The Origin: Division of Special Abilities I

By Stefania Gil

Valerie Sanders is murdered while Jack Lambert peacefully sleeps off a drinking binge beside her. Zaccaria Romano is left devastated by the news when his soon-to-be fiancée is murdered while cheating on him with another man.

Mark O’Donell and Madison Sullivan are the detectives in charge of finding the killer, while Zoe Mitchell is the lawyer exercising all her legal knowledge to prevent the man she silently loves from going to jail forever.

Jack, Zaccaria and Madison have something in common. Valerie’s murder unites them.

They are reunited with the life that always belonged to them but that they refused to accept.

Destiny has marked them and leads them to join forces to help justice.

Will they accept their destiny?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stefania Gil
• Release date: Jul 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071556993

Book preview

"Every story has an end.

But in life,

every end is a new beginning."

—Anonymous—

Chapter 1

Jack Lambert woke up with his head about to explode.

He heard his cell phone ring. It seemed like he had it stuck to his ear despite the device being in the living room.

He knew who was calling from the ringtone that he had specifically chosen for his ‘inconvenient’ lawyer.

Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones.

Of course, he didn’t pick up.

Ethan and Cristine Lambert had decided to adopt Jack when he was just a baby. The first time Cristine had seen Jack in the adoption center and had noticed his eyes, she had felt an instant connection with the boy. The little baby had had one green eye and one amber. Cristine had had a feeling that the boy would be special and had felt an immense need to take care of him. She hadn’t been wrong. As Jack grew up, his adoptive parents had begun to notice that he ‘saw’ things... differently.

He knew when things would happen.

Throughout his childhood, it had been fun for Jack to know what would happen before others did. In his innocence, he had shared his gift with other children and those other children had rejected him because they had considered him a freak, not only for his gift, but also for his differently colored eyes.

His parents had gotten him psychological help so he could learn to channel his gift without feeling like a freak; and their good intentions had worked, until the day when Jack had seen how his mother would die.

He had been barely ten years old when he’d had that vision and two years later, when Cristine had been diagnosed with cancer, he had known he should say goodbye to her.

It had been very hard and very fast.

The illness had consumed Cristine in a matter of months. And during those months, Jack hadn’t stopped getting the vision of his mother dying. He hadn’t dared to confess it to anyone at home. Not even to his beloved nanny, Mrs. Rose.

Mrs. Rose had helped raise Jack, and after Cristine’s death, had become a second mother to him.

Jack had never felt that Ethan and Cristine were not his biological parents; he loved them so much that he felt a part of them. And the feeling was reciprocated.

As was to be expected, Jack had become a rebellious teenager following the death of his mother. His father hadn’t punished him for his wrongdoing, saying that the poor boy was ‘purging’ the sadness at having lost his mother in that way; that it would pass, and he would settle down.

He couldn’t have been more wrong and regretted not having put the brakes on Jack’s attitude.

When Jack decided to go and live in New York and study Fine Arts there, it had already been too late. Mr. Lambert had decided that Mrs. Rose should go with Jack— he had felt a bit more at ease knowing that someone would be watching Jack closely, but Jack had not accepted his father’s offer, and Ethan didn’t know how to say ‘NO’ to his son’s requests.

That was how Jack had ended up living in New York, in a modern, luxury loft in Soho, which his father had bought for him.

Over his years of study, he’d done no more than give his father many headaches and a single satisfaction: his graduation.

When Jack came of age and started drinking alcohol, he had become a fan and had discovered that, when he had alcohol in his bloodstream, he didn’t have visions. So he had decided to substitute water for alcohol and that had gotten him into so many problems that he had begun to collect traffic tickets, leading his father to hire a lawyer living in New York to take control solely of Jack, before his attitude harmed him even more.

So that morning his lawyer or the ‘nanny from hell’ as he called her, was calling to remind him that he had his weekly AA meeting and he couldn’t miss it.

She had managed to get a judge to sentence him to rehab and to suspend his driving license instead of locking him up for disturbing the peace in a bar and driving under the influence, causing an accident on the road.

Fortunately, no one had been killed in the accident, because if they had been, no one would have been able to save him from going behind bars.

