Stolen & Fractured

by Cee Smith

  “I’m asking you. Where did you get those ideas about Dominic? How could you say those things to the news about us?”

  “They’re true, aren’t they?” He phrased it like a question, but it may as well have been rhetorical with all of the venom in his words.

  “I think you owe me the truth.”

  “That’s rich coming from you. Your whole relationship is built on lies. Dominic gets to go off looking like a fucking hero while the rest of us are still left picking up the pieces of what he created. And I don’t know who to be more upset with—him for doing it or you for going along with it.”

  “So you’re not going to tell me?” How was I supposed to respond to what he’d said? We would only go ‘round and ‘round with accusations and finger-pointing. I could do that until I was blue in the face, but it wasn’t the reason for my call. I needed to know the truth. I needed to know who else could come across this proof.

  “It was his security guy that gave him away. What’s his name?”

  “Scout?” Jessa and I both said as we stared each other from across the table.

  “I don’t understand. Did he tell you that’s what happened?”

  “No. Jessa, remember a few months back when I was doing interviews?”

  “Yeah?” We both weren’t sure where he was heading with this.

  “I wasn’t interviewing. I flew back to Queensland. I knew whatever answers I wanted, I would find there. I spent days circling the whole city asking anyone I could think of, if they’d seen Scout or Dominic around the same time we were vacationing there. I’d taken pictures of Scout and Dominic while you guys were all there last summer. I figured Dominic wouldn’t be stupid enough to be seen where we were vacationing, but he would have somebody do his dirty work. Somebody like Scout. It was a girl at a hotel not far from ours that recognized Scout’s picture. She looked a bit star-struck when I showed her the image, so there was no denying that she recognized him. It wasn’t rock-solid evidence, but it was enough to prove to me that Dominic was involved.”

  I felt deflated and renewed all in the same breath. It was just a picture. Most of it was my brother’s assumption of the truth. There was nothing that he found that would even hold up under any real scrutiny. I could kiss him with joy if I weren’t still so angry at the circus he’d made of my life.

  “Oh, Adam,” I said disappointedly. “Dominic did find me a long time ago, I’ll admit it.” Jessa’s head shot up. I could see the fear glimmer like shards of glass in her hazel eyes. “He knew we were a match for his liver transplant, but he didn’t have me kidnapped.” No, he actually kidnapped me himself.

  “My safety has always been his top priority. I don’t expect you to understand. I’m coming home,” I said forlornly. “I don’t know when. Soon. And I think for everyone’s sake, you should let this go.”

  “Can you take me off speakerphone?”

  I grabbed the phone off the table, clicking the speakerphone off as I moved away from my chair. I paced in front of the wall of windows, noticing that Jessa’s living room looked out over Scout’s bungalow.

  “We failed you, Hailey. Jessa and I. You were all alone and someone took you. It was our fault it happened.” Tears rushed my eyes. My poor brother. He was angry at himself just as much as he was Dominic. He didn’t like the fact that anyone was seen as a hero while he battled remorse over the fact that I was taken while I was with him and my sister. How could I stay angry with Adam for saying the things he’d said when he was torturing himself enough for the both of us? I fiddled with the edge of the curtain, fraying a piece of string that looked so vulnerable in its solitude. What would happen if I pulled this thread? Would everything else come undone? Everything seemed so fragile in that moment. All of my relationships were stacked like a deck of cards and with one wrong move they would all crumble.

  It would take a long time to forgive Adam for going to the media with his assumptions, but there was one thing I could do.

  “None of it was your fault, Adam. If you need me to forgive you for that day, I will without question, but you didn’t do anything wrong. You’re my brother. I love you, but—”

  “In a brotherly way,” he interjected. “I know.”

  As silence stretched between us, I filled it with thoughts of what to say next. I was finally able to say to Adam all of the things I was never able to, prior to Dominic. It felt freeing and a bit nostalgic at the same time. In so many ways it felt like a goodbye, a closing of a chapter. Maybe it was. It was the end of Adam and Hailey.

