My eyes are locked on that when he backs me into a corner and pokes his finger into my forehead.
“Really, use your fucking brain. You have one, right? Isn’t that why daddy spent all that money on tutors for you? Or was it because you’re slow? I mean, the old man is on fucking machines. How in hell would I have moved him without unplugging him? You always were so damn stupid.”
“You don’t have him. You never did. What about Nan?”
“Never say never, you know better. She taught us that, didn’t she? Yeah, I think it was Nan.”
“Where is she?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “Morgue? No, too soon for that. Lying in her blood on the kitchen floor?”
I step toward him. “If you hurt her—”
He pushes me backward. “What? If I hurt her, what?”
“Just tell me she’s okay! You have me here, what more do you want?”
“First of all, if I told you she was okay, that would be a lie, and I don’t want to lie. You know I don’t like it. Second, what more do I want? Are you really asking that?”
“They’re coming for you. Giovanni’s coming.”
“Really?” He stops and pretends he’s listening at the window, the one I crept out of four years ago. It’s been repaired. Sort of. It’s boarded up. I know that won’t be my exit tonight. “I don’t hear him.”
“If you hurt me, he’ll kill you.”
“He’ll kill me either way. Why not take you with me? No reason not to. Misery loves company and all that.”
He stops, leans forward, and sniffs me.
“You stink of sex, you know that? No amount of soap can cover that up, Sis. Never could get enough, could you? My sister, the whore.”
He puts his hands on me, tears the blouse I’m wearing down the middle.
“Stop! Alessandro. You’re my brother.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not planning on fucking you. That’s sick. Not that I remember you being very picky. It’s disgusting to watch your sister come with some filthy dick in her filthy cunt, you know that?”
I feel myself cave in a little. Shrink away a little.
“Touchy still? Aww. Poor baby.” He tugs on my shirt again, tearing it from me this time and, gripping my arm, he pulls me roughly to the center of the room where the cuffs still hang from the chain.
“Stop, Alessandro, stop.”
I fight but he is so much stronger than he should be. I think that’s what happens when you know this is it.
He raises one of my arms over my head and clicks the cuff into place around my wrist. I grip the chain and try to hit him with my free hand but only manage to scratch his face, which pisses him off. He stops and steps back.
I stop too, and look at the four streaks of blood on his cheek. His breathing becomes tighter. I can see his anger burning, growing, bubbling over, and before I can think, he slaps me so hard that I see stars. My cheek throbs with pain. I feel him take my left arm, which is now hanging limp at my side, and drag it up until he snaps the other cuff around it.
“You’re such a cunt,” he mutters. He’s moving away, but I hear him.
I blink, force my eyes to open. I’m just hanging now, my weight suspended. He’s torn away my shirt so I’m in a bra and jeans. My shoes have slipped off somewhere. I turn to look for them, I don’t know why, but then I hear a familiar sound. A terrifying one.
“I’m going to whip you raw front and back,” he says. “Then I’m going to peel away your skin before I put you out of your misery.”
“You don’t have to do this, Alessandro. You don’t.”
“I know I don’t,” he says, walking around me, coming behind me so close that I feel his hot breath on the side of my face. He pushes my hair over my shoulder to expose my back, touches it, traces a scar. “But I want to.”
And before I can open my mouth to get another word out, the first lash falls across my back.23Giovanni“It’s a fucking setup. We’ve been played.”
I walk around that fucking apartment for the twentieth time, looking for any clue he might have left, cursing at the men on duty, fucking sleeping on the job to have let him through.
The camera shows Alessandro Estrella, thinner than I remember, bearded, his hair looking like he needed it cut half a year ago, taking his time as he walks around Emilia’s home. He drinks her whiskey before pouring the remainder of its contents all over her carpet, her furniture. He eats her food, leaving packages lying around as he does. Opens drawers, moves things, even goes through her bedroom, her underwear drawer. It’s sick, actually. This is her brother, and he’s making my stomach turn.