Aftermath (The Deceptions Trilogy Book 2)

by Dana Mansfield

  Penny tapped Jack’s hand with hers. She had a questioning look on her face.

  “What? Do you need something?” She shook her head no but pointed at him. She then sighed, mimicking what he had done. “The waiting and the silence. It is weighing on me.” Penny nodded her head.

  “Endless,” she said after much struggle. It was the first time she spoke since she stopped speaking after she was shot up with Cat three days earlier.

  “Da,” he replied and flicked his gaze to the camera in the corner. “We should be careful.”

  “Whispers,” Penny replied. Jack nodded.

  “And only when necessary.”

  “Now,” she insisted in a loud whisper. “You need.”

  “I will be fine. It is what it is.” Penny didn’t seem to like the answer but she said nothing more. She looked exhausted and Jack decided to try a little reverse psychology on her. “I am tired,” he announced and carefully lay on his side of the mattress. He extended his right arm, the one they used as a pillow. “Lay with me? We do not have to sleep. Just rest.”

  Penny frowned but then appeared to mull his suggestion. She finally nodded and also with careful movements, laid down next to Jack. She lifted up the blanket and he pulled it over both of them. She gently laid her head on his arm. Jack reached out and touched her cheek, giving her an approving smile. He gazed upon her for several moments, not seeing the scars or the sunken cheeks. Jack saw her as he did on that morning at the cabin. He saw beauty and he let her know.

  “You are so beautiful,” he stated, then kissed the tips of his fingertips and touched her lips. Jack was not surprised when Penny disagreed with him.

  “Frightful,” she said.

  “Never,” he replied.

  They lay side by side, neither of them falling asleep, for quite a while. Time was, as usual, hard to gauge. They were quiet as their gazes went from each other to past memories and back. Jack felt serene. He should have known, however, that the serenity was not to last.

  The door opened and William entered with all his goons, always a bad sign.

  “Sit up, Jack,” ordered William and Jack complied quickly although with much pain. He looked at Penny. She had a frightened look on her face which did not go unnoticed by William. “Don’t worry, Pretty Penny. For once, we’re going to play with Jack instead of you.”

  Jack didn’t like the sound of that but he did feel a little relief that they weren’t going to harm Penny again. But still, he knew what the maniacs were capable of and his stomach clenched in fear. Vivienne kneeled next to him and opened her kit. She took out a tourniquet and placed that around his upper right arm. Then came the small bottle of clear liquid and a syringe. After filling it, she felt for several moments for an appropriate vein.

  “What are you giving me?” Jack dared to ask. Was he going to receive Cat also?

  “In addition to not being tattooed, you’ve lived a clean rockstar lifestyle save for alcohol.” Jack didn’t like where this was going. He watched Vivienne as she stuck him with the syringe. “Those days are over as of right now. Jack, welcome to the world of heroin.”

  . . .

  Jack was out of it. His gaze was far away and he was repeatedly rubbing the crook of his arm over and over. Although he was sitting up, he was teetering, catching himself just before he fell over. I felt helpless to help him. How could those bastards do this to Jack? It was true. Except for alcohol, which he didn’t drink to drunkenness often, he lived a clean life. Gordie was the only member of the Ivy Brothers who dabbled in illicit drugs.

  And now the bastards had shot him up with heroin.

  “Jack,” I stammered his name out but if he heard, he didn’t acknowledge me. I struggled to reach out to him and stop the rubbing. When I touched him, he jumped and then looked at me although his eyes were unfocused. “Jack.” He tried to say something but his words were strangled in his throat.

  I held onto Jack’s hand as he rode the heroin high. I had no idea how long it would last but eventually, after what seemed like hours, Jack slowly began to focus. I ventured his name again. “Jack.”

  “Penny,” he whispered and then ran his hand over his matted head. “That was… That was… I do not want to experience that again.”

  “Why… Why did they do it?” I asked.

  “I do not know.” Jack closed his eyes and his hand went to his abdomen. “I feel sick,” he announced before clumsily crawling over our waste bucket. He dry heaved for several moments and when he was done, he was spent. Jack crawled back over to me. He was sweating and pale.

  “Open please?” I asked him as I handed him a bottle of water. He complied and I soaked the corner of my blanket and began to wipe his face. My movements were gawky but Jack didn’t stop me.

  “Thank you,” he replied when I was finished.

  “You should rest,” I suggested. Jack must not have been feeling well as he didn’t argue with me. His face, however, was one of disbelief. I didn’t know what to say to him.

  “Why?” he asked. I had no answer for him just as he had no answer for me.

  Jack never fell asleep and I lay next to him worried. Would they drug him again? The answer was sadly yes.

  “Please, no more,” Jack begged when William and Vivienne came by an hour or so after we laid down. Vivienne held the tourniquet in her hand and looked at William.

  “Do it,” he said. Jack refused to present his right arm which I knew was a bad thing. William walked over to me, pulled out his gun, and pointed it at me. “Take your hit or your love dies,” he warned. Slowly, Jack unfolded his arm and Vivienne administered the drug. Within a minute, Jack was in the heroin fog.

