by A. G. Khaliq
saw women was when I needed sex and stress-relief. That was the reason that I’d never brought a woman home.
I did feel ready, though, now that I’d achieved my success. I did feel ready to give a woman a chance, and learn to find love, but I just couldn’t do that if Dad kept forcing this arranged marriage bullshit down my throat. It was agitating.
“Oh, I wouldn't be worried about that, Dad,” Pedro smirked, cutting me off my thoughts. “There's a particular girl he's taken a very nice liking to.”
Arturo cracked up into laughter, and Iglesias suddenly switched off his phone, looking amused.
“Are you kidding me?” said Iglesias, roaring with laughter. “Donte has taken a liking to somebody? Who?”
The three of them continued to roar with laughter.
“There's this girl who started at his technology firm,” Arturo explained, smirking.
“Her name's Sapphire. The psycho asked me to run a background check on her.”
“Shut the fuck up!” I yelled in defence.
“Not to mention he nearly bit my head off when I tried talking to her earlier,” Pedro added, 87
chuckling and scratching his neck. “She was gorgeous, I can't lie Dad. But I don't think she's interested in him.”
I was getting irritated. These pricks were getting a kick out of teasing me. A kick out of the fucking losses I was taking, and the rejection that I'd experienced earlier.
“No way,” Iglesias giggled.
“Is this true, Donte?” Dad smirked, appearing amused and surprised at this whole situation.
“Nah, these pricks just love teasing me, Dad,” I retorted.
“If you like another woman, then I'm happy for you son,” Dad shrugged, smiling. “If you can make things work with her, then we'll cancel your marriage with Sharon.”
Dad whipped out his phone, flicking through it for a few minutes, before shoving it back into his pocket.
“Iglesias, let's go home,” Dad shrugged.
“Your mother is waiting for you.”
“Alright, Dad,” Iglesias smiled.
They got up from their seats, and made their way out of the private booth, to the elevator.
“Let's bounce from here, guys,” Arturo shrugged, rubbing his chin in thought.
88
“Yeah, after I've done this,” I retorted.
Arturo furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. I balled my hand into a fist, and then turned to Pedro, swinging at his jaw. He clutched his body, taken aback, and Arturo roared with laughter.
“Hey, what was that for?” Pedro demanded, rubbing his face from the soreness.
“Now if you ever so much as go near Sapphire again, at work or otherwise, I'll rip your fucking head off and batter it, brother,”
I warned.
“Jesus, bro,” Pedro said exhaustedly.
“What's so special about her?”
“You wouldn't understand,” I retorted.
“Just keep your hands off of her.”
Pedro rolled his eyes. “Understood, Donte.”
“Good boy,” I shot back condescendingly.
“Now go home to Mom.”
Pedro limped out of the room, and Arturo continued to roar with laughter.
“You good, bro?” he chuckled.
“At the fact that you just made me a laughing stock in front of Dad?” I rolled my eyes sarcastically. “No. You're supposed to be on my side.”
“It was a laugh, bro,” Arturo smirked. “I 89
haven’t had a laugh like that for a long time.”
“Glad you find my pain amusing,” I sighed.
“But you wanted a way to cancel the marriage with Sharon, right?” Arturo shrugged.
“Now we've told Dad, there's a way!”
“There would be a way,” I began, “if she was fucking interested in me!”
“Relax bro,” Arturo reassured me. “You barely know her yet. You have time to change her feelings towards you. She can’t really make a decision about you based on one day of knowing you.”
“She is different from the others,” I commented, suddenly lost in thought, because my vision was suddenly becoming clouded with her beautiful face. Her bright purple eyes, her beautiful smile… “Girls normally throw themselves at me. But she was unfazed.
Unbothered by the attention that I was giving her!”
“Sounds like a tough cookie,” Arturo laughed. “I like her already. Somebody needed to deflate your ego.”
“Kiss my ass, Arturo,” I remarked, and he started sniggering. “I love a challenge… This defensive act she's putting up is making me want her even more.”
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Arturo folded his arms, smiling. He’d never seen me like this before, so invested in a woman that I hardly knew.
I didn’t know if it was fate that Sapphire walked into my office today. I was behaving like a loved-up teenager. One day, and my dad already fucking knew about her. This wasn’t good news, because it meant that if Sapphire continued rejecting me, I’d be pressured to be with Sharon more than ever.
“Did you find her file and information yet?” I asked.
“I'm still working on it,” Arturo said smugly.
“Alright, let's go home man,” I sighed.
“I’m tired and pissed off. Everything that’s happened today has made me awry.”
“Not till I've seen the strippers performing downstairs,” Arturo shot back, smirking.
“Seriously?” I grimaced.
“A man has needs, bro,” Arturo simpered, laughing.
I groaned in response, and Arturo started to make his way downstairs. One of the strippers put her arms around him, shoving her tits in his face.
“Hey handsome,” she said seductively, putting her finger in her mouth.
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Arturo's fingers trailed down her back, and I rolled my eyes, looking away.
My brother was going to be the fucking death of me!
