by Kady Hunt
“I miss Dad.”
“I know, baby. I miss him too.”
Daddy would have been proud of you, too.
Maybe if Dad was around Mom wouldn’t have been able to do all that she did or that she’s doing now. I wouldn’t have had to make a choice between being with Jamie or keeping her alive, he would never have put me through that, this much I know.
Dad wouldn’t have let her murder my child.
29.
JAMIE
Holden seems a little preoccupied when he arrives but I’m sure it’s because he’s still a little messed up over the incident. He was the one who got shot and I still feel that tightness in the pit of my stomach at times, as though it’s going to happen again. I can’t believe he’s actually a little nervous, sitting on my bed after the kind of closeness we just had.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
He looks up. “Fine,” he says. “I guess I’m a little jumpy today, that’s all.”
I go and sit next to him. “It’s okay,” I say. “The doctor said you might be suffering from PTSD. If it gets bad you can go see a therapist.”
“Why’re you with me, Jamie?”
“What brought that up?”
“I just…I want to know, I guess.”
“I’m with you because I love you,” I say. “I thought we already talked about this.”
“What if…what if tomorrow you found out I was involved in something?” he asks. “Something that was…well…criminal or wrong?”
“Holden,” I say. “I know you. You’d never do that.”
He stands but his eyes never leave me. “What if I was?”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “What’s this about, Holden? Have you done something I should know about? Is that why you got shot?”
He doesn’t answer right away and of course that raises red flags. “Jamie,” he says. “I have kind of a track record. You’re the first girl that I’ve…become intimate with, the first girl who wants to be intimate with me in return. But what if that history catches up with me? What if I…I break your heart?”
I get up.
I go towards him and put my hands on his face and I kiss him. “What do you feel, Holden?”
He looks into my eyes. “You,” he says. “I feel you.”
“Well,” I say. “That’s all you need to know. This is the truth, Holden.”
“Everything’s different.”
“Holden, what’re you talking about?”
He pushes me away. “You don’t understand,” he says. “There are things about me that you don’t know.”
“Then tell me.”
“I can’t,” he says and I can see how much it’s hurting him to hide this but I can also see that whatever it is, he isn’t about to come clean any time soon.
I don’t get it.
I’ve never felt this lonely.
But then I’ve never witnessed someone falling apart. Even his blank stare, as he watches his world crumble around himself, is beautiful. And I’ve never seen someone break so perfectly.
And all I can do is watch because he won’t let me in.
Because just like his darkness, his misery is his own.
But what does that make me?
A passerby?
No.
I can’t just stand by.
Why doesn’t he understand that I can’t watch him fall apart? That the sharp ends of the broken glass that is his heart, cut me too.
“Holden,” I say. “Either you tell me what’s going on, or this relationship is over.”
“I’m sorry, Jamie.”
“Just leave!”
He doesn’t say a word.
“It’s about the baby, isn’t it?” I ask. “You’re freaking out? Is that it?”
“I don’t care what you do with the baby,” he says. “I don’t even know if it’s truly mine. I mean, come on Jamie! We had unprotected sex that one time in Vegas! It’s highly unlikely I got you pregnant that very night.”
It’s like he’s doing all this to hurt me.
And I don’t even know why.
“I thought you loved me,” I say.
“It’s not that simple,” he says. “Take care, Jamie.”
I feel him leaving the room and then the apartment.
When the door closes, I feel as though someone stabbed me in the chest. I drop heavily on the bed and wait for the tears but there’s nothing.
No tears.
Just a dull silence.
I feel pain but there’s not a thing I can do about it.
It sounded like he has been giving the whole thing a lot of thought. So he came here tonight to inform me of a decision he had already made. I pick up my phone with shaking hands and search for Daniel’s number. When I find it, I hit CALL. I don’t have to wait for long.
“Jamie, what’s going on?” Daniel asks.
“I need your help, Daniel.”
“Help?”
“Will you help me, Daniel or not?” My tone is louder than I wanted it to be.
“Yes,” Daniel says. “Jamie, I will help you. I’m on my way. Just…stay there, okay? Don’t do anything until I get there.”
“Okay,” I manage.
“Jamie? Promise me you won’t do anything until I get there.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and a few wayward tears fall out. “I promise.”
30.
HOLDEN
Stepping out of Jamie’s apartment is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do and I got shot once. All I want is to go sit in a bar and drink myself to death, but I can’t. This is far from over. In fact I feel like it’s just the beginning. Harlow is calling again while I’m in the car, so I pick it up. “We know you went to the cops,” Harlow says. “That was a stupid move, kid.”
“I made a mistake.”
“You make one more mistake like that, and you’ll be getting something that’ll make getting shot sound like a walk in the fucking park.”
“I said I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“You bet your ass it won’t,” Harlow says. “But now that you know how things really work, are you willing to listen to some practical advice?”
“I’m willing to listen to what you need from me.”
“You’ll know,” he says. “When the time is right.”
“So, what am I supposed to do now?”
“You wait,” Harlow says.
“Wait?”
