Broken Promises

"Your fault... and I want you to see it. See with your own fucking eyes what happens when you choose to be holier-than-thou."

"Please, don't. I don't want him dead."

"But I do," came the acid reply. "You may not care he killed your wife, but he also killed my sister. He has to pay for that. She bled for half an hour in the car till the ambulance arrived. She suffered for over a month in the hospital before she died. He did that and, unlike you, I am not going to let it slide."

She turned to the bleeding man and tapped the pointed end of the knife against his face.

"You have any idea what it's like to be daughter of Russian immigrants in this country? You have no friends and everybody makes fun of your accent. I had one person I could turn to, who made me feel less alone and that was my sister. She was the only one who understood what I was going through and you took her away from me... from everyone."

Tatiana traced the end of the knife along John's face till she reached his temple.

With a flick of a switch, the room was bathed in a dull red. A red that lit one side of her face and obscured the other in darkness. She had returned to her placid expression as she loomed large over Roy.

"The consequences of your noble actions. A while from now, when he is begging me to end it for him, I will tell him that it's your fault."

The man grabbed Roy by the shoulder and forced him down on the chair. She turned back to her captive and placed the tip of her knife at the corner of his left eye.

"Let's start with the eyelids then, so that Mr Duncan doesn't miss a thing."

* *

It was hours later that Tatiana stepped out of the room. Her expensive dress was a mess. Splotches and streaks of blood zigzagged around the front. She was out of practice with this part of her job and it showed. The near constant screaming and pleas for mercy were distracting.

Her men had already requested for a crew to clean up the scene. Within a short while, no one would know of the atrocities that had taken place in the room or to whom they had taken place. Mr John Wesley Duncan would simply disappear, never to be seen or heard from again.

She descended the stairs to see a trembling Roy curled up into a fetal position on the couch where she had banished him a short while ago. However, it was not before the obscenely expensive lobster from dinner had been unceremoniously puked out onto the floor where they joined Mr Duncan's fingers... one at a time.

"I'm sorry I had to do that to you, Roy. I'll make it up later. I promise."

He continued trembling. She approached him.

"Come on. Get up. I'll drop you home."

"No," he forced out with some effort.

Something was wrong with him. Tatiana got on her knees and peered over his face. He smelled of something distinctive.

"No!"

He nodded and pointed under the couch. She reached down and retrieved a three-quarters-empty bottle of Scotch.

"I can't go home," he said. "I can't let Donna see me like this. Not again."

* *

"There's no booze in this room. I've had my men empty the cabinets. You need to stay here for now."

"What about the kids?" he weakly slurred.

"Don't worry about them. I called Chelsea Amaretto's Mom and explained how you had a sudden family emergency and would need to be away for a few days. She was only too happy to let the kids stay with her until then. They're probably asleep by now. Donna has soccer practice before school tomorrow."

"She's a Godsend."

"What were you thinking?" Tatiana yelled at him. "You've been sober for almost a year now and you flush all of that down the toilet."

"The screaming," he whimpered. "The screaming was so loud. I wanted to make it stop."

They stared at each other in silence.

"What happens now?" he asked.

"You stay here for a couple of days. You had a relapse. You're vulnerable right now. You need to get back to where you were in the evening."

"All I want right now is another drink."

"Here," she said, passing him a cig. "This will help for a while."

He took it between lips and sucked in anxiously.

"It tasted bitter at first. I almost couldn't drink it. As if my tongue had forgotten how it tasted. I wanted to stop, but my mind remembered what came next. I remembered how much easier it was after a few drinks."

"A few? You were practically in a walking coma."

Roy smiled weakly.

"Turn off the lights, will you? My eyes still hurt."

She reached behind herself and did so. The room was completely dark. The only light came from the one glass wall which opened out to the glittering skyline of Manhattan.

"How would you know?"

"How would I know what?" asked Tatiana curiously.

