Beauty in the Broken: A Diamond Magnate Novel Page 23

  He wipes a strand of hair behind my ear. “How did it go?”

  “Good. I’m coming back next week.”

  “You are?” He seems surprised.

  “You want me to, don’t you?”

  “I’m not forcing you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay? Just like that? No fight?”

  “Some things aren’t worth the fight,” I say over my shoulder, making my way down the hallway.

  I don’t miss the contemplative way he looks at me, as if he’s not sure if he should trust me. He keeps on telling me he doesn’t, and he’s right not to. The thought hurts. I face forward so he won’t see the guilt in my eyes.

  Catching up with me, he takes my hand and pulls me to a stop. “You may find this hard to believe, but I do want you to be happy.”

  “Has anyone ever been happy without freedom?” I ask softly.

  He cups my face, drawing his thumb over my cheek. “You think I hold all the control.”

  “You do.”

  “You’re wrong. It’s entirely up to you. You can have anything you want, or you can fight me and make it unnecessarily unpleasant for yourself.”

  How tempting he makes it sound. A life with no commitments, no worries, no work. That’s not a real life. It’s just a luxurious version of being locked up.

  “What do you want, Lina? Ask me. Test me. I’ll give you anything your heart desires.”

  There are things I desperately want, but I can’t tell him, because those things led me to committing a murder. I’m a cold-blooded killer, and I’ll do it again. I’m not sure what that makes me. I only know I can’t look at myself in the mirror without hating what I see.

  “What do you want?” he repeats.

  “A job. I’d like to earn money like a normal person.”

  “You’re not a normal person.”

  The jab hurts. What he thinks of me shouldn’t bother me, but it does. I suck in a slow breath. “That was cruel.”

  “That’s not how I meant it, and you know it. I meant our circumstances aren’t normal. You don’t need a job,” he says with finality, letting me know the subject is closed for discussion. “Anything else?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Lunch?” he asks, rubbing his hands over my arms.

  The touch still makes me shiver, but every time the repulsion is less. There was a time when food would’ve made everything better, but not today. Today my belly is full, and my troubles are elsewhere. Classic case of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Now that my physical needs are taken care of, I strive to have my emotional wants met.

  “I’d like lunch.”

  My answer pleases him.

  “Italian?”

  My favorite. “How did you know?”

  Instead of answering, he kisses my nose.

  Damian

  After Lina’s submission, I fuck her at every chance I get. God knows, she’s been the fantasy in my head for long enough. I deserve every rush of blood to my pelvis, every hard-on, and every climax she ignites. Leaving her to go to my office in the city is almost painful, but there’s much to do at the mine. Making money takes time. Making more money takes an even longer time, and I need a lot of money to keep safe in this city. I need the means to give Lina the life I promised to make up for keeping her in a cage.

  Still not sure what to make of Lina’s accusations, I keep a careful eye on Zane. His behavior is exemplary. He’s courteous to Lina, even if he limits their contact to mealtimes. It’s his word against hers, a situation of uncertainty I can’t allow. Sending him on an errand while Anne visits Andries, I have cameras installed. I don’t want anyone in the house to know about the added security measure. While the installation is underway, I take care of other business with Lina. It’s not something I look forward to, but she needs to understand the consequences of betrayal.

  I bundle her into the car and drive to the dump in Brixton.

  She gives me a wary look when we exit in front of the dilapidated apartment building. “What are we doing here?”

  I know what she sees when she looks up at the brick façade marred by graffiti and broken windows. She sees me, before I met Dalton. She sees hunger, criminality, and depravity. She sees hopelessness and a futile future or, if you’re strong, a will to survive and rise above the debris of human scum, of parents who don’t know where their kids hang out because they’re too busy working their fingers to the bone to put bread on the table.

  Taking her arm, I lead her up the piss-stained stairs and peeling walls. At the first door on the second level, we stop.

