Robert pours the liquid numbness into my glass again, and I drink.
I drink and let the darkness take me.
I drink until I’m no longer here, and in these moments I can temporarily forget.
9
His Pain
∞
I’ve seen it in him.
Through his silence, beyond his strength.
He portrays to the world
what he would have it see,
but he holds the truth inside.
The pain that clenches his heart.
Eating away, piece by piece.
Destroying that which is beautiful.
Leaving nothing.
∞
My racing heart finally slows, but the uncontrollable tears still spill down my face. I’ve rubbed my wrist raw on the metal handcuff holding me to the bed. No matter how hard I pulled on it, there was no reaching him, no intervening. I was only feet away from him yet completely helpless.
He looks so fragile sprawled out and unconscious on the floor.
The man who has done so much to support me these last few weeks, the man who tried to save me from this fate, the man who is destined to deliver my baby, is lifeless on the cold cement in the corner of the room.
I’ve been watching the rise and fall of his chest, confirming that he still draws breath. Making sure he’s still breathing is a good distraction from the large welt on his cheek and the blood dripping down from his forehead. He was clutching his side when the final blow knocked him out cold. His hand still rests there.
I gasp as Jack’s head lulls to the side to face me, but his eyes remain closed, one of them swelling considerably. He starts mumbling something behind the duct tape over his mouth, and in him showing these signs of life again, I breathe a small sigh of relief.
“Jack?” No movement. My voice turns forceful, more out of fear than anything else. “Jack? Please tell me you’re okay.”
There’s a flicker of an eye opening, more signs of life. He’s barely coming out of it now, reentering the conscious world with me. His eyes peek open more until he sees me, concern flashing over his face as he immediately tries to sit up.
“Jack, don’t–”
He winces as his torso collapses back down to the floor. In the brief moment he elevated his upper body, I caught a glimpse of blood against the concrete.
“Your head is bleeding.”
Jack slowly pulls the tape off his mouth. “Feels like everything is bleeding,” he replies with a sigh. He smiles briefly before the expression turns into a grimace.
I pull against the handcuff again even though I know it’s hopeless. Jack sees me and holds up an unsteady hand to stop me.
“I’m fine. It’ll all be fine. You don’t have to worry.”
With one final stubborn yank against the restraint, I give up. “You don’t look fine. God, that was awful, Jack. What the hell happened? Why did Mark just beat the shit out of you?”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Please, just tell me.”
He seems unnecessarily hesitant about answering my question. “Mark connected a call before he threw me in here and did what he did.”
I didn’t see the phone to his ear when he came in. He was too busy tossing his former friend to the floor and beating him unconscious.
Jack inhales a sharp breath as he tries to move again, unsteadily pushing himself up to sitting. “They probably heard everything, exactly what Mark wanted them to hear from you.”
“Oh my God.” He called my parents. All my screaming, crying, and pleading with Mark to stop abusing this old man in front of me had to have been interpreted wrong by them. They’ll think I was the victim of Mark’s rage.
Then I remember what happened as Mark was leaving the room, when the shock was overtaking my senses and I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on. Through my foggy memory, I remember that he pulled a phone out of his pocket. He said something about stopping a crusade.
My face lights up briefly. “Dad’s fighting back against Mark, isn’t he? He’s winning, and Mark’s pissed about it.”
“They were doing quite well,” Jack says, and I’m immediately confused.
“They? Who’s they?”
Jack attempts a smile. “That’s the benefit of being old. People think we sleep all the time, but we’re really just listening.” He wipes the blood from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Your father and Leo. It sounds like they’re working together. That’s what Mark was talking about on the phone before he dragged me in here.”
I stare at him in bewilderment. “Dad and Leo?”
The thought of the two most important men in my life coming together to hurt Mark to try to help me is absolutely overwhelming, though it’s hard to imagine them in the same room without my dad’s hands around Leo’s throat.
Jack nods sluggishly. “I suspect your father realized the wealth of information Leo has about Mark’s operation.”
My mind instantly turns to thoughts of Leo in prison, handcuffed to some metal desk in a dark room with a one-way mirror answering all of Dad’s questions, but I try to remain positive. “So maybe he’s working out a deal? Giving them information about Mark to get a reduced sentence or something?”
“I don’t think Leo’s in prison,” Jack says as he pushes himself up, rising shakily to his feet and moving to sit next to me on the bed. “I think they’re actually working together. They’re on the streets interrupting shipments and turning Mark’s guys in to the police.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “I can’t even fathom that. My dad would kill Leo if he got within two feet of him in the outside world. How can they possibly be working together?”
“For you,” Jack says simply. “They share a common goal. You know they’ll both do anything to find you.”
I’ve tried not to think about what Leo must be feeling now and since the day I was taken from him over a month ago. He already has so much pain inside, weighed down so heavily by the guilt he feels about his life improving the moment my dad put Mark in prison six years ago, the event that ultimately led to the destruction of Mark’s family and Mark’s decision to seek revenge on my dad by taking me. It took weeks after I chose to stay with Mark’s crew for Leo to finally realize that I was content with my decision, that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world besides in his arms, even if we were essentially held captive in Mark’s headquarters.
