Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
VIC
Icouldn’t stay and play the part of the distracted boyfriend, nor pretend to Dani that I wasn’t on a mission to find Sonya's husband and ensure he never hurt another person. Especially not Rose. God, the way that she shook in front of me at the mere mention of her father was heart-wrenching. After asking for her address and finding out where that piece of shit lives, I follow him to a bar. He isn’t in the least bit upset about the fact that his wife has died, because they had to call him.
He’s a good-looking man, not the type one would envision when thinking of a man who abuses his wife and child.
But then, evil sometimes hides behind the pretty illusion of a good career and a well-groomed persona, all the while their insides are black and rotten to the core.
A poison that leaks out, infecting anything it touches, hidden behind a white-toothed smile.
I can tell. He sits at the bar as a woman comes up to him and sits on the stool.
I sit close by, listening to the conversation transpire, itching to get closer and warn her that he is an abusive piece of shit, but I can’t.
I'm playing the long game, and soon it will be over.
She points at his ring, and he lowers his gaze, summoning a mask of grief—one that is full of manipulation as he tells her he’s a widower.
Her hand clutches her chest in sympathy, while her other slides onto his leg, desperate to comfort him.
He stares at her hand on his thigh, and she can’t see the smirk that plays at his lips, I can from my view in the darkened booth next to them.
The game he plays to get women into his bed.
His wife died hours ago, he was the reason she was there, and didn’t care about her enough to see her go, nor be there for his daughter.
We have established this isn’t the type of man he is.
He chooses to pick on the defenseless, the ones who can’t fight back, and I remember all too well how that feels.
To not be big enough or strong enough to protect someone when you can’t even defend yourself.
The woman leans closer. “It looks like you could use some company for the night.” She looks down at his hung head, hope filling her lust-filled gaze.
And when he looks up, he meets her eyes as his darken.
He leans over to whisper something in her ear.
I can’t make it out, even from here, the effect is apparent—she likes it.
Her cheeks flush crimson with heat as her thighs push together against the bar.
She licks her lips, and he watches it all.
He turns away, downing the rest of his dark amber liquid in his crystal glass in one quick swallow.
As he stands abruptly from the stool with his hand extended out toward her, she doesn’t hesitate.
She leaps up, grinning like she won herself a prize.
Blind to the knowledge of what it will cost her.
I leave my tonic water and lime there untouched at the table, slipping out after them, careful to keep enough distance between us, so he doesn’t sense me trailing behind.
Outside, the night air feels heavier, cloaked in low-lying fog.
My car purrs to life, headlight low, as I ease from the spot a minute later.
His taillights illuminate with a red hue, a beacon guiding me along the path I’ve already memorized back to his house.
He leads me back to his street. I don’t park near him, instead, I slide onto the next block.
Pulling up beside a house that rests empty on a corner lot behind his.
A “For Sale” sign is placed in the front yard, yet the house remains dark.
Staged amidst the greenery and annuals that appear freshly planted, perhaps to showcase the house with its well-maintained landscape, giving the illusion of what it could be.
I walk in the shadows of the night, my feet make no sound on the concrete walkway, as I round the corner of the back yard and onto the darkened porch around back. There are no cameras here. That would only provide proof, evidence of the atrocities that happened in this place.
I give it thirty minutes before I come in.
The back door is unlocked because predators rarely worry about becoming prey.
They grow too sure of themselves, too reckless, that they think they are untouchable.
Getting away with the abuse because his brother is a police officer has lulled him into a false sense of security, a bubble about to burst before his very eyes.
I hear the faint sound of music in the living room as I follow it.
I see a glass of wine mostly finished and a glass of whiskey left mostly untouched.
I follow the sounds of slapping skin and grunts that come from the bedroom.
I wait on the couch for it all to finish, thinking he must be a selfish lover, only searching for his own release. I bet she doesn’t even come.
He finally emerges from the bedroom, and still I wait.
The sound of his footsteps crosses the hall, unhurried.
He opens the refrigerator door, and in the pale light, I see beads of perspiration on his forehead and the sheen of sweat on his skin.
From the bedroom, there is nothing, no voice calling out to him.
No sound whatsoever. And it’s sometimes in that silence that the scream is loudest.
Before I can address that, I need to come here and finish what I set out to do.
With that, I take a quick step, stabbing him in the neck with a scalpel.
The precision I usually use to fix a patient has the opposite effect as I rip his skin about, slicing through tissue and hitting his major artery in seconds.
Before he can figure out what is happening, he slumps to the floor.
His blood coats the black and white checkered tiles of the floor as he holds onto his neck, trying to staunch the bleeding.
His eyes are wide, scared, and I take deep satisfaction from it.
I just regret that he didn’t get a chance to feel more of it.
My scalpel drops, and when I bend down to retrieve it, I see it—the same tiled pattern.
A sick trick of the mind perhaps, but the similarity all the same.
I can’t move because I am seeing a different scenario from long ago.
One that I tried to erase from my mind, pressed into the darkest corners, hidden forever, but it explodes open as the memories come back in vivid color before me: my mom, her body surrounded by all that blood.
I can’t move, I’m paralyzed in this spot.
My vision blurs and my ears pop. I can’t hear, I can’t see, all I can sense is the pounding of my heart in my chest as I fight the urge to pass out.
“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,” I wheeze out between pursed lips. Then I feel someone by my side, the hand warm against my cool, clammy skin.