by T Gephart
“I take it you’ve calmed down.” My father’s voice coughed. “I hope you have good things to tell me.”
“Firstly, go fuck yourself, Jimmy,” Michael spat back. “You’ll hear from me when I want you to. I want access to her trust fund. All of it, and that one point five mil, that’s mine too.”
“I don’t have access to her money—”
“Not my problem,” Michael snapped, not giving him a chance to finish. “If you want this done, you’ll find a way. My usual account.”
“It will take a few days.” My father breathed heavily. “And this is already taking longer than I would have liked.”
“Then tick-tock motherfucker.”
Michael ended the call and then turned to look at me. “Your dad is a cocksucker.”
“You’ll get no arguments from me.”
***
Waiting for the money gave us a small reprieve. Until the sum had been paid, I could legitimately stay breathing. Not the best of circumstances, but you had to find positives where you could.
Initially, I’d been worried my dad would renege on the deal and possibly come up with another solution. It’s not like he was honorable or anything. But the one thing my father hated more than losing money was losing face. He’d come up with the idea of neutralizing me, it had been his plan to involve Michael, and if now he had somehow lost control of that—well, there was no telling what the trickle down would do. No. He would play this out—he had to—at least until it became obvious there was no other choice.
Getting the information I needed was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Combing through pages and pages of accounts, transcripts and surveillance footage. Literally piecing together criminal activity in a timeline with a trail of proof. It would take weeks—weeks I didn’t have.
Michael didn’t say much. I mean he interacted normally, asked me how things were going, but for the most part he let me be. His file had been packed away, or destroyed—he didn’t tell me which—but I knew it still bothered him that a part of him had been exposed.
“How long you think we have?” I whispered in the dark.
It was either late at night or early in the morning, I couldn’t tell which when he finally walked into the bedroom. He’d usually come in and not say a word, just lie beside me and sleep. But tonight, with the lights off, I didn’t feel the barriers there usually were.
“Not long, a day. Maybe two.” He blew out a long breath. “I expect he’ll send the money soon. After that he’s going to want a return on his investment.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me.
“Are you scared?” he asked, his voice turning toward me.
“No.” My hand absently went to the cross around my neck.
“Liar.” He laughed. “You should be scared. Any sane person would.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“You just said any sane person would.”
“I think you answered your own question.”
Even though my eyes had adjusted to the blackness, all I could see was his silhouette, the strong lines of his body. His face was hidden in the shadows and somehow that made it easier to talk.
“Do you think you are insane?”
“I’ve always known I was different. My mind works differently.”
“How?”
I didn’t expect an answer, but I couldn’t help asking.
“When I was fourteen I left the foster family I’d been assigned to. I was done being with people who didn’t want me and being around a piece of shit who thought hurting little kids was entertainment. There was a local library that didn’t have surveillance cameras. It was warm inside and I didn’t have to worry about some pervert trying to rape me in my sleep or stealing whatever I had. First time ever that I could remember feeling safe. I read a lot—newspapers, books, magazines—reading until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. Figured if knowledge was power then I wanted as much of it as I could gather.”
I stayed silent, pushing aside the questions that were burning through my mind hoping he would keep going.
“Learning wasn’t hard for me for some reason. I guess I wasn’t as dumb as people had assumed, I used what I’d learned and applied it to the street. I slept in that library for four years before they finally upgraded their security system. By then, I had gotten what I needed and made enough money to get my own place.”
“Is that when you went looking for your mother?”
“No, I went looking for her after I killed my last foster father. I wanted to kill her too,” he responded with zero emotion.
I gasped. I couldn’t help it.
“Yeah, that part didn’t make it into the file.” He turned, the smile in his voice. “They never connected it to me. He’d deserved it. They had another foster kid living with them at the time—a girl this time—and I’d heard he liked to touch her while she slept. Liked to brag about it when he was drinking at the bar and there weren’t many places the asshole liked to drink. I’d been biding my time. As for my mother—the whore who’d brought me into this word—well, she was guilty by default.”
“Do you know who your father is?” I winced, wondering if I’d pushed it too far.
“Nope.” He answered easily, missing the explosive none-of-your-business I expected. “Some asshole who liked to fuck nuns at Saint Margaret’s would be my guess.”
“Huh?” My head snapped in his direction. “What?” My mouth was polite enough to leave off “the fuck?” that my mind was thinking.
Michael laughed. “Yeah, didn’t see that one coming either.”
I held my breath as he told me what he knew, honestly expecting at any moment to open my eyes and have dreamt the whole thing. But it wasn’t an illusion, his voice steady. How he’d learned years ago the church had hidden her existence, and if not for a well-meaning maintenance man, he would probably have never learned the truth.
It was hard not to feel a connection, knowing that he probably hadn’t shared the information with anyone, and yet he was telling me.
He continued to talk, like a seal had been lifted as he purged parts of his past. It was safe in the dark for both of us. Suspended in a state of semi reality, like we were isolated by the moment.
