When I wake, I am in the bed, hot, sweaty and hugging the jar containing the little heart I loved for a while. I don’t recall taking it out of the freezer or getting on the bed. I feel the cotton mouth and thumping headache of a hangover as I slowly sit up. The world spins around me, the brandy still stuck on my breath. I dreamed of Lettie and Ophelia; they were angels and I was devil chasing them to their coffins. I couldn’t catch them, they wouldn’t stop and let me have a chance to touch them, I was angry. My anger must have woken me, that or the sound of fists pounding on the door. I fight the spinning room to go and see who it is; I have no idea what day or time it is, I don’t care much either. The giant shadow cast in the dim outside light tells me that Hugo is here to make sure I am not dead. That or to actually take my kidney. He is loyal to my grandmother and only her.
“Let me in, you idiot.” He shoves me backwards and I trip over my own feet. I let go of the jar in my hand to grab onto the door so I don’t fall and it shatters on the floor. I feel as if it is my own heart smashing into splinters, as I dive into the shards of glass to try save the innocent little piece of my love. Fuck! I want to kill him. The grave expression on his face tells me I am in a world of trouble, I pick it up and haul myself up off the floor. The anger and hurt still ripping me apart inside. Glass slices my hands and my blood coats her now dirty heart, bits of hair and dirt from the floor stick to her and I want to cry.
“What do you want Hugo?” I stare at him, trying to hold my ground as the boss and not the crazy boy he thinks I am.
“You didn’t call her back. She is angry.” Oh fuck, fuck, shit, fuck I thought I had dreamed it all. “You need to call her, and we need to fix this Svetlana issue. You know she will not accept it.” She isn’t an issue, she is love. My love, his love, the only fucking love we have had in our lives and I don’t know if I can let it all go. I also know that Abuela is the one in charge and she will never accept it, it will come down to her or us.
“He put her to sleep. We can tell her we are waiting on a match to take her organs, you know, not wasting a good body?” My hungover brain is trying to make a plan that will work long enough for me to decide what to do with all these fucking feelings.
“Phone her and tell her that, she might accept it. She might also have you put to sleep.” I glare at him for a second, understanding his not so subtle threat, he is her man here and he would kill me if she told him too. “Listen, the old bat isn’t going to live long, just keep her fucking happy until she is dead. Then you two can go all out fucking crazy on your own. Until then, I have to keep things acceptable to her standards. Daughter fucking and necrophilia are not exactly things the refined woman likes. She only knows what I tell her, don’t make me regret it. Svetlana was a bad idea from day one. For both of you.” It’s the truth and I know it down to my bones; she has caused chaos and is driving us all mad.
“I will call her and try smooth it over. What's he doing?” I ask because he hasn’t even called me once.
“He is sitting beside her, she has an infection and might even die without outside help in that direction. She is hurt. Who ever had her was a sick, sick man.” He shakes his head and opens my last bottle of booze. Grabbing a dirty glass out the sink, he fills it up. “He said that she killed whoever it was, he found the man's body where they picked her up. She went feral and bit his throat out." He sits down and sighs. "Mateo, she isn’t normal. She had none of the childhood we did; ours was shitty make no mistake, but hers was hell on Earth.” I watch him swallow the whole glass in one gulp.
“I wanted to fix her, he wanted to save her and fix me, I don’t think we are worth saving anymore. She loves him you know, not the right sort of love but love. I saw it in her eyes.” I drink from the now open bottle before handing it to him to pour more.
“Just fix the mess, Mateo; people cannot be fixed.” He chugs the drink and walks out the door again. I know this was a warning for me to stay in line. My Abuela is watching me now. I am not to disappoint or I will become spare parts. I have only lived this long because my father was a wealthy businessman and not some lower class citizen. I put the heart I still cling to in the freezer again and try to pull myself back together without it. I need to go back and start to fix the mess Caesar has made; he made Lettie and she is the mess.
