The rage in me grows louder and louder as I see my husband crumble at our first altercation, something he has been chastising me for since I first met him.
“Did my father send you?” I ask, throwing any self-preservation down the drain.
The leader looks at me, amused. “Why, yes, he did, my dear. Do you want me to tell your daddy that the husband he chose for you is letting you get piped by drug addicts for free rent? Because I will,” he says casually as he pours the bong water on my head.
The water drips into my eyes and mouth, drawing unwilling tears as I retch from the taste.
“Too bad, you really could have avoided all this. Now your addict lover is dead, and soon your husband will be too,” the leader says as he raises the butt of his gun to Adrian’s head, delivering a blow that would knock him unconscious.
I scream with everything in me, everything that’s left after we found Jonesey’s body, but my cries fall on the deaf ears and the blind eyes of the brainwashed soldiers before me. At my final, guttural scream, the leader paces over to me and strikes me over the head with his gun, and I’m out cold.
Chapter 9
Everything is black.
I can’t even tell if my eyes are open.
There’s a bag on my head.
My head throbs as if it’s been filled with boiling magma, and for what feels like eons, I wonder if I’m dead.
Am I in hell?
What have I done in my life to deserve eternal damnation?
My thoughts are fragmented and delineated by what I recognize to be a concussion, and when I stop to listen, to be present, I hear voices in the foreground. I smell the familiar and unmistakable scent of leather upholstery and cigarette smoke.
In an attempt to regroup, I choose to consciously feel my body, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. My hands are bound, which does not at all surprise me under the given circumstances. The voices surrounding me are mostly unknown, except for one: the leader.
Frustration washes over me as I force myself to remember, I need to remember… where is Adrian? Why am I here?
“Shut the fuck up, Daniel,” snarls one of the men. “You know none of us eat that low-carb shit, stop trying to make us hate you more,” he continues.
I hear another voice sigh, presumably Daniel. “I’m serious dude. If you try to tell me that vegetables are rice one more fucking time, I’ll scoop out your eyeballs with a melon baller. Goddamn it,” the angry voice says, muttering under his breath.
The vehicle jostles a bit, and we come to an abrupt stop. The tires squeal, and I’m thrown against something rigid, hitting my head again.
I can hear the men filing out of the vehicle, and I prepare myself to be manhandled and treated like a sow to the slaughter. One of the men opens the back door, and I figure I must have been tossed in the back after they knocked us both out.
But why? I still can’t remember.
A firm, aggressive hand grasps my left arm, pulling me up in order to grasp my entire body. “Get out, I know you can hear me,” growls the leader.
I follow his orders.
He drags me across the pavement beneath me, and I fear that my constitution is too affected to help me carry myself. Sunlight shines through the fabric somewhat, sending a screaming shock through my nerves. Nausea overcomes me, but I know that if I show any more weakness, these men will beat me within an inch of my life just because they’re bored.
Part of me wants to let them kill me. I consider going limp, slumping to the ground, tempting them to execute me. Then I remember Adrian, his sweet face when he sleeps, his manner of speaking, the way he holds me at night, and I know I cannot give up. I must survive, even if I survive solely for him.
I’m half-carried, half-pushed through a door, and I feel myself trip over stairs as the men continue to urge me forward. My father keeps a series of unassuming buildings and spaces for business involving wayward family members, and I can only assume that’s where I’ve been taken. The musty smell of the building permeates the executioner’s hood I wear, and I find it oddly comforting.
After shoving me through a door, I’m strapped to a chair, and my hood is removed.
“Does she look concussed, Michael?” asks a visibly apprehensive Daniel.
The leader, now revealed to be Michael, shines a bright light into my eyes. “Yeah, probably. Her pupils look like she’s been at a rave for sixteen hours,” Michael says as he shuts off the flashlight.
With the hood off, I realize exactly how lightheaded and unstable I am as my head swirls. I’m unable to make direct eye contact with any of the men, but I sense a heavy tension growing between them.