"How would you know what it feels like to lose someone and know they are never coming back? You need to be able give yourselves and have them give themselves to you until you are unsure where you start and she ends. That was how we were, me and your sister. The day after she died and every day since then, I wake up and there's this brief moment when I don't know who I am or where I am. I don't even control my hand as it slides across to the other side of the bed and all it feels is a cold sheet. That is when it hits me... all over again. Every single day."

Tatiana blew a ring of smoke outwards as she saw the pitiful form of Roy Saviano on the couch.

"Till then I'd been a social drinker. Parties, game night -- that sort of thing. After that, it became so much easier to cope after I had a drink. It didn't take away the pain, but dulled the edge."

"What about Joe and Donna?"

Tatiana fixed him with an accusing stare in the near darkness.

"Your kids needed you when Sofia passed. You think you were hurting because you lost your wife, well they lost their Mom. You should have been for them instead of drinking your days away. They were counting on you to step up and you let them down. You let Sofia down."

Roy looked stunned by the accusation. He stared at Tatiana with a look of incredulous disbelief.

"You were their only parent, Roy. You don't get to fall apart. You had to be twice the parent you were."

"I was drowning. With the cancer, we had time to prepare. We were ready to say goodbye. When she was in remission, it was like we had a second chance as a family to do everything we had never done before... and then suddenly... Sofia was gone. It's cruel to be shown hope only to have it taken away. It broke me, Tatiana. It just broke me."

He was doing a terrible job of holding back his tears. His knees were up to his chest and he wrapped his arms around them tightly.

"Look at me," she said. "We're going to get past this. You went through something traumatic just now and had one drink. You haven't fallen off the wagon just yet."

"I know, but that one drink feels like a gateway. All I can think of now is how much better it is when I'm not sober."

"You have a family counting on you, Roy. You don't get to put them through this again. Not now, not when we're so close to making it better for them. We're hardly a couple of weeks away from Saviano's reopening. Donna will need you to cheer her on every match of the play-offs. Joe has signed up for the school play. You can't miss all of that."

"I won't," he said hoarsely. "Help me."

"You're staying in this room until further notice. I have a man guarding the door, so don't even try to get out. I'll have my chef send up your meals. You can call Donna to make sure she and her brother are okay tomorrow."

She stubbed the end of her cigarette out on the ashtray and got up to leave.

"Tatiana, why did you bring me here? Why did you even think that I would want to kill another man?"

"Because of how miserable you sounded at her grave. I thought finding the man and giving you the chance to punish him would give you some much-needed closure. Maybe you would even like me for it."

"Like you for it?"

Tatiana held the door open and paused. She turned her face so he could see half of it against the lights of the metropolis filtering in through the glass.

"Did you ever wonder why I wanted to tag along with Sofia everywhere the two of you went? Did you ever stop to think why Sofia and I fought over who got the right to sit beside you on the school bus?"

Roy looked spectacularly dumbfounded at her words.

"Ever since the day you brought me and Sofia to your family restaurant for a meal and told us we could stay as long as we wanted, I have been in love with you, Roy Saviano. That day and every single day since then."

* *

"Before we toast our new partnership, I would like to present you with a prototype."

The elderly African gentleman with multiple medals pinned to his chest stepped forward eagerly. His hair had almost completely turned white with age. Tatiana nodded to one of her men who brought a large case and placed it on the table.

"Open it, General. I'm sure you will approve."

The General opened the case to see a black machine gun embedded in the foam with a cartridge of ammunition beside it. He held the gun in his hands and pointed it around the room.

"You have good taste. That baby has a lethal fire rate and fast reload."

"How many do you have?"

"A hundred thousand of them waiting in a warehouse right here. An equal number more on standby in the port of Miami. Not to mention a whole load of rocket launchers, body armour and more ammunition than a country your size could use in a year."

The General seemed pleased, pantomiming firing in an arc around the room.

"This will do nicely," he said. "You will have to excuse me, I am not good with numbers. That's why I have brought my son along to negotiate the price."

The tall black man in a three-piece navy blue suit stood up. He put on his glasses and looked at the document in front of him.

"Forgive me, but I see some scope for negotiation, Ms Tatiana. May we discuss further?"

