This was getting frustrating.
Had he hit her too hard? Gene didn’t think he had, but Naomi was so woozy, sliding in and out of consciousness. She had stitches in her head, and he knew she’d been in the hospital a few days ago, plus he had set her house on fire with her still inside. Perhaps he should have shown a little more self-restraint when she had shown up to save her sister.
He could have just threatened her to get her to climb into the trunk of his car, but it was the first time he had been so close to her since he’d gone to prison when she was just thirteen. He hadn’t been prepared for the rush of unadulterated rage.
Everyone thought Naomi was so perfect, but she had single-handedly destroyed his family.
She needed to pay for that.
Gene wanted her awake. Now. He didn’t know how long he had with her before the cops showed up. They would have spoken with Ruth by now so they would know that he was Naomi’s stalker. There was nothing he could have done to avoid that though, he wouldn’t—couldn’t—kill his own daughter.
Naomi on the other hand was a completely different thing. She wasn't his. She was just the daughter of the man his wife cheated on him with. Not only was he going to enjoy killing her, and not only had he enjoyed torturing her so far, but he was also going to enjoy every single second he spent with her before it was time to end her life.
Picking up a knife from his tray of tools he had prepared for their time together, he stalked to where he had secured Naomi. He’d kept her hands secured together because he knew she was crafty, and he didn’t want to risk her getting the jump on him. He had then looped another plastic zip tie through them and around the metal bar the shower curtain hung from. Gene had decided keeping her in the bathtub might be the easiest in terms of clean up because by the time he was done with her she was going to have shed a lot of blood.
As he stood over her, he seethed with hatred.
She deserved so much more pain than he could ever inflict on her even if he was able to keep her locked away and all to himself for the rest of his life.
He plunged the knife into her thigh.
Naomi startled awake at the sudden pain.
Her eyes flickered open, but they were still dazed and unfocused. He wanted her fully with him, he wanted her to understand just how much he hated her.
“Naomi.” He slapped at her cheek.
Her eyes cleared a little and she gave a long, slow blink. “Gene. What? Why? Ruth? Did you kill her?”
Insulted, he frowned at her. “Of course not, she’s my daughter.”
“Unlike me,” she said quietly.
“I played along,” he snarled. He slapped her, hard. “I didn’t abandon your mother or you when she told me about her affair. I was there for everything. I was there when you were born, I changed your diapers and did midnight feedings. I taught you to ride a bike, I treated you exactly the same way as I treated my own children, and what did I get for it? I got my house burned to the ground, two dead kids, two kids with their lives destroyed, and a wife who had a nervous breakdown.”
“I'm sorry. I tried to get to David and Eli, but I couldn’t reach them. I wanted to go back in, but the paramedics sedated me,” Naomi said.
Rage overpowered him. Naomi was suspended from the shower curtain rail, forced to remain on her feet with her arms above her head, her entire torso exposed, and he beat at it until he was breathless.
Naomi was slumped and unmoving.
Trying to calm his ragged breathing, he was going to have to hold it together better than that. He didn’t want her dead this quickly.
“I'm sorry,” Naomi’s weak voice murmured.
“Sorry? You should be sorry that monster started the fire because of you.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “You knew it wasn't an accident?”
“Yes. After the fire I realized it had to be him, I'd seen him hanging around that day.”
“Who?” she asked, clearly confused. Maybe she wasn't aware that the fire had been started because of her.
“Andrew Candella.”
For a split second she looked confused, and then understanding dawned. “Because of his mother’s death. Because our father was with me that weekend.”
That was what he assumed although he had never spoken with Andrew Candella about it. Never spoken with him at all, ever, in his entire life. Andrew was the son of Naomi’s father and his wife, one of Sebastian Candella’s two legitimate children. Sebastian’s wife had died in a car accident while she was out driving at night to pick up her daughter Aggie. Sandra had had to pick up Aggie because Sebastian was having his fortnightly visitation with Naomi. Gene could only assume that the then teenage Andrew had blamed Naomi for his mother’s death.