“I wanted to know if you were ready to accept who you are,” Harlow says. “If you picked up my call, then you are.”
“You knew I’d go to the cops,” I say. “You knew I’d go to Vincent.”
“Yeah well,” Harlow says. “I knew Teague is your friend. And I know Vincent loves his little cousins enough to give you a free pass. In this business, you can’t survive if you don’t know your opponents.”
“So, I’m your opponent?”
“For now,” Harlow says. “Whether you continue to be, is entirely up to you.”
“How are you so certain that I will go against my mother and take your side?”
“You already went against your mother, kid.”
“So, what this was some kind of test?”
“Aren’t you happy to know you passed?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Never been happier, I’m sure.”
“Look,” he says. “You were willing to put your mother in prison and live like a broke person for the rest of your life. That takes guts. Strength. Strength that we can use, along with your affiliations to The Family.”
The Family.
It already sounds ominous and I’m part of it.
“You deserve some rest,” Harlow says. “Go to a strip club and get a nice-looking thing give you a lap dance and a few drinks. Trust me, it will take care of most of the pain that you might be feeling right now.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll keep that gem of a suggestion in mind, Harlow.”
I’m sure he’s snickering on the other end. “You’re tough,�
�� he says. “And that’s a good thing. You probably got it from your mother, but I hope you haven’t gotten betrayal and disloyalty, kid. Cause those things are going to cost you.”
“I’m not disloyal.”
“Not right now,” Harlow says. “But you haven’t tasted the power yet.”
“Power?”
“You’re the heir to a drug empire,” Harlow says. “You can’t imagine the kind of power that gives you. You don’t know how to exploit it. But you will learn. You have no choice.”
He disconnects the call.
“I don’t care what you do with the baby. I don’t even know if it’s truly mine. I mean, come on Jamie! We had unprotected sex that one time in Vegas! It’s highly unlikely I got you pregnant that very night.”
The look on her face, when I said those words, I will never forget.
Just as I will never forget the way my mother’s hand held that gun to that shooter’s face or the way he looked afterwards.
I wish I could kill myself.
End it all.
Just jump off some high-rise building, like the kind where our family offices are.
But if I do that, Jamie might be in a lot more trouble.
Who’s going to look after her if I’m not even there?
At least this way, even if we’re not together anymore, I can watch over her.
I can protect her.
For as long as it’s possible, I can keep everyone away.
Anyone who wants to hurt her will get burned.
Even if it’s my own mother.
Harlow is right.
My family has the kind of power a lot of people are dying to get their hands on. The kind of power that made my mother keep all of this a secret until now, that made my own mother try to kill Jamie, and shoot that motorcycle shooter, Sean. It’s the kind of power that even someone like Vincent Connolly won’t go near.
I have all that power.
I just need to be able to use it.
31.
DANIEL
By the time I get to Jamie’s apartment she’s already standing by the side of the road, waiting. The minute I see her I know something’s up. I hope it’s nothing serious, nothing that can’t be cured or fixed easily. What if there’s a complication with the baby?
“Daniel,” she says, when she gets into the passenger side. “Thanks for coming.”
“No problem,” I say. “Where are we going?”
“Do you know any pharmacies nearby?” she asks. “Hopefully something smaller and not a large chain.”
I start driving. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, Daniel.”
She says nothing the rest of the drive, so I let her have her silence and when we finally get to the pharmacy she hands me a piece of paper.
“Twelve pills of Misotrol,” I read from the paper. “What’s this for?”
“Daniel, could you please just go inside and get me the pills.”
“No,” I say. “You need to tell me what they’re for.”
“I thought you said you could help me!”
“Jamie,” I say. “You think I’m going to stuff you with a bunch of pills that I don’t even know what they do? You want these pills you tell me what they’re for, or we’re driving back to your apartment.”
“Fine,” she says. “They’re abortion pills.”
“What?”
“Look,” she says. “My roommate got into the same exact situation not too long ago. I just talked to her in detail. The doctor’s just going to give me this stuff anyway so why wait? I need to get rid of this thing.”
“Jamie, I thought you were thinking about keeping it—”
“That was yesterday, Daniel. Today, I don’t want to keep it.”
“And what happens when you change your mind tomorrow?”
“I won’t.”
“How do you know, Jamie?”
“Holden and I broke up.”
Finally, she lets the truth slip. “He dumped you?”
“Yeah,” she says. “He also told me he doesn’t care about the baby one way or another. Daniel, I think he was lying to me all this time. How else do you explain this? One day, he’s fine and the next he’s standing in my apartment and telling me I’m a whore. That he’s not even sure the baby is his. But you know how I know it’s his? Because I’ve never had sex before, Daniel! But he doesn’t know that! He doesn’t know that before that night in Vegas, I was a virgin! Yes, I know. That’s dumb and stupid. And I came to Vegas with Alex to change that. But is it my fault that Holden turned out to be my first?”
“Look,” I say. “Maybe his mother got to him or something. Let me talk to him.”
