Page 3 of Champagne & Handcuffs
I couldn’t speak as I thought about what was happening. When I was ten or so, I envisioned the moment I would see my sister again. I’d thought about how I would hug her until the point we both couldn’t breathe and how I never would let her go. I never thought I’d be handcuffed while she interrogated me. I was going to jail. I was certain of it. The entire Vegas task force, and apparently the FBI, knew what went down today. So, I needed to make this right.
“Are you okay?” Agent Reigles asked Joss.
“Yeah. Sorry, I never got to eat at lunch since this was supposed to be my lunch date.” Joss laughed nervously. “So, Bryce—”
“I’m the middle man,” I blurted. I had my sister sitting in front of me, and I wasn’t going to screw this up. My mother was right. I needed to get out from under my father. I needed to be the man Joss would have raised me to be. She’d obviously turned out well.
“What?” Joss blinked.
“You’re right. Tony made me do it.”
“Who’s Tony?” Agent Reigles asked.
“My father,” I stated even though Joss had already mentioned him.
“Your … father?” Joss stammered.
I nodded. “Do you want my life story or what?” It was apparent she didn’t know that the man who sold her virginity was also my father. Sadly, he’d sold mine too, except I’d wanted it taken and I got to choose the whore who took it.
“Does it pertain to the case?” Agent Reigles asked.
“I think most of it does.” I nodded. “It started when I was eight—”
“And you’re willing to talk without a lawyer present?” Agent Reigles asked me.
Yes, bitch. This is my sister!
“Let the man talk!” Joss bit out.
I laughed. We were on the same page, and now it was my chance to tell her how the last thirteen years had gone down. “I’ve been waiting for the day I could take down my father.”
“I think we can remove the cuffs now. Get you some water.”
I wasn’t sure why Joss stopped me. Maybe it was because she was having a hard time staring at her brother in handcuffs. Maybe she wanted my DNA to test to make sure I was her brother. Or maybe she wanted to hug me. I wanted to hug her. It had been too long since I felt her love—any love in fact.
After Agent Reigles returned with a bottle of water, I took a few sips before I told the Cliff Notes version of my story. “The night of my sister’s seventeenth birthday, all I wanted was cake. We never got treats. I was eight and thought that we’d at least have a cake. Instead, our mother sent her out with my dad. At the time, I didn’t know he was my dad. I don’t think she knew he was my father either because he wasn’t her dad. Anyway, she never came back. To this day, I don’t know what happened to her.”Except she was sitting in front of me.
“That night, my dad came into our trailer and beat my mom. I’d thought that he’d beaten her to death, but I was too young to know for sure, so I left her in her room. The next day he returned and took us. She wasn’t dead, but we left and never returned. I thought for sure my sister was dead and I cried. I cried for days, but never in front of my mother and that man. I didn’t want him to beat me like he beat her, but I just wanted my sister because she was my best friend. But she never returned to get me.”
Joss stood, causing the metal chair to screech in the process, and I startled. I expected her to say something, but instead, she just paced the room.
“He filed some papers and changed my last name to Martinez. Growing up, he forced me to do things that I never wanted to do. Steal this, beat him up, fuck her. It escalated each time. Eventually, we moved here from Miami and started picking up the prostitutes working the streets of Vegas, or the Weekend Warriors who fly in just on the weekends to have a good time. Those are the best ones because it’s harder to know they’re missing.
“Anyway, my mother killed herself three years ago. She left a suicide note and confessed that Tony was my father, so it’s only fitting he has me running his business for him.”
“How did …”
“She overdosed on oxy. She said the pain of losing her daughter for selling her at seventeen was eating her alive and it was too much for her to take. She was tired of living under Tony and his orders.”
“And you still think it’s okay to sell women?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Why not come to the police?”
“I’d still end up in prison.”
“But you’ll be doing the right thing. Think about your mother. Think about your sister.”
