A Long Way From Home

Chapter 6: In which the stage is set for Something More

Mansion: Toronto, Canada—Saturday, 10:00am


“Viktor! Viktor!”


“Could you please explain—“


“—how is your cousin?”


“Are the reports true?”


“Is she your girlfriend?”


Layla was stunned. For one washed-up pop-star, who knew there would be so much paparazzi involved! Maybe Trina was right. Maybe he was popular somewhere. She sat in silence, unable to move even when Alex the Manager had opened the car door. That’s how she thought of him. There was Frank the Kidnapper, Viktor the Pop Star, and now Alex the Manager. Who’s next? she thought wryly. Joe the Plumber?


Alex looked at her expectantly, but she still couldn’t move. What was she getting herself into? She felt a hand on her head and turned around. It was Viktor. Move, he mouthed, gently pushing her towards the door. The minute she got out she was swarmed with reporters: all with their own stupid questions and assumptions. “Hey!” She wanted to yell “I’ve got questions, too, okay? So just shut up!” But instead she just kept looking forward, feeling Alex’s arm around her shoulder as he walked her to through the front door of an enormous mansion.


Layla was floored. The ground beneath her was oak, and there were two white pillars on either side of the semi-circle-shaped floor. The wood ended a few feet before her with a small step leading to the white-carpeted sitting room. A few blue love-seats and modern-looking mustard sofa loosely bordered the most amazing coffee table Layla had ever seen. There were two layers of glass, and in between the two layers were two glass fish: one of fiery orange hues and the other of shades of blue. They encircled a small ball, kind of like yin and yang.


Alex led her to the mustard-colored sofa. “I’ll go make you some hot chocolate,” he said warmly. Layla just nodded, numb. The shock of the past few days suddenly began to hit her. She had been kidnapped, she’d chopped off a man’s finger, she’d been beat up, spent at least 20 hours walking, only to pass out in some lake and end up…God knows where with a $40,000 price on her head. Before she knew it, she was shaking and tears began to well up in her eyes. Alex had already disappeared, leaving a very confused Viktor to take care of her.


“Umm…” he said uncertainly as she buried her face in her knees and continued to shake. “Umm…could you…maybe…um…don’t cry. It’ll be fine.” What did he know? No, everything would not be fine, everything was just going to continue going down the freaking drain. She began to sob.


Minutes later there was a warm blanket over her body and someone was holding her tight. “It’s okay,” Viktor whispered, his voice betraying a certain level of embarrassment and confusion. “Just…well, I guess you could keep crying. They say it’s therapeutic, don’t they?” Layla couldn’t help but snort in laughter. Who was this guy? Therapy. Puh-lease. Well, she couldn’t let him get the wrong idea of her. She wanted to lift her head, tell him “I’m sorry, I usually don’t lose control like this,” and then wait for hot chocolate like nothing had happened, but then she realized in embarrassment that her nose was running. “Could I…get a tissue?” ended up being the wimpy, sniveling response that came out of her mouth, but she couldn’t help it.


She wasn’t sure how long she sat there: Viktor holding her tight, a cup of hot chocolate eventually thrust into her hand, crying and crying over the pain of what had just occurred and the fear of what would happen next.


Vaguely in the corner of her mind she heard the doorbell ring and Viktor soon walked in, hand-in-hand with some woman she’d never seen before. Surely if Viktor had a girlfriend Trina would have a dartboard of her face. Alex the Manager had an even more shocked look on his face. His jaw dangled somewhere between his knees, his tongue picking up non-existent lint from the clean white carpet.


“Viktor,” he said in shock. “Who—” Viktor led the woman up to Alex.


“Alex, this is my girlfriend, Clarice. Clarice, this is Alex, my manager.” Alex the Manager seemed almost...angry. In the back of Layla’s mind something was enjoying the show: taping this scene so she could tell Trina every detail.


“We’ll have to talk about this later. That and this whole ‘cousin’ thing. Right now I have a meeting with the boss to explain her.” Alex gestured vaguely in Layla’s direction as Viktor walked him to the door.


“Just tell him my cousin is an extremely sick person and she came to visit me and fainted and it’ll be okay.” Alex nodded and stepped out.


