46
Curtis sits on the ground a couple of feet from the puddle of bile he just spewed into the grass.
Tears run unchecked down his face, comingling with the snot streaming from his nose.
He’s having an emotional breakdown. It’s pathetic.
And disgusting. Damian has continually taunted Curtis for his weakness, his softness, and he’s right.
Curtis is a coward, far too tender for the task at hand.
He wipes a sleeve across his face, but it has little effect.
He’s a mess. He needs to pull himself together.
But he can’t, not yet. The ugly truth of his situation twists his insides, rattles his psyche.
He’d been stupid to think he could pay off his blackmailers, that the money would make Bianca and Damian go away for good.
But what the hell did he know about extortion?
He had been a legitimate businessman until West Beatty entered his orbit last year.
Curtis remembers the moment he met him, the excitement, the sense of opportunity.
He’d lunged at the chance to be involved with Beatty’s empire, ignored the rumors that swirled around the mogul.
And now he’ll pay the ultimate price… unless he acts.
Curtis has made some enormous mistakes in his life.
He’s done things that were legally gray, ethically ambiguous, morally repugnant…
but he’s not a criminal. And he’s definitely not a killer.
Soon he will be. There’s no other choice.
If he doesn’t take care of Damian and Bianca—and fast—one of West Beatty’s hired guns will show up here with a semiautomatic weapon.
This man will kill them all, leave no witnesses.
Curtis crawls onto his hands and knees and vomits again.
Even as a boy, Curtis was never physical, never strong.
He didn’t have a sibling to teach him to wrestle and play fight.
He’s never thrown or felt a punch. The world he inhabited valued intelligence, wit, money, and education.
Not brute force, not physical aggression.
The sports he played were noncontact, like tennis and golf, sports that relied on skill over power.
And now he’s being called upon to murder two people. How the hell did he get here?
Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he finds his footing.
It’s tempting to crumple again, to curl into a ball and moan and wail about his hopeless situation, but there’s no time to waste.
Curtis must come up with a plan to exterminate his guests and save his wife.
He takes a step on watery legs, and then another, moving away from the house, following the fence line.
He can’t see Sydney yet. Not until he’s concocted a plan that will protect them. But how?
Curtis can almost imagine shooting Damian and Bianca.
A gun is the kind of weapon that provides physical and emotional distance.
He might even enjoy watching Damian beg for his life before he puts a bullet in his chest. But Curtis knows that guns are hard to get in Spain.
He’d investigated acquiring one for protection when they first bought this remote house.
He would have had to take lessons and undergo background checks.
And Syd was against it, so he’d given up.
Fuck. It would have made this so much simpler.
Stumbling on the rutted hillside, he slows his gait, focuses his attention on a solution.
Could he hire a hit man on the dark web?
He knows enough about the shady side of the internet to know he’d need to download a special browser, and then…
what? Would he type in “hit man wanted, Cadaqués”?
What are the odds that a murderer-for-hire lives in the general area?
There are likely hit men in Spain, but could he communicate his needs without the help of Google Translate?
(Duolingo hadn’t covered employing assassins.) If Curtis managed to find someone, how long would it take him to get here?
Could he arrive and kill Bianca and Damian before West Beatty could send a thug here to take care of them all?
He rustles through the tall grass, moving numbly down the incline of the north property line.
Brainstorming about gun licenses and hit men is simply procrastination, avoidance.
Because Curtis knows he will have to take care of these two himself.
And he’ll have to do it tonight. But how?
Damian is so strong. Curtis will have to get him drunk, maybe crush some of Sydney’s sedatives into his drink.
If he’s drugged, Curtis will be able to strangle him to death or smother him with a pillow.
If Bianca wakes up, he could slit her throat with a kitchen knife.
These methods sound slow and gory, and his guts churn, but there’s nothing left in his stomach to throw up.
Heading east at the bottom of the hill, he slows his gait.
He’s nearing the house now, coming up toward the pool.
But he can’t face Sydney until he’s calmed himself, until his plan to save their lives is solidified.
When he takes a heavy step, the toe of his shoe hits a rotted log, pitches him headfirst into the tall grass.
He lands on his right forearm. He’ll likely have a deep bruise tomorrow, but he feels no pain now.
His nervous system is too overwrought to deal with anything else.
As he attempts to drag himself up, his shin hits something hard. Something metal. He pauses, crouches down on his haunches. His hands sift through the tall stalks and land on an object. It’s the machete.
Damian had told Curtis the weapon was locked in the van, but he’d obviously lied.
The machete has been hidden here so no one can find it.
Damian must be planning to use it. Will he hack Curtis to pieces if he doesn’t come up with the money?
Or will Damian get the money first and then chop him up?
What about Sydney? Would Damian attack her, too?
Would Curtis be able to protect his wife from a bigger man armed with a blade like this?
Finding the weapon is a sign. It’s a gift.
Gripping the handle, Curtis feels the power and the potential.
He will put the machete in his bedroom closet.
When the time is right, he’ll strike. Tonight.
He refuses to think about the spurting blood, the crunching of bone, the brain matter sprayed on the guest bedroom walls.
He blocks out Bianca’s screams as Curtis cuts into her partner’s carotid artery, Sydney’s desperate pleas for him to stop the massacre.
He has to kill the other couple. It’s the only way to keep his wife safe.
He’ll be caught, of course. Curtis will go down for murder, pay the ultimate price.
He’ll be branded a psychopath, a monster, and will spend his life in jail.
Maybe he’ll swallow Sydney’s personal pharmacy, wash it down with a bottle of booze, and take the easy way out.
Because he knows Sydney will call the policía, that she’ll turn him in.
He will beg and plead and try to explain, but she’d never cover this up for him.
She’s too decent. She’s too good. That’s why he loves her. It’s why he has to save her.
Concealing the machete at his side, he heads back toward the house.