"The boy is always so serious and cuts straight to the business," the General sighed. "Lighten up. Let's have a few drinks and then some stronger stuff. We can always discuss business tomorrow."

His son looked disappointed as he sat down. The waiter came with an expensive looking bottle and poured out three glasses. Tatiana and the older man sat down and raised their respective glasses.

"To us and the start of a friendship."

The General had already gulped down his glass by the time Tatiana and his son had merely touched theirs to their lips. They stopped and waited.

And waited, looking at each other from opposite sides of the table.

Just when his son was about to get tense, the older man broke into a terrible coughing fit. He grabbed his chair and wheezed violently, his eyes going wide before he slumped forward onto the table.

"Is it done?" asked the younger man. Tatiana felt for her guest's pulse before nodding in affirmation.

"You had me worried for a second there. I was afraid you hadn't used enough."

"Do I look like an amateur to you?" Tatiana shot back with a glare for good measure.

The two of them emptied their glasses into the ice bucket and turned back to the man resting on the table cloth. His eyes were wide open and bloodshot and foam had formed around his mouth.

"What happens to him now?"

"He will be found in the early hours of tomorrow morning in a back-alley in Hunts Points with so many drugs in his system that no one will ever know for sure what killed him."

"Drug overdose. It was the only way he could have died. He has a reputation for partying too hard and indulging too much. Had, I should say."

He flattened his face against the table to stare into the wide lifeless eyes of his father.

"You heard that, Dad? You will be found surrounded by filth and prostitutes and shot up full of drugs. Kind of like your normal life, except you'll be dead."

"Are you sure this was the only way?" Tatiana asked, pouring herself and her remaining guest some untainted wine.

"You have seen the news. You know what the mad fucker was doing. Mutilated bodies piled in the street. Entire families left hanging from lamp posts for days. It was drawing way too much attention. If he had half a brain, he'd forgo the atrocities and focus on the good stuff."

"The diamonds."

"Exactly," said the man. "We have such a good thing going and he has to jeopardize it by going around killing people because they are from the wrong tribe. I tried explaining to him that if there is NATO intervention, we will lose the mines, but do you think he would listen? No."

He took a sip.

"You hear that, you dead maniac. It's your fault you are dead. You brought this on yourself."

"What do you still need the guns for?"

"While most of the citizens back in my country will not question how and where he died, the hardcore loyalists will not give up without a fight. You might be see an increase in the violence over the next few months... but eventually things will settle down. I already have the support of the army and I have reached out to several of the moderate leaders from both parties who are also alarmed at my dearly departed father's actions. Within a year, no one will even care who my father, the great General Omandi, used to be."

"Are you going to be President?"

"Nothing so public. If there's one thing I've learned from how you do business, I'd much rather be the one who pulls strings behind the curtain. That's a long way away, in any case."

"To the future," said Tatiana. "Davayte vyp'yem za uspekh nashego dela!"

"I didn't get a word of that, but I'll toast anyway."

"Now back to the numbers, like you wanted."

"As you're probably aware, our currency is basically worthless and will take months to recover from my late father's spectacular fiscal incompetence. I'm afraid we will not be able to pay off the guns using it, like we had initially agreed. However, I have a better arrangement in mind."

"I'm listening," said Tatiana leaning forward with a smile.

"Twenty percent of the uncut diamonds from one of our most lucrative mines over the next twelve months."

"Monthly instalments... and maybe a little extra for what I did to Daddy dearest over here," she pointed out.

"Do you have a merchant in mind?"

"I know a few guys in Antwerp. They'll be in touch with you on how exactly you need to send them the cargo."

"I guess that concludes our business for today," he said, extending his hand. Tatiana shook it. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you."

"Likewise, but I have one more condition. No child soldiers. None of my guns end up in the hands of a kid."

"I don't understand, Ms Tatiana."

"I've seen the news and also my sources have reliably informed me that your army currently uses children, who should be in school, as soldiers. You give the poor kids guns and scare them shitless, knowing fully well they will be most useful clearing landmines. Well, that ends now. You will go home and tell the army to return every last child to their home."

"It's not that simple, I'm afraid. You see-."

