Page 33 of Claimed By the Don

We watch all the security footage at the school, every camera angle, every second from 2:10 when someone entered the building until 2:17 when he left with my son. It wasn’t Benny after all, and I don’t know if I should be relieved by that or even more terrified that it’s a stranger.

I don’t know him. I say it again and again. Their IT guy has my phone, checking to see if spyware or some phishing scam got hold of my passwords. I don’t care how they did it. Liam is somewhere with a stranger, scared, and I can’t get to him. It’s possible that I’m dying because I keep getting sharp pains in my chest, my stomach, and doubling over. I had to breathe in a paper bag because I hyperventilated. The nurse stayed after work to make sure I was okay. I am not okay.

My mom comes and tries to make sense of it. My brain has quit working. I rock myself back and forth, clutch at her hands. “He’s gone,” I tell her again and again, “somebody took Liam.”

“I know, baby,” she says to me softly. “I think we’ve done all we can here. We’re going to head over to the police station and give them some recent photos.”

I’m not sure how my mom even gets me to the station. I sign my name, show my ID, go through a metal detector. A cop takes down more information than they got earlier. I took his picture this morning, and I show it to them. He wanted me to video him wiggling his bottom tooth with his tongue.

“See, they know what he’s wearing and everything,” Mom says to me, but when I look at her ashen face, I know she is sick with fear too.

I go to the bathroom and try to wash my face. It’s been years, it seems like since I left work to pick him up from school. It’s twenty after five. He’s been missing three hours and five minutes. Is he hungry? Is he scared? Is he still alive?

I turn and throw up in the toilet again and again. I’m on my knees, one hand clutching the seat when my mom opens the door.

“Benny’s here,” she tells me.

I struggle to my feet and rinse my mouth, follow her out the door.

The moment his eyes reach mine, he rushes to me.

“What’s going on? Are you ok? Daisy, tell me what’s going on.” The words rush from his mouth. I look at him with hollow eyes. I get my phone out and pull up the photo from this morning with shaking hands. I hold it out to him, show him a picture of his son for the first time.

He doesn’t say ‘what is this?’ or ‘who is this a picture of?’ because it isn’t necessary. Anyone would know. I watch Benny’s face as he looks at the picture and recognizes what he is seeing.

“Daze,” he says. The nickname somehow unlocks me. I can let go of the chair, straighten my legs. His voice is pure devastation.

“I was pregnant when I left town,” I say, cutting to the chase. “I was scared somebody would try and kidnap him for ransom or use him to influence you. He’d never be safe if you knew about him. I ran as far as I could. Anybody that knew us when we were together could take one look at him and know that he’s your son. Then he’d be a target. I kept him from you because I was afraid. Then Mom got hurt and I had to come home. I didn’t think I’d see you. I didn’t ever think we’d—what? Reconnect?” I give an ugly kind of laugh. “I thought I was older and wiser, Benny. God forgive me. I know I can’t ask you to forgive me. I’m so sorry. I didn’t get it then. He wasn’t safe because he’s your son. A scared nineteen-year-old was never gonna make smart enough choices to keep him hidden forever and he still wouldn’t be safe. He just wouldn’t have his father to protect him. If I’d told you, even when I came home—”

He has never taken his eyes from the picture on my phone. Benny says something I can’t quite make out. He’s not shouting, breaking things, swearing to destroy me for keeping his child from him. He’s staring at my phone and his voice is a rough rasp, barely audible.

“…his name,” he says.

“Liam,” I say. “His name is Liam.”

I make myself look at him. He meets my eyes. In a hundred years I could never forget the look on his face, how haggard and how horrified he seems, how he looks so much older, grave and like I destroyed him. I open my mouth to say something, to say I’m sorry again or that we have to find him but I stop short.

I approach him like I’d approach a wild animal that probably wants to kill me for sport. The grief carves lines in his face and a part of me wants to beg him for help.

“You can hate me later, but now, I need you to help me find our son.”

24

BENNY

If there’s one thing I learned as my father’s son, it’s how to put my feelings aside and deal with the crisis of the moment. I haven’t had the luxury of reacting to what happens to me in a long time. This is no different. I feel it for a split second, the impact in my chest worse than a gunshot.

I have a son.

Daisy had my baby.

Kept him from me.

Joy and sorrow and fury snarl and fight to be first. I shut them all in a vault and look at the problem at hand. The problem at hand is that my son has been taken.

Five years old. Dark hair. Dinosaur shirt. Facts line up like soldiers. I put aside my anger, my heartbreak. I have the resources to find him.

I’m going to get him back and then we’ll have this out once he is safe at home. I’m ready to unleash the power of the Falconari organization to track and retrieve a missing child.

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