I Sat Taped To A Chair While Enzo Asked How Tough I Really Was...

The bulb above us buzzed. Not steady. It flickered every few seconds, just enough to make the shadows jump, and I started counting it without meaning to. One. Two. Flicker. That was the first thing I held onto after I understood the rope wasn't going anywhere.

My shoulders burned where the tan rope cut across my blazer. My wrists were pinned against the armrests of the wooden chair, and the rope made the same thick loop over my torso twice, then again lower across my ribs. I could feel the chair under me, hard and uneven, the wood digging into the back of my thighs through my pants. I didn't look at Enzo right away. I looked past him.

The warehouse was bigger than it had felt when the tape was still on my mouth. Exposed beams ran the length of the ceiling, dark wood, some of them bowed in the middle with age. To my left, stacks of wooden crates were piled almost to the beams, stamped with faded black letters I couldn't read from the chair. Dust on them. But not on the floor near me. That part had been swept.

The light was wrong in two ways. The warm bulb over us threw a yellow circle that ended just past my knees, and beyond that the air went blue. Cold blue window light came from high up on the back wall, two narrow windows I hadn't noticed before. The glass was dirty, the light falling through it in slats. That's where the draft came from. I could feel it on my ankles.

"You picked this place for a reason," I said. My voice sounded thin. I hadn't realized how dry my mouth was since he'd peeled the tape off.

Enzo stood a few feet away, his hands in his pockets. Black jacket, black shirt open at the collar, that snake tattoo catching the warm light when he turned his head. He didn't answer right away. He watched me look around, and the corner of his mouth twitched like he knew what I was doing.

"You're stalling," he said.

"I'm trying to see where I am."

"You know where you are."

I didn't. Not really. But something about the smell did feel familiar, that mix of old wood and oil and damp concrete. I breathed through my nose and tried to keep my eyes from watering again. The tears had stopped for a minute but my cheeks still felt tight.

"Why this warehouse?" I asked. I made myself say it slow, like I wasn't begging. "You could have picked anywhere. Why here?"

He tilted his head, studying me. For a second his controlled look slipped and I saw his jaw tighten.

"Because you don't remember it," he said.

I frowned. "I've never been here."

"Sure you have." He took a step closer, then stopped. "Mary River isn't just a name you use on programs, sweetheart. It's a place. You slapped it on your little foundation and never asked what it was."

The name hit strange in his voice. Mary River. He'd said it the same way before — I want to see how tough Mary River's really is — like it was something he could test.

My foundation was named after my grandmother. Mary River Thompson. I'd given that answer at every diner interview and charity gala for three years. It was printed on the banner in our office downtown.

"This isn't... this isn't named after me," I said. "My grandmother—"

"Your grandmother bought the parcel this warehouse sits on in 1982," Enzo cut in. His voice stayed low, even. "She sold it nine months before you were born. County records. Deed still has her maiden name on it. River. You didn't know that?"

I stared at the crates behind him. The flicker came again. Two flickers this time.

I didn't know that. My mom never talked about my grandmother's money, only that she'd donated to the church parking lot repaving and then moved to Florida. No one had mentioned a warehouse. No one had mentioned Enzo knowing my family name before I ever did.

"You're lying," I said, but it came out quiet, not sharp.

"Check the crates," he said, nodding toward the stack. "Still stamped. M.R.T. Holdings. Her initials. You want me to untie one hand so you can read it yourself? I'm guessing not."

I looked at the rope around my chest again without meaning to. The way it was looped, even, tight, not sloppy — it hadn't been thrown together in a hurry. The thought from the last hour clamped down again. This was planned. He'd planned the rope, planned the chair, planned the light.

He crouched then, so we were eye level. I could see the light stubble on his jaw and the way his breathing barely moved his shoulders.

"I didn't bring you to some random place to scare you," he said. "I brought you back to the one place your family already owned and forgot about. So you can't pretend you're just visiting. You were always tied to this floor, Mary. You just didn't know it."

The blue light from the windows shifted a little as a cloud moved outside. For a second the whole warehouse was half warm, half cold, and I was exactly on the line between them.

I didn't have an answer that would sound tough. I swallowed and looked at the beam above us, then at the crates, then back at him. I was mapping it because I had to. Door behind the crates, southwest corner. Windows too high to reach. One bulb, one switch somewhere near the door. If I was going to get any ground at all, it had to start with knowing the room better than he thought I did.