5. Livia
Livia
Paranoia has a distinct taste. It tastes like old pennies and stale coffee resting flat on the back of your tongue.
Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. That is how long I have been looking over my shoulder since the alley.
I turn the deadbolt on my apartment door.
It clicks into place, but the sound isn't enough.
I slide the heavy metal chain across the track.
Then, I grab the wooden chair from my tiny kitchen table and wedge the backrest firmly beneath the doorknob.
I step back, staring at the scarred, peeling white paint of the door, waiting for my heart rate to drop.
It doesn't.
Every time I close my eyes, I am slammed back into the cold brick of the alleyway.
I feel the suffocating, immovable weight of his body pressing flush against mine.
I feel the iron grip of his fingers pinning my wrists above my head.
I hear the dark, vibrating pitch of his voice dragging across my skin.
I am a monster who slaughters cowards. Do not confuse the two, Livia.
I shudder, wrapping my arms tightly around my waist. I hate him. I hate the power he wields, and I hate the casual violence he wears like a second skin.
But mostly, I hate myself.
Because when he pressed his body against mine, when he caged me in the dark and told me I belonged on my knees for him, my body didn't reject the threat.
My skin flushed. My breath hitched. A dark, treacherous heat pooled in my center, completely betraying the years I spent building an impenetrable fortress around myself.
I insulted him. I called him a pathetic thug and compared him to the man who ruined my mother’s life. I spit in the face of the most dangerous predator in the city.
He is going to come back. Men like him do not let a bruised ego slide.
The fear has turned me into a ghost. At the bar, I flinch every time the front doors open. I drop glasses. I scan the crowd with frantic, darting eyes, looking for a bespoke suit and pitch-black hair. Sofia keeps asking me if I am sick, but I can't tell her the truth. I can't drag her into this.
I walk away from the locked door and move into the cramped living space of my studio apartment. The radiator clanks in the corner, blowing dry, lukewarm air into the room.
I pull a crumpled piece of paper from the pocket of my jeans and smooth it out on the kitchen counter.
It is a real estate listing. A small, abandoned storefront in a coastal town in Maine. It has peeling blue paint and large bay windows facing the ocean. The rent is cheap because the roof needs work, but it has a commercial kitchen in the back.
It is my lifeline. It is my only way out of the dark.
I grab my worn canvas tote bag and pull out the deposit slip from my visit to the bank this morning. I trace the printed numbers with a trembling finger.
Available Balance: $14,850.00
It took me almost a decade to save that money. It is built on double shifts, aching feet, split knuckles, and surviving on cheap ramen. It is blood money, paid for with my teenage years and early youth.
I do the math in my head for the hundredth time today. The first and last month’s rent on the bakery, the security deposit, a cheap used car to get me out of Massachusetts, and enough leftover for basic baking supplies and three weeks of groceries.
It is enough. It is finally enough.
I grab a pen from the drawer and circle the phone number on the real estate listing.
I am going to call the landlord tomorrow morning.
I am going to wire the deposit. I will work Friday and Saturday night at The Neon Crow, collect my final cash tips, and I will be out of this miserable city by Sunday afternoon.
I just have to survive two more days. Two more days, and the man in the dark suit becomes nothing but a nightmare I woke up from.
I leave the paper on the counter and strip off my dirty uniform.
I step into my tiny bathroom, turn the shower handle as hot as it will go, and stand under the weak spray until my skin turns a bright, angry pink.
I scrub myself raw with a cheap bar of soap, trying to wash away the phantom feeling of calloused fingers on my jaw.
By the time I step out of the shower and pull on an oversized, faded grey t-shirt and a pair of cotton underwear, my muscles are completely exhausted.
I check the locks on the door one more time. The chair is still wedged tight.
I crawl into my small bed, pulling the thin comforter up to my chin.
The streetlights from the avenue filter through the cheap plastic blinds, casting long, barred shadows across the ceiling.
I close my eyes. I force myself to think of the ocean.
I think of the sound of waves hitting the rocks.
I think of white flour dusting a clean wooden counter.