I need to get to her, I need to clean up this mess.
Caesar
Young lambs to sell!
Young lambs to sell!
If I'd as much money as I can tell,
I never would cry, Young lambs to sell!
My stupid nephew hasn’t returned so I will have to get up soon and go and work for a while. Her little body clings to life when it should have given up long ago. I wish she would die on her own so I didn’t have to decide on her goodbye. If she gave up and left quietly it would be easy, the guilt that I am feeling would just go with her. I cannot believe the slight little creature lying in front of me killed a man by biting him to death. I disposed of his half rotten corpse in the fires before I returned to her. I know who he is, I know he threatened me before many times, but could never catch me. I just wonder who else he told about finding us here. I will have to get a new plan B in place faster than normal. This city isn’t safe even for the likes of us. Setting up a new operation takes time, lots of time and means traveling away from here. Away from her. I shouldn’t be near her, I lose my mind when she speaks. I should never have let this come so far. This should have ended the first time she opened her mouth and whispered to me. But she was just a child then, she is still a child if we are to be honest. I am not good with honesty, denial is more my area of expertise. She is my child, my mistake and now my burden.
I have denied just how sick I am for years, I denied how bad Mateo’s obsession with death is. I have denied the truth of my trade, I failed to admit that I had a child. Now I am so sick I jumped into a fire. Mateo is a ball hair away from killing girls to fuck and I have a daughter on the edge of death. Worse, I am tempted to push her all the way. I close my eyes and rest my head where I our hands meet, the beeping machines keeping me from the madness within. I remember her sniffling and crying as a child, just a baby watching me hurt her mother. I remember having to punish myself for my body’s response to the sounds she made. I couldn’t be near her then and I should not be near her now. I am a hideous example of humanity, I again wish Hugo had let me burn. Hell would have been better than this.
As I see her asleep, I almost understand for a second why Mateo likes to kiss them; she looks so beautiful. I can remember her taste in my mouth and the feel of her cracked lips. I try to stop myself from seeing her that way, to erase the memories of what I have done with her. The way her body loved mine and how I love her so much that I couldn’t stop myself from feeling that with her. I am sick, I cannot be cured, my disease is terminal - I am a mad man. This is my child and I am afraid of that fact. Terrified of the consequences of that. Frightened of what she does to me. I see Hugo through the small round window in the door. He is waving my ringing phone at me, I know that there is work to do. I look at her once more, the pain of my feelings making me close my eyes and push the chair backwards. The scars on my body pull and stretch as I stand after sitting for long. I walk to the door, hobbling a little, and unlock it from the inside. I push it hard so he has to jump out of the way; the doctor is standing right outside the door where I told him to wait. Ignoring Hugo and that incessant fucking phone, I speak.
“I am going to lock you in, do you have what you need?” Looking at the small trolley next to him, I am sure he does.
“Yes, Caesar. I have enough medication and supplies for a few hours.” He wheels the trolley between us and I hold the door open for him, my eyes boring holes into Hugo’s as he shakes his head. I lock the door behind us and put the key into my pocket. I don’t trust any of them, least of all my mother’s helper.
“Who is it Hugo?” The phone is still ringing, but it stops for a few seconds, long enough for the person to re dial.
; “Who do you know that is this persistent, Caesar?” He passes the phone that I left in the office on purpose. I better answer or she will never stop.
“Madre.” I was not prepared for the violent onslaught of words that flew at me. I didn’t catch all of them, but I did get the last bit.
“…Fucking your child is a sin, you revolting man.” I hang up. I am not going to respond to her, because she would never listen to me anyway. The reaction from my traitorous body is instant and the rage is only compounded by the guilt of her accusations. To my mother murder is not a sin, but many other things are. Sex is a sin, sex is dirty and women will make you a sinner. I used to think the pain of her punishment and the hurt of her words in my head was the worst feeling on Earth, but I was wrong. Love is the worst feeling on Earth; it is more agonizing than pain. I am sure that love and death are the same thing. I pocket my phone and walk towards the offices so that I can get some work done for the day. Hugo follows me, like a shadow, or a puppy that I would like to kick. I sit behind the chaotic desk and start to open emails. He sits in front of me, a frown wrinkling his brow.
