1: The Set-up

MIA PEREZ

Another slam on the desk made me flinch back. My hands were cuffed, my face pale, and my breath hitched in my throat.

I was sitting across a cop in an interrogation room, being questioned for a crime I knew nothing of.

“I told you everything. I know nothing,” I whispered in a cold, hoarse voice.

A few hours earlier, I was screaming out my innocence at the top of my lungs, trying to convince them that I knew nothing about the contents of the parcel delivered to my boyfriend.

They had hit me several times till my eyes swelled with a purple shade around them and my lips cut deep and bled.

I still gave them the same response– I knew nothing.

“Where is this… boyfriend of yours?” The cop finally changed the question.

I slowly looked up at him, my vision partly blurred from all the beating my eyes had gotten.

“I don't know,” I whispered.

My boyfriend, Jonas Harrison, had suddenly disappeared after coercing me to retrieve a package for him after my work hours.

He had told me he had a lot of deliveries to do and wouldn't be able to get to the train station to collect the package himself.

I had agreed to help him pick it up because the delivery arrived a few minutes before my closing time and the station was just a few minutes away from the jewelry store where I worked as an attendant.

“You don't know where your boyfriend is, and you don't know what is in the package? What exactly do you know, Miss Mia Perez?” He asked.

I gulped, wincing under my tone as my sides stung from the excessive beating.

I looked up at the blue-eyed man staring intently at me from the other end of the table.

“The last time we spoke was after I retrieved the package from the locker. He told me to take it home and wait for his return. He also warned me never to open it to avoid tampering with the contents,” I explained everything that happened in a cracking voice.

He tilted his head to the side, his eyes dimming.

“And you didn't suspect anything?”

My lips parted and slammed shut as blood filled my mouth again.

“He told me it was a shipped item for a customer.”

He sighed and ran his hand through his thin hair, chuckling.

“I hope you find him,” I muttered, breaking the thick silence that fell over us.

He looked up at me, his eyes filled with pity.

“I hope we do, or you'll be taking the blame,” he responded.

My throat knotted in horror, and I clenched my fist, feeling chills wash down my back.

The room remained silent until the door pulled open and a younger man walked in.

“Sir, we ran a search on the man she named,” the young cop said as he passed the tab to the man.

He looked down at the tab, then at me, confusion flashing past his eyes.

My heart raced with anxiety and fear as I waited for a response from him.

“Miss Perez…” The man paused and swallowed hard, then rubbed his creasing forehead.

He looked up at me again, the confusion melting into anger.

“There is no one that goes by that name,” he blurted out.

My heart stopped, and I felt my mind shut down for a long stretch.

My throat ran dry in horror, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't move.

I had lived with Jonas in a rundown apartment for four years after I was kicked out of my father's only property.

I knew his friends, his family, his workplace. I knew everything about him, including the childhood days he always told me about after dinner.

“That is not possible!” I spat out.

The man scoffed loudly, his lips twitching up in disdain. But his expression didn't stop me from venting out the truth.

“You can check his family, his birth record, his workplace, everything–”

“This man doesn't exist!” The man jerked up and slammed the tab on the table, forcing me to flinch back.

“The staff of that delivery company testified that they never had a worker by that name or seen him before! His supposed family doesn't know of his existence, and neither do the so-called friends. This name doesn't exist! This face doesn't exist! You created a fictional man to defend your crime!” He growled at my face, and I stiffened.

I stared at him, wide-eyed and beyond dismayed.

My relationship had been nothing but a lie? Jonas Harrison doesn't exist?

There was no way this was true.

His mother gifted me a ring on my birthday last year! His father always made sushi for me whenever I visited, and his friends always went out to dinner with us almost every evening.

How did Jonas not exist? How?

“I… I want to try my best friend’s number again,” I pleaded as tears choked my throat.

The man's lips twitched up in disdain, and he scoffed loudly.

“Do you know what you stole?” he groused, and my chest tightened in pain.

“Do you know how much value it holds?” He slammed his fist into my head, making my head jerk back.

My head spun around, and a piercing sound filled my ears.

“I want… I want to go to court. I need a lawyer,” I whispered, gasping for breath.

His evil chuckle filled the room, and his hand pressed down on my trembling shoulder, crushing my bone.

“A court will not save you. Nobody will save you,” he whispered, and chills ran down my spine at the threat.

He leaned towards me, his lips stretched into an evil smile.

“Your existence will be wiped out, and your death certificate will be produced while you live the rest of your pathetic life in prison,” he whispered and let go of me roughly.

My head spun again, and my shivering, broken body dropped from the chair.

My head hit the cold ground, and I coughed out blood, drowning in pain and betrayal.

Tears dropped from my eyes as I stared at the retreating feet of the two men.

“Inform the master. She'll be moved to the underground prison tomorrow,” the man's fading words hit me like a storm.

The master. Jonas Harrison. His family. His friends. My best friend. The cops.

Everyone played a part in watching me die. First was my family, now me.

“The master is already here.”

“He is?”

I heard the door slam shut and darkness covered the room.

My heart was slowing down, my breath was at the verge of ceasing, and my hands were cold. So cold that I knew I would die in the next minute.

Just as my eyes were about to slam shut for the last time, the door opened, and a pair of expensive black shoes stood in the room.

The master.

I slowly raised my gaze to the man behind my torment, but before I could trace my gaze to his face, darkness hit me.