Billy’s a good kid, but he can be a little dumb sometimes. He needs to be reminded how to do his job — often. I don’t mind. The kid may be dumb, but he’s brutal. He’ll do anything I ask of him.
I sit down at a table in the steakhouse around the corner from the 14th Precinct. I watch as Billy sets up the noose a few feet from the table where Charlie and Rebecca sat a few months ago. My tech guy, Sven, already planted the suicide email on Charlie’s laptop. He setup an untraceable automated task to send out the email to Rebecca about one hour before the time of death.
Poor little lovesick Charlie. He just couldn’t get over Rebecca. And now that his mom died of ovarian cancer last week, he had nothing left to live for.
Bruno carries Charlie’s limp, chloroformed body in his arms like a baby. The pads underneath the cuffs on his wrists will ensure there’s no sign of struggle or captivity. Charlie’s been kept in a warehouse near his mother’s home in Michigan for the past three weeks. We had to allow time for the injuries from the initial struggle to heal. Now he’s brand new and ready to die.
I must admit, a small part of me almost wishes he’d wake up from his chloroform fog and try to fight his fate. It’s been a bit pathetic watching the video feed of him going insane in the padded cell we created for him in Michigan. It took about nine days of hunger strike for him to break down and begin cooperating. He gained back the weight and did whatever we wanted. Too bad he never had a chance.
Bruno climbs up onto a step ladder with Charlie’s body. He sets Charlie’s feet flat on the chair. Then he holds him around the waist from behind like he’s about to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him. Billy strings the noose around Charlie’s neck and Bruno lets his body lean forward into the noose. Now Charlie’s standing up on his own, leaning forward with his weight balanced on the rope around his neck.
Bruno climbs down from the step ladder. Billy takes a step back to admire their work. Finally, Bruno moves the step ladder out of the way so he can kick the chair out from underneath Charlie.
“Wait!” Bruno and Billy look confused by my outburst. “I want to do it.”
4
Knox got to Charlie before he could get to anyone else. I’m grateful that I’m not going to be implicated in the mishandling of my father’s evidence file. All I did was misplace the file in the receptionist’s desk at the Queens Forensics Lab. The file was found the next day. Right after my father had already been arraigned then released on house arrest and $15 million bail. But I can be charged with obstruction of justice if anyone finds out I moved that file.
So I’m grateful that Knox took care of Charlie. But it still makes me sick to go into work every day and not hear Charlie’s snide remarks. Knox silenced him too. And he refuses to tell me where Charlie is or if he’s okay.
“He’s still calling into work, isn’t he?” Knox barked at me the last time I pressed him for information on Charlie.
“That doesn’t mean he’s not hurt. Where are you holding him? When are you letting him go?”
Eventually, my questioning turned into hysterics. Luckily, we were in my apartment so no one saw my meltdown. Knox has yet to take me out in public. And he still hasn’t invited me to his home. He claims it’s for my own protection. Like the security detail he has parked outside my apartment building 24/7.
Right now, I just have to concentrate on doing my job. Detectives and officers come in every few minutes to submit new evidence for processing. I log it in and my coworker, Tracy, files it away until someone else comes and picks it up to be transferred to another evidence storage facility. Or a forensics lab for testing. Or a courthouse to be presented as evidence in a trial.
By ten a.m., I’m ready to call it a day. Then everything stops. For more than an hour, not a single person enters the evidence locker. Nobody passes through the corridor on the sub level. Just complete silence.
I’m beginning to notice a pattern.
I pick up the phone to call the sergeant, but the shriek behind me makes me drop the handset. I spin around in my chair and Tracy is covering her mouth, her eyes fixed on her computer screen. The look on her face sends chills through me.
“What’s wrong?”
I shoot out of my chair and round Tracy’s desk. She quickly tries to minimize her browser window, but it’s too late. I saw it. The headline reads: NYPD DETECTIVE FOUND DEAD IN MIDTOWN RESTAURANT.
“Open it back up.”
Tears are welling up in her eyes. “Honey, you don’t want to see that.”
“Open it up!”
Her shoulders slump as she reaches for her mouse and clicks the window. It reappears on the screen and with every word I read my body sinks farther down. Until I’m done and I’m crouched next to Tracy, clutching her desk for support.
“Baby, this is not your fault,” she insists, but she has no idea how wrong she is.
She thinks Charlie committed suicide because he couldn’t have me. She doesn’t know the truth. The truth is that Knox didn’t just silence Charlie. He killed him.
Charlie was just collateral damage in his revenge plot. How much longer will I last before I too become collateral damage?
I’m not sitting around and waiting to find out.
5
The Knox Security corporate headquarters on 7th Avenue is pretty much exactly as I imagined it. Tall, dark, and sleek. It exudes strength and security. If Knox were a building, this is what he’d look like.
I storm into the lobby and there are three different receptionists: a blonde behind a glass desk in the center of the lobby; a black girl with beautiful auburn hair behind a counter on the right; and an Asian girl behind another desk on the left. For a moment I’m so confused that I forget how angry I am.
“May I help you?” the blonde girl asks, and all my rage resurfaces.