  She hangs back, looking at the crooked numbers on the door that write sixty-six instead of ninety-six, and the section around the lock that’s splintered. Hardening myself, I don’t spare her the knock that falls hollow on the pressed wood.

  A shuffle later, the door opens. Dalton’s face appears in the crack, unshaven and hard. It’s what this neighborhood does to people. They stop using razors and hate people like me who have their faces shaved in a barber chair while sipping espresso and making multi-million rand deals on their smartphones.

  When she recognizes her father, she pulls back harder, straining on my hold, but I push the door wide open and bring her inside.

  “Well, well.” Dalton looks from her to me. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  “Watch your mouth,” I say, kicking the door shut.

  He looks ten years older in a vest, sweatpants, and slippers. His hair is uncombed, and he smells like sour soup.

  “Aren’t you going to say hello?” he says to Lina. “Too good for me now?”

  I shove him aside and stride into the single space that defines his life. “Disrespect her again and you’ll regret it.”

  He follows with his smug smile. “Come to gloat, have you?”

  “You said you wanted to see your daughter.”

  She looks at the unmade bed and the dirty dishes on the kitchenette shelf. Her gaze takes in the moldy shower curtain and the grainy imagine on the fat-belly television. It’s satisfyingly depressing.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” he says, addressing Lina again. “What did you expect? A five-star hotel?”

  This is what he’s been degraded to. When he’s been stripped from his business and reputation, his true colors show. He never had a bone of dignity in his body.

  “It must make you happy,” he continues, “seeing me barely making ends meet while you look like this.” He motions at the pretty dress and sandals I’ve chosen for her, the brands screaming luxury.

  “I don’t,” she says softly.

  The one thing he hasn’t mentioned, has avoided looking at since we’ve entered, is her bare arms. It’s odd, not the kind of behavior one would expect from a caring father who dotes on his only daughter.

  He lifts a chipped mug from the table. “Drink?”

  “No, thanks,” Lina says, standing there with her arms at her sides.

  “Oh, well.” He shrugs and downs the dregs left in the mug. “I saw you tried to kill yourself again.”

  She doesn’t deny or confirm it. The look she gives him is pitying, if not sad.

  He assesses her from head to toe, ignoring her arms again. There’s taunting in his tone. “You’re getting fat.”

  She’s seen what I wanted her to. There’s no need to drag out the unpleasant disillusionment. I expected at least a warm welcome for Lina, a little bit of affection, not envy for her fortune and good health.

  I address him like a child, as he deserves. “There won’t be another visit until you can muster respect. At least you have time to work on it.”

  “Time is all I have,” he says with a wry chuckle. “A moment alone with Lina?”

  Not on my life. “Goodbye, Dalton.”

  Gripping Lina’s arm, I lead her back outside where we can almost breathe again. The stench of rotting garbage clings to the streets. It’s part of life in these parts, as are the dogs scavenging through tossed take-out containers, and the gang of barely adults
watching us from the corner. I flip my jacket aside, showing them my gun. They don’t scatter, but they look away. I signal for the two cars with armed guards waiting. You can’t go anywhere in this neighborhood without a convoy. The men climb out, taking wide stances. At that, the group dissipates.

  I don’t get into the car just yet. There’s something else I want to visit. My men follow, alert and on the lookout as we walk a block down and take a right under the bridge. The church is sandwiched between a shoe factory and a run-down school. Made of gray stone, it almost blends unnoticed into the concrete and tar environment. The clock tower is black from soot from the coal train tracks that run on the overhead bridge. I take a minute to absorb the picture. Little has changed, and yet so much. The space under the bridge posts is empty. The lively flea market with its colorful stalls of vintage clothes and reject factory shoes are gone. The arched windows of the school are encased in rusted bars, and the noise of the trains is replaced with the far-off bark of a dog. It’s a half-hearted, hopeless bark, lasting no more than three seconds.

