They didn’t need my help this time.”

  “Right.”

  For a few seconds, her face went back to holding no expression.

  It had always freaked him out, the lack of emotion that dominated her features most of the time. Even when her voice changed in intonation, her face seldom even as much as twitched. He had a hard time remembering ever seeing her smile. It was like she was this android or… or a plastic doll; porcelain skin forever unchanged, framed by the thin, blond hair. In all honesty, her appearance had always seemed somewhat sickly to him.

  “Well, since you’re here, can you help me for a second?”

  Oh, man. He didn’t have time for this. Every second more that he spent here, was a second less that he had to put as much distance between himself and Leonardo Lazarus as possible. Still, even him hadn’t stooped so low so as not to help a blind girl.

  “Sure. What do you need?”

  “It’s just…” The girl hesitated and an uncharacteristic blush tinged her pale skin. “It’s just that dad bough me a new dress a couple days ago. I was trying to put it on, but I can’t zip the back all the way. Would you help me?”

  “Uh… I don’t know, Nat. I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

  “Oh, come on, Ash. We’ve known each other for years now. I trust you. Plus, I won�
�t tell if you don’t.”

  He considered her words for a moment, then caved.

  “Alright.”

  Natasha gave him a small smile, then turned around. “Come in.”

  In he went. He’d never been in her room before. To be honest, he’d never been in any of the other boys’ either.

  It was a spacious room. Girly. Maybe a little too girly for a sixteen-year-old. Everything was in different tones of pinks and beiges, a little white here and there too. Her queen-size bed was topped by teddy bears and heart-shaped pillows.

  What caught his eyes, though, were the walls. He got that a blind girl like her would have no use for celebrity posters and stuff like that, but anatomy charts? Yes, that was it. The light pink walls were filled with anatomy charts, most of them in braille.

  “You like human biology, uh?” Ash asked, astounded.

  “Uh? Oh, yeah. I am deeply… fascinated by what we can do to the human body.”

  Something about the way she said the words didn’t sound that right to him, but Ash soon dismissed it.

  Everyone had their phases. So what if the girl was a little nerd for the human anatomy? It was certainly more useful than hanging a bunch of Bieber posters on her walls.

  “Cool,” he replied, not knowing what else to say.

  “Just stay here, okay? I’m gonna dress in the closet. Be right back.”

  “Sure.”

  She emerged from the closet on the wall opposite to the bed a few minutes later.

  “Do you like it?”

  It was a pretty enough dress. Ash wasn’t not even remotely attached to fashion, so he didn’t know what it was called. It was long and hugged her slim form well. It didn’t have straps around the shoulders, so it was a little tighter on the bust area. It made hear boobs seem larger. The cream color went well with her complexion, making her look as angelic as her father looked.

  “It’s very pretty, Nat. It’s cream, did Leo tell you? It goes well with your hair and skin tone.”

  “Really? He told me, but it’s nice to hear a second opinion.”

  “You look beautiful.”

  “Thanks,” she said in a small voice. “Can you please zip it up my back?”