Silent Daughter 3: Owned (6 page)

LEONARD

Something is wrong.

I squint, trying to realize where I am. Not in my own bed, that’s for sure. And I’m not alone.

Bright daylight is peeking through the narrow slits between the curtains, painting the room with bright, thin lines of sunlight.

It’s morning, early morning, and I’m not where I should be. Liz is sleeping next to me, curled up in my arms and naked, with her collar not attached to the hook. I’m in the wrong place, and she is not restrained the way she should be. Why do I even set rules for myself if I don’t intend to stick to them?

I carefully remove my arm from underneath her and climb out of bed to get dressed and out of here as quickly as possible before she wakes up.

Just as I am buttoning my shirt, I realize that there is something else that is not the way it’s supposed to be.

I hear noise coming from downstairs.

I freeze for a few moments to be sure and listen.

Yes, there it is again. Rummaging, muffled sounds coming from outside the door. I furl my eyebrows and close the last two buttons of my shirt before I carefully open the door and check the hallway.

It’s empty, but I continue to hear sounds from downstairs. Someone or something is moving around down there, not even trying to be quiet while doing so which suggests that it could be an animal. I’ve had a raccoon enter my house through that damn pet door the previous tenant added to the patio door.

Just in case, I decide to be careful and close the door behind me as quietly as possible before I sneak into my office with equal caution. I hurry to my desk and open the small safe that is hidden beneath it, fetching the only gun that has ever been in my possession. I’ve never had to fire it, and I hope that it will remain that way.

I open the door only the slightest bit to check whether the intruder may have made his way upstairs in the meantime, but it doesn’t seem so. I step outside, careful not to make any noise as I walk along the corridor until I reach the staircase.

I lean forward and check the entrance area downstairs, but there’s no one to be seen. The noise is still audible, but it’s muffled, suggesting that it is coming from inside one of the rooms downstairs.

I make my way down the staircase, holding the gun up in front of me to be careful. I freeze for a few moments when I reach the first floor, trying to determine where exactly the noise is coming from.

My bedroom.

The door is standing ajar, and when I approach it, I can see a shadow of something or someone moving around inside. At this point, I’m quite certain that it’s a person rummaging around through my personal space and not another confused raccoon, so I might as well raise my voice.

“Who’s there?” I yell, stopping a few feet away from the door and pointing at it with my gun. “Step out immediately and show yourself!”

The noise stops immediately for a few moments. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens.

“Step outside
now
!” I repeat.

“Why don’t you come in here?” a male voice replies.

It’s the caller. The weird creep who has been trying to scare me on the phone.

“Buddy, why don’t you show yourself so we can finally settle this?” I say. “It’s getting ridiculous, really.”

“Is it?” he replies. A weak attempt at being witty.

I have no patience for this, especially knowing that Liz is upstairs and in danger as long as this bastard is moving freely inside the house.

“I have no time for this,” I say. “Either you have the guts to show yourself and step outside, or I swear to God, you will regret it.”

I hear a hoarse laughter coming from inside the bedroom.

“I’ll count down from three,” I add.

No response.

“Three.”

Still, silence.

“Two.”

Nothing. I tighten the grip around my gun and release the safety catch, hoping that the audible and recognizable click will bring some sense to this idiot.

But still, there is no reaction on his part.

“One!”

I don’t hesitate; I dart towards the door and kick it wide open before making the stupid mistake of jumping into the room immediately instead of locating the guy first.

He is waiting for me right next to the door and almost knocks me out by hitting me with what turns out to be the barrel of a gun.

Stars are dancing in front of my eyes, and my vision darkens for a horrible second before I’m able to regain my balance and prevent myself from falling unconscious.

Liz.

I cannot lose this fight.

I stumble and turn around, facing an ugly little creature, a small guy with horribly bruised skin and crooked teeth. He looks horribly spent, marked by substance abuse. I know him, and I was right with my assumptions about him. He works for the money launderer I did business with before coming here. I didn’t leave on best terms with those guys, but I have no idea why this particular one might hold such a grudge. He is no one, just a petty henchman with little power to decide and even less to speak. He fixates on me with gray eyes, full of rage.

“Charlie?” I manage to say his name.

He grins and nods. “Damn straight that’s me.”

There’s pride in his voice. The fact that I know who he is makes him happy, but I still don’t see what brings him here.

“Motherfucker,” he continues, adding no valuable information. “You fucking rat destroyed everything!”

I furl my eyebrows. “I'm not sure what you're saying.”

“You and your funny business!” he hisses. “You got your shit done and then just ran off. They killed most of our team, did you know that? Because we were fooled by you. All out, everyone gone. I managed to get away, but my life is over. I am running, I have to run. Forever! Where is someone like me going to go? What am I supposed to do?”

I’m having trouble following, but get an idea of what he might be talking about. I worked with his bosses for years before I decided that I’d had enough of their shitty business and the things they found themselves involved. They were dangerous idiots, too stupid to make it in a world that asks for genius. I lead them into one final deal that blew up most of their operation. When he says that his team got killed, he is not talking about lives being eradicated but about careers beings finished. As far as I am informed, most of them were arrested by the police and the few who didn’t—like him—were on the run.

