48. RAVEN
48
RAVEN
My heart is pounding in my chest as we all stand outside Archer's office.
Maddy is inside. Aleksei Tsariuk is on video chat with her.
This feels surreal.
Archer's eyes are on me, cold but calm. Katura stands with her arms crossed across her chest, chewing on the inside of her cheek, her eyes on Archer. Marlow swings a set of keys between his fingers, back and forth, seemingly nervous, and occasionally glances at Katura.
Bishop looks unaffected, studying something on his phone.
Ortiz's face is a blank mask.
I want to be there, inside, with Maddy, see what she says, see how Tsariuk talks to her. He might be a crooked oligarch, but he will honor the deal I made with him. I stepped over my pride. I screwed up several important consortiums. I gave up a lot. I would've given up even more. I'll start a war if he breaks the deal and tries to take Maddy back. I'll unleash every criminal syndicate that wants him dead, all at once. Maddy might not want me, but I'll make sure she gets what she actually wants. And she wants freedom from him.
It feels like forever, though it's only been about half an hour, when the door to Archer's office opens, and Maddy steps outside.
Her face is red from crying, her eyes sparkly.
She stops in front of Archer. "You should've asked me, Archer. We agreed." Her voice is cold as steel.
"We didn't want you to do anything reckless. It was for your own good, Maddy. I'm sorry."
" My own good?" she asks almost in a whisper. "I spent two years running away from that good, Archer. You promised. You fucking promised we would decide on this together. You could've told me so that I wasn't?—"
"I'm sorry, Maddy. We had a meeting. We agreed it was for the best. It's not just you, it's Ayana at stake."
She nods. "Of course. Ayana. Right. I'm sorry."
She doesn't look at me, doesn't look at anyone else.
Archer gently takes her by her shoulders. "Maddy, please, can we talk about it? So we can discuss the next step. It will work out for the best. For you."
"Sure. But not now. I need a moment." She starts walking away but turns around and walks back to Archer. "When did he first get in touch with you?"
Archer stares at her in silence.
"Archer? When?"
"Yesterday."
"You called him, or he called you?"
Archer shakes his head. I've never seen him so tense.
"Archer, how did he find out? Did he call you?"
Archer blinks away and locks eyes with me. "No. He called Raven."
The color drains from her face.
I knew that there would be more reasons for her to hate me. I thought I was prepared. But when she finally turns to me, her stare is hateful. Her smirk is spiteful. "Of course…"
She turns on her heel and starts walking away.
I go after her, because I want to explain myself. She is almost trotting, and I follow her past Ali waiting at the exit.
"Maddy, please, listen to me," I say, trying to catch up with her.
She whips around, making me halt as I almost slams into her. "You promised you'd stay quiet," she snaps.
She turns around and starts walking away again.
"He already knew, Maddy!" I shout after her. "He knew, and he had pictures, and records."
She turns around but doesn't stop, walks backward, her eyes spitefully narrowed on me. "And you just said, yeah, take her, here she is."
She doesn't listen. She won't listen. She is walking away.
Archer is right behind me, grabbing me by my shoulder. "Let her go."
I shake him off, but he pulls me back again. "Let her go, Raven!" he snaps, holding me.
We both quietly watch her and Ali, following her out the door.
"She needs time to process it," Archer says. "I unlocked her phone. Tsariuk can call her directly."
"Fuck," I exhale, running my fingers through my hair.
"They will figure it out. It was a long time coming."
"Yeah, I suppose."
I am ready to leave, but Archer stares at me like I have three eyes.
"You can't give up all you have for her," he says, bringing up the deal I made with Tsariuk.
"I can," I snap. "And I would if I could, but that's not all I got, Archer."
"I don't understand, Raven. You are not even together anymore."
"You are missing the point."
"What's the point?" Archer snaps back. "Trying to sort out her own family drama? Letting the Russians in on the business?"
"Everyone is in on the business, Archer. The Middle East, Japan, Europe, the US. Governments. Corporations. But you are somehow prejudiced about a Russian mogul."
"He is a crime syndicate."
"And our other investors are not? How many are not? Can you say for sure?"
He knows that. We've talked politics a million times.
"You are right." Archer nods, his jaw tightening. "Then what's the point? Explain. Because I am utterly confused by your reasons."
"I've never done anything for anyone in my life. Besides going to jail." Not quite true, but in a nutshell, yeah.
"You do a lot for the kid."
"Not much, really."
"You do for whatever those social programs you send aid and resources to on the mainland."
"I owe Mac my life. And that's an understatement."
Archer shakes his head.
"She doesn't want to leave, Archer," I say. "She doesn't want to go back. She wants to have a choice. I know what it feels like being trapped under someone else's fucked up control."
Archer chuckles bitterly. "You are still not saying it, but all right."
"Saying what?"
"That you are in love."
I stall and stare at him, but he pretends to inspect the nails of his right hand like we are discussing something trivial, like the weather. But hearing from someone else what I can't say out loud is like being in the spotlight.
