Chapter 18

I’d seen Dinara’s inner struggle in her eyes and wasn’t surprised that she couldn’t go through with our plan. I’d expected her to lose courage. It was one thing to wish for revenge, to imagine killing someone, but it was a whole different matter to actually go through with it, to see the life drain from someone’s eyes. Even if Dinara was a Bratva princess, she’d never been part of the brutal sides of business. Her father had protected her from it, the same way I would protect her if she wanted me to. Killing someone got easier with time. In the beginning it had been harder for me more than it was now.

As I closed the door of the hardware store behind me and watched the bastards unsuspecting smile, eagerness took hold of me. Dishing out revenge on Dinara’s behalf wasn’t a burden. It would be satisfying in so many ways. Maybe I could even keep pretending that I wasn’t enjoying it.

I turned the lock and then gave number one, the first name on our list, a dark smile.

His expression fell, fear flaring up in his eyes. Maybe he thought this was a robbery. He wouldn’t be that lucky. He was older than on the videos but it was him, no doubt. Even if Remo hadn’t provided me with the whereabouts of our targets, I would have recognized the man before me. The mousy face, the same unshaven appearance. He stumbled backward toward his sales counter, probably to ring an alarm. I chased after him, grabbed his arm and jerked him to the floor. He lost his balance and fell to the floor with a cry of pain. His wide blue eyes met mine. “I don’t have much money! You can have it all.”

“This isn’t about money,” I said as I circled him. I shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as I did. I’d always resented Remo for playing with his victims.

Confusion flickered in the man’s eyes. I pulled my gun and the color drained from his face. I calmly walked back to the shop door and turned the sign to “closed” before I returned to number one. Following Dinara’s request I hadn’t packed any torture instruments, but a hardware store was the land of milk and honey for someone like me.

“I hear you like little girls.”

He looked caught before he quickly shook his head. “That was a long time ago. I changed. I paid for what I did.”

I took out the laptop and showed him the first image of Dinara on the bed.

“You sure as hell didn’t pay for what you did to her.”

Horror entered the man’s eyes. Being confronted with your own depravity must have stung.

“But you will,” I promised. “This girl on the screen. Her name is Dinara and she wants you to die. She doesn’t want me to torture you but maybe I’ll do it just for myself.”

I had dreamed about it last night.

A knock sent a wave of tension through my body.

The man cried out, “Help! Call the police!”

I kicked his right side, on level of his kidney and liver, silencing him effectively as he gasped for breath. When I spotted Dinara at the door, I relaxed and went over to her. I unlocked the door and let her in. A brief glance down the street told me that nobody had noticed anything yet.

She stepped in hesitantly, still a spooked look on her face. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea that she was here. It was fucking selfish, but I was worried she’d change her mind and spare the asshole.

Her eyes moved past me to the man on the floor who was holding his side, crying. His teary gaze settled on her. “Please help me.”

Slowly Dinara moved toward him and stopped right over him. “Do you remember my face?” she whispered.

The man shook his head frantically.

“That’s funny because I see your face and every revolting inch of your body every night when I close my eyes,” Dinara said, her voice cracking.

“I’m sorry! I swear. I changed. I was a bad person back then, but I don’t do this anymore. I paid for my sins. I was in jail.”

“For hurting other girls like me,” Dinara said. “Girls whose nights will forever be haunted by nightmares.”

I stepped up beside her, touched her shoulder to show her my support. She trembled under my touch.

“Please don’t kill me. Don’t I deserve a second chance?”

I gritted my teeth, wanting nothing more than to smash his face so he’d shut up. I could see the hesitation in Dinara’s face. It took all of my control not to try to talk her into killing him. This was her decision. I had no right to force her in a certain direction only because I was a twisted fuck who wanted to torture and kill the guy before me.

Dinara tore her eyes away from the man. “Do you think he says the truth? Do you think he changed?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “Do you want me to search his living quarters? Maybe we can find something.”

Dinara gave a small nod. I wasn’t sure if new proof would really matter. This was an internal battle for Dinara, one between her dark side and her good side. I’d fought the same battle.

I handed her my second gun. “If he makes a move, you shoot him.”

I wasn’t sure if she would but from the look on his face, the asshole believed she was capable of killing him and that was all that mattered.

I headed to the backrooms of the store that he used as his apartment. I didn’t want to find proof of his continued depravity because it would mean more girls had suffered but at the same time, I wanted to find something that would convince Dinara to continue with our plan. Something that would tip the scale in favor of her dark side.

After twenty minutes of searching, I found images on his computer that left no doubt that he still harbored the same disgusting desires from the past, even if he wasn’t in the photos. They looked as if he’d downloaded them from the Darknet. I went back into the store. Dinara stood a few steps away from the man, the gun trained on him. Her eyes darted to me and I gave a nod. “I found photos.”

