AllFreeNovel
Share Us
After what feels like forever, his shoulders sag and he growls, “Tell me everything. Don’t leave anything out, and don’t lie to me.”
Hot air rushes out of my lungs and out of my mouth in a heavy sigh. God. Tell Cillianeverything?I don’t even know where to start. But Idoknow if I don’t start at all, Cillian will have every right to toss me out onto the street.
So I fiddle with the fabric of my sleeve and start from the beginning.
“I grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. My mom was a bank clerk, dad was a postman. They lived for the ‘one day’ not the ‘now’, and counted down the days until their retirement. That’s when they believed their lives would begin.” I swallow the ball of emotion in my throat. It always appears when I think about my parents. “But one Saturday when I was seventeen, my parents were running some errands in town. My father parked on a hill outside a local bakery and waited in the car while my mom picked up my favorite cake.” Cillian’s staring intensely at me now. I can’t stop the rogue tear from falling down my cheek. “Ice cream cake with mint chocolate chip. We were celebrating that weekend because I’d been accepted into the University of South Dakota to study law. Well, anyway, my mom got back to the car, was loading the cake into the trunk, when the handbrake failed.” I scrub my cheek as another tear falls. Hot and heavy and filled with regret. A bitter laugh escapes my lips. “They’d had that beat-up Civic since before I was born. They never got a new one because they believed that money was better spent on their ‘one day’, rather than their needs now. The hill was steep, really fucking steep, and when my father hit the brakes, they did nothing. The car rolled, all the way down the hill, with my mom pinned behind it. Couldn’t catch her footing, and the car was moving too fast for her to get out of the way. So it rolled, all the way down until it reached the busy highway at the bottom. The side of an 18-wheeler crossing the junction is what stopped the car from rolling further into the traffic. Mom died instantly, pinned between the lorry and the back of the Civic. My dad died a few days later in hospital from the impact.”
My worst ever memory dangles in the air. I can’t even look at Cillian. Instead, I trace the grains in the oak table with a trembling finger. When I’m certain I’m not going to collapse in a hysterical heap, I force myself to carry on.
“I was heartbroken that I’d lost the only family I had, but what was truly gut-wrenching to me was knowing that they hadn’t truly lived. They’d waited for the ‘one day’, and that day would never come for them. Therapy helped. I would have thrown myself off a cliff if wasn’t for my therapist, honestly. She helped me navigate through the grief but also showed me how to not let it ruin my future.” I drag my eyes up to Cillian’s. His stare gives nothing away. “She taught me that the best thing I could do was to not live my life like them. So, I decided I wouldn’t. I’d chosen to study law because a lawyer earns good money, even though I had no interest in it. So, the first thing I did was change my major to psychology—therapy had such an effect on me that I realized I wanted to help people too. The next thing I did was make a vow to myself. From now on, I’d only say ‘yes’ to every opportunity. I said ‘yes’ to every night out.‘Yes’ to a girls trip to Paris with my friends from high school.” I smile at the memory. “I stuck it all on a credit card and we had a blast. I’d never left the country before.” The corners of my mouth sink, and I draw in a deep breath. “Saying ‘yes’ to everything meant I never had to sort the good decisions from the bad ones. I believed that as long as you just said ‘yes’, then you’d always have fun. You’d always live in the ‘now.’ It’d all work out in the end. Which is why, when I was walking to my very first college class, I said ‘yes’ to the man on the motorcycle.”
I let out a lungful of air and stare up at the ceiling. God, how I wish I never said yes to the man on the motorcycle.
“Who was he?”
Cillian’s gruff voice brings me back into the room.
“His name was Nimo. I lived off-campus because I’d said ‘yes’ to the first person that asked me to live with them at student orientation. She was in her forties and thought she was too old to live in the dorms, and to be honest, I was too broke to live on campus, so it worked out anyway. I was walking to the introductory lecture, textbooks in hand, when a man on a Harley-Davidson slowed down beside me. He was a cliché for sure. Tall, dark, and handsome. Hiding behind mirrored aviators. When he asked me to hop on the back, I said ‘yes’.” I grind my back molars together at the memory. At the sheer idiocy. “I remember laughing, drunk on the adrenaline, as he handed me his helmet. I chucked my textbooks in the closest garbage bin and rode off into the sunset with him, telling myself I could always start college next year.” I drag a hand through my hair and add, “I was so stupid.”
“At first, it was the best ‘yes’ I’d ever said. We drove through the country and crossed the border into Central America. We swam with turtles in Mexico. Hiked a volcano in Guatemala. Partied in Panama and spent our days in Costa Rica learning to surf. It all changed when we arrived in Colombia.” When I stop talking, Cillian stares at me expectedly. But what happened next is stuck in my throat, and I know if I force it up, I won’t be able to push it back down again.
“Then what?” Cillian whispers.
“I need water,” I croak.
Silently, he rises from his chair and heads to the fridge. Pours me a glass of water and slides it across the table towards me. I chug three large gulps and steady my breathing. When I glance at Cillian, he nods for me to carry on.
