THE VILLA FACED the beach and sat on the cliff alone. The nearest neighbors were nowhere to be seen. I gazed at the sunset, casting a purple and amber glow over the beautiful shore. The sounds of the waves and the rush of the wind filled my ears.
I was thankful the pain pill Elias gave me earlier abated my discomfort, allowing me to function again.
Following Elias closely, we entered the unassuming home on a private road. We walked across the wide marble-tiled hall, stopping at two heavy mahogany doors with gold lever handles to the right of the foyer.
He turned to me, cupping my face, running his hand up my head to toy with my neat bun. “Before we go in, you need to know that this is not only about you. The man’s life—his blood—is not on your hands. Do you understand?”
I could’ve questioned why we were here. But I was so worn down, I could barely manage a, “Yes, Elias,” let alone drum up the fight to find the woman inside who was lost to me.
My unfettered submission forced a crooked smile from his lips. The front door opened and in walked Jaco. He carried a bottle of water and handed a tan bottle to Elias. Leaning down in Elias’s ear, Jaco quietly said, “Silvio says you have one hour before he has to return.”
After nodding to Jaco, he dispensed one pill and handed me a bottle of water. I took it down without delay. He passed the bottle back to Jaco and adjusted the leather gloves on his hands. Using both hands, he pushed the doors to open. It was a dark office lined in wood paneling and decorated with Persian rugs and stained oak furniture.
A man sat on the back of his heels in the middle of a drop cloth, layered with plastic sheeting. Jaco walked into the room and positioned himself beside Mateus; the stranger kneeled between them. Duck-tape was over the kneeling man’s mouth and his eyes were swollen and red, rendering his hues barely visible. His hair was slick with sweat and blood and clung to his scalp.
Lazily, the man on his knees lifted his head to look up at me. Jaco, who stood beside him, ripped the duck-tape from his mouth. The man lobbed forward, and foamy blood trickled past his lips. He longingly looked down at something bloodied and small on the ground. His mouth opened wide, and I became cognizant of the fact that he was missing his tongue.
Upon further scrutiny, I realized beyond the destruction of his face who the man was—Earl.
I stepped back and bumped into a desk, knocking a heavy paperweight and several decorative pieces to the floor. The cracking of glass drew my eye to the floor. In the picture, beyond the shattered glass, I saw a woman, Silvio, and a little boy when he was maybe ten years old. From the eyes, I knew that the little boy was Elias. If I needed a confirmation of whose house we were in, I had it.
As I watched Elias grab the metal baseball bat from beside the desk, I wondered why he’d so adamantly made sure I watched Earl’s torturous decline over a two-day period.
"There is an interesting fact about a man who will sit at your table and disrespect you in front of your guests,” Elias intoned, turning to face Earl. “A man who is able to disrespect you to your face, holds no loyalty to you or anyone else."
Earl tried to speak. His words were lisped and slurred from a barely moving jaw. It took me a few moments to decipher what he said: “I only wanted to keep my business.”
“Do you know what my issue is with you?” Elias questioned rhetorically. “It’s your cockiness, lack of loyalty, and unwillingness to change. Someone as egomaniacal as you are only needs a nudge to think they got away with it. It makes you sloppy. Sloppiness unleashes clues. It spills all the secrets that should’ve remained hidden.
“Thank you,” he addressed me without turning to me. “You helped me with that nudge. It’s funny what a man will reveal when he’s emasculated in front of his wife.” From over his shoulder, Elias peered at me. It was only a second, but the look in his eyes was enough to haunt me. It further exacerbated my fear when he said, “But it’s riveting to discover what a person will reveal when they become a little too comfortable,” without batting an eye.
"Y-you used me?" I gasped, my voice failing to project.
He laughed derisively. "That statement is very ironic, isn't it? Would you mind being a silent spectator for the time being? I promise this won’t take long.” He clutched the bat, weighing it in his hands. "I can smell your fear, it's like a pungent perfume. It attracts a part of me that wants to make it stronger. It’s what I’m addicted to—making people fear me. It gets me higher than I’ve ever felt. At one point…higher than I felt when I fucked someone.”