Another almost imperceptible nod.

Number one glanced back and forth between Dinara and me. “They are just photos. I never touched a kid since I came out of jail.”

“The kids in those photos were touched by other perverts like yourself so you could wank off looking at those photos,” I growled.

I stepped close to Dinara and she lowered the gun. We moved a few steps away from the man. “What do you want to do now?”

Dinara swallowed audibly, conflict dancing across her tense features. “I want him dead. I want to be the one, but…I just don’t know if I can. It’s like something is still holding me back.”

“You’ve never done this before. It’s only natural that you hesitate.”

I didn’t remember the moments prior to pulling the trigger on another human for the very first time. It had happened too fast, no time to let my conscience speak up. I sometimes wondered if it would have. In the weeks after my kill, I hadn’t so much been bothered by my conscience but the lack thereof.

“Can you show him the video? I want him to remember what he did, and maybe it’ll give me the courage to go through with what I want.”

Number one hadn’t moved an inch as if he hoped we might forget he existed.

I removed the laptop and the disc from my bag and set everything up on a shelf so the asshole got a good look at the screen. After a nod from Dinara, I turned the recording on. This time neither Dinara nor I hit pause. Instead we watched every soul-crushing moment of the video. I wanted nothing more than to turn the screen off, or better yet smash the fucking thing like I’d done with Remo’s laptop, but I stayed rooted to the spot. The only movement I allowed myself was the occasional sideways glance to Dinara who seemed to be lost in the images, her gaze distant and her body taut with tension. How hard must it be for her to relive those moments?

I glowered at the asshole on the floor who had lowered his head as if he couldn’t bear to watch. Fury raced through me. I grabbed his head roughly and jerked up his chin, forcing his attention back on the laptop screen. “I know what I did! I don’t need to see,” he whimpered, closing his eyes, and my fury multiplied, turned feral. “You will open your fucking eyes or I’ll staple your eyelids to your fucking brows. I’m sure I can find a stapler somewhere in your shop.”

His eyes flew open and he didn’t dare looking away from the screen again. I was glad when we neared the end of the recording. The sounds and images had turned my stomach, and I just wanted to help Dinara move past those horrors.

Dinara looked like a wax figure of herself, pale and perfectly motionless. This was meant to help her, but what if it didn’t? What if this only fulfilled my own twisted hunger for blood?

The images of the screen became blurry and my mind took over, replaying my memories so much more vividly than the video.

Every sensation washed through my body, every pain and odor, every sound and image. They flooded my body like an unstoppable avalanche, dragging up buried emotions. Shame and revulsion, fear and despair, but above all: anger. Anger at the man before me. When the screen turned black and past-Dinara’s ordeal was over, I lowered my gaze to the cowering man before me. He begged me with his eyes, pretended to be a victim, when he was a monster who’d ruined my childhood to satisfy his own needs.

I’d remembered his eyes and his words, the names he called me and the name he wanted to be called, even before I’d watched the video. I remembered his low breathing, his aftershave and the sweat underneath it. I moved closer, took a deep inhale. Even his aftershave was still the same. A new flood of images, the same I’d replayed before, wanted to flare up for a repeat performance, but my mind fought the onslaught.

Revulsion welled up in me, followed by panic, but I didn’t allow it to take root, and finally anger ruled over everything else. My hands were shaking and my throat was tight as I set down the gun on the counter. Adamo watched the move with a frown. My blood seemed to pulsate with fiery anger as I stepped up close to Adamo, my breathing coming in quick bursts. Our eyes met and his held a myriad of questions. He thought I couldn’t shoot my abuser. Maybe he even thought I’d show him mercy and let him live. I’d considered it when I’d first stepped into the hardware store and seen the pitiful guy but whenever the thought had tried to take root, every fiber in my body had fought it and the voice calling for retribution had chanted louder. I took a deep breath and slanted another look at the man. Hope had entered his expression and he gave me another begging look. Over a decade ago, nobody had cared about what I wanted, about my begging.

No mercy.

Without thinking about it, I reached for the knife in Adamo’s chest holster, curled my fingers around the cold handle. Adamo didn’t stop me as I withdrew the sharp blade with a satisfying hiss.

I’d never used a knife in a violent way and I wasn’t sure what I was doing as I stumbled toward my abuser. He tried to scramble backwards but I followed. My heart beat in my throat and my surroundings became a blur as I lunged at him. He brought his arms up, tried to fight me off but I lashed out at him with the knife. Flung it at his flailing arms, his upper body, every inch of him I could reach. He tried to fight me off, and Adamo’s voice rang in the back of my head, but the man’s screams drowned it out. I couldn’t stop, even if I didn’t even see what I was doing. My vision was blurry with tears and blood. My palm and my thigh stung, my cheek throbbed, but my hand with the knife still arched down on my abuser until I was dragged away and someone was holding me tightly in their arms despite my struggling.

