Juan thought about that day and shuddered. Flashes of Amy’s limp and lifeless body started crowding his mind. Amy had been battling with severe depression and drinking problems, when her dead body was discovered in her apartment one morning. The doctors explained that traces of heroin and alcohol were found in her body, which is a dangerous combination. She had passed out the previous night, never to wake up again.
Juan was aware of her drinking, but he could have never imagined her pumping drugs up her veins. The black spots and scars on her skin near the inside of her elbow spoke for themselves, though.
Bringing up Aaron hadn’t been easy ever since then, with the nature of work he was involved in, but he couldn’t risk losing him too. And now they have him, he thought as he broke into helpless tears thinking about the kind of people he was dealing with.
The gambling den was good while it lasted, but his sour affairs with some of his clients always posed certain risks. Killers and billionaires alike came to the shelter regularly to play, but he would have never imagined the extent to which those people would go to get their money back. Juan had learned through his experience in the den that there is no such thing as fair play when you have heavy pockets that you want to make heavier.
“I can’t be weak,” he said to himself, coming back to reality. “I’ll save you, Aaron, no matter what the cost, I’ll save you.”
Overwhelmed by the reminiscing, he quietly slipped under the covers and rested for a while. He knew tomorrow would be a life-changing day and not in a good way. He may have to hurt a lot of people to save one, but he couldn’t care about anybody but his son. I’ll do anything to save you, Aaron, anything, he thought as he drifted off to sleep, unaware of the serious consequences he would soon be faced with.
Chapter Nine
Lucinda thought all night about Juan, trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle that he was together. She knew he was hiding something, but could not figure out what. He barely seems like he cares about money; something’s troubling him . . . something more serious, her mind rambled on about all the things that had happened since her husband’s notorious brother had arrived.
I can’t ever undo what I’ve done , she thought with a sinking feeling in her heart. Octa will find out someday. How will I face him? He’d never understand. How could I be so stupid? She kept cursing herself without realizing how well Juan had manipulated her. She wanted to help him despite the fact that he was a little unorthodox, scary, and seemed deviously dangerous. She didn’t know when she drifted off to sleep, but when she woke up, it was past noon.
She was getting out of the bed slowly, when she saw Juan standing in the doorway smirking at her.
“You look adorable when you sleep,” he said in a flirtatious manner.
“Uh . . . Hi . . . I guess I slept in. Has Octa gone to work already?” she inquired, completely ignoring the fact that he was eyeing her intently. Suddenly, he came into the room and held Lucinda by the waist as she was heading toward the bathroom. Awkwardly, Lucinda forced his hand away and looked at him.
“This . . . this isn’t right,” she said, pulling herself back.
“It felt pretty good to me yesterday.” Suddenly, Lucinda noticed a bit of anger in his tone.
“Juan . . . I’m married to your brother. I’m his wife. I made a mistake yesterday, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him.” She tried very hard to explain, but couldn’t even convince herself. Juan seemed tense and angry now, and the veins in his temple started to swell.
“Well, that makes this whole thing a lot easier for me.” He practically spat those words and leaped toward her. Lucinda fell to the ground with a shriek and Juan landed on top of her.
“No! What are you doing Juan? Octa will find out and kill you!” She was fighting with both her hands and feet, but she knew how strong he was.
Juan came really close, pinning her to the ground. “I’d really like to see him try,” he whispered in her ear and pulled back to look at her. He looked like he was about to bash her face in. Lucinda barely knew what hit her when, with a loud thud, everything went pitch black.
Chapter Ten
When she finally regained consciousness, Lucinda found herself bound to a chair with the help of chains, in the middle of her bedroom.
Juan was sitting right across from her on the bedside table, smoking a cigarette. She tried to move, but the chains barely left enough space even for her to breathe properly.
“There’s no point in exhausting yourself. If you want to survive this, you’ll do exactly as I say.” Juan spoke in a menacing tone.
She looked around and saw everything scattered on the floor; her bedroom looked like it had just been ravaged.
“See . . . I thought I knew my brother well, so I started looking for his safe. I thought to myself, he must have a hidden the safe somewhere in here, and I was right.”
Juan was acting like the situation did not strike him as disturbing at all. Lucinda started praying that Octa would show up soon, and she turned her head around as much as she could with the heavy chains to see their secret safe in the wall exposed. The wallpaper that disguised it had been torn off, but the safe was still locked.
She faced Juan again, and he walked toward her suddenly and she flinched. “I want you to be the sweet, little slut that you are and give me the combination before your precious husband gets home, or you die.” The way he uttered those threats made her shiver. She glared back at him with tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Why are you doing this? Octa is your brother! Your only brother! Please, Juan, we can help you! Please, just don’t . . .” Lucinda knew she had terribly misjudged this man and his intentions, and she was looking for any way out of this alive.
Juan put his pistol to her forehead, and she let out a frightened shriek. “Nooo! Please don’t. Nooo!”
“Tell me the fucking combination! Tell me or I’ll blow your head off!” Juan yelled at her, his finger on the trigger, ready to pull at any second.
