The Goodbye Girl (Red Market Series Book 2) (21 page)

Caesar walked over to me, bending down until his hands cupped my cheeks.

“Go say goodbye to your mother, Svetlana. No tears. You, Mi Amor, have to be a lion and not a lamb in this world.”

Then he kissed me gently on the lips before kicking me in the ribs and out of his apartment.

I was betrayed, once again, by the thought of something decent. I would be led home by Pavel to bid farewell to my mother before he took her to the alley behind the apartment, kicking her in the head until her brains littered the hot concrete. Her eyes were dead, glassy, and still loved me more that way than they ever did alive.

There was an old woman, and what do you think?

She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink:

Victuals and drink were the chief of her diet

The tiresome old woman could never be quiet.

I have an
exact plan of how this will happen, I just need the strength to keep my mind free of noise. I had never thought of it before, but the small Korean doctor suggested the hearing aids turned so loud that a whisper would be a scream. Why did we never think of this? Why did we not try it before? My cure is a small little device the size of a kidney bean. The deafening loudness of everything around me drowns out the noise of my madness and in the boisterous racket I find my quiet place. I found peace in the explosion of sounds. 

My mother's voice will be silenced, but it can no longer cut me open. My physical limitations prevent me from ripping her throat out the way I wish I could. Her vocal cords in my hand as I take the voice that took my sanity. I have a business associate here in the city, he owns a nice hotel. I procured a heart for his sick daughter once and we have a working agreement where he owes me. We will be lunching in a suite at his establishment today, my mother will order coffee instead of a sweet after her meal - some things never change. Only today her coffee will be brewed with hate and revenge. No love in the cup, instead industrial strength acid will replace sugar and cream. Death served black and bitter. 

I watch her
eyes begin to water as the acid melts her tongue, throat and eventually stomach, her voice gone. Taken by me, melted into silence. I know the woman was already dying and I have probably saved her from suffering a miserable death, but the tears she is crying now are worth it. I know my mother loved me, but my disease was a stain on her existence and she turned bitter and twisted when I couldn’t love her the way she saw fit. I do not love my mother, in fact I am sure the only thing I feel for her in her dying minutes is hate. I revel in her inability to torture me with the sound of her voice. My mind goes back to being wrapped tightly in the towel as she sings the words of a nursery rhyme. The melody burned into my brain as her silky voice would hum the tune first, clinging me to her chest in a tight grip that I had no hope of escaping. The cradle of my mother’s arms became my torture chamber instead of my comfort. She slowly made me worse, day by day, driving the demons closer to the surface. The audible chaos in my mind was unbearable because of her need to make me 'get over it'.
Her
need, never
my
need, my best interest wasn’t her focus because my best interest was being far away from her. Like I knew it was in the best interest of my child not to be near me. I knew that I couldn’t control what went on in my mind and that I would hurt her. I put her best interest first, I made an error in my judgement, but I did what was best for her and not me. I remember the tiny infant in Marta’s arms, the strongest desire to hold her against my chest and never let her go. I remember what happened to me when she cried even better. I know while throwing her to Pavel was not a good thing, what I would have done to her would have been worse. I am a better parent than my mother ever was, my absent father that floated in and out of our lives wasn’t much better. At least he didn’t send me spiraling into insanity with just his voice. He was cold as ice though, the bore of his dark eyes as he looked at me with bitter disappointment when it became clear I would never be a doctor like them. My parents never loved me, they loved the idea of what I could have been if I wasn't sick.

My mother’s death roars in my ears amplified by the hearing aid making it a symphony of her agony. The sounds as her insides are becoming a soup is cathartic, my chains are cut loose as I am set free. I watch, I wait, her eyes sad as she lets me know without words that she understands. She is apologizing for all she has done, she wants me to forgive but I will not.

“I cannot forgive you, Madre. You created me. That is unforgivable.” I say as her body begins to spasm and twitch. I hear every gurgle and hiss as she finally expires. Her head lolls forwards and the sounds stop. My life is quiet. I remove the two small devices from my ears and slip them in my breast pocket. My new secret weapon against my affliction. The victory is still hot in my veins when I leave the body behind and exit the room. I have arranged for her to be found dead of natural causes and cremated for return to her beloved Spain. Her time running The Red Market has closed and when we open tomorrow it will be mine. 

