Joshua our son - episode three....

Episode three:

Putting the pieces as to who the young man was talking about didn’t take too long to come together. The scent of the perfume. The thug chasing after her earlier. The nurse who had exchanged money for her son.  Anton Miguel. He was as resourceful as he was cunning. Angie knew him, she was familiar with all his faces. She should’ve expected it, the moment he had agreed to her keeping the baby instead of his wife. He had promised to leave her and start a new life with Angie. His eyes had been the same as the countless times he had told her he loved over the few months that they had known each other. There was no telling when he was lying or telling the truth, he was too good at hiding it, but now he was going to feel her pain and in the worst way possible.

“I want my baby back!” Angie shouted loud enough for anyone to hear, even from five rooms away. She stood in the lavished sitting room of Anton Miguel’s home, the chandeliers gleaming in the ray of the twilight. He sat at the bar, shot of whiskey in hand and his back facing her. “Your baby?”

 “You heard me right. Give me Joshua back.” He twirled in his high chair to face her, looking her dead in the eye.

 “Oh I see. Joshua, huh? Nice name. Sorry, we don’t have a Joshua or any baby in this house.”

“Screw you! Give me back my child, Anton”

He set his glass down at the bar, “I don’t have your child. I have a son, with my beautiful wife. You know after so many years of patiently waiting we were finally blessed with a boy. How miraculous right?

 He was toying with her. She had to see her son. She wanted him away from all this.

 “It was you, wasn’t it? You came to the hospital and took my son away from me! You paid that nurse and had them tell me he died in the night. Bullshit. I never believed it for one second, never!”  “Yet you didn’t go look for him. Why only now? Either way it’s too late”

He slowly walked towards her and she took a step back. “I was young and confused, but I was never stupid, Anton. ” She reached in her back pocket for a bottle of pepper spray and used it on him. He screamed out alerting his guards around the house. She immediately knocked him out with a punch leaving him unconscious on the floor. Angie ran up the twisting stairs, calling out and pushing each door open.

There was a door at the end of the corridor, she had a feeling it was ‘the One’. She pushed it down as hard as she could and found a woman and a boy in the back of the room. They looked starved, scared and weak.

 “I’m here to help you. Let’s go, we only have a second.” She reached for the boy, who hesitated to climb into her hands.

“Go with her, save him. I can’t go anywhere. I won’t make it. ” The woman lifted her robe soaked in blood and revealed a stab wound.

Anton... She knew him all too well, she was almost late... too close.

“I am the one who sent Paul to get to you. Nothing felt right. Now go, Angie! Take him now!”

They heard the footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Thank you so much. I’ll never forget you.”

Angie grabbed her son and ran out the door. As they got to the corridor, she decided to turn and run in the opposite direction. They managed to get outside as a number of footsteps chased after them. Angie quickly took out her phone, dialled ‘911’ and asked for help just as Anton swung his jeep in her way.

Oh no. Improvising, she threw her phone into a nearby shrub so the listener would hear the conversation.

“You pepper sprayed me?!”

Angie stepped back with the boy still in her arms. On hearing Anton’s voice, he held onto her tighter.

 “Are you such a monster, that even your own son is terrified of you?”

“How dare you?!”

“You stabbed your wife. She’s dying right now in your house, Anton!”

“I love her!!” He spoke with anger, she could feel it from his eyes to his stance.

 “Stop it Anton! That is not love. That is the act of a monster! You held them hostage in their own house and starved them. What has come over you? Who are you? Where is the Anton I fell in love with?”

They were now surrounded by his thugs and this caused the boy to start to cry.

“You let them touch him, beat him! What has he done to you? He is just a child!! My child!! How dare you??”

 She fell on her back, not wanting to hurt the child as he slapped her hard across the face.

“Does it make you feel any better to hit and cause pain? Are such a monster? Have you no heart, Anton?”

 “Shut up! Shut up!”

 “Why?” Angie asked with tears in her eyes, “You no longer have a conscience so let me speak it through you!”

He reached for his gun and pointed it straight towards her head.

“I can kill you right here and right now!”

“It won’t make a difference to me. You’ve already killed me a thousand times when you took my son from me. You killed me a thousand times when you betrayed my trust.”

She rose up to her feet with each word and he began to step back now. He had never seen her like this, he could barely look her in the eye.  The sirens of the police were approaching them now, getting louder with each second.  The bodyguards scattered and ran leaving Angie and her child with Anton who was still overpowering them with his gun.

 “Who are you?” She spoke softly now. “Where is the caring and loving Anton I knew?” He looked into her eyes once more, a tear escaping him. He stepped back away from her, whispering to himself, “He died with you a thousand times.”