Eventually, the exhaustion drags me under.
I don't know what time it is when I am pulled from a deep, heavy sleep by a sound so loud it physically shakes the floorboards beneath my mattress.
BOOM.
My eyes snap open. The apartment is pitch black.
BOOM.
Wood splinters. The sound of tearing metal screams through the small room.
Before my brain can even process the threat, the front door violently caves in. The deadbolt rips straight through the doorframe. The wooden chair I wedged under the knob shatters into pieces, flying across the linoleum floor.
"Police! Search warrant! Get on the ground!"
Heavy boots hit the floor. The narrow hallway is instantly flooded with men in dark tactical gear. Blinding, strobe-like beams of white light sweep across the walls, completely disorienting me.
"Hands where I can see them! Do it now!"
I scream, scrambling backward on the mattress until my spine hits the headboard. I throw my hands up over my face to shield my eyes from the blinding flashlights.
"I don't have a weapon!" I shout, my voice cracking in pure, unadulterated terror. "I don't have anything!"
Rough hands grab my ankles.
I am yanked violently forward. The rough fabric of the comforter is ripped away. I slide off the edge of the mattress, my bare knees hitting the hard wooden floor with a sickening thud.
Someone grabs the back of my oversized t-shirt, hauling me up onto my knees. A heavy, booted foot steps on the back of my calf, pinning me to the floor.
"Hands behind your back," a gruff voice barks.
"What is happening?" I sob, struggling blindly against the grip. "You have the wrong apartment! I didn't do anything!"
"Stop resisting!"
A hand forces my left arm behind my back, twisting my shoulder at an agonizing angle. Cold, heavy metal bites brutally into my wrist. The cuffs click shut. My right arm is jerked back, and the metal snaps around my other wrist, locking my arms tightly behind me.
The blinding flashlights lower, sweeping the floor. Someone hits the light switch on the wall.
The cheap overhead bulb flickers to life.
There are four men in my apartment. Two are in heavy tactical vests. The other two are wearing cheap, wrinkled suits, their badges hanging from chains around their necks.
One of the detectives, a heavy-set man with a thick mustache and sweat beading on his forehead, looks down at me. His eyes drag over my bare legs and the thin cotton of my t-shirt. There is no professionalism in his gaze. He looks at me like I am garbage on the bottom of his shoe.
"Livia Marino?" he asks, his voice carrying a thick Boston accent.
"Yes," I gasp, my chest heaving. "Why are you here? What do you want?"
"Detective Miller, twelfth precinct," he says, pulling a folded piece of paper from his jacket. "We have a warrant to search the premises for narcotics."
"Narcotics?" The word sounds foreign in my mouth. "I don't do drugs. I don't sell drugs. I work at a bar. You have the wrong person."
Miller ignores me. He looks at the other detective, a younger, sharp-eyed man. "Tear it apart."
The men begin to systematically destroy my life.
They rip the mattress off the box spring, slicing the fabric open with a pocketknife. They pull the drawers out of my cheap dresser, dumping my clothes onto the floor. In the kitchen, they sweep their arms across the counter, sending my plates and glasses crashing to the floor.
I watch in horror as the glass shatters. "Stop! Please, you're breaking everything!"
Miller chuckles, leaning his hip against my kitchen counter. "Standard procedure, sweetheart. People hide things in creative places."
I struggle against the cuffs, the metal slicing into my skin. "I told you, there is nothing here!"
The younger detective doesn't even look in the bathroom. He doesn't check the refrigerator or the closet. He walks straight to the center of the living room, looks up at the ceiling, and points his flashlight at the square, metal air conditioning vent.
"Get me a chair," the younger detective says.
One of the tactical officers kicks over a stool. The detective steps onto it. He pulls a screwdriver from his pocket and rapidly unscrews the four corners of the metal grate. The grate falls to the floor with a loud clang.
He reaches his hand deep into the dark, dusty vent. He grunts, pulling his arm back.
In his hand is a massive, rectangular brick wrapped tightly in thick layers of clear plastic and silver duct tape. He hands it down to the tactical officer. Then, he reaches back into the vent and pulls out a second brick, identical to the first.
