“Ahh, the car situation.”
From a doorbell camera, I watch as the son of a bitch I met at the Veronian lodge runs out into the street as a police officer tickets his car.
At least, that was my initial impression.
“Can’t you read?!”Dyers yells.“I have a permit!”
“This isn’t about a permit, sir,”the NYPD officer drawls, ignoring Dyers as he goes about attaching the chains to the Lamborghini.“You owe over fourteen thousand dollars of unpaid parking tickets to the City of New York. This is the authorization to tow form and a receipt?—”
Things go from strange to crazy when a bunch of pedestrians fall into a flash mob. A bunch of characters fromThe Rocky Horror Picture Showdancing toChicago’s“Cell Block Tango” overwhelm the small camera, and the music blasts choppily in time to the jerky movements that the camera’s resolution is too slow to keep up with.
When they disappear as swiftly as they appeared, hollering, “He had it coming!” into the distance, Dyers’s Lambo is a disaster. Not only has it been keyed, but the word RAPIST is tagged onto the fender.
“This is your fault! Are you even a cop?! Why aren’t you going after them? They should be arrested for defacing private property!”
That’s when the moron’s entitlement overtakes common sense.
Dyers grabs ahold of the officer’s collar and shakes him.
“Holy shit!” I bark.
She might’ve seen it before, but she still cascades into delighted giggles.Giggles that switch into outright laughter when Dyers is quickly shoved aside, twisted, and planted onto his hood so he can be cuffed.
When a cop car shows up that he’s dumped into, a patch of bright green paint from the “S” splattered onto his cheek, his own ride’s towed…
“I was wrong about that kid,” I agree with a wry chuckle.
“That was all Denver. I think Uncle Conor just got Callan into the social security system.”
I whistle. “No small feat.”
“And so begins Dyers's public humiliation, that rapist piece of shit.”
“Before he dies?”
“The Veronians haven’t killed him yet,” she points out with a moue.
“My bloodthirsty bride.” I let her feel the effect her mean streak has on me.
“What he did to Denver was unnecessarily cruel. He deservedto be cut down to size for that alone. Knowing he raped Lex’s sister?” she scoffs. “Taking away hockey, outing him as a sex pest, and shaming the administration weren’t enough of a punishment. Now, I can’t wait until he’s in the ground.”
I slot my fingers with hers. “I feel the same way about rapists.”
She arches a brow. “I doubt it. Women feel it differently than men.”
“Sexism,pchelka?” When she pulls a face, I murmur, “I saw Nikolai be hurt in such a way when I was very young. It can’t be said that the other encounters were… consensual. Not at his age. But he’d say they were because he needed the money. On this occasion, it wasn’t. I had to take him to a doctor. He fought it too. We were more strapped for cash than usual.” I glance at her. “You can’t say a word to him.”
“Of course not!”
“It was before he joined the Bratva.” My gaze turns distant. “Knowing what he did, some men misunderstood. The boys in his house, they assumed…” The words fall from my lips in a staccato burst. “One day, they tried to catch me. Once he joined the Bratva, that never happened again.
“Then, remember, Misha was almost abused as a child before we escaped the orphanage where we all met.”
“You poor boys.”
Taking note of the tears in her eyes, tears for us, I use my free hand to swipe over her cheek. “Do not cry for us,zaya.We are not forgotten anymore.”
“Thank goodness for that!”
