Chapter 13
SOPHIE
PLAYLIST: PUT IT ON ME – MATT MAESON
Iknow exactly two things. One, I won’t let life beat me. And two, the only way out of the situation I am in is forward. I will be dead if I don’t prove myself; the situation just made that clear.
Well, I may know a third thing: One day in the future, all this will catch up with me. Mentally as much as physically. Right now, I am in what psychology would describe as a dissociative state.
Although on second thought, I still feel many things. It’s not that I am completely numb, and I still have my rationality.
Maybe my mind just snapped, and I listened to too many true crime podcasts and now think I can be a criminal myself.
Which is bullshit, but I don’t know why nothing of it affects me.
I just killed a person, and I don’t care.
I, who has always been a ball of anxiety, am now this different version. Fearless, careless, provocative.
Okay. I have always been provocative. I won’t let anyone ruin my peace, least of all a grumpy bully like that woman. I hate people like her.
Maybe it doesn’t do anything to me because it’s either him or you, a voice in my mind says.
“No,” I answer. “That’s not me.”
Two pairs of eyes look at me.
“What?” I ask.
“What’s not you?” asks Kat.
“I—“ I begin. “Did I say that out loud?”
“You did.”
“Huh,” I say. “I was just talking to myself.”
“And what were you talking to yourself about in your mind?” asks Rosalia in her arrogant manner.
“Never you mind,” I say.
See, you’re going mad, says the voice. I don’t answer it this time.
“I’m going up there,” I say.
“Not in that dress,” says Rosalia.
“And why is that?” I ask, building myself up, hands on my hips.
“That was meant to make you look cute and nice, so Giuseppe would see you’re no threat,” she says, “Those men need to see you as a leader.”
“And a woman in a floral dress can’t be a leader, sure,” I say. “You all need to work on your prejudices here.”
“Don’t you understand?” shouts Rosalia at me. “You set foot into the most male-dominated field you can ever be in. Women don’t have a say here! They’re not respected; they are used. And you will not make them obey, because it’s arrogant men who have to piss all over the place.”
“While I do agree with you on men pissing all over the place,” I begin strategically, before I add, “It is time for change, and I will make them respect me.”
I am a very thick-headed person, and I will not change just because she says so.
“You are a twenty-four-year-old fool with a not-fully developed brain that will be dead within a day,” she says despairingly.
Oh, wrong choice of words.
“I might be twenty-four, but don’t you dare underestimate me,” I say threateningly.
“I jumped two classes, have a bachelor's and a master’s degree, I published seven articles on human behaviour while studying, I got a scholarship for a PhD in forensic psychology because I was the best of my entire fucking year, I speak four fucking languages fluently and can tell you 216 digits of Pi after the comma in the correct order, for fucks sake,” I now shout, gesturing wildly.
“I am kind, I help others, took care of my sick mother for years, while studying, while working, while researching. I am intelligent, I know what I want from life, and I have a plan. Had a plan. Because then you happened.”
I breathe in, and my voice gets dangerously angry. “You. You! You, bitter, grumpy woman who knows everything better, because you’re ‘older’. The fuck you do. Older doesn’t make you wiser; the capacity for meta-cognition does, and you have less of that than the average man.”
I snap my hand at her in a way every Italian would be proud of.
“I think I'll call you Antonella from now on,” she says as if nothing had happened, and I just didn’t insult her.
“Call me what you want, I couldn’t care less,” I snap at her. “I’m going upstairs now.”
I take one of the guns lying around in the room, and the other I took from Rosalia and stalk out of the room.
“You two get out of here,” I say. “Before anyone finds you.”
“Told you, she has fire,” says Kat.
Rosalia only grunts.
As I get distance between them and me, a sinking feeling crawls up on me. Rosalia vexed me so much that I didn’t realise what was really going on. What I am about to do.
They might be right. Maybe none of the men will accept me.
What did you learn about presence in the room when being in contact with cheating, lying criminals? I ask myself. You learned about the criminal mind.
I hear voices in the room in front of me. Okay.
You’re superior. It’s eat them or get eaten.
“Tak-tak,” I say as I lean arrogantly in the door frame. “Who else thinks they can kill me?” I say slowly, watching all their reactions closely. “You'd better come forth now. Your little friend is dead; you better be careful.”