Cousin? Layla finally stirred out of her reverie. What was with that? Even the reporters thought she was his cousin. She wiped a final tear and cleared her throat: trying to come off as her usual strong self.


“What’s with this cousin thing anyway?” Viktor looked down.


“I had to fill out the registration forms, and I couldn’t exactly say you were a kidnappee, so I just said you were my cousin.” Layla looked up in shock.


“You know? Both of you?” Clarice nodded.


“Viktor heard everything that horrible man said to you and he called me. Don’t worry. We’ve called the police and everything will be okay.” She crossed over to Layla’s side and put an arm around her. Layla stiffened and stood up suddenly. Her mind racing.


“You did WHAT?” The blanket fell to the floor, as did the empty mug of hot chocolate. She began to shake again, backing up slowly away from the girl on the couch. “No. No. You can’t. He’ll kill them. He’ll KILL THEM!” Every bit of security she had been feeling flew out the window. She sat down suddenly, her head level with the orange fish. Anger rushed through her, giving her strength. She stood up, her voice booming through the living room.


“Who asked you to call the police? Huh? I didn’t ask for your help! You’ve just killed my parents! Are you stupid?!” She was vaguely aware of the woman on the couch standing up, yelling back.


“Viktor was trying to help. Don’t yell at him! Where do you think you’d be if he had left you at the hospital, huh? You’d have been sold by now! He saved your life!”


“I may have been sold, but at least my parents would have been alive. He said he’d kill them if I told the police. What am I supposed to do now, huh?!” She was inches from Clarice’s face, which mirrored her own anger.


Suddenly, Viktor was between them, trying to lower the tension in the room.


“It’s okay, Clarice. She has a right to be concerned. Calm down.” His hands were on Layla’s shoulders, his eyes looking directly into hers.


“Don’t worry, okay? There’s no way he could know I told the police, he doesn’t even know I know he kidnapped you. Come on, I’ll show you on the computer: there’s plenty of news about you, but none about either of your parents being in trouble.”


He led her back towards the front door and to the left: through the white pillars and into a lush library. Mahogany bookshelves lined the walls, a warm Persian rug covered the floor: beanbags littering the space. Near the back of the room was a large mahogany desk with a laptop on it. Viktor sat her down in the chair and clicked on Internet Explorer. Layla stared at the screen before her, slowly calming herself down. Then, the doorbell rang.


Viktor left the room to peer through the peephole. His voice echoed back through the library, registering vaguely in the back of Layla’s mind. It was grave and commanding. “Clarice, in the kitchen. Now.” She pouted.


“I thought we were going to go public.”


“In the kitchen,” he repeated, “now. It’s that kidnapper.”


It was Frank.


Mafia HQ: Toronto, Canada—Friday, 1:00pm


The Italian Mafia had had roots in Canada for a long time. Members of the crime circle had fled to the country after World War II. The so-called “Siderno Group” had been especially influential over the Toronto area, and though mafia activity was no longer as wide-spread as it once was, there were still a few groups here and there.


Frank was blindfolded and driven goodness knows where to meet with the Boss’s assistant. The Vincenzo family had been Frank’s ticket to creating the operation: for a good-sized slice of the pie, of course. They were the only ones Frank could go to in a situation like this. He had been under the Vincenzo’s wing since Layla’s escape, afraid she would talk to the police and he would be arrested. The hospitality hadn’t been free: the deal was that if they helped him find her, they got half the profits, if they didn’t, they helped him escape prosecution.


“What’s the problem?” asked Don once they’d both sat down at the table in the dimly lit room. The growth of the family in Canada had done away with any trace of Italian accent when he spoke English, even if they all could still speak Italian.


Shaking, Frank filled him in on everything. Though he tried to be brave, the Vincenzo’s scared him. There were too many stories of people who got involved with the Vincenzo’s, only to be sucked into the Vincenzo money-making machine. When he’d finished, Don nodded slowly. “It’ll be easy to find if anyone tells the police. Was there anyone who overheard your conversation?” Frank paused, afraid of saying the wrong thing.