“What would happen if we let her go? Donovan’s gonna be pissed if he sees what we did to her,” says another one of the men.
Without missing a beat, Michael turns and slaps him across the face. “Don’t be an idiot. We were doing our jobs. Don’t back out on me now, maggot. We’re all going down for this if shit goes south,” Michael barks.
“Where are you keeping Adrian?” I shout, breaking my silence.
Michael glares at me, his sharp eyes boring holes through my skull. “Adrian? Adrian’s back with his mommy and daddy, and they’re waiting for you to try and escape so they can blow your head off,” Michael says nonchalantly as he spits near my feet. I know they’re bluffing about Adrian, but why? To make me lose the will to live?
“Whatever, I’m sure your daddy will find you another prize next time he finds something worth selling you for. You can forget all about that little doe-eyed fuck. Your father’s gonna be here soon, so you might want to change your attitude before he decides to put you at the bottom of Sheepshead Bay, since you’re a coward and a liability,” Michael continues as he leads the men out the door, slamming it behind him.
Fuck. Now what?
My husband is missing, I can’t tell left from right, and I’m strapped to a chair awaiting a death sentence because I chose to take my life into my own hands. Goddamn it. I don’t even know where I am.
Maybe my punishment is to rot here. Rotting here would still be a better life than allowing my father to control my every move, as if my intrinsic worth as a human is contingent on his business whims.
A loud slam reverberates throughout the staircase, and my body tenses, ready to fight in whatever capacity I’m able to. I ball up my fists, still tied behind my back in the chair I’m bound to. My breathing quickens, and just for once, I beg the universe to give me some reprieve from this constant assault on my nervous system.
I sit up straight, deafened by the pounding of my heart in my ears.
When the door opens, I’m overcome with confusion. “Annalia? What the fuck is happening?” I stammer, uncertain whether to be relieved or infuriated at the sight of my sister.
Annalia swiftly steps toward me, glancing warily over her shoulder. “I knew you’d be here. I’ve been paying attention since dad sent Michael and his goons out after you. He’s gotten careless with his details,” she says in a low voice, pulling a knife out of her coat pocket. “I’m going to let you go free, but you need to leave again, and you need to go far away this time. Dad is really pissed off at you,” she continues, struggling to cut through the thick ropes that hold me. “I mean, really Gabbi, why would you put yourself in this position?”
I feel my face flush with heat and renewed anger. “You think I did this to make a point?!” I retaliate in a harsh whisper.
Annalia clasps her hand over my mouth. “Shut up! We don’t have a lot of time! Dad’s supposed to be here soon! I’ll bring you to the bus station, but that’s all I can do!” Annalia hisses as she picks me up by my right forearm, still aching from my encounter with Michael and his cronies.
“I can’t leave without Adrian. I made a promise. Do you know where he is?”
Annalia turns away from me, looking out the broken window to my left. “We really don’t have time for this, Gabbi,” she deflects.
I stop dead in my tracks, refusing to mov
e.
“Stop being fucking dramatic! I’m trying to save your life! You’re going to get us both killed for someone you don’t even know! Please don’t make me leave you here,” she pleads, growing more and more frantic.
“You know where he is. You need to tell me,” I demand. “Either you can tell me where he is, or you can leave me here to die. The choice is yours, sister,” I insist.
Annalia clenches her jaw and glares at me. “Do not put me in that position, Gabriella. For fuck’s sake. Just let me save your life and make your own goddamn decisions afterward,” she snaps.
I grip her arm with the tenacity of a rattlesnake, pulling her back to meet me in my place. She shakes her arm from my grasp and shoots me an impatient and contemptuous look. “Why the fuck do you want to die so badly? Just do what I tell you! Jesus!”
“I came this far because of Adrian. I can’t just let our father dispose of him. Now tell me where the fuck he is. I know that you know,” I shout, allowing my emotions and low blood sugar to overcome my sensibilities.
Annalia slaps me across the face, swiftly and procedurally, as if she’d been practicing for this very moment. “You’re about to be disposed of yourself if we don’t leave!”
