by Naomi West
He taps the skin between his own eyes as he speaks. I sit in silence, my mouth a flat line. My father has only mentioned his past in furtive details here and there. I know that my grandfather was killed at a young age, but the precise nature has always been a mystery to me.
"Just like that, a man was killed, a father was lost, and my path, your path, and the path of your little blonde friend all irrevocably changed, simply because this thug spotted a bag of cash in a young man's hand. So, there was your grandmother, left alone with a son barely two years old. She makes the solemn vow to never let me fall into the same lifestyle that took her husband away from her, but, well, you don't need me to tell you how that worked out."
"I fell into this life before I was a teenager. Your grandmother did her best, but a poor young man living in the city? With criminality in his veins? She didn't stand a chance. But I was different than my father; I knew how to play the game, how to be smart, and how to rise to the top without taking needless risks. And while my peers dropped, one after another, through drugs or violence, I was left standing. By the time I was a grown man and my mother had passed, I had more power than I ever could've dreamed of."
"But Poland is small, and very quickly, I hit a ceiling that, to move past, would've required more risk than I was comfortable taking. That's when I realized that America, the wonderful land of opportunity, was where my destiny lay."
"I built an empire here. The Nowak family is one of the most respected names on the eastern coast of this country, and once the Donahues are driven out, we will be able to solidify our hold on the city and even begin to expand. In a few years, we could move into New York, to Boston, and beyond, until we control more than my father could've even dreamed."
Then, my father walked toward me slowly, stepping down the small flight of stairs that led up to the windows, his expression one of tight, controlled rage.
"And this, all that your father and my father have worked for, you're willing to throw away. And for what? A girl? A girl like any other?"
He was wrong; Alina wasn't like any other.
"Where is she?" I ask, my voice low.
My father ignores the question.
"Luckily, I have a child who understands the value of family loyalty."
Danica smiles, a knowing smirk on her face. I should've known that her straight-and-narrow act was a lie; she's wanted the kind of power that my father wields for as long as I can remember. And now, it appears, she just might get what she wants.
"Where is she?" My voice is more severe this time.
At this moment, I couldn't care less about whatever little power play my sister is plotting. All I want is to get Alina back, no matter what the cost.
"Very single-minded, I see. Well, I'm afraid that your actions have consequences, so before I tell you where, precisely, your darling little woman is, I will tell you what is going to happen. You're going to take your rightful place as my son and the inheritor of what I've built. But you'll have trust to earn back, you see. Danica will be running a business of her own in New York. She's been spending the last few years building connections, despite her claim of only taking part in legitimate business."
He takes another sip of his drink and smiles.
"As much as I wanted my darling, little girl to stay safe, I have to admire her drive. Anyway, she will be building an empire of her own. And if, in a few years, you've managed to work your way back to my good side, then wonderful—all of this is yours, and you and Danica will work together as a family to grow our enterprise even stronger. But if you still insist on this loathsome mooning and whining, then you'll be out, and all will belong to Danica.”
"Where is she?" I repeat, one last time.
A wicked grin forms on my father's face.
"As I said, choices have consequences."
"What the hell have you done?" My tone is harsh. Demanding.
"I learned quite quickly that this girl was a distraction for you. While you had been doing a wonderful, brutal job of squeezing out the Donahues, they found out without too much trouble that it was you behind the attacks on their businesses. Eamon made it very clear that our treaty would come to a bloody end unless some sort of amends was made. Don't get me wrong—I want the Donahues exterminated, but now is not the time."
I grit my teeth, anticipating where this is going. I want to jump out of my chair and throttle my father.
I've never felt this way before.
"So, I told him that you had pretty, little thing who you seemed to be having big ideas about--marriage, eloping, and all that. Once I explained to him this situation, he was more than happy to accept what I was offering by way of apology."
I took in a deep breath, my heart pounding and my hands squeezing in anger.
"This Alina, that pretty, little girl, is now property of Eamon Donahue. Never to be given back."
I can feel black creep in out of the corners of my eyes. I feel like something has taken possession of me—an anger that I can barely understand, let alone control. I explode from my seat, launching my glass against the wall, the thing shattering into a million pieces. Rushing to my father, I stop only inches from him, my face twisted in fury.
"What have you done?" I shout.
But my father's face is still and calm, the slightest hint of a smile forming in one corner of his mouth.
"There's that spirit we've been looking for," says Danica, still seated, still smirking.
Part of me wants to rip my father limb-from-limb, killing him for what he's put me, put Alina through. But my mind is filled with images of what Eamon could, at this moment, be doing to Alina, I imagine his fat body lowering down on hers, an expression of agony on her face. I feel murderous.
