by JL Mac
I wiggle my hips, testing for pain in my torso or abdomen. Nothing. I breathe deeply waiting for the stab of broken ribs. Nothing. My neck hurts like hell, my head pounds, pain jangling around inside like pocket change dropped in a panhandler’s can. My eyes feel like they are on fire, but other than that, and quite unbelievably, I am intact. I crack my eyes open again and make a move to lift my arms. The clinking of chain links tells me that my arms aren’t just heavy. I’m bound. I tilt my head back, peering up above my head despite my sore neck’s protestations. I’m cuffed to a bed.
“Comfy, Ena?”
My tongue feels set in concrete. I blink several times and zero in on Beast sitting in a wingback, leather upholstered chair in the corner. The brass rivets dotted along the edges catches the light from above and they glitter at me, forcing my eyes shut again. I groan due in part to the discomfort I’m in and in part because he didn’t kill me in his office.
“Where am I?” I question feeling pretty damn startled by the sound of my voice. It’s more than hoarse. I swallow hoping the dryness in my throat will go away.
“You’re in a bed.”
“Where am I?” I croak sounding like I have a terrible case of laryngitis. I peer around wondering if I’m in the place he’d taken me before. The room is different but it could be the same apartment.
“How about I ask the question, yeah? Now, I’m going to give you one opportunity to tell me exactly why a cop’s daughter and a recent applicant to the BPD police academy strolled into my club looking for employment.”
I peek over to Beast again and note that he’s looking down at an open manila folder in his lap. With Boston Police Department stamped in bold black ink on the front.
Fuck. How’d he get that?
With my mind reeling and my body aching, I slip my eyes shut and bite my tongue.
“Ena Devlin. Recent graduate of Boston College. Graduated with her degree in criminal justice and submitted initial application to the police academy in April,” he carries on, reading the damning evidence in front of him and each fact feels like another nail in my coffin. The helpless cynic in me cackles at the notion that I’d be granted a coffin. I’ll be tossed away in the clothes I’m wearing, if that. “Residence: 1103 Blue Heron. Five foot, three. Buck twenty-five. Red hair. Green eyes. Though here I thought they were blue. Of course they’re mostly red now.” His face morphs into a sort of twisted grimace.
I focus on breathing and wonder how he’s going to kill me. I hope it’s quick whatever it is. “Care to add anything?”
“Sounds like you’ve got plenty,” I force out. There’s no point in trying to deny the evidence in his hands. My only hope is that an opportunity for escape arises but again, the cynic in me cackles at my expense.
Fuck her.
“Mm, when were you going to tell me your real name?” he sighs as though he’s bored and exasperated.
“It was on my to-do list,” I chuckle soundlessly like I’m insane because it’s the truth. I was going to tell him, to negotiate, to beg, to sacrifice myself. I was hoping I could confess to him, sell myself to him if he’d guarantee to retrieve Lan. Too late. I had assumed I’d come up with a good speech during my day going about my gopher duties but… well… you know what they say about best-laid plans.
“Did you know what the name Ena means?” He cocks his head with his eyes narrowed.
“Can’t say I do.” It’s all I can do to make my throat work. His grip was punishing and I’m feeling every bit of it still.
“Little fire,” he answers menacingly low and he sets his folder down beside him and gets to his feet. I watch as he prowls toward me like the predator he is. “How about Devlin? Know what that surname means?”
“No,” I whisper though it didn’t come out as much more than an exhale.
Beast sits down on the edge of the bed. His hip rests lightly against my ribs but it’s in stark contradiction to his brute force. He leans toward me, gripping my chin between his thumb and forefinger and forces me to look into disturbingly ominous hazel eyes. “Unlucky.”
“Sounds about right. Just get it over with,” I whisper. I look at him in the eyes and hope that my silent plea is enough to win a little mercy—just enough to make my end quick and painless.
