Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter 28
SIENNA
ANOTHER DAY OF PAINTING TO pass the time. The room is starting to overflow with canvases. For the first time I’m suffocating on my own art.
Getting off my stool near the window, I stretch my arms overhead, ready for a break. But plans change when there’s a soft knock on the door, followed by, “Magpie?”
I fall back onto the stool, my stomach sinking. I don’t say anything because he comes in regardless. At least he knocked this time.
The door creaks open, and there’s Anthony. He’s in a black suit with a red tie today, moving into my room like a tall, shadowed mass. When he smiles, the darkness that always clings to him highlights his white teeth.
“Hey, baby,” he says, closing the door.
I swivel around to face my painting again. I’m still shaken from my dinner with Anthony a few days ago—shaken that he’s been out there this entire time, his eyes watching, waiting.
Watching me go through school.
Watching me with my friends.
Watching everything.
I’ve had nightmares about trying to run away from those eyes, but every time I turn a corner, I see them.
They see me.
The more I’ve thought about our interaction at dinner, the more a dark, terrible realization has taken root inside me: even if I escape this room, even if I run away again, he’s going to follow.
He will always follow.
Always watch.
The only true escape from Anthony is death.
My death.
Or his.
I grab my brush with unsteady fingers and pretend to add color to a flower even though my wrist aches from the movement. Even though my insides are trembling again.
Anthony’s body heat burns into my back after he stops behind me. His cologne is so strong it stings my eyes, so I rub them.
“Hmm, it’s coming along,” he says, studying my painting. He bends forward until his minty breath sends a chill down my spine, then he plucks the brush from my hand. He dips it in the black on my palette and then darkens my little bird’s eyes, making the white highlights pop while strengthening the contrast.
I regret ever teaching Anthony to paint. He was always ‘fixing’ my art back in the day, and I hated him even more for doing a good job at it.
He sets the brush down and then nuzzles my neck with his cheek. “When it’s finished, I want to hang it in my room, along with all your other paintings I’ve kept.” His fingers graze my collarbone and locket. “Remember when we did those portraits of each other? Of course I saved those.” He places a kiss under my earlobe, and I shudder, feeling nauseous. He laughs. “You drew devil horns on me.”
“That was right after you made me…” I don’t want to say it out loud, so I stop.
“Made you what?”
“The shop owner.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. What a crazy night.”
I want to laugh. Or sob. Just a ‘crazy’ night? Now I really might throw up.
That ‘crazy night’ was the first time I actually saw who Anthony was, and my youthful blind devotion to him finally cracked.
A few months after I had moved in with him, Anthony began traveling for ‘business’ several weeks at a time. I was lonely, so I went to the corner store every morning to talk with the sweet old man who owned it. He was kind and treated me like a daughter, something I craved. In hindsight, I told him too much about myself and my life, too much about Anthony, but I was young and still na?ve to Anthony’s cruel side.
I had thought Anthony was only a small-time drug dealer, not part of something…organized.
I didn’t know it before the ‘crazy’ night, but that old man was helping Anthony with money laundering, and he kept quiet about certain deliveries made to his store. But he was resentful.
Something I told the old man gave him what Anthony called a ‘bargaining chip.’ The old man threatened to go to the police with the information unless Anthony cut him a new deal.
I don’t know what happened between the two men, but I figured it got settled because we stopped talking about the subject. Then Anthony made me stop visiting the old man’s shop. He put me a leash, controlling where I went, who I hung out with, how long I could leave the apartment. He relaxed the chains a little after a few months.
I felt suffocated, but I told myself he was only being protective. He loved me and just wanted me safe. Also, I was stupidly infatuated—what my dumb eighteen-year-old brain thought was love.
That one ‘crazy’ night changed everything.
I had been sleeping peacefully when Anthony shook me awake.
“Hey, Magpie, I need your help,” his voice whispered in my ear.
The bedroom was dark, so I fumbled with my phone to check the time. “Now? It’s midnight.”
He flipped on a lamp and sat on the edge of the bed. He was in a puffy winter jacket since it was October and getting chilly outside. He stuck out his bottom lip in a pout. “Aww, baby, come on. You’re gonna leave me hanging?” He started tickling my sides, waking me up fully and making me thrash the sheets around to get him to stop. Then he pinned my hands above my head and rubbed our noses together. “If you really loved me, you’d do it. Don’t you love me?”