With each passing day I’m only compounding Leo’s pain. He knows there’s a chance I’m pregnant with his child. He heard my screams over the call that I didn’t know was connected when Mark threw Jack into my room and started beating him senseless. It’s hard for me to contemplate this new devastation he’s experiencing on top of everything else.
I turn to Jack. Somehow he’s managing to smile at me, knowing that the past few moments I’ve mentally been in another place. I notice a drip of blood creeping down the side of his face. When I reach out to wipe it away, he stops me.
“It’s okay. I’ll take care of it. I’ve been through worse than this,” he says as he puts pressure on the bleeding wound near his hairline.
In typical Jack fashion, he’s trying to be reassuring and wants nothing more than to take my worries away. He’s usually quite successful, a master at distraction.
Jack sits back against the wall on the bed, straining to cross his legs in front of him but looking utterly relaxed when he finally hooks his ankles together. He’s settling in.
A slight grin reaches my lips. “You’re going to tell me more stories, aren’t you?”
That’s how we’ve spent most of our increased time together lately, just talking while Jack reminisces about his adventures in the multiple lifetimes’ worth of experiences he’s had over my measly nineteen years.
“I know you love my stories,” he says, closing his eyes for the slightest moment of rest before the tale he’s about to tell begins.
I sit back against the wall with him, similarly closing my ey
es.
I do love them. At this moment, Jack and his stories are all this baby and I have.
10
His Vitality
∞
There was a time before.
I was happy and unchained but not truly free.
Growing but not thriving.
Existing but not living.
One man changed it all for me.
He gave me life.
Something to look forward to each day.
Someone to spend it with.
Something worth living for.
I am awakened.
∞
Days and weeks go by, and life continues much as it has been. Jack visits me for at least a few hours each day before it’s time for his “nap” when he listens to Mark talk on the phone or until he’s ready for a cigar. Mark hates the smoke, but Jack insists that cigars are a necessity for him, and old men get very cranky when they’re persistent about something they want. I’m sure Mark had no choice but to give Jack this one luxury while he’s held here with me.
Mark’s mood has only improved in the month since he called my family to make them think he was destroying me. From what Jack tells me from overhearing Mark’s conversations, it sounds like the business is back in full swing again, that all is right in Mark’s twisted criminal world and he couldn’t be happier for it.
My mood, however, has not benefited from the recent passage of time. It’s not just that I miss Leo and my parents with every fiber of my being, it’s also that I’m facing new challenges as my body progressively changes.
As I enter my twelfth week of pregnancy, my body has reached a peak in its revolt against the tiny being growing inside me. The nausea from morning sickness has only increased. I’m in and out of the bathroom so often that Mark doesn’t even cuff me to the bed anymore.
When Jack checks on my health during our daily meetings, I always tell him I’m feeling fine, but the truth is I’m miserable. I do nothing but stay locked in this basement every day, yet I feel exhausted. The vomiting is draining in so many ways. Jack worries that it’s dehydrating me too much. He thinks I’m not getting proper nutrition because I can hardly keep any food down, but I don’t know what else to do. I’ve tried all the tricks he’s suggested, but nothing seems to help.
He comforts me with assurances that this will all get better soon, that the second trimester is much better than the first. I’m still holding out for that.
I’m lying on the bed completely still. For a moment I’m enjoying the lack of nausea within me, and the moment only improves when I hear the key in the lock, expecting Jack to stop in to see me.
He’s there, walking in the room with his medical bag, but he’s not alone. Mark seems in a particularly good mood as he struts into my basement behind Jack, closing the door behind him.
Jack looks uneasy. His demeanor transfers to me, and I immediately sit up in the bed and scoot back against the wall as if these men are coming for me.
Except that’s exactly what they’re doing. All of this is meant for me.
“It’s okay, Morgan,” Jack says, pulling up a chair next to me. He manages only a half-smile. “We’re doing a different kind of check today.” He motions to the pillow, indicating for me to lie down, and I hesitate before I comply.
Mark pulls up his own chair near my head. My proximity alarm is blaring within me at being only inches away from him for longer than a few seconds. He’s kept his distance from me and kept his hands off me ever since I told him I thought I was pregnant. I’ve been grateful that he never sticks around longer than it takes for him to set down a tray of food for me. Now I’m dealing with him right by my side for whatever this “check” is. I shiver at his mere presence by my side.
I try to focus instead on what Jack is doing as he pulls objects out of the medical bag that I haven’t seen before: a tube of something I don’t recognize and a small white device with a speaker, a long cord, and a ball-shaped end.
Jack makes sure I’m looking him in the eyes before he speaks. “I just need to readjust your clothes,” he says calmly.
My throat suddenly goes dry. “Okay.”