“That pop-star, Viktor, right? He was nearby, but he didn’t seem to have overheard anything.” Don slipped a smart-phone out of his pocket and hit a few buttons. A few murmured Italian sentences later, Don put down the phone.


“Someone will call me if she or Viktor mention anything to the police. In the meanwhile, what are your plans for her?” Frank froze. Hadn’t they discussed this before? Was this some kind of test? He proceeded cautiously.


“Well, wasn’t the plan to ship her west and send her to Russia?” Don shook his head.


“Listen, we knew when we saw you that you were an idiot. There’s no way you could have pulled of anything more profitable, and you weren’t even able to pull this off. But if you’re gonna make us a bigger part of this, the Boss’ll want bigger profits. We need to blow this up.” Frank was hurt, not to mention confused.


“H-how do you get bigger than a kidnapping?” he asked, almost afraid of the answer. Don smiled.


“Debt bondage, slavery, it has many names. It usually involves shipping the merchandise to a country where it knows no one and can’t speak the language. They work and pay you the money. It’s a steady stream of income: the best you can get.” Frank flinched as Don got up from his chair and paced the length of the small, dark room.


“We can’t ship the girl anywhere else; the Boss doesn’t wanna give any more funding for this project. He thinks it’s a waste of time.” He paused, his face hidden in shadow. “He thinks I’m a waste of time. If this project doesn’t beat expectations, I’ll be terminated. I haven’t been making the family a lot of money lately. And if I go down,” He put a hand on the arm of Frank’s chair and brought his face inches from Frank’s nose. “You do too. So we’ll need to make her work here. If we put her on the flight to Russia, she won’t be in our control anymore: the Russian mafia will be quick to grab her first.” Frank instinctively reached for the pills in his pocket.


“S-s-so, how am I supposed to do it?” He lifted the hand with the missing finger. “I can’t just force her into it. She isn’t that scared of me.” There was a ringing noise and Don brought his phone to his ear. There was a long silence then Don hung up.


“You’ll have some leverage now. Viktor was seen entering the police office. The officer he spoke to has been dealt with. Now you just need to use this to leverage the girl. Go tell her you’ll do what you promised, unless she agrees to slavery.” Don smiled knowingly as he sat back down in his seat, propping his feet up on the table.


“The feistiest are always the hardest to break. They have their own ideals and they fight hard to keep everything just the way they like it. But the minute you smash one of their little ‘values’,” he snapped his fingers, “they break completely.”


Frank turned to go, not entirely sure he bought it. Then again, he wasn’t entirely sure he bought this either: this whole “debt bondage” thing. He closed his eyes and thought of a condo in Florida, all the power money could buy, everything he had every desired… Maybe this wasn’t too bad. With the Vincenzo’s on his side, how could it go wrong?


“And Frank,” Don added with a smile, “do package it up all nicely for her. Tell her if she pays off the 40,000 she’s free to go. If she’s too much trouble once she finds out the truth, we can always sell her.”


That’s how Frank ended up at the Viktor Mansion. The pop star answered the door and led him to the study, where the girl was huddled on a big leather chair behind a mahogany desk. Frank crossed the big patterned rug, his confidence building with every step he took.


“You told.” he said with a smirk, enjoying the way the girl squirmed. Served her right for chopping his finger off. “And what did I say I’d do if you called in the police?” The girl froze in horror.


“It-it wasn’t me, I swear. It was Viktor. I didn’t tell him to do it! Please, please, don’t do anything to them!” Frank shot a glance at the pop star in the corner. Viktor had his eyes on the ground, but didn’t look as scared as the girl before him.


“I can’t exactly go back on my promise,” said Frank. “Won’t I lose face? What’ll they say about me? The kidnapper with mercy? I don’t think that’ll work.” Layla jumped out of the chair, her face grave and pale as she stood before him, shaking.


“Please. I’ll do anything—anything.”


“Anything?” said Frank with a smile. “Well, I think something can be arranged. You don’t want to be sold, and I want my money. You want your parents alive, I don’t wanna go through the red tape of killing them. What if you pay me? $40,000 for your life, $10,000 each for the lives of your parents. $60,000 in all.” The little color still in the girl’s face drained from it.


