Colour Series Box Set (7 page)

“Looks can be deceiving Rowan and he made everything appear perfect. He is a powerful man Rowan, he is an evil man, my dad was a bad man yes but he loved me, my husband was evil and did not love me. I don’t think he has the ability to love anything.” The image of the devil that has robbed me of my life is fresh in my mind again, I had forgotten just a little the last ten days but it is all flooding back now. I don’t want to remember it, I want it to be a bad dream that I wake up from and it’s gone forever.

He’s silent as he watches me I don’t want to tell him more. My personal hell was mine to keep I won’t put that on Rowan. Rowan’s eyes are glued to me as he sits down in the very uncomfortable wing back chair. I can see he is thinking very hard. He is trying to read me just as much as I’m trying to read him. I’ve mastered hiding my feelings for eight years, I won’t let them show to this stranger. First, I need to know what’s going to happen to me now. I cannot live in this limbo I either need to be dead or alive, I cannot be both. Can I?

“What now Rowan? When Dad died there was a plan I just followed it. Now what happens? I am scared. I am a thirty one year old dead chef whose father was a professional murderer and the only person who knows I’m not dead seems to be in the same shitty line of work so what do I do NOW Rowan?” I raise my voice at him wanting an answer unable to hide the rage in my voice. I am suddenly so angry at him for not killing me. I begged to die every day for eight years, he could have just killed me.

He looks away as if searching for the answer out the window and trying to avoid my questions. Coward. The answers are not out there I looked earlier you foolish man. I just can’t switch my sarcasm off even in my brain.

“I have no money. My husband will get it all now that I’m dead and I have nothing.” I am starting to feel defeated, like I have for so long like fighting is just not worth the effort when you cannot win. If you fight you get hurt, more. You will hurt no matter what I learned that quickly enough but fighting will always make it worse.

Rowan spins himself around to face me again; he has a look of pure hatred in his eyes when he answers me. This man is dark on the inside, there is a monster lurking behind his handsome face and hard body. One I intend to get away from, soon.

“That piece of shit won’t see a cent of your money I swear, I moved it all before you died, well technically you moved it but no one will find it especially not him.” I don’t believe him; he doesn’t know Lorenzo Baldini like I do.

“He found it once Rowan and he damn near killed me for hiding it. Dad always told me money brought attention and attention brought accidents. I never ever told a soul I was independently wealthy but he found it.”

Rowan scowls at me now, evidently confused by what I just told him. I see his anger burning just below the surface his muscles are tight and his fists clenched. I see the tight line of his jaw and the slight red flush under his skin gives away that he is working very hard to restrain himself. Trying to keep the nice guy face on and not scare me, too late I am terrified and about one heartbeat away from a full blown panic attack.

“What do you mean he near killed you Ellia, what did he do? What are you saying or not saying to me? Dammit tell me everything!” His words are hot with anger and his demanding tone pisses me off even more. I snap, enough of this bullshit now. I am going to either panic and pass out or fight back.

“You cannot lock me up for ten days and expect me to bare my soul to you Rowan. I won’t. I am angry and scared and relieved and confused AND

DEAD!”

I seethe at him, reaching my boiling point. I am realising the magnitude of my situation and it is making me furious. I am at his mercy; again I am in the hands of a fucking monster.

He stands up and nods, then simply walks out and locks the door again as if none of this even happened. My blood boils in my veins but I keep my exterior free of any emotion. I know better.

As soon as he’s gone, I run into the bathroom and throw up the acid in my empty stomach till my throat burns. Then I lay on the floor and cry and cry until my tears turn into panic and I eventually pass out. I cry for the eight years that are imprinted on my brain and my body and mostly I cry for the heart that has been ripped from my chest. I hate being so weak, I hate that I didn’t fight harder. I hate myself, he should have killed me, asshole.

I dream about my dad and young Rowan as I remember him from when I was fifteen year old girl flirting with this hotter than hot man who was clearly irritated to babysitting some stupid teenage girl. I dream of going to the beach with dad collecting shells and eating in fancy restaurants. I dream of the fun times the love I always felt from him. It’s the first time in years I don’t have a nightmare there is no pain biting into me ripping me out of my rest.

I woke up feeling safe. I felt something in my gut saying that I could trust Rowan with the future he knew what to do my dad had after all taught him but I didn’t want to trust him with the last eight years of my life. I just wanted to get on with life now that I actually have one. I needed to erase those years, bury them pretend they never were. But I was in a prison locked up by a man I know nothing about other than that my dad loved and trusted him and he is a murderer. I need to get out of here and go make a new life somewhere Renzo will never look.

I get showered and dressed in the bathroom before returning to the bedroom. I notice the laundry is gone and the sheets have been changed. I must have slept well. I’m stiff as hell from the floor but I feel rested and I didn’t have to sleep with one eye open. No one stole my sleep and replaced it with pain. No one. I was alone again and it was actually alright this time. I was safe. I may be locked in my room like a naughty child but I am safe. I don’t think Rowan would hurt me like Renzo has, but I don’t know for sure, I know he’s a murderer, can I trust a murderer? My brain tells me this is bad and I need to run as fast and as far as I can from all of this. But I can’t escape and my heart somehow doesn’t want to, I am home at last and home feels safer than out there where Renzo lives and breathes.

