Deadly Sins

by Laura Read

  ‘Sir,’ Vincent addressed Leon.

  Leon patted Vincent on the shoulder and looked towards Angela with stern brown eyes. Thin wrinkles were etched into his tanned face and his hair was flecked with grey. He wasn’t a tall man, yet his presence overshadowed his company. The top button of his shirt remained unfastened to reveal a thick scar around his neck. At times Leon was proud of his wound, as it showed he had the strength to survive a near-fatal injury, but sometimes he hid the scar so his enemies wouldn’t consider him as vulnerable as he had been in the past.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked Angela.

  ‘What do you think I’m doing here?’

  Angela always yearned for her father to notice her efforts instead of being preoccupied with his own needs. Over the years she tried to get closer to him by scrutinising his business, becoming his accountant, learning who was whose friend or enemy. She learned to assume an indifferent attitude during her surveillance, blending into the background when the men discussed their deliveries, security and assignments. Sometimes she used sex as currency, although her lovers weren’t aware of the exchange. She wanted to prove that she was more capable than her father thought, but still he and his men disregarded her and didn’t believe she understood the complexities of their business.

  Leon turned back to Vincent and ignored Angela. ‘Who was in charge of security tonight?’ he demanded.

  ‘Dominic,’ Vincent replied.

  Leon nodded. ‘Where was he when this… incident occurred?’

  Vincent briefly glanced at Angela and she realised that he knew about their relationship, but Leon didn’t notice the exchange of looks.

  ‘I’m not sure, sir. I wasn’t working tonight.’

  Vincent’s words surprised Angela and she frowned, wondering why he lied for her when she’d never known him to cover for anybody before.

  ‘I’ve heard that he’s been a useless cunt the last few weeks, getting drunk and disappearing half the fucking time,’ her father said angrily. ‘Perhaps had he been here tonight he would have done a better job of protecting my son!’

  He lashed out and punched the metal staircase. The banisters clanged and the whole balustrade shook, vibrating from the shock. He glanced down at his bloodied knuckles, swearing under his breath.

  Angela’s stomach tightened when she gazed into her father’s bloodshot eyes. Beneath the deep-seated rage lay the suppressed sadness of losing his son and the grave fear of losing his own life.

  Leon looked away and buttoned up his jacket to convey his short-lived lapse in composure was over. He told Vincent, ‘With regards to Dominic, you know what has to be done.’

  Angela froze and her heart filled with guilt. She protested, ‘It wasn’t Dom’s fault! Go in there and look for yourself. Blame Joe, he was always screwing around. That’s why Tracy didn’t want to have his fucking baby!’

  Vincent and Leon’s eyes widened with disbelief at Angela’s words.

  ‘She was pregnant?’ Leon asked.

  Angela sighed. ‘I think so.’

  Leon looked off into the distance. After a while he said, ‘Go downstairs, both of you. Vincent, wait for me down there. Angela, get the hell out of here. Go home. You shouldn’t have come at all.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Vincent obeyed, taking Angela’s arm.

  Leon stopped him. ‘And Vincent? This doesn’t change what needs to be done about Dominic.’

  ‘Consider it done,’ Vincent replied, squeezing Angela’s wrist so she wouldn’t say anything further.

  Angela felt numb. She wanted to tell her father that he was wrong and shouldn’t blame Dominic for something he had no control over, but she knew her father had the final say and it was too late to question his command: his mind was made up.

  Leon grasped Angela’s arm in parting with her. ‘Goodnight, Angie.’

  Her father was a broken man, face solemn and eyes unfocused. Angela whispered back goodnight and felt tears escape, recognising she would never be able to wish her brother a simple goodnight again.

  As Leon walked towards Joe’s office, Vincent and Angela started down the stairs, Vincent letting go of Angela’s arm after they descended a few steps.

  ‘Is there anything you want to say to Dominic before…?’ Vincent trailed off.

