“You hide here on this farm and come out of your little hole only when you have to. You don’t see me—the real me, the fucking disastrous mess you and Callum made.” His head drops to his chest in honest defeat. I feel my fingernails digging into my palms as I catch my breath after yelling at him. Panting for breath I hunch myself over and close my eyes.
“I failed you, Avery, you don’t think I know that? You don’t think I look at your mother’s picture and see all the broken promises and shattered fucking dreams. I could not love you.” His voice is soft and sad and his head hangs down his shoulders now rounded over and hunched. There it is, the L word, the forbidden feelings.
“I loved Eiran, so I killed him. You want to know who taught me that?” I wait a second to see if he answers me. “Callum, because other than how to commit a flawless murder you taught me nothing about life, about how damn hard it is to be human.”
“I’m sorry, Avery.” His words are soft and they hurt me so much I yell back.
“Sorry? You don’t get to be sorry, Dad.” I slump down onto my bed and stare at his reflection. I don’t want an apology I wanted a dad.
“I am done, I don’t want his empire, I don’t want to run your murder mill and I certainly don’t want to keep being a shell. I felt something the night I killed Eiran, not with him. Someone else made me feel and my God it was so good. I want to be allowed to be angry, hurt, tired, sad, bitter, happy and fuck it all I would like to know is that someone in this rotten filthy world loved me at some point. I am done, Dad. Done.” He turns around now, I can see the shine of a tear on his cheek, he is human he feels things. He feels them bone deep just none of them are good things. Why am I not allowed the same privilege, why am I banned from having my heart broken?
“I don’t think you have a choice. Being done isn’t an option for people like us, Avery.”
“People like us? Just say it, Dad. MURDERERS. That’s what we are. Stone cold killers.” The acidic rage eats me from the inside out as I spew angry words at him.
“You need to pull yourself together. I know I came in here and asked to talk to you, but I am done talking now. You want to be done? Try it and see what happens.” He shoves his hands in his pockets as he walks right up to me.
“And Avery, I tried being done once, your mother hated me for it. She hated herself for it and I can promise, you will hate it. This is your birthright not a career day expo. It is in you and there is no getting it out.” I know it’s there, I feel it inside me and I want to purge myself of the curse born in me.
I stare at myself in the windows a murky reflection. I have two faces, one of them I am not and the other is a murderer. Neither of them is who I want to be. I fall asleep with my demons playing over and over in my head and I wake to them in my home. My ringing phone wakes me, I don’t want to answer it but I do because the other option is talking to Dad again and that was agonising enough the first time.
“Ms Leahy, are you planning to come into work sometime this month?” The thick Irish accent has a hint of Callum in it makes my heart stops for a minute.
“Unless I died and someone made you the boss, I can’t see how it is any of your business Mr . . .”
“O’Reilly and Callum died and made us co-bosses so I sort of need you to show up eventually.” Harmon, the dickhead. I missed the reading of the will because I didn’t really care about what Callum gave to who, I don’t need his money. The devil that killed my mother left me all of his.
“Fuck off.” I hang up. Today isn’t the day for this. I pour wine into a coffee mug and drag myself to the patio where I watch the vines dance in the wind and breathe the air of the valley morning in. The house is eerily quiet this morning and my Dad has obviously left. Something he doesn’t do often so I am wondering what was so urgent now, but I know he is just hiding from me. I’m hungry, for the first time in over a week I actually want something to eat. The kitchen is one place I felt my mother, I may have never known her but in here she still lives and breathes. Right in the middle of the island is a small pile of envelopes with my name on them and a sticky note with Dad’s writing.
It’s time you read these.
x Dad
There is one new envelope on top so I start there. I don’t want to think about what was in the letters now, maybe later when I’m ready to face the things that will be revealed. One was from Callum and the other three were from my mother. I took the letters, a small bag of clothes and my work bag of guns and knives and I left. I am using my escape plan. I got on the N1 and drove, away from Cape Town away from my life and away from myself because I hate myself. Every kilometre that passed, I felt the freedom. I never realised I craved it as I feel it filling the empty cavity that the events of the last two weeks had made. I shed the spiky skin of my upbringing and embrace the idea of being someone new, I can be anyone I create now. I still haven’t eaten but the sickness in my stomach wouldn’t let me eat now. My father had those letters for me, all my fucking life he had the chance and never gave them to me. I’m so angry at him.
