by A. G. Khaliq
“What the fuck?” I murmured to myself.
I was unable to believe my fucking eyes. I found myself rattling my fists in anger, suddenly in a state of rage.
“Donte is still marrying that bitch?!” I snarled.
I went back to the picture, sure that I was fucking dreaming, or that I had misread the caption. But I hadn’t. It was there in plain sight. I pinched myself a few times, but still, the words wouldn’t change.
I didn't understand any of this. I couldn’t get my fucking head around it.
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Sapphire was raving about his sex game just a week ago… And he had already ran back to the arranged marriage woman?
Sapphire never told me about any of this.
Sapphire never told me that they fell out…
I allowed my mind to wander, as I narrowed my eyes, doing my best to gather my thoughts together. I thought about Sapphire… And suddenly, I could feel my heart drop inside my chest, as the realization hit me.
“Come to think of it, I haven't seen Sapphire around her flat since last week!”
I said to myself worriedly. “What the fuck is going on?!”
I could feel my blood boiling to the point that it almost fucking dried up. I hadn’t seen Sapphire around, and Donte had moved on?
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The audacity of that fucking bastard.
“I'm speaking to Donte in person,”
I spat bitterly. “I need some fucking answers.”
As if on cue, I saw Millie making her way back to me out of the corner of my eye.
“Hey babe!” she exclaimed. “I got the most gorgeous heels!”
“It's gonna have to wait, Millie,” I said quickly. “I've gotta run.”
“What happened?” Millie denied.
I began bolting out of the mall, my heart hammering against my chest. I didn’t have time to explain things to her.
I needed to get to the bottom of this, and I needed to get to the bottom of it fast.
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“Is this one of your hook-ups?!”
Millie called out after me, giggling. “Dick that good, huh?”
I ignored her, continuing to run.
This wasn’t the time for jokes. If Sapphire was in trouble, then I would never forgive myself for doing nothing and turning a blind eye to it.
I quickly waved my hand out to a yellow cab outside of the mall, jumping inside of it and slamming the door shut.
“Indigo Limited please!” I said urgently.
The next ten minutes went past like a blur. Before I knew it, I was paying the cab driver, and I’d arrived at the destination. I ran inside the building, straight to the Reception.
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“I demand to see Donte Abruzzi right now!” I shouted.
The receptionist furrowed her eyebrows, a confused expression on her face. “Do you have an appointment?”
“He knows who I am. It’s urgent,” I snarled.
“Of
course,”
she
mumbled
quakingly. “I'll notify him right away.”
“Good,” I snapped, and folded my arms angrily, as I impatiently waited for him to come down and speak to me.
“He’s on his way to the reception,”
she said quickly, as she put her phone down.
I nodded in response. Time was going past achingly slow.
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And then Donte started to stride towards me.
182
21
donte
When I walked down to the Reception, I was surprised with who I was greeted by, to say the very least. I’d never seen this woman before in my life, and I had no idea who she was. Yet Sainabou rang me telling me that she claimed to know me.
“Who are you?” I asked.
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“I'm Maisie,” she snapped back.
“One of the few friends that Sapphire had here.”
I folded my arms uneasily. Of course she had something to do with Sapphire. I should have known.
“Me and Sapphire aren't together anymore,” I responded flatly, not wanting to be reminded of Sapphire any further. “I suggest you leave.”
“I'm not leaving till I give you a piece of my fucking mind!” she shouted.
“Should I call Security, boss?”
Sainabou interjected awkwardly.
I rolled my eyes sarcastically. I really didn’t want to have to deal with this.
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“No,” I shrugged, wanting to get this over with. “You can come to my office, Maisie.”
“Thank you,” she retorted.
I sighed heavily, shaking my head, before I turned on my heel and began making my way back to my office, Maisie following suite.
We entered my office, and Maisie shut the door behind her.
“What's the problem?” I asked, rolling my eyes.
“What's the problem?” Maisie repeated, repulsed. “What isn't the fucking problem?”
I folded my arms uneasily again. I was so confused as to why this woman 185
was here, what she wanted to achieve by talking to me, and what she even wanted.
It was Sapphire who ended things with me, not the other way fucking round.
And now she was getting her friends to come and speak to me to fight her battles for her, but she didn’t even have the balls to confront me herself.
“Why the fuck are you still marrying that bitch?” Maisie snarled.
“That bitch is my soon-to-be wife,”
I snapped. “It's Sapphire that broke up with me. I don't know why you're arguing with me, like I'm the one in the wrong here. She did me over, and she made her choice. I’m not going to chase her forever.”
“There's no fucking way that Sapphire would break up with you. She fucking loved you!” Maisie shouted.