  Chapter 8

  The second round with heroin was just as bad as the first. It was making a hellacious situation even worse and Jack no longer could comprehend how far Crystal might go to torture him. He’d chosen to live a clean lifestyle while in the music business and was disappointed at Gordie for his decision to try drugs. And, of course, once he found out that Millie was using, he vowed never to touch even the simplest of vices. He saw all drugs as bad and here he was being forced to do heroin.

  Damn Crystal.

  Jack could not move his mind off of Crystal. They met on the first day of their freshman year of high school in Atlanta. He knew the layout of the school well from taking ESL summer school to get a little ahead of the game and Crystal, looking pretty in a pair of denim shorts and flowery shirt, was lost. The minute he saw her green eyes, he was taken with her. Her hair was perfectly curled down to her shoulders but he could tell she was a little self-conscious because it was thin. Jack didn’t care though; he never saw what other people thought were imperfections.

  Jack and Crystal had one class together – American History – but they kept running into each other in the halls all day. She was new to the school and knew no one while Jack had already met the other boys who would one day end up being his bandmates. He invited her to their lunch table and introduced her and after school, before he had to run to a music lesson, he took her for an ice cream cone at Dairy Queen.

  She was so pretty and her laugh infectious and after the second day of school, Jack brought her home so they could work on their history homework together and his parents could meet her. They sat on the little deck of the Petrov apartment and instead of doing homework, Crystal told him her life story.

  Crystal Jo Turner was born in Titusville, Florida to a single mother. She never knew her father and her mother spent most of her time either working as a cocktail waitress or entertaining a string of deadbeat boyfriends. Crystal was very frank as she spoke of her mother falling into a bad cycle of drinking and deadbeats and eventually, when Crystal was in seventh grade, her moth
er drank herself to death. Crystal shuffled around in the foster care system until a distant aunt was found in Atlanta. She arrived just a week before school started and declared she was starting a new chapter of her life. I will not be like my mother, she said and then stood up on the deck and shouted the phrase out.

  Jack chuckled when his mother rushed out on the deck wondering what was going on. His mom wasn’t sure what to think of Crystal but both his parents were civil to her and Crystal was always respectful to Mr. and Mrs. Petrov. She was fascinated by them, actually. Later, much later when Crystal and Jack had been married for a couple years, he figured her fascination with them was because they were actually a very typical loving couple. Jack doubted she ever saw that in her own mother or any of the many men that rotated out of their apartment in Titusville.

  By the end of September, Jack and Crystal were a couple and on Valentine’s Day of their freshmen year, they consummated their relationship. Crystal was by his side when he said his last goodbye to his mother as she succumbed to the breast cancer that metastasized throughout her body and they were together on that awful New Year’s Eve, actually the wee hours of New Year’s Day, when Jack received the call from the hospital where his father worked as a night janitor. Your father’s had a heart attack… Jack was babysitting little Millie and Danny was spending the night at Matty’s house (Matty being the band’s drummer). Crystal volunteered to stay with Millie as Jack went to Matty’s house to pick up Danny and together the brothers went to Grady Memorial.

  The heart attack was massive and the ER doctor blunt about the chance of his father surviving. Machines kept Alexsandr alive but the doctor felt the damage was too extensive for him to survive. They could keep him alive on the machines but it would just be a matter of time. Jack was given the task of making the decision on whether or not to let his father die. By that time, Leo Kaminsky had arrived. Leo had been Elizaveta Petrova’s piano teacher and guide when she was on tour as the Soviet government used her for communist propaganda. While on a solo trip to the United States, Leo defected and then spent the next five years figuring out a way to get the Petrov family out of the USSR. Leo was the man who taught Jack everything he knew about music, from classical piano to red, white, and blue rock and roll. Jack looked up at him.

  “What do I do?” a seventeen-and-a-half-year-old Jack asked his mentor in the small waiting room.

  “I cannot tell you what to do, Ivan,” the stately gentleman in the tuxedo said. He had come from a New Year’s Eve party he and his swing band were playing. The tuxedo was such a clash to the medical surroundings. “You must listen to your heart.”

  Although his heart wanted his father to live, his heart also knew the end was here. An hour later, Crystal brought a sleepy and confused Millie to the hospital and Jack did his best to explain what had happened.

  “You must tell Papa goodbye,” he said. His chest ached with emotion as Danny quietly wept in Leo’s arms.

  “But where is Papa going?” she replied.

  “Papa is going to see Mama.” Jack watched as Millie thought over his words and slowly, her face crumpled up and tears spilled from her big brown eyes. The three Petrov siblings stood by the side of the bad as the nurse began turning the machines off. Danny held one of his father’s hands while Jack and Millie held the other one. Crystal stood behind Jack with her hand on his back.

  It didn’t take long and by ten forty-two on the first day of 1993 – also Millie’s birthday – Jack became responsible for his fifteen-year-old brother and now four-year-old sister. Two weeks later, Crystal told him she missed her period. They were usually very cautious when it came to sex with Crystal having been on birth control since right after their first time together since neither of them had enjoyed the experience with a condom. Unfortunately, Jack and Crystal fell into that 1% the doctors warned people about.

