by C. L. Wells
“Mr. Bartonovich would like you to leave him alone now,” Mia said to the woman, smiling as she did.
The woman, who had obviously had too much to drink, looked angrily at Mia. “Get out of the way, you slut!” she spat, and attempted to walk around Mia, in the direction Nick had walked.
As the woman attempted to walk past, Mia stepped into her, discreetly grabbed her wrist, and twisted it into a wrist lock so that the woman could not advance without causing herself considerable pain. The woman took in a gasp of air and was likely about to call out for help, but Mia had already begun to whisper in her ear.
“Find another man, honey, or I will break your pretty little hand.”
No sooner had Mia finished her sentence than she had released the woman and stepped backwards, standing between her and the path that Nick had taken. The woman was obviously angry and was rubbing her wrist, but not drunk enough to miss the point. She turned away in a huff and walked in the opposite direction.
Mia caught up with Nick, who had just said hello to an old friend of his and was engaged in conversation. He caught Mia’s eye as she took up her familiar position not too far from him, and he nodded his approval.
After the party was over, Mia escorted Nick home in the rented limo. Once she saw Nick had closed the door to his house, she had the driver drop her off at her own apartment. She thought back over the evening with some satisfaction, pleased that Nick had not taken anyone home with him. In fact, she’d noticed he hadn’t even taken a phone number from any of the many available women he had talked with during the evening.
The next day, Mia arrived at work as usual and went to Nick’s office, ready to work on the day’s business. The morning progressed as it normally did, with Nick working on the laptop, talking on the phone, and frequently giving Mia items to put on her task list to be taken care of later in the day. It was a beautiful day, and when they stopped for lunch, Nick suggested that they take a walk down to the sandwich shop just down the street and eat in the park.
As they passed the park on the way to the sandwich shop, Nick stopped in front of the park’s water fountain and began staring into the fountain, as if he was lost in thought. Mia stood beside him as she often did, waiting.
“Mia, have you enjoyed the changes in our relationship these past several months?” he said without looking away from the fountain.
Mia felt her face getting warm. “Yes, I have,” she replied.
“Me, too,” Nick replied. He suddenly turned towards Mia and took her hand. “Mia, since I had cancer, I’ve changed. What I want has changed. I see things differently than I ever have before. I see you differently than I ever have before.”
Mia’s face was practically on fire. She could feel a burning sensation in her chest. She didn’t move.
“Mia, I haven’t loved anyone for a very long time; you know that. But I love someone now. And I want to be with that someone. Mia, I love you, and I want to be with you. Not like all those other girls, not a one night stand, not a six month fling. I want to be with you for the rest of my life.”
Mia felt tears begin to well up in her eyes. She had never loved a man since her father had betrayed her all those years before. She had never trusted any man besides Nick. Now, as he spoke to her, she knew in her soul that she loved him, too.
Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out black box, holding it out to her. “Mia, will you marry me?”
Mia reached out her hands and cradled Nick’s face, looking up into his eyes in a way she had never looked into them before. Then she answered with all of her heart, “Yes. Yes, I will.”
They embraced in front of the fountain.
Nick and Mia were married a week later in a private ceremony with a few of their closest friends in attendance. A few days after that, they took a private jet to Charleston, South Carolina, where they stayed at the Wentworth Mansion for a week. Nick had booked the Grand Mansion Suite for their stay, a beautiful one-thousand square foot luxury suite complete with chandeliers and two floor-to-ceiling marble fireplaces. It was quintessential southern charm at its finest.
They toured Charleston and Fort Sumter, rode bicycles through the historic district, and ate at the finest restaurants. Mia had never been so happy in all her life. She got up each morning in the bed next to Nick and pinched herself to be sure she wasn’t dreaming.
Nick was a changed man. It was as if he had been reborn. He was no longer solely focused on making money and achieving his business goals. He was actually enjoying life and was finding that Mia was so much more interesting and beautiful than he had ever imagined. He couldn’t believe he had been so blind to the fact all these years.
On the jet back to New York, they viewed a slide-show of all the pictures they had taken and reminisced about the wonderful time they’d had in Charleston. Once they were back in town, Mia and Nick moved her things into the brownstone. That night, they sat on the couch and watched one of Mia’s favorite movies – Casa Blanca. Mia was curled up next to Nick, who had his arm around her as she rested her head on his shoulder. For them, time had stopped. They had each other and they were in love. Nothing could have been better.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Silas stared at the dashboard of his police sedan in shock. All he had wanted since he was a kid was to be a cop. He had joined the Army at 18 and gone straight in to the NYPD Police Academy when he was honorably discharged at the age of 21. He eventually worked his way up to detective. He had been a good cop. Emphasis on the word had.
Somewhere along the way, Silas had discovered online gambling and gotten hooked. What started as an innocent pastime slowly grew to dominate more and more of his income. He started picking up extra shifts and side jobs as a security guard as his habit grew and his losses started getting larger. One night, he thought he was about to win big, enough to pay off the house. He was on a roll, working up a one thousand dollar stake into over 100K. One more good hand and he promised himself he was going to cash in and log off for the night. Then he started losing. Before it was over, he was 10K in debt to the house, and the house belonged to Nick Bartonovich.
