Chapter 32 Naomi
It smells strange, this place I wake up in. Musty, damp. It makes me sneeze.
Damn, I couldn’t contain it. Sounds erupt from somewhere close. When I focus, I can see a door in this windowless room. I’m on a makeshift cot, still only in the nightdress I wore back at the hotel. Beyond the door, I can hear chairs scraping, then the lock being undone.
It’s a lot of metallic groans and a click or two—that’s not a normal door.
I knew I was a prisoner here, but these ominous grindings reinforce the idea, sending dread down my spine in a rush of cold. Goose bumps erupt all over my skin.
The big door creaks open—I can’t help but think it sounds like a vault’s door—and a man steps into the opening. He’s big and tall, wears a tattered sports jacket over a black T-shirt and sweatpants, expensive sneakers on his feet. A ray of light hits the thick gold chains dangling from his massive neck, and I have to avert my eyes.
He snarls as he steps into the room.
Everything inside me knows he’s coming in to harm me. I scream, but it comes out short and sharp as I backtrack onto the cot, trying to huddle into myself.
He grabs my hair in a fist and tugs, hard. “You don’t look away from me, bitch.”
A small moan escapes me as he spits on the ground next to me. I know I have to do everything to not antagonize him.
“Please,” I mumble.
He laughs. “No one here to protect you. What are you going to do, heh?”
His grip lightens on my hair, my relief turning to fear when he starts rubbing the locks between his fingers. Bile touches the back of my throat when he grazes my cheek with his knuckles.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs. “So ripe.”
Oh, God. His voice sounds so lascivious, and he’s licking his lips. I can almost imagine him pulling me closer to run his tongue up my face or something. Next, he might…
He mumbles something in a language I don’t know and spits again as he tugs on my hair before releasing me with a violent push.
I thud into the concrete wall hard, my naked shoulder taking the brunt of the hit. Pain radiates on my right side, but all I can do is breathe out in relief as the man leaves the room without a backward glance at me.
Tears start to course down my cheeks.
Who is he? Why has he taken me? What does he hope to gain from this?
A shock of horror makes me sit upright. Valentino! Is he here? Did the man get him, too?
I didn’t see them forcing him out of our room. I remember the man with the police badge placing a small baggie of white powder in a little box on the vanity table. To frame him? The police would then arrest him, wouldn’t they?
But this man here, he’s no police. I recall someone dragging me from the room, clocking me with the butt of a gun, and then it all went dark. They must’ve brought me here… Oh my God, where’s my husband? What have they done to him?
Panic builds inside me, and at one point, I can’t stop myself from free-falling into the doom. I bend over the bed and upchuck bitter bile onto the floor. On top of the damp and must now, the room smells acrid. There’s no air, no water, no food. Just bare concrete all around and this uncomfortable cot.
Despair wants to take over, but I force myself to breathe.
I can’t let it win. Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Valentino will find me. I just have to hold on for long enough so he can come to me. And when he does, that beefy jerk outside will be a dead man.
Something he said rankles, and I focus on his words. The way he said ‘bitch’… The man who’d grabbed me from the room had had a similar inflection in his tone. Not the same person—different pitches. But the accent is similar.
It’s not one I’ve heard before, so I can’t place it, but I’m sure these men are from the same region.
I don’t know how much time passes. I keep mulling over the abduction, trying to find clues, anything that might help make the picture clearer. How did it all happen? Can I remember anything from after being taken?
The groaning of the door tears me out of my reflections.
This time, they leave the panel ajar. I can hear voices, speaking in English.
And one of them is so familiar…
I gasp, refusing to believe he has anything to do with this…at first. Then it all falls into place. Of course it’s him behind all this.
The betrayal cuts deep, reopening all the barely-healed scars his past treachery carved inside my heart, the cuts now extending to my entire being. But tears refuse to come. I’ve used up my supply where he is concerned.
The big man with the heavy bling comes in again. I slide to the edge of the cot, trying to peer behind him into the adjoining room, trying to see my father. I expect him to come in, too, but I catch only a glimpse of his portly frame and a puff of white hair before my captor blocks the view.
I rake my eyes over him, not afraid of him this time. He’s not the one in control, pulling the strings. He’s just a little bitch—Joel Smith’s bitch. Nothing but a bully, and what should one do against bullies? Not give in. He can do what he wants to me, I won’t crumple. And my husband will kill him when he comes for me. This man doesn’t have long to live, and he has no fucking clue.
