Two Sides to Every Coin

I couldn’t remember the last time I sat in a limousine. Why were they a symbol of wealth? How did they even get to that point? I can distinctly hear my father’s voice in my head telling me, “Wealth is a pillar of power, Mackenzie. Without wealth, you can’t have power.”

Of course, I knew there were other ‘pillars’ that came with power, but I never asked him about it. I was five. Why would I want to know about power?

A bump in the road jolted me out of my mind. My hands were bound together behind my back and there was a blindfold over my eyes. Some people just have no originality nowadays. If it was me, I’d make sure my captee was tucked into the trunk of a shitty old clunker.

“Are we there yet?” I asked.

“Shut up back there,” the driver said.

He’s polite, I’ll give him that.

I couldn’t sit still in this car forever. I reached into my back jeans pockets and found them empty. The one time I don’t have a pocket knife on me, and I get kidnapped.

The side of my head was throbbing. Gerald, the ever graceful thug, had whacked the hilt of his gun against the side of my head while he was kidnapping me.

“Are we there yet?”

The driver sighed. “What does ‘shut up’ mean?”

“I’m not familiar with the term.”

The car came to a sudden halt. I was sitting upright with my hands behind my back so the halt made me jolt forward. I heard movement between the front seats before feeling cold steel pressed against my forehead. “If you don’t stop talking, I’m going to shoot you. Do you understand now?”

“Perfectly.”

Had I not been wearing a blindfold, I would’ve winked.

I stayed quiet for the rest of the drive. The pot holes in the road and the twists and turns we took seemed familiar to me, as if I’d been on this route multiple times before.

The car stopped less aggressively this time. The car door to my right opened, and Gerald grabbed my arm, tugging me out of the car. “What do I do if I need to pee?”

“Be a big girl and hold it in,” the driver said. He tightened his grip.

And then...

“Was the blindfold really necessary, Gerald?”

That voice. It sent chills down my spine.

The route, the driver, all of it fit together nicely.

Ice cold hands cupped my cheeks. “You’re covering the only thing she got from me.”

“Dad,” I managed to say through clenched teeth.

The blindfold was yanked off my head, pulling some of my hair with it. The grip on my cheeks tightened as my father pulled my face in close, looking down on me. I felt like a kid again, as though I was being scolded for accidently getting paint on my clothes. His cold, dark eyes pierced into my soul. Any tough front I’d had crumbled under his glare.

Even his voice was like ice. “Gerald will take you inside now, darling.”

Gerald tugged me away from my father with a grunt, grip strangling my arm.

“Where’s the other one?” my father asked.

“Mike has him in the other car,” Gerald responded. “He put up a fight. It took longer to grab him.”

A wave of people flooded my mind as Gerald dragged my sorry ass away. Who was the ‘him’ they were talking about?

The large mansion used to be my home. It looked the same as when I left two years ago. The house had five floors, took up about two acres of land and looked like something out of a Real Housewives episode. The walls were lined with white marble and the windows outlined each floor. The front garden had a large fountain with a ridiculous sculpture of an animal posed in the centre. Two years wasn’t enough time to safely get away from this hell hole.

Once Gerald and I were inside the front foyer, my insides twisted and turned. We headed down to the basement. Being in the basement meant there were only two outcomes for me: I’d leave with one less limb or I wouldn’t leave at all.

That always happened when my father brought his work home.

Gerald opened the basement door and shoved me inside. I rolled backwards, the back of my head hitting against the steps first. My body twisted back as I tumbled down the steps. I lifted my head at the right time so it wouldn’t smack into the floor. I coughed, puffing a little cloud of dirt. My breathing was shaky as I tried to force myself to sit up. With my bound hands, it was quite the challenge.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re as graceful as a sledgehammer, Gerald?”

Gerald turned me over, his fist connecting with my stomach. My breath caught in my throat and my eyes widened as pain spread throughout my torso. I groaned and slumped back against the ground. He walked away from me and returned with a chair dragging along behind him, the squealing of metal chair-on-concrete grating my ears.

He forced me up and pushed me into the chair. The rope binding my hands together fell off. Now was my chance. Despite the pain in my side, I threw myself onto Gerald to try and catch him off guard. Something pressed against my stomach. “Get back on the chair. Now.”

There was no point in fighting. Gerald had a gun, and I had bupkis. My fists wouldn’t have done enough damage to give an inkling of hope for an escape.

Gerald took my arms, wrapped them around the back of the chair and bound my wrists again.

“Did you learn how to tie knots at boy scouts, sweet cheeks?”

Another blow, this time to my face, shut me up quickly. My lip stung. Something warm trickled from my lip. Bastard.

