Taina
MASK OFF
I know the moment he comes down the steps that it’s him.
I’ll never forget the sound of his footsteps, how every time I’d hear them, fear would paralyze me until I had to remember to breathe.
But not this time.
This time as he pushes the door open, I aim the knife at him, wrists still bound.
He holds up his arm, and I catch him on his forearm, slicing through the black fabric of his shirt and piercing his skin. But it doesn’t even slow him down.
He shoves me back with that same forearm, using his free hand to take the blade from me before tossing it near the door.
I’m still covered in blood, the metal chair I’m still tied to dragging behind me as he shoves me into the wall.
The back of my head hits the cement hard, and my vision blurs for a moment.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he grits out, his sadistic smile showing through his ski mask. But his soulless eyes stare into mine like he wants me to see him. He wants me to remember.
As if I could forget .
“You thought I wouldn’t recognize you? The little puta in the shadows who just won’t go away.” He moves his grip to my neck, cutting off my airway as he peers down at me, tilting his head one way and then the other. “You think you’re safe because of him ? He can’t save you.”
I can’t speak, bringing my hands up to try to dig into his, but it’s futile.
As if he realizes he’s killing me, he releases me from his hold and grabs my wrists by the rope tied around them.
“You know he’ll find me, right?” I cough out the words as he drags me toward the center of the room before releasing me. I lose my balance over Fabián’s dead body and hit the floor.
“He won’t,” he tells me, gripping the back of my neck and forcing me to look at him. “Between the many fires he’s had to put out and the bodies piling up, he’s got his hands full. And once he’s done with all of that, you’ll be dead anyway.”
He releases me and stands, using his foot to turn Fabián’s body over. “Now why’d you have to do that?” He sucks his teeth, looking back over at me with disgust.
Like he’s not the fucking monster here.
Except he’s just a man.
He’s not a monster at all.
He’s just a man.
And men bleed.
“What makes you think you’re going to get away with this? What’s the end game here?” I ask, stalling while I figure out how best to fight back.
“I’m going to fuck you while you scream, put a bullet in your brain, and then fuck the hole.”
His words sound wet, like the thought of such actions make his mouth water.
“And Emiliano?” I mention the connection in hopes to appeal to his humanity.
“He’s going to die the moment he walks in this house, after he gets tired of looking for you.”
“Are we at the ranch?” This man can’t be that stupid. Maybe he thinks it’s genius because it’s the most obvious place to go?
Either way, not much sense in that head of his.
“Stop asking me question,” he yells, causing me jerk back. “Get on your fucking knees.”
He pulls the gun out from where he’d tucked it, aiming it in my direction. And with a free hand, he begins unbuckling his belt.
I nearly vomit at the thought of seeing his dick.
“Try to put that thing in my mouth, and I’ll bite it off, you disgusting little bitch,” I spit the words out and wait for his wrath.
“I can just kill you now,” he offers, gesturing with the gun like it’s a better alternative.
Hell, it is.
“Do it. I’ve already accepted that I’m not leaving here with a pulse. You get off on seeing people experience pain. You probably would’ve jerked it to me poking your friend here over and over,” I prod, grinning at the way he narrows his eyes.
“You don’t know shit,” he barks, steadying his aim again.
“I know you didn’t do all of this just to kill me before you get to try to break me again.”
“I’ll break you, bitch,” he warns, and the threat is barely out of his mouth when he rears back and pistol whips me so hard, my ears start ringing.
I taste the coppery blood on my tongue and smile. “I told you. Fucking freak,” I rasp out.
He steps toward me and lifts his foot like he means to stomp directly on my face.
“Even if you kill Emiliano, you’re going to go to prison for the rest of your life.” I rush the words out, hoping he hears them before he knocks me out cold.
My eyes are closed as I await contact. But it never happens.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I have documented therapy sessions that I’ve instructed to be released to the authorities should I go missing,” I inform him as he stands there towering over me. “We also discussed my budding romance with your brother.”
Truthfully, I’d only mentioned that I was getting closer to Emiliano and how it complicated the things I was already planning to do.
“It’s your word against mine, and you have no proof,” he sneers.
“No? Not the rape kit that I had performed on me with your DNA?”
Crickets.
It wasn’t that long ago. Surely he remembers.
“Bullshit, I used condoms.”
“Your saliva, estupido. Tú sí que eres bruto .”
Because that’s what happens when you try to fuck someone who’s too weak to fight you off and you don’t have lube on hand.
“You think you’re so clever,” he says back, his hold on the handgun flimsy.
“No, clever was contacting your brother mid-panic attack to tell him that you were at the hardware store so he could pull the security footage.”
He stares at me with those dead eyes, so still I wonder if he’s even breathing. And before I can say anything else, he begins kicking me, yelling all the while.
“I should’ve”— kick —“fucking”— kick —“killed you.” Kick. “But your fucking”— kick —“parents?—”
Caught by surprise at his revelation, I take a boot to the face. I roll over, covering my head with my arms, trying to prepare for the next blow.
But I swear I hear banging upstairs and what sounds like gunshots. The steady patter of an automatic rifle in the distance has him running toward the door.
“I told you he’d find me,” I mumble weakly, trying to turn in an effort to see Emiliano. If this idiot doesn’t kill me first. “I think you underestimated what I would do to survive you again.”
The footfalls thunder above us, and I watch as he pulls his gun out of the back of his pants. He adjusts the ski mask over his face, shifting nervously near the door until he decides, fuck it .
He yanks the mask off, and if I hadn’t met his mother earlier today, I’d never know that he looks just like her. How devastating.
“You think I won’t kill my little brother?” Carlos Pineros asks.