42. Deirdre
Deirdre
I sit in the boat staring up at my dad on the dock for so long that the two men are forced to unstrap me and physically pull me out of the seat.
They try to lift me out of the boat, but my skirt gets snagged on something.
One of the men pulls out a knife, and I cringe away from the blade as he saws through the silk, turning the flawless full-length gown into a garment that ends choppily above my knees.
I’m lifted much more easily from the boat this time, held by the waist and then deposited on my ass on the dock, facing towards the boat.
I stare down at the beautiful beaded silk, the dress I wore for Elio ruined in the bottom of the boat, and feel a small part of myself die.
“Here, lass, up we go now,” my dad says, grabbing my arm and trying to pull me into a standing position.
“Don’t touch me!” I surprise all three of them, and myself, with the force of my scream. I rip my arm out of his grip and get shakily to my feet on my own. My muscles feel looser than they should. My whole system slowed by whatever they injected into me.
My dad looks good. And that is like a slap in the fucking face. He’s sun-kissed, healthy, wearing shorts and a fine linen shirt that rustles in the warm breeze. His hair is a little longer than when I saw him last, and it looks like he’s even lost some weight.
He’s been living one good life out here without me.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my throat scraped raw. “Why am I here? Where is Elio?”
“Elio?” My dad looks surprised I’ve mentioned the man that I’ve been living with since he abandoned me. “Back in Toronto, I’d imagine. He doesn’t know you’re here.”
“Why the hell am I here?” I don’t even know if Elio is alright. It looked like he was hurt badly in that blast. My hands crawl anxiously up to my head, clenching at my hair until it pulls hard at the scalp. “You have to take me back!”
“Back?” My dad gawks at me. “No, Dee. I always meant to get you back eventually. My business partner has finally helped me to do just that.”
“Get me back? You’re the one who left me there!
” I point my finger wildly out over the water, swinging it like it’s the arm of a compass that can find Toronto and Elio by some kind of magnetic force.
“You signed me away to La Cosa Nostra when I was eighteen fucking years old! You ran away like a coward on my birthday when that Camorra soldier was coming at me with a gun! And now you’re trying to tell me that it was all part of the plan?
That you were going to come back for me eventually?
After my life was already completely destroyed? ”
My arm drops, heavy and limp to my side.
“You want to know who was there when you weren’t?
Elio. That very first night you ran, he took a bullet to protect me.
While you were getting on a plane for this fucking paradise, Elio was getting stitched up from a wound that could have killed him if he hadn’t been just a little more lucky than he is. ”
“See?” my dad says, nearly scoffs, defensiveness clear in his voice and face. “I knew he would be good to you. Take care of you while I was gone. That’s why I felt good about making that deal with him.”
“That is bullshit and you know it!” I snap.
How have I never truly seen this side of my father before?
This wriggly, gaslighting person who lies like it’s nothing?
“Elio Titone is a monster and in many ways he was a monster to me. But he’s my monster now.
He’s my husband. And you have to send me back to him! ”
I stop shouting and try to get control of my breathing.
Maybe if I can just find the right angle, the right negotiation tactic, I can swing things around my way.
“I won’t tell him it was you,” I say quickly, already hating the promise I’m making because I know my husband is going to try to get the information out of me by whatever means necessary. “I won’t tell him what happened. I’ll make something up. Just get me on a plane. Send me home!”
The open, placating look my father has had on his face for most of this time suddenly cracks, then crumbles completely away, revealing something hard and cold.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?!”
“Because Mr. Brigham’s taken an interest in you.”
My head snaps to the side, because it’s one of the other men who’s spoken now.
“Ah. There it is,” I say grimly. “What happened to, ‘it was always the plan to get you back’?” I ask my dad. “I’m still a pawn to you. Only problem is I’ve got a knight behind me now.”
Not a bright, chivalrous knight. A dark knight. One clad in black leather instead of white armour.
“He is going to find me,” I promise my father, promise all of them. “If you don’t send me back, he will come for me.”
“He doesn’t even know where you are,” my father says, but there’s a hint of uncertainty I can see working at him now.
“But he knows you’re here!” I cry, and my father blanches in response, blood draining from beneath his Bermuda-darkened freckles.
“He’s known where you are this entire time!
When he doesn’t find me in Toronto, he will scour the whole world to find me, and he’ll probably start-” I point furiously down at the dock between us “-right here!”
“He’s welcome to do so.”
That’s a new voice that I don’t recognize, one with a posh-sounding accent, like it was shaped in fancy parts of London.
I turn towards the sound to see a tall, lean man standing at the other end of the dock where it connects with the island.
Like my father, he’s dressed in beautiful, expensive-looking linen, his trousers and his shirt both pristine white.
His hair is somewhere between grey and blonde and when he smiles broadly at me I’m confronted with a set of too-large, too-white veneers.
“You… You want him to come here?”
One of the man grabs me violently by the hair, yanking me back until I cry out. My father does nothing but watch as the man hisses, “You don’t ask questions of the boss.”
The boss in question, presumably Mr. Brigham, raises a tanned, weathered hand and the man instantly lets me go.
“No need to be so rough with our new guest,” Mr. Brigham says as he comes down the dock towards us.
