Kenzo Book 4

KENZO

Guilt can be a difficult emotion for many to process. It can arise abruptly and seemingly out of nowhere, but it often follows major life events, when people have changed and the finer details are overlooked.

People may not realize what they’re missing until it’s gone and emotions become harder to understand.

Even with physical changes such as skin stretching or hair growing, these tangible outer layers of ourselves are never entirely understood; they simply mask much deeper feelings that can eventually manifest in the form of guilt.

What the fuck, Kenzo, nobody understands what you’re talking about. Shut up!

That day when Rebecca vanished, it was like a hole had been punched through my heart. Even now, I feel that emptiness deep in my soul. The morning she was gone, the weight of what I had done came crashing down on me.

For weeks, there were no words to express how lost and helpless I felt. I wanted so badly to turn back time and find her safe again, but no amount of wishing changed the truth.

The people who should have protected her—her father and mother—acted as if nothing was wrong, and it made me sick with rage.

We had agreed beforehand that they would keep her home safe, and they still didn’t uphold their end of the bargain. How could they do this?

The morning following her disappearance, it truly hit me—I had failed her. All life seemed to be vacuumed from my core, and I remained speechless for weeks.

I even found myself wanting to revile Rebecca’s parents for their empty display of being her savior.

Their efforts were just a front, though; I had hired them to do this as part of our agreement before shipping her home. Truly spiteful creatures!

Money speaks louder than words. They never did care about that daughter of theirs, and still, they pretend that she was perfection in their eyes. Lies…

I paid that son of a bitch three million dollars in cash to look after his own blood, and he didn’t do the job correctly.

Look, she has disappeared, and he’s crying to the authorities. He doesn’t give a flying fuck about her or her whereabouts.

The days seem to be passing her by in a rush, with no sign of her business deals resuming anytime soon.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t have a partner to help her manage the company, so I have to take over and do my best to prevent it from going bankrupt.

It is almost too much for me to bear; I can’t stop myself from wondering what would have happened if I had known about her plans beforehand.

Would I have stopped her from embarking on that voyage? Of course, there is no doubt about that. My anger runs deep knowing that I haven’t been able to do anything about it.

Disappearances have become an all-too familiar thing to me, and I’m completely fed up with it. First my parents and brother, then they came back only to disappear again, now Rebecca has gone too.

It’s completely maddening that her parents didn’t even notice she was missing until hours after she left! No note or text, nothing! Of course, they must be involved with this, what other explanation is there?

This whole situation has been so unbelievably frustrating.

Where are you, Rebecca? Fuck, where has Grayson gone?

The feds have no clues regarding the mysterious disappearance of Rebecca after she had been seen boarding a ship. My team and I were unable to locate the vessel, raising suspicions that it never existed in the first place.

When I requested to view the footage taken on the day of Rebecca’s disappearance, I discovered my operatives had apparently forgotten to mention they actually saw her get onto the ship.

Is someone intentionally hiding pieces of evidence? Are my men concealing something from me? Are Rebecca’s parents somehow involved? Who can be held accountable for this mystery?

I had to erase Rebecca from history. If my organization is involved, it is crucial for her name to not appear in the records.

I discussed my plans with Lorenzo, who at first hesitated but eventually gave his consent to help safeguard both Rebecca and my organization—well, what used to be my father’s organization.

Despite the efforts of law enforcement, the case involving Rebecca has been unsolved for months. With no suspects and dwindling information, I took it upon myself to conduct a deeper investigation into her disappearance.

Unfortunately, with limited evidence, the feds were unable to come up with any substantial lead, so they eventually gave up. Nevertheless, I am determined to find the truth and bring justice for her.

In this troubling time, the feds have yet to provide any helpful solutions or leads into the disappearance of Rebecca and Trish. Currently, I have numerous records stowed away in a secure location.

Adding to the misfortune, Trish vanished without explanation nine days after Rebecca went missing. Their case appears peculiar as the number nine crops up now and again.

While Rebecca and Trish are vastly different, there remains a strange emphasis on nine in their mystery. After much contemplation, I recognize that the digit nine can be flipped onto its head to create the number six.

An intriguing mystery surrounded Rebecca when she paid nine dollars for a ship ticket at nine o’clock in the morning, yet later that same evening my men swore they had seen her leave hours before.

My team of Yosef, Scar, and Roger were all watching Rebecca that day. Could one of them have secretly been involved? Could it be possible they watched a clone instead?

Who is responsible for this misleading disappearance? The answer remains unknown.

The bank where the funds for her ticket transferred over to had one digit for the account number, sort code, and CCV. Yes, you guessed it right, nine three times.

Account number: 9

Sort code: 9

CCV: 9

The account that was used to receive the money was shut down minutes after the transaction went through, and the IP address was blocked moments after the account was closed.

At Trish’s house, there was a piece of paper with the number nine in red blood. I had it checked by Mike, and it was cleared of any fingerprints, and as you can only guess, there was no identity found.

The blood could never be traced to its rightful owner. A dead red rose was placed inside a vase directly behind it on her wooden desk.

The person/s responsible is devious and one step ahead of us at all times.

While the police have been dealing with inquiries and searching in plain sight, my men and I have been searching the black markets, dark areas where information slips past your average person, landing in the most obvious of places.

The underworld. My playground, my home, the only world that I understand completely.

The number nine is connected to the dark world, and the card holding triple nine is a death warrant. How did I not see all of this unraveling in front of me before Rebecca was swiped from my hands?

I feel lost, spiraling in a whirlwind, asking myself if I managed to miss out on any of the details that were left behind in small clues. Granted, Rebecca was acting strangely, but Trish seemed more than fine.

