Darkness Before Dawn

by Contreras, Claire

When I walk into the lobby of Mark's office the next day, I'm greeted by the blond that's always here. I remember Blake telling me that she couldn't stand them. Them. I guess there are two of them. Whatever, they look and act the same to me. This one is practically salivating as she eye fucks me. I try not to roll my eyes, because I don't have an appointment to see Mark, and I really don't want to barge into his office, though I will if I have to.

  "Mr. Murphy," she coos as she leans forward, blatantly trying to entice me with her fake tits. "It's great to see you again. Do you have an appointment with Mr. Lewis?"

  I grin at her, noticing her eyelids flutter before I feed her my bullshit. "I don't, actually. I was wondering if you could squeeze me in." I drop my voice as I say the last words, and I swear this girl is about to come in her tight ass pencil skirt.

  She clears her throat as she smooths the front of her skirt. "Well, Mr. Lewis is a very busy man, Mr. Murphy. His morning is booked. His next client should be here in ten minutes. He won't be happy with me if I squeezed you in," she replies breathlessly.

  I walk toward her and lean on the desk and ask, "Are you sure about that?"

  With great effort, I don't cringe at her shiver or the strong perfume that consumes the airways as I stand so close to her. Blake rarely wears perfume and when she shivers, my cock instantly starts twitching. This bleach blond Barbie look alike is just not Blake...and the perfume she wears makes her smell like an old lady.

  "I'll...umm...see what I can do, Mr. Murphy," she replies, flustered.

  I grin again, wondering if it looks genuine or more like a grimace before turning back to the waiting area when she picks up her phone and makes the call.

  "Mr. Murphy, you may go inside," she says right before I sit down.

  "Thank you, Miss—"

  "Tanner," she replies huskily.

  "Miss Tanner, you have a good day, now."

  When I get to Mark's door, I don't knock. I just push it open and walk straight toward him.

  "Mark. What the fuck?" I bite out.

  He rolls his eyes dramatically, and I swear I'm going to punch the motherfucker today.

  "Cole," he says flatly. "What a surprise."

  I slam my fists on his desk. "Do you think this is a fucking game? My fucking girlfriend has been missing for almost a month. The cops won't even look for her anymore. I have no help, I'm about to meet my long-lost fucking parents because I'm that damn desperate. So I'll ask you again, what the fuck do you know?" I growl.

  He takes a deep breath. "You're going to meet your parents? Cole..."

  "Don't even think about giving me your advice," I grind out.

  He closes his eyes and rubs his forehead. "Cole, the people that are involved in this are big time. I can't have this conversation," he says as he looks around making a face at me.

  I crinkle my eyebrows. "What the fuck does that mean?"

  Mark stands up quickly, making his chair fly behind him and hit the glass wall.

  "Listen, Cole, I know you're pissed, sad, and scared. Trust me, I am too, but it doesn't give you the right to disrespect your fucking godfather. I suggest you shut the fuck up, and go take a fucking walk. I'm going to lunch in five minutes. We'll talk about this when you've calmed down."

  As he says this, he's stalking toward me. He grabs my arm and pulls me toward the door. He's fucking kicking me out. This asshole thinks he's going to kick me out? Is he fucking crazy? I snap my arm from his and push him off me. I can tell it's taking a lot for him not to push me back. I decide that I'm going to wait for him to leave on his little lunch break for his meeting, and I'm going to follow him around until he tells me what he knows. Fuck. This.

  I push past him and walk out. I hear his footsteps behind me, but I refuse to look back. I walk toward the elevators and hear Miss Blondie say my name, but I don't turn around. When the doors open, I step in, and Mark steps in behind me. The doors close.

  "Dickhead, did it ever occur to you, that maybe, I'm being fucking recorded and I can't talk about certain things in my office?" Mark asks angrily.

  I narrow my eyes at him. "Does that mean you're gonna answer my fucking questions?"

  "Yes, asshole. I'll take you to lunch, but I swear, you disrespect me again, and I'm going to teach you some fucking manners."

  I rub my face with my hands. My beard is itchy and hot and I fucking hate it. I know Blake would hate it, but I'm not shaving until I find her. Even if I start to look like Santa Claus, or Jesus. I'm not fucking shaving.