Gerald turned me so my back was facing the door. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting in this uncomfortable chair when the basement door creaked open. Something was dragged down the stairs and across the concrete floor.

My heart fell into my stomach when I saw what was being dragged around. I held my breath, hoping, praying my eyes were deceiving me.

That groomed head of black hair, the well-shaved face, the crisp suit, all of it pointed to one theory: my father had kidnapped my boyfriend as well.

I was fucked. My father had found the one person he could use as leverage against me.

Gerald and the other man I assumed was the ‘Mike’ mentioned earlier, dropped my boyfriend at my feet before brushing their hands off. Mike was grinning like a madman.

“Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face,” I spat.

Knuckle crack. Slap.

A sharp burning sensation rose in my cheek. My eyes watered. No tears, I told myself, closing my eyes to force them back.

“Boss’ll be here soon,” Gerald said. He and Mike made their way upstairs and slammed the door behind them. I opened my eyes once I heard the door close and glanced down at the body at my feet.

“Jason,” I hissed.

Jason’s eyes shot open. His grey pupils scanned the room. “Be quiet. They’ll be back soon,” he whispered.

“Were you pretending to be knocked out?”

“It’s going to take more than a hit to the head to knock me out,” he said proudly.

“If I wasn’t tied to this chair, I’d kick you.”

“Lucky me,” he said sarcastically. “Dare I ask why we’re in this situation, Mack?”

“My guess is the truck load of weapons we stole a month ago,” I said, wincing as my lip started to sting again. As much as I hated Gerald, he had a good punch.

“This is not how I wanted to spend our anniversary,” Jason said after a moment of silence.

“Oh, and I did?”

Jason’s lips curled slightly. Smug prick.

The basement door opened again. I stiffened in my seat. Jason closed his eyes again, going back into ‘unconscious’ mode. I couldn’t help but admire his persistence. Even in the face of death, he was still one step ahead of the thugs.

The smell of a Cuban cigar hit my nostrils. My father always smoked them. Why? Something to do with power again.

“Mackenzie, Mackenzie, Mackenzie...” my father taunted, taking a hit of his cigar. “Do you know how I can tell you’re my daughter?”

“My delicate charm?”

He howled with laughter. “Your strength, my dear. You have this strength and stubbornness that could’ve only come from me. I’m glad it debunks the unfaithful theories I had towards your mother. God rest her blessed soul.”

I rolled my eyes. My father stepped in front of me and Jason. His calm demeanor had changed significantly. His eyes were cold and piercing again. ~I could feel the ice stabbing my soul.~ “How could you do this to me, Mackenzie? My only daughter, trying to tarnish all of the hard work I’ve put into my businesses.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I responded casually.

My father’s foot slammed into Jason’s back. Jason gasped from shock and the force of the kick.

“I know for a fact you don’t want me to break pretty-boy’s back, so tell me the truth. Why did you steal my shipment?”

I couldn’t say anything. All I could do was shake my head. I loved Jason more than anything in this world. Losing him would be like losing a piece of me.

Dissatisfied with my silence, my father sucked on the Cuban once more. “Round two, pretty boy,” he announced, giving Jason another swift kick in the back. Jason clenched his jaw. I could see how painful it was. I knew he was waiting for the right moment to strike, but there was no telling if my father had a gun on him.

“Stop it!” I screamed. My eyes were starting to water again. “Leave him alone! He had nothing to do with stealing the shipment. It was all me!”

My father eyed me, a Cheshire cat smile on his face. “Love is a fickle thing, my darling. It is also the best method of interrogation. See how quick you were to jump in and protect him? You’ve become weak.”

My father stepped behind the chair that was holding me in place and rested his hands on my shoulders. My stomach turned. I held my breath. The coldness of my father’s demeanour was radiating off of him and onto me. All of the happiness I’d ever felt turned into something cold. Something fearful.

“Your mother would be disappointed,” he growled, pushing down on my shoulders hard. The chair slipped and tilted back, hitting the concrete with a loud crack.

The ropes holding me were cut open in a flash. My father towered over me, the cigar snug between his lips. “Disrespectful. Stupid. Girl.” With every word came a kick to the ribs. The pain only grew as I felt trapped between the floor and his force. He leaned down and wrapped his hand around my throat, squeezing it. “I told you hiding wouldn’t stop me from finding you. You decided to play dumb and pretend I wouldn’t know a small truck would disappear. You retained nothing from my teachings.”

He threw me to the ground again, letting go of my neck. I coughed into my arm, trying not to look so pathetic and crumpled beneath him. I was certain a few of my ribs were cracked, if not broken by now.

“Get away from my girlfriend, you bastard!”

I turned my head to see Jason holding a gun to the back of my father’s head.