I giggled, gazing up into his dark eyes like they were actually my light. “Fine.”
He kissed me. “That’s my girl. Now get rid of that bad breath and put a sweater on. I’ll wait outside.”
He had released my hands, so I hit him with a pillow. “I don’t have bad breath.”
His nose scrunched as he raised a shoulder. His voice rose in pitch. “Well…”
I huffed into my hand to do a breath check. Smelled fine. “I do not,” I said, chucking the pillow at him as he sauntered toward the door.
He threw his head back and laughed before leaving.
He loved teasing me.
Once I was dressed and outside, we hopped into Anthony’s beat-up sedan and he drove me to a house I’d never seen. Light was shining through a living room window.
“Where are we?” I asked, shivering under my jacket and sweater because Anthony’s crappy car had a broken heater.
“Jerry lives here.”
Jerry was the shop owner I was forbidden from visiting. “What? Why are we here, then?”
Anthony’s gaze fixated on a cat across the street, a black cat hunched under a car for warmth. Its eyes glowed like two red, reflective marbles.
“Give him some company,” he said.
I should’ve paid more attention to the way his thin fingers strangled the steering wheel, or the way he watched that cat—not really seeing it.
But the tells in his body language, something he’d been trying to teach me, went unnoticed.
I only saw my boyfriend sitting there. After being an unwanted child, here was someone who wanted me , who thought I was important enough to help.
My grandfather was long dead, and no one else thought I had worth.
Just Anthony; he was the only person in the world who cared that I was alive.
“Why does he need company this late?” I asked through chattering teeth. “Why is he still awake?”
Anthony took off his scarf and wrapped it around my neck to help me warm up. Then he kissed me. In those early days, his kisses made any questions or doubts instantly leave my head.
He leaned across my lap to pop the door open. “He’s expecting you. Go say hi and wait for my call. I’ll call you soon.”
“Where are you going?”
Another kiss.
I stepped out of the car, blushing. “Fine, but this is weird.”
“Thought you liked it weird?” He flashed me a stupid grin and his exceptionally straight teeth.
I laughed despite myself. “God, shut up.”
He leaned over and pulled my door shut, giving me a smirk and a wink that said we’d continue the topic later.
I only felt happy.
As he drove off, I climbed the steps to the narrow house and knocked on the door. Just give the old man company? I didn’t see any harm in that.
There was a loud thump inside, then Jerry yelled, “I know why you’ve come and I’m not going down without a fight!”
“It’s Margaret,” I called back. Who the hell did he think I was?
A few deadbolts unlocked, and Jerry peered through a crack in the door. Once he saw it was really me, he undid the top chain and opened it.
“Margaret?” he asked, as if he thought I was a ghost. As if a ghost had stolen his words and my name was the only one left.
My gaze fell to the gun in his hand. Anthony carried a gun, so it was something I had been around. But still…seeing Jerry clutch it with such a trembling hand made my stomach bottom out.
“E-everything okay?” I asked, eyes never leaving the gun. “Anthony wanted me to give you some company.”
This old man treated me like a daughter, so I wasn’t scared. Only tense. But even if you trust someone completely, when they’re holding a gun, it’s like they’re holding pure death.
Something died in Jerry’s eyes that second—a light fading to black. His leathery skin was suddenly gray and his eyes sunk to my feet. His tone was flat, like he was reading from a script. “Yes. Come in, Margaret. It’s cold.” He put the safety on the gun and dropped it on a side table.
I was relieved it was no longer in his shaky hands, though they kept shaking.
Nothing much happened while I stayed with him. Jerry made me some coffee because he said I looked tired. Might be a long night, he said.
I asked if something was bothering him, why he couldn’t sleep, but he wouldn’t answer. He said my boyfriend was nice for bringing me to see him.
“Tell him I said that, okay? You’ll tell Anthony I’m grateful for your company.”
I told him yes and asked about his store, but he changed the subject. He wanted to talk about his ex-wife, his daughters. He told me about having a plane ticket to visit his family for the holidays.
“Will you tell that to your boyfriend? I’d just like to visit my family for Christmas. Just let me visit them and then I’ll come back, no problem. I swear.”