Shooting me a passing glance, he tightened his grip on the bat in his hand. “Now, that’s no longer the case. Doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy this.” With a hand over hand grip—his stance became one of a player ready to hit a home run—he swung one crushing swing. The metal bat crashed into Earl’s face, hitting it with a grotesque series of cracking noises. His blood splattered onto the floor, his neck crooked to the right. His head lobbed forward as if it has become unhinged, and he collapsed to the ground.
Unable to watch much more, I tried to leave. Jaco stood in my way, shaking his head. “It’s important you watch this, Hanley. I don’t want to tie you to the chair.”
Turning around to face Elias, I kept my eyes to the ground.
“I told you about how I wanted to play baseball as a kid, didn’t I, Hanley?” Elias paced around Earl, holding tightly to the bat as he plodded around Earl’s position. “Actually, I was involved in quite a few sports. None of them panned out. Not because I wasn’t good at it, but because I had other obligations. Family. You asked me if it was important to me once and I told you no. You were right to question me. What I said wasn’t true. Family is very important to me.
“The man on his knees has been a friend to my father since they were kids. He was almost like an Uncle. But when you break my trust, you’re no longer family; you’re dead to me.
Mateus and Jaco worked together to reposition an unconscious Earl to stand on his knees.
“Earl here”—clutching the bat, Elias rolled it around in grand circles and practiced his brutal swing—“is going to get a first-hand experience of what it’s like to be a ball, hit at the speed of one-hundred and eight miles per hour.” In a blur of motions that prevented me from registering the swing, Elias swung the bat.
All I saw was the aftermath: Earl slumped over in an ungainly heap, no longer breathing, with his neck broken.
“That was maybe a ninety. I might be a little rusty.” Shrugging off the numerical discrepancies that mattered little in the current scenario, Elias tossed the bat to Jaco and removed his gloves.
On the cusp of the men wrapping Earl in the plastic his limp body lay upon, Elias roughly directed me out of the room.
WITH EVERY BUMP and every turn on the roadway, my stomach churned. I folded my arms, pushing them against my stomach to keep from getting sick. The moment I stumbled out of the car, I crouched over the grass and dry heaved.
A bottle of water was shoved in my hand. Elias tentatively looked at his watch, urging me to collect myself and follow him. I stood up straight, trying to gauge where we were.
The inconspicuous complex in the small fishing village was our final stop. As I was led inside the quiet wall-to-wall carpeted halls, I began to grow sicker.
At the end of the hall, Elias opened the mahogany door, revealing an office that was advanced enough to belong in the financial district of a technological marvel. The plaques on the wall indicated it was a lawyer’s office. Perplexed, I became entranced with the insignificant—the massive plate glass desk. A fear I’d never felt toward Elias before prevented me from looking directly at him.
Clutching my elbow, Elias directed me to sit in the armchair opposite the desk next to a similar styled chair. He sat in the chair next to mine.
Wavering thoughts consumed me as I tried to determine the purpose of all of it. A man I recognized as one of the guests from the disastrous dinner party arrived to greet us. “É um prazer enorme conhecê-los. Superei alguns obstáculos
para conseguir isto para ambos. O que o Sr. Cari quer, o Sr. Cari tem. Espero que estejam satisfeitos com os termos,” he said in rapid-fire Portuguese and made it easy for me to get lost in my thoughts again.
"Mr. Duarte”—Elias reached over and squeezed my hand, garnering my attention and making me jolt at his touch—“can you please use English? My girlfriend doesn't know the language."
The gentle side of Elias alerted me. It seemed I hadn’t seen enough of him lately. After all he’d shown me in the past two days, I began to question if some semblance of the man I knew would ever return for good. I would’ve even accepted the slight temper and extreme possessiveness over the man who was revealed to me over the past couple of days.