Lucinda was not trained for pressure tactics and soon gave up. She told him the combination, and he kept his pistol aimed at her until he managed to open the safe. Inside, stacks of cash were piled on top of each other, which Juan started transferring into a suitcase.
Octa never used a bank. He hated the processing of transactions and found them tedious. All he had ever earned and accumulated was inside this safe. Lucinda begged Juan to reconsider as he filled up his suitcase and emptied the safe which was behind a light fixture. Octa accumulated this much money through invested stocks.
“This was clearly easier than I thought,” Juan smirked at her.
“Please, don’t . . . you’ll never be able to get far with this money, Juan. I can help you. Let me help you,” she said as she tried to make sense of him, but failed miserably.
“How about a last roll in the hay? That might help me.” He was completely ignoring everything that came out of her mouth.
Juan took the suitcase out of her bedroom and placed it where Lucinda couldn’t see it. He came back in and sat across from her once again.
“Now, we are left with the biggest question . . .” He lit another cigarette and looked at her. “What to do with you.”
Lucinda realized there was no reasoning with him. She started crying loudly and begging him to let her go. Juan got infuriated with her shrieks and started stuffing a piece of washcloth he picked from the dressing table in her mouth, when someone came rushing into the room and toppled him over.
Chapter Eleven
The pistol slipped from Juan’s hand and landed on the floor. He wrestled with Octa, rolling around and trying to push him off, but Octa kept him pinned to the floor. Juan tried to make him lose his balance and kicked with all his strength. Octa lost control for a split second. Juan crawled toward the pistol, but Octa pulled him back by his leg and punched him harder, trying to render him unconscious. He hit with all his strength till Juan was bleeding heavily and almost unconscious.
Lucinda watche
d as the brothers struggled with each other. She couldn’t believe how the day had unfolded. She was a hostage in her house and, potentially, they all may end up dying today.
Octa punched Juan to a pulp and stood up. He came hurrying toward her and tried to unlock her chains.
“Where are the keys? Did you see where he put the keys?” Octa asked rapidly, urgently.
“No . . . but . . . the safe! He has all the cash . . . he put it in a suitcase and took it out.” Lucinda looked toward the empty safe as she uttered these words.
Neither of them noticed Juan moving on the floor until he got up and retrieved his pistol from where Octa had kicked it. He pointed the gun at Octa and Lucinda. Octa turned to face him, blocking Lucinda from his sight.
“You’d be more careful about saving this bitch if only . . . you knew more,” Juan said, pointing the pistol straight at his brother’s forehead.
“Juan! This is between you and me! Keep Lucy out of it!” Octa yelled at him. He was scared, but he knew his little brother wouldn’t hurt him, or so he assumed.
“Okay, let’s do that. Let’s keep your lying and cheating slut of a wife out of this. Let’s talk man to man,” Juan sneered at his older brother.
“You’re not going to get away with this. You know you’re not going to get away with this.” He took a step closer to Juan and Juan just stood there, with a look on his face that revealed his determination.
“And who is going to stop me? You? Or your chained wife?” Juan threatened him. He hadn’t planned it this far. Octa was supposed to come home later and find his wife bound to a chair and his safe empty, but things hadn’t unfolded in his favor.
“You don’t have to do this, Juan . . .” Octa felt a moment of confusion. His reckless brother was holding a pistol pointed at him, and he couldn’t figure out how to convince him to stop this madness.
“Oh . . . but I do.” Juan moved sideways so he could make his way out of the room. He lit a cigarette. Octa noticed the 999 brand on his cigarette.
“It’s you,” Octa said. “You’re that mafioso who hired the hitmen after me. How can you do this?”
“Octa, this is not the only thing I did. I killed our mother and imprisoned our father for the past years. I beat him to death too. I’m afraid that was pretending to miss him when I first walked into your house.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s dead. I wanted him to attempt to kill you so you could have felt what I feel. I wanted you to feel that you can’t trust your family. I wanted to make him suffer and see how you have learned not to trust him after that ten years incident.”
“What have they done to you?”
“Our father hates me. He used to beat me and lock me in that stupid secret room for no reason.”
“Pa…would not have done this to you.”
“You weren’t here, Octa. He usually took you to his friends’ house.”
“I will kill you, Juan.”
“Shut your mouth, bro. I didn’t mean to put you in this situation. I just want to save my family.”
As Juan walked, his foot tangled in the cord of a toppled lamp, and he lost his balance. Just then, Octa leaped at him and tried to disarm him when the sound of a gunshot rang out. Juan suddenly pulled back to see Octa, holding on to his bleeding chest and looking at him as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
Juan could barely think, I shot him, I shot my brother. He knew he had gone too far.
Lucinda shrieked and cried out for Octa, who fell to the ground near her feet. She started screaming uncontrollably, which shook Juan out of his thoughts.
Aaron’s face popped up in Juan’s mind and suddenly, he sprang back to reality.
He picked up the same piece of cloth, which was now drenched in his brother’s blood, and was jamming it back into her mouth, when he realized he couldn’t spare her either. His brother’s body lay next to his feet. He was still breathing.
