Chapter 100 #3
I wondered what he had done to Mr. Bellrose’s family that made him resort to such measures. I didn’t even want to know.
“I will return each year to ensure you do not forget that women are not to be touched without their consent.”
Mr. Bellrose returned to the rolling steel table and picked up the cleaver, as well as… a carving knife.
“Every year. One body part.”
Arnold squirmed in his chair, his screams muffled by the gag.
“Don’t worry,” Mr. Bellrose reassured him, pulled the third chair around the table in one swift motion and sat down next to Arnold, who stared at him as if the devil himself were sitting before him, about to make him pay for his sins. “Your bones are rich. Good flower fertilizer.”
He smiled peacefully, applying a liquid to the cleaver.
Flower fertilizer?
“My fiancée would be delighted. She loves flowers.”
I couldn’t quite process the meaning of his words.
Was he toying with Arnold? Did he want to terrorize him? Or… was there truth in those words?
The adrenaline returned to my bloodstream, ready to find out what would happen next.
“But what am I talking about? I don’t want to taint her gardens.” His smile vanished as he stared at Arnold’s squirming arm, straining against the straps. “Besides, you don’t fit into my collection.”
Collection…
When Silence Speaks
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Mr. Bellrose looked up at me, his gaze imploring, yet serious.
“It would be better for you if you left now, Davian.”
“No.” I glared at Arnold with determination, feeling madness surge through my veins. “I’m staying.”
He had wanted a witness. Here I was. And I certainly wasn’t going to miss this, if it meant ensuring that this old pervert would never lay his filthy hands on Monica – or any other woman – again.
“Believe me, you won’t want to stay once I get started.”
Again, he was calm. Yet, for the first time, there was a hint of emotion in his voice. As if there were a certain unease lurking beneath his inner serenity.
“It’ll take twenty minutes at most.”
“I want to watch when you…”
“Please.”
One word. It was one word that I hadn’t expected from this man, causing me to take my eyes off Arnold to check if I had misheard.
But the plea was clearly written on his face.
“You don’t want to see this.”
Taking a deep breath, I looked back at Arnold, who had started squirming again, slid my chair back, and stood up.
Again he screamed something muffled, and I held his panic-stricken gaze one last time, ready to banish this man from my consciousness for all eternity.
“Take the gag out of his mouth. I want to hear him when you’re taking care of him.”
Mr. Bellrose immediately leaned forward and undid the buckle, so that the ball slipped to the side.
“Davian! Get me out of here! I have a lot of money… Lots of things I can pass on to you if you keep that deranged pig away from me!”
I braced myself on the table and leaned toward him.
“I don’t want anything from you, Arnold! Except for you to rot in the same hell you sent innocent people to because of your disgusting ideology!”
“You’ll regret all of this!” he snapped at me, droplets of spit hitting my face. “When the world finds out you’re my son, people will come after you, and you’ll have to deal with them! You won’t survive a single day as a Fitzek!”
My fist slammed down on the table, silencing Arnold.
“I’m not a Fitzek!” I snapped back, and Arnold’s jaw began to work. “And I never will be! Berger is the only name I would ever bear with pride!”
With those words, I pushed myself away from the table.
He didn’t need to know that the only name I would ever have taken was Veritas. Even though I didn’t think much of marital name changes, since they were just another remnant of patriarchy and had ensured that many stories of origin had gone lost in family trees.
“The name of a whore…”
“Shut the fuck up! You brought two children into the world. And yet you never had a son.”
His eyes mirrored my hatred.
“And you may have been a tyrant, seeking control over the people around you. But look around you, Arnold. Where are the people who’ve got your back? Where’s your family? Hmm? Six feet under. Where you’ll soon be too. Where your entire legacy will soon rot away until no one remembers you anymore!”
Black Death
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With those words, I turned away and left the room, sat down outside on a concrete block in the corridor, and listened to Arnold cursing me at the top of his lungs and shouting my name.
To him dragging Monica’s and Quill’s names through the mud to the point where I was on the verge of storming back into that room.
To him screaming for Joseph, as if Joseph were actually nearby and could come to his rescue.
To him beginning to threaten Mr. Bellrose.
The men standing out here by the wall, staring straight ahead with expressionless faces, didn’t flinch as Arnold’s panicked screams turned into tortured cries of pain. As if Mr. Bellrose were making all his threats come true.