Before I’m able to respond, we hear a crash at the base of the stairs, followed by a rattle along the metal guard rail.
“Fuck!” Annalia gasps, stepping back and reaching into her pocket and producing a handgun. With her finger trained on the trigger, her hands visibly shake.
The door creeps open, and before I even have the chance to blink, or to cry out, Annalia pulls the trigger twice, putting two bullets into our sister Samantha’s chest.
Chapter 10
I don’t even hear myself scream. I don’t understand what has happened yet, only that it is very, very bad.
Annalia freezes as Samantha collapses to the floor, her eyes full of fear and betrayal.
Samantha holds the bullet holes in her chest, retching as she struggles to breathe. I see her attempt to speak, but her mouth fills with blood, and she coughs, suffocating. Her lily-white skin takes on a grey shadow of death, and she pulls her hands away from the wounds, gazing down at the vermilion ink that will end her story forever.
Annalia sprints toward Samantha.
Like a coward, I remain frozen in place, and I can feel my heart being dragged down into hell by the demons of my selfishness. My chest collapses, and I pray to anybody who will listen that I will die before I come to the full realization that my sister is dead because of me.
With every fiber of my being, my soul screams into the aether that I will sustain a fatal aneurysm, or that my heart will explode like Samantha’s has.
As if in a dream, I float over to Samantha’s side, picking up her head and stroking her hair. My soul has left my body, and I can see each detail of my sister’s bitter human condition as though a brutal universe has chosen its sacrificial lamb.
Annalia shakes Samantha violently, any higher functions of her thinking short-circuiting . “Gabriella! Help me bring her to the car! I’ll get her legs if you grab her arms,” Annalia sobs as she fails to grasp Samantha’s feet.
Samantha opens her eyes faintly, and coughs again, spewing blood down her grey t-shirt and onto my hands. “No… don’t,” she whispers, using all of her strength to kick Annalia away.
“Samantha, no! We’re going to fix this! I’m gonna fix this!” Annalia cries as she drags Samantha out of my reach.
Samantha begins to cry silently, curling into the fetal position as her life slips away from her.
Words escape me, and all I can do is stare at Annalia, silently begging her to let Samantha die with whatever peace she’s able.
Annalia drops Samantha’s feet and screams an inhuman howl, dropping to her knees and sobbing uncontrollably. “I can’t breathe, my chest hurts, Gabbi, what the fuck have I done?!” Annalia cries, her voice breaking. “What the fuck have I done?! Gabbi, I can’t live with this! Fuck! Oh my god!” Annalia begins to spiral into madness, a place I had never seen her go before. Whoever Annalia used to be has died with Samantha, and she killed both of them herself.
“I know what I have to do,” Annalia says gravely, a sudden clarity crashing over her head like a violent wave. “Tell mom I love her, and I’m so, so sorry,” she continues, pulling out her gun one last time, blowing a bullet through her temporal lobe, spraying her brains all over the cinderblock wall.
Then, I blackout.
Chapter 11
I’m flying through the sky, trees breathing below me in perfect harmony. I gaze out over the clouds, a brilliant sunset peaking through. The orange and pink of the sky eclipse the lush green of the hills below me, and I hear absolutely nothing. For the first time ever in my life, I am finally at peace.
I can hardly feel my body gliding through the air as I continue onward. The sky above me turns to an ocean of black, and I crash through it, emerging on the other side of nothing. There is nothing but me and an albino deer with a human face and three eyes. I have no fear left inside me, and I wonder if this creature is here to lead me on, away from the mortal world.
“You must return,” it says in a dissonant voice that vibrates with overtones.
“I can’t, I want to stay here,” I reply, still completely uncertain as to what I’m seeing.
The deer’s expression is unmoving, and dread fills me. “You aren’t done yet,” it says insistently. With that, I feel as if I’m falling one thousand feet per second.
“Analyzing.”
“Shock advised.”
“Clear!”
My body leaps from a gurney, and I swear a cannonball has blown through my chest.