"I have all this shit, money, investments that I accumulated," I say. "And I might never get a chance to do anything for anyone. I want Sonny to have a future. And her. And if Tsariuk wants my entire life savings for her, I'd give that up, too."
"Is that why you called the attorney and set up a trust fund for them?" Archer asks.
How the fuck would he know that?
He nods. "Yeah. I know about it. Milena, Sonny, and Mac. I'm surprised she was in it."
Despite it being my job to know everyone's business, I fucking hate when people stick their noses in mine.
"Why?" he asks.
"I just explained myself."
"Don't bullshit me, Raven. You tell me this is a good deal, and everyone is safe, and things will work out. Yet you set up a trust fund in case of your death. What is it that you think will happen? Is this about Butcher?"
My intuition never lets me down. And I know that this, whatever is happening with me, and Maddy, and Butcher, and Tsariuk, will not end well. Hence, the trust fund. Hence I paid Ali's father's medical bills in the Arabic Emirates and transferred some money to pay for Nilanski's daughter's college fund on the mainland. I had a talk with them. Because guess what? If I'm gone, they will be in charge of Maddy's safety.
"I don't know, Archer. It's just a precaution."
"Precaution," he repeats slowly. "That night at the medical ward, you and Maddy, I knew she would be involved with you, Raven. I could fucking sense it. You two were like water and lightning. I just never knew it would lead to this."
"Which is?"
Scandal? Fighting? The mob's involvement? That's the problem. I wanted to find the cracks in her armor. And now I'm falling through them.
I exhale through my nose, trying to control my anger. "It's just a deal. Isn't everything?"
I walk away from the Center, from the upcoming meeting with them and Maddy, because there will be one, but now it's all in her hands, and I don't need to aggravate her there with my presence.
We have a lot more to worry about than the Tsariuk business.
A new surveillance perimeter was established after the riot during the hurricane—pushed back away from Port Mrei and toward Ayana, right in the middle of the jungle between them. Butcher's thugs patrol it with guns and heavy artillery. Makes me wonder where he got that. We don't control Port Mrei anymore. To be exact, Port Mrei, with Butcher in charge, creeps toward us.
There is a package delivered to my house. It's a present for the one person on this island who can cheer me up. Take a guess. Yes, Sonny. Who would've known that a kid would be my comfort zone?
For the first time ever, I text him to come over if he has nothing else to do.
He knocks on my door with the speed of lightning. He's quiet when he walks in. He doesn't shout in excitement, doesn't tell me what he learned today. He walks around the living room while I order Thai food delivery.
He stops by the big bookshelf and tilts his head, his body following until it's bent almost forty-five degrees. His lips move as he tries to read the titles.
Pride swells in my chest. Two months ago, he couldn't read.
"Books give you everything you missed in school and more," I say, quoting Mac.
The only good things that come out of my mouth are probably courtesy of Mac. Everyone should have a Mac in their life.
"What's your favorite one?" Sonny asks.
I walk up to the shelf and pull out Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Bach. The cover shows a seagull over the sea with a little patch of land.
"Is it about Zion?" Sonny asks, tracing the seagull with his forefinger.
"No. It's about a rebel," I say, and his eyes instantly snap at me with that typical kid's wonder. "Oh, cool."
"He loved flying and learned new things, despite others' scorn. Even his parents. Do you know your parents?"
Sonny looks up at me almost apologetically. "I… I don't remember much about them?"
He's apologizing for not remembering the shitty people who left him living in a cardboard box behind a dumpster.
And the moment he says quietly, "Sorry," and lowers his gaze, my heart twists.
Sorry. One word. I used to say sorry all the time as a kid. To my foster parents, many of them. To my case workers, all of them. To everyone. Apologizing for wanting a family, a meal, a bed to sleep in, for being an inconvenience, a burden to the state.
My chest tightens so hard that I want to roar in anger at this world that deserved to be blown up because it took so much for granted and left so many behind.
There's a reason it's called a system. Systematic abuse. Systematic negligence. Despite a few people who care about their job, it's a conveyer that pushes unwanted goods farther into the dismal future. I was never a child. I was a case file.
Sonny throws careful glances at me from under his eyebrows.
He is no one's child, just like me.
My arm feels heavy as lead when I lift it, about to do something I haven't done since Emily, because I learned to hide my emotions, to cradle them deep inside, making sure I don't share them with anyone, because they were all I had, only mine, and I wanted them to stay mine.
I wrap my arm around Sonny's little shoulders.
"It's all right, kiddo. You'll be fine," I murmur.
My body is tense at this forced display of friendship, or something of the sort. Forced yet comforting, almost scary. It feels like I'm baring my soul to this little guy, and when he moves—a tiny movement as he leans into me and tilts his head to let it rest against me—I can hardly breathe.
Marcel Proust said, " It's our imagination that's responsible for love, not another person ."
What a load of bullshit. Isn't it peculiar how we trust famous and notable people with philosophical insights as if they have a degree in life experience?
" True love has to be earned. It has to go through hardships and pain to prove itself ."
I don't know who said that, but he must have been a miserable man.
