Chapter 4 Rosalia
ROSALIA
PLAYLIST: MAN OR A MONSTER – SAM TINNESZ, ZAYDE W?LF
Iglance at the screen as Kat pulls up the DNA matching results.
“She is a liar,” I say.
“Or she really doesn’t know.”
“She was twelve; she must know something. You cannot just forget the past,” I say, my voice trailing off. “Let’s see how she reacts.”
“Some people don’t know because of trauma,” Kat says. “She might not know what she has done, especially if, you know, they did something to her, too.”
I stare at Kat for a moment, with a heavy chest. Because somehow, this one sentence made my son’s killer a person to me.
A person who might have gone through what I had to.
An uncomfortable sensation rushes through my chest. Kat made the inhumane thing humane to me.
But I cannot overlook what the girl has done.
She killed. She killed my blood. And I have to kill her.
“It doesn’t change what she has done,” I say coldly, pushing away and kind of feeling I just had and walk down the stairs leading to the catacombs.
Kat follows me in silence. I know Kat is righteous in her acts; she does not act until she knows for sure.
I am different. I trust my gut, and my gut says the girl knows what she did and has to pay.
We put on the night vision goggles. I have found that the deprivation of the senses, such as vision and the sense of time and space, makes people crack far more easily. Adding humiliation and starving—the perfect mix to make someone talk.
We enter the catacombs and the cell to the right, and she hangs lifeless in the chains. I slap her awake.
“You lied to us,” I say.
She is weak, I don’t care.
“I didn’t—“ she says faintly.
“Yes, you did,” I say. “We matched the DNA we have of Antonio with yours, and he indeed was your father. And your father was therefore the man who stole from me, who betrayed me, who caused many deaths with his lies—just like you are lying. Lying that you don’t remember, lying that you didn’t do the horrible act of taking my child’s life. ”
“I’m not lying,” she pleads with me. But I am not one to plead with. Words do not touch me. Words are mostly empty. What matters are actions.
“My father was Ian Onto; I never knew an Antonio—we were in Berlin, and then we moved to England after his death because my mother had friends and family there—I never killed anyone.“
“So you are telling me you have never been to Sicily? That your father wasn’t the bastard who raped children, stole money, and betrayed me? You tell me he wasn’t a monster?”
“He wasn’t!” she shouts “And I—I didn’t s-say—I have been to Sicily as a child. M-My father had some friends there, one of them invited us for a stay—It was so—long—ago,” she says with a voice trailing off from weakness. She seems to have become unconscious again.
I slap her face, and her head shoots back up.
“Stay with me,” I say.
“I—“ she says, but her head sways and falls down again.
“It’s the third day,” says Kat. “She won’t make it any longer.”
I know what Kat is implying. I have waited so long that another day doesn’t matter. "I give you 24 hours,” I say, knowing how skilled Kat is at breaking others. I leave her and the foul smell in that cell behind and tear off the googles.
I’ll watch over the surveillance system.
I pour a drink, take the tablet, and sit on the couch. As I watch Kat offer her water and free her from the hook, the girl falls heavily to the ground. I already know I will end her life, so it is satisfying to watch.
“Don’t move,” says Kat. “I’ll release your arms; it’ll hurt, you will not move.”
The girl nods. She screams when Kat removes the chains. Being chained up a time like that has long-lasting effects, painful and intended ones.
“I am going to play nice, as long as you tell me what you know,” says Kat. It’s the old good cop, bad cop technique. Only we’re not cops but killers.
“I don’t feel well,” says the girl. “I think I—“
She vomits.
Pathetic.
“Here, drink,” Kat says, handing her the water bottle.
She hesitates, hands trembling, and Kat forces her to drink.
Risky move—I would never get so close to an unrestrained prisoner, but Kat thrives on the thrill, seeking danger and physical confrontation.
Yet nothing happens. It almost feels sad—I wish she would try something; I would end her immediately.
“Eat this,” says Kat and holds one of these disgusting protein bars she loves to the girl’s mouth. I had the hope she might have stopped her obsession with them after being with her wife, Lilian, but I might have overestimated her influence.
“Now,” says Kat. “We have your little friend, you were travelling with, Luisa is her name. If you lie, try to escape or do anything I don’t like, I will kill her, understood?”