"Then make it fucking simple," Tatiana said, taking a step towards the tall man. "If you need more motivation then remember that call that you made last month setting this whole thing in motion. I recorded it. If you do not do as I say, the recording and the transcript goes to your biggest newspaper. Let's see how many friends you have left then."

She looked over at the recently deceased genocidal dictator slumped over the table to underline her point. He gulped and merely nodded. His handshake was considerably less firm through his trembling.

Tatiana's phone began to ring. She held her hand up to stop him from leaving while she picked up the call.

"Hey, sweetie... Yes, you will talk to your Dad really soon. I promise... What? Can't you find it on the internet?"

The tall man watched in amazement as she cringed while talking on the phone.

"That's a problem. Hold on, I think I have a way out."

She lowered her phone and turned to her guest.

"My niece needs a five hundred word essay on The People and Customs of Another Country, and she has been given your home continent to choose from. Apparently their teacher is known for making sure none of the submissions are copied from the Internet. He actually checks all the assignments against internet search results using some sort of plagiarism detection software. He's old school that way, insisting on working in the library. But I have something better than a dusty old book. I have you."

Before any of this could make sense to the man, she turned her attention back to the phone.

"Great news, Donna. I have someone here who can help."

She held the phone out to him expectantly.

"I know it's a lot more than an average ten year old should have to do, but this teacher is a martinet. He wants them to have to do research on something they don't have a clue about just to show they can."

He still remained bewildered. Tatiana shook her head and tried a more familiar approach.

"Don't help her and I'll put that recording online anyway."

The future African powerbroker almost tripped over himself in his haste to get the phone in her hand. It was the most important bit of homework he had ever done.

* *

"Yes, honey, I will be pick you up from school tomorrow. You be nice to Mrs Amaretto. Goodbye, Joe."

Roy swiped the phone shut and sank back into the soft cushion. He had spent all of the last two days alternating from the bed to the couch and back again. He handed the phone back to Tatiana.

"Thanks again for doing this. I don't think I had it in me to prevent a full-blown relapse if I went home that night."

"It's my fault it even happened, Roy," she said plainly. "I brought you here to kill Mr Duncan and I made you see what happened to him. I'm sorry."

The word felt so unnatural coming from her lips. He would never have guessed that the mighty Tatiana might have that word in her dictionary. She didn't seem capable of being apologetic.

"Are we not going to talk about it? You left an elephant in the room last night."

"What's there to talk about? I had a crush on you since I first met you."

"Did Sofia know?"

"No way. You won't believe the lengths I went to hide it from her. She didn't have a clue and neither did you apparently."

A serious storm had built outside. A layer of clouds had concealed the night sky. The glass wall was assaulted with an impenetrable gunfire of rain. Lightning flashed in the distance, snakes of dazzling white light reaching down and spreading across the sky. The wind howled impotently at them as trees swayed in the breeze at the park just across the street.

"It didn't make it hurt any less though."

He stared at her blankly. She calmly flicked open her lighter and sparked a flame. Her face was lit in the dim glow of the fire as she lit another cigarette.

"Remember your fourteenth birthday? You and Sofia were already pretty serious by then. She made you a card and baked you a cake. I remember how happy you looked. You probably didn't notice that I made you a card as well and a cake, albeit a smaller, less fancy one. Baking was never my thing."

Roy tried his best, but could at best conjure up fleeting glimpses of what Tatiana was talking about. She spoke in vivid detail.

"Junior Prom. By then, I already had a reputation and had come close to getting a juvie record, but I still held out hope you would ask me. I had absolutely no idea why, but I did. You were head over heels in love with Sofia as she was with you. She had already named your future children. Of course, you asked her. And you showed up on time in a white tux and a rented limo. Do you know who didn't go to the prom? Me."

He watched in awe as she paused to suck in her dose of nicotine.

"You and Sofia danced while I sat in my room admiring Vasily's latest artwork on my ankle and imagining what you would be doing to her. Would you take her back home and fuck her? Why wouldn't you? If I was in her place, I would have demanded it from you."