I take the elevator down two floors to another room where I will share a drink with my friend, a celebration of my inheritance. The high is missing, I do not feel the elation that I should at the enemy I have overcome. The sorrow of what I had to lose before I was driven to this day is still heavy in me. I feel my hands shake as I swallow the tears I want to cry. Clinking glasses and talk of an empire fill the afternoon, the sun hangs low on the horizon when I finally leave to return to my business. The police chief has joined us for drinks and a new partnership, where I grease his palms and he doesn't see anything I do. Where hatred festered in me before, now I am filled with nothing but quiet sadness and a deep sorrow. I have lost many things in the days before this, a brother, a child and a mother. I am alone, except for Mateo, who I still do not know what to do with. I have every intention of punishing him for what he has done. But punishment will not cure him and I don’t know if I can live with him and his diseased soul any longer now that I am healed. The man is deeply disturbed in way that no good could ever come of, he doesn’t want to change. Mateo cannot see the wrong in his actions, he justifies his obsession with reasons that make sense only in his sick mind. I cannot judge him, because I have fallen in love with my daughter. I lust over her even in my dreams, even after her death I long to be with her. Even now in the deathly hallways of this place I see her ghost and I feel her presence. 

My peace is short lived when I am met with the face of the brother I never knew I had. Hugo glares at me from across the room. Between us my wayward nephew fucks a corpse oblivious to the unspoken threats that pass from me to him. This is my world, death and chaos. 

“It’s not what you think it is, Caesar,” Hugo bellows at me from where he stands, beds and bodies between us, his hands half raised in innocent surrender.

“What I think is you lied to me and killed my child. I also think you should shut the fuck up before you make this worse.” My gun is now pointed at him. Trained right at his head. 

“Mateo!” I yell to get his attention, but he is lost in his own world. “Get out you cunt.” I scream louder now. He looks up at me with a contemptuous smile on his face, shakes his head and turns to kiss her dead lips. His blatant defiance sends me over the edge, anger I never knew I harbored towards him bubbles to the surface and I roar at him again. “Get out!” I start to storm towards him. My leg is aching and I am hindered by the tight skin. I move slower than I want to, as he slithers off the bed and grabs his jeans off the floor. He licks his lips and sneers at me before turning to walk away. He passes right next to Hugo who just shakes his head at his nakedness. There is no shame, he just waltzes out as if we didn’t even have to witness his depravity. I zero in on the man who is responsible for this empty feeling inside me, the one who took the last remnants of my heart and broke it. My fucking brother. 

“Why did you lie about her?” I am seething now.

“I didn’t lie.” He steps backwards, putting another body between us.

“I called the clinic Hugo, I know she isn’t there. I know she is gone. Stop fucking lying.” I keep moving closer and he keeps going backwards, he will be up against the wall eventually with nowhere to go. I can wait.

“She isn’t gone, Caesar.” He holds up his hands higher in surrender to me. “She just isn’t there. I had to keep her safe for you. She is safe with my family I swear.” He is stammering out the words glancing around, his eyes stop as he looks to his left. Then his head falls and he shakes it. I turn to see Mateo with the Cheshire cat grin and I just know that he will try to get to her again. She did something to him. 

“You better pray he doesn’t kill her Hugo.” I drop my arm and flip the safety back on my gun. “My mother is no longer a problem.” The words seem to resonate through the entire room, wiping the smile off Mateo’s face; his protector is gone. 

“You must feel like a new man,” Hugo states plainly as he steps out of behind the bed and towards me. 

“Mateo,” he stands barefooted wearing just his jeans in the doorway, “I am not done with you yet.” He lets out a cackle and shakes his head at me. 

“I didn’t think you were, old man.” He darts away, laughing like a mad man in an asylum. 

One to make ready and two to prepare

I am a
self-serving man. I have done what I needed to survive my circumstances all my life. Ramira being the biggest circumstance any young boy could be put up against. I watched her break him down year after year, chopping away at this steel resolve, adding to his internal battle with her incessant talking and singing. I watched her eyes glint when his body betrayed him and she had an excuse to beat him with that stick. I held him down, then calmed his chaos without him ever realizing the truth going on around him. I was this boy his mother took in because he wasn’t good enough, she lorded me over him when secretly she hated my existence in her life. Oh, I was the dirty shadow cast on her by my father's infidelities and her inability to produce more than one son. This was a traditional family and I was not a part of that high and mighty tradition. I was the help. He never noticed how much more I was and I never told him. Some secrets we keep inside us without ever knowing why. I learned to be quiet so he could heal. I would sit with him in silence, watching until he could function again. I would help. I would bring the girls that he couldn’t go out and find to him. I would help him with them after he was over the outburst or episode. When that system was stopped, I became his punching bag. I let him hit me and thrash it out on me. I stood silent for so long trying to be everything. The quiet force that got things done while no one cared to watch, the system behind their impending turmoil. I knew the time would come when this family couldn’t be held together any longer. Did I ever dream Svetlana would be the one to bring the castle down? Not for a minute. I have always known who Svetlana was. I knew the second I saw her. She was all of two the first time I saw her huddled in the corner of his room after he had mauled her mother, who hadn’t learned to shut up yet. 