“Do you ever wonder if your pig father said the same thing,” he taunts. My blood comes to a rapid boil and before another coherent thought forms, I jerk at my bonds, lurching my head forward and I spit in his face. If he’d been an inch closer I would have head butted him hard enough to break his fucking nose and hopefully split my own skull in the process. At least then, I’d die at my own hands and on my own terms and with Beast’s blood having been spilled if only just a little. I’d take it right about now because fuck him.
“Fuck. You,” I growl in his face. He smiles tightly and withdraws a handkerchief from his breast pocket. Once he blots his face clean he leans forward close enough that our noses glance against one another.
“And that, unlucky little fire, was your tell.” Carrick tosses his handkerchief on the table beside the bed and moves toward the door.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“Not yet but make no mistake Ena, you won’t be going anywhere any time soon.”
Beast studies me for moment longer then turns away, leaving me shackled to a bed in a strange room in a house I will most certainly die in. I don’t have any realistic hope of escaping it. Even if I did manage to slip away, they’d hunt me down or worse, they could kill my mom in my stead. My only true hope is maybe, just maybe I can find out where Alana is and who has her and pass that information along to someone I can trust, Kevin Santini. We may have had a little spat last time I spoke to him but he’s still the detective working Lan’s case. He was my dad’s partner for a long time and like a second father to me. He will take my call. Aside from me, he has been the only other person most motivated to see Dad’s cold case solved and Alana brought home.
There aren’t any discernible noises coming from the space around me. The general white noise of a house operating is about it. The air conditioning cycles on then back off again. Appliances and electronics give off a barely audible hum but other than that, silence spreads before me like a gulf.
Where’d he go?
I hear the faint sound of something.
Footfalls. The door to the room I’m in moves open soundlessly. I’m shocked to see Mercedes standing in the doorway.
The look of horror, then sorrow, in her dark eyes makes my chest ache. She comes in carrying a bag on her shoulder. Without saying a word she goes about unpacking the things she’s brought.
“I can see I’m not the only gopher on the payroll,” I force out which is no small feat considering how hoarse my voice is. Over the phone I could easily pass for an eighty-year-old life-long pack-a-day smoker with COPD. “That was a joke,” I deadpan. “It’s okay to laugh.”
“I’m not supposed to talk to you. Just supposed to bring this stuff,” she whispers with her eyes on anything but me.
“Fine, then don’t talk. But no one said I have to be quiet. Not that I would listen anyway. I’ve been on a rebellious streak lately,” I muse, making light of my dismal, albeit short future.
“That’s not funny Abigail. They’re going to kill y—”
“I know that,” I cut her off. Silence settles between us as she drags clothing and other things out of the bag, depositing it on the dresser against the wall. To my dismay it would appear he plans to drag out my death. There are at least three outfits folded neatly atop the glossy surface of the dresser. She shifts from foot to foot before zipping her bag and making her way to the door.
“My name is Ena,” I impart the truth, feeling I owe her at least that much. Mercedes nods once, looking back at me like someone has just stolen her puppy. She doesn’t say goodbye and I don’t say anything else either. It feels too final. The door shuts and I close my eyes, wishing very badly for eye drops or to just peel these contact lenses off my eyeballs. I certain
ly don’t need them anymore.
By the time my eyes crack open again, moonlight is streaming in from above and my head and my bladder feels like it will explode if I am not permitted a trip to a bathroom soon.
Seems about right. I’ll get to lie in my own urine.
My self-depreciating thoughts won’t shut off no matter how I attempt to distract myself. I suppose I deserve as much. I do my best to stretch and adjust my body to ease the stiffness in my joints but with both hands cuffed in place, there’s little help for it. My neck is painful and feels a little swollen. My mouth is dry as the Sahara and my head is still throbbing incessantly.
I strain my ears trying to listen for evidence of someone else in the house but there’s nothing and a sour taste fills my mouth when I realize the room I’m in must be close to sound proof. My eyes slip shut and my nostrils flare as I draw in a deep breath of resignation. I think back on my last few communications with mom, hating that they were all lies, hating that I hadn’t told her how much she means to me, how much I love her. Instead my legacy will be the texted picture messages of places I wasn’t really visiting. Lies about the weather and the locals. The empty promise that I’d be back home before she knew it.