That was when things had started going downhill fast. He had compromised his integrity to get rid of that debt, which eventually led him to where he was sitting right now. He had hoped that somewhere along the way he would find the path to redemption, to turn back the hands of time and somehow set things right, but it hadn’t turned out that way.
After being tortured by Nick and Mia, they’d shot him up with some sort of drug and he had passed out. When he woke up, he was in a hospital in Nevada. After seeing he was conscious, a nurse had given him a sealed manila envelope with his name on it. She said that someone had delivered it the day after he had been admitted and asked her to give it to him when he regained consciousness.
As he looked through the contents of the envelope, his heart sank. In it was enough information to convict him as an accomplice to J.T. Thornbacker in the prison break. As part of the frame-up, his fingerprints were all over ‘evidence’ that was to be found by the FBI at a location near the Nevada prison where the break out occurred. Never mind that it was all fabricated evidence planted by Nick and company. His career would be ruined in the process of even trying to prove his innocence.
Of the two locations where evidence had been planted, the first had nothing tying Silas to the prison break. The second location, however, did. A note in the envelope said that the FBI had already received information about the first location, proving J.T. Thornbacker and company had planned the escape. It further stated that the information about the existence of the second location would only be turned in to the FBI if Silas decided to pursue Nick Bartonovich, J.T. Thornbacker, or anything related to the Cayman Island heist. The message was clear: leave us alone or we’ll destroy what is left of your life.
After reviewing the information from a cop’s perspective, he knew his chances of staying out of prison, should the FBI ever receive that second tip, were slim to none. There was
enough money in the envelope for him to buy a bus ticket back home to New York. He went home with his tail between his legs, vowing to never gamble again.
His resolve to stop gambling lasted about three months. He kept the losses at a minimum for a while, but one night, he thought he had a chance to score big again, only to end up a thousand dollars underwater. He was tapped out. Maggie had told him that if he lost any more money gambling, that she would leave him, so he couldn’t tell her. He needed cash fast. Then, later that week, Silas was cataloging some physical evidence from a small-time drug bust down at the station and he had an epiphany.
Silas and his partner Dave usually took turns taking the evidence down to the evidence locker. Today, his partner had a dentist appointment and had decided to leave before they were done cataloging the evidence. He’d told Silas to sign his name on all the necessary documents, because his tooth was killing him and he had to go to the dentist ASAP. After his partner left, Silas counted fifteen hundred dollars that they had retrieved from the perp when they’d busted him. Silas’ partner had no clue how much money was there. Silas could log $500, pocket the rest, and no one would ever know. The perp would figure it out, but since it was drug money and he was a drug dealer, who was going to believe him over a cop?
Silas checked to make sure no one was paying close attention to him as he cataloged the evidence. He pretended to accidentally knock the money onto the floor. When he bent down to pick it up, he put a thousand dollars in his sock as discretely as possible before standing back up.
That was the first of many thefts that Silas began making to cover his gambling habit. He rationalized it in so many ways. It was drug money, so it was no big deal. He deserved it, after all – cops were underpaid and performing a public service. Why should the bad guys make all the money? He was putting these guys behind bars – shouldn’t that be rewarded?
One day, Silas and his partner were going to stop at one of their favorite lunch hangouts. Silas parked the car, opened the door, and was about to get out when Dave put a hand on this arm.
“Hey Silas, hold on a minute. I need to talk to you about something.”
“Yeah, o.k., what is it?” Silas said as he turned to his partner.
“Shut the door,” Dave said, nodding at the open car door.
“Sure, Dave,” Silas said, wondering what was up as he shut the door.
“Silas, how long have we been partners?”
“About ten years now, I think,” Silas replied, wondering where Dave was headed with this.
“Yeah, that’s right, about ten years,” Dave echoed. “I don’t know how to ask this, Silas, so I’ll just come out with it. Are you stealing money from the evidence we turn in?”
Silas felt the blood drain from his face and hoped that it didn’t show.
“No, Dave, why would you think that? I would never do that,” Silas said, trying to sound indignant.
“Silas,” Dave continued, “there was a little over two grand on the perp we arrested on 5th Street about two months ago. I counted it when you went to take the statement from the shop owner. I signed off on the evidence because it was your day to write the log and I didn’t check on it too good, so I didn’t see that you had only put down about a grand. Later that day, I found a cigarette lighter from the perp on the floor – you know the one with the skull and cross-bones case on it? I went down to check the log to see if we had recorded it and to add it into evidence, and that’s when I saw that the money was short.”
Silas tried to smile and laugh it off.
“So I maybe miscounted the money?”
“I counted it, Silas. The money’s missing.”
“Dave, I didn’t take the money. There has to be some other explanation,” Silas protested.
