Devin’s Cay Hospital
Yasmine was scheduled to be discharged from the hospital today, after spending four days recovering from a brutal attack by two masked men. She would have been released two days earlier, but Officer Mitchell would not have it to be so. Under the ruse of being concerned for her safety, Officer Mitchell had told the hospital officials to keep her detained until he figured out what he wanted to do with her. Obviously, he was still angry with her for wasting his time by falsely accusing an innocent man of rape.
Yasmine did not mind being detained anyway, considering she was now the main target on Ronnie/Elder John’s hit list. She’d called this man her father for seventeen years, but really, he was only a father to her in public. Behind closed doors, the man showed his true colors, coercing her through fear to submit to his robust sexual appetite and at times, his unreasonable demands. At a few weeks from sixty, Ronnie was as virile as a man in his early thirties, but of course, it was not without the power of Viagra. Nonetheless, Ronnie was a formidable beast who’d made it clear to Yasmine over the years that he was not one to trifle with.
How foolish she was to think that she would ever be free of his tyranny. She almost destroyed an innocent man’s life in exchange for her freedom. Had Drake been convicted and remanded to Devin’s Cay Correctional Facility, Yasmine would have scored big and used such an accomplishment as a bargaining chip to appeal to Ronnie’s ego. With Drake out of the way, Ronnie would automatically become the unopposed successor of the late Rev. T. G. Henderson’s spiritual legacy, of his estate and possibly the millions of dollars in insurance.
Ronnie wouldn’t need her anymore, because now that he was bishop over El Shaddai Ministries, there would eventually be an increase of wealth, fame and power, along with a stream of beautiful women, batting their eyes in his direction. But knowing how ruthlessly selfish Ronnie could be, deep down Yasmine knew, he still wouldn’t have given her her freedom. She was his property and he would be damned if he ever parted with her. It was what he drilled into her head each time they got together in that filthy bed of his. She belonged to him and no one else.
The man was so evil that Yasmine wouldn’t be surprised if it came to light that Ronnie had forced Rev. T.G. Henderson to change his will and then strangled him to death with his bare hands. It was all conjecture, but it was certainly within Ronnie’s scope to do so. He was no stranger to violence. In fact, Ronnie had come from a history of criminal misconduct, a delinquent from the age of sixteen who rose as one of the shot callers of one of the most cold-blooded gangs on the island. Yasmine could recall when her mother introduced Ronnie to her for the first time and even though she was only twelve years of age at the time, she’d sensed that something was off about him. His face had too many cuts and bruises for her taste.
But according to her mother, Ronnie had recently given his life to the Lord in one of Rev. Henderson’s tent revivals. And because her mother had signed up to help train new converts in a six-month home bible study program, Ronnie and another young lady were assigned as her mother’s first two candidates. But within less than three weeks the young lady stopped coming, leaving Ronnie to spend an incredible amount of time with her mother. Before Yasmine knew it, her mother and Ronnie were an item and were talking marriage seven months after meeting. They got married alright, but within eighteen months, tragedy struck and her mother was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. She succumbed to her illness shortly after.
By then Yasmine was fourteen years old and was in complete disarray over her mother’s death. She had no other family member to look after her, except her mother’s aunt, who was too old to even look after herself. She was stuck with Ronnie – the one who would continue to support her love of being in beauty pageants. But Yasmine would never forget the evening after her mother was buried, she and Ronnie went home alone, sad and emotionally exhausted. They sat side by side on a sofa in silence.
Eventually, she began sniveling uncontrollably when she began to think about the loss of her mother and what would become of her future now that her mother was gone. An intense feeling of hopelessness had overtaken her, leaving her susceptible to Ronnie’s hidden agenda. Yasmine would never forget that night, because it was the night when Ronnie introduced her to something that was corrupt, illegal and downright intimidating for a child her age.
“Come here, beautiful,” he’d called in a comforting tone. “Sit on papa’s lap...”
Yasmine hesitated, thinking she was not a baby, much less his daughter for him to even say something so inappropriate to her.
“I know I can’t be your mother,” he told her. “I won’t even try, but it’s just you and me now and we need to comfort each other.”
“You’re not my daddy,” she lashed out.
“No, I am not, but I could be. I love you just as if you were my own daughter. I’ll do anything for you, if only you would give me a chance.”
“A chance to do what?”
“To love you, Yasmine…” he moved down the sofa until his knees were touching hers. “You are so beautiful…just like your mother and I’m sure she is smiling down from heaven at you. It’s okay to cry, darling heart. I’m here for you and whatever you need, I would supply it. You will never have any lack in your life…” He pushed his fingers beneath the hem of her dress and began to rub the softness of her inner thighs.
Yasmine flinched. “What are you doing?”
“Shhhh…I’m taking care of you…relax…your mother would want this for you. You’re a big girl now and this is one of the many ways that I can comfort you…how does this make you feel?”
Yasmine pushed Ronnie’s hand away from her innocence. “Please, stop…”
“Relax, Yasmine…this is right for you…let me console you, because I can tell you want this…pretend that I’m that boy you’re lusting after in your classroom…kissing your neck, and every place on your sweet body…” he let out an animalistic groan at the touch of her uncontaminated flesh. “Your mother and I used to pretend we were someone else whenever we had sex. She liked calling me Ronnie, after the porn star from the many videos of him I’d made her watch in our intimate sessions. In time, sweetness, you too will get the hang of it…”
Without warning, he jabbed his hand further up between Yasmine’s legs, causing her to gasp in horror…
A sudden tap on her hospital room door brought Yasmine fumbling back from her past. She turned her head and leveled her gaze with Officer Steve Mitchell. He had two Styrofoam cups in his hands and by the look of the steam coming up from the cups, Yasmine could only assume they were hot coffee.