  "I would apologize, but you're past pushing my fucking limits, Lewis."

  We take a cab to a little Irish pub. From the outside, it looks shitty. I'd never noticed it before, and I drive by here often enough.

  "How long has this shit hole been here? Is it even open?" I ask, confused.

  Mark shakes his head. "I wouldn't bring you for lunch if it was closed. And it's not a shit hole."

  Inside, the place is nice. The booths are kept up, there's a huge bar in the center of the place, a stage across from it, a dance floor in front of that. Foo Fighters are blaring through the speakers.

  "Shit, this place is actually nice," I say as we scoot in a booth.

  "I know," he replies with a smirk.

  "So, do you know who took her?"

  "Yes," he sighs.

  My eyes shoot out of my face. "You've known this whole time?"

  "Yes," he says in a grave voice. "It's complicated, Cole."

  "Fuck complicated!" I shout. "Stop fucking telling me things are complicated. I fucking know complicated. I've lived complicated. My fucking girlfriend...oh my God, Mark. Oh my God. Mother of fucking fuck. Is...please tell me it's not the same people," I whisper.

  Mark looks me in the eyes, and the pain I see in them answers my question. Fuck.

  "Who are they, Mark? What do they want? Why her?"

  The waitress comes and gets our drink orders, and we order our food so she won't bother us again until it's ready.

  "Cole," he says sternly. "If I tell you-" I make a face. "When I tell you, you have to promise me that you'll let me handle it. Please let me do this."

  I pound my fist on the table, making our waters spill over a little. I practice on my breathing so I won't lose my temper again.

  "Mark, just tell me," I demand through gritted teeth.

  "Blake's father's last name is Brennan. Her mother's was Benson. As in Brian Benson."

  He says it with such assurance, as if I'm supposed to know who the hell that is. As if he's saying...oh shit, Brian Benson? My eyes shoot up to his. Son of a...no way. I shake my head vehemently as I look into his expectant wide blue eyes.

  "Brian Benson?" I whisper hoarsely. When he nods his head, I want to die.

  He nods his head. "—is Blake's grandfather."

  My head feels like it's inside a hamster ball, spinning and hitting everything in sight. Brian Benson is like the fucking Godfather. No, not like, he is the fucking godfather. He's the mob boss of mob bosses. Brian fucking Benson. Oh my God. It's all starting to come back to me. Blake's grandfather's farm. My farm now. What the fuck?

  "Why the hell do I own Brian Benson's farm?" I whisper.

  Mark's eyebrows shoot up. "His farm?"

  I shoot him a look. "Don't be stupid. I know that you know."

  Mark looks confused. "No, I really don't. What the hell are you talking about?"

  I let out a breath and rub my forehead, trying to rein in my impending headache.

  "Forget it. How do I find Brian?"

  He chokes on the sip of water he's taking. "What?" he coughs out.

  "Brian. How do I find him?" I ask, exasperated.

  "You don't, Cole. Are you out of your fucking mind?"

  "Yes, I fucking am," I shout. "I've been out of my fucking mind. I'm dying over here. I can't breathe, I can't sleep, I can't think! My mind is running marathons half the time. You know what? Forget it! I'll figure it out my own damn self!"

  He exhales sharply. "Calm down!" he bellows. "I'll take you
to him. I'll fucking take you to him!"

  My eyes bug out of my face. "What? How?"

  He tells me to let him handle that and that he'll take me to meet Brian soon. I just need to give him more time, but he's running out of time with me. Meanwhile, I can't even begin to process how the hell Mr. Fucking Big Time Attorney knows Brian motherfucking Benson. Well, he is a criminal attorney, maybe he's pulling in a favor. I don't care what he's doing, I need to find my girl.

  A couple of days later, I'm standing outside my building waiting for Mark to pick me up and take me to see Brian. I hear Mark's Aston Martin before he pulls up to me and unlocks the doors. Before my ass even hits the seat, he's handing me a flask. I take it, giving him a confused look as I bring it up to my lips.

  "Trust me, you'll need it," he says as he speeds off.