The door on the far wall swings open creating a tiny breath of wind as it goes. I drag my eyes to the entrance finding my captor there. “Have a nice rest?”
I don’t bother answering him. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Fine. You’re going to use the bathroom, clean up, and get dressed. Dinner is ready. We have some things to discuss, Ena Devlin.” He prowls toward me, gracefully sitting down beside me, his hip against my ribcage again. Producing a key from his pocket, he leans over me, reaching the restraints above my head. Against my will, I inhale his scent hating myself for still finding him attractive in every sense of the word. Even though my arms fall limply from their binds, I am weak—too weak to do anything very effectively.
With the opportunity presenting itself, I garner enough strength and sensation in my arms to lift my hand to my face. I pluck the rubbery feeling contact lenses from my eyes and groan, flicking them aside without much care where they land. They’re so dry I imagine them cracking like the floor of a desiccated river. I massage at my eyes with my fists already feeling so much better having removed the lenses. The thing about fashion lenses is they’re not made to be worn for so long, or so many times. The state of my eyes is a testament to that.
I open my eyes and find him looking at me with a puzzling expression on his face. Beast has a few expressions I’ve come to know. Anger, irritation, fury, skeptical, turned on… but this one… this one I do not know.
“I never meant,” I begin on a broken whisper but I’m not even sure what I want to say to him.
“I’ll expect you to be at my table in thirty minutes.” He doesn’t wait for me to say anything further. He gets to his feet and exits the room. I roll onto my side and fall apart. How often has Lan fallen apart since she was taken? I wonder if she’s had a bed to fall apart on or she’s been held in dank conditions like the woman who recounted her escape from a sex slave ring to a Boston Globe journalist. I stumble to my feet feeling very much like a newborn deer. That’s when I notice the oxygen mask attached to a small tank on wheels. Had he given me oxygen after attempting to strangle me? Had he regretted attacking me in his office?
The bathroom attached to this space is massive, impressively appointed with all the luxuries you’d expect a guy as wealthy as Beast to have, but I can’t seem to focus on the bathroom. The woman in the mirror is frightening to look at. Both of my eyes are red but one of them is completely scarlet on one side, the white of my eye solidly red instead of white. There are brutal purple and blue slashes of bruises spanning my neck, a blunt reminder of the fingers that choked me so ruthlessly. Any emotional attachment I thought I felt for Beast has evaporated as I stare ahead at my reflection. He tried to kill me. He likely meant to but hesitated just in time perhaps.
My chin quivers, sinking my top teeth into my bottom lip I bite down hard, my nostrils flaring as my sobbing envelopes me entirely. I stumble backward, leaning against the cool tiled wall in front of the massive vanity mirror. Sinking to the floor, I bang my head against the wall, hard, wishing for my outward pain to match what’s inside. The hurt, the hopelessness, the loss…
Even this task, I fail at. No amount of physical pain could possibly touch the agony I carry inside. Minutes pass, perhaps even hours, I can’t be certain. I gather myself up off the floor and relieve my bladder before flipping on the shower. Steam billows and I step under the stream of hot water, allowing it to scald my skin. I’m a real fucking mental mess. With my palms braced against the tile wall, I drop my head forward and allow dark thoughts of death and destruction to consume me. I step out of the shower after I’m as clean as I could make myself with aching limbs. Wrapped in a fluffy light gray towel, I retrieve clothes from the stack of things Mercedes left me. I pluck a pair of black leggings from the pile and a simple gray tee shirt. I pull them on and slip my feet into the slippers on the floor. A sliver of doom crawls over my skin when I note the door has a lock on the outside.
Cage.
Prison.
Jailed.
