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Without the least bit of hesitation, and in a quick, deadly move that gave no one time to think, Rooster lifted his weapon and fired off a round of shots in rapid succession. As Valentina watched in horror, Sebastian Abiatti’s body flew off the porch, but not before the back of his head blew out and splattered blood and brain matter all over the porch—and all over Gia.
Rooster looked at the crimson and gray spray, and with a tone that was weary with disgust, he sighed. “Gia, you alright?”
In answer, Gia looked up from where she was busy tearing the blood-soaked rosary from her hands. Then she scrambled to her feet and pushed herself against the wall as far from the gore as she could get.
Valentina wrenched herself out of Rooster’s grip and ran over to her cousin. Rooster walked over to the duffle bag that Abiatti had left on the porch; he unzipped it, looked inside of it, then zipped it back up. Rooster motioned with the gun towards the cabin.
“Go wash that shit off you,” he said to Gia. Then Rooster nodded to Valentina. “Go with her and make sure she doesn’t pass out. You got ten minutes to get that blood and brains off with soap and water. You take any longer than that and I’m gonna shoot you both right through the door, ‘cause I’m just that sick of this bullshit.”
“I have some extra clothes in the backpack, can I get them for her?” Valentina’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“You mean that same backpack that has that hair-fucking-spray in it? The shit that almost burnt out my goddamn eyes? I should do that same shit to you right now, bitch.” Rooster growled at Valentina. Then he grabbed the backpack, rifled through it and threw a top and pants at the girls before he reminded them, “Ten minutes, then I start shooting.”
Nine minutes forty-three seconds later, both girls emerged quietly from the bathroom to find an eerily subdued Rooster. He was sitting in a chair with his head bent and a cell up to his ear. In what looked like a strange, self-soothing motion, he was rocking back and forth. Without a word, he placed the phone carefully down and just stared at it.
Rooster looked up when he heard the bathroom door close behind the girls. His eyes flashed something that looked incredibly and impossibly like… sorrow? But just as fast that look was gone and replaced by a mask of indifference. His pupils were so dilated that his already dark eyes had turned black. Rooster looked as if what little soul or conscious or regard for human life he had left in him, had been swallowed up by some unseen satanic force. The change in Rooster was dramatic, eerie, and terrifying. The girls exchanged a horrified look. Something was wrong. Something had definitely gone wrong with his plan. Some new information had come through in the last ten minutes that had sealed their fate. The look he gave them now was mechanical and devoid of emotion.
As Rooster pushed himself out of the chair, he picked up the gun again and aimed it right between Gia’s eyes. Then he directed Valentina to get the length of heavy nylon rope that sat on the shelf behind her.
“Tie your cousin up in that chair. Arms behind her and bind ‘em at the wrist.” Rooster instructed Valentina. “I want her legs in front and bound at the ankles. I’m gonna be checking the ropes so make those knots nice and tight. I don’t want to get pissed off and have to use that rope to strangle you both instead. And not a fucking word from either of you bitches. You got that?”
Gia sat and Valentina tied. Then Valentina sat and Rooster tied. The last thing he did was gag both their mouths.
“It’s over. It’s done,” he told them. “And none of this bullshit matters anymore.”
While the girls looked on in abject terror, Rooster checked the safety, the magazine, and the slide of his weapon. Then he loaded in a full clip.
Valentina felt the rope bite into her skin and the bile rise and fill the back of her throat. She turned and looked at Gia whose stark terror mirrored her own. They were going to die. It was the end of them. Here in this shitty cabin in the woods, their lives were going to end. Valentina was never going to reach thirty, she was never going to have babies, she was never going to see another sunrise—or another sunset. And worst of all, Valentina was never going to see Hal again. They were never going to get that chance at a happily ever after. Valentina’s only hope now was that Hal wouldn’t be the one to find them. She didn’t want his last memory of her to be this… of her tied up and shot to death.
