Four Years Ago
Victor felt queasy. The pit of his stomach turned and churned, a feeling made all the more uncomfortable by the rough road he and Eddie found themselves driving on. He and Eddie had met a few days prior at Jaren's large estate. The meeting between the three men had been long and drawn out, as the plan concerning Victor's wife, Samantha, was finally underway after a full six weeks of scheming.
The plan wasn't so much complicated as much as it relied on a number of outside factors. As a stay at home wife, Samantha didn't have any work related ties that might get curious as to her disappearance. However, she had family and friends who had to be convinced. The trio had decided on a fake death overseas. Jaren bribed the police chief in Sao Paulo into attesting to the fact that a woman matching Samantha's description had been killed in a mugging that went awry. The coroner had also been coerced into signing off on the autopsy, though he was a bit more resistant to the idea. He disappeared soon after. Amazing what you could do with a little money and a dead prostitute. Samantha was grabbed after she and Victor walked along one of Sao Paulo's beaches one night, Samantha believing it to be a romantic gesture on Victor's part. Bound, gagged, and stuffed into a small van waiting on the couple to pass. The whole kidnapping even included Victor being "knocked out" by their assailants in full view of Samantha on the off chance she escaped. This way Victor would not be blamed.
Getting Samantha onto Jaren's private yacht and back to the US had been surprisingly simple. A few hundreds slid to the dock worker to make him look the other way was all it took. Jaren was even able to skip customs due to his personal influence. For all intents and purposes, Samantha was dead to everyone who knew of her. Everyone, that is, except Victor and his friends.
"I thought we were heading to Jaren's." Victor said, looking over his shoulder through the van's back window. Samantha was bound by the wrists and ankles with layers of duct tape, struggling and flailing about. A heavy blindfold was tied tightly around her head, her mouth duct taped as well. She must have just woken up and was confused and angry. She always had had a bit of a mean streak, something that had drew Victor to her when they had first started dating in college. Sliding the window panel closed, he turned back to watching the road.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. He decided it would probably be better to drop her off with Jhiraagh's men." Eddie said, flicking the ash from his cigarette out the cracked window. Victor usually didn't like smoke, and would have made a point to say so. However, with all that was currently on his mind, he didn't even notice the acrid smell or haze that had quickly filled the small cabin of the van.
They continued on for another hour, sitting mostly in silence, the rhythmic thumping in the back from Samantha's struggles, the only interruption. Pulling onto a small, country road, mostly forgotten by the rest of the world, Eddie drove deep into the wooded area, foliage blotting out the dark blue of the evening sky. Another twenty minutes go by before Victor sees the small cabin, sitting cozily atop a slight incline. The tires dug into the gravel that made the parking spot in front of the cabin as the van slowed, the crunching of the leaves beneath announcing their arrival. Three men stood on the porch of the cabin, waiting silently for the 'package' Eddie and Victor had brought with them.
Present
Jaren had really hoped he could make Victor see reason. Hoped he would still be a loyal soldier in his army, even after discovering what had happened. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case. After discovering his wife had not, in fact, cheated on him, that the whole situation that had led him to be drinking his troubles away in that bar four years ago, had been manufactured by Jaren, had been too much for the man. Victor hadn't even said a word. He merely stood from where he had been sitting, calmly, too calmly, moved toward Jaren. Jaren stood still, looking Victor in the eyes, eyes that, a moment before, had been tired, now burned with hate, a powerful loathing that Jaren knew was directed right at him. Victor clenched his fists in his fury, about to take out every ounce of his aggression on the man before him, when Layla raised a Beretta, 92 compact with rail, a fired once, twice, into the side of Victor's head.
