Fiend, page 4
Zef nods. “Good. Keep me apprised. Do we have any reaction yet from Garrison? Too soon, probably.”
“Well…not exactly,” Sally says, almost choking on the words. A wave of discomfort ripples around the table. The three know something they haven’t shared—yet.
Ajax takes over. “Garrison has already spoken to the press. He said he thinks Berisha is behind the whistleblower’s death. Though he has no proof—naturally.”
“It makes him sound like a fool,” Walter adds reassuringly. “Unhinged. A nut with an axe to grind.”
Zef nods almost imperceptibly, but his face starts to redden. “So, he says we had something to do with it, does he?” His jaw clenches, tight as a fist. “Maybe now is the time we finish this thing…Finish what he started. Garrison and his goddamned accusations. We should be done with it, once and for all.”
There’s a groan to Zef’s right hand. Dardan has slumped forward on his forearms like he’s having a heart attack. Sally starts to pour a glass of water for him, but Dardan waves it away.
“For God’s sake, haven’t we done enough to Andy Garrison?” Dardan cries.
Zef draws back. There is a warning in his eyes. “Garrison is the one looking for trouble. He’s the one who sent this whistleblower.”
There’s a standoff as they eye each other icily. There is more to the story with Garrison, some of it known to Maris, but a part that has never been explained to her. Another Berisha family secret.
When it becomes apparent that neither man is going to speak, Walter leans toward Zef, hands out, trying to appease. “Zef, I don’t think that would be wise to go after Garrison at this time. This grudge between you two is well-known…If anything should happen to Andy, it would definitely raise some suspicions. Better to make him look like the one who’s seeing things that don’t exist. Let this thing play itself out.”
Walter is practically pleading with Zef, who grinds his teeth and continues to stare out the window. But the lawyer is right. Now is not the time. Now it would only draw attention. Possibly reopen an old, painful wound.
Her father looks in her direction, holding her eyes a second longer. What do you think, daughter?
Maris shivers. This is her chance to score a second win, for him to see her be bold, as bold as he longs to be.
Of the Berisha siblings, she is most like Zef, after all.
But she’s also smart like Zef. Shrewd. Now is not the right time. And it does her no good to spite Dardan if she ends up being wrong.
So, she answers, “Walter’s right, Dad. Better to wait and see.”
Zef orders everyone out, just like yesterday, but reaches for her hand. “You stay.”
For the second day in a row, her heart swells. This could be the start of something new. Maybe Zef realizes that she is a wasted resource. Perhaps he sees that Dardan will never be the leader that the family needs him to be, but Maris, on the other hand…She can barely breathe, she’s so happy. Finally.
When everyone has left and the door has finally clicked shut, Maris turns to her father. “Yes? What do you need?”
His demeanor has changed. He stares at her from under hooded brows. “I want to thank you for your advice the past couple of days. You have done well.”
She can’t help it. She beams. “It’s my pleasure, Dad. I’m glad I could be of help…”
It was nothing, she plans to say. You’ve made me so happy. I never thought you’d—
But he cuts her short. “I have been thinking. You want a greater role in the company. I have an idea.”
Her heart pounds in her chest. This is it, finally. What she has been waiting for.
Recognition. Yes, validation. God damn it, she’s earned it, hasn’t she?
Zef looks directly into her eyes. “It’s time you married. I need a grandson. That is what you can do for Berisha that Dardan cannot.”
It’s like she’s been slapped. Maris jerks back. “What?” Her heart sinks, but this is not a new argument. She has known her entire life that she is expected to have children. “I’m not ready yet. I’m not even seeing anyone.”
Her insides jerk because she’s just told a little lie.
He pats her hand. “Don’t worry about that. We will find you a husband. Your mother and I have been talking…”
“I don’t want you to find a husband for me. I can find my own spouse.”
He looks at her suspiciously. Obviously, he has doubt about her on that front. “This is about finding the right match. This is not your choice alone, Maris. This is for the good of the family.”