"Tell me, my son," says my father, stepping away from me, his demeanor still casual. "What do you want to do right now, at this very moment?"
"I want to kill Eamon," I say.
My father smiles, pleased with the answer.
I realize that I'm playing directly into his hands. I realize that this is what he wants—to tap into the killing urge that he knew was in my blood. I realize that the anger I feel right now, this all-consuming rage, is nothing more than the result of a calculated strategy to set me on the path to becoming who he is.
And it's working. I wanted nothing more than to take Alina and run as far from this life as possible, and now all I want is to kill anyone who stands between me and her. In doing so, I'll seal my fate as the criminal that my father wants me to be.
"My son," my father says, turning back to me. “You couldn't have made me happier."
"Now," says Danica. "We need to see if he'll actually do it."
"Consider this your penance," says my father. "Kill Eamon. Together, we'll see this war through, then you can take your place at my side, as my son."
I don't want to hear another word. I grab my keys and helmet and rush out through the door, fueled by a rage I can hardly comprehend.
Chapter Nineteen
Alina
It's been a day since I was given to Eamon. My eyes flick around the small bedroom once more, scanning it for any possible way by which I can make an escape. But just like every other time I've checked, I see nothing. The bedroom is one of many in Eamon's massive home. Handed over to him by Danica and Iwan, I’m stuck here since, my heart ripped in half by betrayal.
I can't believe that Danica did what she did. As soon as the words about our plan to elope left my mouth, she began plotting, figuring out how she could use this information to get what she wanted, which was evidently to have the power that was meant for her brother. I had her pegged as a sweet, if materialistic city girl, but little did I know that beneath her well-groomed exterior was the heart of a criminal manipulator.
As soon as I'd arrived home, I’d found waiting for me not Michal, but Iwan, with Danica at his side. He informed me that Danica had told him everything, and that, while he was furious that a woman like me could have such an influence on his son, in a way he was pleased.
After all, he’d said, love makes for a powerful bargaining chip.
Once he’d made it clear that there was no escape for me, Iwan told me that if I didn’t want Michal harmed, I would do exactly what he said. I got in his car, and less than an hour later, I was being handed off to Eamon, the fat, disgusting, red-haired man with blotchy skin and eyes that lingered on my body. Iwan gave me over to him in a back alley near the warehouse, passing me off like I was a parcel of the drugs that he dealt.
Eamon was all too happy to take me; evidently, I was being used to mollify him and to get him to back off from his plans of open warfare against the Nowaks in response to what Michal had done to them. Iwan pushed me over to Eamon and his thugs, the men all looking me over like a piece of meat and Eamon putting his large, meaty hands on my hips.
"You'll do just fine," he said, looking down at me with his inky, pinprick eyes, his face shrouded by his ratty cap.
And just like that, I was shoved into the back of Eamon's limousine, Iwan and Danica disappearing from sight as soon as I was handed over.
"Try a little of the bubbly stuff," he had said, his voice gravely and raw, laced with traces of an Irish brogue, as he poured me a glass of champagne from the little bar backlit with light-blue neon lights. "It'll calm you down."
He shoved the glass in front of me. I stared at it for a moment, wanting nothing less right then than a something to drink. But he was insistent.
"You're going to need to learn before too long that when I tell you something like that, it's not really a request," he has said, the fizzy glass of peach-colored wine still extended toward me.
I took the glass with hesitation, as though it might be drugged. Sensing my fears, Eamon spoke up.
"I'm not really the ‘roofie' sort," he said, taking a slow, slurping sip of his drink. "You’ll actually find that I'm a perfect gentleman."
He flashed what I figured he imagined was a charming smile as he settled back into his seat.
"What are you going to do with me?" I asked, feeling fear like I'd never experienced before.
"That, I'm not sure of. You're certainly a fetching little thing," he said, looking me over once again. "But I don't know if I need a new, ah, member for my current rotation."
The implication made me shiver.
"Maybe I'll keep you around as a pretty face to decorate the backgrounds of negotiations, or maybe I'll offer you as an ...incentive to one of my up-and-comers. Who knows. Maybe I'll even change my mind and give you my special attentions."
With that, he flashed a sly wink, and I was gripped by the twin feelings of feeling scared beyond belief and wanting to crawl out of my skin.
"And …what about Michal?" I asked, fearful of the answer.
Eamon looked away, as if the question hadn't been something he'd considered.
"That remains to be seen. If he does the smart thing, then he'll leave well enough alone. He'll realize he's been beaten and that coming after you would be too risky. But I know that love can make people do crazy, stupid things."
I knew at that moment that he was right; if Michal really wanted to be smart, he'd forget about me; he'd just fall back into line with his father, take over his business, and write me off as a fling that went too far.
