Estelle In Denver (In Denver Series Book 2) (3 page)

"Yes, he got a shot at the heavyweight title." Shamus looks back and forth from me to Antonio but doesn’t comment. "I think we should take this up to Rhydian’s apartment."

"Where are all the kids?" I asked looking around for the kids.

"They're at Liam's with Frankie and Rose. When no one could reach you, we panicked and came here to figure out our next step. Why the hell didn’t you call anyone Estelle with everything going on you can’t leave home without your phone" Kennedy yells.

I sat down and looked around the room. I realize that everyone looks angry but they also look concerned. "I'm sorry, I wasn’t thinking! I just needed to work off some of the stress."

We make it to the apartment and I see Rhydian is about to give Antonio the third degree but before he can say anything I blurt out “Antonio says he’s my father.”

The room is silent until Shamus speaks, "I see the resemblance. I have known Antonio for almost three years and I trust him with the safety of my family. If he says he is Estelle’s father then I would give him the benefit of the doubt. I know him to be an honorable and trustworthy man."

"Thank you, Shamus" Antonio says as he extends his hand to Shamus.

“How did you meet Estelle’s mom?” Rhydian asks. I see pain cross Antonio’s face. “At one time Celine, Edwin, and I were all friends. Celine and I met when I was twenty. I was a part of an elite tactical team that worked with NATO stationed on the Paris Orly Air Base, Edwin worked on the base also. He worked for an independent contractor that was based out of his own country. We became friends, seeing each other around the base. One night we, a bunch of the soldiers, and logistical personnel went out for a night on the town. We were at a club when this group of beautiful girls walked in.” Antonio got a far off look in his face.

“She was tall and willowy with hair the color of spun gold and eyes the color of sapphires. When she walked passed us, I grabbed her hand and asked her to dance; it was love at first sight. I asked about her and she told me her name was Celine. She was an eighteen year old dancer at The Ballet School Opera De Paris; she was young and naive. We dated for a year and we were both happy and in love; when my unit was going to be moved back to the United States, I asked Celine to come with me. I wanted to marry her.”

Antonio stands up and starts pacing.

“Being a dancer at the Paris Ballet was always her dream; she had worked her whole life to make it into the company. By then Celine, Edwin, and I had grown close. She looked at him like a brother. When I got deployed on a mission, Edwin must have used that opportunity to make his move because I came back to a Dear John letter that said she was in love with Edwin and they were going to get married. I contacted everyone I could think of, but I was told that Celine seemed distracted and withdrew from the school and company, even her closest friends had heard nothing from her.”

Antonio takes a deep breath.

“I tracked her down a year and half later here in Denver. She told me she and Edwin were happy and that she had just had a little girl. She told me she had moved on with her life; I needed to do the same and that if I ever loved her, I wouldn’t contact her again and cause problems between her and Edwin. I didn’t think to ask the age of the baby. I think I was so angry and hurt I didn’t want to think about it. I met Giovanni’s mother Lena a few years later and she was a wonderful woman. We fell in love and had our son Giovanni, but when he was fifteen Lena died of breast cancer. We moved to Denver from New Mexico about three years ago so Giovanni could train with Gavin. I could move my security business here.”

“Then today I saw Estelle in the gym and I knew instantly that she was mine. I guess I will never know what Celine’s reasons were, but now I got my baby girl to make safe.”

I see Estelle sitting on the sofa with her knees up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them.

I realized the emotion in his words and on his face couldn’t be faked even by the best of actors. He felt loss and pain over what happened between him and my mother. I could see it in the hunch of his shoulders.

"I will only tell this story once so can you Skype Dr. Franklin so I don't have to tell him?"

“Dr. Franklin, do you have a few minutes? Estelle wants to talk, but doesn't want to tell her story again."

"Yes, let me get to my den so I can take notes."

Chapter 3

"From as early as I can remember, my father always seemed cold and indifferent towards me. I would hear him yell at my mother that she focused too much of her attention on me. They would get into these horrible screaming matches then you would hear sounds sometimes it was a crash or a slap.

There was one time I heard glass shatter. When I went to see what happened, my mother was trying to get up from a broken coffee table. My father told me she slipped and fell, and I was told to go to my room. Every time my mother was hurt, my dad would force my mom to say she had an unfortunate accident, I was almost five the night she died.