Guess he doesn’t like to see a smile on my face. I receive a back-handed slap to my mouth, which opens the cut on my lip again. But instead of yelping, I laugh softly.
His pale face goes red. He unfurls a barrage of words onto me, in that language I don’t know—it doesn’t sound like it comes from any major linguistic family, to be honest. Where on Earth is he from? I do know he’s cursing me out, though.
He thrusts a wad of paper in front of me, along with a pen. “Sign.”
“What’s this?”
“Just sign it, you whore.”
I throw a quick glance at the papers. It’s hard to see the words, but in the glow of natural light coming from the next room, I can angle the sheets to make out what’s written.
Trust. Hand over. Beneficiary.
My heart starts galloping. No! He can’t be doing this…
I skim the sheets, looking for a name. I find it on the last page, next to the place where I’m to put my signature.
Joel Liam Joseph Smith.
Aka my father.
“No,” I say.
“What, bitch?”
“No,” I repeat louder, flinging the papers at him.
For a second, it looks like he will hit me again. But he bends and retrieves the sheets, then goes out of the room. I can hear him arguing with my father before the door closes tight.
I fall back onto the cot with a muffled sob.
All this for money.
Yet again, there’s nothing else my father cares about. Look what he did to my mother to get to her fortune. Look what he’s doing to me today to get to mine. The tears come now. For my mom. For me. For a future I might not get to see with the man I love because of the one who should’ve loved me unconditionally since my birth.
Valentino… Does he have any idea my father is behind all this? He’s no fool, though. He’ll figure it out. My uncle might also doubt something and will help him.
I have to cling hard to the hope they’ll uncover the truth and come find me.
When the door next opens, it’s not the big man. The light outside is still bright—it’s daytime still. This gives me hope. Being in such sensory deprivation inside is blurring the edges, and I have no idea how long I’ve been here. The boy who enters is young, still a teen, it seems. He’s carrying a metal glass, which he hands to me.
I take it after careful deliberation. It has no smell, and the glass is cool.
“It’s water,” he says.
Same accent I’m learning to detect in their words—sometimes crisp, sometimes flowy, a weird mix of both.
It’s sweltering inside this room, and I’m parched. If these men wanted to drug me, they would’ve already done it. They need me alive to sign the damn trust fund papers.
I knock the water back and hand him the glass. My gaze alights on the gun tucked in the back of his pants when he turns toward the door.
Shivers rack through me as I keep my eyes on the weapon. If I had it, I could escape.
Time stops, flows, moves until the next time the door creaks open. It has been a few hours, at most. I know this because I’m just a little thirsty, and I haven’t had to use the pot they’ve set in a corner to relieve myself yet.
There’s sunlight in the other room. The person coming in won’t be prepared for the pitch black inside here, darkness I’ve had time to get used to.
When the door starts to open, I shift off the bed and edge closer to the opening, hoping it’s the young boy and not the big man. It is, his slight frame cutting a small outline in the glare of the lightbulb powered outside. He stops for a second to get his bearings, and that’s when I jump.
I race toward his back, not letting triumph sing when my hand closes on the gun. I’m not good with them, but I’ve been to political rallies with my father—one place had a gun range, and they were eager to show us all how to handle a handgun. I thus know to check for a safety lock, how to wrap my hand around the grip.
I also know from experience how much the butt of a gun hitting one’s head can hurt. I’m sorry for hurting this boy, but I have to get out. Rearing my arm back, I slam it down as hard as I can, the gun hitting the side of his head.
He drops to his knees, moaning in pain. I rush past him and into the adjoining room. The light hurts my eyes, but I blink past it and go to the window which is ajar. Streetlamps outside show we’re just below street level—I can even see the small flight of stairs leading to the pavement. It looks like a townhouse.
So, we’re still in New York!
The window’s jamming, though, and there’s no way I can fit into the opening right now. I have to—
I scream when a hand wraps into my hair and pulls tight. I don’t let go of the gun, though, and as I whirl around, scalp burning from the hard tugging, my elbow slams into the big man’s belly. It feels like he’s got rock-hard abs underneath, though, so the blow doesn’t affect him at all. He’s cursing aloud and trying to reach for the gun.
I’m not ready to let go of the weapon. If I can turn it on him, I could disable him temporarily and be able to open the window.
