70
I spent the next few days locked in a cell.
Morning till night, over and over again till I lost count of how many days I'd spent in that tiny walls of a cell room. I never saw Dominic. They never said anything about him each and every time I asked.
The cell was a cold, unrelenting box, its gray walls closing in tighter with every passing hour. The air was stale, heavy with the smell of sweat and bleach. A single, flickering light bulb hung in the corner of the ceiling, its dim glow barely illuminating the cracks in the cement floor. A rusted toilet sat in one corner, its stench wafting over when the wind changed direction through the tiny barred window above it.
The bars of the cell were thick, painted in peeling black paint, revealing patches of rust underneath. Beyond them was the police station’s holding area—a room filled with the murmurs of tired officers, ringing phones, and the distant hum of a vending machine. Through the gaps, I could see a scuffed wooden desk piled with crumpled papers and cold coffee cups. Occasionally, a weary officer would shuffle past, glancing into the cells with disinterest.
The other detainees in the holding cells were a mixed crowd. A drunken man sat hunched on a bench, mumbling to himself while clutching a paper bag. A young woman, her eyeliner smudged, cried quietly into her hands, her dress rumpled from what I guessed had been a wild night gone wrong. A teenager, no older than seventeen, leaned against the wall, his hoodie pulled up, face shadowed. Most of them were there for a night or two, temporary visitors who were be bailed out soon enough.
But I wasn’t temporary. I was a ghost here.
No bail.
No family.
No friends.
Just...a ghost.
My body trembled violently, the cold seeping into my bones. Hunger clawed at me, sharp and unrelenting, but I couldn’t eat. My stomach felt twisted, knotted, as if even water would rebel against me. I was too weak to stand, too weak to even sit properly. I curled up on the freezing floor, my knees pressed against my chest, trying to stay warm.
Tears streamed down my face, trailing vertically down my cheeks. They fell and fell until my skin was raw and burning. But even the tears felt useless now.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him. Dominic. His smile, wide and boyish, the way his head tipped back when he laughed at his own stupid jokes. The way his shoulders quaked. His chest rumbled with laughter. I saw the way his eyes lit up whenever he looked at me, like I was the only thing that mattered in the world.
The memories were cruel, stabbing into me over and over again.
They didn't stop.
Everything I closed my eyes, I could just see him.
Starving.
Quivering.
Cold.
Numb.
Weak.
Yet, refusing to eat the foods I was provided.
On the third day, a male officer approached my cell. He was tall, with a buzz cut that revealed a shiny scar along his scalp. His uniform strained against his broad shoulders, and his sharp jaw twitched with impatience as he crouched beside me. The sandwich in his hand was soggy, the bread stained with something that was supposed to pass as mayonnaise.
“Don’t make me force this down your throat,” he snapped, his voice gravelly and irritated.
I stared at him, blinking slowly, my lips dry and cracked. I didn’t respond.
He pressed the sandwich to my lips, smearing it against them in a clumsy attempt to make me eat. Pieces of bread crumbled, falling onto the floor around me. His frustration boiled over, and he threw the sandwich down in disgust, cursing under his breath. The gate rattled as he slammed it shut, leaving me in silence once more.
Hours later, another officer tried. And another. Each one gave up faster than the last.
By the fourth day, a female cop appeared. She was in her forties, her dark hair pulled into a tight bun. Her sharp eyes darted around the cell before landing on me. She didn’t waste time. Grabbing a slice of pizza from the plate she carried, she yanked my hair, forcing my head back.
“You’re going to eat one way or another,” she snarled, shoving the food into my mouth.
The taste of grease and tomato overwhelmed me, my stomach rejecting it almost instantly. I gagged, retching violently. The pizza came back up as a vomit, the liquid splattering across her pristine uniform.
“Disgusting little—” she started, but she stopped herself, muttering curses as she stormed out.
I barely noticed. My body was trembling too hard, my head pounding with exhaustion and hunger.
Occasionally, they dragged me out for questioning. The interrogation room was suffocating, its fluorescent lights humming overhead. The walls were pale and cracked, with nothing but a table and two chairs separating me from the investigators.
“What’s your real name?” they asked, the same question every time.
I said nothing.
“Who were you and your boyfriend running from?”
Silence.
“Why didn’t you file a report when your apartment burned down in New York?”
I stared at them, unblinking.
And then the question they were desperate to have answers to:
“How can we find Tarkan Kaya?”
Vaughn.
The man who had made my life a living hell in the past thirteen years.
Real name: Tarkan Kaya. The 46-year-old mafia lord who ran an empire of horrors—child trafficking, illegal organ trades, arms smuggling, and human slavery. A man so untouchable he slipped through their fingers every time they thought they had him. The man my father had feared the most before his death. The man who had enough courage and gut to murder my family and Dominic’s — the Torres for a reason unknown to them.
They didn’t care about me or Dominic. We were just bait in their endless chase for the monster.
But they let my Dominic die.
After minutes of silence, I finally opened my mouth, my voice hoarse and broken.
“You think Dominic would’ve sat through this?” I laughed, the sound hysterical and raw. “He’d have gotten up and punched you all in the face for wasting time.”
The investigator slammed his fist onto the table, the sound echoing in the tiny room. He was a buffy man, dark skinned, shaved head gleaming beneath the fluorescent of the room. An ugly scar ran across his left cheek, connecting from the line of his lip, up to his ears as if a knife had been put through his skin. He looked like he had survived hell or worse.
“Enough!” he shouted, his face red with frustration.
I just laughed harder, the sound spiraling into something unhinged. My body shook, but it wasn’t from fear—it was from the fire burning inside me. They wanted answers, but all they’d get from me was silence. Because I wasn’t here to help them.
I was here to survive. And then, when the time was right, I would let Vaughn find me and destroy him.
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