“Didn't even leave a fucking trace,”  he adds. “You know I should just deliver your sorry ass to the police! But would those bastards believe me?”

Probably not, I think to myself, tightening the grip around my gun. I don't want to shoot this guy but the way he keeps gesturing around with his own gun while rambling worries me.

“You,” he hisses, now pointing at me with his empty hand. “You're a fucking asshole. A clever asshole, I'll admit. A sneaky asshole.”

He sighs and shakes his head.

“Not leaving a single trace of yourself,” he repeats. “It's like Leonard Miller never existed. What do you call yourself now? Clark, isn't it? Interesting choice.” 

Clark actually is my real name, but Charlie doesn't have to know that. I have used different names in the past, changing my identity every time I got involved with people like him. It's better to be on the safe side, especially when the plan is to leave everything behind once the deal was closed.

Whatever Charlie did to find me, it cannot have been easy, and it would be good for me to know how he did it.

“How did you find m-”

I’m interrupted by him yelling and coming at me with his hand up in the air.

I get ready to fend off his weak attempt at an attack, but I’m distracted by a flurry of movement behind him.

“Liz, no!”

She ignores my warning and jumps at the guy from behind, not realizing that he is holding a gun in his hands. He grunts in surprise when she starts choking him by closing her frail arms around his neck.

What the hell is she thinking? 

Even to a sick and weakened man like him, she is not much more than a  nuisance, and he shakes her off easily, pushing her away from himself with such power that she stumbles backward across the room.

Then, he turns around and points his gun at her.

“Okay, the little missy first,” he says, and lucky for me, he saw it necessary to make this little announcement because it grants me with the one second I need to get between him and her.

Everything happens fast: a split second that decides on who is going down and who isn’t.

I jump forward, grabbing the arm with which he is holding his gun and bend it. He gives in surprisingly easy, but only to point the gun at me instead.

The shot echoes through the house and a sharp pain shoots through my left torso right after I manage to land a precise hit on his temple with the barrel of my gun, achieving what he couldn’t. The guy collapses down on the floor as if someone drew all the life out of him with one breath.

“Leonard!” I hear Liz squeak behind me.

She tries to support me when I sink to the floor.

“The gun,” I urge. “Get his gun!”

“Leonard, you are-”

“Now!” I interrupt her. “His gun! Get it!”

She reluctantly lets go of me and hurries over to fetch Charlie’s gun that has slid a few feet across the floor. She hesitates for a moment before she picks it up, but thank God, she does get it into her hands.

I look over to the guy to make sure that he is unconscious. He is lying on the floor with all four limbs spread out around him like a starfish. I don’t know if it’s coming from my punch or if he hit his head when he fell, but there is a small river of blood traveling across the floor.

Liz hurries back to me. Her light bathrobe is soaked in blood on one side of her waist. My blood, I hope.

I am down on my knees, pressing on the wound to control the bleeding as much as I can.

Liz gets down on her knees next to me, her eyes wide with horror.

“Oh my God, Leonard,” she breathes. “Are you okay? Will you be okay? Is it bad?”

She puts her hands on my shoulders and looks at me with the sweetest horror and worry I have ever seen in anyone’s face.

“That’s a lot of questions at once,” I try to joke, but she just shakes her head.

“I haven’t even started, trust me,” she says. “I’m going to call the police! And an ambulance.”

She wants to get up, but I hold her back. “You can’t do that.”

She frowns at me.

“Leonard, get over yourself!” she says. “I’m not going to wait until this maniac wakes up and let you bleed to death in the meantime.”

“What will you tell them?” I ask. “About you being here.”

She hesitates. “What do you think I should tell them?”

“Robbery,” I breathe. “The guy broke in, wanted to rob-”

Shit. My vision darkens, and I feel sick and dizzy.

“It's okay,” I hear Liz's voice coming from afar. “Don't worry, Master.”

The fact that she calls me Master makes me smile, even in my painful vertigo.

“I’ll figure something out,” she promises.

It's the last thing I hear her say before I lose consciousness.

LIZ / Epilogue

Six months later

If it weren’t for him, nothing would be the way it is today.

Leonard is walking next to me, the tallest and most handsome man around. He wears his suit and bow tie like a perfect gentleman. Only the thin lines of his tattoo peeking out at the top of his collar are a reminder that he is not like everyone else around here.

He is scarred, dark, and twisted in his own little way—and I love him for that.

William Bishop's business and family name was saved from a total disaster thanks to Leonard. I am the only person who knows about that and it comes as no surprise that my mother and my sister still don't like him.

Fair enough. I prefer it this way. I will never be able to please them or be the person they want me to be; why would I choose a man they approve of?

We enter the church among a crowd of other guests, some of which are casting us curious looks as they must have heard the stories. The story of how I ran away from home and was saved by Leonard who found me running around by myself more than a week after my disappearance and took me in and tried to convince me to return to my family, just as that crazy bastard broke into his house.

