Page 3 of Game of Revenge
“Well, I know you hate this, but all we can do is enjoy it,” concluded Iris.
“Amen to that!” I declared as I gently tapped my glass to Iris’s.
Iris and I had been best friends since the first week Richard and I had moved to LA. I had been in school for about a week, a confused little girl who barely spoke any English. Other kids had made fun of me for that. All I wanted was to go back to the life I had been forced to leave behind—a whole different culture, different language, friends, a home that still had memories of my mother.
But instead, I found myself in an unknown land where people looked at me with curiosity, and sometimes disdain, like they didn’t know what I was or how to behave around me.
Then, one day, while I was sitting in the back of the cafeteria alone, Iris came and offered me half of her sandwich. She had introduced me to other kids in the school and made sure, perhaps without realizing, that I didn’t continue to feel like an intruder in my new school. Richard had been thrilled because Iris’s dad was a very successful fund manager—just the type of person he wanted desperately to be around.
Iris had been my confidant and gave me strength through her friendship. I missed our Sunday brunches and our escapades to the spa as retaliation against Richard or whatever was pissing us off. She was an excellent interior designer who was already making a name for herself in California. She had started a social media page before college, and was now booked months in advance. We dreamed of working together one day, with Iris deciding themes and decor for hotel chains I would be running.
“I wish Keisha and Chloe had made it,” said Iris.
“Yeah, me too, but you know those lawyers and their crazy work schedules,” I joked.
“I know.” Iris and I met Chloe and Keisha at a college party, and the four of us had been inseparable ever since.
Keisha, Chloe, and Iris had been my everything at the time. It wasn’t boys, but the promise of a career and the love I got from that group of wonderful women. We traveled together, protected each other, took care of each other when one of us was sick. A real support system that made me feel like I finally belonged somewhere. Those girls had become like a family to me.
My mind wandered back to the man who had been making me feel uncomfortable all night. I looked for him around the room, but I could no longer find the man in black.
By the time the clock hit almost eleven in the evening, I was at my wits’ end, tired of pretending I was having a good time, so I decided to announce that I needed some fresh air as an excuse to be alone. I quickly removed myself from the group that had interrupted my exile with Iris and claimed to be heading to the bathroom.
When I was finally out of sight, I walked down the hall to the enormous, two-island, all-white, marble-countertop kitchen. I moved through it, quickly exiting to the beautifully landscaped garden. It was an unusually chilly night in May, and the moon was full and beautiful, its light reflecting softly on the trees and their leaves.
I took a deep breath, feeling my shoulders relax instantly. I took off my shoes and walked over to a bench. I sat down on the stone and closed my eyes, letting my feet softly graze the wet grass, my mind drifting into thoughts of the new life I was about to start.
I found peace in thinking about my plans to get away from my stepfather forever. He wanted George and me to live with him after our wedding. I frankly didn’t understand why he always wanted to keep control over my life, considering he despised me.
I had hoped that once I turned eighteen, he would make good on his constant threat of getting rid of me, but when I told him I wanted to go study in New York, he had been adamantly opposed. I knew that my reputation was my most precious asset in his eyes since, being his beloved stepdaughter, I was an extension of him. So, I started to party with pretty questionable characters, and those wonderful times were documented all over social networks.
When he learned that I was dating “bums” as he called them, he let me go study in New York. I spent four wonderful years studying at NYU, and then I spent a year traveling Europe. When I returned to New York, after having job offers mysteriously rescinded, I agreed that I had to go back to California, temporarily. I eventually became suspicious that Richard had used his connections to close the doors for me in New York, but I had no proof.
Once I was back in LA, feeling defeated, I eventually caved and worked at one of Richard’s hotels. He eventually allowed me to work in the company directly, but with supervision and only when he was there.
Despite Richard treating me like a child, I loved it. I developed an interest in company management and had a desire to be at the round table of executives making decisions, but it seemed like Richard had different plans for me. He wanted to join his company with the McAllens’s company once I married George. He didn’t want me working. He never saw women as equals. I knew that by how I witnessed his treatment of female employees. After that experience, I swore to myself that I would be independent and never need Richard in my life ever again.
That was when I decided to enroll at Stanford, and a month ago, I graduated with my MBA. As much as I wanted to be involved in Hotel Estrellas, Richard’s company, I did not want to work for him. I had secretly secured a job in New York and planned on moving out of this house in a month.
A noise in the trees snapped me back to reality and I refocused on my surroundings. I got up and looked toward the bushes, trying to find the source of the interruption. Suddenly, I felt a hand grab me by my waist and, before I could cry out, another hand placed a cloth soaked in strong liquid over my face. I tried to fight whoever was attacking me but to no avail.
When I realized I wasn’t going to win, I felt fear invade my brain, and before I could try to strike my attacker one last time, everything turned dark.
Chapter 2
I had a throbbing headache, but I was starting to regain a semblance of consciousness. I felt what I thought were car vibrations and heard the sound of an engine. There was a piece of cloth wrapped over my eyes and another over my mouth. My hands were bound in front of me with what felt like handcuffs, and my shoes were gone. I was starting to come to, and fear washed over me once I realized what had happened. I had been kidnapped.
I hurriedly pushed the blindfold up on my forehead. I could tell that I was lying down in a very dark but spacious car trunk. I heard a man talk. It sounded like he was shouting from a phone. I tried to take a few breaths to slow down my heartbeat so I could focus on hearing.
“Si, la tenemos. We have his daughter,” said the voice. The man he was talking to started screaming, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“Yes, but…”
The man on the other end of the phone call started to shout again.
“Si, la estamos llevando alla,” answered the one in the car.
The conversation then ended.