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Giselle undid the ribbon bow, letting it drape over her legs as she went to lift the lid of the box. It was not a large box; a mere twelve inches by twelve inches and half as deep, but it was big enough to house the totality of my gift to her.
She lifted the lid, and then she gasped. “Oh. Wow. These…” She did not take the lid off completely, which meant Damian couldn’t see what it was.
“Well? Don’t keep me in suspense, baby girl. What’d he get you?” Damian was curious.
Giselle did not answer him. She brought her amber eyes to me as she asked, “These are his?” A question she need not ask, for she already knew who they belonged to: our shared prisoner, the one she wanted to end.
Rocco Moretti.
I was doing my part, of course. I was keeping the man alive. It went without saying that the man could survive without the body parts in the box.
“They are,” I answered. “With the wedding coming up, I know Rocco will get his soon, but I… I wanted to do something for you.” I was not ashamed of my gift, and Giselle did not seem grossed out. We truly were two birds of a feather.
She set the box on the coffee table before turning to me and hugging me, whispering a soft, “Thank you. You have a way with dismemberment, Ezekiel.” A compliment like that I could take to heart since it’d come from her.
The moment Damian heard the word dismemberment, he leaned forward, took his feet off the coffee table, and peeked inside the box himself—and what he saw were two severed hands. Hence the insulated box. “Oh. How nice. Bloody hands. Sweet. Maybe this present is better than the gun.”
Giselle chuckled softly as she ended the hug. “Now Damian’s jealous he didn’t think of it first.”
“Eh, I’ll leave the torture to the professionals,” Damian quipped. “Now, uh, you plan on keeping these hands? Should I put them in the fridge or something? Or try to find some formaldehyde to preserve ‘em?”
“As thoughtful as all that is,” Giselle said, “I don’t need to keep them as a memento.” Her gaze was on me once more as she whispered, “It’s good enough for me to know he’ll never be able to touch anything or anyone ever again.”
That much could’ve already been said when we’d first kidnapped him and taken him to my special room beneath the church, but it meant something a little different when the man himself no longer had hands.
Giselle flashed a smile and batted her eyelashes at Damian, asking, “Could you take them somewhere, please?” In other words, she wanted to be alone with me.
I would not refuse her her wishes, and neither would Damian, because he stood, snatched the box with the severed hands inside, and gave her a mock-bow. “As you wish, baby girl. Anything your heart desires is my command.”
She rolled her eyes at him, but she smiled all the same.
It was only after Damian left the house that I said, “He seems quite smitten with you, Giselle.” It was not a remark based in jealousy; only observation. To be jealous of Giselle and the attention and affection she received from the others would be fruitless.
“Hmm.” She hummed. “Maybe he is.”
“You return his affection, I assume?”
She only had to think about it for a few seconds. “I do, yeah. It’s… weird, but it feels right.”
“I don’t blame you. He was there for you when no one else could be.”
She scooted closer to me, the corners of her full lips curling upward in a smile. “You’re not jealous or anything?” Her leg touched mine; if she moved eight inches to the left, she’d be on my lap—not a bad place to be.
“There are many things in my nature, but jealousy is not one of them,” I told her. Righteous fury, cold death, hard justice; all of those were nestled deep inside of me, but jealousy was not among them.
Out of the range of emotions humans could feel, envy was a sin unlike most others. Envy could swallow you up, guide your actions, force you to do things you never would’ve done, all because you were jealous and wanted whatever someone else had. Power, money, a more beautiful wife, the perfect children. Humans were envious of everything, and when they let it take control, it was often their downfall.
So, no, envy was not something I would ever feel. Even if Giselle decided she did not want me, even if she surrounded herself with a thousand and one men, none of them me, I would not feel envious in the least. I would only feel grateful that she had once deemed me worthy.
Giselle apparently decided to move the topic of conversation away from jealousy, saying, “Thank you for the gift. It was very thoughtful. I’m sorry I didn’t want to keep it longer, but given the state of the hands, I assume they’ll start to smell soon.”
I turned my top half toward her, tucking some of her dyed hair behind her ear. I could not wait until everything with Miguel was over, if only so her natural beauty could once again return. She was still gorgeous, but I much preferred the true Giselle.
“Don’t apologize,” I whispered. “You’re probably right, anyway. Once severed, flesh starts to stink quite fast after becoming room-temperature.”
She then asked me a question I didn’t have the answer to: “How many people have you dismembered like that?” When I said nothing, she then asked something else. “How many people have you killed in your life? Have you kept track?”
“I have not. I simply do as God commands.”