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12
maya
A FEW DAYS LATER
I lay in bed shakily as I slept, tossing and turning in my bedsheets.
The nightmare wouldn’t stop.
I couldn’t wake up, no matter how much I pleaded my body to.
I kicked and screamed, trembling as the nightmare continued to take its course.
“No…”
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“NO!”
“Please let go of me…”
“Please…”
“Stop hurting me…”
I walked into my boyfriend Fibonacci’s flat, after coming back from university.
When I stepped in, the whole place was a tip. The windows were smashed, the mattress had been torn apart, plates had been smashed on the floor, and everything was a mess. And standing right in the middle of the room…
Was Fibonacci. His pale green eyes were bloodshot and watering, and he had blood stains on his face. His white vest was soaked with sweat.
He furrowed his eyebrows, narrowing his eyes at me. He looked like he was about to murder.
I jolted back in shock, trembling, unable to believe my eyes.
“Fibonacci, what the hell happened to this place?” I asked, terrified. “Everything's a mess!”
“I've been waiting for you all day,”
Fibonacci shot back angrily. “Where the fuck were you?!”
“Baby, I told you that I have soccer practice,” I said uneasily, scratching my arm.
“You shouldn't have waited for me.”
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“It's 8 fucking PM!” Fibonacci roared.
“Do you think I'm fucking stupid, Maya?! DO
YOU?!”
My
chest
heaved
upwards
and
downwards, as my heart hammered against it. It felt like the walls were closing in around me, like I was suffocating, and I couldn’t breathe…
I knew what was about to come. He was going to punish me, and I wasn’t read
y for it. I was so scared…
“YOU SHOULD’VE COME HOME
OVER TWO HOURS AGO!” Fibonacci bellowed.
“I tried to come earlier, I promise!” I pleaded. “But my friends…
“They insisted that I went to the after party with them!”
“An after party that was going to be full of men?!” Fibonacci accused. “Is that why you're wearing tiny shorts, that ridiculous excuse for clothing?!”
“I didn't have time to come home and change!” I cried. “I had to borrow these clothes from Elizabeth!”
“WHY DO YOU NEVER FUCKING
LISTEN TO ME?!” Fibonacci screamed. “What have I told you about dressing modestly?! It's like you have no fucking respect for our 95
relationship!”
“Babe, don't be ridiculous!” I sobbed, tears spilling down my cheeks, and pit-pattering onto the floor in tiny little droplets. “I l – love y
– you.”
Fibonacci roared with manic laughter.
“You don't know what love is,” he said quietly, his veins making their way to the surface of their skin alarmingly. He was so angry, that I could hear the heat roaring in his ears…
“I looked at Elizabeth's Facebook profile while you were gone,” Fibonacci went on.
I jolted back, mortified.
“She uploaded a picture of you both together-” Fibonacci hissed, “for lots of men to see and like!”
“I didn't know that she would upload a picture of me!” I cried defensively. “I'll tell her to delete it… Please…”
“WHAT GOOD IS IT GONNA
FUCKING DO NOW THAT YOUR WHOLE
UNIVERSITY HAS SEEN THE DAMN
PHOTO?!” Fibonacci bellowed. “You were showing cleavage in the photograph, looking like a slut, showing off to other men WHAT
BELONGS TO ME!”
“Fibonacci, you know I only have eyes for you…” I begged. “Please stop behaving like this, 96
you're scaring me!”
I clutched my chest, terrified. I wasn’t ready for what was about to come.
I wasn’t ready…
“Scaring you?!” Fibonacci repeated, punching the wall behind me, causing me to jolt upwards, as tears continued to spill down my cheeks. “I HAVEN’T EVEN FUCKING
STARTED YET!”
My blood continued to run cold as Fibonacci stared at me. I knew this look on his face all-too-well. I knew that he would probably kill me if he could, he was so damn mad…
“I – I’m going round to Elizabeth's…” I stammered shakily, not wanting to stay here for a minute longer. “I'll come back once you've calmed down.”
I turned on my heel, taking steps towards the front door, as I swallowed down a lump that had caught in my throat. Before I had the chance to even move an inch, Fibonacci grabbed hold of me aggressively with his massive, bulky arms, trapping me underneath him, causing me to welp in pain.
“What the fuck, Fibonacci?!” I cried out.
“Don't you dare walk away from me while I'm talking to you!” Fibonacci roared. “We're not fucking done here!”
97
Fibonacci punched me hard in the ribs, causing me to cry out in pain. I collapsed to the floor as I clutched my body, rocking it backwards and forwards. He clambered on top of me, grabbing hold of my face, and began punching it repeatedly. One punch after the other, one punch after the other, my cries getting weaker with every blow. I heard my bone snap, as I faded in and out of unconsciousness. My surroundings felt like they were going blurry, because I felt so fucking dizzy…
“I think a punishment for you is in order, wouldn't you agree?” Fibonacci whispered, and then he took a knife out of his pocket, holding it out in front of his face, as the light from the window radiated on the silver metal.
