“Who the fu—” I cut him off when I hang up.
I sit on the closed lid of the toilet seat and run my hands down my face, knowing a storm is brewing, and I’m willingly about to step into the eye of it.
Sometimes I wonder about myself. I really do.
God, help me.
My palms are sweaty, head swimming, with my long hair pasted to my dampened back, resulting in an itch that causes more agitation than it should, knowing I’ll never be able to reach it with my hands tied.
Gio hasn’t offered me food in the days I’ve been here. I don’t know how many have passed, but when he ate in front of me this morning and my stomach rumbled loudly, he laughed to himself. “Not wasting food on a dead woman.”
And there it was.
He planned to torture me until my last breath.
My stomach turned violently at the thought. The place inside of my head, the safe spot I escaped to, my happy place, had grown darker and darker until no light shone and there was no longer happiness there.
I had won a battle by framing Dino, but Gio would win the war.
In the end, the satisfaction of small victories was short lived and growing more and more stale by the second. Starvation has left me weak of both body and mind. Torture has broken my spirit. And I’m ready to die.
Craving it, more accurately.
I silently wish I could see Julius one last time, feel his kiss on my lips as I passed onto a higher plane.
It would be the happiest ending for me.
But people like me don’t have their wishes come true. People like me die in the cool silence of the night, naked and alone, without a single soul looking for them.
People like me are dispensable.
We are nothing, gone in a wisp of smoke, carried away by a moonlight shadow.
My eyes are closed and my breathing labored, a large hand grips my chin harshly, lifting it up, higher than is comfortable. I try to open my eyes, but I can’t, and a memory of the beating Gio delivered only hours ago reminds me that my eyes are swollen almost completely shut. When something cold is pressed to my temple, my body breaks out into gooseflesh.
“Like that, do you?” I recognize the voice. I attempt to remove my chin from his hold, but he grips it tighter. “Calm down. I’m here to help you. Show a little appreciation.”
My lips cracked, I try to lick them, but my mouth is just as dry. My neck painfully stretched, I rasp out, “Kill me.”
I hear his smile. “I will, baby. Gambino’s out like a log, and I’m going to slit your pretty little throat, spill all your blood with a single gash.” He presses his lax lips to my cheek, and his breath warms me, as he whispers an apologetic, “I know I said I wouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I’m… I’m not normal. I love death, love watching it, love causing it. It’s just who I am.”
Right now, I don’t care what he is, if he’ll grant me this one kindness.
“Please,” I all but beg.
The hand at my chin begins to shake, and Maxim Nikulin nips my jaw. “I’m sorry.” His lusty voice trembles. “I need to do this. I need to.”
The tip of the cool blade is pressed to the side of my forehead, just above my temple. I don’t feel much of anything, just a dull pressure. A second passes, and the pain quickly follows. My mouth parts and I let out a low keening moan.
Maxim Nikulin shushes me. “It’ll be over soon, but you have to be quiet. Just a little longer.” His shaking hand makes a mess of my face. His quiet groan barely audible, he utters a clearly aroused, “Fuck yeah.” The sharp blade slices into my skin, past my temple, down my jawline and over my lips, ending at my chin.
He takes a moment to view his handiwork before sighing in satisfaction, returning the blade to rest at the place where my head meets neck with one hand, while pushing my chin up with the other.
“It’s almost over,” he promises, and breathing in deeply, I take in my last breath.
Lost inside my head, preparing for what is to come, I miss the beginning of the commotion. Loud male voices shout and a struggle ensues, with furniture scraping along the floor, breaking and cries of pain filling the air.
It doesn’t matter.
My decision made, my mind does me this one mercy, and I stop breathing.
Painful minutes pass and my lungs burn.
It figures that dying would take such a long time.
The ground below me is crumbling. The stars above me are falling, shattering on impact. The sea rages and I feel my ship capsizing, slowly sinking to the dark depths of the furious ocean.
But then an unfamiliar voice sounds into the darkness, a light guiding me home, and I’m being lowered to the cold ground. “Ana? Ana, fuck! Stay awake. Shit, wake up. Live, goddamn it!”