One of the men looks at me with slits of eyes. I registered him because his body language became aggressive the moment I stepped into the room.
Then there is one in the back, he tries not to draw attention; he’s a shadow, unobstrusive, blending in. He’s one to be careful of. The silent ones are the sneakiest.
“No one?” I ask. “Well, I make that easy, the takeover was long planned. That legacy was to become mine. Mine. I will inform the Commissione, and none of it will be your concern,” I say, stringing together information from my father’s journals and things Rosalia said.
“Whoever tries anything that will cause me harm, know you will move against Giuseppe’s memory, and debt will be collected,” I add, entirely improvised, but it seems to have its effect.
I also realise I sound like Rosalia, and for this one tiny moment, I hate myself for it.
But I can’t show it. I can’t be the scared version of myself anymore. Not here.
“You,” I say, pointing at the man with the aggressive posture. “You don’t agree.”
“Do I?” he asks.
“I didn’t ask you a question; I require a statement,” I say.
“You come here, puppet, like a bitch and take what was never yours. Women don’t have a say here,” he says. “We should take and fuck you.”
Men are really the most disgusting thing on the planet. After pigeons. But not even those scare me right now.
“Try me,” I say silently.
“I am no fool,” he says. “You will shoot me, like you shot him, murderer.”
Murderer.
“I am no murderer,” I say. “I fulfilled a dying man’s wish.”
Silence. And I let him sit with it.
“Also, I don’t need to shoot you because I can beat you up with my hands alone. Ask the woman downstairs, she got quite a bit of that,” I say, and add carelessly. “But if you rather wish me to shoot you now, who am I to deny?”
He laughs arrogantly.
“A girl can’t beat me up,” he says and flexes his muscles.
My eyes flash to the silent man in the back; he is watching intensely.
“Well,” I say. “You better prove it then. No guns, I honour the spoken word as the highest law.”
I silently congratulate myself for acting and speaking like a criminal.
He scoffs.
“Big mouth and nothing behind?” I know I am provoking him.
But I need this win. It also couldn’t be any better.
Those men who are all muscle and no brain are the easiest to immobilise, because they don’t train flexibility.
They train force, but force is easily eliminated by the right movement and conversions.
They also don’t have the speed of someone who has trained in different martial arts.
“Come on, show me what you got,” I say, and add. “Pussy.”
It is the one word that pushes him over the edge. He storms at me, calling me something in Scilian, tries to hit me, but I duck, jump out of the way, grab his arm, make him fall with my leg, and he’s on the floor with my knee on his spine, pulling up his arm behind his back.
“I don’t need a gun,” I say and pull his arm higher. He screams.
“I know ways to knock you out with one grip, one punch, one hit,” I say dangerously, watching how the silent man in the back reacts.
“I will let you go now. You will kneel in front of me and be a good boy until I tell you otherwise. If not, we can repeat this until you understand that I am the boss now.”
I have to laugh internally at my own acting performance. But it feels like everything in my life has prepared me for this.
Maybe it has, says the voice in my mind. My father and Giuseppe have arranged my life. Maybe they pushed me in that direction.
Or maybe you were born for this, says another voice.
The one I have encountered in self-reflection and meditation.
The voice with grandiose thoughts, but I have chosen not to act on them.
I am kind. And caring. Well, to those who deserve it.
But then, all of these men here, including the one to my feet, are all a product of bad decisions and external influences, and I will extend them the benefit of the doubt.
Once upon a time, when I started studying psychology, I thought every human was good in their nature. And then I made my master's in criminology; it was a rough awakening.
I myself thought I was a good person. And now I killed someone.
I killed someone when I was young. I didn’t even remember that until I pulled the trigger on Giuseppe.
It was the flash, the feeling, the tension in my muscles, and suddenly the images flooded back.
But I don’t have an emotional connection to any of them.
I killed, although I was convinced I was a good person. And it doesn’t do anything to me. Just like Kat. Just like Rosalia.
I am no better than they are.
And it leaves me wondering whether we humans are more evil than good.
The man at my feet gets on his knees, turns, and I see he is not surrendering. He has my knee in his face before his hand touches me. As he bends down from the pain, I slap his neck with my flat, full force, and he sinks to the ground, unconscious.
The other men laugh, not at me, but at him; one of them nods in appreciation. It’s the one who convinced the others to leave earlier. I walk up to him.