“I need to see Knox Savage.”
She smiles, a knowing smile. As if she knows who I am or I’m not the first woman to come barging in here demanding to see Knox.
“Mr. Savage is in a meeting. And he only sees people by appointment. Do you have an appointment, or would you like to set one for a later date?”
“I don’t need an appointment, so you can wipe that little smirk off your face.”
The girl doesn’t even have to call anyone or press any buttons and two security guards in suits are at my side.
“Ma’am, what seems to be the problem?” the guy on my right asks in a high-pitched but calm voice.
I hate to name-drop, especially with the way the news has latched onto my father’s story, but it seems I have no choice.
“Do you know who I am?”
The guy looks at me. At least, I assume he’s looking at me. I can’t see his fucking eyes through those dark sunglasses.
“I’m Rebecca Veneto. John Veneto’s daughter.”
“Shit.” He whispers this under his breath, then he turns to the receptionist. “I’ll take her up.”
The elevator works on a fingerprint and a security pin. When we step inside, the gleaming silver mirrored walls, combined with the frantic pounding of my vengeful heart, make me woozy. I grab the handrail to steady myself.
Charlie is dead.
“Ma’am, are you all right? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine.”
When we reach the 29th level, the security guard looks at me expectantly. “I don’t have clearance on this level.”
“So, what do you mean? You brought me up here for nothing?”
“No, but you do. You just need to place your index finger right there,” he says, pointing a small sensor on the elevator control panel. “Then enter your security pin on that touchscreen beneath the sensor.”
“But I don’t have a security pin.”
“We were told that if you came here today to tell you that your security pin is a six-digit number.”
I shake my head in disgust. Of course he expected me to come here. He’s always one confident stride ahead of me.
I take deep breaths as I
attempt to think of what my six-digit pin could possibly be. I place my index finger on the sensor and a numeric keypad materializes on the touchscreen. I try my birthday with no luck. I try Knox’s — Marco’s — birthday and nothing happens. I try my dad’s birthday, my mom’s birthday. Nothing works.
Then I remember the last time I saw Marco in my living room when I was fifteen. The day he got out of prison and left Bensonhurst to become Knox Savage.
I enter the date 041806. April 18, 2006.
The elevator doors slide open and I step out in amazement. I can’t believe it. I haven’t even seen him yet and he’s already succeeded in manipulating my emotions. I’m now less angry than I was when I stepped into this building.
Fortunately, knowing that I was manipulated ratchets up my anger once again. I stride across the plush carpet toward the redheaded receptionist with the phony smile.
“Good morning, Miss Veneto. Mr. Savage has asked me to inform you that he is in a meeting, but he will be out very soon. May I offer you some coffee, tea, or champagne while you wait?”
“Stick your champagne and your nasty little smirk up your ass. Where’s his office?”
There are two doors on the wall behind her on either side of the desk. Left or right. Which should I choose?
This is not a riddle, Rebecca. Just make a choice.
I head for the door on the right and the receptionist head me off. Her face is almost as red as her hair. She’s pissed. Good.
“You can’t go in there.”
We struggle for a moment as she attempts to prevent me from reaching the door handle. Her skinny fingers are latched onto my right forearm like crab claws.
“If you don’t let me go right now, I’ll make sure Knox doesn’t just fire you. I’ll make sure he destroys you.”
Even as the words come out of my mouth, I’m horrified. What’s come over me?
I’m turning into my father’s daughter.
She immediately lets go of my arm. She’s terrified.
“I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” She reaches for my arm. “Oh, my goodness. Did I hurt you? Oh, no. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I reacted very badly. Please, please, please don’t tell Mr. Savage. Please. I need this job.”
She doesn’t need this job. She needs to get the hell away from Knox Savage before this job ruins her life. But I don’t tell her that. I pity the girl, but I’m also still sort of pissed at her.
“Just take me to his office and Knox will never know what you did.”
She nods and opens the door. She holds it open for me to enter. And now my stomach is acting up again as the picture on the New York Times website flashes in my mind. It was a picture of the bottom half of Charlie’s body dangling above the place where he and I shared a meal four months ago. And it finally hits me.
Charlie’s dead and it’s all because of me. It’s all my fault.
The tears come so fast. My hands tremble as I wipe them away. We walk down a long, nondescript corridor lined with dark-gray steel doors. At the end of the corridor, the receptionist turns to me.
She’s stunned by my tears, but she manages to find her words. “This is his office. He’s not really in a meeting.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Please don’t tell him.”
“I won’t.”
“Thank you,” she whispers, then she heads back in the direction we came.
I wait until she’s out of sight before I reach for the door handle. But the door swings open before I even touch it. Knox is standing just inside the door wearing one of his many tailored Dolce & Gabbana suits. He looks impressed.
“Good morning, Rebecca. That was a sexy little scuffle you got in back there.” I try to catch him by surprise with a hard smack to the face, but he grabs my wrist. “Looks like you still have some fight in you. Come in.”
He yanks me inside by the wrist then slams the door shut.
“How could you do it?” I shout at him, landing a hard thump on his rock-hard chest with my free hand. “You killed him!”