Jack was a master when it came to acting. He was not going to let the visions return, which meant he did not intend to stop drinking a certain amount of alcohol.

Therefore, he drank as much as he felt like. He avoided kicking up a fuss in that state and every Thursday he went to his AA meetings, pretending he was two months sober. Worst of all, he did it so well that even his ‘nanny from hell’ believed him.

The previous night he had had a small private party in his apartment.

The only guest had been a beautiful blond that he had met in his AA meetings and whose number, thank God, he had managed to get the second time she had attended, because after that she hadn’t returned.

They had been in Jack’s apartment, drinking and having sex, until the early hours of the morning.

They’d had wine, and who knew how much, because Jack knew that while two glasses went down well, his headache implied that it had been a lot more.

He avoided drinking on Wednesdays to be on form in his meetings on Thursdays. But flesh was weak, and his will also.

He got up and went to the bathroom.

He showered in almost cold water.

He put in his green contact lenses; since he had been ten years old, he had used them all the time. It saved him from giving explanations in the street, or worse, listening to people calling him a freak behind his back.  Then, he put on a white flannel shirt, shorts, and sneakers.

He took two pills for his headache, followed by three glasses of cold water. He activated his iPod and went out to run.

The physical activity would wake him up completely and allow him to arrive at his AA meeting in perfect condition.

***

It was almost midday when Zoe took a pretty, green, long-sleeved sweater from the closet. She would have preferred to put on jeans, but she was going to lunch with her grandmother and then to the celebration in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

She knew very well that her grandmother would not forgive her for going to the cathedral in jeans.

Therefore, resigned, she took out black dress pants and the matching jacket.

She got dressed and left her apartment.

She had lived alone for three years and she liked it, but on certain occasions, she put a few items of clothing in a small suitcase and went to spend a few days at her grandparents’. She found the warmth and the security of their old home comforting.

Helping her grandmother bake a delicious apple pie while chatting about the scandals of high society was something she loved. Not for the gossip, but for the fact of sharing something with her grandmother, whom she loved like a mother.

And later, at family dinners, talking with her grandfather about political matters and global economics was another of her favorite pastimes.

Zoe’s parents had died in a traffic accident when she had been barely five years old and custody had been awarded to her maternal grandparents. They belonged to the city’s upper class and lived in a beautiful and luxurious penthouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Zoe had grown up surrounded by priceless works of art, classical music, an excellent education, and the love that her grandparents had always given her.

She had graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Law School and then, had gotten an excellent job at one of the best law firms in New York.

She had won a controversial case that had plucked her from complete anonymity to national recognition and, when Ethan Lambert had interviewed her, he knew he’d nailed it in finding the right person to take care of Jack in the city. Ethan had offered her an annual contract that she couldn’t refuse.

Nowhere else could they offer her so much money to look after an ‘artist’, she had thought at the time, celebrating her new job with her grandparents.

But, after two years of complete stress due to Jack’s behavior, she was seriously considering asking for a raise.

Or a replacement. Or maybe a bodyguard who would deal Jack a couple of good blows now and again, and maybe then he would start to behave himself.

Zoe was balanced, calm and patient, but Jack always, always, managed to make her lose these positive attributes.

She couldn’t understand how a man could behave like such a perfect asshole having so much talent and so many opportunities in life. And help from ‘Daddy’.

In fact, she didn’t understand how Ethan could support Jack. She believed that were she in the place of Mr. Lambert, as she called Jack’s father, she would teach him a lesson by leaving him out on the street without a cent.

Oh! Surely the big jerk would start painting and earning his own money.

She had managed to secure him an excellent opportunity to exhibit his paintings in a prestigious gallery in the heart of Manhattan. Zoe knew art and could recognize when an artist had enough talent to make a name for himself and sell his pieces to the city’s wealthy. But Jack had only sent two paintings to the gallery.

He recognized that they were the best he had done; however, at that time there had been no power she could wield over him to make him send more pieces.

Jack had simply insisted that he was fine as he was and that he didn’t want to become famous.

Of course, back then Jack had been imbibing alcohol day and night, and it was around the time when she had had to make a deal with the judge so that the city did not file a lawsuit against him for driving under the influence and destroying some parking meters on an avenue.