  Should she say anything to Dominic, warn him to leave town and escape the death warrant just sanctioned by her father? She knew in a perverse way he brought his condemnation upon himself: drinking and avoiding work as his depression worsened, wishing for someone to take his life so he could escape his artificial world.

  She was as alone in her time spent with him as their time spent apart – he meant nothing to her and she nothing to him. There wasn’t anything she could do for him now; there wasn’t anything she could do for him before, except alleviate his melancholy with sex.

  The pair walked across the dance floor towards the main foyer.

  ‘I’d prefer not to say anything,’ she told Vincent. ‘We weren’t together for long anyway.’

  She recognised that she referred to her relationship with Dominic in the past tense and wrapped the jacket enveloping her more tightly across her chest. Realising the jacket was his, she hastily took it off, folded it in half and placed the item into Vincent’s arms.

  ‘Give that back to him,’ she requested.

  ‘He’s not going to need it for much longer, Ange.’

  Angela frowned at the comment. She’d given the jacket to Vincent more so she could get rid of it than because she wanted to give it back, so she wouldn’t have to think about what to do with the jacket once Dominic was dead.

  Her indifference surprised and scared her. Why didn’t she care about him? She supposed because he never cared for her or anyone else, and if their positions were reversed she didn’t believe he would try to save her.

  They walked through the double doors into the foyer and stopped when they reached Tony. Dominic was inside the security office and Angela thought herself lucky that she didn’t have to see him.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she said, wanting to be out of the club. ‘Hope the police don’t give you too much hassle.’

  Vincent smiled, knowing they would. ‘You want someone to walk you home?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Angela reassured him, heading through the open doors into the early-morning daylight.

  ‘Bye, Ange,’ Tony called after her, pity still lingering in his voice.

  On the horizon, beyond the concrete buildings, the sky was alight with bright cerulean tinged with red, the stars and moon replaced with a vibrant dawn. A mass of bruising clouds hung overhead, threatening to shower the landscape beneath.

  The air was cold against Angela’s arms, scattered dew across cracked pavements fading to form a ghostly mist. This was a time she was used to, when the club closed and everyone went their separate ways, the town deserted apart from the few who walked the Earth. Everyone else was dead to the world, sound asleep in their comfortable beds. She felt privileged to see the world at this secret time, her eyes the only pair open on this desolate road, her footsteps echoing off the tall architecture.

  The skies opened and puddles formed beneath her feet, which she stepped into on purpose to make her mark on the world. The last time she walked home she was with Dominic, her shell of a man hollowed out by time and superficiality. Tears rolled down her cheeks, her lips sensing the cold raindrops blending with warm salty tears.

  Her eyes became a river of blinding tears that she refused to wipe away, as if by not doing so she could confront her sadness. She smiled because she couldn’t remember the last time she cried, expressed her sorrow and loneliness in such a beautiful but desolate world, and the world shared her pain, harmonising her tears with raindrops and their resonance on the hard ground.

  A breeze swept her tangled hair across her eyes. She brushed the wisps away and felt in a pocket for her keys. She walked towards an old red-brick building contrasting in age with its concrete neighbours. Stepping into the dingy hallway,
she kicked aside the old post and papers gathered next to the door and climbed the stairs.

  Inside her apartment, she leant against the door and slid down to the floor. She sat for countless minutes, soaked through from the rain, water dripping from her body and seeping into the carpet. Then she slipped off her boots, unfastened her dress and stood up to let the material fall. Treading on the scattered clothes, she made her way towards her unmade bed in the cold dark.

  Curling her knees up to her chin, she looked at her featureless reflection in the mirror of her dressing table. Tears flowed down her face, dripping onto her thighs covered in goosebumps. Her breath settled against her skin, fading into the cool air.

  Nestling into the pillows piled against the headboard, she pulled the duvet around her body. Her rumpled sheets still smelt of Dom’s aftershave. The pillow where his head rested an hour before was still depressed, and the lamp from the bedside table had been knocked onto the floor when he’d thrown off his shirt.

