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Cecily

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

“Finally, Sleeping Beauty!” I hear a man’s voice say in the distance, and I struggle to open my eyes.

In my sleepy mind, I remember a similar situation, when I woke up in a hospital.

I open my eyes, but it’s not a nurse with me. It’s Cage.

Scared, I look around, and when I see the dark walls of what looks like a shack, I try to get up.

“Don’t do that, or you’ll get sick. We need to think about that little baby inside your belly.” Despite his words, there is not a hint of concern on his face. He sounds scornful. “Cecily, Cecily, you’ve gotten me into trouble.”

“Where are we?”

“Beautiful, that is the least important question of all but rather whether you will be with me or against me.”

My heart accelerates. The man’s eyes look like those of a madman, but instinct tells me to stay calm. “Why would I be against you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because you’re in love with the Greek? In fact, please satisfy my curiosity: what the hell does that man have, apart from the status of a billionaire, obviously, that he can make women fall in love with him as quickly as flies are caught in cobwebs?”

I listen to him in a trance, as if I were in the middle of a nightmare, trying to put the pieces together, and I quickly understand that this man who, for me, was a harmless executive at Kostanidis Bank, is actually a madman who’s brought me to an unknown place.

I’m lying on what appears to be a bed, with a blanket over my body.

While he speaks, I discreetly look around the room, trying to find a way out, to understand what is happening. I’m a fan of investigative TV shows. In fact, I’m addicted to them, and I try to remember how victims, who were kidnapped and survived, acted.

My phone , I think, only to realize two seconds later that I forgot it in Dionysus’s office.

The memory of him, of our last conversation, opens a hole in my chest, but I don’t allow myself to sink into despair. It’s not about the two of us anymore; it’s about protecting the baby I’m carrying. I need to get out of here.

“Even Sue,” he continues, “with all her experience, couldn’t resist. In the end, she gave in, that bitch.”

“Sue? Are you talking about Dionysus’s ex-wife?”

“Ah, Cecily, my delicious redhead, don’t underestimate me. You know perfectly well who Sue is. I had a hard time understanding who you were. You appeared suddenly, out of nowhere and then, in the blink of an eye, you were in the Kostanidis family, not only as the brat’s nanny, but as the future wife of the Greek tycoon and with an heir on the way. Much smarter than that dead bitch.”

“Cage, you’re not making any sense! Can you explain to me what’s wrong?”

“First, tell me: are you with me or against me?”

“I don’t know exactly what you’re proposing, but what do you think?” I ask, silently asking my son’s forgiveness for the lies I’m about to tell. “Dionysus discovered my plans and kicked me out of his life. I need an alternative. I invested heavily in this move. I can’t leave empty-handed.”

“I thought you were Keith’s friend. That’s what I discovered when I investigated you. You don’t want to be with Joseph anymore?”

“I don’t need him. As you said, I have a legitimate heir, a true Kostanidis, on the way.”

“Tell me your story, and I’ll tell you mine.”

“There’s not much to be said. Keith asked me to check that his son would be okay if something happened to him. He never told me that he attacked her. He painted himself as a man in love. I believed him. He thought Sue was untrustworthy. What he unfortunately didn’t know was that neither was I.”

“Didn’t you love him?”

“I loved him, yes, but no more than myself. When I arrived in New York and approached the Kostanidis family, I saw an opportunity. Why should I take care of a child that wasn’t mine if I could try to insert myself into their house and win over the rich man just for me? I staged a hit-and-run, he fell like a ton of bricks, but my bitch of an almost-sister ruined everything when I was practically on my way to the altar.” I feel like vomiting for saying that, but my desire to survive is greater than my conscience.

“Intelligent. I would never have thought it of you, Cecily. You have the face of a saint. Who would say you weren’t?”

“Now it’s your turn. Tell me your story.”

“It’s long. Do you feel thirsty or hungry? I don’t have much here because I didn’t expect to bring you here today. It was a stroke of luck finding you. I was collecting my things to leave the bank, until I saw you, through the cameras, arriving. I assumed you were on Dionysus’s floor.”

“Leave?”

“Oh, yes.” He rolls his eyes. “A whore accused me of sexually harassing her. I was sent home because they put me under investigation. Anyway, I wasn’t going back to the bank. I already planned to move forward with my plan to kidnap you. You going there today just made things easier for me. Want another pillow?” he asks, as if he didn’t just tell me that he planned to kidnap me.

It doesn't take me long to conclude that there is a lot of evil in Cage, but there is madness too. He acts like he didn’t drug and kidnap me. Like he is really concerned for me.

These nuances scare me even more than if he were completely evil.

“No, thank you.”

“I know it’s uncomfortable, but don’t worry. We won’t stay here long.”

“I’m fine. Tell me your story, Cage.” I force a loving tone, almost as if I were talking to a child, and at the same time, in slow movements, I release the watch from my wrist, because I remember that it is linked to my phone. Dionysus told me I should never take it off as it could be tracked. I thank God for having obeyed him.

