KINGDOM FALL

by A. Zavarelli

  I went to the police station a couple of weeks after it happened. There was an officer who interviewed me. He seemed nice at first. I thought he was going to help me. I left feeling like everything might be okay, but it wasn’t. The cop started showing up at my apartment. My work. My school. He had been watching me, and he knew my entire schedule. He told me some things were better left unsaid, and if I were smart, I’d forget that I had a one night stand I regretted. It was the first time I realized the guy had connections. I moved. I changed jobs. And I kept quiet, but I never stopped being afraid. There were times I thought about leaving the city altogether, but I was only a year away from finishing school. I didn’t want to give that up.

  Time passed. I was trying to move on with my life. And then, one day, he saw me on the street. He wasn’t following me. It just happened. Millions of people in New York and I ran into him on the street. I could see it on his face. He’d forgotten about me. I was just a number to him. But when he saw the baby in my arms and the fear on my face, he remembered. Something changed then. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was there in his expression. I wasn’t just a nobody to him anymore. I had something he wanted.

  I ran from him. I went back to my apartment, packed a bag, and set out to leave. But he was already there. When I went downstairs, he was waiting outside with more men I didn’t recognize. It was too late, but I still tried to escape. They caught me in seconds, prying my son from my arms while he screamed in terror. I didn’t know what was going to happen to him. I fought harder than I ever thought I could, but it didn’t matter. Two of the men took him away, and the rest shoved me into a van, locking me in the back with the devil. I begged him. Over and over, I begged him for mercy, but he had none. He tortured me for hours. Burning me. Stabbing me. Strangling me. It wasn’t going to end, but I couldn’t tell him what he wanted to know.

  Was it his son? That’s all he kept asking. Was it his? Like my baby was a possession. Something that could be taken from me. I told him no. Again and again, I told him no. And then he got the text. Someone had sent him the birth record, and when he saw the date, I knew it was over. I fought him. I fought for my life. But I was too weak. He slashed my throat and directed his men to toss me into the river while I choked on my blood. I floated away, thinking I’d never see my baby again. I’d never get to hold him, or kiss him, or protect him from the evil in this world. I didn’t know what would become of him, but I was certain I was already dead.

  When I woke up in the hospital, they told me some tourists in the park had seen me and pulled me out of the water. At the time, I couldn’t remember what had happened, so they had to tell me. They said I’d been attacked, and I had only survived because the knife missed my artery. It took months for me to recover. They sent me to a facility. I did the treatments, and slowly the pieces came back to me. At first, I was too terrified to tell them. But there was one doctor I trusted. She was kind to me. She knew I wasn’t imagining things. I needed her to help me, so I told her the truth. I begged her to help me get my son back, and she promised she would. She tried talking to the police simply to see if they had ever heard of this man. She didn’t mention me, but her asking was enough. The next week, she was murdered in her bed.

  I released myself from the treatment center and went to stay with a friend and her husband. He worked in tech, and he was able to dig up some information for me. That’s when I found out the man who took my baby was involved in some type of criminal network. His reach was far more powerful than mine. It seemed hopeless, and I was scared, but I couldn’t give up. My friends kept telling me it would be okay. They were trying to dig up anything they could, and then one day, they just didn’t come home. They’d been tortured and mutilated because they were trying to investigate him. He didn’t even know what they were looking for. I guess it didn’t matter to him. All I can think is they must not have told him about me. Even as he brutalized them. They died to protect me.

  You wanted to know why I came here. This is why. I didn’t have any other choice. He took everything from me. He stole my innocence, took my son, and killed people I cared about. I had to do it on my own. I had to come back for him, Alessio. I just didn’t expect you to change everything. I didn’t want to care about you, but I do. I’m not telling you this because I think it will save my life because I know it won’t. I’m telling you this because if you’re going to kill me tonight, I want you to know that it was real. It was all real for me. And all I can ask is that you continue to love Nino the way I know you do. Because as crazy as it sounds, I am so grateful that it was you he ended up with. You saved him, and I know you always will. I can be at peace now, as long as he’s with you. As long as you have each other.