The voice sounds again, and although his voice is muffled as my consciousness fades to black, his words penetrate my frozen heart. “Live. Come on, girl, breathe. Do it.” He holds me tight, rocking my limp body, his pleading words whispered directly into my ear. “If you can’t do it for Julius, do it just to spite those motherfuckers.”
An inner struggle takes place, my mind fighting my body, and those words echo throughout my head for what seems like forever.
“Live, goddamn it!”
Then something strange happens.
“Come on, girl, breathe.”
Something comes down hard on my chest, again and again, until finally, my eyes shoot open. My mouth widens in a silent scream and my lungs open up.
“Do it to spite those motherfuckers.”
Lightning strikes.
And I breathe again.
Sneaking up on a sleeping Gio Gambino was satisfying. Evander and I approached with caution, expecting the unexpected, but the asshole was actually sleeping.
When I pistol-whipped him across the head, he woke with a start, scuffling about, pulling off the covers and yelling, “What the fuck?” When he finally sat up, Evander switched on the lights to reveal a bloody-faced and manic Gio Gambino, gripping his grazed forehead like a pouting child. Gio locked his eyes on Evander and boomed, “MacDiarmid, you don’t come into a guy’s house in the middle of the night, let alone creep around his room, you ill-mannered fuck!”
With my half mask covering most of my face, Gio Gambino wasn’t able to see my lip curl, but he heard my growl, and when he looked over at me, his anger abated slightly, realizing he was in a scrape. Getting a hold of himself, he calmly asked Evander, “What’s this about?”
I kept my place, close to the foot of his bed, pistol in hand, while Evander moved about the room, speaking as he went. “I’ve always known you were a bad seed. There was always something not quite right about you. I wasn’t the only person who felt it, but you, being a Gambino, well, no one really wanted to deal with the violent temper tantrums that would come from bringing it up with your father.” He stilled then turned to face him. “Something about you is simply wrong.” He came forward, closer to the bed. “And when I heard that Alejandra Castillo was missing, there was no way I thought you’d done it.” Evander looked to me with a cool smile. “I thought, ‘He wouldn’t be so stupid. Not a chance he’d taken her.’”
My voice came out slightly muffled from behind the mask. “But he did.”
Evander nodded once in confirmation. “But he did. Mutilated her, too.”
Gio shook his head in disbelief. “That’s why you’re h
ere? Because of her?” He laughed a short moment before his face contorted. He reached up and gripped his hair with both hands, pulling in absolute fury, before roaring, “What the fuck does everyone see in her?”
“Where is she?” I asked, but we all took it for the demand it was.
Gio closed his eyes and inhaled deeply before exhaling slowly. “You have to understand, this is her fault. She caused this. She took my brother from me, and now she’s going to die for it.”
Evander frowned. “No, Gio. All she did was end the daily torture you and Dino conditioned her to take. Had I but known…” Evander’s words were quietly spoken. “Oh aye, it’s all come out now. No hiding from it. Your family has been completely wiped out for the disrespect you’ve caused. She didn’t do this, Gio. You did. If you need to lay blame on anyone, look in a mirror and you’ll find the man responsible.”
Gio shakes his head in disagreement, and I ask once again, firmer than the last, “Where is she?”
Gio’s eyes snap open. “You want her? Fine. Take her.” His lip curls in disgust. “Take her and get the fuck out of my house.” He smirks as if his words are some kind of personal joke. “She’s in the basement.” When neither of us moves, he blinks up at Evander. “Well? Take her and fuck off.”
From his pocket, Evander pulls out a pair of black leather gloves and puts them on then removes a pistol from inside his jacket. He asks me, “What do you do with a rabid dog?”
My response is simple. “Put it down.”
Evander inclines his head. “Sure, okay. But I’m not going to kill this one.” Gio’s eyes harden, and Evander grins. “No. I’m just going to muzzle it.” Then he lifts the gun and pulls the trigger, twice.
Gambino screams in agony as his kneecaps are blown to pieces.
Ignoring his yelps and cries, Evander and I hog-tie him like the pig he is.