Lying on the bed is a scrunched piece of paper with a note written in the worst scrawl I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. He should be a doctor not a murderer with this handwriting.

Ellia,

Tell me everything so I can fix it. You stay until I know the whole truth.

Rowan XxX

Who does he think he is? Fix it, is he joking? I am not an
it
and I certainly cannot be fixed, not after the last eight years, scratch that not after my life. He cannot keep me here … can he? I am sizzling with anger again. He couldn’t just kill me, or let me go, no now he wants to play mind games. I played a mind game for eight years fucker I will win.

I am legally dead so no one is looking for me; so he can keep me here after all I guess. I am not telling him anything though. I can’t. No one can fix the things Renzo has done to me; no one can give me my soul back. No one not even Rowan can bring back what he has taken away from me.

I crumple his stupid note up and throw it in the small bin next to the dresser. I climb onto the bed and look into his stupid camera, I know he is watching. “NO, Rowan no! I will stay in here forever then. Because you can’t fix me I won’t let you try. I like it here so I will just stay.”

Asshole. I lie down and wonder how I will waste another day in my little cage. I hate television, there are no books. I close my eyes and I try not to feel like a caged animal I try to douse the fire growing very hot and angry inside me. I know better than to fight. Renzo taught me very quickly that fighting would only end up hurting me more. So I don’t fight, except with myself. That’s what I do I lay here and let my mind fight with itself. I don’t want to tell Rowan anything it’s not his burden to bear its mine. I fell for Renzo, I was his revenge, I was nothing but currency and I paid the price. Me and six others innocents. I remember vividly how cruel he was, how pure evil his actions were. I cannot make it go away it’s there every time I close my eyes even now that I am away from him it’s there in my mind.

Past, Late 2007, Renzo’s Home, Sandton, Johannesburg

I LAY ON MY
bed crying my eyes out. I daren’t cry when he is home. The past months have been a true revelation to me. The Sins of the Father. My dad was a bad man. I’m paying for his sins. I’m a good person.

Renzo had beaten me and raped me nine times since our wedding night. After a month and too much to drink - he spoke the ugly truth to me and burned my thigh with his cigarette. He explained that he knew who I was, who I really was. That my father had murdered his mother and unborn brother. I was here to pay for that. I was his revenge. I was his to do with as he pleased. No one would look for me, no one loved me and certainly no one would know if I died. Not only would I pay but my children would pay too.

I had no children so I didn’t understand his threat, but I would with time. Today I am beginning to understand. I am pregnant; my good Catholic husband won’t use contraception when he rapes me. I know this is bad I just know it in my gut. Every month he issues me with a pregnancy test and waits for the result, he has been waiting for this. The evil smile on his face when he saw the plus sign today tells me this will not end well for me or for my baby. I remember my dad telling me that children were what made life worth living. I cannot understand how he could murder a baby. I already love this baby. I feel sad that it was made by a monster but I love it.

Ten weeks later.

RENZO HAS BEEN
scarce of late. I don’t know why, I don’t care, He has left me alone my bruises and burns have actually had a chance to heal and I don’t hurt every time I breathe. The morning sickness is awful but I love this baby more with every vomit. This baby has saved me from the monster I married.

Renzo comes into our room I immediately stiffen every muscle in my body just feeling his presence. “A doctor will come see to you and that baby today. Don’t go anywhere, I will be back when he arrives.”

He must have some doctor friend because they don’t do house calls here.

Renzo and the doctor are here, I know that Renzo has told him to set up in the guest room next door to our room, the one I want to be the baby’s nursery. I hope he has an ultrasound so I see my baby.

Renzo sits on a chair facing me on the bed and the words that he lashes out at me next shred my insides apart.

“Little one, you are going to go next door and the good doctor is going to show you your baby.” He grabs me by the throat and then whispers the rest in my ear. Then I break that’s the only word for it broken. “Then he is going to rip the little soul from your womb. Do you understand? Your children will pay tenfold for your father’s sin.”

I vomit all over him. This just gets me a punch in the ribs and a seething slew of curse words.

He drags me next door by my wrist I don’t fight I know I can’t win and this will hurt enough without earning a beating too. I see the evil doctor who has a sorry look on his face, bastard. I forgot we live in a land of murder and savageness.

Renzo forcefully dumps me onto the bed. He stands next to me as the doctor switches on the ultrasound machine he has set up in here. “I don’t want to see, just do it.” I stammer the words out.

“You will look Little One. You will look at what I am taking from you; you will remember it’s mine to take. You are mine.” He stares me in the eye as he spits his words at me with venom. Using his large hand to force my head to face the screen next to us.

I look, then I live it, as my baby, my beautiful innocent baby is ripped from me, no sedative, no anaesthetics, nothing I am left to feel the pain as my baby is torn from my body and with it the last scrap of my heart.

The doctor mutters some aftercare instructions to me as he shamefully packs away his things and scrambles out the door. I hope he dies. I am becoming a bad person I can feel it seeping into me every day. I wish I was like my dad then I could just kill them both right then.

Renzo locks me in the walk in safe for eight days after that. Leaving me to live in my own filth and the blood that I bleed from my dead baby. I stop crying eventually. After eight days he comes in and kicks me, kicks me till I cannot move. He then carries me to bed, cleans me and says he can face me again now. I can’t face you, you evil monster is all I can think. That and please God, if you’re there, let me die.