CHAPTER 13
Tino
The marks I left on her neck colored it for weeks and were there to greet me when I returned.
She was sleeping—or pretending to be—when I arrived. The doctor assured me she was fine, though. No permanent damage and nothing that couldn’t be healed with time.
“Wake up, Angel.”
“I thought it was a dream,” she whispered, sober.
“What was a dream, Angel?”
“The window.” She stirred and rolled on her side to face me. “Back then, when he was… Nicky taught me to pretend those nights he came to my room were nothing but bad dreams. Things got fuzzy and blurry sometimes. For a while, I couldn’t tell what was real and what was a dream.”
“You remember the window?”
“In a dream.”
“But it was real.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth? I know you promised no lies, but I lied to you. You always punish. You have to have your revenge. What if you were just lying to me?”
“Is that what you believe?”
“I think you’re just trying to hurt me. Just making me feel bad about what I’d done, breaking me so I’d never do it again. To contain me in that image you have for me. The only way you want me to be.”
I took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of my nose. Part of me hoped I wouldn’t have to do what I came here to do. She, as it seemed to be the only thing she was adamant on achieving, killed any hope.
“Pretending something is a dream doesn’t make it unreal, my Angel. Believe whatever you want, but it doesn’t change the truth.” I sat next to her on the bed and undressed her. She stared at me with a frown as I took in her naked body. Then I put my hand in my pocket. “I made you another promise before I left. I’m going to prove to you what your soul is made of. Then you’ll know what’s real and what’s not.” I got out handcuffs from my pocket and cuffed one of her hands to the bed.
Her scowl deepened. Normally, she’d be pleased when I cuffed her to bed and had my way with her. She’d even beg for it. But today, she read me. This wasn’t going to be pleasurable. “What are you going to do?”
“Shhhh. Watch.”
Her head whipped toward the door. “Why is it open?” She pulled at the cuffs and realized she couldn’t break free. “Answer me.”
“I said shut up and watch. Unless you want me to gag you.”
She snapped her lips shut and kept her eyes on the door. I unbuttoned my shirt and then took off my belt. “Let her in,” I said to the guards outside the door.
Angel’s eyes bulged as she bolted upright. “Her? Who’s her? What are you doing, Tino? What the fuck are you doing?”
My fingers clawed around her cheeks, closing her jaw. “Shut. The fuck. Up.” I kept the eye contact until I was sure she got the message, and then I walked from the bed and back to the doorway.
A woman sauntered in. Red hair and lipstick. Green dress that revealed more of her body than it covered. Cheap jewelry, perfume and heels, and a sultry smile. I’d never seen her before in my life and wouldn’t see her again after tonight.
The guards slammed the door shut the second she was in. Her head jerked toward the sound, and it was a moment before she glanced back in my direction. “Are they always that rough?”
I didn’t bother answer. I took a seat, the best one that would give Angel the full spectacle, and gestured with two fingers for the woman—I should know her name, but I didn’t find any shred of care to help me pretend—to come closer.
Her heels echoed through the silence as the fake smile on her face began to vanish. One look at the windowless room with the abandoned crib managed to knock it off her face. Then she caught a glimpse of Angel.
The woman—I shouldn’t even call her that. She was a whore, too lost in her vice and addiction to care about life itself, who jumped at the opportunity, teeth and claws in, once she knew I, the client, would pay enough for a month worth of blow—stopped in her tracks. “Okay… Let me guess. Your wife?”
I nodded at her with a smirk.
“When they said kinky, I expected some bondage, maybe some anal, but I didn’t think it’d be the wife tied up watching while I had all the fun.”
“Tino,” Angel said quietly. “Is this true? Tell me this is not true. Tell me you’re not going to fuck some whore right in front of me.”
“And she still can’t keep her mouth shut,” I mumbled.
“How do you expect me to stay quiet when you’re about to fuck someone else?!” Her stare daggered the woman. “If you touch him, I’ll kill you.”
“Hey, lady, ease up. I thought you were in on this. Never mind. It’s none of my business. He’s paying me to be here. I have to do whatever he asks.” The woman threw a seductive smile at me. “Besides, it’s a crime to hog this man all to yourself, don’t you think?”
Angel shook her head at me, one tear falling down her cheek. “I’ll never forgive you, Tino, not for this. Do anything but not this. Anything but this.” She rattled the cuffs. “You’re mine. No one else can have you. It’s not only you that feels that way. You can’t do this. You’re mine!”
I took off my shirt and folded it neatly before I ordered the woman to take off my pants. She gave her back to Angel and kneeled before me. Angel screamed while the woman worked out the zipper, and as she was about to pull down my pants she got hit with my gun and froze.
“ Mi dispiace. I didn’t mean to scare you. Where are my manners?” I pulled it from the back of my pants and took the knife from the sock, too. Then I got up and put them in the nightstand drawer. “Now, where were we?”
Angel held on to me for dear life. “I’m begging you. Don’t touch her. I’m sorry. I’ve learned my lesson. I should have never said what I said. I love you, Tino. I loved you from the moment I knew you existed, even when I thought you were only in my head. You didn’t make me fall for you. That was all me. You didn’t force me to be with you. I’ve always wanted you. I prayed to be yours. For years, I’d been looking for you, doing everything to bring you out from the dark, to see you, to have you. It was all me, Tino. You were right. Everything I did was all me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“For what, Angel?”
She swallowed. “For betraying you. For blaming you for my mistakes. And…” She gazed at me with doe eyes. “For tainting my innocence, the innocence you’ve been obsessed with saving.”