Like she’s a princess in a medieval fairy tale. Her marriage will be some kind of strategic alliance. But unlike other little girls, Maris never wanted to be a princess.
There’s only one thing she has wanted her entire life, and that’s for Zef to love her. To see her.
“I can give you so much more than grandchildren,” she croaks. “What about what I want? Or does that not matter?”
But Zef has already turned to his computer, his attention occupied with other things. He’s already dismissed her.
Chapter Five
Maris stumbles out of her father’s office, her fingers already flying over her cell phone. She needs to talk over this latest development with her younger sister, Nora, the only person she can speak to freely.
This particular establishment is their favorite new place to meet, a members-only club in Midtown not too far from Berisha headquarters. It only recently opened its doors and so is not well-known, which allows Maris some privacy. Videotaping is discouraged at the club. The management wants to give its famous members space.
Maris finds Nora waiting for her in one of the private rooms in the back. Nora is the youngest of the Berisha siblings. They are three years apart, evenly spaced like matryoshka dolls. Dardan, the oldest, is now twenty-eight. Although Nora is twenty-two, she looks too young to be drinking in a bar, but she has been drinking in public since she was a teenager, bartenders only too happy to accommodate a beautiful Berisha. Like Olga, Nora is lithe and willowy, and she has Dardan’s silky hair, the kind that turns blond in the summer. Arched brow, a beautifully angular face. She hides her ballerina’s figure in baggy trousers and oversized blouses and clunky boots. She had her bangs cut short and straight across, which Olga says makes her look like a simpleton. Nora is under strict orders not to cut it like this again.
Maris is the only one of the siblings who looks like their father. Solid, built like a wrestler. With a swarthy skin tone and coarse black hair, eyebrows like overgrown hedges. In this life, girls need to be beautiful. Why couldn’t she have taken after you? Zef had once said to Olga right in front of Maris. Everyone knew Zef had married Olga to make beautiful children. To improve the bloodline, like they are racehorses or something. Who still believes in that vile eugenics shit? Maris has never forgotten, her father’s callous words burned into her memory like a cattle brand. She thinks of it every time she visits her aesthetician. She will only ever be as attractive as money can buy.
There is a cocktail waiting for her. A yellow martini, probably a lemon drop. Nora probably could tell from Maris’s text that she could really, really use one.
Maris drops her coat and bag onto a chair and reaches for the glass. “He’s dead.”
Nora looks up from her drink. “Who?”
“The whistleblower. They found him hanging from a light fixture in his hotel room.” Maris takes a big mouthful. It goes straight to her head, fizzing like fireworks. She leans into the feeling. If only she could wash this day away.
Nora lifts the olive skewer out of her martini and taps it against the rim, watching drops of gin fall back into the drink. “So, Zef listened to you. Good.”
A man is dead because her father listened to her advice.
She was fine with it yesterday. But today…Maris shivers and takes another swig. What was it that Zef said before she left the office? We’re going to find a husband for you so you can do as God intended. That is how you help Berisha. She gulps down more alcohol. God help her, she’s not going to become another Olga.
Nora leans closer to her sister. “No, really—good for you, Maris. You know how Dad feels. No women in the boardroom. But he took your advice over Dardan’s. That’s a good sign. Keep it up. He’ll see, eventually, that you’re the one who should take over. Not Dardan.”
“You should have seen Dardan! So smug.” Maris gulps down half her drink. “You won’t believe what he said to me: ‘You’ll have blood on your hands.’ ”
“Like we don’t already,” Nora harrumphs.
Oh no—not this argument. Maris doesn’t want to have this fight again with Nora, not now. She sips and says nothing, hoping the moment will pass.
