I have to intentionally hurt Karissa.
I have to kill her mother.
Gathering her hair, I push it away, out of her face, as I rouse her from sleep. "Karissa," I whisper, shaking her slightly as I shift around in the bed. "Wake up, sweetheart."
She stirs, opening her eyes, and blinks a few times as she looks up at me. A sleepy smile overcomes her lips, that happiness coating her face. Blissfully ignorant. I remember how that felt. I envy it, for the moment.
I want it for myself again.
"What's wrong?" she asks, her voice thick with sleep.
"Nothing," I tell her, shifting her beneath me so I can hover over her beautiful frame. "There's absolutely nothing wrong. How could there be? I have you."
I didn't think it was possible, but her radiance grows. She wraps her arms around me, pulling me to her for a kiss, as I settle between her legs. I'm hard already. Again.
I push inside of her slowly, holding her tightly as I do, listening for the sound of her breath. The gasp of pleasure washes through me and I shiver, nuzzling into her warm neck.
I don't fuck her this time.
I can't.
I don't want to.
I make love to her, pouring my soul out to her like she did for me this afternoon. I trail light kisses everywhere I can reach, whispering how much I love her, the words ghosting across her skin. My nose brushes against hers as I stare into her eyes, drinking in the innocence.
"There's something about you," I say quietly. "Something I've sought for a very long time."
Her smile wavers, her expression sobering. "I've heard those words before."
"I know you have." I'd told her this exact thing the night in her dorm room. "And now that I've found it, Karissa, I'm not sure I can let it go."
She reaches up, brushing her hands through the hair that wisps across the forehead, before she cradles my face. "Then don't."
The injury therefore that you do to a man should be such that you need not fear his revenge.
The quote from The Prince has always been one of my favorites. I've lived my life by it for as long as I can remember. It's a lesson I learned through experience, through bloodlust and bloodshed. It's a lesson that has kept me alive and led to many other deaths.
If you're going to hurt someone, make it fatal.
Don't wound. Kill.
Don't let them walk away.
It's a code those in the old country live by—you don't just kill a man, you kill his whole family. Orphaned sons grow up to be vengeful men. Widowed husbands come looking for blood eventually.
I sit in my car, once more in the small town of Dexter, just a few miles to the west of Watertown. My vintage copy of Machiavelli's book lies open in my lap as I thumb through the warped, water damaged pages in the darkness. I couldn't believe it, when I looked at my phone this morning and the familiar address of the flower shop in Watertown greeted me.
Carmela went back home, it seems.
I'm curious why, and I have a few theories: maybe because it's the only place Karissa would know to look for her mother, or maybe it's because Carmela has nowhere else to go. But I think it's more complex, like maybe she knows what's coming, and when it happens, she wants it to be on her terms.
She has the upper hand here.
Or so she thinks.
Through the woods, I can see the house. The Jeep Wagoneer was abandoned at the shop in town, the doors all locked up. I'm not sure if she went back here or not, but she's in the area somewhere, and I don't know where else she'd go at night.
She has no money.
She had no friends.
She probably wouldn't expect me to bother looking here, since I'd already cleared her out of the place.
I linger for a while, just biding my time, watching the house as my hands stroke the cover of the book. It's all quiet, and dark, appearing abandoned, and I'm close to second-guessing myself when there's movement in the yard. Shadows move, the grass disturbed, seconds before a faint bark cuts through the silence.
Killer.
I watch attentively as the front door of the house just barely cracks open and the small dog darts straight inside. I continue to stare at it, even after all is still again, contemplating where to go from here.
Reaching into the center console, I pull out the small caliber handgun, carefully double-checking to make sure it's still loaded.
It's nearing midnight when I get out of my car and slowly make my way through the woods, watching my surroundings. No motion lights outside, I imagine, since the dog didn't trigger them. I'm thinking there isn't even any electricity.
That makes it tricky.
People take for granted the sounds that surround them. We tune them out naturally, but when they're gone, we miss them. They mask the unknown, and without that buffer, every creak and groan sounds grave and unnatural.
I approach the house, heading around the side of it. I remember the layout from the visit with Karissa. I head to where her old bedroom window would be, recalling her story not long ago about the windows. Her mother made a habit of nailing them shut, but Karissa rejected it and jimmied hers back open.
I try the widow, praying Carmela didn't catch it. It moves easily, barely making a creak. I haul myself up, careful to pull myself inside. My feet hit the wooden floor and I pause there for a moment, letting myself get used to the stuffy darkness.
It's deathly silent.
Once I've adjusted, I stand up, gripping the gun firmly as I stroll toward the door. It isn't latched. I remember. Karissa's bedroom door had always been broken.
I make my way toward Carmela's bedroom, my footsteps so light they don't make a sound. Her door is shut. I grasp the knob, testing it.
Unlocked.
I take a deep breath to steady myself, wondering if this is how Johnny did it, if this is how he felt when he broke into my house, when he killed my wife in the middle of the night. Did he hesitate outside the bedroom door? Did he even for a moment consider backing out?
Or was it easy for him, stepping inside, cocking that shotgun and destroying my life?
Shaking those thoughts away, I turn the knob and push the door open. It lets out an awful groan. The world around me seems to fall into slow motion while I still move at the speed of light. The noise echoes, everything around me crystal clear.
A dog growls nearby as the bed shifts.
Carmela sits straight up.
A second passes.
I stare at that familiar face, into those terror-filled eyes. A lifetime plays out around us, a world of memories and all those missed chances, the flood of what-could-have-been.
Could've been, but never will, because it's too late.
The chance is gone.
I raise my gun.
Another second.
I pull the trigger.
BANG