I smiled and asked why he thought Anthony needed to know. “Just go visit your family. Anthony doesn’t care.”
He fell silent and turned on the TV.
Anthony finally called around two in the morning. “There’s a car and driver outside. Bring Jerry with you and say I have a surprise for him at his shop.”
“What—”
The call ended.
“Anthony says he has a surprise for you,” I told Jerry matter-of-fact. I had no idea what was going on between the two of them, but surprises were usually good.
Jerry didn’t look excited. He only got out of his chair, his knees popping, and walked to the door solemnly. Each step was like he had weights in his shoes.
I yawned. Despite the coffee, I was struggling to focus. I’d never been a late-night person, so I wanted to get done with this trip to the shop so I could go home and sleep.
Before he opened the door, Jerry grabbed the gun.
Still, I explained it away in my head—people carried concealed weapons in Chicago. Anthony did. It was late at night and parts of Chicago definitely weren’t friendly. Jerry wanted to keep us safe. He was a kind, old man who I wished had been my real father. His sarcastic sense of humor and upbeat attitude also reminded me of my grandpa.
I was safe with Jerry.
We climbed in the car and the driver took us to Jerry’s shop.
When we reached the door, he nudged me in front of him. “You go on, sweetheart,” he said, as if still reading from a script. “Go on and say hi to your boyfriend. Tell him what I told you.”
Goosebumps prickled my arms because Jerry sounded so strange, made such a strange request. Still, I walked in first.
The light immediately switched on and I gasped at the destruction around me. Aisle shelves were tipped over, broken bottles were scattered everywhere. Bags and food and liquid all mixed in a strange concoction of sweet and smoky smells.
Anthony and his friends stood in the middle of it all.
“Oh my god, what happened?” I said, trying to rush forward, but Jerry grabbed my arm. He held me in front of him.
I knew there was a gun in Jerry’s shaky hand, and I saw Anthony’s eyes glance at it.
“Try it,” Anthony said. He tipped his chin at a man who had a gun pointed at Jerry. His voice was the hardest I’d ever heard it. “Take a chance and you’ll die before your finger twitches.”
My body was finally, finally , sensing danger, and every muscle seized up.
That wasn’t Anthony. I didn’t know the man in front of me—his eyes black as night, his posture relaxed yet coiled like a rattlesnake. His expression was pure hate, every line of his features unyielding and unmoving.
He didn’t fit with the image of my boyfriend, who had been kissing me earlier and teasing me and flirting.
As the lightning bolt hit and I realized I didn’t know anything about my boyfriend, not really, I also realized Jerry was using me as a shield. Wanted to hurt me.
I felt like the world’s biggest idiot for not understanding sooner.
Jerry released me. He pushed me to the side and clicked the safety off his gun. “You tell him, Margaret. You tell him how I treated you well and I’ve never hurt you. Not once. How you’re like family.”
I didn’t know what to do, so I opened my mouth.
“No, baby,” Anthony said before I could speak.
The next second, one of Anthony’s friends rushed Jerry from behind and grabbed his gun.
What happened then was a jumble of bodies and glass shattering and Jerry crying out for help.
I squeezed my eyes shut. How had I ended up there? How had life changed so quickly from sleeping soundly to this ?
The worst part was that I knew Anthony did bad things. I knew he had to ‘rough guys up.’ He said it was just business. He said, “That’s part of the game and anyone who plays understands the risks.” And sometimes he came home bruised and bloody, but I had imagined fist fights between rival drug dealers, not ambushes on old men.
I knew, but I didn’t want to know.
Anthony was the only person who cared for me, who treated me like someone special and gave me a place to belong, and I craved that so badly I ignored the rest.
That night, I still tried to ignore the truth, covering my face as Anthony beat that old man until he was a bloody slab of meat.
Anthony’s hard voice cut through my denial, forcing me to confront what had been in front of me all along. “Margaret. Watch.”
One of his friends grabbed my wrists and made me stop covering my eyes.
I watched as Anthony pounded that old man’s face until he no longer had recognizable features. I watched him roll the body face down and kick the man’s ribs. Spit on him. Finally, he stepped away, panting and wiping sweat from his brow. When his gaze landed on me, I screamed.