  “Are you happy now?”

  I took a moment to think about it. So much was hanging in the balance, so many questions with Dominic left unanswered, but even as I thought of all that lingered between us, I knew the answer to that question without a doubt.

  “Yes. I am, Adam.”

  “I’m gonna go back to sleep now.”

  “OK.”

  We both hung up, and I watched my reflection in the glass as silent tears rolled down my face.

  Blood dripped on the concrete and the sound reverberated through my body, igniting my veins for more. I wanted the drops to create a melody as they pooled beneath his chair. Do you know how hard it was to refrain from killing the man that sat slumped over, without a dash of remorse lingering anywhere? I searched for it—his remorse. With every punch I landed, with every tooth I pulled, with every scrape of my knife against his flesh, I looked. All that I found was skin, and bone, and blood. The canvas of his skin looked mottled with varying shades of black, purple, and blue. Every new bruise that popped up made his skin look thinner, as if the blood lay in wait for my knife to scrape across the skin to free it from its confines.

  The night that George told us where we could intercept Zephyr, Scout and I went looking for a prime location where we could keep him—a somewhat remote, abandoned area. We found an old industrial warehouse with nothing around for miles. The metal scaffolding was rusted over, and some of the windows near the ceiling were busted out, but it would be perfect—a concrete castle hidden by a forest determined to take back what was stolen.

  We had everything we needed to keep him for days—all of our supplies: food, water, blow-up mattresses. All of the tools necessary to spend days torturing Zephyr. It was like camping, but so much better. I woke up Tuesday morning and instead of thinking about showering or breakfast or any other human need or social responsibility, I jumped right into testing the sharpness of my blade against Zephyr’s skin. No better way to start a morning than with a little blood and muffled screams.

  The warehouse was mostly one large slab of concrete littered with shards of broken glass, buckled wood once used as floorboards, pieces of trash intermingled with leaves and twigs—probably used in a bird’s nest at one time or another, but now lay abandoned. Chains still hung from the metal rafters, which we used to fasten around Zephyr’s neck. Chains also wound around his feet and arms, so when we pulled one end of the chain, Zephyr lifted from the floor and flopped in the air like a baited fish. I was careful about pulling on the chain too much, though. I didn’t want to strangle him to death before I had any real fun.

  I looked at the sheen of blood coating my black leather gloves, seeping into the worn cracks. I snagged the rag from his mouth to get answers.

  “Do you know who I am, Zephyr?” I wrapped my gloved hand around his throat, lifting his slumped head until his eyes met mine. His brown eyes were murky, like windowpanes fogged over. He coughed up a heap of blood, and it frothed over his lips and dripped down his chin.

  “Answer me, you piece of shit,” I spat. I hit him hard across the jaw and his head rocked back before slinking forward again.

  “No,” he rasped. “I don’t kn—”

  His stomach deflated around the weight of my fist as I punched him again.

  “I’m not the only son you left fatherless, but I’ll be the last.”

  I stuffed the rag back in his mouth and picked my knife back up from the table, noticing the gleam of the blade against ever
ything else surrounding it. It felt like the world around that one instrument was black and white while that was Technicolor. The knife called to me, urging me to seek my pound of flesh. So when the blade was in my hand again, my mind went blank as I carved Zephyr from fingertip to shoulder, carving paisley print into his flesh.

  “Nnnn! Nnnnn!” I couldn’t make out the words from the screams beneath the rag stuffed in Zephyr’s mouth, but I assumed he was begging, pleading, offering all that he owned just so I wouldn’t carve him, just to sew him back together again, so I could carve him up some more. The idea definitely crossed my mind.

  “I’m going to ask again.” I took the rag from his mouth and dusted off his fresh cuts before throwing the rag back on the table.

  “Tell him what he wants to know, Zephyr,” Scout’s voice rumbled behind me. “You know what’s going to happen here.”