Work out your own salvation.
Do not depend on others.
AT FIRST I WASN’T worried at all when Avery didn’t show up to the reading of the will, or work or anything at all. I heard she killed some guy that had been around for years and that she has had a breakdown and is staying with her father. At first I thought oh well two years is plenty time to seduce her into my bed and have my offspring in her belly. But now I am worried, two years isn’t that long and Avery Spillane-Leahy has disappeared off the face of the earth. Callum’s agreement is iron clad, even I can’t find a fucking loophole—yet. I have got to find her she has had her fun, three months of it and I’m not a patient person. I also need to enlist some help or get some friends in this shithole place because I have no idea what I am doing and everyone in here is treating me like the enemy outsider.
To be honest, I thought Callum was a lunatic and I still think he had gone a bit mad from the disease and the medication, the office smelled like fresh pot the day he walked out. Now I have had time to mull it over, the families tried this once before to bring things together with a marriage and a child, he was that child, but the old world thinking and stubborn men couldn’t let it be. Now there is none of that mob mentality. This is a business and a merger would make sense, the girl owns half the Italian mob interests by some default deal and her name, well names still hold a weight of power with crime circles all over the world. Together we would be a formidable opponent for anyone who tried to topple us and they will try. The king has fallen, the queen doesn’t want a crown. We are vulnerable and open to be attacked. Callum foresaw this and that’s what his plan was about, my brother had a brilliant mind and no conscience that is why he succeeded even in death he was planning the future.
I’ve managed to make one friend in my attempts to run this enterprise and find the missing Avery, a diamond dealer. Sam, it seems was as close as a friend that Avery had. According to him she doesn’t do people, friends or family. Well that doesn’t help me much, she has also killed eighty-seven men after having sex with them the cleaning team here divulged that much. They told me that bodies are bound to start showing up wherever she has gone and I should just wait for them to get the call to clean, three months and not one. She either stopped killing, or got exceptionally good at hiding the bodies.
I’m slowly unravelling the intricate web of the company though, weapons, diamonds, drugs, people and any other illegal merchandise you can think of come through us, like a hub of evil. The port here is owned almost exclusively by us, it’s perfectly central to move things all over the continent and the world. We make our money trading one for the other in and out, raw diamonds in, and polished cut ones out. Drugs out and sex slaves in to be moved to other parts of the world. Stolen women out and arms in, it really is ingenious that way the place is structured. We have the gangs on the streets, pushing drugs, kidnapping girls and buying guns. And every sector of business from there on up has some tie to
us, this city is the filthiest place ever. Corrupted and bought by the blood of many, I’ve fallen in love with it already. We even own the police and politicians. It is easy to be a criminal here, I understand the reason Callum chose it and there will never be peace so no one has the time to see the clean crime that is happening under all the violence.
I pick up the phone, every day I try.
“Rowan, it’s Harmon, is Avery there? Have you heard from her?” I ask him, but I think he’s happy she’s gone so he never actually helps me. He’s an odd man, deadly, but quiet and observant. He is reclusive and secretive about everything, he never says one word more than he has to.
“No and no, Harm. Let it go just take the business and run it yourself. She said she was done.” She doesn’t get to be done, yet.
“Thanks, Rowan.” He hangs up, I get the feeling he doesn’t like to be bothered. He hides on that farm and never leaves. I wonder why Callum was so protective of him, he guarded Rowan like he was the only thing that mattered.
I have a team of investigators looking for my lost girl and I have this feeling that she isn’t far away just really good at hiding away. I will find you, little hummingbird and when I do you are going to be sorry you have wasted my time. A knock on the door just makes my mood worse, “Come in.” I bark.
“Hi.” It’s Sam in his high pitched fake queer voice that makes me grind my teeth.
“Hi, Sam,” I sigh out taking my glasses off and shutting down the computer screen so he can’t see what I am doing.
“Want to go for lunch?” It cannot be lunch time already. I look at my watch and true as god it’s eleven thirty.
