THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, CHARACTERS, BUSINESSES, PLACES, EVENTS, LOCALES AND INCIDENTS ARE THE PRODUCTS OF THE AUTHOR’S IMAGINATION. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, OR ACTUAL EVENTS IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

chapter 9 : diabolical

Chapter 1 : Prelusory

Chapter 2 : Extant

Chapter 3 : Departed

Chapter 4 : Propitious

Chapter 5 : Hinterland

Chapter 6 : Godly

Chapter 7 : Interloper

Chapter 8 : Exposed

Sasha’s story

I grew up in a corrosive environment in a broken home. My parents constantly fought. There was always trouble at home. Eventually one day dad left us. My mom was an alcoholic, that left us siblings to fend for ourselves. I grew up, a wild one, lived on the streets, lived with random people who would take me home, in countless nameless shelters for the homeless. One night I met James in a pub. He took me home with him that very night. He treated me well. I had been ditched multiple times by scores of men; drugs and alcohol were all that had kept me going. James was a teetotaler. He helped me recover and give up drugs. I was naïve to believe James had fallen in love with me. Otherwise why would any man provide food and shelter to a woman of my stance. Little did I know that I was a pawn in his plan, just a stepping stone for his future scheme.

After spending a few days with him, I got to know that James was embroiled in all kinds of criminal activities. Involved in all kinds of treachery and money laundering businesses, James was also a staunch believer in God. He confessed to his sins to the pastor at the church and justified all his acts. Such a creep, a hypocrite. I suffered physical abuse with him yet I stayed because he was loyal to me. I wanted to make our relationship work. I was finally living a normal life, that I had never dreamt of, I couldn’t give it all up so easily. Besides I had nowhere to go. This life with James was a notch better than the life I had on streets. He had no other woman in his life, I was the only one, I knew that, I was sure. He had multiple men, but that was a fact which I wouldn’t know until later. A few weeks into living together, he handed me a baby out of the blue, your daughter Mia. He asked me to take care of her, look after her, feed her, bathe her but not get too attached as she was going to leave us soon.

I named her Nancy. She was a temporary guest at our place. I didn’t know anything about babies. It was my first experience with one. She drove me up the wall with her tantrums, whines for her mom but she did light up my life. She was a baby but she had attitude, mind you! If she wanted something, she stopped at nothing. She was a picky eater. She made me cook meals for her. I had never cooked in my life but here I was looking up the internet and cooking toddler meals. A few days with her, I loved her more than I loved anybody on earth. I became protective about her. I begged James to let me have her permanently. James kept denying, saying that was not possible.

One day I forced James to reveal Nancy’s background and details. James lied that her parents were hospitalized so he was taking care of their baby in their absence. I knew better than to believe James story. I started spying on him along with hatching an escape with Nancy. I saved money, I stole from his purse. I had grown fond of Nancy; it was as if my life depended on her. She too reciprocated my love with equal fervor. James had started noticing my bond with her. He started keeping her with him for longer periods of time. He kept sending me on errands. I feared for Nancy’s life. I had to act fast. I had to escape and find the truth about Nancy before James sent her where he had been planning to.

I set a date.

However, my luck ran out. Soon after, one day I came home to Nancy gone. After pestering James, a lot, he said she was back with her parents. I didn’t believe him. I started checking his phone. I found nothing. One day I begged him to take me to the church. That’s where I witnessed a completely different side to his personality. He was a kinder, softer and well-behaved man at the church. His body language was weird with the pastor, Davis Peterson. Davis mentioned Carter and I noticed James’ cheeks flush pink. I came back home confused and puzzled.

I knew for a fact James had grown fond of me. However, he was out a lot. He said he had to be away for business. I followed him one time and I saw him meeting Carter at a bar. Both of them hit it off and soon went away in a car. I saw them making out in the parking lot. That’s when I knew that James was more interested in men than women. I wanted to confront him right away but I had to find about Nancy. So, I stayed.

A few days later I heard James conversing on phone, mentioning kids. I heard enough to deduce that he was speaking with child traffickers. It scared me to imagine Nancy being held in their captive. I started planning to confront him. I got hold of this drug, spiked his drink, twice and debilitated him. He wasn’t easy to tackle with. I had to pour acid drops on his skin to make him talk. He revealed about his relationship with Carter. He said Carter was in dire need of money. James had arranged his meeting with the Child Trafficker’s kingpin. James knew him from a prior business deal. Together all of them had planned the phony accident where Mia was kidnapped from under the lake. After that she was to live with us until the case died down and a suitable buyer was found for her, she was to be exchanged for money. When James said, Carter was Mia’s father, that’s what shook me the most. I couldn’t believe a dad could sell a daughter for money. James also confessed that he didn’t know about the whereabouts of Mia at the moment. All he knew that on the 20^th of this month Carter was going to meet the traffickers to get his last installment. I arranged a guy to hold James on gun point and I set off to the address James mentioned. After reaching here, immobilizing Carter, I decided to wait until 19^th for you. If you hadn’t arrived by then, I would have to take Carter to the point of meet all by myself. Thank goodness you arrived at the nick of time. Today is 18^th and we still have two days until we hatch a plan to rescue Mia.