  “Yes. I’ve been pretty nice, haven’t I, Scout? I should try scalping him. I’ve heard it can be pretty painful.”

  “Pl-Please. I don’t know whose son you are.”

  “Take a nice long look at me.”

  I watched as his eyes worked me over as if trying to pick up on some hidden clue. I could smell his desperation in the air or maybe that was the scent of a grown man pissing himself.

  “Tick tock, Zephyr. You’d better come up with something soon. I’m thinking of picking up the pliers again.”

  His eyes fluttered and the blood lining his eyelashes splashed against the bottom of his eyes, smearing the red like windshield wipers swiping mist across glass.

  He didn’t say anything at first, but I knew the moment that he realized who I was. What I didn’t expect to see was a mixture of sorrow, anger, and acceptance cross his face.

  “A name…” I said. My patience was growing thin, and I didn’t know how much longer I could stand to be in the same room as him without killing him, but I wanted Zephyr to know who I was. I wanted to see it in his face while I sunk the blade into his heart.

  “Leona.” The name croaked out through blood-spattered lips. A name I hadn’t heard uttered from someone else’s mouth in too many years to count. A name that he didn’t deserve to know, let alone utter in my presence.

  “Then you know who I am.”

  “You’re Stavros’s son.” It was like watching the light in him die. Acknowledging my father seemed to penetrate him down to his soul, deeper than any knife I could brandish.

  It didn’t stop me from snatching up my blade to sink it into his right shoulder.

  “Ahhhhhh!” His cries rained down from the rafters, playing the soundtrack of his slow death. His eyes lost focus, drooped down before he lost consciousness.

  I staggered over to the table where I threw the knife back down and settled my weight against the structure, hoping it could hold me up. Sweat dripped from my hair onto my forehead and down my neck. I wiped my brow, smearing the moisture into my skin, and heard the bass of Scout’s steps drawing nearer.

  “You should get some rest. You’ve been at him for hours.”

  “This is what I came here for, Scout. I can sleep when I get back.”

  “When’s the last time you spoke with Hailey?”

  I growled out my response. Hailey’s name was the last thing I wanted to hear when I was elbow deep covered in a man’s blood. I knew what Scout was trying to do. He had been by my side since we left Italy. He knew the answer to that question—three days. That was how long ago I’d spoken with my wife. It’s the longest I’d gone without seeing her or talking to her since I’d taken her.

  I couldn’t focus on what I needed to do and worry about Hailey. My fear of her questioning kept me at a distance. I didn’t want to have to lie to her any more than I’d already done, but I couldn’t let her get in the way of this.

  Just hearing her name pulled at me like a distant memory jarring me back into the past—seeing her for the first time, the first night she slept in my home, hearing our baby’s heartbeat after we found out Hailey was pregnant. The emotions were too much to contain. Not there, in that concrete slab awash in rust and blood, where the smell of iron was so pungent I could taste the metal on my tongue. With what I was doing, who I needed to become, I couldn’t be Hailey’s Dominic. I had to be the Dominic I was before her, before Ellie. I had to be the Dominic that hired Scout, that had one mission—to find out what happened to his parents. I couldn’t afford to be or think of anyone at the moment.

  “Leave Hailey out of this,” I said, making sure that Zephyr was still knocked out. The last thing I wanted was for him to taint any other part of my life. He had already taken too much from me.

  When exhaustion clung to my limbs and lifting my arms took too much effort, I followed Scout’s advice. I cleaned up, ate, and slept, and when I woke up, Zephyr was still passed out in his chair with that soiled rag in his mouth. What was only hours felt like days in that abandoned building. Torturing someone can be pretty draining, not only physically but emotionally. I felt like with every twist of my blade or pull of the pliers, I was cutting tally marks into my conscience—to be counted at a later date. I blocked out all thoughts that this was a person, someone’s son, possibly someone’s father or brother. I stripped Zephyr down until he was nothing more than a substance that co-existed with me. A substance that could endure any and everything I put it through.