“No, Daniel. I can’t. I made a mistake, trusting him. He broke my trust. And my heart. And I can’t let that happen again. And this baby, it needs to go, Daniel. So I’m begging you please, just get me those pills.”
“Why can’t you get them yourself?”
“Because,” she says. “Not everyone is going to understand. And these pills are used for gastric ulcers. If you go, no one will question you but if I go, they’ll probably deny me the drugs and make a bigger deal out of it than it is.”
“I’m sorry, Jamie. But I can’t let you do this.”
“Daniel,” she says. “I’m sick of being judged.”
“I’m not judging you. I just don’t think this is the safest way to go about it.”
“My roommate—”
“Yes, I heard your roommate Kate is fine but you might not be! You never know with medication, Jamie. I’m going to support your decision to get rid of the baby, but you have to go with me to the hospital tomorrow. That’s the only way you’re getting my help. If you still decide to it this way, then find someone else to get you the drugs. I’m sorry but if this is helping you, then I can’t.”
She breaks out crying.
I get out of the car and go to her side, gently take her hand and urge her to stand outside. The parking lot is deserted except for a couple of junkies standing to one side but they’re so totally out of it, they don’t even notice us. “Jamie,” I say. “You’ll get through this. I’ll help you in any way possible, you’re not alone.”
“I don’t know why he did this! I just don’t understand! Everything was going so well!”
“I know,” I say. “And I’m going to find out. He’s not going to just leave you like this, without giving you answers! Let me handle it. You trust me, don’t you?”
She nods.
“Then trust me to help you,” I say.
“Okay.”
“Now,” I say. “Do you really want to get an abortion?”
Before I can get a reply, I feel something connecting with my skull and Jamie starts to scream. I’m on the floor before I can even figure out what’s going on and I see someone taking Jamie away from the car, placing a hand on her mouth to keep her silent. There are three of them and they’re all wearing ski masks. I have to blink to get the blood off my face and I put all the strength I have into my upper body and force myself to stand. Those people have guns and one of them is holding one over Jamie’s head. “Stay back,” he yells, through the ski mask and his voice comes out all muffled. “Move an inch and I’ll jam these bullets into her head, you hear me? Stay back!”
I put up my hands, hoping to tell them I mean them no harm. “Please,” I say. “Let her go. You can have our money, the car…phones…just let her go. Please.”
But someone comes at me from behind and pushes me. I try to fight them but the guy has me already on the ground and at an advantage because of the head blow. Everything in front of my eyes looks kind of blurry. All kind of things are going through my head, all the ways this could end and none of them are good.
A boot forces my face into the ground. “Tell your friend if he wants to see his girlfriend alive he should do everything we tell him to,” the man says. “And if you so much as breathe a word of it to the cops, we’ll just send you her head in a box. So you might want to
think about your next move.”
The man kicks me in the chest and the pain is so bad, I’m certain he’s managed to break a few ribs. “If you’re smart,” he says. “You’ll do as you’re told.”
He kicks me hard, in the same spot and I’m struggling to breathe.
“No!” I say uselessly as they put Jamie in an SUV and drive off. I try to get up, but it’s impossible to do without screaming. I somehow manage to get the car door open and get inside the passenger side. I dial Holden’s number and have to wait a long time before he picks up.
“Daniel,” Holden says before I’ve spoken. “If you’re calling me to tell me I shouldn’t break up with Jamie—”
“Jamie’s gone. They took her,” I manage to say before he speaks any further. “They…they said…to give you a message…”
The pain gets bad and I find myself feeling sleepy.
“Daniel!” Holden yells. “What message? What did they say? Did you get a look at their faces? Daniel? Daniel!”
“Yeah…”
“Did you get a look at their faces?”
“N…no…they…they were uh…wearing masks…”
“What was the message, Daniel, do you remember it? What was the message?”
“I…I don’t…I don’t remember…”
I throw up then and there’s vomit all over my clothes and the phone and there’s a whole lot of blood in it.
“Daniel!” I can hear Holden’s voice yelling through the phone so I press a finger to put it on speaker. “Just tell me where you are, Daniel! And I’ll come to you!”
“Can’t…can’t go to cops…they said…no cops…”
“Okay,” Holden says. “Okay we won’t go to the cops, but just tell me where you are.”
“In front of the pharmacy.”
“Pharmacy? Which one, Daniel?”
“The uh…the one…fuck…the one close to J…Jamie’s…”
“Okay I think I know,” Holden says. “Stay there, Daniel. I’m coming to get you.”
And then the phone disconnects.
32.
JAMIE
I wake up tied to a chair and a rag that tastes metallic, stuffed in my mouth. I look around and it looks someone’s cold, tiny basement. There are pipes going all around and the chair is bolted to the floor so no matter how much I try to move it, it won’t even budge. I can hear people talking upstairs, maybe not right upstairs but somewhere nearby, I hear their voices but can’t make out the words. I’m still trying to shake myself out of the chair, or at least to get the rope to give way but nothing. I know I’m going to be trapped in here for however long these people want me to be trapped.