7. Roman
ROMAN
Ivan hangs from chains bolted through the ceiling beam of his basement, arms spread, and toes just barely grazing the floor.
Hours of careful labor have turned him into a living display of pain and broken things. His body is almost purple from the beating, right eye swollen to a slit, lips fat and glossy with blood.
He breathes shallowly through one nostril that whimpers at every inhale.
“You slashed her tires,” I ask in Russian, voice low and steady. “Why?”
Ivan hesitates until I pick up the mallet and bounce it once in my palm.
“She was sniffing where she shouldn’t,” he answers in Russian. “I had to send a message.”
“You sent much more than a message,” I said. “You sent a bratok after her.”
The man is dead, of course. I snapped his neck, dragged him into an alley, and left the body for the rats. Ivan must know that, but I doubt he cares.
A good boevik like him never cares about the men under his command. He only lives for the words and approval of his brigadier.
“Tell me what you were going to do to her,” I say.
He chokes, making a burble that’s a mixture of laughter and panic. “Does it matter? She’s just a fucking badge. What difference does it make to you ?”
There’s a hot pulse in my chest, a rush of old anger married to something colder. She’s not just anything. Ever since I saw her and heard the venom on her voice, she’s become everything.
And he dared to touch her. Threaten her. Sent a man after her.
I set the mallet down, pick up a pair of pliers, and run the tip along Ivan’s left thumb—the same one that had touched her neck.
Ivan tenses, but doesn’t beg. Not yet.
The nail comes loose with a slow, wet crackle, the blood welling up black and fast. Ivan screams, high and loud, and the sound echoes in the cement vault like a song.
When he stops, I let him pant for a while. The chain creaks with every tremor. That’s when I pick up the hand saw, its sharp teeth clean for now.
Ivan watches me line it up against his left forearm, just below the elbow. Panic finally makes its way into his eyes. “What do you want from me?”
“To hurt.”
I press the blade down and Ivan howls as blood sprays the air. For a moment, I’m seventeen again, watching a girl’s blood steam in the cold of a Russian winter night.
What would Detective Cantiano think if she knew I had memories like that?
I stop when the saw hits bone. I wipe the blade on his shirt and set it down. My hands are steady. My thoughts are not.
“The truth will set you free, Vanya.” I lean in, so close our faces almost touch. “What were you going to do to her?”
He pants, drooling, head hanging. I’m surprised when he actually answers me.
“We were going to bring her back. Fuck her, film her, teach her some fucking manners. I saw the anger in her eyes when she was mouthing off to me. Angry bitches like her are the best fucks.” He coughs, blood splattering on the cement below.
“They have some fight in them. And I always liked a cunt in a uniform.”
Pressure beats at my temples as Ivan confesses his sins to me. I can practically feel her here with me. Won’t she love this? To see another one of these fuckers gutted in her name?
I want her here, now.
I want to lick his blood off her lips.
“So,” he chuckles weakly before lifting his eyes one last time to meet mine. “I told you the truth. Why don’t you hold up your end of the bargain?”
“And set you free?”
“Isn’t that what you promised?” he asks back, uncertainty creeping back into his voice.
“I did, Vanya.” I pick up a knife. “But I never told you what I’d set you free from. ”
The knife rises, and I let hate guide its path. The blade fucks his face in a savage, repetitive motion as it bites into his orbital, cheek, teeth, and nose. The blade punches through cartilage and skids across bone.
I keep going until his features are a ruin, until there is nothing left to destroy.
When I stop, my hands are red to the elbows and my shirt clings to my skin, soaked with blood. The floor under Ivan’s feet transforms into a red, mineral lake.
One more gift, one corpse closer to having her in full.
Someday, she will be beside me as I work, tongue wrapped around my ear and whispering instructions on how she wants me to hurt them for her in true justice.
I wipe my face with the hem of Ivan’s shirt, unlock the chains so the body slumps to the floor, and then cut his hands off at the wrist. The bones are slick, the muscle corded and stubborn, but they yield all the same.
I set the hands on the table, palm up, and arrange the fingers.
It takes twenty minutes to carve the message, slowly and carefully, so that each letter is legible. On his chest is my familiar greeting.
TO DETECTIVE CANTIANO .
On the hand is something much more personal.
Something that she’ll understand: this is what happens to men like Ivan. To anyone who thinks they can touch what belongs to me .
Stepping out into the night, I breathe deeply to fill my lungs with salt and cold and the faint sweetness of bakery yeast.
I need to see her, now.
With every step, my mind fills with thoughts of all the ways she’ll agree to be mine for the taking. My fingers flex at the thought of kneading the taut flesh of her thighs. My breath trembles in anticipation of her hot, breathy whimpers in my ear. My jaw hungers to leave marks on her creamy skin.
And my cock throbs at the thought of plunging into her again and again until she can’t live without it.