Joseph Fallen (The Estate Series) (18 page)

The men obeyed and stepped away from the table that now had
a crying woman strapped to the rough wood surface.
 

“Arianna, so good of you to rejoin us.
 
I need you to do me a favor.”
 
Gesturing down to the boy, he
continued.
 
“Xander here is going to
be staying with us for a while, I thought he could be a good friend to our son
considering they are around the same age.”

The young mother began to wail, her small form obviously
shaking from the emotions ravaging her body; fear, desolation, despair –
it was a venomous cocktail that Arianna knew well.

Joseph rolled his eyes.
  
Turning to his men, he asked, “Can
someone please shut that woman up?
 
I can’t think with her screaming and crying like that.”

The men complied immediately by placing a gag around her
mouth and securing it at the back of her head.

Smiling once that had been accomplished, Joseph turned back
to his wife.
 
“As I was saying,
please take the child back to your suite.
 
He’ll be staying with us indefinitely.”

Arianna’s head swam with disbelief, but she knew better than
to argue with her husband.
 
Kneeling
down beside the child, his big blue eyes burned into hers.
 
Red rimmed the skin of his eyes where
he’d been crying and streaks of tears were clearly visible on his cheeks.
 
She reached over, wondering why Joseph
only referenced the boy when, clearly, there were two children.
 
“May I take your sister from you,
Xander, I promise I won’t hurt her.”

He nodded yes, his body quaking with fear as he reached up
to hand her the small baby bundled in a blanket.
 
Arianna breathed out as she accepted the
baby, pulling the child to her chest and noticing that the child did not move
or squirm in her hold.
 
When she
pulled the blanket back from the baby’s face, she was met with a pair of
lifeless eyes.
 
Her heart fractured
and her stomach threatened to expel its contents.
 
Placing the baby down on the floor, she
turned to the live child, saw the pain in his stare, and quickly took his hand
to lead him from the room.
 
“Xander,
your sister is going to be okay, my husband just wants you to meet our son,
Aaron.
 
You’ll like him, I can tell
already that you two will have a lot in common, don’t be scared, okay?”

He nodded, his fear paralyzing him to a point where he
wouldn’t speak.
 
His tiny hand in
hers, Arianna led him quickly from the room, shutting the doors behind them
only to hear the echoed screams of his mother while the men continued whatever
torture Joseph had ordered against the woman.
 
Xander’s body tensed and he tried to
turn back for the doors.
 
Arianna
quickly picked him up and held him to her body, running down the hallways to
escape the nightmare taking place on the other side of the doors that led into
the mouth of Hell itself.

Her eyes burned with the threat of tears.
 
Sitting on the floor by the toilet in
her bathroom, Arianna sat back against the cool tile, incredulity filling her
thoughts at the cruel irony that played constantly with her life.
 
She could hear her stomach churn in the
quiet room and she looked at the time on the clock that hung on the bathroom
wall.
 
She would have to get up soon,
would have to force her body to move despite the sickness that crippled her so
that she could tend to Aaron and Xander.

She’d suspected her condition for the past week, each day
waking and looking to the calendar that hung on her bedroom wall.
 
She was tired, she’d been drained of
every bit of hope over the years she lived in the mansion, and now, she was
late.
 
Her ever-present tears
resurfaced when she realized that she was pregnant once again, but this time
there was only one man who could have fathered the child, and that man was the
most depraved and vile bastard that existed.

Each day was a routine she kept with the children, the only
sense of normalcy that could be found within a waking nightmare.
 
She had no other companions besides the
two children who every day stole her heart and gave her a reason to continue
forward despite the hopelessness of her life.

Three more years had passed and the boys were now six years
old.
 
Over time, Arianna had watched
as Aaron’s eyes turned from a light blue, the same shade as hers, to an emerald
green that was a startling reminder of a man Arianna had been forced to kill
when Aaron was a baby.
 
It broke her
heart to look into his eyes every morning and be reminded of a gentle soul, one
who’d been victim to the same violent lifestyle that haunted her daily life,
and one who’d lost his life attempting to free her of her fate - to take her
from the darkness into the possibility of light.

Joseph had to have noticed.
 