  The story ends there, and I stare at the paper for a long time, pain radiating through my chest. The imagery of her words is scarred in my mind, and I can’t unsee it, no matter how much I want to. I can’t deny that Natalia was tortured. I knew it the moment I saw her scars. She carries the burden of that pain with her, and it enrages me that anyone could do that to her. So much of what she says makes sense. The details wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility if she were dealing with some type of underworld network. Corruption is rife, and in The Society, our reach is all-powerful. Judges, police, NSA, CIA, FBI. We have a foothold in every sector, and not just nationally. All of that isn’t difficult to believe. But there’s one glaring problem with her story. Nino is not her son. He never was, and he never could be. I know his mother. I grew up with her. The only logical conclusion I can draw is that she is mistaken. Either the trauma altered her memory of what happened to her, or her story is real, but she has the wrong child.

  When I look at her, I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, except the one thing I can’t forget. She murdered Gwen. She beat her, drowned her, and poisoned her. The agony of that reality settles over me like a dark cloud, and I can’t pardon her from the consequences of her actions. I can’t allow myself to sympathize with her when she set out to destroy me. The last words I spoke to Gwen were in anger. I had dismissed her so I could fuck Natalia. It was all I cared about at the moment, and I realize now that Gwen was right. I am just like my father.

  I turn away, stomach churning. I need to fucking kill her. It’s the only way to right this wrong. She’s obviously sick in the head. There’s something wrong with her. She’s living in a false reality, and even if she weren’t, it wouldn’t matter. This is the last thing I can do for Gwen. This is the only way to honor who she was. She took me in and cared for me. She was my family, and Natalia destroyed that without a second thought. She betrayed me, and there is no coming back from that.

  I turn back to her, my fury driving me to wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze. She doesn’t fight me. She just looks up at me with devastated eyes, accepting that I’m a fucking monster too. As I try to separate my guilt from my actions, I can see myself as the man from her story. Torturing her. Making her cry and beg for mercy, only for her to realize there is none. Are we any different? Am I any different from the man who killed my mother without a second thought?

  My hands fall away from her, and I stumble back as she gasps for air, clawing at her throat. What the fuck am I doing? What the fuck have I done to her? She just told me every gut-wrenching detail of the worst moments of her life, and my response was to repeat it. I shake my head, tempted to rip my fucking hair out. I’m sick. I’m so goddamned sick.

  I turn away, heading for the door to the cabin entry. I need space. I need to think. I know it’s a stupid fucking move, considering I’ve just left her up there with all my weapons. Maybe it would be better if she tried to kill me. Maybe it would make it easier to do what I came here to do. There’s a part of me that wishes she would come down here with my pistol. I have a feeling Natalia would aim straight for my heart.

  I collapse onto the lounger, scrubbing my hands over my face. My grief is still too raw to comprehend, but I’m only beginning to realize it’s not just Gwen that I’m grieving for.
It’s the loss of Natalia too. The trust I had in her is shattered. Without her to soften the jagged edges of myself, I don’t know who I’ll become. Who will Nino have to keep him from becoming just like me?

  Moisture soaks the edges of my eyes, and I squeeze them shut, trying to turn off these fucking feelings I never wanted. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know when I changed, but I blame her for it. I blame her for every goddamned thing.

  Soft fingertips touch my face, and when I open my eyes, Natalia is kneeling in front of me, as gentle as I’ve ever known her to be when she wipes the evidence of my emotion away. I don’t need her gentility. I need her fucking violence. I need her to brutalize me like she brutalized Gwen.

  “I fucking hate you,” I snarl.

  She flinches but doesn’t retreat. Instead, she shakes her head as if to say I’m a liar. I watch her with bleary eyes as she rises slowly, her warmth pressing against me as she closes the distance between us. When she tries to kiss me, I grab her face, squeezing her hard as I hold her there in front of me, a mere inch away from my lips. I want to destroy her, but I can’t deny that I want to fuck her too.