  We're silent during the ride, no sounds other than the cool breeze powering out of the air vents. Comfortable silence is just about the only thing I can handle right now because I sure as shit don't want to talk, and I don't care much to hear what he has to say. Instead, I focus my attention on the LED lights that glow against the darkness before us, the only thing illuminating our journey. As my mind drifts to Blake, I stop paying attention to the roads and signs around me. Again I wonder why they have her, what they're feeding her, and where they're keeping her.

  I put my face in my hands and feel the steel of the flask hit my forehead. The pain in my chest is becoming unbearable. Why couldn't they fucking take me? I'd gladly take her place. God, please let her be okay. She has to be okay. I don't realize I'm breathing heavily until Mark places his hand on my shoulder and looks at me with concern. I take a couple of deep breaths to calm down before staring back out into the night.

  We pull up to a mansion with a massive iron gate that has the initial B in the middle. Mark opens his window and punches in a code to open the gates. He has the damn code?

  "How do you know Brian?" I ask cautiously.

  He turns to me with a smirk. "Oh...he's my father."

  My jaw drops and all I can do is gape at him while he laughs at the shock on my face.

  "Are you fucking kidding me?" I growl when I finally come to my senses.

  Before he can even make a coherent reply without laughing at me, I'm standing in front of the large oval dungeon door in the front of the house. Mark rings the doorbell as I nervously wipe my sweaty hands on my pant legs. Moments later, we're greeted by an elderly woman dressed in a French maid outfit. No joke. I try not to laugh but surely that is just about as weird as it gets. I nod my head and smile politely, as Mark greets her with a hug. He turns and introduces me to Ethel and I shake her hand before we walk past her.

  We approach what I'm assuming is a smoking room, because it smells like straight wood and cigar smoke. When we walk in, a gray-haired old man is sitting on one side of a poker table reading a newspaper.

  "Pops," Mark greets, making the old man look up over his paper.

  My stomach drops when I meet his big, piercing gray eyes. Brian fucking Benson. Any doubt I may have had about him being related to Blake vanishes along with my dignity, because I'm pretty sure I'm going to sell my soul to this guy so I can get my girl back. The longer I stand staring into his stormy eyes, the bigger the hole in my chest gets. Those eyes have haunted and saved me for the past twenty-six years. I clear my throat so I don't start crying like a little bitch in front of one of the most notorious men I've heard of.

  "Nathan," the old man says as he searches my face.

  I clear my throat again, trying to get rid of the fucking golf ball stuck in it. "Cole...but yes, sir," I say as I extend a hand out to him.

  He shakes it. He's a tall man, almost as tall as I am and he's wearing khaki shorts and a polo. I don't know what the fuck I was expecting him to be wearing, but it sure as shit wasn't this.

  "You've grown up, son," he says with a smile. I must have made a face because he starts laughing. "Were you expecting me to scream or be a pissed off old man?" he asks, amused.

  "I didn't really think about it, sir, but I didn't expect you to be wearing regular clothes, that's for sure," I reply honestly.

  His laughter fills the room, and Mark joins in shortly after. My mind is still reeling as I watch him hug Mark tightly and kiss him on both cheeks before turning back to me.

  "Don't sir me, call me Brian. You used to call me Grandpa as a kid, but I don't expect you to remember that. Sit," he says, pointing at the chair across from the one he was sitting in. "Mark filled me in on everything. I gotta say, I was shocked as shit when I found out about Blake. I thought they were trying to play me, until Mark here came to me about it. Anyway, I'm expecting company tonight, so we need to air this shit about before they get here. There will be no mention of Blake around anybody else in this house. Understand?"

  His eyes go cold when he says the last part to me, and suddenly the stories about how ruthless he is are a little more real to me. I know I can take this man down in a fight, but the intensity in his voice makes me shake in my fucking boots.

  "Yes, sir," I reply. "I just need to know who took her and I need to get her back."

  He picks up the set of dice in front of him and starts shaking them in his right hand, his eyes never leaving mine.

  "I know who has her, they won't hurt her, son," he says firmly.

  "Is it the same people that took us when we were kids?" I ask, working my jaw.