When Aaron’s eyes finally took on the
jade hue, Joseph began to treat him differently, became more violent towards
Arianna as a result.
 
She was in
constant fear for her life and the child’s.
 
She knew that Joseph’s jealousy and rage
could explode at any minute because of the clear and absolute reminder that
Arianna had allowed another man to touch her in ways only Joseph had been
allowed.

Day after day, Arianna worked through her daily routine with
the boys, teaching them to read, to play music, allowing them outside so they
could run and play like normal children.
 
Her freedom to roam the grounds had been given back to her through the
years, and on days where it was warm and the boys had energy to expend, she
would walk them down to the stream.
 
It broke her heart every time to see them playing on the rocks, and
bravely exploring the cave where they pretended a dragon lived.
 
With sticks held in their hands like
swords, they would venture into the depth of that cave, fighting an unseen
force while Arianna sat on the outside, drowning in the painful memories of
Connor.

Aaron concerned her.
 
Unlike Xander, who behaved like a normal child for the most part, Aaron
had a violent streak to him, one that she attempted to temper through
music.
 
Even at the age of six, when
he was prone to fits of rage, she would drag him, sometimes kicking and
screaming into the music room and sit him down on the bench.
 
As soon as her fingers touched the keys,
he would calm and by the time he was four, he would place his hands beside her
in an effort to elicit the same music from the ivory that she daily played for
him.
 
The music she’d written for
him never left the stand above the keys, and she tried in vain not to think
about the man who had snuck that music out of the mansion to have it
transcribed and bound into a book for the baby that arrived shortly after she’d
written it.

Xander liked to play the piano as well, but he was content
with sitting back and listening to Aaron and Arianna.
 
The boys’ bond was unlike anything she’d
seen.
 
Xander and Aaron both looked
out for each other even in their young age.
 
It made her smile.
 
There were times when they bickered like
children will do, but for the most part, they protected each other, one never
allowing the other to be pushed around.
  
When one cried, the other one
stood silently nearby, attempting to provide comfort by their mere presence in
the room.
 
Arianna was pleased to
see that they provided each other with a sense of normality even in a place
that was anything but normal.

By the time they turned five, Joseph had insisted they
attend the network meetings in the ballroom.
 
He believed that they would be made
stronger if they were exposed to the dealings of the network from a young
age.
 
The first meeting left the
boys shocked silent.
 
Xander
especially hated to attend, his young mind remembering what he’d seen done to
his parents, to his sister, the first time he’d entered that room.
 
It broke her heart to see them scared,
utterly defenseless in a room of madmen.
 
But when Aaron started to take on a bored expression, when he’d studiously
watched the executions and the violence, and when it appeared he anticipated the
death of the men condemned by Joseph, Arianna’s heart broke.
 
She would take the boys back to the
rooms following the meeting, would sing Aaron to sleep while cradling Xander.
 
It was the only bit of light she could
provide to the boys – a mother’s love.

And Joseph.
 
She
wouldn’t have believed it possible for such a bright man to fall so far into
madness as he had.
 
His punishments
became ridiculously cruel as the years went along.
 
He reveled in the pain he caused, the
looks of shock and satisfaction on the faces of his men.
 
She never knew what he would do next and
the constant fear of the unknown weighed heavily on her, aging her faster than
normal.

Pushing herself up from the floor, she got dressed before
walking to the boys’ room to prepare them for their day.
 
Like any day, they were difficult to
wake, but once up, their energy levels exploded and they ran around the suite
playing out games of cops and robbers, or pretended to be knights fighting
against some unknown evil.
 
After
forcing them to sit and eat, she took their hands and led them to the music
room.
 
She allowed Xander to play
first, but his interest in the instrument wasn’t as deep-seated as Aaron’s and
after twenty minutes he’d had enough and chose to play with the scattered toys
in the room while Aaron crawled up onto the bench and took a seat by his
mother.
 
Although his hands were
still small, Aaron obviously carried her talent, having quickly learned the
music and mastered an instrument as much as a young boy could.
 
It was normal, it was good, and it was
something that Joseph had started to despise.

. . .

“His features change daily, more and more I see the face of
Connor.
 
