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“Everyone get the fuck out. I need to have a conversation with our guest here,” Vitale spits.
“She can’t talk. I dosed her with quetiapine like you said,” Amy replies without a shred of irony.
“Amy, I need you to get out of my sight before I set this whole building on fire. You’re fucking useless,” Vitale replies with venom in his voice.
Everyone else leaves, and suddenly the deepest, most visceral sensation of impending doom overtakes me.
Vitale is strange looking up close. He has a receding hairline that he’s fighting too hard to keep based on the results he’s having. He could be between thirty and forty-five based on both his preserved youth and the hopelessness carved into his face by the eyeteeth of time.
I’m unable to respond still, so all I can do is pray that he’ll at least choose not to waste the energy to punish me when he needs me to look good for his clients. I never thought I’d be grateful not to be hit in the face because of my marketability, but here I am grateful nonetheless.
“I’ll bet you’re wondering how we knew you were going to pull this shit, didn’t you?” he asks, smiling at me with nothing behind his eyes. He reminds me of how an alien would smile if it was still a few evolutions away from passing as human.
I don’t respond, and for some reason, he chooses to spare me a slap to the face.
Perhaps my response isn’t even important. He just needs a captive audience.
“I’ve been watching all of you this whole time. Did Matteo believe that he could scare me straight with a pep talk and a loud voice? I’m not seven years old. All it did was make me aware of the fact that he was watching me so that I could plan accordingly,” he continues, barely blinking the entire time.
He insists on making eye contact with me, which is difficult given the fact that I can’t control my eyelids. When I begin to falter and my eyes close by accident, he grabs my face in one hand, squishing my cheeks as if I’m a baby.
“Matteo has a hell of an ego on him, doesn’t he? I guess all you ladies like that in a man, anyway. Well fuck him, he’s a fucking joke. Now he’ll be an even bigger joke when his girlfriend is shipped to Bulgaria to shoot ping-pong balls out of her pussy!”
Now that he’s talking about Matteo, I can feel my face turning red with anger. Matteo was doing his best to take care of the girls at that club. He’ll never forgive himself for what happened to Shimmer. Vitale has already won. Why can’t he just accept his prize and end this all?
“Not to mention, he’ll be going to prison for the murder of that stripper. She was so fucking stupid, such a typical female brain in her skull. I’m shocked it wasn’t there for decoration. It certainly didn’t look very nice splattered against green wallpaper.”
Now I want to throw up.
I’m in hell. There’s no way that something this heinous could really be taking place on earth.
“Whatever. In a couple of hours, you’ll be on your way to a new country with a new identity, so don’t even worry about the people in your life. You’ll disappear to them, just like the rest of them do,” he says, beginning his ascent back up the stairs.
He slams the door behind him, and I hear multiple deadbolts slide and lock before his footfalls shake the floor above me. He walks with a limp, that much I can hear.
What would I have become if I had chosen not to take this job? What if I had just proven to John that I’m a delicate, feminine flower who could only handle stories about making organic candles and press-on nails? I could be at home in my shitty apartment rewatching some show that I was obsessed with in college. I could have a cup of noodles warming me from the inside out as the ancient air conditioning blares over the audio from my laptop.
But I would be free.
And what did I give up my freedom for?
I allowed a man to use my body, and I decided that he deserved to also use my mind. He took complete control over me, and all I’ve gotten in return for it was some dick and a fancy place to stay for a while. I can’t believe how selfish and shallow I am, allowing myself to be stolen away from my poor parents and friends just to make a criminal like me.
I’m too weak to sit up straight, but I’m too nervous to fall asleep. My head hangs over my chest, and my neck wants to stretch itself down to the floor as the chemicals loosen each little knot of tension in my shoulders. For once, I would appreciate that tension and the way it allows me to be aware of my surroundings.
If Matteo does come to rescue me, I’ll take back everything I believe about our connection being a mistake. If he doesn’t, I’ll spend the last days, possibly hours, of my life enraged with myself for allowing this to happen to me.
As time bends and ripples around me and the walls melt slowly, all I can think about is a memory that I carry of my mother from when she had my younger sister. She had been in the hospital for a couple of days as the doctors monitored her condition before birth. We were all so scared, with my father numbing himself with TV as my grandmother prayed the rosary in the corner of my mother’s room. She had a blood infection of some kind that threatened my little sister’s life, and everything else hung in the balance. Nothing else mattered.
I’m feeling that way now – like nothing else truly matters except for getting out of here alive and unharmed.
19
Matteo
I’ve never regretted a decision I’ve made quite like this.
There’s a heaviness in my stomach that makes me feel like I’ve damned her to a lifetime of suffering. And all for what? I could have found any other way to gain evidence against Vitale. Why did I have to choose the most selfish one?