By now, I felt so numb, that I couldn’t even cry. This was my fate. Being tortured and abused was my fate, written for me in the cards before I was ever born…
“You always want to do things the hard way, don't you Maya?” Fibonacci murmured, with a timid expression on his face. He grabbed hold of me by my hair, dragging me across the floorboards on the smashed glass, before he shoved me into the punishment room.
The room with the cage.
“I love you…” Fibonacci cried. “But you 98
pushed me to this.”
My head felt like it was splitting open from the pain. I couldn’t let him put me in there…
I couldn’t let him put me in the cage…
“P – please Fibonacci…” I tried to speak, but it just came out as a murmur. I was almost inaudible. “I – I'm sorry. It's all m – my fault. I shouldn't have made you angry. I – I love you…”
“You think that what you say makes a difference now?” Fibonacci remarked, roaring with manic laughter. “It's too fucking late.”
Fibonacci slammed me hard down on to the floor, grabbing hold of my leg, and then began cutting my skin with the knife in his hands, as I screamed out in pain. By now, it felt like my lungs had almost reached the point of collapsing. I cried out and cried out, but the pain wouldn’t stop…
He continued to cut my leg, deeper and deeper. I was at the brink of passing out. I prayed to God in my head… Prayed to him to put an end to my suffering.
Blood began pooling around my limp, weak body. Fibonacci clambered on top of me, kissing my earlobe before slapping my face to the side, forcing my eyes open.
“I've carved my name on your leg,”
99
Fibonacci whispered, “So that everybody knows that you belong to me, so that you'll remember me every time that you think you can escape, every time that you think you can move on from me, and to show you that I'll always be with you.”
He paused, letting out a deep breath as he trembled. “We'll see how you feel about wearing revealing clothes now.”
Fibonacci grabbed hold of me, dragging me across the floor again, until he reached the entrance of the metal cage. He rattled with it, forcing it open with some keys, and then shoved me inside of it, like I was a rabid animal, like I was a savage, like I was just a worthless piece of shit that didn’t deserve any freedom…
And then he turned the keys on the locks again, so that I wouldn’t be able to escape.
“Now you'll stay in this cage until I say otherwise,” Fibonacci murmured quietly.
And then he turned on his heel, leaving me in agony alone in this dark, cold and empty room…
And as I continued to fade in and out of unconsciousness…
Everything went black.
“Stop it Fibonacci!” I screamed, sobbing. “Please 100
stop…”
My heart hammered against my chest, as tears continued to fall down my cheeks. I’d been trying so hard to forget about Fibonacci, so damn hard…
But the nightmares just wouldn’t fucking stop.
I let out several deep breaths in and out. I pinched my arm several times, blinking as I tried to regain my consciousness and alertness of my surroundings.
I had to make sure that I was awake. That I still wasn’t trapped in that nightmare. That Fibonacci wasn’t here…
My body trembled into a frenzy.
“He's not here…” I murmured to myself exhaustedly. “It was just a nightmare…”
I continued to allow my chest to heave upwards and downwards.
“Fuck!” I mumbled. “That felt so real…
“It felt like he was watching me here, in my bed…”
I didn’t know what I could possibly do to shut away these nightmares. The haunting memories always managed to make their way into my head, no matter how much I tried to bury them underneath the surface…
And these nightmares had been 101
happening recently more than ever.
I didn’t know if it was a sign. A sign of something terrible that was lurking…
But I needed to try and keep my mind off it.
“I need a glass of water,” I mumbled, and slowly slid out of my bed, before maki
ng my way to the kitchen.
I allowed the glass to fill as the cold tap water ran into it. I brought the cup up to my mouth, and allowed the fluid to run down my throat and into my body.
“That's better,” I mumbled, and continued to sip from the cup.
Fibonacci...
My ex-boyfriend, before Brett, before the Service.
The monster from my past that I was still running away from, to this day.
The monster who turned me into a terrified, paranoid, weak and scared individual.
The monster who made me afraid to open up to people.
The monster who made me feel like everybody who tried to speak to me had an ulterior motive.
102
Screw you, Fibonacci…
Screw you for ruining my outlook on life, for making me insecure, for emotionally damaging me to the point that I’m still terrified of you…
103
13
donte
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling as I gathered my thoughts together. I had so much on my fucking plate, so much business to take care of, and it was getting to the point that it was overwhelming me and devouring me whole. Sometimes, I just wished that I’d grew up as a normal kid, went to college and university like the rest of the kids my age did, but I’d been putting blood, sweat and tears to get to where I was today from a young age, for so many years…
104
I wondered how different my life would have been if I'd done the normal shit other people my age had did. I didn't grow up with friends. Family was all I had growing up. The only people that I could rely on were my brothers and my parents. How different would my life have been if I put myself through an education, rather than hustling and making money from young?
Sometimes I wondered if all of the sacrifices I made had been worth it. Sure, it had paid off, and given me wealth... But at what cost?
I had seen money beyond everybody's dreams.
Seen filthy riches, but I was still empty and cold inside. It didn't matter how much materialistic shit I had, it wouldn't fill this void within me...
Was money really worth sacrificing happiness?
“Hey bro,” came Arturo’s voice, snapping me out of my thoughts.