“As soon as we crossed the border in Colombia, where he was from, it was different.Hewas different. Gone was the softly spoken gentleman that held open doors and listened to me spew out my life story as he cuddled me in hotel bedrooms. He became cruel. Callous. We arrived at his home in Medellín and it was like a switch had flipped. He wasn’t the man I met in South Dakota. Not even close. I told him I wanted to go home and that was the first time he hit me. Smacked me so hard in the mouth that I fell to the kitchen floor. That’s how it always starts, isn’t it? A few punches and slaps here and there. But I was there for four years, Cillian. After six months, he forced me to marry him, and from then on, it got so much worse. I know you’ve seen the scars on my body.” I point to my hip through the fabric of my shirt. “The scar on my stomach is from where he stabbed me with a blow poke. The one on my collarbone is from his friend. I tried to run out of the room when he appeared at the bottom of my bed wanting to fuck me.” Cillian lets out a low growl. The only show of emotion since I started talking. I ignore him and carry on. “In between the torture and rape I was locked in the house all day and his family would pretend like I never existed. I don’t know where he’d go, but sometimes he’d be gone for days at a time, leaving me with no food or water. Once or twice a month he’d tell me to get dressed up, then parade me around the neighborhood, at glitzy restaurants and bars, telling everyone I was his Americanesposa.I wasn’t his wife, I was his prisoner.” I drink to stop the sob rising up my throat. “On one of these outings, we went to a new restaurant opening and I was so weak I couldn’t lift the fork to my mouth. Trust me, I wanted to—I’d had nothing but grapes and ice water for the entire week—but I couldn’t physically lift it. He said I’d made him look bad in front of his friends and family. That was the last time I was allowed outside,” I run my finger around the rim of the glass, staring at the ice as it melts. “I swore to myself that if I ever saw sunlight again, I’d escape, no matter what it took. It was a year until that happened. In that year, he grew bored of me sexually, using me only as a punching bag. I’d lie in the next room, dying, while he fucked his whores in our bed. It was a year until he took me outside again.” I draw in a deep breath, rubbing along my cupid’s bow. I feel naked, so exposed, telling Cillian my life story like this. I’m almost embarrassed to look at him. “It was his father’s birthday, and he was celebrating at a nearby restaurant. One of his housekeepers dressed me, slapped some makeup on my face and made me chug a glass of sugar water. Thank god too, because that somehow gave me the strength to go to the restroom, climb out of the window andrun.
“God, how I didn’t collapse, I’ll never know. But I kept running, all the way to the outskirts of town. Somehow, I managed to beg and plead my way onto a bus for free. It stopped at another town, and I hitch-hiked my way over the border into Panama. That’s when I let myself break down. I was weak, tired, and hungry but I wasfreefrom Nimo. I was out of the country, and nothing or nobody could make me turn back. I was walking down a promenade of a posh beach resort, still in the glitzy dress the housekeeper put me in, crying my eyes out, and that’s when I met Lucky.” My jaw sets and I shake my head. “Or Luca Abruzzo, as you know him. I should have known,” I mutter. “Even as naive as I was, I knew that Panama was a playground for mafia types and tax evaders. Anyway, I heard an American accent coming from one of the restaurants lining the promenade, and it was him. He invited me to his table for lunch and there’s no way I could refuse an offer of food. I told him my problems; he told me he could fix them. And to his credit, he did.”
I lean back in the chair, staring through the glass, and into the tropical garden. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cillian lean his elbows on the table, rubbing at his jawline.
“He gave you a new identity.”
“Yes. New name, new passport. New haircut,” I say, absentmindedly raking my fingers through my hair. “But all on his terms, which now, looking back, I know I should have suspected something.”
“What do you mean?”
“He said he didn’t want anything in return, that he was just helping me out of the kindness of his own heart. But he chose my new name, my date of birth, the city I’d live in. Now I know it’s because he could control me. For almost a year, he lurked in the shadows of my new life. I’d see him in the parking lot of the diner or see the headlights of his car flood my bedroom late at night. I soon realized that it wouldn’t be long until he asked for something in return. I was right.”
My hands are trembling now and my throat is drier than the Sahara. I get my own glass of water this time, well aware of Cillian’s white-hot stare following me around the kitchen. I don’t sit back down at the table. Instead, I lean against the kitchen counter, glass in hand, putting space between us.
“He cornered me after a nightshift, said he had a job for me. I was to pretend I was a yacht stewardess—he could fake all of those credentials for me too, of course—and I’d work a charter on the Van der Boors yacht from Fort Lauderdale to South Africa. Apparently, they did these charters regularly to avoid import fees and legal technicalities with transporting their diamonds around the world. There was this specific diamond he wanted… a red one. He told me it’d be easy to find, all I had to do was hide it in my luggage and bring it back to him. I asked him, ‘what if I say no?’, even though I had a feeling I already knew the answer.” I take a big gulp of ice water. “He said I’d be on the next flight to Medellín, and he’d be sure that Nimo was waiting on the tarmac to greet me. I wasn’t going back there. I couldn’t. So, it boiled down to two choices—steal a diamond from the Van der Boors or die.” I flash Cillian a wry smile over the rim of the glass. “And well, you know the rest.”
He nods, serious. “You couldn’t find the red diamond. Tried to steal a white one in the hope you could make enough money off selling them to escape Luca Abruzzo.”
“Exactly. I just knew he wouldn’t call it quits, even if I found the red diamond for him. We would never be square, and he’d never leave me alone. And I was right.”
There’s a pregnant pause in the kitchen, then Cillian challenges me with an intense stare. His mouth opens, closes again. With his nostrils flaring, he eventually says, “Dahlia, your debt. It’s the price of the red diamond, isn’t it?”
Now the tears threaten to fall again. Instead of choking on a sob, I just nod. Cillian closes his eyes, mutters something under his breath. Without opening them again, he says, “How much is the debt, Dahlia?”
I have no choice but to use my words again. They come out in a pathetic whisper.
“Eight million dollars.”
He closes his eyes. Swallows. “And when do you have to pay it by?”