My father had come home with blood on his shirt, he had lipstick all over his face and collar, my mother was begging him to move away. The men he was involved with were bad, but he yelled at her, telling her she was ungrateful." I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes.

"She put me to bed and told me a story of a magic swan named Antonia that carried a little princess to a faraway land after her stepfather left her in the forest to be eaten by wolves. She kissed my forehead and told me to go to sleep because when the sun came up we would go to the park and she would buy me ice cream.” I clench my eyes shut.

She kissed my head and said, “Remember my heart, il n'est rien de réel que le rêve et l'amour."

I hear Antonio whisper "Nothing is real but dreams and love." I nod.

"They were still arguing, then I heard the belt noise. I walked down the hallway to look in her room, he was standing over her hitting her with the belt, she kept trying to get up, but he kept hitting her. When he turned I ran and got under my covers."

"Can I please have a minute?" I ask.

Kennedy goes to get me a bottled water and Tristan brings over a box of Kleenex.

"My mother came into my room, she had on her coat and her purse was across her body, I remember it being odd because I never saw her wear her purse like that." My stomach acid is churning as I continue my story.

"She whispered ‘Come, mon trésor, we are going away.’ Once we got to the hallway, Edwin was waiting and asked where she was going.

She said she was leaving, she didn't want me to grow up like this. He stepped towards her, but she moved, and she pulled me in my room, sat me on the bed and told me she would be right back.

I didn't listen, I walked to the door and watched Edwin grab her by her coat and throw her down the stairs. He didn’t even look like he cared. He walked down to the bottom of the staircase and called his men. I moved so I could see what was happening, I watched as his men came in with a blue tarp, they rolled my mother in it and tied it with rope to keep it closed, and they carried her out the door like an old rug!"

I’m trying to hold in the tears, but my throat is hurting. "I waited and waited, but she never came back. When I asked where she was, Edwin told me she didn't love me. She is with the man she loved and that she left me.”

I hear Elena mutter an Irish curse under her breath.

"When I cried, he slapped me so hard it stunned me because I had never been hit before." I rub my face remembering the feeling of his palm across my face.

"I could never leave the house, he hired tutors to homeschool me. I wanted to learn about everything, so I read and learned that I have what's called an eidetic memory, I can remember a large amount of information with detail. It’s easier if I can gather things visually, I retain auditory information, but prefer things to be written. I can read about twenty thousand words per minute. I was tested when I was twelve. One tutor suggested I might be gifted, and Edwin wanted to know what my I.Q. was. He seemed proud when my I.Q. was estimated at a hundred and eighty seven. That was a few years ago, so I’m not sure where I would score right now." I shrug and feel the color spreading across my face. I hate telling people about myself. It feels like I’m bragging.

Everyone is shocked at this revelation.

"Let me get this straight," Easton says "you're telling us your I.Q. is up there with Stephen Hawking?"

"No, Stephen Hawking's I.Q. is only a hundred and sixty, so for all intents and purposes my intelligence is a higher level, but I couldn't tell you shit about wormholes or mathematical theories.”

"I used programs to learn Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, and Russian. I can also speak Arabic.”

I paused before continuing with my story and take a deep breath.

"He would come home drunk, find where I was hiding in the house and called me names—his favorite name was bastard. He told me he couldn't stand the look of me. I always assumed he meant I looked like my mother, since I assumed I looked like her. I look nothing like Edwin, and there weren't any pictures around of my mother, so I only had my memories.”

"On my twelfth birthday, he was angry with me because the chef made me a cake, and I had two pieces. That's when he punched me in the face, grabbed me by the hair, and took me into the bathroom. He made me stick my finger down my throat so I would throw up.

While I laid on the bathroom floor crying he said, 'Tenga mucho cuidado si no quieres perder tus líneas.'"

"What does that mean Estelle?" Rhydian asked 

"It's an old Spanish saying. It means ruin your womanly body or get fat. After that he put me on a strict diet, I had a half of a grapefruit for breakfast and another piece of fruit for lunch. For dinner I had a salad or sometimes a small 4 ounce can of dry tuna. I was given a diet pill that suppresses my appetite, I was weighed twice a week.

A little before my thirteenth birthday, he started looking at me strangely. He would watch me do simple things like brush my teeth, or comb my hair. He was always watching.