How anyone could believe that story is beyond me, but they did. My family asked me once where I had spent the week, and I told them that I went to a motel upstate before I drove back but was unwilling to return home just yet. I told them that Leonard ran into me and found me in a confused state, only taking me with him because I strongly refused to go home.

It is a strange story, but not too strange for my family and the police to believe. Besides, the entire neighborhood was too busy coping with the fact that some crazy guy with a gun—a man who was wanted by the police, no less—broke into this paradise of bourgeois boredom and tried to kill one of them.

I’m the only person who knows why that guy, Charlie, went after Leonard because he told me everything. But for everyone else, this was just a random coincidence. He could have broken into any house, but he chose Leonard’s because it is so remote from most of the others. A simple robbery attempted by someone who had nothing to lose.

“So, here we are,” I whisper as we take our seats in a place that neither of us feel we belong to. “And you’re still here.”

“I am,” he says, stroking along my upper thigh, dangerously close to a place where no hand should be seen inside a church.

He told me what his plan was, all of it. I insisted on visiting him at the hospital every single day and every minute I could be with him.

He was stubborn, boy, was he stubborn! He didn’t accept me being there and kept pushing me away, refusing to speak to me and reminding me that he is bad news.

“Are you really?” I wanted to know, and that’s when he snapped and told me everything. About his former business, the kind of people he used to be involved with, and about his plan with William Bishop.

He is working as his broker to prevent him from starting a joint venture with a drug cartel to invest in a hotel complex that he could just as well invest in by himself. William didn’t know that the company that was so eager to start this business with him is a drug cartel; all he saw was a great opportunity to join in a giant business that would profit him more than doing this on his own would. The cartel wanted to pull him in for his money and his name and thus increase their territory by working with one of the big fish around.

“A bad boy turned good,” I whisper, and Leonard looks at me with an amused smirk.

“Is that what you think I am?” he asks.

“Obviously,” I say. “I mean, what you’re doing is using your acquired knowledge on those bastards to save an innocent man, his business, his family, and with that, my family, too. Isn’t that right?”

He shakes his head.

“Good guy, huh. I might have to punish you for saying that,” he whispers. “Just so you remember.”

He casts me a dark look, causing my heart to jump in inappropriate ways.

I reciprocate his look with a sassy smile.

“You're practically an angel,” I tease him.

He narrows his eyes.

“You're in a feisty mood today,” he says. “I might have to resort to your favorite philosopher's advice to remind you of who I am.”

I raise my eyebrows in question.

Leonard leans in closer, his lips close to my ear as he whispers: “
When thou goest to a woman, take thy whip
.”

I blush. “Nietzsche.”

“Exactly,” he whispers while his hand travels along my inner thigh.

I instinctively close my legs, hoping that no one notices his inappropriate intrusion.

He’s not a nice guy, not soft-hearted and dewy-eyed. But he has strong convictions. He never fired the gun he owns, even on that day when it would have been so easy to kill Charlie.

I am equally overcome by horror as I am with love and adoration every time I remember that scene. That moment when Leonard threw himself between a gun and me, not thinking about himself for a second. All he wanted was to save my life.

Yet, he wanted to run away once the deal with William Bishop was sealed. He’s too used to being on the run, even though he doesn’t have to be anymore. It’s in him, still. But somehow, he is still here, and I have a feeling that he will be for much longer than he originally planned.

I take his hand and our fingers intertwine in a strong grasp.

Of course, he had to let me go that day. He lost consciousness, scaring me for a few moments before he opened his eyes again when the police and ambulance arrived at his house.

His watchful eyes were following me the entire time, worried that I might tell them the truth about me being there. I'm sure he anticipated to be locked away that day, not expecting that I might lie for his sake.

But I did lie. Not for his sake, but for ours.

I gave them a crazy story about what had happened, and came up with all of it on the spot. I’m still proud of that.

I could have told them the truth and let them lock up another lunatic.

But this is my lunatic.

I’m still wearing his collar, but it is a different one. It is one that we chose together, one that I am choosing to wear. Of course, my mother had to point out that my silver “choker necklace”, as she called it doesn't go well with my dress, but that doesn't stop me from wearing it with pride. It feels strangely liberating, and there is no leash attached to it. 

Unless when we’re playing.

Playing captive is so much better than being one even though, sometimes, I catch myself missing those times. That haunting desperation of not knowing, really not knowing what will happen to me.

The horror, the fright. There’s a certain attraction to it, still. It will never be the same because Leonard is no longer just my Master and owner.

I own him just as much as he owns me. He’s my partner. My lover.

My twisted lover.

The only man who ever gave me what I wanted, even though he gave me a little too much of it.

The man who holds my hand in a tight but tender grip while we witness the wedding ceremony of my older sister. Both of us misfits in our very own way, sharing a dark secret.

The only person who was ever truly interested in me, who is just as addicted to me as I am to him, and who hates having to control his urges.

He isn’t normal, and neither am I.

We are perfect for each other.

The End