But he quickly takes that wrist and presses my wrists together. His fingers are my handcuffs.
“Keep your voice down.” He issues this warning in a deadly whisper that raises the hairs on my arms. “I did what I had to do to protect you.”
“Bullshit! You did what you had to do to protect yourself! And your stupid plan! It’s all about your fucking plan!”
“I said keep your voice down!” he roars.
“What are you going to do? Kill me. Am I getting in the way of your revenge? Is it time for me to down a bottle of pills or something? How do I die, Knox? Or Marco? Or whatever the fuck I’m supposed to call you? You’re not the Marco Leone I used to know. If your mother knew the things you were doing, she’d be turning over in her grave.”
His chest is heaving with animalistic rage. His eyes filled with a fervor to strike out at me. He’s spent ten years working on this plan to avenge his mother’s death. He won’t let me get away with bringing her up.
Or will he?
He lets go of my wrists and my arms flop to my sides. His eyes close as he hangs his head and suddenly I feel guilt creeping into my psyche. How could I bring up his mother?
“I’ll never know what my mother thinks of who I’ve become. And that’s why I can’t let Tony get away with it. He took everything from me. Her life. Her love. Even her disappointment with my mistakes.” He opens his eyes and looks up at me. “I can’t let him take you, too. I have to finish this and I have to keep you safe.”
The tears come again as I’m flooded with a sickening relief. Charlie’s dead and I’m to blame. And I’m relieved.
Knox takes me into his arms as I weep. My tears soak his collar as my body is wracked with sobs of grief and guilt. Finally, I compose myself and pull my face away from the crook of his neck.
“This is very difficult for me to accept,” I whisper through my dying sobs. “And this is even more difficult to say. But… thank you. Thank you for protecting me.”
He smiles and kisses my forehead. “Now I just have to find a way to protect you from yourself. You caused quite a scene out there. Not that I didn’t expect it.”
“You always know what to expect, don’t you?”
He gazes into my eyes for a moment, pondering this question. “I never expected to find you again.”
I wrap my arms around his shoulders and he kisses me slowly. He wraps his arms around my waist and lifts me gently off the floor then carries me to his desk. With one swift swipe of his arm, he clears the entire left side of the desk and sets me down. All the while, his lips never losing contact with mine.
He takes my face in his hands. He infuses a bit more passion and urgency into his kiss and instinctively I wrap my legs around his hips. His hand finds the button of my black skinny jeans I wore to work this morning. He undoes the button and unzips my pants in two seconds then I kick off my heels.
Pulling his mouth away from mine, he quickly lifts me off the desk to stand me up on the floor again. He yanks down my jeans and my panties then tosses them aside. Then he sets me back on his gleaming glass desk. The surface is cool against my bare ass, sending a thrill straight to my pulsing core.
He shoves my knees apart as he kneels before me and plants a soft kiss on my clit.
“Oh, God.”
“Lie back, baby.” I lie back as his tongue takes another blissful swipe at my aching nub. “And you don’t have to keep your voice down anymore. I want to hear you come all over me.”
6
Charlie’s funeral service is scheduled for next week. The same day that Knox plans to take me to visit my father. I don’t know where my father is hiding out. Or, rather, where Knox is hiding my father. But I know that the captain will understand why I don’t want to attend the service.
No one has any reason to believe that Charlie’s sudden trip to Michigan or his suicide had anything to do with my father’s case. They all believe he committed sui
cide because of me.
By some merciful twist of fate, Charlie’s suicide email got caught in my spam filter. I don’t know if Knox engineered it that way — to spare me the anguish. What I do know is there is probably nothing Knox doesn’t know about me. Which means he was able to log in to my email account and erase the email before I even knew it existed. When he told me about this I was livid.
“It’s an invasion of my privacy! How can you not see that?” I shouted at him from the kitchen sink where I was busy washing the dishes from the meal I just cooked for us.
Oh, I saw the resemblance. As if I were channeling my mother’s spirit. Standing there bitching at Knox about his shady business practices. As though my childhood wasn’t just haunting me; I was reenacting it.
“Would you rather have stumbled across that email yourself? I did it to protect you. If it weren’t for me you’d be in a fucking cell or blaming yourself for Charlie’s suicide.”
“I do blame myself!”
It didn’t take long for Knox to win this argument. And I wound up nestled against his warm body. My muscles stretched and warm like pulled taffy. Clinging to him. My heart pounding and hair tousled like a desperate child. The after effects of another earth shattering lesson.
If someone recorded a video of me in these moments of passion, I doubt I’d recognize myself in the footage. I become someone else when I’m with Knox. I surrender myself to him. Not just my body. I surrender my choice. There is no choice but to do everything and anything he wants in those moments.
I find myself fantasizing about him all day. When will I see Knox again? When will feel his energy lighting up my insides? When will I find my solace in the sweet surrender? Because he knows exactly when to push me harder and when to ease off. When to lay on the punishment and when to soothe my wounds.
Now, as I sit in Central Park watching the world pass me by, the guilt over Charlie’s death sits at my side casting a dark shadow over me. All I can think is that I need to be punished. And there’s no one who can do it better than Knox.