Evelyn was too dumbfounded to speak. She paced the room’s length. She kept nodding her head, shaking her hands trying to take in everything that Sasha had said. Sasha knew it wasn’t easy for Evelyn to intake all of this. She waited until Evelyn was calmer. Carter stayed silent in the background, with his eyes closed, taking deep breaths.

“Why can’t we approach the cops instead of waiting until 20^th?” Evelyn asked Sasha.

“If we were to approach the cops or the traffickers caught wind of their cover getting blown due to one particular kid, they kill and dump that kid right away. We cannot take that risk with Mia. We have to go as per our plan. We take Carter to the spot they mention at the said time and rescue Mia from there with the help of some of my friends who I have requested for help.” Sasha replied never leaving Evelyn’s side.

“What if we fail?” Evelyn whimpered.

“We won’t. My friends have dealt with similar kind of people, they have assured me they won’t let things go wrong. I am counting on our plan being a success. I need to rescue Nancy, I mean Mia. I have to do this for myself, for you. It’s surely a risk but it’s a risk worth taking.”

Evelyn nodded her head and crouched beside Carter. She stared at him, her eyes uttering so many words which her lips were failing to speak out loud. She peered into his eyes and said “Why Carter? Why did you do all this? You cheated on me with another guy! You sent our baby away. You were going to hand her over to the traffickers for money. You did all this under the pretext of a loving caring partner and father? All this while I assumed our marriage was flawless. Was our entire world based on lies? Had I been living a lie? Instead of doing what you did, why didn’t you just simply order me to leave, I would have walked away. I would at least have had peace. I would have had my Mia with me. Why did you have to do this? What did you get out of it? I simply cannot understand your evil intentions. Either you are not the person I had always believed you to be or you are just pure evil.” Evelyn sobbed hysterically.

Much to her utter shock and dismay Carter started laughing frantically.

“Pure Evil? So, I am pure evil for doing what I did? Do you have any idea the ordeal you have put me through, you selfish woman? Have you ever seen or thought beyond yourself? I kept begging you to change your habits, mend your ways, you never heeded my simple requests. All I ever wanted was a neat and clean environment to live in. You couldn’t even give me that. Forget about the basic cleaning or sanitation, you didn’t even do the primitive everyday chores like doing the dishes and laundry properly. I often found stains on my expensive shirts. You took absolutely no interest in doing anything for me. I did my best to adjust, to look over these things. I slept so little, I came back from work and cleaned and scrubbed the kitchen floor. I had to work hard to keep things in order. I was still okay with all of that until the day you declared you were pregnant and we were going to be parents. You didn’t even think of running this with me first. I had no recollection of being intimate with you in that time period. I even went on to do a DNA typing for Ethan. The results came in affirmative, however that didn’t convince me completely. After Ethan came into our lives, I had to work hard to keep our family afloat and the house in control. You didn’t pitch in nor made any efforts to understand the financial strain I was under. You simply didn’t care. You idled your time sleeping, sulking, being depressed. I wanted to leave you and everything behind right there and then. That was the time I met James in my regular church sessions. I was instantly drawn to his orderliness – both in his life and way of living. If I hadn’t met James, I would have never realized that I was bisexual. It wasn’t easy to be on this road of self-discovery; James provided me with much needed emotional strength and support. I wanted to leave you to move in with him immediately. But he compelled me to wait and asked me to give our relationship one more chance. I agreed halfheartedly. I stayed. I gave us a second chance. I tried to move on, be a dutiful parent. James didn’t keep in touch with me during that entire time. He was a man of his words. He kept himself distant so that it was easier for me to move on. But when Ethan passed away and he reached out to me, I made up my mind. I spoke with my parents. I told them I was done; I was leaving you. Their response shocked me. They said I wasn’t going to get a penny from their property’s shares if I were to leave you at this difficult hour. I hadn’t thought of them as your supporters in all this time. I needed the money. I was neck deep in debts. I had lost a lot of money in gambling. James had his share of financial troubles too. I tried to convince my parents but in vain. They wouldn’t hear me. They wanted me to stand with you, support you, be a moral husband. This time I stayed reluctantly. I tried to device ways to find faults with you. Nothing was good enough. They were truly sorry for you. James started getting away from me. I was going into depression. Even though I had always doubted his parentage; nevertheless I did miss Ethan. His untimely demise left a void in my life. Unconsciously I had grown attached to him. I blamed you entirely for his death. I wanted to teach you a lesson for being a careless and indifferent mother. Around then you said you were pregnant again. I was shell shocked. Ethan might have been but I was sure this wasn’t my baby. You were having an affair with someone else. All I had to do was find proof and nail you as the culprit but I found none. I had to fake all the niceness that I showed you during this time. My parents had said that I would lose the inheritance sum if you were to leave me for any reason. I couldn’t afford that. I had to play the role of a model husband to the perfection. I started escaping with the cues of travelling and double shifts. You fell for it which served me well to stay away from you for longer periods of time. When Mia was born, I hatched the plan of her abduction. If she were gone, you would be devastated. Everyone would blame you for her loss. That would ease my life and help pave my pathway for success. I could divorce you when the right time arrived. I had planned to keep Mia with James until the case closed and then send her away to some orphanage. But James somehow convinced me to give her away to the traffickers in exchange for money. Although initially I had agreed to his plan, later on I wasn’t willing. We couldn’t reach a unanimous decision regarding this. Few days back he said he was unable to keep Mia any longer and he had handed her over to them without consulting me. I wasn’t happy to hear that. I requested him to fix a meeting with them. That was the least he could do, I urged. In the pretext of collecting money I would have met them to request Mia back. I hadn’t said it to James but I knew he wouldn’t go against my wishes. I would have left her in a faraway orphanage and informed James later on. I also sent you for the therapy sessions to prove your eccentricity in the court and deny any alimony during our divorce. However, even that had started backfiring as Doctor Avery started believing your story instead of declaring you as delusional as I had planned.” When Carter stopped speaking the air felt heavy and still. There was an eerie cryptic sound echoing all around. The wind was whooshing outside the door.