His large hand closes on my wrist. The pain makes me scream again. He tries to shake the gun from my hold, and in the tussle, it goes off.
No one prepares you for the recoil that hits your hand when you fire a gun. The wave of energy slams into me, compounding the pain of the man’s tight hold on my wrist, travelling up my arm and shocking my shoulder. I release the gun in the aftermath, too stunned by the pain.
The big man lets me go as he turns and screams. It’s an unholy sound, and he roars with rage and frustration watching the fallen form of the boy in the doorway of the vault door.
Is he dead?
There’s blood pooling around him, and he isn’t moving.
When the big man turns to me, his eyes are wide, manic. His face contorts like that of a monster, his mouth curling into a snarl as he roars again, spittle flying from his lips as words from that unknown language pour out.
He’s cursing me. I know then the boy is dead.
His boy?
He’s on me in the next second. His hand grabs the back of my head, and he slams my face into the wooden table. Half of my mind goes black, the other seeing stars. I know I’m about to pass out. As I slither to the floor, he kicks my back, over and over and over again. I don’t even have any strength left in me to scream. All I can do is wrap my arms around my knees, curling into myself. He sometimes misses the small of my back and hits my shoulder blade—it hurts less this way.
Then he stops, but the relief is short-lived. He grabs me by the hair again and drags my body across the floor, through the pool of the fallen boy’s blood, and into the dark room. Once we’re in there, thanks to the sheer strength of him, he half-lifts me just by holding my hair—I’m beyond pain by this point—and slams me into the wall near the cot.
I don’t move. I can’t. I don’t even know how I’m still conscious after all this.
I hear him fall to his knees in a thud behind me. He’s crying, mumbling. He’s praying, at some point. Or is it a lamentation?
It’s strange how I don’t lose consciousness. Or maybe I do, and I can’t tell the difference. Time stops, warps, flows again, just like before. At regular intervals, the man comes into the room and goes on a rant again, before kicking me in the back. At one point, he grabs my hair again, but he stops just short of bashing my head in against the concrete floor. Small wins, I suppose, though the kick that comes after it is more violent than any of the previous ones.
My eyes are closed tight, and this time, I’m freefalling inside.
I think I can see my mother… No, it’s a memory. I’m a child sitting in her lap, looking up at her as she smiles and laughs before bending to kiss my head.
There’s Valentino looking at me with so much fondness—it’s from our dance at the wedding of Don Giorgio’s grandson. Another time when he’s tucking a lock of hair behind my ear, fingertips gently grazing my cheekbone. His face tense as he feeds me bone broth while I lay in bed against propped up pillows. Him releasing my hand outside the office of the county clerk on the day of our wedding, not looking back at me before he gets into the car…
A mist of grey fog is distorting the image now, wrapping, swirling, twisting around me. I’m losing all my bearings. I’m screaming, but I know no sound is coming from my lips. I’m falling again, and this time, it looks like nothing will stop it.
Until a bright light erupts. I’m suddenly in a bubble inside the grey, and there’s someone with me. It’s a little girl. She has light hair, brilliant blue eyes. She touches my chin, smiles at me.
“Get up,” she says.
“Who…who are you?”
“Serafina.”
“What—”
“Get up, Mommy.”
Mommy ?
I blink at her. “Where are you?”
She giggles. “Inside you, silly. Get up!”
“No, wait…”
She’s moving away, as if a corridor has opened behind her and is pulling her from me at warp speed.
I try to reach for her, and scream when my battered and bruised body lands onto the cold, hard concrete floor of my jail. I’m conscious again, can feel the musty air, the metallic scent of blood overlaid on it.
Trying to escape, the boy, shooting him—it all comes back to me.
As do snatches from the freefall. My mom. Valentino.
Serafina…
I swallow hard, my hands going to my belly. It feels tight under the layer of soft flesh that’s covered my whole body recently. But round, full? I never…
My eyes go wide. My belly is indeed round and full when I press harder. And when I cradle it, the most incongruous of sensations registers.
It’s like the flutter of butterfly wings, but coming from inside me.
A baby, moving in there already? This can’t be. Valentino always uses a condom, knowing I’m not on the pill. We never—
Except we did. Once. In the attic of his house, during our first weekend together.
That was in January, and it’s now the end of June. I’m almost six months…
“Pregnant,” I mumble. “I’m pregnant.”