Diamonds in the Dust

  Diamonds in the Dust

  A Diamond Magnate Novel

  Charmaine Pauls

  Published by Charmaine Pauls

  Montpellier, 34090, France

  www.charmainepauls.com

  Published in France

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Copyright © 2020 by Charmaine Pauls

  All rights reserved.

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  Photography by Wander Aguiar Photography LLC

  Cover model Rodiney Santiago

  Cover design by Simply Defined Art

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  ISBN: 978-2-491833-01-5 (eBook)

  ISBN: 979-8-635178-75-1 (Print)

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Diamonds in the Dust

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Afterword

  Also by Charmaine Pauls

  Book Blurbs

  About the Author

  Diamonds in the Dust

  Book 1

  Diamonds are Forever Trilogy

  Prologue

  The screaming in the kitchen turns louder. Mommy and Daddy’s voices travel through the thin wall and sting my ears. It doesn’t hurt like when I had an ear infection, but it hurts in my chest, and I’m really scared.

  I crouch in the corner on the bed I share with my brother, Damian, and hold Vanessa, my doll, close. I wish Damian was here, but it’s Sunday, and he’s delivering newspapers.

  A thump shakes the bunker beds of my older brothers, Leon and Ian, against the opposite wall. Cups and plates rattle on the other side.

  “Always the fucking same.” Daddy’s voice is too loud.

  The neighbors will hear. I cringe, because they’ll look at me weird tomorrow when I play on the stairs.

  “You’re all the fucking same.”

  My heart flaps like the wings of that poor bird I saw in the awful cage in Auntie May’s kitchen with the poo scattered around it on the floor. I concentrate on the moldy patches on the wall and the crack that runs down the middle, holding my breath as I wait for the next thud to shake the floor. The dark stain in the corner looks like the head of a wolf with a long snout and a floppy ear. The one in the middle looks like a flower growing from the crack.

  I knew it was coming, but when something crashes against the other side of the wall, I gasp quietly, careful not to make noise.

  “It’s all right,” I whisper to Vanessa, clutching her tighter. I wish my name was something pretty like Vanessa. I hate my name. Zoe is a stupid name.

  “How many times must I tell you, woman?” Daddy bellows. “You don’t—”

  Mommy’s voice is shrill. “You don’t tell me what to do!”

  I lay Vanessa on the bed, trembling as I try to block out the angry voices. “Shh.” She stares at me with big, happy eyes, but I know she’s just as scared as I am. I know how to smile to look brave.

  Maybe they’ll stop.

  Sometimes, they do.

  I push Vanessa’s arm through the hole I’ve cut from one of granny’s napkins with Mommy’s nail scissors and tie the ends in a knot. It doesn’t matter that she only has one arm. It’s a pretty dress all the same.

  Something crashes. The noise is sharp and dull, like when grandpa chops wood.

  “I’ll fucking kill us all!” Daddy shouts.

  Mommy’s footsteps fall hard on the floor. “Don’t touch me! I’ll stab you! I’m not kidding, you fucking prick!”

  It hurts to breathe. My eyes burn and tears start to drip. They plop on my hands, warm and wet. I’m dizzy and hot, like when I had the flu. Scrambling off the bed, I grab Vanessa and my book and dash down the short hallway to the broom closet at the end.

  Please don’t let them see me.

  I close my eyes as I pass the kitchen door, but nobody calls my name or grabs the collar of my dress. The closet door squeaks as I open it and slip inside the darkness that smells of shoe polish and dust. I close it tightly, so tightly you can’t even see the light through the crack, and feel under the cushions on the scratchy blanket of my nest for the flashlight. Huddling in the corner of my hiding place, I flick on the light and rock with Vanessa and my book in my arms.

  The book is big and heavy. It’s my only other possession, and I take it everywhere I go. The pages are dirty from all the times I’ve licked my fingers to separate them. Damian says they have dog ears, although I’m not sure where he sees the dogs. When I ask him, he just laughs at me. The spine is cracked and slack with stitches sticking out like my dresses when Mommy takes out the seams so I can wear them another year. When I open the book, it falls open at the same place it always does, on the first page of my favorite story about the princess and the frog.

  The tinkling of breaking glass pierces my safe place. Pinching my eyes shut, I block out the terrible sound that’s scarier than monsters.

  More stuff falls over somewhere.

  I force myself to open my eyes and look at the picture. I know each outline and every color of the princess in her puffy, pink dress, the golden ball lying next to the pond, the green leaves of the water lilies, and the frog sitting on them.

  Pushing my finger on the page, I drag it along the letters as I whisper, “Once upon a time…”

  I can’t read yet, but I know the story by heart.

  “…there was a beautiful princess who lived in a castle.”