“No, not Luisa!” shouts the girl.
I have always admired Kat, and I do so right now. Because we did not take Luisa. Luisa is an innocent bystander, and we do not take innocent bystanders.
“Who were the friends in Sicily?” Kat asks.
“I—I can’t remember. I was six, I think, the only thing I do remember is that my father gave me Lolita that birthday,” says the girl in a weak voice.
“Who is Lolita?”
“A little stuffed animal, a sloth, we flew to Sicily, and he bought it for me because he had been so busy. There is this photo, my father kept it all these years, and it’s the only one I have from my childhood.
I think it was a job he did; he showed us the house, I think.
He was proud of his work. Or I was proud of him?
I don’t know. I think it was because my dad was so important. ”
“Are there any other photos or videos?”
“There might, I don’t know. I have none; my past is so blurry. My mother might have some, but you won’t get anything out of her; she had a viral brain infection and only remembers the immediate past.”
“How convenient,” says Kat, voicing my thought. I am certain the mother faked it to vanish.
“I’m sorry,” says the girl, and bursts into tears. Quite a show, but she learned from the best. The man who betrayed me for years—living a double life, feeding Giuseppe information and laundering money, taking power from me —he was a liar and an actor, too. One of the best.
“Do you have any idea where your father could’ve hidden money?” asks Kat.
“He left us with debt,” says the girl. “My mom almost broke from it, that’s why we went to England and lived with friends there in the beginning. My memory is so blurred from my past; I was only twelve when he died—I tried not to think about it.”
“What friends?”
“My mother’s brother, John, and his wife. They live in Cornwall.”
“John—?”
“John Brooks and his wife Ellen, he’s in my contacts in my phone, please take it, use it, whatever. I have nothing to hide.”
“I am going to leave you here, do not try anything,” says Kat and walks out of the room. I watch the corridor feed. She does not lock the door.
A dangerous smirk of admiration for Kat’s cunningness curves my lips. She is testing her. If she saves herself and leaves Luisa behind, we can be sure she is guilty of something.
“Rose,” says Kat as she comes up and slowly walks up to me with her phone in her hand. “That John and Ellen, they do not exist. Zeus can’t find anything on them.”
“You think Antonio and the wife lived a double life,” I say.
“Likely. Maybe staged. Let’s see how she acts, I let the door—“
“Unlocked, I saw. In for a bet?”
“A hundred she won’t go for it,” says Kat. “She’s too scared.”
“Well, I am sure she’ll leave without checking for Luisa and will try to save her ass.”
“Alright,” says Kat. “I am going through her phone to find that John and Ellen.”
“I want them dead, too. Anyone, real or fake family, will be dead.”
Kat pulls up her equipment and dives into her digital world while I watch the catacombs cams.
“How’re things with your girl?” I ask.
“Wonderful,” she says. “She threatens to kill me at least twice a day. Let me know if I should introduce you.”
“You know the drill,” I say.
“I know. But some things may change. Look at me,” she says and looks up from her computer.
“I’m not you,” I say. “I cannot have anyone outside knowing.”
“Lilian belongs to me,” says Kat. “She’s not an outsider. She might know someone you could like?”
“I will never settle down for anyone or anything, nor do I socialise,” I say harshly.
“Never say never,” she says with her playful attitude.
“I can understand your girl’s desire to murder you several times a day,” I say dryly, and Kat laughs.
At that moment, the girl in the cell moves.
“Action,” I say, and walk over to Kat, showing her the surveillance footage.
The girl crawls over the ground and explores the cell with her fingers. She finds the door. Opens it. She crawls further. I’m ready to win and hold out my hand to get the hundred bucks, but Kat only nods towards the tablet.
“Luisa,” whispers the girl. Damn, I thought she would leave and run for the hills.
“Luisa, are you there?” she asks, a bit louder. Searching for another door.
She finds the door leading upstairs.
Opens it.
Bright light enters the corridor, and the camera clicks as it switches from night vision to normal mode. The girl hides her eyes in her arms and slams the door shut.
She really does not try to escape. Instead, she crawls back to the room we kept her in, leans against a wall, legs drawn up and cries.