  I nod at my men to guard the street as I venture across with Lina. The front door is open, which comes as a surprise. Who would’ve thought? Not even churches or clergymen are exempted from crime and violence.

  On the step, I turn to my wife. How pink and pretty and blonde and innocent she looks in the midst of all this charcoal black. “Do you want to wait outside?”

  She shakes her head.

  We climb over the raised step and stop inside. The inside is darker, dirtier. It still smells of candlewax and mothballs. Most of the stained-glass windows are broken, and pigeons are shitting on the windowsills. No candles burn in the alcoves. There are fresh flowers in a vase on the altar. They must still be holding services here. God knows for who.

  “Wait here,” I say.

  Walking down the aisle, I take a trip down memory lane to the bench where I kneeled and hoped and prayed before life made me a man, a man as hard as his diamonds. That’s what the media calls me. They’re wrong. I’m black like soot, unclean like years layered on concrete. I step into the row and drag my shoe over the worn wood many knees have polished, the spot where I made my vow of revenge the day before the police found me. This was my haven, my escape from family fights that got too loud and the guilt my mother loaded on my shoulders for being another mouth to feed. I don’t believe. Haven’t for a very long time, but the space feels sacred. Many of the defining decisions of my life were taken here. The decision to become rich, to dig for diamonds, to join forces with Dalton, to damn him to hell, to destroy his empire, and to take the daughter who was meant for someone worthy of her.

  The very thought of Lina makes my cells hum with awareness. At once, I miss her presence as if we’ve been separated for weeks, not minutes. I no longer feel her at my back. Wariness creeps over my skin in an unpleasant ripple. I turn my head a fraction, sweeping the space with a gaze from over my shoulder. She’s no longer standing in the light spilling from the door. Uneasiness tightens my gut. Urgency compels me to find her, even if I know she can’t escape with my men stationed outside. The worn-out runner carpet cushions my steps as I move under the high arch of the ceiling. I scan every dark alcove until I get to the one right next to the door, and then I stop. Where cooing pigeons with deformed, knobbed feet crowd the windowsill, Lina stands under the broken window, staring at the portrait of Mary holding the baby Jesus in her arms. It’s a portrait I know well, the one where my mother used to light a candle every Sunday.

  From where I’m standing, I have a good view of Lina’s face. The expression she wears as she looks at that painting stills me. Time disappears. The moment becomes ethereal. It’s just her and me observing her. Her lips are tilted just so. It’s not even a full curve of her lips, but it’s the sweetest of smiles, and she has a dimple. A fucking, beautiful dimple. It hits me like a fist in the balls. It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile. Hands folded, face turned up and serene, she looks like a Madonna. Unguarded, her face is even lovelier than usual. The light in her eyes is soft. Her expression is hard to nail. It’s that something indefinable between sorrow and joy, that something that gives you the Sunday blues, that makes you miss someone you don’t know. It’s slight, that perfect smile, and yet so profound. It’s a breeze that lifts the ends of my hair like a phantom caress in my neck, but it’s a hurricane in my heart. It’s the moment a realization hits me like a divine insight. Something happened to Lina, something bad.

  Lost in herself, she traps me with her in the timeless space of whatever memories that painting stirs, and I’m annoyed when one of my men appears in the door and breaks the moment.

  “Everything all right in here?” he asks.

  Lina jumps a little. Her mask falls back in place, and she turns away from the sacred painting and the bird shit that runs like dripping candlewax down the wall.

  “Who’s going to attack us?” I snap. “The devil?”

  “Just checking, sir.”

  “We’re ready to go.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I extend a hand to Lina. She hugs herself as she walks to me but unwraps her arms to accept my hand. Walking back to the car with our fingers intertwined, she’s with me, and she’s not. A part of her is still wherever she’d been in the church. She’s too many pieces I can’t puzzle together. Too many things don’t make sense. I know the weight of her breasts in my palms. I know the husky little sound she makes at the first stroke of my cock inside her. I know her triggers and her thresholds. I know how to break her with rough ecstasy and make her whole with my kisses, but I don’t know everything. The value of six lost years equals the weight of a clinical file. A report written on a few meager pages.