The way her eyes opened wide and her lip quivered were the splitting image of my brother, her father. When he threw her to the wolf a few years later, I was sure she would die within weeks, but she fought. She clung to life and all its misery - just like he did. 

Being quiet means you hear everything. I listen and take it all in every day. I am privy to more than any of them would ever know. I know he is going to kill Ramira today; my heart leaps a little at the thought. I had to let him think his child was gone to get him to this point. Her time in charge has run its course, and if I am to get the piece of this world, I think I deserve then she needs to leave it. Because I know I would only ever be her last resort, a place holder at best for when he is ready. He will never be ready with her alive, her death will set Caesar free. She
is
his disease. In a way his daughter came and saved him, by turning his goodbyes against him she found his heart. She has given a man who had no reason to fight for anything anymore love, and I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t fight for love. I feel no mercy, no remorse and absolutely no regret for pushing him to kill his mother. I only wish I could watch, but to save my own life, I have to stay away today. Today I will check on my niece and stay with my family until I know the old woman has expired. 

Driving away from the place that seems to only breed madness, my mind clears and I can remember times before these when we boys, home in Spain at the family estate. 

“Why does she do it?” Caesar asks as he sits between my legs on the floor next to my bed, his head rests on my thigh and my arms hang over his shoulders. He is the only person here who even cares that I exist, he needs me. I am his answer when the world is too much for him.

“Because she hates us, Caesar,” I sigh “she will always hate us because we will never be perfect.” He beat her this time. I got there too late to stop him. Ramira is in the hospital now and he is feeling guilty when he shouldn’t, he should feel victorious.

“Shhhh, don’t talk anymore… the noise is too much.” He covers his ears and closes his eyes trying to make the madness in him go away. It will never go away, not while she lives to make him suffer. I let him rest until his mood is less volatile. “Come, Caesar, we need to bury the girl before they return from the hospital. People will ask questions.” He stands up, his movements automatic; he has checked out, his body responding while his mind has retreated to heal. The corpse of the girl that I invited here to help him get it out still stares at us from the floor of his room. Blood spattered on the wall behind her, both hers and Ramira’s, mixed together in an artwork of his anger and rage. This used to work better, but I have no doubt after today that we won’t be able to do this anymore. Ramira was seething when she saw what had happened. Rolling her body in the bloody sheets off his stained mattress, her dead weight is heavy as we carry her down the back stairs and out onto the grounds. We know the path and follow it in silence. Through the big trees and thick scrub, my arms ache from her weight. The meadow appears between the dark shadows, the soft clouds of wild flowers mark the graves of the ones before this one. Sometimes they stay quiet and I take them to a clinic and they get fixed in exchange for silence, but this one had to cry. There is always a grave dug, ready and waiting, tomorrow the ground staff will dig another. Her body makes a dull thud as it hits the bottom of the deep excavation, the sheet falling open and her dead eyes stare at the sunny sky. The two shovels sticking out of the mound of earth that waits to cover his sin are hot from baking in the sun. The metal handle burns my hands as we begin to cover her up, each bit of ground taking her away. We never talk about them, it’s an unspoken agreement between us, but I am going to have to find a better way. As we buried her, I knew that I would have to put myself at his mercy to save him and myself. We walked back to the house under the cover of darkness, he was better now. 

It never lasted long; after the day he beat his mother nearly to death, we made an agreement. I took the place of the girls and he took his rage out on me. I could take it. 

You need to understand something; I love my brother. I would do anything for him, because he was all I had in the house of horrors. That includes saving the child he loves so much. Maybe I will go to hell for it, but if them being together is what makes them both happy then they deserve it. Hell on Earth has been there home for too long. I will stay here and they can ride off into the sunset, home, together and happy. Because I love my brother and I understand, each of us has demons and she is his cure. There is just one more hurdle between them, one more enemy and I know he will not go quietly - Mateo loves her too. But he loves death so much more. I don’t know if I can save her from him too. When they are all gone I will finally have this place, I don’t want the whole empire just a part in the chain. This part. The place where death comes quietly without screams and torture. We all have a little darkness in us. I have my own monsters that I wrestle each day, but my monsters will leave with them. I will finally be free to find all that I have lost. 

I love my brother and I really shouldn’t.