My heart ached as he recounted stories of abuse, his foster father burning his skin with cigarettes. How he’d been beaten and robbed on the streets until he’d found the sanctuary of the library. Never once had he been loved or protected, and I doubt very much he’d even been hugged.
I wanted to put my arms around him, to hold him. To show him what it could feel like, but instead I wrapped my arms around myself, tears prickling my eyes.
When he was done, he asked me about my childhood and I wanted to throw up. How could I tell him I’d lived in a house so big I could ride a bicycle in its interior and not hit furniture? Or that I had been sent to the best private schools money could buy? Or that despite my father being a cold-hearted killer and my mother being a submissive enabler, I’d never been treated badly?
“I’m sorry.” It was all I could say, the tears I’d been trying to keep at bay spilling over my cheeks. Ah, crap. I didn’t want him to see me cry.
“For what?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised. “Are you crying?”
“Yes,” I choked back, unable to say more. My will to stop wasn’t working so there was no point hiding it.
It was so subtle I almost hadn’t felt it.
His fingers reached and lightly touched my hand. It felt so unnatural; his body rigid beside me while his fingers gently swept the length of my hand. In his own way, he was trying to comfort me.
That’s right, him trying to comfort me.
And my heart broke all over again.
“I’m not worth your tears, Sofia,” he said softly as his hand tightened around my hand. “Don’t cry for me.”
I didn’t ask, probably because I knew he would say no, but I reached out into the darkness and curled as much of my body as
I could around his. He stiffened, his breathing becoming more rapid as I moved closer, but he didn’t pull away.
“You don’t have to hug me back, okay.” I sobbed into his chest, the fabric of his T-shirt underneath my cheeks getting wet. “But please don’t tell me what you’re worth. I still get a say on what I get to cry over.”
His hands awkwardly closed around me, absorbing my weight. I knew this was strange for him, he was not used to being held—feeling affection even less—but he didn’t turn me away.
My feelings were a mess; my head completely scrambled but there was something there. And as ridiculous as it sounded I cared for him, and for maybe the first time in his life, I wanted him to feel that.
It was insanity.
We were in the eye of the storm, neither of us knowing where or when this was going to end but I needed to hold him, and I needed for him to hold me back.
His breathing deepened, his hand moving slowly against my back. “I thought I’d seen it all,” he chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. “But if some asshole told me two weeks ago I’d be lying in bed with Jimmy Amaro’s daughter and she’d be crying over me, I’d have told them to lay off the crack.”
“Yeah, I’d have probably said the same thing.” My head rested against his chest. “That first night, in my head I’d shot you at least three times. Not killed you, somewhere less fatal like your knee caps.”
“Well that’s disappointing.” His fingers continued to trace circles along my back. “When shooting someone, it should always be fatal.”
“We should sleep.” I yawned, unsure of whether or not I should let go.
I didn’t want to, needing all the comfort I could get.
“So sleep,” he said, his hand staying where it was.
I forced my eyes shut and concentrated on my breathing. Morning would come soon enough and bring with it reality. I wasn’t sure if we’d ever have this moment again, or if I wasn’t dreaming it in the first place but for now we were both alive and safe.
“If you need to leave, please wake me,” I mumbled, wondering if the minute I fell asleep he would disappear.
“Haven’t got anywhere to be until tomorrow night. Go to sleep.”
“Where are you going tomorrow night?” I fought against fatigue, my eyelids falling shut while I tried to stay awake and listen.
“Something I need to do, it will help with your dad.”
“How?”
“Trust me, it’s one of those things you aren’t going to like.”
My mind was too foggy to process what that meant. It didn’t sound good and I probably shouldn’t have asked. But I couldn’t make my mouth say the words, so instead I let it go.
All of those concerns would be there consuming my tomorrow; I wasn’t going to give them tonight as well.
“Hey baby, you looking for a good time?” Cecile leaned in on the open window of the car. “Oh hey, sugar. You looking for a repeat?”
I had never fucked Cecile. I preferred my hookers less diseased and not resembling a corpse with fake tits, but hey, not everyone is as picky about what the hole looks like when they stick it in.
I’d procured her services a few weeks ago, a classic sex in exchange for information. She was too high to remember it hadn’t been my dick buried in her. Worked out well actually.
“Yep, you want to take a ride?” I flashed the small cellophane bag of coke between my fingers, giving her a smile. “I brought party favors.”
“Ohhhhh yeah.” She opened the door and threw herself into the passenger seat. “Whatever you want.” She snatched the cellophane bag before I’d even eased away from the curb.
Sadly for Cecile, this wasn’t going to end well. She was about the same height as Sofia, and if she hadn’t been a crack whore, she might have even had similar features. She was also about two hits away from finding her own way into her coffin, so really helping her along was just a public service.
Her arms and legs were covered in scratches and puncture marks, most of which had scabbed over while still leeching blood at the edges. She also had a solid case of the shakes, so it had been a while since her last hit, something she was in the process of fixing as she took large inhales of the fine white powder.