I know he hates me right now, but he wants our child. When he realizes I didn’t make it to the penthouse, he’ll try to find me.

“I went to the same college as Keith,” Cage starts, and I look at him. I can’t hide my surprise. He notices. “I told you it was a long story. We became close because I was even poorer than him and not very popular. I saw him get rich without trying hard. Lucky him. He was generous, that’s undeniable, and he helped me buy my first car and pay off my student debt. I was two years ahead of him. I graduated much earlier. If it wasn’t for the help he gave me, I would still be paying my loans.”

“Where does Sue fit into this story?”

“Calm down, girl. So hasty! Come on, even though we were out of college, we kept in touch. He was in his final year, and despite having a lot of money in the bank, he continued to lead the same mediocre life as always. As the saying goes, whoever was born to be a gecko never turns into an alligator. Well, if he didn’t want to have anything to do with the money, I did. I tried to convince him to invest in a business. He didn’t want to. The idiot believed he could change the world.”

“Yes, he was a fool. He thought everybody was good.”

He shrugs. “It was a good thing he was so na?ve. Anyway, I inserted Sue into the play. What I, as a friend, couldn’t achieve, perhaps a pussy could. She was a recent graduate, too. A whore to the last strand of hair, who would do anything for money. Very ambitious. We eventually fucked, but I knew that to get her commitment to my plan, I would have to make her fall in love with me. Believe that I loved her too.”

“Did Keith know about your involvement?”

“My sweet Cici, do you think we were amateurs? We planned for Sue to meet him at the place he frequented most: the university cafeteria. Seriously, the romance between the two was so quick that I almost felt sorry for Keith. He fell in love with her in the blink of an eye. They got married, and shortly after, the idiot began to sound like a broken record, talking about his foolish idea of giving away all his assets. He was getting rid of money very quickly with these donations, which would hinder our plans for a profitable divorce.”

“ Divorce?”

“Yes, at first we didn’t plan to kill him. Sue wasn’t so bad when it all started.”

He has just stated, without showing any remorse, that they killed Keith. If I had any doubts that he’s crazy, they’re gone now.

“Go on.”

“Keith was giving everything away at lightning speed. Sue became pregnant in an act of pure desperation. Who knows, with an heir on the way, maybe the idiot would come to his senses? It didn’t help, so we had to take drastic action. Keith needed to die.”

Even without knowing the details and that there was someone other than Keith’s ex-wife involved in the plot, what he says doesn’t surprise me, as I had already imagined something like that. “And then you killed him.”

“Me? Who do you think I am, Cecily? I never hurt a fly. I just plan.” He sounds almost offended, and that shows me how out of touch with reality he is.

“All good. Pardon me. She killed him.”

“That’s right. She pushed him off the balcony. The police believed the word of the poor pregnant woman who was attacked. They investigated half-heartedly. What we didn’t know was that Keith had already donated all his money at that point.”

“Wow, how stupid!”

“Isn’t it?”

“The only thing I don’t understand is how you two ended up in New York.”

“I didn’t live in California anymore, even before Keith died. You know how it is: never put all your eggs in one basket, as Warren Buffett would say. We were still lovers, but I monitored her from a distance, visiting on weekends. I got a job at the Kostanidis bank and was earning well, but not as much as I wanted. My plans for Keith went wrong, and I had an accomplice pregnant woman, the widow of a dead useless person, nothing kept in reserve, and plans that would never come to fruition if I didn’t find a solution.”

“And then you found it?”

“Better than I imagined.”

“Dionysus?”

“At first, he wasn’t the one we targeted. Even for me, intelligent and ambitious, it was aiming too high. I thought about getting one of those rich old men to fall in love with her, to play her as a lover. You know what it’s like, starting all over again, like it happened with Keith.”

“Did you want a new husband for her?”

“Yes. And if he was old, even better. His death would not arouse suspicion. Sue spent almost every day at the bank’s door, walking with a stroller as if she needed help. She was discreet, blending into the crowd so as not to attract the attention of security guards. There’s something to be said about men: we’re all fools. We cannot see a woman in need without the hero instinct kicking in. Fate intervened. It wasn’t a rich old man who showed up to help her—it was Dionysus. Sue had that whole good girl look, sweet, submissive. Fucking fake. I didn’t believe she would be able to deceive him, but somehow, she did. However, she ruined everything by falling in love with the Greek.”

“She fell in love?”

“Yes. She didn’t want to see me anymore. We argued. I threatened to reveal everything. If she thought she was going to do well on her own, she was very much mistaken. I told her I would kill her if she betrayed me. I didn’t need to. The idiot got herself killed all on her own.” He smiles and folds his hands in his lap. “Now it’s your turn.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t lie to me, Cecily. You know you didn’t tell me the whole story.”

“What?”

“The night she had the accident, Sue told me she was going to meet Keith’s best friend, who had contacted her. I only discovered recently that the friend was you.”