Secrets of the Harts

Same day, 6 Jan 2010
I followed everything that Owen asked. I didn’t struggle, didn’t cry out when I was smuggled into a nondescript white van and didn’t fight when Owen blindfolded me and tied my wrists.
I had no idea how long the journey took; only that Dylan had woken up halfway through. I was pretty sure that his eyes were blindfolded too because he struggled violently against me. He had even tried to speak a few times, until someone gagged him. Dylan stopped trying, probably since he knew it was futile. It was better to conserve our energy.

When the van lurched to a stop, my stomach flip-flopped. I tried to keep calm when one of Owen’s men grabbed hold of me and took me out of the van. But my instincts told me that there was no point in being obedient now, because there wasn’t any other people around and because my good behaviour wouldn’t help me at all. So I fought back, slamming my head into the man’s and trying to trip him over.

All I got for my efforts was a snicker that sounded like Owen’s and a needle injected into my neck.



When I woke up, my mouth felt dry and my head ached. But I could see for once.

“Your boyfriend’s quite a smart boy. He has a rough idea why I’m doing this. Can you guess?” asked Owen, without any preamble. He was sitting on the car opposite mine, looking completely composed. Two of his men were guarding the only door in this room, deliberately kept dim.

“You’re Sean Fuller’s heir,” I managed. “You don’t want Dylan to inherit it. So you kidnapped both of us.”

“Well, that’s kind of disappointing.” Owen frowned. Crazily enough, he did look kind of upset with my answer. “If that’s the reason why, why am I talking to you instead of him? Think, Kristen. You have a perfectly good brain.”

“Is he still alive?”

“Yes. But I can’t say that he’s in the same state as he was.”

I licked my lips, which felt cracked and dry. How long had we been here? At least Dylan was still alive, probably for leverage. I could see now that Owen wanted something from me and he wasn’t above using Dylan.

It sort of hurt to realise what kind of a man Owen was. Perhaps I had only seen what I wanted to when I met him, thinking that he was sensitive, kind and excellent at his job. Most of all he cared about me. But he was none of this. For one, he had manipulated everyone around him to get what he wanted, which was the Mafia. He had even managed to trick Calloway.

“Why then?” I asked, the puzzle pieces not fitting in my head.

“Why did I do this you mean?” Owen smiled slightly, the way he did when he readied himself to tell me something important. Usually, it involved one of the lessons I needed help in. Right now, it just made him look more like a lunatic.

I nodded, feeling the ropes around my wrists. How tightly were they tied? I knew that Owen was a professional when it came to this. But maybe if I was lucky or if Owen was over-confident, the ropes would be loose enough for me to undo. It seemed that today was not my day though, because the ropes were extremely well done. I couldn’t loosen them at all, meaning that it was probably a dead knot.

“I’m Calloway’s son.”

I stopped, staring at him. ONC. Owen Nicolas Calloway.

“Well, you’re clearly surprised. Nobody at the Agency knows that. She arranged it that way, letting me keep Harrison. My father’s last name, you see. She let him keep me, cause she didn’t want a kid. She had a company to run. But I was talent-scouted at ten years old because of my promise as an Agent. I was recruited and then I met my lovely mother.” He shot me a sardonic smile when he saw that I had regained my wits. “She didn’t actually tell me that, of course. I found out about it later, after I’d graduated. She told me, thinking that I would be able to accept it.”

Owen laughed, shaking his head slightly. “I told her that I was glad. I’d always wanted to know who my mother was. What I didn’t tell her was that I wanted to because I wanted to know who to hate. What I didn’t ask her was why she’d left. Eventually, I figured it out though. I pieced together her past, found out what had broken her before she’d met my father, before she’d been a frosty bitch to him.”

I continued trying to loosen the ropes but my heart sank. Owen had always been very efficient with his work but now he was toying with me. It was like he knew that nobody was going to come for me; that he could take his time with me and not worry that I would escape.
“It seems like your father had broken her heart, Kristen.”

I clenched my jaw so that it wouldn’t drop. It was just a surprise after another these few days.

Owen nodded, like he could hear what I was thinking. “She loved him, even though she’d known all the paperwork that he’d helped the Mafia do. Paul didn’t love her back. She knew that. But when he married Alessandra, she gave up and lost herself in her work. He was killed in an accident arranged by the Mafia actually, they were worried about him becoming too soft. That’s why she took you in—because you are, in parts, like your father. She hated you though. Hated you because you looked so much like Alessandra.”

“Where’s Dylan?”

He glanced at me. I didn’t know why I’d asked that, only that I couldn’t listen to him talk about my family like he knew more about it than I did. Maybe he did, maybe he knew more about the Harts than I did. But it did not mean that I had to listen to him.

“He’s fine. Obviously not here with you, but I was a little...concerned about what kinds of trouble you two can make. You nearly got away from me over all.” He leaned over and touched my hair.

I suppressed my urge to shudder and glare at him.