“Sure why not. Where we going?” I don’t share his vegan hippie tastes in food so I am always afraid of what the answer will be. I’m vegetarian some stupid rule Callum made years ago, but there is no way I’m eating some of the shit they come up with.
“I want to take you somewhere. A surprise. And it’s not vegan.” He winks, great a surprise I plaster a fake smile on my face and put my jacket back on.
“I’ll drive.” I just don’t like his pansy little hairdresser car.
“Let’s go.” He’s so annoying but the only ally I have so I put up with his drivel and weirdness. I think he puts most of it on to upset his father.
We get into my car in the underground parking, a sensible SUV with bulletproof windows. I am prepared for the war that will come.
“Head into old town.” I look at him like he has gone mad. And he sighs and enters an address into the GPS.
“I think you’ll love this. A little history lesson for you.” He seriously underestimates my tolerance for crap, but today any escape from the closing walls of that office will suffice.
I blindly follow the talking GPS lady in my dashboard through the traffic and buildings, I haven’t been to this part of the city. Sticking to the places close to home, work and the beach has worked just fine so far, I do not feel safe here. I see people living in tents on sidewalks and beggars at every robot or stop street, the urban rot is evident all around me. “You have reached your destination.” The voice says as we stop opposite a giant pink building. I must look confused because Sam chimes in at that moment.
“Park in there.” He points to a lot that looks like I will get mugged and raped in.
“What is this place, Sam, really?”
“Charly’s, Avery loves it and I heard that Callum used to come here with his cousin before, well you know before his wife.”
“But what is it Sam?” I look at the building amongst the rotting surroundings and I cannot understand why he has brought me here.
“It’s a bakery you nob. Don’t you watch the old re-runs on telly. Charly’s bakery, cake boss?”
“Unlike you, I am not gay, Sam. I’m also a very busy man.” I haven’t even turned the television in my home on yet. He laughs and shakes his head at me.
“You need to get laid and learn how to have some fun, Harmon, because if you don’t this place will eat you alive.” I don’t have time for fun and I would love to get laid, but I am too distracted with finding the one woman I have to fuck that finding any others hasn’t been a priority.
“I will take you out somewhere fun and full of girls . . . or guys if you like?”
“I like women, Sam. Not girls.” I answer as we enter the giant pink box. The place is wall to wall cupcakes, cookies and sugar. Not exactly the lunch I had in mind. Sam has the look of a child in the toy store on his face as his eyes rake over every single delicious treat displayed for us.
“Chose something, Harmon,” he says over his shoulder as he picks out something that should be called sugar coma. The only thing that catches my eye are the small petit fours in bright colours displayed behind a glass divider. I order two and a coffee since whiskey isn’t an option here and Sam and I sit outside at a small table that has seen better days.
“This place has been here like forty years still makes the best fucking cupcakes on earth,” he mumbles with a mouthful of cake.
“What do you want from me, Sam?” I ask because the guy is honestly too nice and it worries me.
“Truth?” He raises an eyebrow.
“No, lie to me. Of course the truth.”
“I thought you were gay at first, actually I was hoping you were. You dress like you are.” He shoves more cake in his mouth while I decide whether or not to be offended by his statement. I dress like a person, not a hoodlum. Being a criminal means looking like a gentleman always. My father taught me that before Callum had him killed.
“Now, I just kind of like having someone to spend time with.” He’s being sincere with me, but I’m not sure how to respond. I never had friends. My fiancé Minnie was the closest thing to a friend I had and she was a money hungry whore.
“Okay.” It’s the only answer I can manage.
“Okay, well you are nicer than her you know.” I have heard she was a bitch. I know the little interaction we had was never pleasant. “Let’s go out tonight, maybe I can help you get laid. Women like gay men these days.” He winks at me.
“Sam, is being gay a rebellion against your father or something you always felt?” I don’t know why but he seems unconvincing in his convictions.
“Both, but mostly too many girls broke my heart and one boy managed to undo all of that hurt after that, well after that I never looked at women again.” He’s drinking rice milk which is just odd to me. “I guess, Harmon, I go both ways but I do love that going this way upsets my father so very much.” I spoke with his father once who was not a nice guy. I never had a father to piss off as teenager, I upset Callum a few times but he was too far away for it to really matter at all.