He steps down from the stool, dropping the heavy packages onto my shattered kitchen table.
Miller walks over. He pulls a pocketknife, slices a small slit in the plastic, and dips the tip of his pinky finger into the white powder. He rubs it against his gums.
He looks at me, a cold, satisfied smirk spreading across his face.
"Looks like a couple kilos of pure cocaine, Marino," Miller says. "That's a lot of weight for a dive-bar waitress. What is this, intent to distribute? Trafficking?"
The floor tilts violently beneath me.
"No," I whisper, shaking my head frantically. "No, no, no. I have never seen that before in my life. I don't know how that got up there. I swear to God, it isn't mine!"
"Save it for the judge," Miller says, waving a hand. "Read her her rights."
The younger detective walks over, grabbing me by the bicep and hauling me roughly to my feet. My legs feel like liquid. I can barely stand.
"You have the right to remain silent," the detective drones, dragging me toward the splintered doorway. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
"Wait!" I scream, fighting his grip, digging my bare heels into the floor. "Listen to me! I was set up. You have to investigate. Ask for character references and check the cameras at the bar to see that I am always at work. You have to talk to my manager!"
Miller pauses in the doorway. He looks at me, his eyes dead and entirely devoid of empathy.
He knows.
I see it in the slight, twisted curve of his mouth. "You're a drug dealer, Marino. Case closed."
"I will fight this," I sob, the tears finally spilling hot and fast down my cheeks. The panic is a living, breathing thing clawing its way up my throat. "I have money. I have a lawyer fund. I'll hire someone, I'll prove you planted this—"
Miller stops. He turns around fully, stepping back into my space.
"You have money?" he asks, tilting his head.
"Yes," I say, a desperate, pathetic defiance clinging to the word. "I have my savings."
Miller reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a secondary stack of folded paperwork. He holds it up, waving it slightly in the air.
"I'm glad you brought that up," Miller says. "See, when we find two kilos of syndicate-grade narcotics in an apartment, we don't just arrest the suspect. We follow the money."
My breath catches.
"As of an hour ago, a judge signed off on an emergency civil forfeiture order," Miller states, his voice dripping with sadistic pleasure.
"Every bank account in your name has been frozen.
Every dollar you have saved is now classified as the proceeds of illegal drug trafficking. The state owns it. All of it."
The words hit me with the kinetic force of a freight train.
"No," I choke out.
"Your money is gone, Livia," Miller says softly. "Your lawyer fund doesn't exist. You have absolutely nothing."
The world simply stops spinning.
The bakery. The white subway tiles. The smell of the ocean.
Gone.
Ten years of bleeding. Ten years of starving myself, wearing shoes with holes in the soles, and counting crumpled one-dollar bills in the dark.
Gone. Erased by a signature on a piece of paper.
A hollow, agonizing wail tears its way out of my throat.
It is the sound of a spirit completely breaking in half.
My knees buckle again, and if the detective wasn't gripping my arm, I would have collapsed onto the floor.
"Get her out of here," Miller orders.
The detective drags me out of the apartment. I don't fight him anymore. My body is completely numb. My mind is shattered glass.
They drag me down the narrow, dirty stairwell of the apartment complex.
Doors are cracked open. My neighbors are peering out into the hallway, watching the police drag me down the steps in handcuffs and my underwear.
I don't look at them. I lower my head, the humiliation burning like acid in my veins.
We hit the heavy front doors of the building and burst out into the freezing night air.
The street is lit up in a strobing, blinding array of red and blue police lights. There are three cruisers parked blocking the avenue. The radios are crackling with static.
The cold pavement bites into my bare feet as they drag me toward the back of the closest cruiser.
The detective opens the door, pressing a heavy hand down on the back of my neck to force me into the cramped, plastic back seat of the police car. The door slams shut behind me, plunging me into a suffocating, soundproof cage.
I press my forehead against the cold window glass. I have no money. I have no home, and I am going to federal prison for years.
I close my eyes, the tears tracking silently down my cheeks.