Chapter Thirty-Three
Wraith
He’s been gone too long. I watched him enter the bathroom and everything seemed fine. I wanted to walk him but that seemed excessive at our age, I mean he’s not a toddler. But it’s been nearly thirty minutes since he’s gone to the restroom, and no one has entered or exited the building.
“Everything okay?” Frani asks.
“No.” I reply.
Walking towards the bathroom I pull my grey handle pocketknife from my waistband.
Flicking it open I enter the Men’s room.
No one is at the sinks but the stall doors are all nearly closed so I walk to each one and push them open.
Empty. Fuck! Looking around I see a tablet on the edge of the sink.
I reach for it at the same time Fritzi and Frani walk in.
“Hey, you’re a lady you don’t belong in here!” Fritzi says.
Frani punches Fritzi in the stomach and he hunches forward.
“Shut the fuck up.” She demands. “Where is Harshal?”
“I don’t fucking know.” I growl.
The tablets screen lights up and a play button sits in the center of the screen.
“Should we play it?” Fritzi asks.
“What the hell even is it?” Frani asks.
“It’s a tablet, duh!” Fritzi responds.
Frani balls her hands into fist and goes to punch him again but he quickly moves out of the way.
“Don’t hit me!” he shouts, trying to protect his body’s weak points.
“Shut up!” Frani says through gritted teeth.
I ignore them and walk to the front door of the bathroom.
Looking around I make sure no one is watching before I close the door and lock it.
I then head back to the tablet and press the play button.
My blood immediately begins to boil at the sight of Jamies face on the screen.
He’s sitting at a wooden desk with old books behind him, dressed in an elegant looking suit and a smile on his face.
My grip on the tablet tightens as I try to rain in my anger.
“Hello, Wraith.” He says. “I got your message. Leaving my wife dangling by her neck on the ceiling fan in one of my mansions is... something, I admire it. If we weren’t rivals I’d consider hiring you as one of my guards because your skill set is out of this world.”
My lip curls in disgust. The thought of working for this scum bag of a man makes my stomach churn.
“But you know karma is a thing and I tend to take action and inflict my own karma on those who dare to challenge my family name or just me in general. Which is why I had teamed up with Ezmereldain De’Verde.
You see word gets around quickly and I heard about the party you were hosting so I had some of the members of De’Verde to attend and drug your precious boyfriend.
.. which is rather disgusting as a matter of fact. ”
“Oh, fuck him, kissing boys is fun!” Fritzi comments.
I roll my eyes at his comment, the least bit concerned about him at the moment.
“Now he’s in my custody and if you want to see him again I suggest you leave the country with your gang and never return to the United States of America.” Jamie says. “You have forty-eight hours to do so, if not then I’ll kill the boy like you did my fucking wife!”
The video ends and the tablet automatically swipes to a photo of an unconscious Harshal, lying on this very bathroom floor with one of the Ezmereldian De’Verde gang members hovering over him.
My anger seeps through my control a little and I end up bending the tablet, nearly breaking it in half with my bare hands. This motherfucker has just fucked up!
***
Frani and Fritzi literally had to tie me down in my bed with chains to keep me from going after Jamie last night.
I am still tied to the bed with said chains as the suns rays shine through my bedroom window.
I’ve tried to break through them like I did everything else they tied me up with but the steel is too strong for me.
I mean I could break my arms and possible my torso to break through the chains if I really had to, but I think it’s wise I don’t do such a thing.
Frani opens my bedroom door and walks to my closet.
She grabs a duffel bag and begins packing.
“How’d you sleep?” she asks.
I look at her for a moment, contemplating answering her.
“I didn’t.” I finally say.
“Yeah.” She sighs, packing some clothes in the duffel bag.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Dad is downstairs and he wants to see you.” She ignores my question.
She picks up my white high tops and grey high tops before turning to me.
“This is probably a redundant question but, which one?” she asks.
“Grey ones.” We say in unison.
I sit up in the bed, the chains rattling and clinging together as I do so.
“Well, are you going to untie me so I can go see Dad?” I ask.
“Wraith, I know you and I’m not stupid.” She responds. “If I untie you you’ll walk straight pass Dad and exit this house to go after Jamie.”
I roll my eyes in response and look out into the hall.
“You can’t keep me tied up forever you know?” I state.
“As long as those chains keep your hands behind your back and your body chained to that bed then I think otherwise.” She argues.