But I didn't want him to be smart.
"But," said Eamon, reaching into a side compartment, revealing a small stash of mixed nuts, grabbing a handful, and shoving them greedily into his mouth. “If he insists on doing the stupid thing—the short-sighted thing—and comes to get you …"
Eamon's mouth formed into a sinister little slash of a smirk.
"…well, let's just say that we'll have a little more fun that way."
I rubbed my hands together in futile effort to calm myself down, my eyes on the city as it passed us in a smeared blur of white and orange.
After a time, we arrived at a large townhome somewhere downtown. Eamon's goons dragged me out of the car and brought me up the long flight of stairs that led to the tall set of double doors. The house was an old design—brick exterior and a gabled roof—and seemed somewhat modest for a crime lord. But when the men dragged me inside, the opulent interior of tall, wooden columns, priceless art, and massive ceilings drove home the point that this was the residence of a man with expensive, if not gaudy, taste.
"Impressive, huh?" he'd said, looking around the place with the careful eye of someone who was inspecting the interior for appraisal. "Well, it's your new home for the time being, so you'd better start getting used to it now."
Hearing those words had made me feel sick to my stomach. I couldn't believe that my journey of a new life in the United States was ending with me being trapped in an Irish mobster's home to be a sex slave—or worse.
Eamon led me to the small bedroom that I'm in now, taking care to point that there was no way to escape; he'd designed the room for that express purpose.
"I'll come back for you in a little while," he'd said before leaving, a lecherous look in his eyes.
And here I am. It's been hours since Eamon locked me in here, and I still have no idea what my fate is to be. I'm lying on the soft sheets of the bed, staring up at the ceiling, and praying that Michal will come.
Soon, there's a rapping on the door.
"Are you decent, my dear?" asks Eamon through the door.
I say nothing.
"I'll take that as a yes," he says.
The door creaks open and Eamon's massive form fills the frame. He's dressed in a robe of red velvet, which is cinched around his round belly, the hair on his pale, flabby chest rising up from the folds of fabric.
"Come along," he says, gesturing toward himself. "I promise I won't bite. Yet."
Revulsion overcomes me, but I know I have no choice. I follow him out into the hallway, the walls a dark wood and the light overhead low and dim, and we're soon flanked by a pair of henchmen, both looking me over with animal eyes as we walk.
"I still haven't decided what I'm going to with you, but I know right now that all I can think about is breaking you in."
He looks over his shoulder at me, as if taking pleasure in the sick expression that spreads across my face.
"After all, what's the point of being the boss if you don't get any, well, special privileges?"
I look around myself, as if I'll spot an open window that I can leap through. But, instead, I look up at the henchman to my right—a wiry, young man with an ugly face and prematurely-balding red hair. He looks at me and shakes his head, as if he can read my mind and is saying, "Don't even think about it." To my left is a shorter, squatter man with a rough face and a mop of black hair on his head that looks like it hasn't been washed in weeks.
We soon arrive at another bedroom, this one bigger and round in shape, with a four-post bed in the middle and a roaring fireplace behind it.
"Have a seat," Eamon says, gesturing to the bed as the men lead me into the room.
I take a deep, slow breath, gathering the last bits of nerve I have, and speak.
"No."
Eamon looks at me, his bushy, orange eyebrows raised.
"What did you say?" he asks, more to get me to see if I'll change my mind rather than out of genuinely mishearing me. "Please, repeat yourself for an old man."
"I said, ‘no.'"
He nods slowly, his jowls spreading as does. Turning to the wiry henchman, he gestures toward me, a look on his face that's almost pained. Then, before I can even realize what's happening, the wiry man is at my side, his hand drawn back for just a moment before he brings it against my cheek, the impact sounding out with a fleshy ‘crack.'
I stagger backward, the pain radiating out from my cheek. Placing my hand on the skin, I feel a deep heat from the impact. I bump into a dresser behind me, the gold handles digging into my back. Hot tears sheen my eyes, as if by instinct. At this moment, all I can think about is Michal. Through the pain, I pray that he comes, as farfetched as the possibility is.
Eamon is standing in front of me, the two henchmen at his sides.
"Now," he says. “Take a seat."
He walks over to a squat, cushioned chair with a red, floral print. Patting his seat, he gestures toward me.
"Let's start nice and easy," he says.
The pain has me unsteady, and as much as I hate giving in to what he says, I can hardly stand. But after taking a series of deep, slow breaths, I feel a little better.
"No," I repeat, my voice firm.
Eamon sighs in frustration before turning his back and gesturing to the guards.
"You know," he says over his shoulder. “There's nothing worse than having to muck up the face of a beautiful woman, in my opinion. But sometimes you bratty types don't leave any other options."