Chapter Thirty-Two #3
“He tried to tell the truth when the bad guys told him a story of himself, but it was too late. He shouldn’t have been stubborn. The bad guys didn’t have time for a story, you see, but he made them tell it anyway. So, they got very annoyed. Irritated … And they brought in his pregnant wife.”
The sound of the door opening had him jolting. Soft whimpers and footsteps reached my ear, and I didn’t have to look to see the red-haired pregnant woman by the side of the room, next to probably a stunned Casmiro and Angelo.
I couldn’t care less about what they were thinking because my eyes were solely on Fio, whose body started to thrash at the sight of his blindfolded wife.
“Sofia!” he yelled.
A sob racked out of the woman. “F-Fio?”
“When Fio caught sight of his crying wife, he yelled her name, so loud, so fierce the bad guys felt it right in their guts, and when sweet Sofia responded with a stutter, they wanted to feel pity, but then they remembered they had given Fio a chance to talk, and he didn’t.”
“For the love of God, she’s pregnant; she has nothing to do with this. We have nothing to do with your search; I’m just an ordinary artist who got paid for a fucking job—please—please just let her go,” he cried.
“Then Fio tried to bargain and make the bad guys see reason. To let his pregnant wife go, but no one said this was a romance story or a happily ever after…”
A shiver of fear ran through Fio’s body.
“Th-there’s a little white s-stroke underneath the eye of the chihuahua in every fake.
It is absent in the original. Mr. Garza sent out ninety-nine of those paintings after I had them delivered.
The original—the original was only with me until I painted the first duplicate.
I don’t know, but I think he hid the original himself; he went on a trip outside of Mexico, I don’t know where, but I bet that trip was to find a perfect s-spot to hide the original.
Maybe at a family landmark, I have no fucking idea—but I swear—I swear this is all I know. ”
“Fio, in a state of panic, told the bad guys all he knew about the painting, and since the bad guys had gotten all they needed from him, they decided to let him go…” I let a pause ring through, and I could feel every breath in the room pause with my last statement.
“But then, the bad guys thought, if we let him and his pregnant wife go, what would happen if someone else got to them?”
“No, please.” Fio choked out a cry at the same time Sofia let out a sob.
“The bad guys took pity on pregnant Sofia and removed her blindfold so she could see her husband alive one last time.” I didn’t look to see if the blindfold had come off, but the gasp from Sofia and the loud crying that followed told me it had.
“Fio … amore … p-please, sir—don’t hurt him; he hasn’t done anything. He hasn’t hurt anyone in his life—he hasn’t caused any trouble; he’s innocent, sir.”
“Sofia tried to beg the bad guys, tried to save her husband, but the bad guys knew it wouldn’t be possible. If Fio could break so easily, someone else might do even worse, and he’d spill the truth to that someone else, and the bad guys couldn’t have that, so they decided…”
I turned my gaze from Fio for the first time, looking at Angelo, whose eyes showed wariness, and then Casmiro, who looked uncertain, but remained firm in support of every decision I’d made, no matter how cruel.
I looked back at Fio, whose eyes remained pleadingly on me.
“I beg you, do whatever you want with me, but please let her go, ple—please.”
“Fio begged.” I raised my hands from his wrists, placing them on both sides of his face.
“His eyes, once hopeful for a bright future, his eyes that had shined in happiness after he received that hat on the streets of Paris, now flowed with tears, knowing the very thing he loved the most was now the one thing that would put him under.”
Sofia’s heart-wrenching cry met my ears.
“It was so sad a scene. Too … emotional for the bad guys to spend even a second in the room, knowing how it would all end. They decided to snap the neck of Fio, and they probably should have asked Sofia to look away. Still, the bad guys were so bad that they derived pleasure from the scream the wife gave afterward … They knew they would derive even more pleasure when they buried her six feet under … alive with her husband.” My eyes searched his as my grip tightened on both sides of his face.
“A very tragic end to a beautiful story.”
The room went quiet.
“Did you like my story, Fio?”
“No, no … I want to hear more,” he rushed out.
I pressed my lips together, shaking my head. “Unfortunately … that was the end.”
“Please, n—”
I twisted his neck in a sickening snap.
The wailing-like scream from his wife pierced the air, almost making me deaf.
