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THIRTY-SIX
‘CUT’ BONES
Lexi
Have you ever felt so wired with anticipation, but the ugly kind? The kind that makes you feel like you’re going to tear apart at the seams with the build-up of anxiety. That’s how I feel right now. I feel like my whole body is filled to the brim with hundreds of emotions, each emotion tagged with a fear that cannot be soothed by anyone’s words. But underneath it all, at the very bottom of all my overwhelming anxiousness, is relief.
Unlike the first time we thought we had the real Alan in a Hooligan holding cell, I finally feel like we’ve reached the end of our long and dreadful road of death. I feel as though we’re finally getting justice for Maxine and Elena. That Gio and Luce will finally have what they need to let their loved ones rest in peace. Alan Vacarri is finally in our hands, his fate completely at the mercy of me and my men, and there’s quite literally nothing he or anyone else can do to change it.
We stand in silence as the elevator descends, the temperature in the sublevel basement of Temptations dropping a few degrees when we come to a stop. I’ve heard the guys talk about the Renzetti holding cells, but the conversation Luce and Gio had with me before leaving the apartment an hour ago -their warning of what to expect- was nothing in comparison to seeing it for myself. Even the walk up to the heavy cell door with the camera above it sent a shudder through my body. I can’t begin to imagine what one of their prisoners must feel like, what they must be going through mentally as they find themselves with no way out.
The door is unlocked and opened, a scary looking guard stepping to the side to allow us entry. The sound of an upbeat kiddy song blasts loud enough to make my eardrums cringe inside my canals, getting louder with each step we take into the putrid smelling room. There’re bright fluorescent lights in the ceiling, illuminating the grotesque man sitting bound to a metal chair, completely naked. I can’t see his face, but I know it’s Alan. There’s no mistaking the set of his shoulders, one of which is covered in blood soaked gauze that seeps around the edges, nor the black sweat-soaked hair with silver at his sideburns.
A doctor must’ve been here, or someone with medical knowledge, because there’s a couple of IV’s connected to his arms, which are bound to the backrest of the metal chair he’s seated in. One drip bag has clear fluids, the other is a blood bag, possibly to replenish what he’s lost…what I took from him.
I grin to myself at the thought. All the years I spent in his prison, I fantasized about Alan's pain, dreaming of the day he’d suffer for the things he’s done to me…I never thought I’d live long enough to see karma lay her kiss on him, let alone be the tool she used.
Gio and Luce both kiss my cheeks before walking toward the shit stain human. The latter smacks Alan on his wounded shoulder, making my smile widen when he howls in pain, grunting and spitting as he tries in vain to pull away.
Luce pulls his hand away with an exaggerated hiss, “Damn, sorry ‘bout that. I forgot you’re up in age already; your joints giving you a hard time?”
Gio grins, crossing his arms over his chest as he gazes down at his father, nothing but resentment and hostility in his dark eyes.
“How’s it goin’, pop?” He squats down five feet in front of Alan, tilting his head to the side with his elbows on his knees, “I hope my city has treated you well.”
Alan’s voice sounds frail, weak and weightless, it fills me with satisfaction so perverse it raises the hairs on my neck. He’s the weak one now. He’s the one tied and broken, bleeding like he used to make me bleed.
“Enough with the fake pleasantries, get on with it, boy. I know you’ve been salivating for this moment.”
Gio chuckles, “You’re right about that. As far back as I can remember, I’ve envisioned your death in many different ways, fantasized your tortured screams more than I care to count,” Gio stands, ticking his head at Luce, who turns and opens the lid of a small meat freezer I hadn’t noticed before, “but in all those imaginings, I never once thought I’d have something of actual value to you.”
Luce lifts a frozen object from the white freezer before turning around. My hand flies to my mouth as Alan begins to roar and howl as though he’s being doused in acid. I try to see what it is that has his voice going hoarse and his body jerking in the binds, and when my eyes finally land on the decapitated head hanging from Luce’s fist, I wish I could take back the last five seconds.
Alan’s dead twin brother stares back at him with a face frozen in pleading horror, blood and frostbite have created a gruesome pattern on his eyes and skin, his mouth still open in a silent scream.
Luce walks over, smiling like he’s presenting a present for a friend, and places the dead man’s head in Alan’s naked lap.
Alan screams, jerking and jolting until the head falls to the floor with a sickening thud, and that’s when I turn and throw up in the corner. The guys ignore me, which is well because I don’t think I could take their caring words with a dismembered head only feet away.
“You worthless little bastards! You will die for this, you hear me?! You willDIE!!!”
He begins to sob after that, broken and mournful cries I didn’t know Alan was even capable of, pouring from him. It twists my stomach even more, only now my stomach sours with ire. The sick, deplorable bastard, so easily cries over the death of another man who is equally as pathetic as he is, and it makes my hands fist, and my vision tint in red.
Who is this man who can comfortably rape and abuse women, beat children and kill innocent people, yet cry like a baby as though he has even an ounce of remorse in his soul? He spent years humiliating me, forcing me to do unspeakable things, degrading me in the worst kinds of ways, he turned my mind and my body against me, broke my spirit and turned me into a woman I never recognized. And now he cries. Now his tears fall for what he sees as injustice…“Give me a goddamn break.”
My voice has Alan stiffening, his head turning to the side to find me, but the binds around him don’t allow him to turn far enough. Still, I don't want to continue hiding from this man…I never will again.
I take a step forward, then another, my heart thudding loud in my ears, until I’m standing directly in front of the sniveling little fool. I look down at the head of Alan’s brother, forcing my shiver of disgust back before looking up at Alan. My lip curls at the sight of him, at the fact that he’s still breathing, before a mean grin spreads across my face.
“I’d say we’ve come full circle, but this time it’s you who’s bound and broken.” I step forward, kicking the decapitated head to the side as I lean down into Alan’s face, “How does it feel to be at my mercy?”
His bloodshot eyes stare at me with an empty look, defeat written in his features, but his words continue to tell lies.
“You’d be nothing without me,wife. When I found you, you were nothing. A nobody from nowhere with no one. I gave you the world, I made you who you are, I gave you riches, a mansion, everything a person could want,” he breathes deeply, the wet gurgling sound in his chest making me cringe, “AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY–”
His bellow is cut off by my hand slapping him across the face. I tsk at him, my finger slowly swaying in front of his face, “Is that any way to speak to someone who holds all the cards?” I throw his words back at him, the same words he said to me when he had Maxine as leverage over me. It’s the same words, along with plenty others, that whisper through my nightmares, and it feels goddamn good to say them back to him.
“No, it’s not, and you know what else is incorrect?” I wait for him to reply, but the moment he opens his mouth, I do what no one dared do to him, I interrupt him with a smile, “Everything you just said. Yes that’s right, every single word out of your mouth is as incorrect as your worthless existence, but I think deep down, you already know that.”