Mr. Duarte rounded his desk and slid paperwork toward us. “I said I was very pleased to meet you. I’ve moved a few obstacles to get this together for the both of you. What Mr. Cari wants, Mr. Cari gets. I hope you are pleased with the terms.”
Another man arrived with a gold pen in hand and remained in the corner, silently observing. The first stack of paperwork was a lengthy prenuptial agreement. The second was an application for marriage, and the third was an interim license.
Elias leaned toward me and brushed his hand down the back of my head. “Wasn’t this what you wanted? I’m giving it to you.”
I thumbed through the pages of the agreement, noting the clause stating I’d get nothing if I divorced him before five years. At year five, I received one million plus another million per child and a trust fund that would accrue fifteen-percent interest for each year of their lives.
I was excluded from power of attorney, even on the condition of Elias falling into state in which he couldn’t make sound decisions on his own. His lawyer had that right. The only time I would have power of attorney was if Elias was incarcerated, for any reason and for any period of time.
I held the pen in my hand, stuck between my waning need for revenge and my need to cling to the only thing that meant remotely anything to me. The clause about his imprisonment kept whirling in my mind. Why that of all things? Why the one thing that was supposed to be the final phase of my plan?
I put the pen down, because the sickness I felt was on the verge of coming up and I couldn’t stop it.
The sound of Earl’s screams last night began to pound in my head.
The sick way in which I was forced to watch him die became all that I could see.
The realization that my father was right sent a bone-chilling shock up my spine.
It was everything I wanted; the completion of the next phase was at my fingertips ready for the taking. I knew enough to run to my sister and have her contacts put me on the list as an informant. I knew enough to crack into the business of the Caris. Because in one day, Elias had given me all the things my father and I had planned and hoped for. All I had to do was sign.
There was a larger problem: I no longer had the strength to continue to play a dangerous game with a lethal man who had fooled me into believing he was oblivious to my schemes.
“I know you’re probably thinking this is the least romantic way to get what you wanted”—Elias gave me a tempered smile—“but do you really think you deserve a wedding appropriate for a queen?”
Conscious he was fucking with me, I haggardly stood and walked out of the office. At the quad, I bent over and clutched my ailing stomach.
His hands were on my hips, forcing me to stand up straight, and spun me around. He slammed me against the passenger side of the car. His darkly shielded eyes searched mine carefully. “Betrayal is something I can never forgive. Do you want reassuring words I would never do what I did to Earl to you? I can't. I won't. What I will promise you is if you stay with me, I will take care of you financially and sexually.
“I can't promise I'll treat your emotions with care, because, well, I don't want to. For the rest of our lives, I will punish you for ever thinking you could play with me. You have no one to blame but yourself for your predicament. I’m being very generous with you, because granted, I feel things for you that are pushing me to be lenient. I think my promises should be enough. After all, isn't that why you're with me? You want enough money to take care of you and your father.”
“No,” I retorted quietly. “This is not what I wanted. It was never about money to me. Ever.”
He brushed his hand against my jawline, evoking violent shivers from my body. “Don’t fucking lie to me. This—our relationship—was about your misguided need for revenge, because you think my father killed your mother.
“I played your game and changed the rules,” he continued. “I wanted to see how far you would go to get what you wanted. I pushed you to do things for my entertainment. It’s interesting, giving you what you wanted all along is your hard limit.”
“It may have been what it was about once,” I explained, my voice quivering with emotion, “but it isn’t anymore.”
“If I believed that.” He chuckled mockingly. “What was the plan? To make me fall so deep in love with you I'd lose all sense of reason and purpose and allow you take everything I owned? You should be happy you're getting a part of what you wanted. Congratulations. You’re getting every damn thing you deserve, Leina.”
My mouth moved without words, unable to project my voice and emulate sound.
“I won’t let this go until I’ve used you…until there is nothing left of you to use. The same way you tried and failed to use me.”