I gasped for breath. Every intake stung in my chest.

“Shhh, Dinara. Everything is okay. Calm down. He’s dead. Calm down.”

Adamo’s soothing voice waded through the fog clouding my brain and slowly I came to myself. Adamo ripped a piece off his shirt and wiped my face with it. I closed my eyes, allowing him to clean me. When I opened them again, my surroundings came back into focus. Shock crashed down on me as I saw the sight before me. The man lay in a large puddle of blood and his corpse was littered with stab wounds. His hands, his arms, his chest, his face, his throat…the blade hadn’t spared any part of his upper body. I hadn’t spared a part of his body. I had done this.

I released a shaky breath. Slowly I looked down at myself. Adamo’s arm was still wrapped around my waist and I sat between his legs, his warm chest pressed against my back. My bare legs were smeared with blood, and my jean shorts were completely soaked with it. I raised my hands, also covered in red. The knife clattered to the floor and the sound made me flinch. My shirt, my hair…everything was covered in blood. And the shred of fabric Adamo had used to clean my face and eyelids was now red. I blinked, stunned by what I had done. “Why did you stop me?” I said, but my voice sounded distant, as if something was blocking my ears. Maybe more blood. I shuddered.

Adamo took my hand and turned it so I saw a long but shallow cut in my palm then he pointed at another deeper cut in my calf. “You cut yourself in your state and I didn’t want you to seriously injure yourself. He’s been long dead.”

I nodded. “I don’t know what got into me. I just lost it…”

Adamo pressed his cheek against mine, even though I was a mess. “Maybe this is a start. Maybe this is your way of releasing the pain you have bottled up.”

There was no pain now. No memories. No fear or anger or hatred, only numbness and a blissful calm.

“What do we do now?”

“I have to call our local cleaning crew so they can come over and take care of this.”

I laughed hollowly. “I guess it’s a good thing this is Camorra land.”

“It makes things easier. Vegas would be even better, but our men will clean this up and dispose of the body. Nobody will be able to trace anything back to you or me.”

Adamo got up then held out his hand. I took it and allowed him to pull me to my feet. My legs felt shaky. Now that the first wave of adrenaline waned off, my palm and calf throbbed where I’d cut myself. The realization that my blood mingled with the blood of my abuser sent a new wave of revulsion through me and I couldn’t suppress a violent shudder. Adamo touched my arm, seeking my eyes. “Dinara?”

“I have to shower. I need to get rid of his blood.” I sucked in a deep breath, realizing I was close to panicking, something we really couldn’t use right now.

“You could shower in the back?”

I shook my head jerkily. Just the idea of using the same shower my abuser had used made me feel even sicker. “In our motel,” I pressed out.

“Okay,” Adamo said slowly, as if he was talking to a frightened child, and maybe that was exactly the impression I gave off. “I need to call the crew first and we need to clean up a bit and find something to cover our bloody clothes with. We can’t cross the street looking as if we’d bathed in blood.”

I nodded, even if my desire to flee was getting stronger by the second.

Adamo picked up his phone for two quick calls before he appeared in front of me again. I was busy staring at the remains of my abuser. “I was worried I couldn’t kill someone. Worried I wouldn’t be able to pull a trigger. Instead I slaughtered him with a knife. This is so much more messed up than shooting someone.”

Adamo stroked my cheek. “It’s more personal. What this man did to you was very personal, and you paid him back in a personal way as well. It’s not that strange if you think about it.”

“I think most people would disagree with you. Nothing we do is normal.”

“Who cares?”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

Thirty minutes later, we left the hardware store. Adamo, who looked less like a bloody mess, had gotten the car and parked at the curb right in front of the hardware store. His clean-up crew was already busy sorting out the mess I’d caused. They’d even brought me new clothes to wear instead of my own for the ride back to our motel. I’d awkwardly freed my hair from the blood in the sink of the customer bathroom, but my skin was itching all over. I needed to shower as soon as possible.

The moment we entered our small motel room, I headed right into the bathroom and closed the door. I needed a few minutes to myself to process everything that had happened. As the hot water streamed down my body, I closed my eyes and let the tears I’d held back, stream down my face. For a long time, I didn’t move and with every passing moment, and every tear I shed, I felt a little lighter, as if the murder had lifted a weight of my shoulders. There still remained plenty of ballast on my soul, but it was a beginning.