Hush

by Jess Wygle

  “Everything and anything. You’ve done so much lying, don’t you think it’s time to tell me the truth when I ask for it?”

  I swallowed hard and sat down in the chair next to the couch. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  She finally looked at me. Her eyes had no light, even with the soft candle casting a flame in them. “How many of these places do you own?” she started. “These brothels, these bars, these whore houses? How many of them do you bank roll from?”

  There wasn’t anything in my safe connecting me or identifying the locations here in the U.S. so I figured she must have just been asking on a hunch. How else would she have found out about those? “Eight.”

  “But you have connections overseas, don’t you? How many places over there are yours?”

  I shook my head. “None. I’m just used for my transportation and security services overseas. I don’t hold any ownership in any foreign countries.”

  “How many girls?”

  “I don’t know those numbers exactly, but I’d say somewhere close to a hundred stateside and probably three to four times as many internationally.”

  “Your father passed this on to you?”

  “No. I became interested in it in my youth. He had established a relationship with the Italians in hopes of simply expanding the family business. Through their humble hospitality, the Italians introduced me to a darker side of life and, at the time, I was hypnotized by the dollar signs that came along with them. I learned the system and I learned the laws, which helped me branch out to different countries, different rings. Since making the decision to branch, I haven’t been able to find an exit.”

  “Was that even a question, getting out? It was so lucrative for you, you were getting away with it, why would you want out?”

  “Because of you.”

  Liv scoffed, rolling her eyes. For the first time since we started this question-and-answer session, she didn’t believe me. She had accepted my other answers as truth, which they were, but she wasn’t buying that last line. If I was being completely honest with myself, I don’t know if I did either.

  “Have you ever,” she paused, taking a drink of her wine. “Have you ever participated? In your youth, when you were introduced to the glamorous world of human trafficking, did you ever have sex with one of them?”

  I hesitated heavily, knowing this one was going to hurt. “Yes,” I whispered.

  “More than one?”

  “Liv--”

  “Is that why you picked me?” she interrupted. Her voice broke and drops of anguish filled the brim of her eyes. “Is that why you liked me so much, because I was young like those girls?”

  “Liv--”

  “Did you target me like your foot soldiers target those girls? Do you plan on keeping me until I pay off some kind of a debt? Or is that debt revolving, like theirs? They can’t ever pay off their debt. That’s the truth, isn’t it? There isn’t any escape for them like there isn’t any escape for me.”

  “Liv, please,” I said louder, hoping to get a word in.

  “No!” she yelled. “I have to know. You have to tell me everything because it’s killing me. Not knowing is the worst feeling and I just have to know it all, no matter how much it hurts. Please, I have to know.” She was sobbing behind each of her words. I went to console her, but she pulled away.

  “I was so young,” I started in a calmer voice, hoping it would soothe her slightly since she wasn’t accepting a consoling embrace. “I was dumb and naïve and I stepped into a world that has no exit. I’m just as much a prisoner as you are. If I had known then what I know now, I would never have,” I swallowed hard. “I never would have signed my name on the dotted line.”

  “I just don’t understand how you could see what they were doing to those girls and decide it was something you wanted to be a part of. They do the most heinous things to those poor, poor women and you thought it was something for you.”

  “It wasn’t like that. Remember Italy? They mistook you for one of those women and you were so beautiful and so elegant. That’s what I was introduced to. Beautiful, elegant women who didn’t seem to be pressured or unwilling in anyway, like a high class escort service. I was under the impression that it was a high-quality, luxurious type of trade that was more acceptable overseas.”

  “Do you realize how much of an ass you just made yourself out to be?” Liv interrupted, wiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands.

  “The deeper I got into it,” I continued, not missing a beat. “The longer I worked for them, the harder it was to distance myself, the harder it was to say no, the more I learned about the business. They were smarter than me. They knew exactly what they were getting me into and I didn’t have a fucking clue.”

  “So you follow one bad, detrimental decision up with another? You put my name down right next to yours and then think we can spend our entire lives together with you hiding it from me?”

  “I tried, I tried not to fall for you. I tried to keep my distance, you know that. I knew what letting you into my life meant.”

  “Oh, that’s nice,” she mumbled condescendingly. “That’s real nice.”

  “I didn’t want this for you, but something powerful brought us together; something neither of us could contend with.”

  “Did that power make you a mute also, selectively I suppose? You did nothing. You had the power to do something, but you did nothing.”

  “You want to know why I was so attracted to you?” I blurted. “It wasn’t because of your age. It was because you were pure. You were innocent in my eyes. You were something so different from the life I had built and I selfishly wanted that for myself. I wanted you to teach me. I only saw you and not what would happen to you if I pulled you into this. I just wanted the happiness everyone else gets.”

  “You never answered my question.” She turned and looked me straight in the eye. “How many girls?”

  I exhaled sharply, not breaking from her gaze. My stomach tumbled around in my gut. I cleared my throat. “Too many.”

  “That’s not good enough. Tell me how many?” she asked again.