“Analyzing.”
“Shock advised.”
“Clear!”
Another shock. Another cannonball.
“We’ve got a pulse! Stop charging. We’ve got a pulse!”
A bag valve mask covers my face, and a Middle Eastern EMT squeezes the bag, breathing for me, assessing me closely and carefully. “Can you hear me, sweetheart?” he asks rather loudly, and I close my eyes tight, attempting to go back to the quiet hills I roamed before I woke up in this ambulance.
The EMT takes my hand, wrapping my fingers around his. “Can you squeeze my fingers for me? You can do it! I believe in you!” he says with a note of determination.
I allow myself to squeeze his fingers, and I open my eyes to see him smiling,
“Okay, we’ve got her guys! Let’s try to keep it that way!” he shouts to the rest of his team, who have kept themselves busy running IVs through every available vessel in my arms.
As I emerge from the brink of death, I can feel the warmth of pre-heated blankets spreading throughout my body, and a morphine drip sends me into the throes of a hazy, asymmetrical paradise. All of my memories are either nonexistent or grey, playing in my head like static in a rainstorm. The only thing I want is to sink deeper into this narcotic-induced trance, feeling the molecules kissing my wounded neurotransmitters.
I drift in and out of consciousness as the ambulance shakes me. My body feels so small and vulnerable in the width of the gurney, and my sense of being is overwhelmed and fragmented. I can’t remember my sisters, much less ask where they are. While the EMTs continue to fuss over lines and drips, I try desperately to form an intelligible sentence in order to regain my bearings.
“Can you still hear me?” the Middle Eastern EMT asks again, stroking my cheek as I blink slowly.
“Mmhmm,” I respond, almost mesmerized by the vibrations coming from my throat as well as my ability to reply without much thought.
“Okay, do you know your name?” he asks, shining a bright light into my eyes.
“Hmmmmm,” I say.
“That’s fine, we’re gonna make sure you’re safe and cared for,” he says assuredly, and without a moment of doubt, I trust him.
The morphine crawls through my bloodstream, warming and smoothing every sound and word I hear. I feel like I’m in love for the first t
ime again.
We pull into the ambulance bay of the Emergency Department of one of the hospitals on the east side. Jolting to a halt, the team of first responders shifts and rolls me into the chaos of an inner-city hospital. My neck is in a brace, preventing me from viewing the full spectrum of disorder around me, but I can hear it.
A man down the hallway cries out as a doctor tends to a bullet wound, a mother wails as her child begins to seize, and a woman down the hall demands a sandwich, “which is her right,” she emphasizes heavily. The noise grates on me, and suddenly, all I want is to drift back into the serenity of narcotic bliss.
“Is this the girl you found in the old factory, Rahim?” asks a war-worn doctor with a grey buzzcut.
“Yeah, one of three,” says Rahim, my new favorite person. “The other two were taken to Grace Memorial, their injuries were… extensive,” Rahim continues as he begins to unbuckle me from the gurney.
“Damn, was it that bad?” the doctor asks, opening my eyes wider and evaluating my pupils a second time.
“Yeah, I’d believe in god again if either of them survives,” Rahim sighs.
My spine screams as I’m moved swiftly to a hospital bed, where I’m met with fresh blankets.
“Honey, if you can remember anything about who you are or what happened, we need you to tell us immediately, okay? Something really bad happened, and we’re not sure how it started,” the doctor emphasizes as he leans over to check the countless bruises that Michael and his men left.
I wince as he places pressure on my left orbit where a black eye has formed. “Adrian…” I whimper.
The doctor and Rahim look at me quizzically. “Your name is Adrian?” Rahim asks.
“No, no,” I affirm, growing frustrated with my limited vocabulary and articulation. “My husband,” I insist.
The doctor sighs. “Give her some time, let me know if you’re able to ID her,” he says to one of the nurses that have entered my room. Rahim smiles at me warmly and leaves, and I manage a small wave goodbye.
Broken King: An Arranged Marriage Mafia Romance Page 6