It’s confusing me, making me scratch my head because I’m at my wits’ end with it.

I’ve checked the files filled with paperwork, her house, workplaces, my club, the bar she started off in years ago, Trish’s parents, her parents, and even the pissing coffee shop and still not a damn thing.

“I need to heal. I want to feel what I thought could never be real. I want to let go of all the pain I never thought I could feel. I’ve felt it for so long,” I mumble to myself.

I look up, and Dante enters the room, passing me a full unopened energy drink to stay awake.

Singing the song in the background I didn’t know was playing, I sigh. It explains all of my pain and tells the truth about my emotional state of mind.

My office is a pigsty—papers flung across the floor, stacks of cover folders on every seat, and half of the shelves torn to shreds because I lost my shit and smashed them up when I was raging.

“I know, mate. We will find her. I promise you this now. There has to be one fuck-up somewhere, we just need to find it.”

I yawn, feeling the effects of being sleep-deprived overtaking my exhausted body. My eyes are heavy, stinging as I yawn again. The struggle to keep them open is real.

Opening the can of energy drink, I take a long swig of it and lean on the palm of my left hand. I didn’t only let Rebecca down, but I failed Trish and Grayson too.

I should have kept my eyes firmly on them, but I looked away for literally one second and fucked everything up!

Throwing the file off the table, I jump up to smash my fist against the wall. Dante slides to the side and pushes me back with all his willpower so that I can’t let my anger out.

“What the fuck’s happening with you, man? Punching the fuck out of your walls is not going to solve this. Go and get some sleep and start again tomorrow.

“You may see something you’ve missed when you put a fresh set of eyes on it. Look after yourself because when you do find Rebecca, she is going to need you more than you realize.”

Dipstick is right, and I know that he is. I hate to admit it, but I’m going to have to let defeat win this one.

Leaving my office, I go and grab a shower before falling on top of my bed. I twist and turn for hours. At least I’m trying. That’s all that counts here.

TRISH

My surroundings are black. The room is completely silent. There is a freezing cold breeze drifting across my legs. The effects are withdrawing, and the shivers are repetitive.

The happy world that once used to pass me by is now nonexistent.

Nobody is aware of the disappearance, and the sadness is present deep within me. Anger courses through my boiling blood as sadness wraps itself around my stone-cold heart.

That pitch-black darkness of a man who watched every single move that I made was never found. I told my dad. I gave him fair warning.

“A man keeps following me,” I told my dad. My dad wafted his hand.

“You're being paranoid,” he said.

Was I? No, I don’t think that I was. Look where I am now!

The fear that I felt was there for a reason, and still, it was ignored until it turned into a real-life situation.

One that could have been avoided, it could have been fought against, and still the blindness and blocked senses of those who were supposed to protect me failed to alert.

I gave them fair warning. Everyone thought I was going insane. No, I was not. Stupidity at its finest, and now it will be regretted for a lifetime.

“Finally awake.”

My head sways from left to right, my eyes are stuck shut, and a banging headache pairs with my other symptoms. My head is pounding. Aching is all that I can feel in my body from the drug wearing off.

My arms, my legs, and my back. All of them ache. Limbs that haven’t been moved in over six hours are waking up. The more they come back to life, the worse they feel. Tingling makes them impossible to move.

Lifting my head up, I struggle to peel my eyes open. I do manage to get them open for a short amount of time before they close again.

There’s a shadow figure in the center of a doorway that has a yellow light in the background. The person is built up, his eyes look black, and his hair is short.

I know he is in fact a man because he had a deep voice when he spoke, and I couldn’t mistake him for a female. Pushing myself up so that I’m sideways, I lean on my hand and look down at the tatty white dress I am wearing.

It has been covered in a thick layer of dirt and hasn’t been washed in weeks. I don’t want it to touch my skin, but the fabric is needed to cover up down to my knees. I feel grubby in it.

Grabbing the hem of the dress, I move it down to my knees and look back up at the door, to find that the man has gone.

Searching the room, I see that it is empty and move back to sit up with my back against the wall. At least the man cannot attack me from behind.

“You coming or what?” The voice startles me. It feels as if my heart is in my throat as I look around the room again. I can barely see anything. Forcing my eyes to stay open, I see the man approaching me.

Walking over to the hospital bed where I sit, the man grabs my elbow in a firm grip. The hold that he has on my elbow could snap my arm with one simple movement.

The floor is concrete, and my eyes watch as the man pulls me to my feet. Cold. Guiding me across the room, the man throws me down onto a chair, bruising my lower back in the process.

The chair is handmade; the wood is solid. No wonder it hurt when my back hit the wooden spindles.

A plastic plate is laid down on the wooden table next to my chest. I can see that he has placed chicken and pasta with sauce on it. All the foods have been separated.

The man doesn’t speak as he walks around to stand directly next to me. I pick up the spoon and mix the chicken, pasta, and sauce together because my hunger is talking, and I need the strength if I’m going to attempt to escape him.

The spoon is ripped from my trembling hands, and a fist connects with the table. I flinch and look up at brown eyes.

“The food was separated for a reason. Never play with your food,” the man shouts at me.

I don’t know why he is angry with me. I was going to eat the food. I haven’t refused to touch it. I was behaving myself.

Nodding my head, I stare at the wall directly ahead of me. The man lays the spoon down on the wooden table, and I pick it up again. Scooping up the pasta with the spoon, I shovel it into my mouth and chew.

“So, you have been brought to me because I need something from you. Don’t ask me what that is because I won’t tell you. Once I have finished my mission successfully, I will let you go. Until then, you are with me. Understand?”