  Crystal, on the outs for a while with her distant aunt, moved into the Petrov apartment a couple days later. His parents had enough life insurance to cover the medical bills and rent and food until high school graduation and then a few more dollars to cover the moving expenses for Jack, Crystal, and his family to go from Atlanta to Princeton. Leo tried to talk Jack out of moving so far away from him but Jack had been offered a full-ride to Princeton and he and his bandmates had planned to go together before the death of Alexsandr. Leo accepted the logic of the full-ride but always made sure to check in on Jack when he was performing in New York City.

  Somehow, Jack and Crystal made that chaotic move work despite her suffering from terrible morning sickness and Millie not adjusting well without Papa. Crystal tried to fill that void but failed miserably. It was the beginning of the hatred the two had for each other.

  Crystal had started to very slowly change by then. Jack guessed many years later the transition from boyfriend-girlfriend to very young parents instigated the change. He was still madly in love with her and she was in love with him but it became so real once Jack’s responsibilities exploded after the death of his father. Crystal jumped with both feet into trying to be a parent to Millie and then with the twins but Jack thought it was too much of a shock for her. It wasn’t all pretty dresses and hair ribbons and a little boy in a slugger’s outfit. Millie was defiant against Crystal and Sasha had breathing problems from the get go that required nebulizers and medicine.

  And then there was Ellie. The delays caused by the lack of oxygen didn’t start for a few months but she was a very colicky baby who seemed to only calm down if Jack (or Penny) held her. He was busy with school, the band, and two full-time jobs to provide for his family and he often couldn’t be at the apartment when Ellie needed him. He knew Crystal grew frustrated and tired and he did the best he could. For a few weeks, Crystal never complained but then she started hinting at her frustrations and unhappiness and anger with Millie who would only obey Jack or Danny.

  Or, and this was a kicker with Crystal he later learned, Penny.

  When he saw how much better his wife bonded with Natalya, his worry about future children eased. Penny helped more and more and then became the official nanny. Crystal and Jack continued to have children. After Little Sofie was born and after Crystal came back from Atlantic City, it was Jack who brought up the idea of no more children. He felt they needed to focus on their marriage and the family as it was. Crystal agreed but she didn’t seem too happy about it. 2008 started out so rocky with first Millie and then Penny heading off to treatment. Jack had a three-day break on the west coast during the tour and planned to stay in LA to do some writing but Crystal begged him to come back even for a short break.

  “I need help, Jack,” she said over the phone. “And I miss you so much.” She didn’t sound sincere at all but in the background, he could hear several kids verbally fighting. He got on the next flight. While he was in the air, however, Crystal managed to pawn off all the children to Carlos, the band’s bassist, and his wife Tracy or the kids’ friends. Jack was not happy about this when he arrived at the house. If he was making the long flight for a short visit, he wanted to see his children.

  “I am not happy, Crystal,” he said as he rubbed his face. They were in the kitchen and Crystal brought in takeout. It wasn’t even kosher which irritated him further.

  “We need the time together,” she countered and poured two glasses of wine. He stupidly took the one offered to him. He’d not eaten on the flight and it had been a while since breakfast. Downing the wine, Crystal filled him up again and he quickly drained that glass also. He set the glass down and began pacing, trying to figure out what to do. His anger was high. A bottle of whiskey appeared on the counter and when Crystal gave him a half filled wine glass of the burning liquid, it too went past his lips. It had actually been several months since he last drank because of the troubles with Millie – who was now in treatment for drug and alcohol abuse – and he felt the alcohol work a
s his face felt flush.

  “Who went to which house?” he asked with a slight slur and pulled out his cell phone. He wanted to gather the kids up and bring them home.

  “Jack, think about it. It’s nearly ten o’clock. Most of the kids are probably in bed. Let’s just have this night together and we’ll pick the kids up in the morning and you’ll have all day long with them.” She wrapped her arms around his waist. Crystal had dressed for the occasion in a slinky dress and the scent of her perfume wafted up to him. She pressed herself against him. “We haven’t made love in so long.” Her hands snaked up to his face and despite his anger, he let her pull his face towards her. She kissed him deeply and he felt himself respond. It didn’t take much for Crystal to pull him up to their bedroom.

  “I have missed you,” he slurred as he quickly stripped her of her dress. He was not using the right head to think thanks to the wine and whiskey and before he remembered to use a condom, the deed was done. Crystal was back on birth control since they decided to have no more children but remembering the conception of their twins, they had been also using condoms just to be safe. But then the 1% happened again.

  Or did it?

  Now, in hindsight and in captivity, Jack wondered if they had really been that unlucky. He felt stupid as he realized Crystal probably planned that quick trip home in the hopes of getting pregnant and her assurances she was on the pill were lies. Her plan worked but baby Freddy died as a result of the car accident.

  Jack sighed. He really was stupid when it came to his marriage and only Penny had been able to open his eyes.