The day of my fourteenth birthday, he told me we were going somewhere special. He bought me a new dress and fancy soap. He took me to dinner, and I could eat whatever food I wanted, but by then I could only eat a few bites. I didn't have room in my stomach. He got so angry that I wasted the food, when we got home he made me sit at the table in front of the food from the restaurant, and when I couldn't eat it he slammed my face on the table breaking my nose. He told me I didn't appreciate all the love he gave me, and how I was just like my mother.

He panicked when he realized my nose wouldn't stop bleeding so he took me to the emergency room. He ordered me to tell them I had an accident, that I wasn't paying attention and walked into a door.

The next day I went to a plastic surgeon who gave me this nose. Edwin picked it out of a book.

After that I didn't see him a lot, he seemed to always be away on business. Which was fine with me, it meant I didn't have to be his punching bag." I folded my body putting my arms around my knees, I looked out the window. I didn't want to see anyone.

"Right before my fifteenth birthday, he came home and told me to get dressed, he was taking me somewhere special. We went to a penthouse apartment not far from here. There was a man there. He looked young, but I would guess he was in his early thirties. I thought it was his apartment, but it wasn't, it was Edwin’s fuck pad. The man kept commenting how beautiful I was and how lucky he was. I didn't know what he was talking about.

I sat there like an idiot, I had no idea what was going on.” I can’t stop the tears now.

"Edwin handed me a soda. It tasted funny, but since I had never had soda I thought it was normal. I felt funny, heavy like I was moving slowly."

I got up and moved Kennedy’s iPad so it faced the TV screen. I took the heart from under my shirt, pulled the pieces apart and plugged the flash drive into the media slot on the TV. All the files were listed by date. I picked the first one dated July 9th, 2006, clicked on it and walked into the kitchen. I stood there in the kitchen lost in my thoughts.

I could hear the sounds of the TV trying to break into my consciousness. The sounds of my crying and begging Edwin for help. Then suddenly the there was a crash. I spun around and looked into the living room to see that Rhydian was smashing the TV leaving everyone with shocked faces.

He walked over and gently cupped my cheeks wiping away my tears with his thumb. "We saw enough of what happened, I refuse to sit here and watch anymore of the hell you lived through."

"There were hundreds of videos on that flash drive. “Antonio said visibly shaking with rage. “I didn't know about you, Estelle. I swear to God, I had no idea you existed. If I had I would have protected you. I would have gotten you away from that fucking monster."

I say nothing. I grab the flash drive put it back together and slip it back around my neck.

"The videos get worse as time goes on. Sometimes he would just tape himself beating me, sometimes,” I walk over in front of the group and lift the back of my shirt up so they can see the scars from the belt buckles and whips. I lift the front of my shirt and show them the razor marks and burns. Everyone is pale and trying to hold back the tears
.
My eyes are finally dry, I’m done crying over these scars and the men who put them there. I’m not going to allow myself to feel sorry about what happened to me another day. Stacy, Elena, and Kennedy are crying so hard they are hyperventilating.

"It's over, that life is over. Kennedy saved me the day he beat me and left me for dead. Dr. Franklin has helped me a lot over this last year, but now Edwin is out and he is coming for me. He wants the twenty million dollars I have in trust and this flash drive around my neck. He won’t stop until he kills me. The break in at my place today and him leaving the tarp on my bed was to remind me what he did to my mother, and a promise of what he's going to do with me."

"The building in the video, I know where it is, we own that building." Elena says. "That Manky Langer raped and tortured a fourteen year old girl in a building we own, I think I’m going to be sick."

After all of this, everyone leaves. I think tonight was a lot to process and deal with for everyone.

It's just Rhydian, Antonio, and myself left when I hear "Kill him." I look at Dr. Franklin's face on the iPad screen. I'm in shock, I'm sure I wasn’t the only one in the room.

"When he comes for you because you already know he will, he’s already left you a warning. When he is dead, call me, and I will make sure you’re on the flight manifest for the day before he is discovered. You can’t be suspected of having any role in his death in Denver if you are in mental hospital in New York. We don’t know if his associates will come after you, if they feel you had anything to do with his death, so it needs to look like an accident or suicide."

"Yes,” I say, "It's time for Edwin to have an unfortunate accident." The minute the words leave my mouth I feel relief. I have a plan and I’m finally going to be free.