There's love, period. Shades deeper. Degrees of obsession. Passion. Those don't have to be mutually exclusive. If someone tells you their love is true and yours is just a phase or an infatuation, punch them in the face. There are always those asshole experts who think they have a true insight into the human psyche and know better than you how you feel.
Whatever I feel for the little dude—he doesn't need to earn it. I'm willing to go through fire for him and give him my attention freely, without asking for anything in return. The last thing I want is for him to go through hardship to earn love.
Maddy? You see, my feelings for her, whatever that fuckery is, are genuine, deep, and in their singularity are the most alive I've ever felt in my life.
Her rejecting me is a different story. That hurts. That cuts me deeper than my stiletto. It's not love that hurts but her walking away from me. It's astounding how one person can completely obliterate your sanity with a gentle brush of her slender fingers.
Love doesn't hurt. A broken heart does. That's why I always preferred dealing with dangerous men, not women or children. Broken bones can heal. A broken heart can crush your entire life.
I was a man in control before I met her. But I was an empty shell. She filled me up with so many emotions that I try to throw them up to get better. But I can't. Not unless she is by my side again.
It's been weeks of staying away from her. Weeks of surviving, of grim days filled with work on autopilot, of dark nights, staring at the ceiling and drowning in the memories of her.
I never liked people, but she made me see them in a different light. There was light. Now, I look at faces in Port Mrei and want to carve them out. When there's no light in your life, everything disgusts you with mediocre grayness.
Before, I had books, the ocean, my sanity. But nothing compares to her now. Poetic words seem bland. Wisdom is silly. The ocean is just a mass of water. And her name pulsates in my head every fucking waking moment, wiping away my sanity.
My only light these days is this little guy.
"I have something for you, kiddo," I say to Sonny.
His eyes light up with curiosity.
I nod to the unopened package.
"For me?" He skips toward it and turns it in his hands. "Can I open?"
"It's yours."
He unwraps it with the speed of lightning, his eyes widening when he finds a box with planets and stars on it. "Cool! The planets!"
"You don't know what cool is," I say. "Let's set it up."
I got him a ceiling projector with a map of the universe that glows in the dark. Maybe, I'll teach him that darkness can be cool.
He looks confused when I set it up, point at the ceiling, and turn it on. The projection is barely discernible, but that's because it's still light outside. So I turn it off, close the blinds until it's dark in the living room, and then turn it on again.
"Whoa!" Sonny jumps up from his seat, and his head cranes toward the ceiling as he spins in his spot. "Whoa! Rave! Look! Whoa!"
There are only so many times one can say, "Whoa." Sonny can say it endlessly.
"Come here," I beckon him, then lie down on my back in the center of the living room and motion for him to do the same. And we lie for some time like this, two starfishes, as I explain the planets. All the while wishing Maddy was with us. She probably knows more than me.
"You know, kiddo, I think Maddy might need you tonight," I say to him finally. She might want to be alone, but she shouldn't be.
The notification on my phone says my food has been delivered, and when I open the blinds and bring it in from outside the door, I don't even take it to the kitchen.
"Want to take it to Maddy's and eat it with her?"
Sonny's eyes shift to the empty ceiling with some sort of nostalgia, then to me. "And you?" His eyes are almost pleading.
"I'll be all right, kid. I think she'd really like some company. Just not mine."
Right before he leaves, he takes a pen from my desk, walks over to the potted flower, and scribbles something on it.
His smile is sneaky. "I'm learning the alphabet," he says proudly. "Saw they do this in movies."
I wait until Skiba comes to pick him up, just a precaution, and he leaves. And here it is, another gaping hole in my heart. I fucking love this little dude being at my place.
I look at what he scribbled on Maddy's flower, and it says, R+M .
My chest tightens. He didn't finish writing, but he is right. R+M equals Rejection and Misery.
Soon, it's dark outside, and I know it's going to be another sleepless night. My ashtray will be full. My first glass of whiskey is already empty. But drowning in a bottle is a slippery slope. My job can't have that. Sonny can't have that.
I think of Maddy again, her bungalow with the flowers at the front, and my own flowers on the patio that were brought by the gardeners earlier today. Should I add one? For good luck? Wishful thinking?
Wishful kindness?
I imagine her sleeping, her chestnut hair splayed on the pillow, her favorite mint-green tank top bunched up around her waist. An open book on her nightstand. White socks left on the floor.
I light a cigarette, and the smoke from it curls around me, like a sign of some witchy ritual, conjuring the images of her.
Maybe, I need therapy.
I pour a glass of whiskey, stick a new cigarette in my mouth, walk to my desk, and pull a blank sheet of paper out of the drawer.
Here we go again.
Years of discipline and one woman is all it takes for it to fall apart.
These blank sheets all start the same. Either a letter to her, spilling thoughts onto the white paper, trying to reason with her. Or, most often, just the name that will forever be etched in my heart, no matter what happens in my life. That name and the letter that starts my usual by now list of beautiful things. Like some mindless mandala meditation.
M.
Maddy.
Milena.
Mayflower.
Mantra.
Memories…