My three words today aren’t as pleasant as I would have hoped. He didn’t tell me specifically where to go so once I’m in the hall outside the room he’s had me in, I look left then right. My nose sniffs, testing the air. Something smells good. On a whim I go right. The slippers make a subtle slapping noise against the gleaming marble floor beneath my feet. It’s clearly very lucrative business being a championship pro boxer turned underboss of Boston’s High Knoll. Art, mostly monochromatic in sleek frames, are thoughtfully placed in intervals along the corridor’s walls. At the end of the wide hall there is a staircase descending into what looks like a main living space. Despite it’s size and lack of color, it’s inviting. Deceptively inviting like Beast’s scent. My eyes scan the space, from the rafters of the soaring ceiling above my head to the gray-veined marble underfoot. A bank of windows composes the far wall. Though it’s July in Boston, someone, presumably Beast, has the doors leading to a terrace open. I assume being this high up perhaps the summer air isn’t as hot and humid. I take three tentative steps toward the open space of the terrace and stop, hating that ideas of jumping are niggling at the back of my mind.
At least it would be on your terms.
Without even having to turn around to confirm that I’m not alone, I speak facing the waterfront views, and the glimmering Boston skyline.
“You asked about Lan after that night I got drunk,” I say as loudly as I can.
“Yes.”
“She’s my sister. Lan is my sister.” I take a fortifying breath in through my nose and push it back out through my mouth feeling at a loss for words but also having a keen feeling as though I’m delivering her eulogy. “She likes romantic movies, baking, eating dessert before dinner, and ordering eggs benedict because it’s fancy according to her. She’s missing. She’s also probably dead,” my confession is so small and hoarse sounding I have to wonder if he’d heard me. Tears pool in my eyes and I’m not sure if it’s due to my unblinking stare into the Boston night or if it’s because for the first time, that cynic inside, the one that’s been warning me Lan is probably already dead—the same voice that has been citing disappearance statistics—she has won. I gave that cynic a voice and admitted aloud that Lan is probably already gone and she won’t be coming back. I turn weakly, slumping under the weight of my world crashing down. I don’t know that he’s even heard me. The twinge of his hazel eyes tells me he did. “My sister disappeared months ago near your club. I’ve been trying to find her ever since,” I add.
He says nothing in return. Giving me only his back and his deafening silence as he walks past me, leading me to a long, modern glass dinner table on the terrace.
“Sit,” he orders. I do as I’m told, noting that dinner is served. For him. My place setting is vacant and taunt
ing. I slunk down into the chair and cross my arms over my chest not truly giving a shit he has demanded I attend his dinner. Not our dinner. That’s fine. Being hungry after what I endured at Rob and Viv’s place is like riding a bike. Hunger is an old cellmate you haven’t seen in a while. You’ve been away from each other but still, you’d know them anywhere and with familiarity comes comfort. Rob and Viv drank most of their calories. I scrounged for sustenance daily. If Beast aims to starve me, he may be disappointed to find that I spent the first ten years of my existence malnourished on every level. Physically, mentally, emotionally.
I watch as Beast artfully slices into a perfectly medium-rare steak. He impales an asparagus spear and bites the end off, his dark eyes finally lifting from his dinner to find me watching him. He stabs another bit of steak and asparagus, and eats it, staring me down all the while. My mouth waters but I remain expressionless. I offered him information. He has said next to nothing to me. I’ll wait.
“Who is Robert Bonner to you?” His sudden left turn into Rob and Viv land throws me off but I answer honestly nonetheless. No point in lying at this juncture.
“He was my foster parent before I was adopted.”
“And you want to kill him,” he adds casually before making another careful cut into his steak.
“I had planned on it. If I ever saw him again, that is,” I rasp, then clear my throat, grimacing at the ache radiating from my neck through my head. My eyes focus on a red beacon light blinking atop the highest point on Zakim Bridge across the water from where we are situated.
“Why do you want him dead, Miss Devlin?”
“I’ll give you two guesses but only one counts,” I deadpan, looking him directly in the eye, conveying my hideous, dirty truth. I won’t say it aloud. I won’t recount my life there. Not to Beast.
He cocks his head, studying me, a muscle in his cheek flexing. If he wants to be angry with my response then so be it. His anger won’t compel me to admit aloud the things I wish I could forget. I break eye contact first, looking back out to the waterfront view before me.