  The book is like magic. The world in the story becomes real, and the sounds coming from down the hallway fade as I turn into the princess in the pink dress, standing next to the pond on the softest, greenest grass in my silk slippers with my golden ball. I’m a beautiful girl with yellow hair just like in the picture, not the boring color of dark-brown coffee like my own hair, and—

  I jerk when the door opens.

  “Hey, Zee,” Damian says, calling me by his special name for me when his face appears in the crack. “Can I come in?”

  He doesn’t wait for me to say yes. He crawls in, bending double to fit under the shelf because he’s ten and not only twice my age, but also twice my size.

  When he’s closed the door and settled opposite me, he asks, “What are you reading?”

  The space is so small even with our knees pulled up our legs press together.

  Sniffing, I shrug. He knows the stories by heart, too, because he’s the one reading them to me. It’s not like I have another book.

  He nudges me. “Want me to read it to you?”

  I shrug again but turn the book around for him to see the letters.

  He ruffles my hair. “Next year, when you go to school, you’ll
learn to read, then you don’t have to wait for me, and you can read other books, better books.”

  I hold Vanessa tighter. “I like it when you read to me. I like these stories.”

  Ian and Leon are older. When they’re not in school, they’re in the street with their friends, getting up to no good as Mommy always says. I don’t see them much, and when I do, they mostly tease me. Damian is only in grade five and not allowed to go out in the street alone after school. He has to stay and look after me, so Mommy won’t be cross when she comes home from work.

  “You won’t want to read these silly stories anymore when you’re in school,” he says.

  Fresh tears prick behind my eyes. “They’re not silly.”

  “This isn’t like life at all,” he says, sounding all grownup.

  I jut out my chin. “It is, too.”

  “Is not.”

  “Is, too! One day, I’ll find a prince, and marry him, and be a princess, and live in a castle, and we’ll live happily ever after. You’ll see.”

  His sigh is deep and heavy, sounding just like Daddy when he comes back from a day of what he calls deep diggin’. I always imagine deep mine diggin’ to be making a big hole in the middle of a lawn for a sparkling blue swimming pool.

  “Life isn’t a fairytale, Zee. There’s no knight on a white horse who’s going to rescue you. You have to do it yourself.”

  Pressing my hands over my ears, I block him out. I block out the nasty words, because they’re not true. I know they’re not.

  He pulls away my hands. “I’m not telling you this to be mean. I’m telling you this, so you won’t be disappointed one day.”

  “Stop it,” Mommy yells.

  A glass shatters somewhere.

  “You want me to stop, huh?” Daddy yells back. “Why not destroy everything?”

  “You know what?” Mommy is sobbing. “Go ahead. Break everything. That’s all you’re good for, you son of a lousy bitch.”

  A curse. A loud bang. Then, the awful, awful silence.

  Sometimes, the silence is worse. Daddy won’t come home until tomorrow. Mommy will cry all night and not come out of her room. Damian will butter toast, and we’ll eat it under the tent he’ll make of our blanket on our bed, but there’s nowhere to hide from the guilt.

  Father Mornay says guilt is good because it tells us when we’ve done something wrong. I don’t like feeling guilty. Mommy will scream at us and say it’s our fault, all because there are so many mouths to feed. I’ll feel really bad and not know how to be better or less of a mouth to feed.

  Daddy will come home stumbling up the stairs and crashing into furniture, and he’ll ignore Mommy and be angry with us. He’ll give me a hiding for not cleaning the kitchen, even if the dishes are done. He’ll take his belt to Damian for not taking out the trash, even if the trashcan is empty. I’ll cry quietly in our room, and Damian will get broody and glary-eyed, but Daddy won’t touch Ian or Leon. They’re too big, almost as tall as Daddy, and stronger.

  “Once upon a time…” Damian starts, his voice cracking a little as if it’s on the brink of breaking, becoming deeper like Ian’s, “…there was a princess…”

  One day, Damian will be strong and tall, too.

  I don’t care what Damian says. One day, I’ll find my prince. He’ll buy me beautiful dresses and lots of pretty glasses, and he’ll never break them. He’ll take me very, very far away from here, and I’ll never come back. Just wait and see.

  Chapter 1

  Johannesburg, South Africa

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  Zoe

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  My gaze is trained on the pavement to keep from stepping in the dog poo that litters the four blocks from the sweatshop to my apartment, but I’m not present in the glorious summer afternoon. My thoughts are where they usually dwell, dreaming up fantastic plans of escaping the hellhole I’m living in. Dreaming makes my existence more bearable. Dreaming is my escape.

  Near the flea market, the air is thick and heavy with the smell of carbon from the coal train tracks. Everything underneath the train bridge is gray, covered in layers of soot and smog. I glance at the sky. Up there, the air is blue and clear, pure and unobtainable.