  He nods and sadness pools his thunderous eyes before he fixes his stare on the die in his hand. Their gray is so much like Blake's, that I feel my throat tighten again and have to avert my own to the door just in time to catch Mark, who had seemingly left the room, stepping back inside.

  "You tell him?" Mark asks Brian with a nod to me.

  Brian takes a breath and looks at me. "I'm sure you are now aware of who I am. You've probably heard things; some true, some not. The men that took you were like family to us until we started having some issues over twenty years ago over some land...and other things that you don't need to know about. But I beat them out on something and that was the last straw for them. You dad was in charge of approving proposals in the city at the time, each of us turned our own things in. Everybody knew that because of the relationship I had built with your dad, I would get the approval. One of the guys thought it would make a difference to kidnap you and Blake. One thing we had in common is that we never involved children in our business. That night things just..." his voice trails off. "Anyway, Blake's father went nuts after that and did some things he can't take back. And there's just been bad blood between us and the O'Brien's since then. We've managed to keep them buried," he pauses and throws the dice down onto the green table. "Until now. They got something we want. I already told them I'd give them what they want. But he's not after that anymore, it's become some sort of obsession of his. Blake's pops don't know about it, don't know about you either, and I wanna keep it that way as long as I can. If anything happens to her and he finds out she was alive all this time, when he thought she was dead, he'll...fuck, I don't even know what else he can do," he says as he eyes Mark, who raises and drops his shoulders in response.

  "So Jamie O'Brien is the one that has her?" I ask, ignoring the rest of the story.

  Brian shakes his head slowly. "No. Him and I go way back and despite this shit, we have the same ideals. One of his guys does. It's complicated, kid. We'll handle it though," he replies, looking at Mark again.

  "You talk to Benny?" Mark asks.

  He scoffs. "Fucking kid wouldn't know his head from his ass. I talked to Alex, though," he replies with a sigh. "Alex ain't gonna hurt the girl, Marky, you've seen her."

  What the hell does that mean? I'm ready to ask questions, but Ethel interrupts us to let Brian know his guests have arrived. We say our goodbyes and leave through the back door.

  On the way home, we're quiet again, even though I have so many questions to ask, but for some reason I keep getting stuck on the stupidest one.

  "Mark." My voice slices thr
ough the silence as I pivot my body as much as I can in the tiny seat. "Why the fuck is your last name Lewis?"

  He gives a carefree laugh. "I changed it after they took you. I refused to hide, so I changed it and continued law school instead. They know who I am, of course, but the rest of the world doesn't need to know that a criminal attorney is the son of...well..."

  The fact that he can't even say it makes it funnier than it is. The mix of confusion, anger, and anxiety drives me into a hysteric laugh and tears start rolling down my face as I clutch my stomach. Mark slaps my shoulder, which makes me laugh harder, and finally joins me laughing.

  What a strange, fucked up world we live in.

  "So Brian is Blake's grandfather, and...you're her uncle...from the farm?"

  "Nope, that must've been my brother. I rarely visited the farm," he replies with an exhale.

  My clattering teeth echo in the dark empty room, as I lay in the fetal position, holding myself together, trying to keep myself warm. When the door bursts open, I hold myself tighter and squeeze my eyes shut as I try to control my breathing. Please think I'm asleep. Please think I'm asleep. Sometimes Alex comes in here and sits on the floor staring at me when he thinks I'm asleep. Most of the time I hear him weeping as I lie here with my eyes shut, waiting for him to leave. Sometimes he mutters apologies under his breath as he touches my face lightly, and I try my best not to flinch or cry. Then he leaves quietly after bidding me goodnight. I don't feel well enough to pretend right now, though.

  "Blake," he whispers roughly.

  My heart begins to slow down, and I open my eyes as I stir my body.

  "What?" I ask groggily, sitting up on the uncomfortable mattress. My back is killing me from this damn mattress. And the smell. I just can't take it anymore! The smell of chlorine overpowers any other lingering scent and just thinking about it makes me gag. I can even smell it through my stuffy nose from the terrible cold I have, which is pretty telling.

  "How do you feel?" he asks, leaning over me and touching my forehead softly, making my stomach churn from the cigarette smell on his clothing.