  Angela cried wishing she could feel something for him, wondering why his fate meant nothing to her. She cried for the loss of her brother. She always felt that she never really knew Joe, or didn’t want to know him because he reminded her of her father. She cried for Julie, who was so young and whose life was cut short because of her lust and pursuit of a married man. She cried for Tracy, who never had a chance in life after marrying into their corrupt family, who died inside long before she took her own life. She cried for herself and her lonely existence, knowing her past strength was slipping away and her conscience was being eroded. She cried herself to sleep.

  3

  Confession

  As she walked down the main road, past the wrought iron fence surrounding the school that she attended as a child, Angela was drawn towards the old Catholic church, the power of the building beckoning her inside. Across the air carried the joyful voices of children in the schoolyard, screaming as they danced around each other, whispering secrets in their friends’ ears.

  On the playground, the children learned who they could trust and the roles they might adopt later in life. Some took charge of the games and moved their friends to positions across the playground like pieces on a chessboard. Some criticised the rules, attempting to influence others’ feelings and opinions. A few merely played to gain recognition: lonely children watching those around them, taking note of who they believed to be their friends and foes. Angela was a loner as a child, wanting to fit in but not knowing how, wishing that she wasn’t the outsider.

  Gold and copper leaves sheltered inside the church, their relatives curled up dead in a lone corner. Angela sat down on a pew opposite the oak-panelled confessional doors. Although the church always stood invitingly on the street, the confessionals were unwelcoming cages that strained with the enclosed lies, secrets and sins of the past.

  She remembered the first time she entered one of the confining boxes as a schoolgirl, when her teacher told her class that they must absolve themselves of their sins. She waited in line behind her classmates, the last person to step inside, the other children disappearing from the line into the box and out again, ushered away by their teacher. A knot in her stomach grew in size, an invisible rope of fear twisting her gut: fear of what was inside the box, fear of the priest’s power and fear of her penance intertwined. She wanted to run, knowing she hated being forced into doing something, but she was curious and would try anything once just to discover whether the experience would change her.

  Everyone in front of her vanished. She was left alone in the quiet of the church, empty save for the smell of incense lingering in the air from the morning mass. As she waited in the silence it dawned on her that she wasn’t afraid of anything except for the unknown. Not the unknown regarding the process of the confession itself, but she didn’t know exactly what she should confess.

  Everything she had ever done was as much a part of herself as her fingers, hands, arms, her whole body and mind. She had never done anything that she truly regretted. If she could live her short life over, she would try to ensure it would be exactly the same. Her past defined the person she was, standing alone in the church at that moment in time.

  Her fear dispersed before the penultimate child crept out of the box, head down as he passed. Angela watched him, wondering whether he seemed different from the boy she’d seen minutes before. Then she turned to the oak door in front of her and smiled as she wandered inside the mysterious confessional box.

  It was darker than she expected when she sat down and looked for something to signify why such a box was special. Disappointed when she found nothing of interest, she turned to the wall where a little wooden hatch slid open in front of her and in the dim light she made out a pair of half-hidden eyes behind the latticed screen. Throughout the confession she was more interested in those desolate and uncaring eyes staring at the door in want of escape than she was in what she said. She confessed she hit her brother when provoked – she was ignorant of the violence adopted by her family back then. Her penance was to recite a single prayer.

  Stepping out of the box, she walked solemnly towards a quiet corner of the church to recite the prayer, feeling indifferent to the whole experience. She knelt on a cushion set within a prie-dieu, sun streaming through the stained glass to warm the crown of her head. Squinting in the light, she debated whether to say the prayer – in her mind, the words held no spiritual powers. Yet she found herself going over the words half-heartedly, in case she felt ‘cleansed of her sins’ afterwards. Finishing the prayer, she waited a few minutes, hoping for an unexpected epiphany, but she didn’t feel anything.

