Henry waves me away with his hand. The high proportion of gin in bloodstream, together with his tendency toward deluded self-aggrandizing, still affords him a decent amount of misguided courage. In other words, Henry isn’t scared of me, but he hasn’t met the new, improved Heath.
“I’d like to see you suffer, to realize how insignificant you are. Your misguided delusions of importance are over, Henry Shaw. You are broke. Broken. And unfortunately, dependent on me for your future wellbeing.”
I step on his hand gracefully, pushing my shiny Italian leather boots down until the snap, crackle, and pop of his bones crushing under my foot give rise to garbled screams as Henry vomits on himself. I grind my foot with a little wiggle like I’m putting out a discarded smoke, pulverizing the bone shards and making his hand unusable for the rest of his life.
“Shame Dad spent so much on piano lessons. Guess you won’t be signing any more papers, Henry, probate for not. But not to worry. I can take over and become the man of the house. You’re in no shape, anyway.” I tsk and shake my head as I tell him, “I’ve looked into some in-patient psychiatric programs that seem right up your alley.”
“Kat would never let you throw me out. She’ll stop you.”
“It’s funny the things we tell ourselves in moments of duress. If you believe for a single, solitary second that Kat will come to your rescue, then you, my poor brother, are sicker than I thought.”
Henry’s eyes go wide and his bottom lip quivers as his gaze moves to the hunting knife I pull from the holster. Bending down to his crippled form, I press the blade gently to the corner of his eye. “I don’t think Kat will do much. Probably still recovering from last night, when she watched helplessly as I fucked her dear, devoted husband Eddie up the ass with the handle of this very blade.”
I press into the blade gently, the tip quickly splitting the thin skin at the corner of his eye, not enough to do serious damage, but enough to leave a reminder, a pretty little nick in his skin.
“I’m pretty confident she won’t give a shit about you, Henry. Kat’s dealing with her own issues. Seems you let her marry one of your prick friends with a proclivity for taking women against their will. Not only that, but the douche puts his hands on her. Did you know that about Eddie? Seems you would since you were all so tight back in the day. I mean, you can’t miss all those bruises, even in your drunken state.”
“Shut the fuck up, Heath. What she does with her husband isn’t my concern. I told her not to marry that loser. She could have stayed with me.”
“You and your frat boy friends sure never learned how to treat women. Do you think she likes it when he forces her to fuck him while she begs him to stop and sobs in the sand?”
“I don’t fucking care,” he sniffs.
“Maybe it’s what you guys like. Maybe that’s why you all do it. Should we give it a go, me and you, the little handle of my trusty blade made Eddie come hard. I can provide the bruises, too, free of charge, for old time’s sake.”
Henry creeps away from me on the floor like the roach he is. “Kat could have been comfortable here with me, but she wanted to get away. She probably couldn’t stand this house because this is where she gave up her pussy to a piece of trash like you.”
“Let bygones be bygones, Henry. That’s all in the past. Let’s see if I can make you come in your cute little pajama pants. You like it rough, or so I’ve heard around the way.”
Henry screams as I dip the blade into his flesh superficially, pulling down from the corner of his eye to the edge of his lip. Crimson blood gushes from the wound and quickly covers his face. Not the smartest move on my part, but I didn’t appreciate how he talked about Kat. I’m showing restraint because usually at this juncture of the game, I like to pop the whole eyeball out.
“Don’t kill me,” he begs as his hand moves up to his face, clawing at the knife.
“Oh, I don’t plan on killing you, Henry. At least not yet.” I dislodge the knife from his face and clean both sides of it on his dirty wife beater. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, did you forget how to bathe? You’re absolutely disgusting. You used to call me the dirtbag, and now look at you.”
“You’re going to jail!” He screams as he scoots backward until his back hits the staircase.
“Good luck with that, Henry. You see, I’m now connected to powerful people who make things happen in this city, even out here on Long Island. I’ve got everyone from judges and politicians to celebrities and mobsters eating out of my hand. I made our old man proud. He gave me a pittance of his estate and I took that and transformed it into an empire. What did you do, Henry?”