She’s an eyewitness. He backed up and pointed his pistol at her as if he was no longer in control of what his hands and feet were doing.
She attempted to talk with her eyes being big and shaking her head and making a sort of muffled screaming noise. No. Please don’t! Please don’t kill me, she thought.
“I’m sorry,” and with that he shot her in the forehead. Octa watched him leave the room.
Chapter Twelve
Juan hurried out of the room and retrieved the hidden suitcase. He could barely think anymore, but he sent a text message on the kidnapper’s number just like they had instructed him. His mind was still rushing, trying to get Octa’s face out of his mind when the criminal replied with the details of the location he was supposed to come to.
He sped up as he tried to consider the evidence he was leaving behind. “I had to save my son, and I was only trying to save my son,” he murmured, but no amount of reasons could justify what he had just done. Worst comes to worst, and I’ll end up in jail. At least Aaron will be safe and alive.
Emotions poured in on Juan. He couldn’t believe how things had turned out; he had killed his brother, his blood. Flashes of memories from his childhood passed in front of his eyes as he drove way over the speed limit. He realized he had blocked all the good things about his elder brother out of his mind since he had developed feelings for Amy. He had despised him, because Octa was always a better man than him.
He was closing in on the location when the kidnapper called.
“Change of plans,” said a coarse voice at the other end of the line.
The kidnapper told him he had to deliver the ransom to a different location, because it was not safe where he was. Without even considering the fact that the kidnapper might be manipulating him, he agreed hastily. He couldn’t wait any longer to see his son. He had never even imagined himself committing all these crimes, and if he did get caught, which was highly unlikely, he wanted to see his son before he went away to pay for his crimes.
Juan reached the specified location and found a black Jeep parked in the rubble of an old, abandoned building. He got out of his car and slowly walked toward the masked men who were standing by the jeep. They were talking in hushed tones, but Juan couldn’t hear. They saw Juan approaching, and they gained their composure and walked toward him.
“Where’s my son?” Juan asked bitterly
“He’s upstairs,” one of the masked men said, pointing toward the second floor of the old, devastated building that barely had any walls anymore. A small form was bound to a pillar; he recognized his shoes. Aaron looked unconscious, but he was sitting up with his back against the pillar. Juan handed the suitcase over to one of the men. He had counted the sum he had managed to obtain and stacked the extra cash under the passenger seat of his car.
The masked men eagerly checked the contents of the suitcase. Satisfied, they cleared his way and got into their car. Juan broke into a run and hurried up the flight of stairs. As he reached the second floor, he saw the pillar and small boy.
“Aaron!” he called out as he rushed toward the pillar and started fumbling with the ropes. As he loosened the knots, Aaron’s body slumped toward the ground lifelessly. His face was covered with a black cloth so he wouldn’t be able to see anything.
“Aaron! Aaron can you hear me?” Juan sobbed as he tried to free his son from the constraints of the rope.
He took off the cloth covering Aaron’s face and couldn’t believe what he saw. His son’s face was bashed in and purple from bruises. There were severe wounds on his temples and his neck, and his body slumped into Juan’s lap.
Juan couldn’t keep himself together. He let out a loud cry, holding his son’s lifeless body in his arms, screaming till his lungs gave up and he slumped into unconsciousness.
Juan awoke in a hospital ward, surrounded by nurses and patients. A crippled man sitting on the hospital bed next to him was delivering a speech as if he was talking to a huge crowd, but no one paid him any attention.
Across from him, a girl was crying uncontrollably in her bed. When she
saw him looking at her, she started laughing like a lunatic. Juan had no idea why he was there, inside a hospital’s psych ward. He remembered nothing about what had happened. He felt like he had forgotten something important, and suddenly the image of the body of a little boy flashed in front of his eyes and he remembered everything.
The boy had been killed in a brutal school bus accident, and his face had been completely smashed in. He couldn’t remember who the boy was, but he suddenly remembered his name, Aaron.
The wall phone next to Juan rang. The nurse answered and passed it off to him.
“Hello, who is this?”
No one spoke at first. Then he heard a male voice. “I hope you get ready.” His eyes grew big. “Octa,” he said. He scanned the whole room.
He turned to a nurse who was standing over his bed scribbling something in a file. He started to sit up and ask her what he was doing there when he read the name on the dossier.
Adult Medical Health Services Hospital
Juan Cracker – Patient No. 1756
Paranoid Schizophrenic
About the Author
Leonidas Christopher, born December 27, 1992, hails from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He is an active US Marine. He lives his life practicing the adage that life should not be about how it is but about how we can make it. He spent his childhood aloof from his family, spent his time wandering around dangerous and poor zones learning, as he did, about life. He met strangers who later became his friends, and he discovered that they too had their own secrets buried within. As he grew up, his own tragedies were added to the awful memories and stories of his friends. Using these, he hopes now to make a difference for the better in other people’s lives. Visit his website at www.christopherleonidas.com
The Heart of Blood Page 3