  With a sigh, I fall in line at the fresh produce stall, using the waiting time to stretch my sore muscles. My back aches from being bent over a sewing machine all day. In my head, I count how far the coins I have left in my purse will go. The end of the month is always the worst, but on the upside, payday is around the corner. When it’s my turn, I take a banana and two tomatoes.

  I drag myself the last two blocks home, weary to the bone. I’m eager to feed my empty stomach and soak in a warm bath. Then I’ll collapse into bed with my new stack of library books.

  At my building, I curse under my breath. The door that gives access to the street is ajar. The lock is broken again, and it will take ages before it’s fixed. The landlord doesn’t maintain the building. That’s why the façade is black with years’ worth of grime and the inside walls moldy from permanent damp.

  With my gaze trained on the floor so I don’t step on one of the cats always begging for food, I push the door open with a shoulder while balancing my tote in one hand and my shopping bag in the other. The gloomy entrance is quiet, strangely absent from meows and furry bodies rubbing against my legs.

  My eyes are still adjusting from the bright daylight to the somber interior. The light switch has been broken for years. I frown, scouting the stairs in the sliver of light that falls in from outside before the door swings shut with a creak and basks the space in semi-darkness. The weak glow from the single bulb on the upstairs landing is the only light preventing the inhabitants from not tripping on the stairs.

  I’m about to call for the cats when something crashes into me from behind. My mouth opens on a scream, but no sound escapes as a large hand clamps over my mouth and an arm knocks the wind from my stomach as it wraps around my waist and lifts me off my feet.

  The bags in my hands drop to the floor. Fear slams into my chest. In a distant corner of my mind, I notice the tomatoes that roll to the foot of the stairs, and a logical, detached part of me worries about the spoiled food even as I start fighting for my life. I twist and buck. With my arms constrained at my sides, I can only kick. I try to bite, but I can’t force my lips apart. The hold over my mouth is too tight. It feels as if my jaw is about to snap. A button on my blouse pops from my efforts. It drops on the floor with a clink and bounces three, four, five times before it finally surrenders quietly in some corner. A smell of spices and citrus invades my nostrils—a man’s cologne. My senses are heightened. In the life that passes in front of my eyes, everything seems louder and clearer.

  “Shh,” a male voice says against my ear, only making my terror spike.

  I want to twist my head to the side to evaluate the threat, but I can’t turn my neck. Two men manifest from the shadows. One has long, blond hair and the other is bald with a beard. They move quickly. The blond one snatches up my bags while the bearded one goes up the stairs. He looks left and right before giving a nod.

  At the signal, my captor follows with me. I have to breathe through my nose as he climbs the single flight of stairs to my floor. Like this, the smell of the urine on the stairs and the mold on the walls is stronger. It makes me gag. Or maybe it’s how our bodies are pressed together, and what he has in store for me.

  The blond has taken my keys from my bag and has the door to my apartment open by the time we hit the landing. I glance at my neighbor’s door, praying to God Bruce isn’t playing his X-Box with his headphones on, but the sounds of his favorite game hits me before the stranger carries me inside.

  Lowering me to the floor, he keeps his hand over my mouth. “My men are going to leave.” His voice is deep and his accent strong. The way he rolls the R makes the dangerous words sound sensual. “I don’t want to hurt you, Zoe, but if you scream, I’ll have to. Understand?”

  Dear God. He knows my name. I pinch my eyes shut, my chest heaving
with every breath. How does he know my name?

  He speaks softly, pressing the words to my ear. “I asked you a question.”

  I give a tight nod. What choice do I have?

  He removes his hand slowly. “That’s better.”

  The minute he releases me, I spin around and back up to the couch. “I don’t have money. I have nothing valuable.”

  He smiles. “Do I look like I need to steal money?”

  I take him in. His face is square with sharp lines, his nose slightly askew as if it has been broken many times. Thick, black hair is styled with fashionable sideburns. The tone of his skin is warm, but his eyes are cold, their color the gray of an overcast sky. He’s not a handsome man, and the broken skin of his knuckles tells its own story.

  Swallowing, I drop my gaze to his body. He’s taller and broader than anyone I’ve seen. His chest and legs fill out every inch of his suit. It’s a gray pinstripe—pure wool, judging by the thread—but it’s the perfect cut that differentiates him. He screams money and power. No, he wouldn’t have broken in for money. The alternative makes me break out in a cold sweat.

  He advances on me, his gaze slipping to my chest. “However, you do have something of value I need.”

  I look down. My blouse is flaring where the button tore off, exposing my bra. Clutching the ends together, I ask through trembling lips, “What?”