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I felt a lump in my throat. My throat suddenly felt dry and hoarse. I didn’t want to go back to this numb feeling again, but I couldn’t believe my fucking ears. What was I hearing?
Sapphire loved me?
“What?” I said quietly.
“She told me that she loved you!”
Maisie roared. “For so many days, day in and day out, when you were both on bad terms, she would cry about you! All she would do is talk about you, how amazing she thinks you are, and how she thinks you're too good for her! How many times she'd deliberate over the outfits she wore when going on a date with you, being self-conscious about how she looked, always wanting to look her fucking best for you!”
Maisie’s words tore my heart into 187
millions of pieces. I didn’t want to believe what she was saying, because I was tired of giving myself false hope. I was tired of being a damn fool. But if what she was saying was true…
Then why the hell did Sapphire leave me?
“Well?” Maisie shouted. “Aren't you gonna fucking say anything?!”
I let out a deep breath, my chest rising and falling rapidly with each intake of oxygen. I shook my head angrily, not knowing what to do or say.
“You're
wrong,”
I
muttered
timidly. “She moved out of town.”
“What?” Maisie’s eyes widened in shock.
“All she did was leave me a text 188
message,” I explained. “Saying that she didn't feel the same way about me, and that she didn't want me to look for her.”
Maisie stared at me with a hurt and wounded expression on her face.
“She can't have loved me,” I snarled. “If she loved me, she wouldn't have left me with just a fucking text message!”
“I don't believe that Sapphire would just leave like that,” Maisie tried.
“For the time she's lived here in Manhattan, me and her have been very close. And believe me when I tell you, that's very fucking out-of-character, even for her. I just can't make sense of any of this.”
I rolled my eyes agitatedly. She wasn’
t telling me anything about Sapphire that I hadn’t heard before.
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“How do you think I fucking feel?!”
I retorted, feeling my heart heave with pain. “It is what it is. I shouldn't keep watering dead soil. I love her…” I trailed off my sentence, sighing heavily. “But she doesn't love me back.”
“Donte, if you love her…” Maisie mumbled, “then please fight for her. At the very least, try to call her.”
There was a long silence between us both, as I continued to contemplate my feelings and emotions. Seeing Maisie had now left me in a state of confusion, and my heart felt even more battered than it had a few days ago.
“Do you mind if I see the text message?” Maisie breathed.
“Not
at
all,”
I
shrugged
exhaustedly. “It won't make a difference 190
now, anyway.”
I handed my phone over to her, showing her the text message. She rubbed her chin in thought, as she read the complete paragraph intently and with complete focus and concentration.
“See?” I muttered. “You've seen it for yourself now. She ended it.”
Maisie’s face fell. She looked like she’d just seen a ghost. She looked terrified.
She looked absolutely fucking terrified.
“Donte, you do realise-” she stammered, “you do realise that Sapphire doesn't even type like that?”
“What do you mean?” I asked anxiously.
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“She always writes messages with abbreviations…
She
never
writes
paragraphs on text. And all of that stuff she said about Fibonacci…” Maisie let out a sharp breath. “That's a fucking lie.
She moved on from that bastard a long time ago. She loves you, Donte… Not Fibonacci.”
I was struggling to process everything that she was telling me. I was struggling for air. I could barely breathe.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“So what you're saying is, somebody else sent this message?” My voice dropped to barely below a whisper.
“I think they did,” Maisie admitted timidly.
“Well that's fucking bullshit,” I 192
muttered. “It's her number… Her phone.”
Part of me wanted to believe Maisie, but another part of me didn’t. I didn’t want to convince myself that there was something strange going on here.
Maybe I was just blind to what was staring at me right in the face. I needed to stop being gullible. I needed to stop getting my hopes up, because it was just myself that I was lying to. It was just myself that I was disappointing in the process.
“It doesn't matter what you believe, Donte,” Maisie sighed. “But Sapphire would never just pick up and leave like that, I’m telling you. Even if she was on bad terms with you… The least she would do is say goodbye to me. I've been one of her most trusty friends here.”
I said nothing.
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“I think -” Maisie began uneasily and hesitantly, “I – I think something might have happened to her. That she was maybe forced to write that message.”
“What?” I spat angrily.
“If she moved, there would have been a moving truck. Taking all the things out of her flat… But there hasn't been. And that message keeps repeating the same thing. That you shouldn't look for her.”
Maisie’s chest heaved upwards and downwards. I could visibly hear the sound of her rising heartbeat.
“It's like a sign,” Maisie said bleakly. “A sign to not report her as a missing person, because then the police would get involved.”
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“But someone must have seen something!” I shouted in denial. “You don't think I asked everybody at the office if they'd seen her? Nobody did!”
