Surviving the King

Masquerades

–Daniel–

“This is all the information the FBI has gathered” I asked incredulously.

The same two agents who seemed stoic and unbothered before were infuriatingly unmoved this morning. I understood professional demeanor, but this hit me the wrong way.

“Jada?” I called out calmly.

“Yes, Mr. Galindo?” her warm voice bloomed from my desk phone.

“Can you find our last CIA contact and set a meeting as soon as possible? Mari’s kidnapping is more of an international concern, I believe.”

I could have sworn Jada uttered “Thank God” under her breath before answering directly. “Absolutely. I’ll also see if DHS has any sway.”

Oh, that caused a flicker of emotion to dance across Frick and Frack’s faces as they gathered their file folders and marched out. The redacted intel they had lacked any direction. This worried me because I knew for a fact that our government was interested in keeping Mari out of enemy hands, but had not approached us.

“Mr. Galindo? You have a visitor,” Elena said from the door. Since there were clearance protocols I wasn’t too concerned with who it may be. My youngest child walked in. “Edgar!”

“Hey, Dad,” he said quickly outstretching his arms for a hug. “Any updates?”

“I was just thinking of how quiet the alphabet agencies have been since this happened. We’ve had to reach out to everyone so far.”

Edgar nodded in solemn understanding. “Jaime should be flying in this afternoon. We can dig into this if need be.”

“We may need to.”

“But Dad, the odds seem bad,” Edgar’s voice spilt a little as he began to blink with realization. “Quiet isn’t good in these situations. If these people wanted ransom we’d have been contacted.”

“I know,” I said solemnly. “But I can’t lose both my girls.”

-Mari-

I’d been strategizing how to get out of the room. Though Mr. Robot seemed to have a distinct lack of dislike for me, that did not make him friendly nor trustworthy. But he was my only contact with the outside and the windows and door were vandal proof. No accessible hinges or knobs and the glass was mutli layered security glass that hadn’t so much as gotten scratched in my hours of effort.

I detected movement from behind what I now knew was a vaulted trap door. Quickly I covered my eyes with the expensive, yet insecure blindfold just before my “guest” entered.

The difference in footfalls caused me to sit bow straight as a different presence drew nearer. My senses were going wild from familiarity. The perfume, the fluid pace of steps, and the immediate sense of comfort hit me. Then the alarm bells went off with realization.

“Mom?”

I was almost hyperventilating when I felt the blindfold slip off. Sure as s**t, my very alive mother stood in front of me with a void look in her eyes. So many emotions washed over me, but I dammed up the flood and jumped to my feet and moved away defensively.

“Who are you?” I growled.

“Oh, Mari. Don’t you recognize your own mother?”

More alarm bells. Mom never shortened my name. And I clocked this person’s height to be off by as much as a half inch. I snatched a pillow off the bed and began ripping the pillow case.

“Whoever the hell you are,” I said staring the imposter in the eyes as I made quick work of creating a ligature, “you have about four seconds to leave this room upright.”

With that the meticulous copy of my mother laughed. Almost the same laugh. Almost the same mannerisms. This person was magnificent in the deceptive arts, but they didn’t count on my not turning into a pliant ball of dough immediately. They weren’t good enough and I could tell that pissed them off.

“At least I can leave when I want, you snotty bitch.”

Done. I whirled into a roundhouse and my foot connected to her head before her lip unfurled from the “ch” in the last word she uttered. She recovered quickly and tried to counter with a punch, but I blocked and headbutted and sent her teetering backward.

She let out an enraged scream and used the lost ground to take run at me. Inevitably, the imposter was too mad to notice the pillow case scraps and once her Chanel mary janes made contact she immediately lost traction on the marble floor.

“What the f**k!” Mr. Robot had shown up and was pulling me off the intruder.

I punched him in his kidney and he still managed to put me down almost gently. He groaned and then moved to help the woman from the floor.

“‘What the f**k’ is definitely my line in this scenario,” I seethed. Enraged tears were brimming in my eyes. “I couldn’t be more pissed. But I’m still clear headed enough to recognize psychological warfare. Get that cheap, dysfunctional copy of my dead mother out of this room while you have a chance.”

My chest was heaving, but my voice was even and loud. Mr. Robot gathered the woman and was carrying her out when he said, “I’m sorry.”

It was his real voice and I recognized it. And the tears began pouring before the door shut behind him. Of all the feelings I had run through in the last fifteen minutes nothing compared to the betrayal I was feeling then.

“How could you?!” I screeched in agony.

-Corbin-

My heart was breaking as I heard Mari scream from behind the vaulted door. I dropped the Vivienne knock off on her feet and shouted for her to walk herself. The narrow corridor wound to the main hall and the air seemed thin.

She recognized my voice. Mari knew. It was going to ruin my plans to have to beat the impossible odds of regaining her trust.

When I rounded the corner into the kitchen I was face to face with dear old Dad. In an already tumultuous mood, I had no patience for his physical presence on top of the unnecessary mess that I was currently dealing with. I also didn’t care to be yelled at for the latest developments.

“Not even a ‘hello’ for your pops?” Tony said incredulous with his arms outstretched in faux disbelief.

“Hi,” I said flatly before downing a shot of vodka.

“What’d you screw up now?” My head snapped up and before lava ran off my tongue, Dad continued. “Nevermind. I’m here to move Mari to another location. The situation has changed and the ransom stakes have gotten dicey.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean Dominic was banging some accountant in the Galindo’s camp and he finally got some intel out of her O face.”

I resisted the urge to ask how long that took. “And?”

“And they’ve had significant losses that will make them cash poor. Turns out kidnapping the head of a security firm makes them look bad.”

“What the hell did you expect?” I seethed. Mari had already made note of this and it was a common sense conclusion.

“Ay,” Tony raised a finger. “None of this would have happened if you’d married her like you were supposed to. Pack up the broad. I’m flying out in twenty minutes.”

The thought of facing her when I knew she was probably shifting from agony to anger was frightening. Had I been offered the choice of sticking my arm in a wood chipper or going back into the nursery right now, I’d be happily without my left arm right now. I grimaced at the idea and started back down the hall, mind winding through dozens of contingency plans as I went.