The judge had been considerate enough to only set a bond, suspend his license, and then force him to attend weekly AA meetings for a year.

Apparently, that had taught Jack a little lesson. He had already been in treatment for two months and he hadn’t missed any weekly meetings. He was in a better mood and what’s more, was more amenable to Zoe’s suggestions.

He was still a kept boy, but she would make sure that changed. She had set a date with the gallery for that very afternoon because they were extremely interested in putting on an extravagant exhibition of Jack’s work.

The problem was she didn’t know how to tell him so that he would accept.

If she could convince a judge not to bring a lawsuit against Jack for damage to the city, she could convince Jack to paint and put on an exhibition.

Oh, yes! She could!

If there was one thing about Zoe, it was that she always got what she wanted. And her sense of responsibility obliged her to do her job meticulously.

Jack was like a child; she had to turn things around and apply a bit of reverse psychology to get him to do things.

She called to remind him that it was Thursday and he had to go to his AA meeting. He didn’t pick up.

She wasn’t surprised. Jack never got out of bed before ten A.M. and every night he was screwing some woman until the early hours.

Every time she thought about that, her blood boiled.

She was very attracted to Jack, but she knew that they were like water and oil and that they could never be together. Her poor grandmother would be shocked to ever find out she had a relationship with the Jack Lambert who gave the press so much gossip fodder.

She called her grandmother from her cell to let her know she was close. She parked in front of the building and while she waited for her grandmother to come down, called Jack again.

Hello?

Good afternoon, Jack. How is everything?

Pretty good. Yesterday I had a hot date, I burnt a lot of calories in intense physical activity during the night, and this morning I went running in Central Park.

Jack, you know I’m not interested in your nocturnal physical activities...

That’s because you still haven’t tried them. I assure you that once you do, you’ll feel so fit that you’ll book new sessions.

Fine, I’m not calling about that, she always got nervous when Jack said that kind of thing to her and she changed the subject.

That’s a shame! We would have a good time together and we could talk about other things that weren’t my appointments at AA or the mischief I get up to now and again.

Well, to your surprise we are going to talk about something else. This morning Valerie Sanders from the art gallery called me; she wants to make you an offer.

I’m sorry; you know what my opinion is.

Zoe sighed and signaled to her grandmother to stay silent as she got into the car.

That’s just what I told her. You are anti-exhibition. However, she’s an insistent woman and she told me she wants to talk to you.

Do you know her? Jack’s tone of voice indicated that she was close to getting him to agree. Even if it meant using a method she didn’t much like to convince him.

Yes, she paused and sighed, and she’s very pretty.

"‘Pretty’ is a word I would use for you. You are pretty, and I don’t like pretty women."

Fine, you know what I mean, Zoe was beginning to get annoyed.

If you’re going to sell me to a fantastic woman you shouldn’t say she’s ‘pretty’, you should say... mmm, I don’t know, ‘fierce’ sounds more my thing.

Zoe sighed.

Valerie did not seem like a fierce woman.

She knew that in the dictionary, the word had another meaning, but in Jack’s limited and misused vocabulary, maybe ‘fierce’ was a good synonym for Valerie.

In any case, knowing your magnificent manners, added Jack, you could never describe a woman in that way. I also know your intentions and we can reach an agreement.

Very well, let’s do business, she replied seriously.

The proposal is the following: if this Valerie fits my profile for ‘good friends’ and I get her personal phone number before the meeting is over, then with pleasure, I’ll accept doing a few more paintings so that they can put on a show.

Exhibition, Jack. It’s not a show they want to put on.

It’s always a show at the artist’s expense. And one more thing, I won’t be present at the exhibition, understood? You’re in charge of making that very clear at the meeting.

You’re making it a little difficult for me.

It’s your problem. You’re my lawyer, my nanny, and my father pays you very well for your job, so do it.

Zoe dictated the address to Jack and arranged to meet him at the art gallery.

She ended the call and disconnected from the annoyance she felt after Jack the Jerk had called her ‘pretty’ in quite an insulting way.

It was time to have a nice lunch