“I hate you too, Kristen Hart,” Owen continued, simply. “I guess if your father’s still around, I would hate him too.”

“Why are you with the Mafia?”

“Suppose it can’t hurt answering that question.” Owen took a swift look at his guards and they nodded, telling him that everything was fine. I swallowed a lump in my throat. It seemed like my life was about to end soon. “Though I hate you Harts, I hate my mother more. It’s nice knowing that I’m going to undermine all the good work that she’s done all these years. I was good at my job too. A pity that Sean Fuller couldn’t see it so I had to take care of him. As for Dylan, I guess I could deal him after I’m done with you.”

Adrenaline pumped through my veins and I took in quick breaths. There had to be something I could do.

“Guess this is goodbye.” There was a quick upturn of his lips before he got his gun out.
I needed to keep him talking. Was there anything, anything at all that would throw him off? Stump him? Finally, a millisecond before Owen pulled the trigger, I asked, “Did you ever love me?”

He dropped his arm and his hazel eyes widened. I couldn’t understand the emotions that flickered through his eyes, only that he had never expected this from me. And he didn’t know what to say.

At that moment, the door burst open. People I recognised as Agents entered, efficiently taking care of the two guards. Owen sprung up, away from me, aiming at the Agents. Some of them dropped down, whether to avoid Owen’s aim or to get better coverage I couldn’t tell exactly.

Suddenly, more people flood this small room there were a lot more gunfire and shots. It was not going to be a clean cut victory for the Agency. And I was still tied up. Someone banged into me and I steeled myself, just in case it was Owen.

Thankfully, it wasn’t. It was Dylan instead.

He looked a lot worse for the wear. His right eye was bruised, it was turning yellow. There were three parallel lines on his left cheek like someone had scratched him. His shirt was red at his arm and he’d tied some fabric around it. For a second, I wondered if he had been shot and if it hurt digging the bullet out. The sudden moisture in my eyes made the surroundings look blurry, which wasn’t good. But then I realised that Dylan was saying something to me.

“Are you okay?”

I managed a small nod.

He shot me a quick smile and carried the chair I was tied to to a corner of the room, where there was the least fighting. One of the men who wasn’t engaged in the fighting saw this and tried to stab Dylan with a knife but Dylan twisted that arm, broke it and left the man sprawled on the floor howling.

Without saying a word, Dylan took the knife and sawed at the ropes. I tried to keep as still as possible while he did so. He managed to get my legs loose and was working on my wrists when there was a loud roar somewhere behind me. I struggled to see what had happened but Dylan gently shoved me back, “I’m almost done.”

Finally my wrists were loose. I rubbed at them while Dylan grabbed a gun dropped on the floor, next to an unconscious man. “Stay close to me, okay?”

“Yup.” I stretched my arms; my gaze sweeping the ground for any discarded weapons. There didn’t seem to be any. Dylan noticed this and moved to pass me his knife.

The actions seemed almost instantaneous. The knife was in my hands, someone grabbed me around the waist from behind and shot Dylan. He doubled over and fell to the ground. My jaw dropped and I suddenly couldn't breathe. Instead, I could only scream, "DYLAN!"

“Shut up, Kristen!” Owen pointed his gun at the side of my head.

I couldn’t stop screaming. The blood was leaking out of Dylan, staining his shirt even further. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him, even as I tasted bile in my mouth; too sickened at the sight. Was he dead? Where was he shot? How long could he last with those two wounds?

“Owen, what are you doing?”

That voice snapped me out of my horror because it was cool, completely unsuitable for the chaos surrounding me. It was probably the reason behind the loud roar. It was also used to getting what it wanted. The voice belonged to Calloway.

He spun us around, one hand still around my waist and the other still pointing the gun at my head. Owen shifted slightly, like he was finally uneasy. “Hi mum, it’s a pity you have to see me in such a state. I’d love to chat with you but I’m in a bit of a hurry right now. Sorry.”

“Let go of her, Owen.” Amazingly, Calloway still managed to sound calm. But she held her own gun. This image surprised me because despite all the training she had given me, I had never seen her with a weapon before. She had never let things go so utterly out of hand.

And I was surprisingly calm as well despite everything. My palms were only a little bit sweaty when Owen tightened his grip on me in defiance to her.

“Owen, let her go.”

I hadn’t realised it but I was still clenching the knife. It was about the size of my palm and I was lucky that Owen had been distracted by Calloway or he would’ve knocked it out my hand already. If only Calloway kept him engaged...

“Why should I, Calloway? You don’t even like her. It’s only because of her father that you’re so desperate to keep her alive, isn’t it? You keep hoping to see some sign of him in her. But it’s never going to come.” His finger inched closer to the trigger and my pulse rate sped up.

Calloway’s eyes had shuttered at some point of Owen’s speech. They remained detached even when she lifted her gun and aimed at him. A mother readying herself to kill her son.

I took in a breath, ready and waiting for it to all end.