  “Too many for me to count.” I closed my eyes, looking away. There was the most wretched silence between us. I had never before said that out loud. I had only allowed myself to mentally linger over that fact a handful of times before banishing to the deepest places of my memory. “Liv, I was so young. You have to believe me, I was someone completely different then.”

  Her hand was over her mouth as if holding back the vomit. “And Bianca,” she finally said after what seemed like a lifetime of the most torturous silence. “How does she play into this?”

  “Bianca?”

  “I found her passport in your safe. The night I met her, she said you brought her out here. That was the exact word she used. She was one of them, wasn’t she? One of the many?”

  I nodded slowly, exhausted by my own fiendish confessions. “She was the last of them. Her and I had an actual relationship while she working. I brought her out here in hopes of saving her, I suppose, but she’s been in the business so long, I couldn’t do anything for her. There were no other women between Bianca and you.”

  Olivia turned her head. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  I shook my head slowly, leaning my elbows onto my knees. “No. I can only imagine how you’re feeling now.”

  “We wanted to have kids, Cal. I will never, for the life of me, understand your thought process. What would prompt you to bring children into this world when you have this hanging over your head? It’s bad enough that you put me through this, but kids? What if we would have had a girl? A little girl who would have grown up to be just like the women you’re hurting? What if we would have had a boy? Would you have passed this business on to him when you got tired of facing yourself? Ugh, it just makes me so sick. So fucking sick, Cal. It’s even worse to think that we were trying to have children and you still didn’t have the balls to tell me. I had to find out on my own. I’ve thanke
d God every day since then that I’m not with child.”

  She was right. That fact alone made me a monster. “Liv, I love you. I would do anything to have you and to have things back the way they were.” I didn’t know what else to say at this point except to start digging myself out of my hole as best I could.

  “Walk away. End it all. Give everything up. Show me how humble you can be and then maybe, maybe things could turn around for you, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “I can’t. It’s not that easy.”

  “And neither is this,” she mumbled. Setting her wine glass down on the table, she pulled the blanket over her shoulder and leaned over onto the arm of the couch. “I’m done. No more now. I’m going to sleep.”

  “Let me take you to bed.” I stood up.

  “Just leave me alone, please. I’m not coming to bed tonight.”

  “Liv,” I started to plead before she interrupted me.

  “Haven’t we done enough tonight? I’m exhausted by this. I just want to sleep. Please, just go.”

  I watched her eyes close. I was tempted to pick her up and carry her to the room, but she was right. Some of the things I had said in the past few minutes had never left my lips before. Lies were just so much easier for me in the past, compare to the awful truth. I was honestly surprised at how easy it was for me to be so open about it all with her, having kept it under lock and key for so long.

  I wondered how many more questions she would have, how many more confessions I’d be making. How much would I have to tell her? It wasn’t that I was ashamed. It was the fact that I knew how it would make Olivia feel. Some of my confessions would break her even more than I already had. Then what chance would I have of being with her?

  I sighed, shaking my head at the idea of it. I didn’t have a chance in hell of reconciling our relationship. The one thing she wanted me to do, relinquish my empire, wasn’t a possibility. It would die along with me and that was the only way to end it, in death.

  2013 - Olivia

  The office wasn’t at all what I expected it to be. When I think of a private detective, I imagine Bogart in a film noir with a large-brim hat and masked in shadows, donning a cape-like trench coat. That was not at all what I walked into.

  A young receptionist typed busily on her keyboard, hardly noticing me as I approached her desk. She was probably my age. I waited patiently, as she appeared to be hurrying to get her thoughts into an email before they passed her. “I’m sorry about that,” she smiled when her fingers stopped moving. “How can I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Mr. Noel,” I said.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  I shook my head. “No but I, uh, I couldn’t,” I hesitated. “I don’t. If he’s busy now, I can make an appointment for a later time. I thought I’d come in and see if he was free.”

  The woman smiled kindly and nodded. “Why don’t I go see if he’s free. He may have time to see you. What’s your name?”

  Lie. “Uh, Jessica White,” I said with conviction.

  “If you want to have a seat, Mrs. White, I’ll be right back.” She rose from her seat and disappeared behind a door a moment later. I fell into the stiff chair nudged up against the wall, suddenly feeling the strong urge to flee.

  You can’t leave. You’ve gotten this far. I looked over my shoulder, out the double glass doors of the office, half expecting to see someone watching me on the other side; the tail I’ve been trying to avoid. Nick thought I was in surgery. Callem didn't know I was here and I hoped to keep it that way. I was running out of plans and chances. Imagine if I was caught in this office now. I’d probably be put on house arrest.

  The door opened and rather than the receptionist reappearing, I was greeted by a tall brawny man with rich dark skin and luminous white teeth. He held out his large hand as he approached. “Mrs. White, I’m Conrad Noel.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I replied, standing. My hand was swallowed by his massive palm as we shook hands. “I hope I’m not a bother. If you’re busy, I can come back later.” At least I hope I can.

  “No, no, not a problem,” his deep voice resonated through his hand and up my arm. “You actually caught me at a good time. I’m not usually in the office. Today’s your lucky day. Come on back, we’ll talk.”

