by Cassia Leo
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “You’re acting very weird. Are you dating that creepy guy from work? What was his name? Charles? Chuckie?”
“Charlie,” I reply quickly to shut her up.
A knot of regret twists inside my stomach as I think of my coworker, Charlie. After he saw me coming out of the Queens Forensics Lab when I was supposed to be at home sick, Knox had to “take care of” him. Whatever that means. Charlie hasn’t been to work in three weeks. He has been calling into work every few days just to say that his mother, who lives in Michigan, is still not doing well. As soon as Charlie became a liability to Knox, his mother suddenly became ill.
I have a feeling Charlie is never coming back to the 14th Precinct.
I slide my chair across the tile floor so I’m right next to her. Then I lean in close to whisper in her ear. “I’m being watched.”
She turns to face me, probably to make sure I’m not bullshitting her. “By who?”
“My dad.”
It’s not a lie. Knox works for my dad.
Her eyes widen as she realizes I’m not acting weird at all. “Why? Because of the trial? I don’t get it. Do you have evidence against him or something?”
“I can’t talk about it. But you can’t tell anyone. Okay?”
“Shouldn’t you report it if you think you’re being stalked? You work for the fucking police department. Jesus Christ, Becky. This is very serious.”
I shush her again. “I’m not being stalked. Don’t freak out. I have it under control.”
“You have it under control!” she whisper-shouts at me. “You really think you can control your dad?”
I look her in the eye and will myself not to break down. Don’t tell her what you saw. Don’t tell her about Frank Mainella.
My shoulders slump as I realize I can’t keep this kind of secret from Lita. She’s the first friend I made when I moved to Manhattan from Bensonhurst four years ago. I met her in a sociology class at Hunter College.
I showed up to class late once and she offered to let me copy her notes at the Starbucks down the street. She’s still addicted to their chai tea lattes four years later. We met at that Starbucks and chatted for hours. We became instant best friends the moment she told me she had just moved to Manhattan from Poughkeepsie to get away from her family. It was comforting to know I’m not the only one with an unbearable load of family baggage.
“Listen to me. I’m not in danger. Like you said, I work for the fucking police department. I’m used to having eyes on me. I know how to handle myself. Okay?”
She runs her hand through her hair, then she reaches into her purse, which hangs from the back of her chair. She pulls out something small wrapped in newspaper. I shake my head as I take it from her hand and begin unwrapping. I crumple up the newspaper and toss it onto the table. Then I stand the slender eight-inch-tall cat figurine down between us.
Lita always brings me back a hand-painted cat figurine from a little Polish pottery shop in Poughkeepsie. She did it the first time two years ago as a joke. I was so creeped out by it that she did it again last year. This is the third one.
“Thanks.”
She glances around the apartment and her lips curl into a smile. “You still didn’t tell me who you had sex with this morning?”
I sigh as I lean back in my chair and think of my morning with Knox. “It’s nothing.” I try to be nonchalant, but I can’t hide my grin.
“Oh, no. I recognize that look.” She leans forward on her elbows. “Is the sex that good, or are you in love?”
“I’m not in love.”
“So it’s the sex?”
I stare at the table so I don’t have to look her in the eye. How do I tell her that it’s more than sex? How do I tell her I’ve been pining for a guy I made out with when I was fifteen? She’ll think I’m a crazy person. How do I tell her there’s no way to describe Knox’s energy? You have to be near him to feel it. To be consumed by it.
“It’s more than sex.”
“You just broke up with August three weeks ago and you’re already in love? Spill!”
I look up and meet her desperate gaze. “Knox Savage. He owns a private security firm. He’s—”
“He works for your dad.”
“Why do you say that? Do you know him?”
Her eyebrow twitches and she shakes her head. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.” She sits back in her chair and pauses for a moment, lost in thought. “Is he protecting your dad while he’s out on bail?”
I nod and think to myself, Something like that.
Chapter 3
Knox
“Make sure the rope is long enough for him to stand with his feet firmly planted on the chair, but not so long his feet touch the ground when he drops. Remember: He’s six foot four on his tiptoes,” I issue my order gently.
Billy’s a good kid, but he can be a little dumb sometimes. He needs to be reminded how to do his job—often. I don’t mind. The kid may be dumb, but he’s brutal. He’ll do anything I ask of him.
I sit down at a table in the steakhouse around the corner from the 14th Precinct. I watch as Billy sets up the noose a few feet from the table where Charlie and Rebecca sat a few months ago. My tech guy, Sven, already planted the suicide email on Charlie’s laptop. He setup an untraceable automated task to send out the email to Rebecca about one hour before the time of death.
Poor little lovesick Charlie. He just couldn’t get over Rebecca. And now that his mom died of ovarian cancer last week—not Knox’s doing—Charlie had nothing left to live for.
Bruno carries Charlie’s limp, chloroformed body in his arms like a baby. The pads underneath the cuffs on his wrists will ensure there’s no sign of struggle or captivity. Charlie’s been kept in a warehouse near his mother’s home in Michigan for the past three weeks. We had to allow time for the injuries from the initial struggle to heal. Now he’s brand new and ready to die.