“Your bruises are healing quite nicely,” he greeted. “But you don’t appear ready to leave the hospital.”
“Why’d you say that?”
“Because you are still laying down in your hospital gown.” He handed her one of the cups. “Drink up.”
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“I figured that, being a former beauty queen and all. It doesn’t seem to fit in with your diet. It’s herbal tea.”
Yasmine stared at the youthful officer, the signs of gratitude in her expression. “Why are you being kind to me, after all the horrible things that I’ve done?”
“Giving you a cup of herbal tea doesn’t mean that I’m being kind,” Mitchell said. “But you are pregnant, and after going through such a terrible attack, which could have been your life, the least I can do is be civil.”
Yasmine turned her head away, suddenly disgusted. “Why did you have to remind me that I’m carrying the seed of that creep inside of me? I wish it wasn’t true.”
“Well, I’m relieved to know your story checked out,” Mitchell said. “Mr. Dewey’s DNA results came back this morning and matched the evidence in the rape kit. The semen sample, the fingerprints on the Rohypnol bottle…everything. But of course, we now know that you weren’t really raped.”
Yasmine swung her gaze back to Mitchell. “How can you say that? Ronnie forced me against my will – on many occasions. I couldn’t get away from him.”
“For all these years? Ms. Strummer, you had ample opportunities to report the abuse to the police, if that’s what you insist on calling it. He wasn’t holding a gun to your head when you went to Mr. Beckford’s hotel room on your own and tried to seduce him. That to me, is taking things a little too far.”
“I explained to you why I did that.”
“If you had gone straight home after leaving Mr. Beckford’s hotel room, I probably wouldn’t have had so many questions. But then, you deliberately went over to Mr. Dewey’s house and had sex with Mr. Dewey…that same evening.”
“I wanted the forensic examiner to believe I was telling the truth.”
“But do you see why I’m confused? It doesn’t make sense. This plan of yours was just too cumbersome, for the simple purpose of pleasing your father.”
“It was the price of my freedom that I’d been willing to pay!” Yasmine swatted her tears away, lips trembling like they’d contracted the chills. “When I was fourteen that creep pushed his fat fingers between my legs and ravished my innocence. He did it on the evening when I’d just buried my mother and threatened that he would kill me if I told anyone about it. Every night, without fail, he would come to my room and force me to have sex with him. He would say that he was teaching me the ‘ropes’ so that when I met my husband, I would know what to do.
“I tried to rebel many times, but I would only get slapped around until I had no strength left in my body. And even then, with me lying on the floor in blood, Ronnie would pull me toward him and rape me. In the morning, he would fix me breakfast and would go on and on about how sorry he was for hurting me. He would then give me money to go shopping and to buy anything I wanted. But those privileges never came without a death threat.
“Even when I was old enough to travel from city to city with my friends in the beauty pageants, Ronnie would always assign one of his goons to watch me. I hadn’t any idea who they were, but I knew they were there, keeping tabs on me, so that they could report back to Ronnie. Since I was fourteen years old, I never had any real freedom to do as I pleased or to come and go at will. So don’t stand there in those tight khaki pants and judge me for my actions, because you don’t know the hell I’ve been through with trying to break free from that ravenous beast.”
Recalling the similar reaction of his own daughter who’d been raped at twelve, Mitchell pulled back on his questioning tactics. It was the cop in him that always wanted to get to the bottom of a story that just didn’t make sense. However, he could tell that Yasmine’s distress was real and although he didn’t condone what she’d done to Mr. Beckford, he was willing to lend some credence to her logic. He was staring in the face of a battered woman who for years never really understood her own self-worth. It probably took everything in her to finally go against Mr. Dewey, which amazingly, showed she still had some fight left in her.
“In any event, this case is likely going to end up in court,” Mitchell said. “And if you don’t want to be prosecuted for perjury, part of the deal we made is that you testify against Mr. Dewey, so that we can put him away for a long time.”
Yasmine scoffed. “You don’t understand, I won’t live to see the day.”
“He’s in police custody, awaiting to be arraigned,” Mitchell assured. “He won’t hurt you.”
“Look at my face, officer. Do I need to remind you of how easy it was for those two men to find me and attack me in front of that club? I’m convinced they are Ronnie’s men and the only thing Ronnie has to do is make one call and I’m finished.”
Mitchell smiled. “That’s why I am one step ahead of you, Ms. Strummer. You are going on an extended vacation, at least until the trial begins. You will be placed in a witness protection program. All you have to do is name any of the major states you want to go in Florida and we will take care of it from there.”
Yasmine was about to protest, but why should she? She hadn’t a reason to stay in Devin’s Cay. It didn’t take her long to think about where she wanted to go, because that place had to be wherever Kevin was. He was the closest thing to real love she had experienced and even though she knew he would be upset for what she’d done to Drake, she was willing to take the chance. Swinging her feet to the floor, she gave Mitchell a small smile.
“So, that means I’m off the hook?”
“Granted that you testify against Mr. Dewey.”
“As long as I’m protected, you can rest assured that I will.”
“Have you decided where you want to go?”
“Yes…Tampa, Florida.”
“Good choice.”
“I know, that’s why I chose it.”
“Well then, Ms. Strummer, to Tampa, Florida you shall go.”
“When do I leave?”
“First thing tomorrow morning.”