She examines all the shit of mine she placed in the duffel bag before nodding and zipping it up. She grabs the helmet with Grey Eyes’ name on it and exits my room which only makes my blood boil.
“Frani!” I shout.
“Shut it!” she shouts back.
I begin to yank against my restraints and I manage to break free from the wall.
“Wraith! You motherfucker!” Frani shouts. “I’ll break your legs if you so much as step a foot outside and you’ll have to crawl through the city trying to find Harshal!”
I grunt in strangled frustration.
“P-p-” I stutter as something I haven’t felt or did since I was a young boy comes barreling at me. “Please Frani!”
I try to fight this attack off but I’m quickly sinking deeper into this forgotten yet semi-familiar void. I feel helpless and lazy right now, forced to sit and let my bad luck stab me in the gut, like I’m being tortured as punishment for all the wrong I’ve done in my twenty-one years of life.
“P-pl-please, please, please.” I beg. “I want—I can’t—”
I lose the battle and I do something I haven’t done since I lost my biological brother.
I begin to cry. My world is captured and his life is in danger and I can’t do anything about it.
An unexpected wail escapes my lips and I plop back on my bed and curl into my pillow.
The tears come faster like an angry, disturbed river when I inhale his scent emanating from my pillows.
I bury my face into the pillow and inhale more as if doing that will make him suddenly appear.
I’m not crying because I’m a little bitch, I’m crying because I’m angry.
I can most definitely accept my karma and get my guy back but the fact that I physically can’t makes my blood boil beyond imagination and the only thing I can do to relieve myself of this emotion is cry.
It’s strange to me because I haven’t cried in almost two decades.
And this stalling only enrages my emotions due to the fact that Jamie can most definitely kill my baby angel and I can’t do shit because of my current physical state!
“My Angel!” I cry, my chest caving in on me. “I can’t lose my Angel!”
My chest continues to close in on me and I feel like it’s going to suffocate me. I struggle to breath when a hand lands on my back and I jump at the sudden touch. Shifting my body I turn to see Dad sitting beside me. I didn’t even register his body weight dip the bed to accommodate him.
“Son.” He says.
He has tears in his eyes.
“Dad, untie me, please.” I beg.
He stares at me for a moment before shaking his head. Immediately my vision blurs with the tears again.
“They’re going to kill him!” I cry. “Please, I have to get to him.”
“They won’t do anything to him, I promise.” Dad says. “Revenge will be yours.”
My tears burn my cheeks like acid as they roll down, my blood turning to lava as rage fills my lungs. This is my fault. Grey Eyes is going to die because of me.
“It’s-it’s my fault.” I cry. “I should have been the one Jamie captured. I should have gone to the bathroom with him! I fucked up!”
“Stop it.” Dad says. “This is not your fault.”
“You’re just fucking saying that!” I shout.
“No.” he shakes his head.
“Yes, you are.”
I can’t take it anymore! I begin to attempt to break out of the chains yet again. My muscles ache and tremble but the steel won’t budge. It won’t stop me though, nothing is invincible, so I keep trying.
“Stop.” Dad says.
I ignore him and keep trying.
“Stop!” he says louder.
I continue to try to break free.
“Wraith! Fucking stop it, son! Stop!” he bellows.
He grabs the collar of my shirt and pulls me to him.
The tip of our noses brush against one another as we stare at each other.
His eyes are full of emotion. Greif, sadness, anger, and an emotion that breaks me a little more.
I see a broken-hearted father, feeling the heartbreak, his son feels.
He hugs me and I bawl my eyes out in his shoulder.
“You really love that boy.” He mumbles.
I inhale the smell of my father. Even though he’s not my biological dad, he’s just the man who adopted me, saved me from my abusive parents, his scent still comforts me like he’s my actual father.
He gives me that sense of comfort, calmness, safety, and reassurance like those are the key notes of the cologne that is him.
“Dad.” I cry.
“We’ll get him back, I promise.” He says. “But I need you to trust my plan.”
He pulls away from me and looks me directly in the eyes.
“Do you trust me?” He asks.
Movement at my bedroom door catches my eye and I see Frani standing there, leaning against my doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest. Looking back at Dad I look him in the eye and nod.
“Good.” He smiles.
He grips my face in his hands and forces my attention to stay on him.
“I love you, Wraith.” He says. “You may not be my fucking blood but you’re still mine and seeing you hurt or trying to hurt yourself hurts...”