“I don’t think she knows,” says Kat, and it pinches my chest. All the anticipation, the hope of finally getting my revenge, flushes from my body, and is replaced by frustration.
“Or it is a very good show,” I say.
“I have an idea,” says Kat. “She was utterly scared of pigeons. Let us try the fear approach.”
“Pigeons,” I say with a drawn-up eyebrow. “Who is scared of pigeons?”
“More people than you might believe,” Kat says. “Can you get some?”
“Sure,” I say and make a call to an associate.
They are delivered half an hour later, four pigeons in a cage. It is probably the most peculiar order I have ever made, and my associate looks questioningly at me, but she knows not to ask any questions.
Kat takes the cage and gets back to the catacombs. I watch the surveillance footage.
The cell door creaks open, and the girl flinches.
“So,” says Kat. “This is your last chance to tell me the truth. I have four pigeons here with me. I will leave them here with you without the cage if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”
Kat rattles at the cage, and pigeons flatter wildly in it.
The girl reacts with total panic. She screams. Her breathing is erratic as she crawls backwards as far away as she can get. I laugh. What a pathetic thing she is.
“Nothing?” asks Kat in her playful arrogance. But that girl can’t speak, because she has a full-on panic attack.
“Well, I’m releasing them,” says Kat and opens the cage.
The pigeons flap their wings in just as much panic as the girl, and she throws herself to the ground, hands above her head and screams. She screams and screams and screams.
And I add pigeons to my list of future torture techniques.
Kat leaves and comes back up.
“I’m letting her sit with it,” she says.
“I do believe it is working quite well,” I say, showing her the footage.
The screaming has stopped, and she lies paralysed on the floor. Moments like these are what break a person. Fear and sleep deprivation are the most powerful tools for getting information because they open people up to further questioning.
“Good,” says Kat, takes an apple from the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter and sits on it.
I press the microphone button on the tablet when Kat bites into her apple.
“Are you ready to talk now?” I ask.
“I don’t know anything,” whimpers the girl before she adds in a darker tone. “I hope you die a slow and painful death where the universe will make you pay for being such a horrible human being.”
My mouth curves.
The fear approach did not work, but I have to acknowledge, she has some fire.
“There is one other way to find out I’d like to try,” says Kat, pushing herself off the counter. “It will also reveal if she has empathy or is a cold-blooded liar.”
“I’m listening,” I say, slightly annoyed.
“We use her friend, Luisa. I could create a deep fake from a few video sequences from her socials and make it look like a surveillance video of her being tortured. We could use something intense, a threat of murder or rape, and see what Sophie does when she sees it.”
My eyes narrow.
“Or we could just grab that Luisa and have Adria have some fun with her—“
“Rose, she is an innocent bystander,” Kat says with a harsh undertone. “I am all in for getting you your revenge, but not the innocent ones.”
My girl has grown into a wonderful woman I am very proud of, and I cannot disagree with her.
“Do it, but do it quickly,” I tell her. She understands I am in a mood, yet she also knows her capabilities.
Kat nods and gets to work.
I walk up and down over the tiles. I am restless. I desire clarification. I desire revenge. Equalising. Now.
“If you don’t stop pacing or put off your heels, I am going to murder you,” says Kat at some point, eying me angrily.
I pour myself another whiskey and kick my heels off my feet.
“Thank you,” she says. “I’m almost done, it’s a bit more complicated than I expected, because that Luisa has not a single full face photo on her profile.”
Half an hour later, she shows me a to me very convincing video of the girl’s friend being threatened, hit, shot in the leg, undressed, touched, and a man jerking off his disgusting penis.
I have seen the video before, only with a different woman.
“You replaced it with her,” I say. “It’s from what you took from that drive from the Moretti’s in 2018.”
“It is,” she says. “I had to recreate half of her face with AI because I couldn’t get a real shot, but I blurred it like a surveillance feed—it’ll suffice with what I got from her phone.”
“What did you find there?” I ask.
“Nothing of relevance to us. But she mustn’t know that,” says Kat as she gets up, taking her laptop with her.
She freezes halfway to the downstairs door and spins around.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Ian Onto is Antonio,” says Kat. “It’s an anagram.”
I look at her as my mind switches the letters.
Why have I never seen it before?