“We have another problem Caesar, an outside one.” He flattens a newspaper he had rolled up in his hand and puts it in front of me and I feel violently sick. There is a giant bold headline over a picture that stares at me. “SEARCH FOR MISSING GIRL” and the face is that of the little pale faced angel that I ripped the heart out of. She wasn’t a gutter rat, or a street whore, she was a tourist here on holiday with her father. He is a politician from Europe, and is distraught over her disappearance. One of my known suppliers has his face inset on the page as the lead suspect in the abduction. There is a manhunt on for him. I fear it may lead to us. I need to make some decisions and quickly. This and the dead policeman I burnt are not things we need so close to us right now. I am going to have to try to buy some friends in high places and hope they can be bought.
“Phone Mateo and tell him to get his sick self back here. It is time to get our house in order, Hugo.” I can’t stop staring at the paper, she was only twelve. My stomach rolls as I think what Mateo may have done with her. “Hugo, if my mother hears about this, I will kill you. This is our problem. Not hers.” I throw the paper at him, “This is my house not hers. You need to think about that, because if my house falls you are going with it.” I laugh a little. “My mother won’t save you Hugo, you know that.”
The flurry of activity that goes with six harvests took my mind off of my child and my mother. I had silence both around and within for a few hours as I wished them all goodbye. I watched the coolers get filled and dispatched and order has returned to my world for the first time in months. Quiet. At last. After the last one has left, I am tired and my melted body is failing me. Forgetting all my worries, I go upstairs to the heartbeat of Mateo’s madness and sleep on one of the plastic wrapped beds. I wish the quiet would follow me into sleep, but it never does. The violent noise in my dreams is always a curse, the whispers of my past haunt me there. This time it is my daughter sent to maul my mind with her sweet voice and brown eyes. These reactions are not new, I felt them for her before. There was a reason behind my abandoning her, I had to save her from what I would have done to her. In my dream, I take her and have them cut her vocal chords out so she is quieted for eternity and I can no longer hurt her. I watch with a smile as she realizes that her power over me has gone. I have silenced the demon I fathered.
Ramira
This is My Market.
My son will be the death of me, he has already been the death of all my other children. I was only given one son, only one chance at an heir and he is defective and sick. Not a disease we can medicate or cure, no, his mind is ill. I have tried, God damn I have tried everything since he was a boy. Therapy, medication, earplugs, earphones, beating him, conditioning and behavioral therapies. Nothing has worked, not once has he even shown a sign of getting better, or even having a modicum of control over his reactions. My husband was disappointed that I only had one boy, was even more upset that his son couldn’t be a doctor. Being around people was impossible for Caesar without him going crazy and trying to rape or kill them. He is the curse on this family and sadly the only one left to take it over when I am gone, I am an old woman and I am sick. I wish one of our organs could save me, but God found a special punishment for me. Instead of something that could be replaced he gave me cancer. No organ transplant or medicine will save me. Soon I will die and my mad son and grandson will have no one to stop them from falling out of control.
They think I don’t know it all, I know everything. I know that sick boy fucks dead women, I know Caesar keeps his bed warm with whores he takes to kill after. I know because it is my business to know. This is my business, it was my idea to start with. My husband and I found a hole in the market and exploited it. Now the two men that will run it are both clinically insane. I have no other plan but to trust they won’t fuck it all up completely. This latest revelation into my son’s sinful nature however has my stomach turning with disgust. I know he has no control but this is too far, too much. I only hope that Mateo’s need for his lovers to be without a pulse can right this atrocity. Who the hell is this little whore that has turned the two of them against one another? Where did she come from? Caesar has never acknowledged a child after I had him deal with the last situation and sent him packing. I presume there are a few around but none that he would dare lay claim to, he cannot be near a child. I won’t stand for this, they will get rid of her or I will, my son was not born to father a gutter slut. He was born to be the future of this family. An heir would have been nice, had he been able to find a suitable wife but his condition doesn’t allow for that. I have enough bodies to dispose of without him adding to the pile.