“Make sure she gets a decent headstone.” Rooster interrupted Valentina’s sorrowful thoughts as he busied himself pulling stacks of money out of the duffle. “You’re gonna have to claim her body ‘cause I got to fucking disappear. I don’t want her burnt though, I want her buried. I don’t give a shit about a funeral either. There’s no one that she mattered to ‘cept me. Find a nice spot in Grovsner Cemetery. Under a big shady tree or something. I want an angel or some kind of statue on top of the headstone, and I want it to readBeloved Motheror some other meaningful shit. I’m leaving you with twenty-five grand to get that done. I’m gonna be checking to make sure it happens and if it does, we’re good. If it doesn’t, you better look both fucking ways before you cross me, because I will make it my mission to end your bloodline. And it will happen methodically, deliberately, and over your entire lifespan. It’ll happen when you least fucking expect it. Like at your kid’s first birthday party or family day at the damn beach. You will have no peace in this life and I will slaughter you all,” Rooster said like he meant it. “Now, you two on board with everything I said so far?”
Both girls nodded their heads in petrified agreement.
“I left you her name and the name of the funeral home she’s gonna be brought to. I’m not an unreasonable sonofabitch, and I understand some of this will take time, but I don’t want you to leave her there too long. I already took care of that organ donor shit, it ain’t happening. She’s already given more than enough to this damn world. As far as you two go? Prosper’s boys’ll find you soon, they’re smart fuckers.”
Then to Valentina’s astonishment, Rooster grabbed the duffle, the gun, and the phone, and walked out the door. Two minutes later, Gia and Valentina heard the starting rumble of the Harley engine and Rooster was gone.
Hal and the brothers stopped at the beginning of the long dirt road. According to the locator it should be the way to the cabin where the women were being held. However, as luck would have it a few yards ahead the road split into two different directions and they had lost the satellite feed. Reno and Diego pulled the road masks off their faces and waited.
“It’s not showing the split.” Hal handed the map over to Diego.
“Shit, it doesn’t. What about the phone?”
Hal shook his head. “Service keeps coming in and out. Right now I got nothing.”
“I’ll take the left if you two want to take the right.” Reno had pulled the gun out of his waist band, checked the safety and the magazine.
Hal took off his helmet and cocked his ear. “Feels like there’s got to be a smarter way to figure this out…ground is so damn rutted no good looking for tire tracks.”
Just then the rumble of a bike engine being turned over thundered in the forest. Hal put up two fingers, pointed to the left fork in the road and the three men thundered down the trail towards the sound. As soon as the cabin came into view, they cut the engines and parked their bikes off road. Then Hal, Reno and Diego drew their weapons and moved quietly and swiftly around the perimeter of the cabin. Diego and Reno provided coverage for Hal as they circled to the back of the structure. Hal approached the back window cautiously and peered through the windows to find Valentina and Gia tied to chairs. He cocked his gun ready to shoot the motherfucker who had bound his woman up like a sheep to slaughter. But as the men moved along the building and peered into the windows it appeared to them that the cabin was otherwise empty. When Hal, Reno and Diego made their way to the front of the cabin they found Sebastian Abiatti lying in a pool of his own blood. Hal jumped onto the porch and kicked the heavy door open while Reno and Diego flanked him with drawn weapons. Reno and Diego moved silently through the archway and searched the rest of the small house while Hal took a protective stance in front of the bound and gagged women.
“All clear!” Diego yelled out. “Reno call in and let Prosper know about that dead asshole out there.”
Hal untied the gag that was pulled tight against Valentina’s mouth. Then he got busy cutting off the ropes that tied her to the chair. Diego moved to do the same for Gia. The relief and love Hal saw in Valentina’s eyes filled with him a heat coursing through his veins that felt like pure liquid gold.
“I knew you’d come. I knew you’d find me, Hal.” She whispered to him.
“Never lost you baby.” He held her against his chest and smoothed her hair. “You were always right here in my heart and you always fucking will be.”