  I smiled weakly and followed him behind the door. “You’re going to have to excuse the mess in my office,” he said as he led me down a long hallway. “I’m not in much and if I would have known you were coming, I would have done some housekeeping.”

  “I would have made an appointment earlier but,” I trailed off as we turned into his small den of an office. He wasn’t lying when he claimed his office to be unkempt. A small suitcase sat open on the chair in the corner with a pair of slacks hanging out of it. Dust covered a line of thick books on an old bookshelf. There were a few pictures of smiling children and a beautiful woman. A plaque hung on the wall next to a framed certificate. A mess of papers seemed to take life on what I assumed to be his desk, claiming stake to the entire surface and over flowing out of plastic black trays.

  “Uh, have a seat.” He pointed at the single chair facing his desk as he made his way around the other side and plopped into an exceptionally noisy chair, leaning back a little. “What brings you here today?”

  What a loaded question. The things I could tell him, but I had to be sure he was willing to walk into the mess before I really opened up my mouth. I could see by the way he was looking at me that he was already trying to figure me out. That was probably one of the most important traits to have in his line of work; intuition. “Well, I’ve got a proposition for you.” I said, clearing my throat. “I, um, I’ve found myself in a bit of trouble that I’d like to get out of but I don’t think I can do it on my own.”

  Mr. Noel leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk top. “What kind of trouble?”

  I sighed, looking down into my lap. “That’s the thing. I can’t really tell you, not until you agree to help me. Someone could be following me. Someone has been following me and listening to my phone calls and monitoring my email, which is why I couldn’t set up an appointment. I think I was able to get here without a shadow, but I just don’t know. I don’t want to tell you anything in case they know I’m here. I don’t want you to get into any trouble because of me.”

  This seemed to spike Mr. Noel’s interest. He puckered his full lips and inhaled deeply before looking at me again. “Can you at least give me an idea of what you’ve gotten yourself into?”

  “It’s my husband. He’s a very wealthy and powerful man.”

  “Mr. White?” He said with an undertone that signaled to me he knew I’d supplied him with a fake name.

  “He owns a business and a small private airline,” I continued, ignoring his jab. “He’s got friends in high places and in the lowest of places. He’s the reason I couldn’t call you. He’s the reason why my email is being monitored. I found out he’s got some shady dealings and that’s not even the right word. I found out and I tried to leave him, but he threatened my family. He threatened to blackmail me and make it look like I was a part of the whole operation all along, which I don’t doubt he has the power to do. Ever since I stumbled onto the whole thing, he’s had a man taking me to and from work. He’s had my phone tapped. He’s monitored my spending. I can’t breathe anymore. He won’t let me leave. I can’t divorce him. I’m trapped and I need to find a way out, but with the amount of eyes and ears I have on me, I don’t know how to even start.”

  Mr. Noel leaned back in his chair, rocking nosily. “What are you trying to get out of this? You want to disappear? You want to get divorced without the consequences?”

  “Actually, I want to put a stop to it. I want to make sure he pays for what he’s done and to put the whole thing to an end. I need to find a way to bring down the operation without getting myself in trouble.”

  “Is this about money?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve got a good job, a really good job. I don’t ne
cessarily need him to survive, financially that is. Plus I have a lot to lose, which keeps me in this predicament. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am and it’s selfish of me to say it but I can’t,” I sighed. “I can’t compromise it.”

  “How old are you?”

  I studied him for a second as if I could see him piecing the puzzle together mentally. “I’m 28.”

  “How long have you been married?”

  “A little over four years. My husband and I have been together for almost seven.”

  “What kind of work do you do?”

  I shook my head. “As much trouble as I could be in for being here, I can only imagine what he’d do to you. Unless you’re willing to take on my case, I can’t give you much more information. It’s in your best interest, I assure you.”

  “What kind of trouble would you be in? Does he get physical with you?”

  I felt my chin tremble, but I swallowed that down. “He has, yes. You see, he has much, much more to lose than I do. At this point, despite his declared love for me, he’s desperate to keep his secret safe and is forced to do things he wouldn’t normally do to protect it.”

  “Sounds like you’re defending him.”

  I paused for a long moment, trying to pinpoint my exact reasons for protecting his actions. “You asked me my age. I’ve never given my age to anyone so easily. My husband and I have quite an age gap and for that reason I’ve always shied away from that question, afraid people would judge me, call me a gold-digger or a trophy wife. I’m none of those things. Like I told you a minute ago, I could do fine off my own income. The money, the cars, the clothes, the luxury, it was all a perk of being with the man I was so blindly and irrevocably in love with. I was so young when I met him. You know what that’s like, don’t you?”

  I turned and looked at the photo of the picturesque family on his bookshelf. His gaze followed mine before I turned back to face him. “You have a family. You know what that feeling is to love someone so much that you can’t think straight. You lose words and your breath and suddenly the world starts to orbit around them. You don’t see yourself in any other place than in their arms or by their side. I still want all of those things, but I can’t, not with what I know. I’m still under his spell and I don’t want to be anymore. And it’s that spell that drives me to defend him, unconsciously more than anything. “