And his eyes, Joseph, have
you not noticed how they’ve changed.”
 
Emory spoke quietly, hesitant in his agreement with something Joseph had
suspected for the past year and a half.

Molten grey peered down at a recent photograph of the child
he called his son.
 
A small smile
shown back at him; one that curled the ends of the child’s mouth underneath a
head of black hair and eyes the color of emerald.
 
Dropping the photograph to the desk,
Joseph sat back in his chair, folding his hands over each other.
 
Every time he looked at the boy, the
pride he’d had for the child dissipated and dissolved into a bitter
resentment.
  
His greatest
achievement, the person that would make him immortal was not his. He knew it in
his heart, in his very bones.
 
Connor’s ghost haunted him, a man that had intended to steal his wife,
who had succeeded while pretending to be a loyal man that Joseph could
trust.
 
It sickened him, angered him
and fueled the insanity that threatened to consume him.

“She embarrasses you, Joseph.
 
How many more of your men does she fuck
while you’re not watching?
 
How many
of your personal guard walk the halls of your mansion, laughing to know that
your wife is an unfaithful whore?
 
She uses you and she no longer benefits you as she had before.”

Emory’s words rubbed against Joseph’s nerves, grating in
their truth.
 
Arianna was like a living
ghost, an empty shell of the woman she’d been when they’d first married.
 
Contemptuous and cold, she laid like a
limp rag beneath him when he visited her at night, stood silent by his side,
never appreciating the life he created for her.
 
Picking up the photograph once again, he
crumpled the image between his fingers, tossing it aside from the rage that was
building in his mind.

“Where is Arianna now?”
 
Joseph’s voice was quiet, but a dark edge hung to his words when they
were spoken.

Emory smiled.

“She’s teaching the boys music, wasting their talents on
something that won’t make them strong, that will only make them weak, unable to
manage in a world as powerful as the one you’ve created.
 
They’ll embarrass you eventually.”

“They embarrass me now!”
 

Emory sat back in his chair imitating Joseph’s posture.
 
A look of contentment spread across his
face that finally, Joseph was listening to what he had to say.
 
“Then kill them, Arianna…and the
boys.
 
Start over with one of the
other women within the network.

Joseph remained silent, thoughtful.
 
He couldn’t kill the boys, couldn’t risk
doing something that would be undisputable proof of his failed marriage, of the
unfaithful nature of his wife.
 
“No.
 
If I do that, it will
be a weakness that the men could use against me.”
 
Sitting up, he opened a desk drawer
containing the drug to which he’d become accustomed over the years.
 
Scooping out a small dose, he prepared
the drug before injecting it into his body; just enough to sooth the violent
thoughts that battered at his mind.

Emory watched Joseph’s face, waited for the drug to take
affect, making Joseph’s mind more malleable and ready for suggestion.
 
When he saw the familiar haze creep into
the steel grey gaze, he said, “It can be done quietly, so that nobody but those
closest to you know the truth.
 
Even
then, I can lie; make up some reason why she no longer serves her purpose.
 
The boys are at an age where she’s not
needed, they are at an age where they can become weak like the parents that
made them, or strong – like you.”

Smiling, Joseph sat back once more.
 
Memories of a man who’d betrayed him
flickering through his mind.
 
“I
kept Xander as a punishment to his parents.
 
I could see the hatred they had for me
in their expressions, the contempt towards a network that had fed them over
many years.”
 
He chuckled.
 
“The look on his father’s face when I
told him that his son would be raised by me, molded into the perfect soldier…”

“It was brilliant, Joseph.
 
They’ll never rest knowing their son
will become like the man they abhorred.”
 
Emory finished the thought for Joseph, continued suggesting pure evil to
a mind that was so obviously cracking.
 
“And as for your wife, she’s given you nothing that she promised, but
rather she’s handed you bitter lies and a child to raise that is not your own.”

“And what do you think would be a fitting punishment?”

Emory’s eyes glistened with anticipation.
 
“I’m sure I could figure something out.”

The two men sat silently as Joseph considered Emory’s
words.
 
A decision finally settling
in his thoughts he instructed, “Bring Arianna to me.
 
I need to have to have a conversation
with my wife.”