  A few years ago she visited the church once more and ended up in the same poky little box. This time she couldn’t bring herself to confess everything she had done, not because she was embarrassed but she didn’t want to share some of her darker experiences. She wanted to keep certain memories to herself, not considering them immoral, although she knew the Church would.

  It was not the Church to which she was devoted though. She had always been committed to finding love, but often she used lust as a second-rate medium to trick herself into thinking she was capable of feeling affection and that others loved her.

  Whenever she felt cold isolation stirring she would sew the same pattern, and last night she traced her woven path once more. She wanted to rid herself of thoughts about Dominic, forget that he was gone and suppress her guilt. Through a hazy, alcoholic trance she recognised him, the nameless man she chose to haunt that night.

  Now, she couldn’t recall what he looked like, the colour of his hair or eyes, but she remembered his presence, yearning, the feeling that he needed her as much as she needed him. He seemed promisingly distinctive when they first met but after sex he showed his true colours, leaving her so as to blend into the outside world never to return again.

  She met him at the club, purposefully venturing there alone to seek another stranger. Perched on a barstool she downed several shots, a cloud of supposed dejection drawing him in. She sensed his presence, eyes burning into her back, scanning her to detect the deep need smouldering beneath her skin. His gaze running over her felt like touch, a trace of interweaving patterns down her spine.

  She walked towards the dance floor, pretending she didn’t notice him, slowly reeling him in. She wanted to dance nagging little thoughts away, close her eyes and let inhibitions fade from her mind, allow instincts to come into play through a distorting mirage of lights.

  She caught sight of him watching her and danced fervently, filled with renewed confidence, soon to ensnare a new mate. Through the crowded room she glimpsed his advancing path, determined when they would stand face to face. An intoxicating, seductive smile played on his lips and a lost, hypnotised half-smile played on hers.

  He slipped his arms around her body, drew her in to claim her and drown her in his rich scent. His needs were not romantic at heart but purely sexual, untamed, and the truth that they would never again meet spurred them on to let go for one night and disreg
ard reticence.

  Her fingers slithered across his shirt towards a concealed collarbone – smooth, taut and unmarked flesh. His jaw was velvet skin juxtaposed with rough shadow, beautiful with its angles, curves and textures. She framed his face with fanned fingers, palms curling under his jaw, drawing him in further, the passion she held back since the last time she fucked a stranger dancing wildly in her eyes.

  Before they kissed, inches from her desirous prey, she locked her eyes with his as he edged forward. She never cared for the colour of a man’s eyes, only the exposed soul and desire contained within their depths. She watched his lips open like the petals of a flower and the tip of his tongue quiver in anticipation.

  Lips met ardently in their violent storm, sea crashing against jagged rocks, and she lost her sense of sound, everything quiet as she concentrated on texture, touch and taste. The world slowed down, broken by a fierce clarity that spoke solely of freedom.

  Her feet remained grounded, still, yet her hips swayed; she became malleable, soft, warm. She was an explorer, venturing out to discover new tastes and feelings. His tongue slithered over hers, smooth and moist, stroking her mouth. They found harmony, sacrificing the world to stay within the realms of their tune, directing their bodies to move, confident and uncaring.

  His hands travelled, sliding down her back, pulling her in closer, hips moving to a faster rhythm. She felt the heat of breath on her skin, sensed his pulse. He slid beneath her shirt, trailed fingers down her spine, caressed her skin graced with a faint sheen of sweat. His drifting hands unlaced material, flesh and mind, worked their way to her breasts, slipped inside her bra to feel her nipples harden against smooth palms.

  Later she felt the breath-taking symmetry of sex: mouth to mouth, flesh thrusting inside flesh, mind melting into mind. His consuming kisses hardened as he broke down each of her barriers. As he cried out, he breathed life inside of her and she was reborn. She climaxed thinking her mind had been undressed and she had nothing left to give or for him to take.