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Salvator’s eyes bulge wider, as if they’re about to pop out of his head. His face is suffused red, his flabby lips turning purple as he desperately tries to draw in oxygen.
For a moment, I consider allowing him a single breath, just to prolong it. To give him brief, fleeting hope of survival, if only so I can watch it drain from his eyes when I tighten my grip again. But no. I’m not the monster here.
He is.
A year ago, Salvatore was busted in a child predator sting. The scum used his position as an administrator at a well-known private school here in Manhattan to groom and abuse children. And if that wasn’t monstrous enough, he facilitated even more abuse and evil by allowing other monsters in his dark, sick circle to prey on them as well.
In a just world, Sal would be strung up by his balls and dipped head-first into hydrofluoric acid over and over until his skin melted off, before being made to swallow his own severed dick.
I mean, I’m just spit balling here.
Unfortunately, we don’t always live in a just world. In Sal’s case, justice was miscarried because some of his predator friends were higher-ups in the Department of Justice.
Favors were called in. Evidence was purposefully mishandled.
And justice got a sharp fucking stick in the eye.
Instead of being sent to prison to be skinned alive the second he hit gen-pop, Sal walked free on a technicality.
The other pieces of shit that aided this travesty of justice have already been dealt with, slowly, over the last six months. I deliberately left Sal for last because I wanted him to dread this day. I wanted him to see those headlines about accidents and untimely deaths, and to fear the vengeance stalking the shadows.
In a few minutes, the last ones in which the world suffers Sal’s existence, this will all be over. A hacker friend of mine is on standby to get into Sal’s domestic and offshore accounts and route that money to about a dozen shell companies before being distributed anonymously to college funds I’ve taken the liberty of setting up for his victims.
It won’t undo what happened to them. But it’s a start.
Remembering those heartbreaking witness statements I watched over and over during Sal’s trial brings a fresh surge of raging acid to my veins. Crown and Black represented five of Sal’s victims, pro bono. And when I think back to the moment the jury was unable to return a guilty verdict, my hands tighten.
And tighten.
And tighten.
Sal’s mouth drops open. His left eye turns blood red as the vessels pop.
“Rot in hell,” I hiss quietly. My forearms bulge as my grip clenches like iron. Finally, Sal’s eyes dim and roll back.
I let him drop to the floor with a satisfying thud. Rolling my shoulders, I crack my knuckles and slide my phone out of my suit jacket pocket.
Kratos answers on the first ring.
“Done?”
“Done.”
“Good. I’m ready downstairs once you walk out. All cameras in the lobby and outside the bodega across the street have been disabled.”
Kratos Drakos is the youngest brother of the Drakos Greek mafia family. Crown and Black handles a lot of his oldest brother Ares’ legitimate…and not-so-legitimate…legal needs, which is how Kratos and my brother Alistair became friends. They both also like to participate in New York’s underground fight clubs.
A few months ago, I recruited Kratos to my little side project. The giant of a Drakos brother didn’t need much convincing to help destroy true evil that escapes justice. He is very, very good at what he does. Also, like me, he prefers to keep this side of himself hidden from his friends and family.
That’s a win-win.
A few minutes after I leave, Kratos will slip in and make all this look like a botched break-in. He’ll also leave enough confusing evidence—fingerprints of dead people, hair samples from famous movie stars—to thoroughly fuck any investigation into Sal’s demise, burying the case cold.
Just another day’s work playing blind lady justice’s guide dog.
“Perfect. Call me when it’s done?”
“Yep,” he rumbles. “Talk soon, Gabriel.”