My head dropped. “It’s not what you think it is anymore. I’m…going back home. I’m going back home and I’m leaving with my father. I’m done. Have your shady business and kill all the people you want. You won’t see me or him again. You and your father won. Again. Your father killed an innocent woman and got away with it. I hope you’re both happy.”
He blinked, visibly shocked by my response. “Is this just another part of your game?”
"The game is done, Elias. Completely fucking done." Turning, I began to walk away. I had no idea where I was going. I just knew I couldn’t get in his car.
When I heard the angry pounding of his shoes against the gravel, I tried to outrun him. He caught me and we both lost our balance, landing hard on the pavement.
“Let me go!” I struggled, fighting against him until he restrained my arms.
He made me fall for a man with a very sadistic nature. Nothing between us was real but just a charade to make me feel and to hurt me because he thought—or knew—I meant to hurt him. The entire plan was turned on its ass from the moment of its inception. Nothing went the way it should have.
I gave up my physical fight and stilled in his pinning grip. The truth behind my pain was revealed. I may have pretended like he was a means to an end, and went through the motions, but I truly wanted my happy ending.
He whispered, “Eu estava a morrer quando te conheci; sem alma e vazio. Eu não me tinha apercebido, até tu teres trazido tudo de volta para mim. E agora, tiraste-me isso,” as if I was supposed to understand, and he didn’t bother to translate. Sighing, he stood and pulled me up to stand and turned his back on me.
He reached for his phone in his pocket and broadened his back. “If you're serious about leaving, and it isn't another way to manipulate me, I’ll make the arrangements.”
“I am,” I said. “I want to go home.”
He put the phone to his ear and walked a few car lengths away from me, leaving me dejected and full of regret.
TWENTY-SEVEN
ON THE CAB RIDE from LAX to Ipomoea, I used my phone's browser to search for a translation of Elias's last words to me. Everything I turned up never made any sense. I distinctly remembered alma and morrer. It was something about souls and dying, but nothing that would've meant anything coherent. It was highly likely I misheard what he had said.
When the cab driver pulled up to the house, I gave him the money for the trip—the money Jaco gave me before he saw me off at the airport—and walked up the driveway with my rolling bag behind me. The stride of my legs, hinted at the pain that hadn�
��t yet left me, and it provoked the memories of things I didn’t think I’d ever heal from.
I used my key to open the front door, but found it wasn’t locked in the first place—which was odd for my father because he locked the front door at all times. I walked inside the house and was taken by the eerie silence right away.
“Dad?” I called, walking carefully throughout the house. Sitting on a plane for several hours did very little to help me get over the tearing sensation and taking several pain relievers did even less. Whatever Elias had given me before, it wasn’t something that could be purchased over the counter.
I went upstairs, calling for my father again. The door to Frankie’s room served as an ominous presence. The silence in the hall was deafening. Usually the rhythmic sounds of the machines filled the halls with their odd music. Today the machines were silent.
I made my way to the door as I had many times before and talked myself out of going inside. My hand turned the knob, faced with more silence when I opened the door. My heart was in my throat, making breathing much less swallowing, difficult.
I looked inside the room seeing only an empty hospital bed and enough boxes to make navigating the room difficult. I thought they might have left without me, but Frankie’s car was still in the driveway. My father would’ve never moved without it.
The question was…where was Frankie?
A small table next to the bed caught my eye. On top of it was a simple docking station with portable speakers for a cell phone or an electronic device. A device was already attached. Lured to press play by curiosity, I pressed the button. The music I was missing in the hall filled the room; the sound of Frankie’s machines.
“Hanley? I thought you were going to be in Portugal for the week.”
In a daze, I pressed pause, unwilling to look at my father. “I came back early.”
“Oh,” he said simply. “Frankie’s gone ahead with the nurse. I thought I'd move her the same way we did last time since it worked out so well. I found a place in North Carolina. I think you’re going to love it. It’s a small and quiet town with no one to bother us.” He paused for a moment. “I called the transportation company and the nurse to make sure Frankie’s all right. The nurse told me she’s doing well on the trip.”
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