  “Why did you bring me here, Damian?”

  “I wanted to see if the old church still looked the same.”

  “You lived here?” She looks around as if she finds the notion impossible.

  “Two blocks from here.”

  “Where?”

  I point toward the ruins of the metal factory. “Right there. Next to that building.”

  “Don’t you want to visit it, too?”

  “I don’t have to. I know it doesn’t look the same.”

  I just kind of hoped the church would be an exception, would somehow have defied the sad, downward slide of the norm. Even devils like me need to believe in miracles, sometimes.

  “What about your parents?” she asks. “Where are they now?”

  I clench my jaw. “Dead.”

  A soft gasp falls from her lips. “How long ago did they pass away?”

  I contemplate not telling her, but she is my wife. She has a right to know my family history. “My father died during my second year in prison. Tuberculosis. My mother followed the year after. Her system was too weak to fight a bad bout of flu.” That’s what happens when you’re worn out from a life of too much work, and you can’t afford a private medical aid that ensures proper healthcare.

  “Damian,” she exclaims, walking faster to keep up with my quickening steps. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s not as if they gave a fuck about me or my siblings.”

  “You have brothers or sisters?”

  “Two brothers and a sister.”

  “What about them? Do they still live around here?”

  “Don’t know. My brothers are both older. They left home when I was still in school. Never heard from them again. The last I heard, my sister met a foreigner who whisked her off to Europe.”

  “Don’t you want to get in touch?”

  “What for? They made their choices. If they wanted to know how I am, they would’ve kept contact.”

  “But—”

  “Not all families are happy, Lina, and not all children and pampered. Let it go.”

  “I’m sorry you weren’t there for your parents, you know, when they…”

  “Died.”

  “I’m sorry you were in prison instead of with them.”

  The apology strikes a cor
d, a deep-seated regret I’ll never be able to make peace with. My voice is harsher than she deserves when I ask with sardonic humor, “Seen enough of the other side of the tracks?”

  Tugging on my hand, she stops. “That’s not what I meant when I asked why you brought me here. I meant why did you bring me here to see Harold?”

  Facing her, I cup her jaw and flick my thumb over the spot where her cheek will so prettily indent when she’s happy. “To show you there are worse fates than being my prisoner.”

  Lina

  Since the garden incident, Zane avoids me even more than before. Damian keeps him busy, mostly running errands in town. Anne is looking for a job, which means circling newspaper ads on a deckchair next to the pool. Getting a job is a luxury she’s allowed, a freedom. Why doesn’t she grab it with both hands?

  Russell is being Russell, hot and cold, nice and standoffish. I never know where I stand with him, but I trust him. He takes his job seriously, and he always addresses me respectfully.

  Jana is worried she’ll lose her job if I interfere with the cooking. To appease her, I stick to the tasks Damian assigned to me, which are menu planning and overseeing the transformation of the garden.

  My universe is limited to this creaky old house with its Victorian towers and regular inhabitants. The staff from the cleaning service keep to themselves, rejecting my attempts at conversation. I can’t wait to start my exercise program, driving lessons, and secret job next week, but I first have to survive a dinner party at the house tonight. It’s business, and when Damian told me he invited his operations manager, I knew I was going to hate it. Fouché Ellis knows Harold from when I was in diapers. He may not know the gritty details of my history, but he knows what the world believes, namely that I married for money, drove my husband to suicide, and was locked up in a madhouse for bulimia, anorexia, and suicide tendencies. I can’t say I don’t care about what the rest of the world thinks of me, but they’re people I don’t know or have to face. Fouché is different. He’s dined at Harold’s house enough times to be considered as family, and the fact that I respect him makes it worse. I don’t want to stand in front of his judgment tonight, knowing I’m a disappointment.