Maisie shook her head, feeling defeated. A tear slid down her cheek.
“Please Donte, just try to do something at least.”
I let out an exhausted sigh, not knowing what to say or do.
“I'll do my best to keep you in the loop,” I mumbled, doing my best to reassure her.
“Okay…” she thanked. “Thank you.”
And with that, she turned on her heel, and began walking out of my office.
Leaving me dithering in the middle 195
of the room, once again…
Feeling lost and empty all over again.
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22
donte
As soon as Maisie left, I stormed over to Sapphire's office. I needed to clear it out, and get her out of my sight, as well as out of my damn mind. What was the point in keeping her stuff here, when she wouldn't even be working here anymore?
I rolled my eyes angrily as I made 197
my way into her office. I knew that Maisie thought that the text message was a lie, that somebody else had sent it, but I didn't believe her. I guessed she didn't know her friend as well as she thought…
Because I'd experienced Sapphire cutting me off time and time again before, which was why this didn't surprise me. It was like her final snip at the fucking scissors.
I screamed angrily as I grabbed all of her things, slamming them down onto the floor with such harsh force that anybody ten blocks away would be able to hear how angry I was. How fucking devastated I was.
How fucking broken I was.
“Time to get rid of all this fucking paperwork,” I seethed, grabbing hold of all of the papers.
Now, it was time to log out of her 198
computer, and remove her login from the system.
I looked around her office. I’d cleared and taken care of everything for the most part.
“Am I forgetting anything?” I mumbled to myself, as I continued to search the area.
When I darted my eyes across the room, something snapped in my head.
“Oh yeah,” I muttered. “The cabinets.”
I rolled my eyes again, before pulling out the cabinets with force, causing them to land on the floor with a hard and painful smack. As I did this, a piece of paper flew straight out and onto my face. I furrowed my eyebrows, as I grabbed hold of it, and held it out in front 199
of my face.
“Wait,” I murmured, narrowing my eyes. “What's this?”
I scrunched my face up, reading the paper angrily.
And as I read the words written on the sheet…
I felt my heart leap to my throat.
My whole body was burning.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“What the fuck?” I denied, sure that I wasn’t reading the piece of paper correctly. I darted my eyes backwards and forwards as I scanned the sheet, trying to make sense of it. I definitely hadn’t misread it at all.
200
It was a note.
A real fucking spooky note, at that.
And it said, "We'll be together soon, Maya."
What the fuck…?
The guys at her mother's funeral had called her Maya.
“Fuck!” I shouted angrily, feeling my head cloud with millions of thoughts at once. “They were having a heated argument at that funeral. Maybe Sapphire got herself involved in some shit! Maybe Maisie was fucking right!”
My blood was roaring in my body to the point that it felt like if it boiled anymore, it would dry up. My head was fucking pounding. I couldn’t believe I’d 201
been so stupid, so immature, so careless…
As soon as I saw the note, I ran to the security control room, bolting there at high-speed, as fast as my legs would carry me. My heart was thumping frantically, going out of my mind with the thought…
The sheer thought that Sapphire could be hurt.
The thought that she could be in trouble.
I pulled up the CCTV footage from the day that Sapphire sent me the text message.
And that was when I saw what really happened…
I could f
eel a tear slide down my 202
cheek as I watched the CCTV. The images burning their way into my brain and etching themselves permanently into my memory. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
I couldn’t fucking believe it…
“Scream, and it'll be the last move you make.”
A shadowed figure punched her head and knocked her down to the floor unconscious… Before he dragged her away, and threw her into a truck.
I let out a blood-curdling scream.
One after the other, one after the fucking other. I was so fucking ashamed of myself.
So fucking ashamed…
I was a fucking bastard.
203
This whole time…
I thought that Sapphire had left me.
That she didn't love me.
That everything we had was a lie.
I had been beating myself up about it.
Sleeping with Sharon, crying to Arturo and my brothers…
Now, tears were spouting out of my eyes, and I couldn’t hold them back. I was going fucking insane. The truth was coming into focus. I couldn’t believe I'd been so fucking stupid…
So damn careless.
Why hadn't I checked the CCTV
204
earlier?
Why didn't I do all of this shit earlier?
Why did it take having her best friend storm into work, giving me a telling off, to make me realize that there was more to this fucked up situation than what met the fucking eye?!
I doubted Sapphire's love for me. I shit-talked her. I cried and cried.
Thinking she played me for a fool. But this whole time, she'd been kidnapped.
Taken by a man in a balaclava, dragged into a truck, right outside my motherfucking building, while she was waiting for me!
Who'd fucking taken her?
What was he doing to her?
205
Torturing her?
Hurting her?
Millions
of
questions
shot
themselves through my body like daggers all at once.