“Makes sense. Your dad is a bit of a dick.” Sam laughs very loudly.
“A bit.” He shakes his head still laughing “Let’s go, Harmon, I will meet you at the office after work.” He looks me over with his fingers pinching his chin. “You have other clothes don’t you.” He points and waves his finger around at me.
“Other suits, yes.”
“No, no suits. Clothes?” He seems horrified.
“No.”
“Well don’t wear your jacket.” We get back in my car and get lost numerous times on the way back to the office.
“Sam, where do you think she went?”
“Avery didn’t actually like me, you know that right? She never ever divulged anything personal ever. I only know what she did for fun because she murdered a mutual friend and occasionally hung out at a jazz bar I frequent.” It seems she really did have no one in her life at all. I know that bitter bite of loneliness at the end of the day and it sucks.
“I want to go there tonight.” It is a long shot, I don’t think she’s in the city.
“Sure, we can go there. But I can’t promise you’ll get laid if we do, it’s not that kind of place.” He can be very juvenile. He goes straight to his car and I head upstairs to face whatever else has managed to cross over my desk in the last two hours.
One of m
y investigators is waiting when I get upstairs, my heart jumps, maybe they found her?
“Come in.” Opening my office door for him I give the nosy girl at the front desk a death glare. I hate them all.
“Tell me you have something for me?” I sit down behind my desk with hope.
“I think I’ve got her. One of my guys saw a woman matching her description, you know those eyes.” Those eyes are unique. I nod for him to go on.
“She’s in the Eastern Free State, if it is her. A small town near the Lesotho border post. Has a man with her.” He sits forwards a little, leans his elbows on my desk. “What do you want us to do?”
“Nothing. I need an address, and I want surveillance on her. Don’t get caught.” I remove an envelope of cash from my bottom drawer and hand it to him. Found you, Hummingbird.
“Yes, sir.” He leaves my office closing the door behind him.
It is time to play catch. I need to make her come home, I don’t want to have to kidnap her I will if I have to but there are other ways to make her return home. There is no out of this family.
No matter how hard the past,
you can always begin again.
I DON’T KNOW WHERE I’m going to go, I just know that I cannot stay. I stopped in Paarl and withdrew a large sum of cash from the Baldini trust account, not many know about it so by the time they look there, I’ll be gone. It’s the first time I’d touched the money from my mother’s murderer, I always felt it was tainted, not that any of my other money isn’t but this always seemed different. Now seems as good a time as any to spend his filthy money. By the time I reach Beaufort West, my car is dangerously low on fuel and I pull into the big 1-Stop. It’s bustling with cars and people. I fill the car first then go inside the convenience store to get coffee and something edible to take with me. I’m also dying to pee, just the thought of the public loo gives me the willies but a girl can’t hold it forever and if I had to sneeze now it would cause a flood. The shop bustles with families, truck drivers and drifters from all over, the unofficial stop over point on the road to Cape Town this place is always busy. There’s a line in the ladies, I can’t wait, I slip into the door to the men’s room and slink into the nearest stall. Oh the relief as I empty my strained bladder is amazing. I just sit for a second after I’m done. I bury my head in my hands and wonder just what the fuck it is I’m doing? I should just turn around and go back now, what do I know about being off on my own? I have been micromanaged by Callum and my father my whole life. Freedom is scaring the shit out of me. I convince myself the shakes are from hunger and fatigue but when I stand and shudder, the itch to just murder someone is there again, a way to release what I’m feeling. I open the latch and peek out to make sure I don’t interrupt some scary trucker type mid piss, you can’t unsee things. When I’m satisfied there’s no one at the urinal, I push the door open and start to escape from the little boy’s room. As I push the exit door I hear footsteps behind me and I try to move faster, but they don’t stop. I’m not looking back, just get out and go get coffee that’s the plan. Before I can get to the end of the passage the footsteps have gained on me and a man steps right next to me, “Hello, Avery. Are you going somewhere?” Him, it’s him. I know it just from the way he said my name and I can smell him. He smells like an Armani advert in mens health magazine. “Hello Mathew, or whatever your name really is. I wouldn’t tell you if I was going somewhere.”
My Black Hole Heart (Colour #3) Page 7