  She senses that weakness in me, and she grabs onto it with both hands, prying my fingers from her face. This time, I’m ashamed to admit there’s no resistance on my part when her lips collide with mine. I let her kiss me, convincing myself it will be the last time. When she crawls up into my lap, I let that happen too.

  Her fingers cup the base of my skull as she delves deeper into my mouth with her tongue, grinding down against my cock. I release myself from the grip of rational thought as I start to rip at her clothes, forcing them out of the way to access the thing I can’t admit I need.

  She unbuckles my belt, unzips my trousers, and takes my cock into her palm. I bite back a resentful groan, jerking my hips up into her fist. I’m so fucking hard it’s painful, and I hate myself for it. I hate that I could still want her after everything she’s done, but she tries to make me forget. She kisses me all over, working her way over my jaw and down my neck as she lifts her hips and rubs the head of my dick against her wet cunt. I close my eyes and let it happen. She sinks down on me, and my fingers dig into her waist, holding onto her as she rolls her hips against me. It feels so fucking good it makes me sick. It makes me sick that I could do this with her when Gwen’s body is barely cold.

  I stop abruptly and pick her up, carrying her to the bed and tossing her onto it. She looks up at me uncertainly as I lower myself over her and spread her thighs apart. I don’t want to look into her lying eyes, but I have to, because this will be the last time I ever do. I shove my dick back inside of her, and she arches up into me, her fingers clawing the bedding as I thrust deep and hard. I fuck her into oblivion. I fuck her until all the stress from the day accumulates in the base of my spine and explodes out of my balls inside of her. My cock jerks, spewing come into her womb without a second thought about the consequences. It’s what I’ve wanted to do from the first moment I saw her. There’s a twisted sense of satisfaction in me when I pull away and watch the evidence of my possession leak from her pussy. It lasts for a matter of seconds before I’m questioning what I’ve done. She follows my gaze, glancing between her thighs, and her face begins to shift. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an empty expression on her, and instinctively, I know she’s no longer here. She’s somewhere else. Without warning, she starts hyperventilating, bolting upright as she shakes her head violently.

  “No. No. No. No. No. No.” Her voice cracks. “You aren’t taking my baby.”

  Her chest heaves as she crawls around me, flinging herself from the bed. Her bare feet slap against the floor as she starts to run, and I watch in disbelief as she heads for the stairs. I yank up my pants, following after her, cursing myself for letting this happen. She’s on fucking psychedelics, deep in the grasp of an obvious hallucination, and right now, I’m her goddamned tormentor.

  “Natalia,” I call after her as I climb the stairs, giving chase.

  I’m expecting her to grab a weapon. I’m expecting her to try to end me. But when I reach the top deck, I find her at the edge of the bow, stepping over the railing as if she’s going to jump. One of the dock lines is tangled around her foot, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

  My heart hammers against my chest as I call out to her, but she doesn’t hear me. She’s too far gone, captive to her mind.

  She’s got one foot over the railing, her hair blowing in the breeze as she stares over the water. She’s never looked so fucking tragic, and it destroys me.

  “Natalia.” I soften my voice, approaching her carefully. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

  She doesn’t respond. I’m still two feet away when she starts to lift the foot that’s tangled in the dock line. She’s walked right into it, too dazed to understand the magnitude of this situation. If I don’t reach her first, she’s going to trip. I rush forward at the same time she lifts her arms and leans toward the edge.

  “I’ll float away again,” she croaks. “I’m taking my baby away.”

  I catch her by the shirt, barely grasping onto her as we both topple forward. Gravity works against us, my shins smacking against the railing as I try to stop the inevitable. Her weight yanks me forward, and the rope catches my trousers before we both tumble overboard, crashing into the water and bouncing off each other. The cold water stabs my skin like a thousand tiny needles as I rise to the surface, gasping for air.