“Wow, I needed that.” Her hand brushed against my thigh as her head fell against the headrest. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
“We’re just going to drive for a bit.”
She shrugged, her finger digging into the little baggie a few more times as I drove toward the airport. Not once did she ask where we were going or what we were doing, and to be honest, I doubted she cared.
“Hey do you have anything to drink?” Her head lolled to the side, her pupils dilated.
“No, but we can get something later.”
We pulled into an industrial estate, not far from the warehouse, the road too well lit for what we needed. I eased the car up behind a dumpster, putting it in park and engaging the emergency brake.
“Okay.” Cecile looked around and nodded, the surroundings not unlike other places she’d probably been asked to perform. “This is fine.”
“Give me your arm, Cecile.”
She didn’t hesitate, outstretching her arm as she leaned back into her seat, her eyes in a dead stare.
“Just going to give you a little sweetener.” I pulled out the syringe from the glove compartment; her head nodding like an excited puppy.
It was hard to find a vein, most of hers blown out and collapsing as the needle hit them, blood trickling out of the tiny pricks I’d made from unsuccessful attempts.
“My toes.” She slid out of her worn patent leather stilettos and shifted in her seat. Her foot landed in my lap as her head rested on the passenger side window. “I think there’s a good one near my little toe.” She wiggled her pink stubby digits, the red nail polish covering them cracked, hiding the dirt that was living underneath.
She was right, there between here last two toes was a viable vein, or at least one I hoped would hold up so I could pump in the drug. After that—well, after that, she wasn’t going to have much use for any of them.
My thumb compressed against the plunger. The dirty liquid filled her, the mix of Heroin and Fentanyl lethal enough to kill someone twice her size. Her coke appetizer would hopefully speed things along but then you could never tell with junkies. Their meth-filled bodies outliving cockroaches.
It didn’t take long, her arms twitching a little as her eyes glassed over and then finally her eyelids started to droop, her breathing starting to slow down.
“Won’t be long now, Cecile.” I moved her foot out of my lap and recapped the syringe, carefully wiping any fingerprints off.
A used needle wasn’t going to raise any alarm bells on this side of town, but I didn’t need anything tying me to it.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her face losing muscle control. “T-th-annn-k yyy-ouuu.”
Maybe she knew I was ending the cycle, that this was going to be the last time she was going to have to get into a car with a stranger because of her habit. Before meeting Sofia, I wouldn’t have cared. But watching her die, I felt like in a way I was setting her free. And as fucked up as that sounded, I felt a weird sense of calm in that.
Her eyes closed as her body twitched in the seat, but it wasn’t long before that stopped too.
And then nothing.
Her lungs and heart stopped fighting as whatever little color she’d had drained from her pasty skin.
It was over, just as quick and easy as I’d hoped.
I rearranged her back into her seat and fastened her seatbelt. For anyone who happened to glance our way she looked like she was sleeping. Then I started the ignition and drove back to the warehouse.
The roller door rose with a hit of the button, the car moving quickly inside before I let it slide back down behind me. The next part of this operation needed to be done in private.
“Hey, honey, I’m home.” I slammed the door of the car, leaving Cecile in her sea
t. Rude of me, I know, but she was too dead to complain.
When we woke up this morning, we didn’t really talk about what happened last night. Hell, I wasn’t even sure what happened last night. I had gone into the bedroom with no intentions other than to go to sleep. It had been a long ass day and the last thing I wanted was conversation. So why the fuck it ended up like an episode of Dr. Phil was a complete mystery. Still don’t know why, because me talking about my past has happened exactly zero times before. But fuck me it felt good. Almost too good, which is why this morning we went about our business like I hadn’t held her all night.
Sofia had probably been at the computer most of the day, not having a problem dealing with my online helpers even though it was clearly crossing the line of legality.
“You’re back.” She looked up and smiled, her hair curled into a bun at the back of her neck as she tapped away at the computer. “You do whatever it was you needed to do?”
“Yeah, I did.” I took a seat on the fold-up chair beside her, wanting to get a little closer. “It’s gonna take some extra work to prepare, but I think we can make it convincing. I’m going to need some hair, maybe a little blood from you though. And a shirt you don’t mind losing.”
“What for?” She stopped typing, her eyes narrowing. “Michael, what did you do?”
I figured the way the color was draining from her face she already knew.
“I told you there would be hard choices, Sofia. Your father wants a body; I’m giving him one.”
Her hand went to the cross that hung around her neck, her eyes closing. “No. Not like this. I don’t want to be like him.”
She was always going to struggle; she was deluding herself if she thought any different, but the only way out was to get dirty.
“You aren’t like him. Your father—that cocksucker wouldn’t have cared. So, even though this isn’t who you are, know it’s what you needed to do.”
Circumstance was the biggest motivator I knew. It had shaped outcomes almost every day of my life. And I wasn’t going to feel bad about it. It showed me exactly what I was capable of; hopefully it would do the same for her.