I must admit, a small part of me almost wishes he’d wake up from his chloroform fog and try to fight his fate. It’s been a bit pathetic watching the video feed of him going insane in the padded cell we created for him in Michigan. It took about nine days of hunger strike for him to break down and begin cooperating. He gained back the weight and did whatever we wanted. Too bad he never had a chance.
Bruno climbs up onto a stepladder with Charlie’s body. He sets Charlie’s feet flat on the chair. Then he holds him around the waist from behind like he’s about to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him. Billy strings the noose around Charlie’s neck and Bruno lets his body lean forward into the noose. Now Charlie’s standing up on his own, leaning forward with his weight balanced on the rope around his neck.
Bruno climbs down. Billy takes a step back to admire their work. Finally, Bruno moves the stepladder out of the way so he can kick the chair out from underneath Charlie.
“Wait!” Bruno and Billy look confused by my outburst. “I want to do it.”
Chapter 4
Knox got to Charlie before he could get to anyone else. I’m grateful that I’m not going to be implicated in the mishandling of my father’s evidence file. All I did was misplace the file in the receptionist’s desk at the Queens’ forensics lab. The file was found the next day. Right after my father had already been arraigned then released on house arrest and $15 million bail. But I can be charged with obstruction of justice if anyone finds out I moved that file.
So I’m grateful that Knox took care of Charlie. But it still makes me sick to go into work every day and not hear Charlie’s snide remarks. Knox silenced him too. And he refuses to tell me where Charlie is or if he’s okay.
“He’s still calling into work, isn’t he?” Knox barked at me the last time I pressed him for information on Charlie.
“That doesn’t mean he’s not hurt. Where are you holding him? When are you letting him go?”
Eventually, my questioning turned into hysterics. Luckily, we were in my apartment so no one saw my meltdown. Knox has
yet to take me out in public. And he still hasn’t invited me to his home. He claims it’s for my own protection. Like the security detail he has parked outside my apartment building 24/7.
Right now, I just have to concentrate on doing my job. Detectives and officers come in every few minutes to submit new evidence for processing. I log it in and my coworker, Tracy, files it away until someone else comes and picks it up to be transferred to another evidence storage facility. Or a forensics lab for testing. Or a courthouse to be presented as evidence in a trial.
By ten a.m., I’m ready to call it a day. Then everything stops. For more than an hour, not a single person enters the evidence locker. Nobody passes through the corridor on the sub level. Just complete silence.
I’m beginning to notice a pattern.
I pick up the phone to call the sergeant, but the shriek behind me makes me drop the handset. I spin around in my chair and Tracy is covering her mouth, her eyes fixed on her computer screen. The look on her face sends chills through me.
“What’s wrong?”
I shoot out of my chair and round Tracy’s desk. She quickly tries to minimize her browser window, but it’s too late. I saw it. The headline reads: NYPD DETECTIVE FOUND DEAD IN MIDTOWN RESTAURANT.
“Open it back up.”
Tears are welling up in her eyes. “Honey, you don’t want to see that.”
“Open it up!”
Her shoulders slump as she reaches for her mouse and clicks the window. It reappears on the screen. And with every word I read, my body sinks farther down. Until I’m done and I’m crouched next to Tracy, clutching her desk for support.
“Baby, this is not your fault,” she insists, but she has no idea how wrong she is.
She thinks Charlie committed suicide because he couldn’t have me. She doesn’t know the truth. The truth is that Knox didn’t just silence Charlie. He killed him.
Charlie was just collateral damage in his revenge plot. How much longer will I last before I too become collateral damage?
I’m not sitting around and waiting to find out.
Chapter 5
The Knox Security corporate headquarters on 7th Avenue is pretty much exactly as I imagined it. Tall, dark, and sleek. It exudes strength and security. If Knox were a building, this is what he’d look like.
I storm into the lobby and there are three different receptionists: a blonde behind a glass desk in the center of the lobby, a black girl with beautiful auburn hair behind a counter on the right, and an Asian girl behind another desk on the left. For a moment, I’m so confused that I forget how angry I am.
“May I help you?” the blonde girl asks, and all my rage resurfaces.
“I need to see Knox Savage.”
She smiles, a knowing smile. As if she knows who I am, or I’m not the first woman to come barging in here demanding to see Knox.
“Mr. Savage is in a meeting. And he only sees people by appointment. Do you have an appointment, or would you like to set one for a later date?”
“I don’t need an appointment, so you can wipe that little smirk off your face.”
The girl doesn’t even have to call anyone or press any buttons and two security guards in suits are at my side.
“Ma’am, what seems to be the problem?” the guy on my right asks in a high-pitched but calm voice.
I hate to name-drop, especially with the way the news has latched onto my father’s story, but it seems I have no choice.
“Do you know who I am?”
The guy looks at me. At least, I assume he’s looking at me. I can’t see his fucking eyes through those dark sunglasses.
“I’m Rebecca Veneto. John Veneto’s daughter.”
“Shit,” he whispers under his breath, then he turns to the receptionist. “I’ll take her up.”