I heard the clang of metal, but all the muffled sounds were drowned out by Arnold’s bloodcurdling screams, which made even the marrow in my bones freeze.
I couldn’t help but stare at the door.
If it had been up to me, I would have become a murderer today. But this? Torture?
I felt sick, but I swallowed it down, pulled the razor blade from my jacket pocket, and stared at the piece of metal to distract myself until my eyes blurred again and I slid the blade back, unwilling to let too many thoughts of my muse enter my mind in this place.
Every memory of her was meant to sacred. And this blade was meant to...
My breath caught in my throat as an idea struck me out of nowhere.
However, two men in white rubber coveralls snapped me out of my distraction the next moment, walking past me and entering the room from which no sounds were coming anymore, only to come back out five minutes later, along with the steel rolling table, on which blood-stained sheets covered something about the size of the blood-spattered suitcase next to it.
My eyes first fixed on the table until I noticed all the traces of blood on the men’s plastic coveralls.
After seven minutes, the door opened, and Mr. Bellrose stepped out fully dressed, pulled out his handkerchief to wipe a long streak of blood from his cheek, and then straightened his tie.
When he spotted me, his peaceful smile returned.
Darkness Comes
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Never before had I encountered a psychopath. But this man sent shivers down my spine.
“He will never lay a hand on your mother again.”
I hoped so, wondering if he was still alive, but something told me that Mr. Bellrose would make his words come true in exactly the way he had threatened.
It would take time for me to process everything I had learned about Arnold today. Time for all my anger to join the other emotions beneath the veil. But until then, I no longer had to worry about Monica and Lara’s safety.
He strode past me with determined steps, prompting me to get up and follow him.
“Now for my main task.”
Wait… He couldn’t possibly mean Joseph?
I hadn’t doubted that Arnold had wronged him. But Joseph had never mentioned a Mr. Bellrose.
I caught up to him.
“You won’t lay a finger on Joseph.”
Not that I didn’t want to see him suffer, but torture wasn’t the way to get through to Joseph. Men like him could take a beating if necessary. Their language wasn’t physical pain. It was mental torture.
Mr. Bellrose strode resolutely three doors down, and I kept pace with him. And this time, it was his jaw that was working.
“That decision is not yours to make.”
Perplexed, I stared at him, remembering what had flashed through my mind just a few minutes ago, while two guards unlocked the steel door marked 8761 Richter for us.
“I think you’ll change your mind.”
Mr. Bellrose eyed me, showing no emotion.
I didn’t hesitate and entered the cell before him.
And when I spotted the man who had taken everything from me, the concentrated wave of loathing that had been lying dormant until now crashed down on me.
Last Night Stand
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I should have asked Mr. Bellrose for permission to beat this man black and blue. To leave all the marks on him that he had left on Quill.
But that would not only violate the rules Mr. Bellrose had explained to me in his car, it would also only give Joseph satisfaction, because that was what he expected of me. That I would desperately give in to my impulses. That I wasn’t in control of myself.
He would try to manipulate me, attempt to reach me with words. I had prepared for that as well.
If I had learned anything over the years, it was that Joseph couldn’t handle it when someone reacted indifferently to him, thereby taking away his control.
And so I walked, as composed as possible, toward the table where he sat, staring at me as if I were a ghost.
“Davian…” He tried to stand up, but the handcuffs prevented him. “What the hell is going on here? What are you doing here?”
He stared at me. Shock was written all over his face.
That was the last thing I had expected, because this man had spent years pretending to me that he was hard to rattle. Not to mention that he was hard to shock, because he usually always thought one step ahead.
“What in God’s name happened out there?”
I pulled out the chair and sat down, looking unimpressed, noticing the violent tremor in his hands.
“What are you talking about?”
Irritation laced my voice.
“Arnold. Those were Arnold’s screams.”
He looked frantically back and forth between me and Mr. Bellrose.
“Who the hell is this…”
“It’s judgment day, Mr. Richter,” Mr. Bellrose interrupted him. “And he’s going door to door down here.”
All composure had left his voice, which made me stare at him.
He glared at Joseph with a withering look, and Joseph’s expression confirmed to me that he didn’t know this man, which in turn gave my goosebumps no reason to calm down.
This time Mr. Bellrose didn’t sit down. He remained standing in the corner of the room, staring at Joseph as if the personal vendetta he had with him ran deeper than the one he had with Arnold.