Nora rolls her eyes. “We were born with blood on our hands. It’s who we are. That’s our brand, right? Our logo should be blood splatter on a field of white. You don’t get to be one of the richest families in the world without spilling a little blood. And it didn’t just happen in the old days. We still do it today—”
Maris wishes her sister would stop, but she barrels on like an out-of-control freight train. Of course they do bad shit. She has her suspicions—the secret files, family fixers—but she doesn’t want to get into this with Nora.
“—and for what? How much money do we need?”
And this is precisely why Nora isn’t allowed inside the premises at headquarters. Her naivete is breathtaking. Little social justice warrior, marching in protests, giving money to all these lefty organizations. But it’s not like she refuses her trust fund. Her politics don’t extend that far. “Oh, please. You’re blowing it out of proportion.”
“Am I? We make the Sacklers look saintly by comparison.”
“Just promise me you won’t talk like this around Zef.” Because she did once. Nora had come back from a protest over an accident at one of their Bangladeshi textile mills where children were maimed. She took a handful of leaflets complete with pictures of bloodied children and burst into his conference room to throw them in Zef’s face. He slapped her so hard that he knocked her to the ground. Stood over her, called her ungrateful, and threatened to cut her off if she didn’t come to her senses. Maris had expected Nora to run away to prove her indifference to money, but her instinct for survival turned out to be greater than anyone gave her credit for. Nora would never be able to survive on her own, and her only friends are sponges and druggies who come to wallow at her trough.
Maris looks sideways at her sister. The only reason her father is pushing her to make babies is because he’s given up on Nora. It’s probably breaking his heart because, unlike Maris, Nora would produce beautiful babies. Nora’s children would be fair-skinned and fair-haired, tall and perfect like the gods. If Nora had her shit together, Maris would be the one Zef ignored completely. Nora’s children would be the backups they’d have on hand in case something happened to Dardan or he was unable to have children.
Maris supposes she should be grateful that her sister is a fuckup.
Nora bumps Maris with her elbow. “How did it happen? The whistleblower? How did he die?”
“I told you. He hanged himself.”
“So, it was suicide?”
Maris doesn’t know how to answer that. You couldn’t rule out suicide, but the facts as she knows them don’t line up behind that outcome. She’s going to be optimistic, though. “It’s not clear. We’re waiting on the medical examiner’s report.”
Nora toys with her glass. “I bet Dardan doesn’t think so. I bet Dardan thinks it was the protector.”
Impatience nibbles at Maris like a mouse. She’s not sure why Nora would bring this up. Sure, there was a time when Dardan believed in the family blessing, also known as the protector. But that was a long time ago. He was very young when he claimed to have seen it, and he only brought it up to Maris once, when he was very upset. Tearfully, he described what he’d seen one night when Mother and Father were arguing. The air felt like it was made of electricity. And he claimed there was smoke, so much smoke, like a bonfire…But as for what he’d actually seen besides smoke and electricity, he wouldn’t say.
And the next morning, Dardan took it all back. Said he had made it all up for attention—which might have been true but was exactly the kind of thing Dardan hated, absolutely hated, to admit.
Afterwards, every time Maris tried to ask about it, Dardan would tell her to drop it. Finally, when he was in college, he practically bit her head off. There is no protector, he said. Every bad thing that happens—it’s Dad. We don’t want it to be, so we blot it out in our minds. Blame it on something else. But it’s Dad.
These memories put Maris in a bad mood. “Yeah, you’re one to talk,” Maris says acidly to her sister. “When you were a baby, you were convinced the protector was your imaginary friend. Insisted that he came to your room and talked to you at night.”
Nora sucks in a mouthful of her martini.
“You scared the servants to death. Zef wanted to send you to a shrink.”
Nora swallows. “Well, everybody needs a friend. Even if it’s imaginary.”
“You were such a freak,” Maris chuckles. Still are. “So pathetic.”
There is no such thing as the protector, she reminds herself one more time. This is the twenty-first century. There are no boogeymen—but she can’t help but wish just a tiny bit that there were. Because a protector would make things so much easier. You could make problems go away merely by wishing.