“Shh. Shh,” he said, approaching.
I tried to back away, but his large friend was behind me, caging me in.
Anthony cupped my cheeks with bloody hands, and a strangled cry tore from my throat.
“Shh, baby,” he said, sounding like my boyfriend again. His gaze was tender, caring, but I still wanted to puke. “I know,” he cooed. “I know that was tough, but you had to see. You need to understand our life and stop being so na?ve. You can’t go around blindly trusting anyone who gives you the tiniest bit of attention. You can’t go telling others about us. Because it leads to this.” He pointed at the motionless body. “He was screwing up my shipments and wanted to snitch. You don’t want me to go to jail, do you, baby?”
I didn’t respond; I didn’t know how to respond because I was still coming to terms with the fact that my boyfriend was capable of such horrors.
He kissed my forehead. “Hey. Look at me.” I refused, so he sighed. He lowered his hands and wiped the blood on his pants. “I’ll give you some time. But honestly, don’t feel too bad about the bastard. A few decades ago, he beat and raped three girls about your age.”
I finally looked at him. “You’re lying. He was, is…he is a sweet old man. He’s my friend. You’re lying!”
He only smirked and nodded at the man behind me. I was pulled to the car outside and then driven home.
I scrubbed myself in the shower, but never felt clean.
I never felt clean again.
Because I stayed with Anthony for three more years. I was complicit in more horrors.
I never found out if that old man lived or died, but his shop closed and never reopened.
I never found out if what Anthony said was true.
He’s still behind me, hovering over me as we face the open window and my painting. I grab my paintbrush, dig it into some black and then drag it across the canvas diagonally.
Anthony tsks. “Now, why did you do that? I liked that painting.”
I swivel on my stool to face him. “Did that old man die?”
He frowns, like I’m talking nonsense. “Old man?”
“From our ‘crazy’ night.”
“Oh.” He crosses his arms. “He was seventy, so he’s dead by now.”
I grit my teeth. “Did he die that night?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
We stare at each other, and then his thin lips curl up at the corners. I can’t tell if that’s an admission of the truth or if he’s smiling from some sexual satisfaction about getting me riled up.
He glances at his watch. “I have to go, but have dinner with me later.”
“I won’t be hungry.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
I stare him down again, and he bites his bottom lip. “You’re fun today,” he comments before facing the door.
When he reaches for the knob, the question that’s been clawing at my insides for years finally comes out, “Was it true? You told me the old man was a rapist. Was he?”
Anthony doesn’t turn around, talking at the door while I study the sharp lines of his back. “It’s strange how some parts of us never change,” he says, his tone sounding like he’s in a tunnel, echoey and distant. “We grow up, learn our lessons, but there are these stubborn, idiotic parts that just refuse to change. I thought time would’ve changed your idealistic view of the world, but it hasn’t.” He glances at me over his shoulder, his ugly smirk melting into a frown. “Why have you always had such misguided instincts? You think I’d do something disgusting like take you against your will, yet you’re feeling bad about someone who would have? I protected you when no one else did.” His jaw muscles flex and he tips his head back to look down at me. “I used to love your innocence, but now I find it irritating. After all these years, you still think there’s good in people. But no one is good, Margaret. Some people are better at hiding it than others, but we’ve all done twisted shit. Even that rich asshole you’re wet for.”
He leaves, slamming the door.
I immediately stand and start searching the room for anything sharp. There’s nothing—Anthony has my environment too controlled. He even took away that wooden paintbrush I snapped, giving me impossible-to-bend plastic ones instead.
Since I can’t shred the canvas, I smear black paint all over it, not caring how it coats my clothes and drops on the floor. Then I knock the canvas over, stomp on a corner, and start bending the wooden frame. It takes a lot of effort, but I finally break it.
I toss it out the window.
The guard outside on the ground floor yelps. “What the fuck?” he calls out.
I slam the window shut, then sit on the stool and sob.
I hate him. I hate how I cared for him once. I hate myself for staying so long in the past, hoping my love would somehow change him.
I hate that he’s right.
There are too many wolves in this world, and it’s always the friendly ones who are the most dangerous.
I think…
I mean, I’ll have to find the strength…
If I ever want to truly escape…
To truly keep Jada and Declan safe…
I have to kill the wolf.