Hugo, for the upheaval he created in my life, has proven his loyalty over and over. My husband was not a faithful man and when I only had one son, he lost interest in me and found that his desires were better met elsewhere. Hugo was born two years after Caesar. I know he is my husband's child, but he wasn’t mine. I have made him prove his worth since the day his whore mother died. If the worst came to it, I suppose he could inherit and take over. He would be better at than those two, but he isn’t mine. I don’t want to share what is mine with him, I want my son to step up and be the man of the family. My husband's bastard should not be the one to get my life’s work handed to him, he doesn’t deserve it. It took years to master just how to optimize the supply and demand for organs. Keeping people in limbo isn’t fucking easy. I worked myself to death getting this system just right. All of it while dealing with my son’s inability to tolerate noise, voices, music- it was all poison to him. I grew to hate the little boy I gave birth to and the demon he became. Silence became like a God in our home. Everything that used to make me happy, taken away to save his sanity that was never there to begin with. The music that soothed my soul after a day of working with people destined to die, stopped playing. When the music stopped, I took my stress out on him. Caesar is the reason my husband killed himself; the sight of his son ripping another person apart with his bare hands was too much for him. He had so much guilt already, he felt bad about what we did. He never saw the lives saved, only the ones taken.
Now I am faced with a new facet of my dear son’s madness. I almost cannot believe he is fucking his daughter. The way he ended the phone call without a word was the only confirmation I needed. Hugo should have told me this. He has started to keep secrets and I am going to have him by the balls for this one. I wonder how many others there are?
I loathe traveling. Especially when it is to shitty places like fucking Mexico, but I think my son needs his mother. My boy actually needs me and my heart swells at that little thought.
I do not intend to announce my visit. Caesar will just disappear and it won’t be worth the effort. I do not even tell Hugo of my impending travel arrangements. It takes me two days to get ready to leave. I don’t plan on hopping a plane to Mexico City alone, I needed some of my security staff to go along. My lu
ggage and travel companions are already waiting on the family jet when I board. What a waste of useful time having to sit around and be transported to the rotten side of the world. Leaving Europe is always awful, always. I slip on my headphones and turn the music loud enough to drown out the sound of the engines as we take off. Don’t worry son, mother will fix this.
When we land at the private field on the outskirts of Mexico City too many hours later, I am tired and stiff. My arthritic knee is killing me and I am irritated by the intense heat outside the plane. Two cars wait for us at the hanger. I can see other business activity on the far side of the airfield. A man carrying two coolers boards a helicopter. At least they are working, I should be thankful for that. The driver helps me step into the SUV and closes the door behind me. The dark blacked out windows keep the blazing sun off me as the car rumbles to life.
“Where are they now?” I ask my head of security who is sitting beside me.
“They are both at the factory, have been all day,” he answers, glancing up from the tablet he holds it has access to our facility’s security camera feed.
“Good, let’s go there first. We can check into the hotel later on.” The driver exits the gates of the airfield and drives us further into the urban decay of the city.
Mateo
‘Tis nothing more than hate that separates the soul from the truth of love.
Madness. It is all that has completed me since as long as I can remember. I never tried to figure out why I am the way that I am until Lettie. The chaos of the truth sets my brain on fire, making me want to destroy everything. All I want to do is hurt others for the aching that consumes me. Impulsivity is not my norm. Everything in my life has had order. Neat little lines. Dead lovers who stay at my mercy without the threat of leaving me.
The Goodbye Girl (Red Market Series Book 2) Page 10