He hissed with pain, but my small victory didn't last. He slapped me hard across the face, not enough to knock me out but enough to make my vision explode with bright spots and fill my mouth with the coppery taste of blood from my cheek.
“Fighting only makes it worse, kid,” the blue-eyed man told me, sounding like a teacher explaining why homework matters. “Better to just behave.”
He dragged me back toward my parents' bedroom, my struggles getting weaker because they weren't working, notbecause I'd given up. I was saving my strength, my kid survival instincts taking over. The family photos in the hall watched my forced return, their happy smiles now seeming like lies.
When we crossed back into the bedroom, my eyes went straight to Mum's body on our special carpet from Istanbul. Mum lay twisted on the floor, her eyes open but seeing nothing, staring at the ceiling she'd picked out herself last year. The thin line from the wire around her neck had turned into a small pool of dark blood soaking into the carpet.
My brain noticed weird details, like how the blood looked almost black in the dim room, how her fingers curled slightly like wilting flowers, how one of the men was taking the diamond ring Dad had given her for their anniversary off her finger.
“Valuable items need proper handling,” the leader commented like he was talking about moving furniture. “We'll need papers for the authentic stones before we sell them.”
Dad's face changed completely when he saw me recaptured. Hope collapsed into total defeat before changing again into a focused determination that somehow rose above our terrible situation. Dad was still held by two men, stopped fighting physically and instead locked eyes with me, putting everything he had left into that silent connection.
He mouthed a single word that would guide my entire life afterward: “Remember.”
That word contained everything. Remember who did this, remember who we were, remember your responsibilities when I'm gone, remember that sometimes strength means waiting instead of acting immediately. I nodded slightly, understanding in a way no eight-year-old should have to. I committed every detail to memory despite my terror.
The blue-eyed man's voice pattern and movements, the leader's fancy way of speaking despite his mask, the unusualring one man wore under his gloves, the way they worked together like soldiers. Dad's small nod showed he saw my understanding before he spoke to their captors one last time:
“You've got me. My wife is dead. Finish your business with me, but let my son go. He hasn't seen anything that could identify you. Even in our world, children stay off-limits.”
The leader seemed to think about it for a moment before answering: “Your son has seen how we work, Calloway. Even a kid can recognize faces and voices. Plus, our contract specifically mentioned wiping out your entire bloodline. Making exceptions complicates things.”
The men argued briefly over what to do with me. I stood frozen, listening to them casually discuss how to kill a child.
“Do him like the mother. Quick, minimal mess,” suggested one.
“Too messy with kids,” countered another with a knowledge that suggested he'd done this before.
“Drugs leave less evidence,” offered a third, talking about poisoning me as if discussing a stray dog.
The leader waved his hand to stop the discussion and pointed toward the walk-in closet next to the master bathroom. “Lock him in there for now. Once we're done with the father and have what we need, we'll handle the boy.”
The blue-eyed man picked me up like I was a bag of groceries, not a terrified child, and carried me toward the cedar-smelling darkness. Inside the closet, my senses went crazy. Mum's clothes hung in perfect color order, her perfume still on them, the cedar wood Dad had insisted on to keep moths away from her clothes.
I just desperately looked around the closet: eight feet by twelve feet, a small air vent too tiny to escape through, the door with its special lock meant to protect Mum's jewelry, now keeping me prisoner.
Through the wood slats meant for air, I watched them torture Dad. He was tied to a chair with plastic cuffs, not ropes like in movies. The leader brought out what looked like doctor tools on a silver tray, the kind we'd use for fancy dinners. The shiny, clean tools for such dirty work felt wrong even to my young mind.
“We need certain information in a certain order, Calloway,” the leader explained like he was being reasonable. “Offshore accounts first, then client list codes, then stock portfolio access. The order isn't flexible, but how much pain you feel during this process depends on how helpful you are.”
Dad showed a bravery I'd try to live up to for the rest of my life: “You're obviously going to kill us no matter what I tell you. Being polite about it seems pretty stupid right now.”
The leader nodded slightly before picking up his first tool. “Pain still matters even when dying. How long it lasts, how bad it gets. Your son watching from in there is something to think about too. What he sees happening to his daddy will affect him for whatever time he has left.”
I pressed my hands over my ears, trying not to hear Dad's screams as they hurt him. It didn't really block the sound, but it helped me pretend it might. They hurt him in careful ways, not just hitting him but doing things that caused the most pain without making him pass out. They used the fact that I was watching to pressure him more.
The worst part was how they talked about it. “Enhancing cooperation” instead of torture, “terminal outcome” instead of murder, “experiential variables” instead of suffering. They used fancy words to pretend they weren't doing something evil.
Time got weird in the closet. Minutes felt like hours as I crouched among Mum's silk dresses and shoes, my tears dried on my face, my body shaking from both fear and growing anger.
Dad held out longer than seemed possible, each refusal toanswer protecting our family even as it cost him terrible pain. When he finally started giving them information, I could tell he was lying, changing numbers in account codes, mixing up client information, giving security codes that would trigger alarms instead of turning them off.
Even dying, Dad was outsmarting his killers, seeming to surrender while actually fighting back.
I lost track of time completely in that closet. Sometimes I felt hyper-aware of every detail, and sometimes I felt like I was floating outside my body, watching everything happen to someone else. My brain noticed weird things: how the smell of blood was stronger than Mum's perfume now, how the leader kept his polite tone even while doing horrible things, how Dad's screams changed depending on what they were doing to him.
My mind broke into pieces under the weight of watching. Part of me hid deep inside where it was safe, while another part watched everything with a cold clearness, memorizing how they worked and where they were weak, information I'd use someday.