  I searched for peace in every strip of flesh I lashed, every drop of blood that wept, every cry and bribe and tear. All of it washed over me, and as Scout stood behind me, I felt like I was being ushered through a tunnel of darkness. I could only hope what would be waiting for me on the other side.

  “Why did you kill them…my parents? Was it because of business? Because my father was helping others flee from your tyranny?”

  I ripped the towel from his mouth, snagging past the gaps from the few teeth I’d already pulled. The momentum of my pull and the way the towel got caught between his teeth made his head jerk and he cried out. His pleas were soft murmurs, quiet incantations he spoke with the hope that his pain would cease. I was at my breaking point, my question his final rites. All I needed was the answer. The answer to the question that had plagued me since the moment I found out the truth of my parents death—why?

  “Leona,” he whispered with a smile. I sunk my blade into the space above his knee.

  “You don’t get to say her name ever again! Do you hear me?” I yelled as I twisted the blade. I felt the tip brush the back of his kneecap and released my hand from the leather grip, though I kept the knife in as a warning.

  “Please. Please just kill me.”

  “Answer the question…”

  “I loved her, even before she ran off to be with your father in America. I was nothing to her. No one. It was always your father.” He gritted out, as if summoning up my father’s ghost left him seething.

  “It wasn’t enough that he took her. He had to save everyone else, too. Such a martyr, your father. I must say, I’m impressed. Your father wouldn’t do anything like this.” His head lifted, surveying the room before coming to land on me. I knew what I had to do in that moment. It wasn’t a thought that passed my mind. It was instinct. He looked at me with those weathered eyes and battered face and I saw his future dance within the depths. It was absolution, acceptance, repentance. It was everything I needed to know. So when I yanked the knife from his knee and thrust it into his chest, stealing the scream from his throat and the air in his lungs, I knew I was doing the right thing.

  There wasn’t a doubt that I could kill a man, especially one like Zephyr, but even after snatching him from the harbor, I grappled with how I would actually do the deed. How would I kill a man? It’s something that’s crossed everyone’s mind at one time or another, but in that moment it just came to me.

  When Zephyr’s body slumped down in the chair, the chain around his neck tightened, causing the room to erupt in an echo of dancing metal. I moved to unwrap the chain from his limbs and stopped. I needed to know for sure that he was dead. It wasn’t eno
ugh to know that I sunk the blade in his chest. I needed to know that without a doubt this was over.

  I’d never touched a dead body, but when I wrestled the glove from my hand and put my fingers at the side of his throat, the absence of his pulse marked him as one more thing that would rot in this godforsaken place.

  “I’ll call a cleaning crew to handle this,” Scout said from somewhere behind me.

  My hands moved to the chain and began unraveling the links from around his limbs: his neck, his arms, his legs. He nearly melted into the floor as his body no longer held the strength to stay propped up in the chair. I let him drop to the floor, let his body take whatever position it wanted in death. The only thing I did was take the blade still encased in his chest. That was mine.

  “Call Anatoli about going to the docks. I’m done with this place.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did he say what time he’ll be back?” Jessa asked as she grabbed the clothes from my hands. She threw the swaths of fabric on the bed before picking them up and folding them nicely to fit in my suitcase.

  “I’m not sure. I think 3:00?”

  “Did he say anything about—”

  “What happened in his so-called business meeting? No. As far as he knows, I still think he went to New York.”

  “What do you think he’s going to say when he shows up and sees you’re already packed?”

  “This is just a precaution. I want to be ready to go if it doesn’t go over well.”

  “Here are the rest of your things,” Clema said as she passed through the door with a laundry basket full of the remainder of my clothes. I could read in her eyes the position this was putting her in. She looked like she was struggling, afraid of tipping the line of whose side she was on. When she said nothing more, I knew that she didn’t like what I was planning but that she understood. It was never Clema’s place to interfere between Dominic and me.

  Clema set the basket on the bed next to the other pile of clothes Jessa was sorting through. Our conversation resumed as soon as Clema left the bedroom.