She finally understood. “That’s right, my little Angel. I’m sorry, too.”
“But I learned, Tino. I won’t disappoint you ever again. I promise I can still be saved. Don’t give up on me.”
I kissed her hard, my fingers gripping at the ends of her short hair. Then I cradled her face between my hands. “I wish you’d figured it out a little earlier. It’s too late now.”
The flicker of hope I tasted in her kiss faded, and fear smudged her face. “No. Tino, please.”
“Shhhh. Basta, Angel. It has to be done. Now, shut up and watch or I’ll cuff your other hand and ankles, too.”
I had to use force to move her off of me before I returned to the redhead. I told the whore to strip and then I took off my pants myself. I folded them, too, and put them with the shirt, and then I ordered her to put them away on the farthest chair from the bed. “I don’t want them to get dirty. They’re new.”
“You’re the boss.” She did as I said. When I sat, she went down on her knees between my legs.
Angel began throwing one of her tantrums. I leaned in and whispered something in the woman’s ear. When my gaze returned to Angel, she was pulling at the cuffs so hard blood stained her wrist.
I rested my head back against the chair as the woman’s head bobbed between my thighs while I grabbed her hair. Angel’s gaze and mine hooked. She was a lioness, wounded yet not ready to go without causing some serious damage.
She opened the drawer and took the knife. Then she tried to unlock the cuffs with it. She screamed and screamed, frantically scratching the keyhole with the blade, failing miserably.
With a howl, she dropped the knife, and then her catching breath grew quieter. She took a glance at me and blinked once. Everything felt as if moving in slow motion and suddenly at the speed of light. She let out a breath, looking down from my face and at the drawer.
I leaned my head back farther, letting go of the woman’s hair, and closed my eyes, knowing what was to come.
Bang!
Blood and brain matter splattered on my face. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know for sure. I knew the texture and the smell like the back of my hand. There was a thud on the floor; the woman dropped dead.
Angel shot her. My Angel took the woman’s life. My sweet Angel crossed that last line of humanity and murdered a person.
I wiped my face and opened my eyes. She was still holding the gun, a trail of smoke fading from it. Her stare froze at the dead body drowning in a pool of blood on the floor. “He’s mine. Do you hear that, bitch? Mine.”
“Tino,” she said so softly, so darkly. “You’re mine.” She nodded to herself. “Say it. You have to say it. Only mine.”
“I’m yours, Angel.”
She squeaked a grunt. “Did I… Did I just kill her?”
“Yes, Angel.”
“She was touching you. I warned her, but she didn’t listen. She was taking what was mine. I had to… I have to protect what’s mine.”
“You didn’t have to kill her, Angel. That was a choice you made on your own.”
“But she was blowing you.” Her voice took a dark turn.
“No, she wasn’t. I whispered in her ear, telling her to pretend she was blowing me.” I couldn’t stand another woman anywhere near me. I made Angel a promise long before I took her never to touch another woman. A promise I intended to keep for life. “But even if she was, Angel, you didn’t have to kill her. You chose to because you wanted to. Because you liked it.”
She grimaced, blinking rapidly. “You… You made it look like she was… You knew… You fucking knew I’d…” She slapped her thigh multiple times. “You put the gun in the drawer right next to me because you knew I’d go for it.”
“I put the knife, too. If you tried a little harder, you could have uncuffed yourself or you could have thrown it at her leg or ass or any spot that would just wound her and not kill her. But you went for the gun.”
“You…” Her breath quivered on her lips. “Why do you keep doing this to me?”
“I had to show you. You had to cross that line to see the truth.”
“I’m a killer. The girl you’ve been trying to save for years is a murderer. Evil. I can’t be the girl you saved instead of your daughter. The fantasy, the obsession no more. There’s no saving me no more,” she said as if in a trance.
“It’s a good thing I was done saving you, Angel.”
“What does that leave us, Tino? I lost everything. I ruined everything.”
“You still have me. You’ll always have me.”
“How? You’ve done all of this so I’d become the monster I’ve always been. To set me on a path of self-destruction for your amusement and sick revenge. So you’ll know for sure you don’t want me anymore. Now, you’ll just get rid of me and find another object to your obsession, one that will fulfill the fantasy. Maybe it’s that girl you left me to save.”
I laughed and then cupped her face. “You silly girl.”
She dropped the gun and her whimpers followed. “I don’t want another woman to raise my boy.”
“No one will. Nicco will have the mother he loves, no one else.”
“No?”
“And his father will have the woman he loves, no one else.”
“Loves?”
“Si, Angel. Tonight more than ever. You had no idea how exhausting it was to protect your soul. Now, we’re both free. We speak the same language we both understand. Ti amo, Angel. The kind of love that is intense and dark and obsessed but not an obsession itself. I might have been obsessed with the idea of your innocence, but I’ve always been in love with you. The real you. The darkness that heard and spoke to me from day one.”
“You love me?”
“I love you.” I took her lips in mine and my hands roamed over her body, the smell of blood covering us both. “But no more lies, Angel. Not to me. Not to yourself.”
“Yes. No more. Does that mean you forgive me?”
“I’ll always forgive you, Angel. It’s one of the many promises I’ve made you, and I always keep my promises. We still have to find a way to trust each other again, though.”
“I trust you with my life even when you tried to take it. I’m ready to do anything to prove to you I will never betray you again.”
“Atta girl.”
We consummated our new union with passion that never died, writhing in the color of sin, burning in the darkness of our souls, knowing the only salvation we were getting was in the darkest of our desires, but in the aftermath longing for the forgiveness only we could give each other.
*****
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