  I wipe my eyes, seeking her out, but I can’t find her. One second passes and then two. I call out for her, my chest squeezing in pain as I move around. There’s no response. She couldn’t respond if she wanted to because someone tried to silence her forever. Now, she’s reliving that history as she drowns in the ice-cold fucking lake I was determined to bury her in.

  I dive back under, slicing my arms around me as I try to see through the darkness. But I can’t. I can’t see shit, and every second that passes torments me. I’m not ready yet. Not this way. I can’t let her go like this.

  Something brushes against my fingertips, and I swim closer, grabbing onto what I realize is the rope. I burst up to the surface again, pulling it through my hands as the weight at the other end resists. She’s still tangled in its grasp. I can feel it as I pull harder, my breath heaving as I work faster and faster. And then, instead of rope, I finally touch her foot. I dive under again and pull her against my chest, exhaustion weighing me down as I swim toward the stern. She’s limp in my arms, and in the back of my mind, there’s a voice telling me I’m already too late, but I can’t accept that. I won’t.

  When I reach the swim platform, I heave her body up first, my muscles straining from the exertion. I’m out of breath, shaking as I climb up after her. There isn’t time for weakness. I reposition her onto her back and tilt her head before I start compressions. She looks so fucking fragile beneath my palms, and I’m afraid I’m going to break her, but the alternative is much worse. I keep going, counting down the compressions before I pause to breathe air into her lungs. I repeat the process continually, long past the moment the darkest thoughts start to creep into my mind.

  “You’re not fucking leaving me,” I grunt. “Come on, Natalia. Wake up. Show me those pretty eyes.”

  She’s so still beneath me it terrifies me. Death has her in its ugly grip, but I’m not willing to relinquish her.

  “Come on. You’re stronger than this.” Thrust. “You can do this.” Thrust. “I know you’re in there.” Thrust. “I’m not letting you go.”

  Agony makes me desperate. I push harder. Faster. Pleading with God and the Devil alike, I beg for one more chance. In exchange, I offer them my soul. I make promises I know I can’t keep, but I don’t care. I’m willing to do anything, whatever it takes to bring her back.

  “Come on, baby,” I cry out. “Don’t fucking do this to me.”

  Her chest heaves, and I freeze when she starts to vomit. It takes a second for me to realize what I need to do, and I turn her onto her side, rubbing her back
with one hand while I make sure her mouth is clear with the other.

  “That’s it.” My voice fractures. “Good girl, Natalia. You did it.”

  Her eyes flutter open and shut several times, and I know she’s not out of danger yet. I need to warm her up.

  “I’ve got you.” I scoop her up into my arms and force my legs to cooperate as I carry her downstairs to the shower.

  I hold her against me while the water warms up, and her teeth begin to chatter as she starts to come back to her senses. Her head lolls against my chest as I step beneath the spray, allowing it to warm her body. I keep her there until the color comes back to her skin and then I carry her to the bed, wrapping her up in the blankets. Once she’s secure, I brush her wet hair away from her forehead and she looks up at me, disoriented and uncertain.

  “You fell off the boat,” I tell her. “I think you hit your head. Just stay here and keep warm. I’ll be right back.”

  She blinks at me, and it’s the only response I get. I ascend the stairs and go to the cockpit, checking my location before I call Manuel.

  “Yes, sir?” He answers on the first ring.

  “I just sent you my location. I need a Society doctor out here now.”

  “I’m on it,” he assures me.

  “Thank you.” I disconnect the line and stare out into the distance, gulping in air as I come to grips with everything that just happened.

  I came out here to kill her, but now I know with horrific certainty it’s not an option. I don’t think it ever was.

  21

  Alessio

  I hold Natalia in my arms until the doctor arrives with several other men in tow. He doesn’t even blink as I confess to drugging her and explain the events that followed. He tells me she’ll need to go to The Society hospital, which I already knew was a given. IVI maintains its own network of healthcare where discretion is a priority. The doctors won’t ask unnecessary questions, and they respect the hierarchy, which means they’ll abide by my orders. Right now, I need further assurances about her condition, and I’m not getting them.