The elevator is secured with fingerprint scanning and a pin code. When we step inside, the gleaming silver mirrored walls, combined with the frantic pounding of my vengeful heart, make me woozy. I grab the handrail to steady myself.
Charlie is dead.
“Ma’am, are you all right? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine.”
When we reach the 29th level, the security guard looks at me expectantly. “I don’t have clearance on this level.”
“So, what do you mean? You brought me up here for nothing?”
“No, but you do. You just need to place your index finger right there,” he says, pointing at a small sensor on the elevator control panel. “Then enter your security pin on that touchscreen beneath the sensor.”
“But I don’t have a security pin.”
“We were told that if you came here today to tell you that your security pin is a six-digit number.”
I shake my head in disgust. Of course he expected me to come here. He’s always one confident stride ahead of me.
I take deep breaths as I attempt to think of what my six-digit pin could possibly be. I place my index finger on the sensor and a numeric keypad materializes on the touchscreen. I try my birthday with no luck. I try Knox’s—Marco’s—birthday and nothing happens. I try my dad’s birthday, my mom’s birthday. Nothing works.
Then I remember the last time I saw Marco in my living room when I was fifteen. The day he got out of prison and left Bensonhurst to become Knox Savage.
I enter the date 041806. April 18, 2006.
The elevator doors slide open and I step out in amazement. I can’t believe it. I haven’t even seen him yet, and he’s already succeeded in manipulating my emotions. I’m now less angry than I was when I stepped into this building.
Fortunately, knowing I was manipulated ratchets up my anger once again. I stride across the plush carpet toward the redheaded receptionist with the phony smile.
“Good morning, Miss Veneto. Mr. Savage has asked me to inform you that he is in a meeting, but he will be out very soon. May I offer you some coffee, tea, or champagne while you wait?”
“Stick your champagne and your nasty little smirk up your ass. Where’s his office?”
There are two doors on the wall behind her on either side of the desk. Left or right. Which should I choose?
This is not a riddle, Rebecca. Just make a choice.
I head for the door on the right and the receptionist heads me off. Her face is almost as red as her hair. She’s pissed. Good.
“You can’t go in there.”
We struggle for a moment as she attempts to prevent me from reaching the door handle. Her skinny fingers are latched onto my right forearm like crab claws.
“If you don’t let me go right now, I’ll make sure Knox doesn’t just fire you. I’ll make sure he destroys you.”
Even as the words come out of my mouth, I’m horrified. What’s come over me?
I’m turning into my father’s daughter.
She immediately lets go of my arm. She’s terrified.
“I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” She reaches for my arm. “Oh, my goodness. Did I hurt you? Oh, no. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I reacted very badly. Please, please, please don’t tell Mr. Savage. Please. I need this job.”
She doesn’t need this job. She needs to get the hell away from Knox Savage before this job ruins her life. But I don’t tell her that. I pity the girl, but I’m also still sort of pissed at her.
“Just take me to his office and Knox will never know what you did.”
She nods and opens the door. She holds it open for me to enter. And now my stomach is acting up again as the picture on the New York Times website flashes in my mind. It was a picture of the bottom half of Charlie’s body dangling above the place where he and I shared a meal four months ago. And it finally hits me.
Charlie’s dead and it’s all because of me. It’s all my fault.
The tears come so fast. My hands tremble as I wipe them away. We walk down a long, nondescript corridor lined with dark-gray steel doors. At the end of the corridor, the receptionist turns to me.
She’s stunned by
my tears, but she manages to find her words. “This is his office. He’s not really in a meeting.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Please don’t tell him.”
“I won’t.”
“Thank you,” she whispers, then she heads back in the direction we came.
I wait until she’s out of sight before I reach for the door handle. But the door swings open before I even touch it. Knox is standing just inside the door wearing one of his many tailored Dolce & Gabbana suits. He looks impressed.
“Good morning, Rebecca. That was a sexy little scuffle you got in back there.” I try to catch him by surprise with a hard smack to the face, but he grabs my wrist. “Looks like you still have some fight in you. Come in.”
He yanks me inside by the wrist then slams the door shut.
“How could you do it?” I shout at him, landing a hard thump on his rock-hard chest with my free hand. “You killed him!”
But he quickly takes that wrist and presses them together. His fingers are my handcuffs.
“Keep your voice down.” He issues this warning in a deadly whisper that raises the hairs on my arms. “I did what I had to do to protect you.”
“Bullshit! You did what you had to do to protect yourself! And your stupid plan! It’s all about your fucking plan!”
“I said keep your voice down!” he roars.
“What are you going to do? Kill me. Am I getting in the way of your revenge? Is it time for me to down a bottle of pills or something? How do I die, Knox? Or Marco? Or whatever the fuck I’m supposed to call you? You’re not the Marco Leone I used to know. If your mother knew the things you were doing, she’d be turning over in her grave.”
His chest is heaving with animalistic rage. His eyes filled with a fervor to strike out at me. He’s spent ten years working on this plan to avenge his mother’s death. He won’t let me get away with bringing her up.
Or will he?
He lets go of my wrists and my arms flop to my sides. His eyes close as he hangs his head, and suddenly I feel guilt creeping into my psyche. How could I bring up his mother?
