Page 38 of Semblance

“So did your families hate each other then?” I asked. Shadow shook his head.

“No, despite centuries of rivalry between the Constantine’s and the Tremaine’s, there was mutual respect. In fact, my sister and I often played with Abraham’s only child, Julia. With our father gone during these year-long campaigns and our mother taking care of the Tremaine corporations, Calisto and I bonded with Julia, who suffered from abandonment as well,” Shadow said. “Some of the fondest memories I have are exploring our family estate with Julia, getting ourselves into all sorts of trouble and keeping it a secret from everyone.”

Shadow stared into the remnants of his drink as he took a deep breath before releasing a hushed sigh.

“Julia loved the daffodils that grew in our family’s garden. She always pissed off our personal landscapers by stealing the heads of the flowers,” he chuckled.

“So where is Julia now?” I asked, despite knowing the answer. Abraham had mentioned his daughter was no longer a part of this world.

“This is where the story of our families takes a tragic turn,” Shadow said. “On Julia’s fifth birthday, she was kidnapped, raped, and murdered.”

#

Chapter Eleven

The revelation was horrifying. It was always a tragedy for a parent to outlive their child, but to have your own child experience something so violent…so traumatic—I couldn’t even imagine what Abraham must have went through. When I had asked Abraham about Julia, he became distant. Now I knew the reason why.

“What happened?” I asked. My heart sank into my stomach and hot tears collected at the corners of my eyes knowing Abraham suffered through such a tragic event.

“Three days before the election, Julia disappeared from her home late in the evening. She was playing outside on their large family estate and when the servants went outside to call her in for supper, she was gone,” Shadow said. “The Constantine estate was searched thoroughly but there was no trace of her. She had vanished.”

He paused and looked into his empty glass. “There was a mutual agreement between Abraham and my father to suspend the elections until Julia was found. Using the vast network of the Midnight Society, almost every police officer in the city was tasked to find her. It was a grueling search and emotions were running high. Everyone clung onto that small glimmer of hope that she would be found, alive and well, including Calisto and I.”

“Two days later, her body was discovered in an abandoned shed on the farmlands in the outskirts of the city,” Shadow swallowed hard. “I remember eavesdropping on a conversation my father had with my mother the night Julia’s body was found. I’ll never forget what he said—‘I never knew a human could scream like that,’ referring to Abraham after seeing the body. That night was the first time I ever saw my father cry.”

“Shadow…” I began to say, but I found that all words escaped me at the moment.

“When the autopsy report came back, they said that her larynx was crushed and she had been sexually violated by a metal instrument. There were no traces of any DNA, which made it difficult to identify the sick piece of shit that raped and murdered her.

“My father agreed to suspend the elections completely until this matter was dealt with. He vowed to hunt down Julia’s killer and make him suffer for what he did to the Constantine family. My father led his own personal investigation into Julia’s murder and it became an obsession for him.

“Weeks later, another tragedy struck the Constantine family. Abraham’s wife was suffering from depression, wracked with guilt over her daughter’s death. One night, she took her own life. Abraham found her in the bathtub, wrists sliced open with a steak knife, her eyes open and still red from tears.

“This was enough to drive Abraham to madness. For the next six months, he was a recluse. He didn’t leave his house. He was horrified and devastated. Lord only knows what went through his head during this time—what ghosts haunted his thoughts.

“My mother and father were there every night to check on him, worried that Abraham would follow in his wife’s footsteps. Understandably no one could help ease his pain.

“Meanwhile, the investigation continued. Nine dark months passed without a single break. My father was giving up hope. His obsession to find Julia’s killer was taking a toll on both his physical and mental health. He had trouble sleeping, and often spent long, bleary-eyed nights staring at Julia’s picture and scouring over case files, which he had scrutinized thoroughly. As well, he had grown distant to us, his children.

“I suspected that he was afraid to look at us, terrified by the idea of us becoming victims like Julia.”

“Please tell me this isn’t one of those unsolved mysteries,” I said. “Poor Abraham.”

Shadow nodded.

“Nine months after Julia’s body was discovered, there was another rape, a seven year old girl similar to Julia’s physical profile—brunette hair, blue eyes, delicate white skin. Luckily this girl managed to escape, scraping some of the bastard’s skin underneath her fingernails during the initial struggle. The girl’s physical descriptions of the man fit the picture that the criminal profilers painted: a forty-year old white male, heavyset and with a speech impediment. The sick fuck tried to rape her with a brass cane. The DNA results lifted from underneath the girl’s nails confirmed his identity as well.

“His name was John Taluzzi, a contract worker that did yard maintenance for not only Abraham’s estate, but my father’s as well. When my dad found out, he used all his influence down at city hall to persuade the police to turn a blind eye to this pedophile while the Midnight Society extracted its own brand of justice on him.”

“Why not let the police handle it?” I asked. “Send this degenerate to prison where he’ll never bother anyone again?”

“The system is flawed,” Shadow spat. “They protect child molesters in prison, giving them private cells so that the other inmates can’t get to them. Tell me this; in what lifetime do these sick pieces of shit deserve to be protected?”

I had no answer for him.

“My father, along with some of the more unruly members of the Midnight Society, hunted Taluzzi down, beat him senseless, and brought him to an abandoned factory where he was chained up like a dog. They tortured the pedophile some more, until he finally confessed his crimes. The filth described every detail of Julia’s rape to my father.”

“The Midnight Society tortured him?” I asked, frowning.

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