“Silas, I’ve been counting the money from the busts we’ve made ever since, when you weren’t looking. Half of the busts we made whenever you were in charge of filling out the evidence logs were short.”
Silas slumped back in his chair. He looked down to the floor. He was busted and he knew it.
“What are you going to do, Dave?” he said without looking up.
“I don’t want you to get busted, Silas, you’ve been a good partner and a good cop, but I can’t trust you anymore. I’ll keep my mouth shut if you resign.”
Silas looked up at him in shock.
“Resign? Dave, I’m just a few years from retirement. That would ruin me.”
Dave’s face remained stern and un-moving.
“You should’ve thought of that before you went on the take. What you did was wrong, Silas. Once we go there, where’s the line get moved to?”
Silas didn’t answer; he just continued looking at Dave.
“You’ve got to the end of the day to turn in your resignation or I take what I know to IAD. I’ll take a cab back to the precinct.”
Dave got out of the car and shut the door.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It was 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning when Nick’s cell phone rang next to his bed. He woke up immediately and reached over for the phone. Calls that came in this early on a weekend were usually important. Since he and Mia had married, he had begun instructing all of his business associates not to call until at least 8:00 a.m. on the weekend.
He looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Katrina Byers as he made his way into the bathroom and quietly closed the door so that Mia wouldn’t be disturbed. In fact, he knew she was already awake. It was an occupational necessity for her that she was a light sleeper. But Nick liked to provide her with these small courtesies. It felt good to be looking out for someone besides himself these days. It was relatively new ground for Nick Bartonovich.
“Hello,” Nick answered after he hit the ‘answer call’ button.
“Nick, I’m sorry to be calling you so early on the weekend, I know how you hate that,” she replied. Katrina Byers was one of Nick’s top CPAs, one who worked exclusively for him and was immensely valuable to his organization. If she was calling, it was important.
“What is it? What has happened?” he replied.
Nick listened as Katrina detailed the situation for the next fifteen minutes, asking few questions, just letting Katrina explain in her usual, very detailed way. When they were done talking, Nick said that he would call her back within the hour as he disconnected the call. This was not good news, it was not good news at all. He looked in the mirror, his mind racing, trying to decide what the best response to the situation would be.
He walked back into the bedroom and sat down on Mia’s side of the bed, then began gently stroking her hair. She opened her eyes and smiled – something she had been doing an increasing amount of during the past year since they had gotten married.
“Mia, darling, we need to talk. Katrina Byers has just called with some bad news and we need to decide how to handle it. I’ll make some coffee for us downstairs.”
He leaned down and kissed her gently on the forehead before leaving to make the coffee.
Downstairs, Nick made the coffee mechanically as he thought about what he had just been told. When the buzzer on the coffee maker alerted him that the brewing cycle was completed, he poured two cups of coffee and took them to the den where Mia was already waiting. He thought about how many times in the past year he had enjoyed their morning coffee. How much he loved making Mia’s coffee just the way she liked it – strong, black, freshly ground gourmet coffee that they purchased at the organic co-op. But today was different. Today they had bad news to discuss.
He went into the den area and found Mia sitting on the couch with her feet curled up underneath her, waiting. She took the coffee from him and cradled it in her hands, closing her eyes and inhaling the coffee’s aroma. She waited for Nick to sit down in his usual chair before she spoke.
“So what is the matter?” she said at last.
Nick put his own coffee mug down on the side table, not really in the mood to drink it.
“Katrina has gotten considerably worse. The doctor
s don’t think she will make it to the end of the week.”
“Oh, my God,” Mia exclaimed.
About six months prior, Katrina had been diagnosed with renal disease, a.k.a. kidney failure. She had told Nick about the dialysis treatments she would be taking and how the disease would affect her work hours. She had been put on the kidney transplant list and told she had a good chance of getting a transplant in time, based upon the current stage of the disease.
Once Katrina began going to dialysis, she needed someone to watch her daughter Sasha, who was nine, while Katrina was at the clinic for the lengthy dialysis process. She began making a short list of people that she trusted who could help with this task. She had noticed the radical change in Nick since he had married Mia. He actually smiled in a genuine way now, not in the sly way he had before, as if he was about to close a business deal. She’d noticed that Mia had changed, too. She’d seen them together several times at Nick’s office when she would go by to cover the quarterly financial reports with Nick, and she had been impressed with the atmosphere change in the house. It was no longer a hard business atmosphere… there was love there now. She decided to ask Nick and Mia if they would be on the rotation to help watch Sasha a couple of times a month. After Nick and Mia talked it over, they’d agreed to do it on a trial basis.
Sasha and Mia hit it off almost immediately. Sasha was into the latest music, and fashions, like most kids – things Mia was never allowed to participate in when she was Sasha’s age. Mia began asking questions and showing a genuine interest in what Sasha was doing. Soon, Mia was downloading the latest music and taking Sasha shopping. Sasha even helped Mia open up a Facebook page and they friended each other. It was as if Mia was re-living her own childhood in a way she had never been allowed to experience before.