Carter continued after a pause, “So tell me Evelyn was it I who was evil to do what I did or was it you and your self-obsession that drove me to this point of inhumanity?”

 Evelyn’s face had turned ashen. She felt that the earth was spinning faster than it normally did. Her knuckles were weak. She choked, gasping for air. Carter’s words pierced through her like hot knives. How could she have not seen through this? When had she gone blind to the extent of overlooking their flawed marriage? She had tried to cover up Carter’s being away from home citing extended official tours by giving excuses of him overworking to pay their bills.  She had overlooked their nonexistent physical proximity blaming their lives tragedies for everything. They shall always love each other, come rain or shine, is what she kept telling herself. She had been wronged all along. She had fed lies to her heart. She had built this web of blind trust on the pillar of deceit.

She felt like floating in air, her body was numb, she couldn’t hear or feel anything. Her world was falling apart, collapsing into pieces. The man she had loved with all her heart and soul didn’t love her the same way. He hadn’t been the ideal father to their children, she had always believed him to be. How could she have not seen this coming?

She had always assumed Carter loved her. Carter loved their family. He was a good father. She had seen him with Ethan, with Mia. How could someone fake all that? If all of this was false, a pretense then what was the truth? Had there been any love in their relationship at all? She clearly remembered the nights they had conceived their children. They had been drunk, Carter had passed out both times soon after sex. She had thought of letting him know in the morning but somehow she forgot and when she found out she was pregnant with Ethan, she didn’t have the slightest idea that Carter wouldn’t be willing to be a father. She just assumed he had always wanted kids. It was something that they had never sat down and discussed. When they conceived Mia, that was the first and only time they had been physical and Evelyn was numbed with pain most of the time. Thus the discussion didn’t happen that time either. Besides Carter had been thrilled with Evelyn’s pregnancy. Evelyn hadn’t ever doubted his act of pretense. She wondered if things have been different if Ethan and Mia had never came into their lives. But she was glad she was blessed as a mother not just once but twice. Now, in the end, Mia was all that mattered to her. She had no intention of clearing things with Carter nor putting up with him anymore. All she wanted was to get to Mia as quickly as possible.

She didn’t speak after that. She didn’t want to. She didn’t offer any explanation to Carter, even though she could have, she preferred not to prolong this bitter cold-blooded conversation anymore. All she had to do was get Mia back in her life and teach Carter a lesson for his deeds. She had to be strong for her daughter. Mia was her last hope. She couldn’t even imagine the poor baby’s plight. What was she going through? Was she okay? Would she be able to rescue her from the clutches of the criminals?

Day turned into night. None of them spoke or moved. The air was thick with suspended tension. None of them felt the need of filling the void with normal conversation. Three of them were lost in their own thoughts.

Carter never accepted Mia and Ethan as his kids.

Nancy is with the child traffickers right now, what would she be going through. Was she okay?

Is James okay? Will I be able to see him again?

((To be continued…..))

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