He rolls up my shirt a few inches and folds over the waistband of the sweatpants I’m wearing a couple times so that my stomach and the area below my belly button are open to the air. I wouldn’t normally feel uncomfortable like this, but having Mark sit next to me watching all of this happen puts me completely on edge.
Jack squeezes some clear gel out of the tube onto my lower abdomen. The gel is cold, instantly causing goose bumps to break out across my skin. Mark rubs his hand up and down my arm to combat the chill, but his touch only makes it worse, fueling a sudden desire within me to bolt up out of this bed and out the door.
With one stern look from Jack to Mark, he gets the point and lets go of me. In the absence of his touch, I feel almost instant relief from that nightmare to focus on the other one developing in the device in Jack’s hand.
He turns it on, and faint static emits from the speaker. He stretches the cord out to apply the ball-shaped end to the gel on my lower belly and starts moving it around, pressing it down into my skin.
It takes a few moments, but Jack eventually zeroes in on what he’s looking for. The scattered noise turns into something regular and rhythmic. With the slightest adjustment, he perfects the placement so that we can hear the sound clearly, a steady and quick pulsing that confirms the presence of additional life.
It’s bittersweet hearing the rapid fluttering of the tiny heart within me, the child who may never know his or her true father, the innocent creature who will be claimed and raised by a monster. Tears stream down my face as I’m overwhelmed by the joy and sadness of it, a contradiction brewing in my belly that I haven’t really come to terms with until this moment. Despite all the morning sickness and fatigue, this pregnancy never truly felt real until hearing the beating heart of the tiny baby inside me.
Then I think of the baby’s father. I’ve never given up hope that my one last night with Leo was enough to rob Mark of his self-bred heir. There’s no other person in this world I’d rather share in this moment with than Leo, but instead Mark sits by my side, grinning wildly and laughing in disbelief, almost victoriously.
Leo would be a perfect father, and we would be happy with each other raising a child together far away from Mark and his criminal world. We could break the endless cycle that Leo’s so afraid of continuing. We could have had it all, but instead we have nothing.
Jack checks his watch as we continue to listen to the tiny heart racing over the speaker. “The baby’s heart rate is good. A strong heart,” he says looking at me and smiling for a moment.
Mark continues to stare at my belly as Jack gets up and walks to the bathroom. I’m distracted by Jack grabbing a towel and wetting it in the sink when I realize Mark’s hand is on my belly, feeling around my skin just slightly as if waiting for a palpable response from the tiny being inside.
I gasp as his fingers move lower and slip under the folded waistband of my sweatpants. My instincts scream at me to curl up into a ball to protect my body from him, but I’m too paralyzed by his wandering touch to move.
When Jack returns, he swats Mark’s hand out of the way and curses quietly at him, and I’m immediately grateful. He takes care of cleaning up the gel from my skin and from the end of the device. The second he’s done, I return my shirt and pants back to their normal places.
I feel the warmth of someone’s touch on the side of my face and find that Mark’s hand is resting there. I cringe away in my body’s natural reaction to feeling his skin against mine. Mark doesn’t respond to my reaction. He just slowly caresses the side of my cheek with the slightest touch of his hand.
“Mark,” Jack says sternly.
He reaches for Mark’s hand, which leaves my face for just as long as it takes for Mark’s arm to swing back and knock Jack backward in his chair a couple feet. I try to sit up to stop this little brawl breaking out between them, but Mark hold
s me back, his entire arm spread across me from shoulder to shoulder.
Struggling against him, I start to panic. Warning signs are flying up all around me that something horrible is about to happen, and I’ll do anything to stop it.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Mark says calmly, returning his hand to my face with his sensual touch while continuing to hold me down with his arm. “I was just appreciating you, wondering what our baby will look like.”
I swallow my unease. This is the first time he’s referred to this child as our baby, and he’s talking just like any other proud father would.
Except that he isn’t the father. He can’t be. I won’t let him ruin the life of this child whether he’s genetically the father or not.
“I want you to write a letter,” Mark instructs, rising up to standing, seemingly excited about this sudden idea he’s imparting on me. “I think I deserve to brag a little. I’m going to be a father again, and I want those closest to you to know it.”
The familiar feeling of dread festers within me. I remember my last letter to my parents, written in blood from my fingertips during my time held captive by Mark at the prison.
“We’ll use a pen this time,” Mark adds with a smile as he reaches the door then passes through it, closing it behind him.
Jack and I share a concerned glance. I look at where Mark was just sitting, then beyond it to something on the floor, something left behind on the concrete in the center of the room. Its appearance in this room is definitely accidental, most likely from Mark’s shoes, but it gives me important insight. To Mark or anyone else it’s completely insignificant, but to me it could mean everything.
I stand up and lean over to pick it up, holding it tightly between my fingers.
A short piece of a bluish-green pine needle is in my hand. I look to Jack, and he looks back at me with wide eyes, like I’ve just uncovered part of the whole secret of this place that I’ve never seen beyond the windowless basement.
Beyond Revenge (The Ransom Series) Page 7