Chapter 64
Phoenix
With Simon now strapped to the chair he always makes me sit in, I remove the hockey mask and mesh hood I stuck him in the closet with. His hands and feet are bound, and his body slumps back in the seat.
“Wake the fuck up!” I shout as I slap him across the face. He groans and wriggles his arms and chest some, but he’s certainly not startling himself into consciousness. “I said, wake the fuck up!” I backhand him across the other cheek this time.
“Ow. Fuck!” he cries out, then stares at me. It must be quite mindfuck to see himself, the predator, standing before him. He twitches his biceps and kicks his legs. But he’s not going anywhere.
“That’ll be enough of that.”
“What the fuck? Phoenix, is that you? That can’t be you. What the fuck are you doing?”
“No. You don't get to be the mighty one anymore. Do you see this face?” I aim both my index fingers at the tight leather covering my head. “This mask that represents power, the one you've hidden behind for years, it's my face now.”
I lean forward, making sure he can take me in, sweat dribbling down my hidden cheeks.
He spits on the mask, a glob of saliva sliding down the chin covering.
I laugh, a hollow sound like thunder in the small room, before I give him a solid chop to the throat with the side of my hand.
The impact is eerily satisfying. He hacks and coughs.
His face reddens as he struggles for air.
His eyes bulge with panic. The veins in his neck strain against his skin.
I didn't hit him hard enough to crush his trachea.
Just enough to remind him of his mortality. It's not my goal here. Not yet.
“What do you want?” he asks as though there’s anything he can give me now.
“I want you to stay the fuck away from what is mine.” My words are venom. I’ve been watching you string my wife along. “But I know you, Simon.”
“You don’t really think that’s my name, do you?” He giggles, shaking his head.
“No, I don’t. I don’t know what the fuck your name is.
I know it’s not fucking Clark, which is the only moniker I’ve ever known.
That is until last night, when I found out that the person stalking the thing that matters the most to me, the person I would give my life for, is you.
The piece of shit doing this right under the boss’s nose. ”
My mind seethes with fury. I want to destroy every ounce of this man. This monster.
“Haha.” his laugh is slow and deliberate. “You still don’t know a fucking thing. Do you?”
“I know that when I tell him, it will be over for you. You’ve compromised his empire, and for what? Roni doesn’t mean anything to you.”
If he’s concerned, he doesn’t show it. His face is still quite smug for a man whose life is essentially over.
“Him? Ha. You fool.”
WHAP!
I crack the back of my hand across his face before spitting on him.
“Say it,” I insist with all the hate I can muster.
“Say you knew the woman you’ve been stalking is Roni—MY WIFE.
” He’s going to admit it before I’m through with him.
“I know how you operate. I’ve been around you long enough to understand how you think.
You haven’t been paying her to fuck herself because it gets you off.
You knew who she was the second you saw her face.
You knew she was mine, and you saw this as some game you could play to claw her back after I took her from you. ”
The corners of his mouth stretch to his ears before he speaks again.
“Who do you think you are to make demands of me? To ask me if I know who some whore on the internet is, when you don’t even know who you’re talking to.”
“And who are you, Simon? Or Clark? Or whatever the fuck your pointless name is?”
“You have your cell phone on you, yes?” he asks with misplaced confidence.
All I do is dip my head with acknowledgment.
Unsure of why that matters. “So, call him. The boss,” he urges.
“You’re so sure he’ll forgive a lowly nobody going directly to him.
Scroll to his name in your contacts, and call him. ”
There’s no reason for him to think I won’t.
I made a deal with The Sect for Roni’s life.
For her to be free from all of this. To be left alone.
Forever. And this motherfucker broke that deal.
The boss doesn’t forgive broken promises.
There’s no way he’s going to start with some asshat who calls himself Clark.
I find his name in my phone and turn it to Simon, showing I’m ready to do it.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Is this dickbag teasing me?
My foots lifts from the floor and I thrust it with the power of a cannon.
THWUNK!
I kick him square in the chest, causing his chair to tip back.
“Aaaaah.” He’s helpless as he falls backward, fastened to the furniture.
“Weren’t expecting that, eh fuckhead?”
He doesn’t respond. Instead, his body twists, and his legs and arms struggle against the restraints, before he lays still.
“Enough of this shit,” I snap as I tap ‘call’ on my screen and then put it on speaker. There’s a click. Then a pause. Then—
RING!
RING!
Is that the—
The phone on Simon’s desk chimes through the office.
“Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. You fucking moron.”
I’m at a loss for words. How is this possible?
“What’s your play now?” Though I can’t see it, I can hear the arrogance on his face.
I find my duffel and dump its contents on the desk I’ve sat beside countless times, and spread everything out.
When I hoist him back up to face me, when I punch him in the throat and then slam my forehead into the bridge of his nose, when I grab the tire iron, the world is red around me.
I can’t even tell how old he is. He could be my age. He could be twenty years older. After all this time under a mask, who knows what it’s done to him? He isn’t particularly handsome, but nobody would know.
“There is no Clark,” I shout.
PHWACK!
I swing, dealing a crushing blow to his left ribs.
“There is no Simon.”
brUNK!
I swing again, and the crack of his knee is unmistakable.
“It’s all you.”
SCRACK!
The cold black steel obliterates the top knuckles of his hand.
“You’re—” I repeat my damage to his other knuckles. “The fucking boss?”
I grab the mesh hood I wore in and shove it into his mouth, then snatch the duct tape from my supplies.
“You see this?” I wave the roll of adhesive in front of his eyes.
“I couldn’t bring the roll from home. My wife needed it for her fucking stream.
” I slap a piece onto his right cheek and begin unspooling it, winding it around his head, securing the fabric hood deeper into his gullet.
“You’re going to see exactly what I’m going to do for toying with the one thing you will never have.
What you’ve got it coming to you. We both know Roni wants her pound of flesh. And I intend to give it to her.”
His eyes darken and squint, and muffled screams escape in angry nonsense. I pick up the phone on his desk and press one of the preset buttons. On the other end a man’s voice answers.
“Yeah, boss?”
Really? They call him ‘boss’?
“I need you to bring some men up to my office,” I say with authority. “I’ve got something I need you to deal with.”
“Yeah, sure thing. We’ll be right there.” I hang up and turn back to him. Clark. Simon. Whatever the hell his name is.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, motherfucker.” I cross my arms, glaring through pinholes where my eyes should be. “Your men, who’ve never seen your face, or mine, are going to take you downstairs to the stables. Because today is your first day of training.”
A wrap on the door clicks. He always sits on the same side of the desk, so I know the button’s nearby. I plant my ass in his chair and start probing under and around the drawers until I find a small, well-hidden red button in the second drawer on the right. I press it and the door opens.
Three of his goons rush in. None wear shirts. All wear ski masks with a black eye band cutout. One’s in cargo shorts. Two are in jeans.
“You wanted to see—” the man who speaks trails off when he sees the unmasked man sitting across from me. “Um, is everything okay in here, Boss?”
“No,” I reply coldly. “This guy tried to fuck us all over. Tried to sell us out to the feds. You know what we do with pieces of shit like him, right?”
“Yeah,” the same man mumbles with no confidence. “We’ll get rid of him. Send up to the pig farm like usual.”
“No!” I snap. “Not this time. I want you prepare him for auction.”