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He offers me the handle of his Fixed Blade, but I wave it away. The nine-inch hunting knife Santiago gave me is the only one I use these days. Perhaps when I’m carving my initials intoEl Alquimista’schest, I’ll finally understand the choice he was talking about that morning, but for now it's a constant reminder of the woman I live, breathe, and kill for. Even if I can’t give her every part of me yet.
My love for Ella has never faltered, never strayed... I may have pushed her away to protect her, but for three years it’s rested clean on my surfaces, while everything else has grown rotten and toxic.
Franco’s suspended from a steel rafter by his wrists, his bare feet barely dusting the dirty concrete. His black T-shirt“The Devil made me do it”is ripped around the neckline from Sam’s manhandling, and his face is bloody and bruised. I take three steps inside the warehouse, remove the gun from my holster, and then I’m blowing both his kneecaps off without hesitating.
“Boom,” mutters Sam, above the screams of our shocked guest. “You’re not fooling around, are you?”
“Not today.”
Sliding off my suit jacket, I chuck it at Gabrio who’s loitering nearby. By now, Franco’s gone limp, his head lolling to the side. He’s quietly sobbing to himself, one terrified eye locked on me as I unbutton the cuffs of my black shirt and roll them up to my elbows.
Look all you want, malparido. In about five minutes I’ll be carving those eyes out of your skull.
“You sure this is the guy who edited the tape?”
Sam nods.
Piece of shit.
Eight months ago, a product problem necessitated a trip back to Colombia. I left Santiago’s men in charge of Ella’s surveillance, along with a couple of my own. For the second time in her short life, she lost her fucking mind and gave them the slip.
An hour later, in a bar in Manhattan, she was getting targeted and roofied. Thirty minutes after that, some Italian called Bardi was taking naked footage of her to blackmail her sister with. He didn’t lay a finger onMi Cielo, other than to remove her clothes and violate her with his fucking camera, but he’s still long dead for what he did, as is everyone else connected to the footage. Some died by my hand, some by Santiago’s, some by Thalia’s new husband Santi Carrera—my devil equivalent in the Garden State next door.
We’re all guilty of letting it happen, and we all share the blame, but no one blames herself more than Ella. I’ve watched her cry herself to sleep, night after night, on the screens in my Black Room. She plays by the rules so tightly these days, even I can feel the pinch.
In the end, she dropped out of college because of it, and like the bastard she told me I am, I used it as ammunition when I lashed out at her earlier.
Franco’s the final, living piece to that mess. He edited the original tape. He made the copies.
He’s about to die shitting himself, like all the others.
Grabbing hold of his matted hair, I wrench his head back and force him to look at me. “You know who I am?”
He nods, his face a state of agony and regret, snot and tears making dirty tracks down his pitted skin.
“You know what you did?”
He nods again, more forcefully, as if he thinks Confession Time will make this hurt less.
Delusion is the blind hope of liars.
“How’s that imagination of yours holding up? Or would you prefer I demonstrate what I did to your friends?”
He tries to shake his head, but there’s barely any movement. The realization he’s not getting out of this alive just hit. Judging by all the high-pitched whining he’s doing, he’s not liking the punch of it either.
“I’m sorry. S-so sorry.”
“Apologies are like bad Chinese takeout, Franco. Everyone shits them out eventually.”
“Please…”
Glancing to my left, I catch Sam’s grimace. He knows that pleaders always get the worst of me. If I choose to kill, I do so because they deserve it. Once my decision is made, it can’t be swayed, so this fool is wasting my time and his breath.
Unsheathing Santiago’s knife from my belt, I wave the jagged edge in front of his face, his eyes instantly glued to it like it’s a swinging pendulum. “The problem I have, Franco,” I begin idly, “is that I don’t know which part of you to carve up first.”
He jerks back in terror at my words, the ripped neckline of his T-shirt slipping to reveal a familiar tattoo stamped into his collar bone.
El Alquimista.