When he’s close enough I think I can peg him at around fifty-five, or maybe even sixty years old.
But he’s the kind of man who’s aged with health and wealth, like somebody who spends a lot of time on a yacht.
His skin has aged from the sun, but overall he still looks strong, muscles cording along the forearms I can see from the way his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows.
I feel that strength for myself when he grabs my chin, turning my face this way and that. I try to pull away, but his goon is still right behind me, and I’m trapped.
“You’re even lovelier in person,” the tall man says. “Let’s get you inside, shall we? Can’t have that fine Irish skin getting burned out here.”
“Who are you?” I force out of a tight mouth.
“Your father’s never mentioned me?” He raises pale eyebrows with mock surprise. “He and I go way back. Your mother and I go way back, too.”
My father turns away, staring out at the water with his hands in his pockets.
“My… You knew my mom?”
“Never met her, of course,” he clarifies.
“And I really was quite broken up about what happened to her. But that’s what happens when you play with fire and you lose.
” His eyes go to my father. A chill sweeps through me, the beginnings of a suspicion piecing itself together beneath my skin, stealing the heat out of my body even as the sun shines down.
“I didn’t expect that you’d survive,” he says mildly, like he’s talking about the fate of an ant instead of a person.
He didn’t expect that I’d survive…
It’s like he knew about the crash that killed my mother.
Knew about it before it even happened .
“You,” I whisper, shock and horror giving way to numbness. It’s like there’s a pane of glass between me and everything else. “It was you.”
I still remember the flash of headlights blasting into our windshield.
I always assumed that I’d just seen wrong in the chaos of that moment.
Or that maybe somebody else briefly lost control of their vehicle before moving on, and that they somehow didn’t see us swerve and crash. Because they never stayed at the scene.
“Not me directly,” the man replies. “It’s been many millions of dollars since I’ve had to do any of my own dirty work like that.”
Dirty work. Running my mother and me off the road, ending her beautiful life, saddling me with a lifetime of trauma and guilt and regret…
It’s just work to him. And dirty work, too.
The pane of glass grows thicker and thicker, blurring everything. When Mr. Brigham speaks again it sounds like it comes from a thousand miles away. “But that’s what happens when you don’t pay your debts.”
My father is still looking out over the water. Like none of this concerns him anymore.
“What debts?” I say, and the words are like ash in my mouth.
“Did you know your father tried to start an illicit import business when you were a child? I was his main creditor,” Mr. Brigham says almost cheerily. “But unfortunately, business didn’t quite pan out, did it, Jack?”
My father tenses but doesn’t turn around.
“He was warned about what would happen. That when I’m not paid I have to resort to distasteful measures.”
“Dad?” I can barely say it. This man isn’t my dad. He doesn’t deserve that title anymore. I’ve already gotten used to the fact that he sold me out.
But now? Learning this? That he was partially responsible for my mom’s death? That he fucking knew it was coming, and did nothing?
And I could have died that night too. My father has been playing games with my life since I was ten years old.
“Oh, don’t get upset now,” Mr. Brigham says with a weary-sounding sigh. “All is well. Your father paid me back quite quickly after that. I believe that’s when he started skimming from Darragh. Isn’t it, Jack?”
“Yes,” he says to the water.
“And now we’re good friends,” Mr. Brigham says jovially, flashing those big white teeth at me.
“Business partners, even. He’s been funnelling money to me for a long time now.
Helped me build this beautiful place.” He gestures behind himself, to a massive, sprawling structure of white stone among the trees.
“So when he ran into trouble with Mr. Titone, Mr. Gowan, and Mr. Severu, of course I was happy for him to come and live here. He and Bridget have built a lovely little life on this island.”
My knees buckle. No one tries to stop me from falling. I land heavily on my knees and my hands, splinters gouging into the skin until I bleed.
“So what do you want with me?” I ask, watching the red of my blood stain the wood beneath my hands.
“Your father has mentioned bringing you here several times. Once I saw a recent photograph of you, I decided that might not be such a bad idea after all. You’ll do very well working for me here.”
“Working for you doing what?”
“Anything my guests desire.”
My spine ices with dread. I force myself to sit up on my knees, curling my bleeding hands into fists on my skirt.
“Elio will not allow that,” I tell him bluntly.
“Then he may come here and negotiate for your release. Ah, I must say, it feels good to take a toy away from someone as powerful as Elio Titone. I imagine that he’ll pay a pretty penny to get you back.
And if he decides that he doesn’t want you, then I’ll make good money with you in other ways.
” He grins, but his blue eyes are flinty and dead-looking.
“When my friends finish with you, you’ll be so broken that your husband may not even want you back. ”
“This wasn’t the deal,” my father says, finally turning around. “That wasn’t why I agreed for her to come here.”
“Oh? Did you think you were saving her?” Mr. Brigham says mildly, taking a moment to examine his perfectly groomed cuticles. “This is why you’re perpetually in debt, Jack. You have no vision. No business acumen. You’re constantly two steps behind.”
As if deciding that he’s done with this conversation, Mr. Brigham turns his back and begins to stroll off the dock towards the shore. The two men haul me up, dragging me between them. My father says nothing and follows silently behind, head bent and face in shadow.