I withdrew my hand from his head, and it fell lifelessly at an odd angle.
And like that, Fio died.
I rose to my full height, turning to see Sofia holding her stomach as she cried, her face scrunched up in pain as her body shook, crying out her husband’s name.
Angelo brushed past, beelining for the door, looking like someone who wanted to throw up.
When I looked at Casmiro, his jaw was clenched tight. His eyes weren’t on me; they were on Fio.
Of course they were on Fio. He’d just witnessed his life from start to finish.
I could have just killed him. I didn’t have to make anyone know him before I did. I didn’t have to make them care … I didn’t have to make Fio relive his life and see his death before it happened.
I didn’t have to make his wife watch.
But I did.
Why?
Because I am sick in the head.
Because I’m The Wicked.
Because I … I liked it.
My hands shook. I balled them into fists before releasing and shoving them into my pockets.
The cries from Sofia attached themselves to my brain, resounding in echoes.
I stepped closer to her and ground my teeth as I said, “Shut up.”
She didn’t seem to hear.
“Shut. Up,” I repeated, and she snapped upright, pressing her lips together to try to stifle her cry. Her body shook, tears streaming down her face as she held her stomach, body tight with withheld tears, eyes unable to meet mine.
I turned to Casmiro.
“See to it that she’s taken care of,” I stated, making him look up at me with guarded eyes.
“Taken care of…” Something like hope lingered in his voice.
“Six feet under. Alive with her husband.”
“No … ?por favor!” Sofia cried out, hand grasping my arm. “I don’t care what you do to me, but let—please! Please let me have my baby first. She’s innocent. Please, sir.”
My gaze settled on her hand on my arm before I slowly looked back at her. “Get … your hands off me.”
She drew back in fear, almost stumbling, but Casmiro held her upright.
Tears streamed down her face as she clasped her palms tightly under her chin in a praying posture.
“Let her live, please; she doesn’t—she doesn’t know anything about the painting; she’s not even born yet, sir.
” Her lips trembled. “When—when she’s born—you can take me—kill me, butcher me, I don’t—I don’t care at all, but just—let her live, sir, please. ”
My gaze flickered to her stomach, then back to her tear-stricken face.
I dusted where she had touched me on my suit, gathering my composure as my gaze briefly flickered to Casmiro, whose expression resembled a plea.
“… Grief is normal. You can’t stop people from feeling it by killing them.”
I glanced at the other soldiers in the room before looking back at Sofia.
“… You’re stopping them from a future they could have had. A life. Maybe even better than the one we have.”
I tried blocking out her voice.
I was suffocating.
I loosened my tie, trying to free its hold around my neck. “Then”—my gaze flickered to Casmiro, silently telling him to do the exact opposite of what I’d ordered, and then back to Sofia—“take the easy way out, Sofia.”
Her eyes widened as she looked up at Casmiro, then at me.
The air was suffocating me.
I looked away from the crying woman. “You know what to do, Cas.” He nodded in understanding. Then I turned and motioned at the other soldiers. “Clean up the mess.”
With that, I was out of the room, taking a lungful of clear oxygen, but it wasn’t enough.
Go back in there. Finish the job.
I brushed past men who cleared the way for me.
You’re making a mistake, boy; she will come back for you. Finish the damn job.
I chased the entrance like I chased death.
Go back now, Marino, yo—
I got out of the building, letting out a gasp of breath.
Releasing my shaky hands from my pockets, I flexed my fingers, walking towards my house in the compound with a fast-thumping heart.
I looked up when I rounded a corner and halted at the sight before me.
Zahra was there, wearing a black dress, pacing back and forth and glaring at the soldiers standing in front of my building.
She did a double take in my direction, almost folding over in relief.
“Thank fucking Jesus.” She looked back at the guards.
“Please give me permission to kill these motherfuckers. I’ve been standing here for almost an hour, and I don’t think Street bought my ‘need to relax, headache’ story.
” She looked back at me. “And I bet one of them is planning to burst into my room to find arranged pillows on the—” She stopped midway, her gaze searching my face as her eyes slowly widened in concern.
“What’s wrong?” She advanced towards me.
But I met her halfway before she could reach me, taking her hand in mine.
“You’re coming with me.” I pulled her towards my house, right past the guards and into my space.