She could make Dardan go away. He doesn’t deserve to be the custodian of the family legacy.
Wish away Zef’s insistence that she marry and turn into a baby factory.
She could even make her father go away and inherit his throne. Send her mother to a convent for gentlewomen who were no longer needed.
That’s what she needs. Someone to carry out her wishes.
Yes, a protector would come in handy just about now.
Chapter Six
Then
Nora sits on an ottoman, twisting her hands. She’s so anxious she doesn’t know what to do with herself. It’s Sunday early evening, and Zef is due to arrive for dinner with the family any minute. In the background, she can hear servants laying out the dinner service in the dining room. Aromas from the kitchen rise up the back staircase. They’re having lamb, heavy on the garlic. Olga is upstairs putting on her finishing touches. Earrings, lipstick. She was humming to herself when Nora crept by the open door to her mother’s bedroom.
Nora has made a decision: she’s going to confront her father. Tonight.
She wanted to do this a month ago, but he hasn’t been around. He missed several Sunday family dinners in a row. Couldn’t be helped, Olga said. And then he went on a business trip overseas, caught a bad cold, and that kept him away another week.
Tonight he is expected. Everyone else is off getting ready. Dardan, in his last year at St. Albans, is practicing a discussion he wants to have with Zef. He’s been accepted at NYU but would like to go to Baruch College instead to follow some girl he likes. There is no way Zef will allow this, but Nora gives her brother credit for trying. Still, she makes a mental note to get to Zef before Dardan.
Maris is having one of the maids help her with her hair. She thinks their father will like her better if she’s prettier, and the sad thing is, she’s right. Nature is not on her side, however. Never has been. She’s in high school now, which means the stakes have risen. Her classmates are mostly of a type, a cross between ballerina and giraffe, all long legs, knobby knees, and giant eyes. They have personal stylists who take them shopping and design “looks” for them. But Maris cannot seem to master their world, even though she spends as much as they do on stylists and personal trainers, clothes and makeup.
Her poor siblings. Dardan is being crushed by the weight of his destiny. Every day, it seems, he is more anxious. He argues with himself, and these diatribes have become increasingly critical and frustrated. He scratches himself raw in places that are hidden under clothing. He thinks no one knows that he’s slowly unraveling, but Nora does. After years of watching him, she can practically hear his thoughts leaking out of his skull. He’s looking for an escape; anyone can see that—except Dardan.
And then there’s Maris, torn between being true to her own desires and wanting to please Zef. Nora wants to tell her sister that she’s a wonderful person and that she’s fine as she is. She doesn’t have to kill off everything that’s decent about her just to make their father happy. Their father will never be happy.
Maris is not a bad person, not yet, but she has the potential to be. Nora doesn’t want to see that happen.
She hears the elevator doors open. Zef is home.
She leaps up and rushes into the foyer to meet him. He’s in his Sunday clothes, a navy cashmere polo and khaki pants. Reading glasses sliding down his nose. He looks harried and tired and distracted. He smiles slightly when he sees her.
“Nora!” Despite the greeting, he doesn’t hug her, and at twelve, she’s too big to pick up. She’s shot up the past year. She’s taller than Maris and nearly as tall as Dardan.
“Can I talk to you about something?” she says as sweetly as she can.
“Now? Dinner—”
“It won’t take long.”
Zef is about to object—I need to talk to your mother first or It can wait until after dinner—but lets her drag him into the anteroom by the elevators. He sits on one of the brocade-covered chairs while Nora shuts the pocket door. What she has to say is for her father’s ears only.
“What is it?” Zef asks.
Nora takes a deep breath. He thinks she’s going to ask about a silly thing, a school trip or some trinket. He has no idea.
“Father, I know about”—here, she stumbles; she can’t bring herself to say it to her father’s face—“the secret. What you’re hiding.”
