by Gage Grayson
“I…don’t know. It’s withheld.”
Frowning at my phone, and curious despite myself, I accept the call.
“Hello?”
There’s some static on the other end of the call, and I feel an uncomfortable fluttering in my stomach, completely different from the butterflies I feel when I look at Erik.
“Miss Rose Marie Clark,” a somewhat robotic voice says. Alarmed, I put the call on speakerphone so that Erik can hear it too.
“Who is this?”
“You took something that doesn’t belong to you,” the voice says, ignoring my question, “so I have responded in kind.”
I don’t even know what to say. I look up at Erik, who is just as confused as I am.
What the hell is going on?
“What do you mean? What did I take?”
“The land and property signed over to Erik Storm was never his to have. You had no right to hand it over to him. So until it’s signed back over to me, I shall hold onto your mother. I can’t guarantee that she will be treated well if you don’t respond immediately.”
I know all of the color has drained from my face. Erik is staring at me, stunned.
“D-don’t you lay a fucking hand on her,” I say, hating myself for stammering.
“You have three days. I’ll be in touch before then.”
A click on the other line tells me the caller has hung up.
The phone drops from my hand, clattering to the floor. I stare at it sightlessly as my whole body begins to tremble.
This can’t be happening.
Erik pulls me in against him, hugging me ferociously.
“We’ll work it out, Rosa. Don’t worry. We’ll work it out.”
I push out of his grasp suddenly, picking up my phone and calling my mother’s landline, and then her mobile when she doesn’t respond. I call the launderette where she works, but the owner tells me my mother never showed up for her afternoon shift.
“Shit,” I say, barely audible. I look up at Erik. “What are we gonna do? Who the hell has taken my mother?”
“Oberon,” Erik replies, so quickly that it takes me aback.
“How can you be so sure?”
“You worked with him directly. You had a deal with him and you broke it off. This is personal. If it was just about getting the land back, the blackmail and threats would have been directed at me specifically. But the caller wants you to suffer. Which means it’s Oberon.”
I stare at Erik, horrified.
“What do we do?”
Erik gently wipes away a few stray tears from my face; I wasn’t even aware I was crying.
“We confront him directly,” Erik replies, as if it were the easiest thing in the world to do. “And we take him down once and for all. I have a few contacts that can help with that. Rosa, don’t worry. We’ll sort this out. It’s time to take the fucker out of the game.”
Erik’s stoic, determined words should fill me with confidence, but all I’m feeling is despair.
I think of everything I said to Oberon Lawson in that last phone call, when I gleefully told him our deal was off.
This is all my fault. I could have avoided all of this and I didn’t, and now it’s come back to punish me.
Karma is a fucking bitch.