“I-I don’t have that kind of money.” Frank waved a hand.


“I’m sure you can work for it somehow. If you want, I’m sure I can find a nice place with a job opening. I can even arrange for your paycheck to go directly into my account.” Layla wavered and nearly fell, but Viktor stepped in and put an arm around her.


“No. She’ll find a job on her on. God knows where you want her to work and you’ll exploit her if she doesn’t know how much she’s making. But how do we know you’ll keep your end of the bargain? How do we know you can even do what you say you can? We can’t make any of these kinds of deals unless we know you’re being honest.”


Frank wanted to laugh. This guy was trying to tie a kidnapper to honesty? Personally Frank would have been happy to keep his end of the bargain and let the girl go after the $60,000 had been paid. But he was sure Don had something else up his sleeve. He turned his attention to the two in front of him.


“Oh, you’ll see what I can do all right.” The girl jumped.


“No, you don’t have to! I believe you!” Frank shook his head and wagged the missing finger at her.


“No, no, it’s necessary. Self-defense, if you will. I know your power, and you’re about to know mine.” He smiled slightly. “I’ll see myself out.” With that he walked out of the mansion and into the mafia car waiting for him outside.


Mansion: Toronto, Canada—Saturday, 11:30am


Viktor could feel Layla shaking under his arm. He wanted to say something, but he wasn’t sure exactly what. Finally she broke the silence by falling to the floor and hitting him with her fists.


“How could you?” she asked in quiet hurt, pushing him away as he tried to calm her. “How could you?” Her voice cracked as it grew louder. “You killed them, you know that right? You killed them, you idiot!” Her fists were flying faster against Viktor’s chest now, each strike pushing a needle deeper into his heart.


He knew it was his fault. If he hadn’t challenged the kidnapper’s power, if he hadn’t gone to the police, heck, if he hadn’t picked her up in the first place, none of this would have happened. The guilt buried itself deep in his chest, as he placed his arms around her and tried to hold her close. She struggled against it, her cries bringing Clarice running from the kitchen.


“Stop hitting him!” Clarice yelled, pulling Layla, fists still flying, away from Viktor. “You think you’re the only one in danger? What do you think will happen to him now that he’s involved in all of this, huh? Stop being so selfish!”


Layla was in no state to answer. Viktor watched as she sunk to the floor without saying a word. He ran over and pulled the distraught Clarice away. She looked up at him.


“How much danger are you in?” she asked, her eyes overfilling with worry. He put an arm around her reassuringly.


“I’m more concerned about you. If this guy finds out you know, your life could be in danger, too.” Clarice pulled away in annoyance.


“We’re not going public, are we?” Viktor tried to smile. Was this really her only concern: whether or not the world knew how they felt about each other? He had no desire to announce their relationship to the world simply to have Frank turn around and threaten Clarice’s life. Then again, if the man knew when Viktor had gone to the police station, the Clarice secret would not be a secret for long. Besides, he’d already committed to this and, to be honest, he was looking forward to being completely honest with everyone. Plus, it would make Clarice happy. And in the end, that was what really mattered.


“No, let’s do it. We’ve gotten this far, I don’t want to back down now.” Clarice smiled and put her arms around his waist. He returned the embrace, but then paused. There was an empty spot on the floor where Layla had been, and a sniffing was echoing throughout the room. He turned.


There, behind the desk, was Layla, staring at the old picture of her family picnicking in a park which accompanied an over-dramatic news article documenting her disappearance. Clarice, who had calmed down considerably, ran over to her side and put an arm around her, adopting an assuring, almost bossy tone of voice.


“Viktor, can you go make some soup or something? Layla’s just been through a horribly strenuous experience and then to top it all off, that man comes in here dropping ridiculous bombshells.” She lowered her voice and enunciated quietly in Viktor’s direction. “I think she’s in shock.”


In the kitchen, Viktor poured the kettle water over the instant soup powder. He wondered what Layla would choose. What kind of “wrath” was in store for them? Well, for Layla, he corrected himself. But he felt responsible for her well-being. After all, he did get her into this mess. His mind raced with all the horrible possibilities, but none were as bad as what was to come.