AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Vitale’s reaction is delayed, as he’s clearly been shooting up heroin and his faculties are suspended in an orange haze. He tries to reach for a gun on the coffee table, but I blow six rounds right into him before he gets the chance. His head explodes, blowing grey matter, bone, and scalp fragments all over the wall behind him.
Iris screams in the same way that the blowjob girl had, and I somehow envy the capacity that women have for horror. It affects them so much more than any man I know. Perhaps we’ve desensitized ourselves to it.
She falls to her knees, unable to process the carnage she’s willingly subjected herself to. I’ll be here to pick her back up when all is said and done, but she demanded a front-row seat to this experience.
The other girl is wailing in the corner too, and I’m not even sure if she speaks English.
I pick Iris up off the floor, feeling her legs give out under her as she remains in a trance from being unable to process what she’s seen. I’ll have to carry her out to the car, but first I have to find out if there are any other women being kept here.
I direct my men to follow me down to the basement, and I myself am hesitant to go down. The place is riddled with dirty needles and broken glass pipes. I’m not concerned that they’ll be able to penetrate my boots, but the concept alone has my skin crawling.
Just as I suspected, there are at least five women being kept here. All of them are chained to a different support beam, and I’m certain that at least one of them is on the brink of death.
“So what do we do, send an anonymous tip?” asks Marco, one of my most dedicated soldiers.
“I mean, it would be really difficult to prove that anyone else did this. We have at least six witnesses right here. First, we need to get them taken care of,” I reply.
* * *
After a few hoursof delegating roles to my men, we’re able to get them all into hotels for a week while they get placed in women’s shelters. None of them spoke English, but I was able to find a Romanian translator who was able to communicate with a few of them. They all gave intense, detailed statements about the horrors they sustained under Vitale’s watch.
It takes a while, but eventually we’re able to prepare a file demonstrating all of Vitale’s involvement in the murders and sex trafficking happening in the city. It wasn’t hard to find evidence that he was with Shimmer the night she died – there were digital receipts for the hotel and food service that was ordered before she died. It’s a closed case, but Vitale won’t ever have to serve his time. That’s the only downside of killing him.
34
Iris
After endless weeks of slaving over this damn article, I’ve finally accumulated enough information to write the most riveting, unbelievable piece anyone in my office has ever seen. My eyewitness account has been detailed in all of the bloodiest, most disturbing ways possible. I want everyone who reads this to know exactly what I was feeling the moment I saw Vitale’s head get blown off. I put myself through that just for the mental visual but now it haunts me every day.
The biggest sacrifice I’ve ever made for my work was choosing to watch such a brutal execution take place right in front of my eyes. I didn’t get the luxury of a window to observe through, though I doubt that would have made things any easier. There’s something cosmically horrifying about watching another human die when you already know they’re on their way to death.
Every night, I see Vitale’s headless body in my dreams. No matter where I am, I see him there in the corner. Sometimes, he’s outside among a group of normal people going about their days. I’m never able to ignore him, and I’ve woken up screaming on multiple occasions. The body will walk toward me sometimes, and in those moments I feel the same terror that I felt the minute I watched him die.
Matteo has been amazing about it. He’s never gotten upset with me for waking up in the middle of the night, and he’s always there to soothe me and comfort me however I need him to. A couple of times, my cries woke up everyone in the house, but he never made me feel ashamed of how I was processing the experience.
Matteo tells me that he’s never going to bring me on another mission again, which I emphatically agreed to. While I’m happy that I got to see the situation resolve itself after all that’s happened, I’ve been scarred in mental places that I didn’t even know existed.
The pregnancy has been going well though, which makes things easier. Matteo loves the way my body is changing, and he’s obsessed with talking about our future together as parents. I wasn’t expecting him to be so excited about it, but I think that with the stress of Vitale being gone, he’s much more open to me. He’s even been suggesting names, such as the middle name of his grandmother or maybe even Leonardo. I’ve been searching for baby names as well, but we still have plenty of time. I’m tempted to meet the baby first before we name them, just to see what their personality is. I know it sounds crazy, but I think it might just work.
As for our relationship, Matteo is the most affectionate, attentive partner I’ve ever had now that he’s let his guard down around me. I was shocked at how quickly the change took place, and I found it a little concerning, but I got used to is pretty fast. I’ve never had a boyfriend who spent so much time trying to make every day special. He brings me tea and snacks on the days when I’m too sick to work, and he sits in the gardens with me while I meditate.
I hate to think of what my life would be right now if I hadn’t reached back out to him. I would still be alone in my apartment every night, watching the ceiling fan whirring above me as sleep evades me. I’d be depressed, anxious, and hopeless.
Leonardo has been really helpful with everything too. Matteo has entrusted him to take care of me when he can’t be here, which is rare these days. He’s cut back on his work a lot in order to be more present for me. He’s been taking me to all of my doctor’s appointments, anxiously awaiting the test results with me and holding my hand when I’m nervous.
This pregnancy is so much easier than I expected it to be. After a while, I did start to get sick here and there, but I feel like I’ve been handling the changes well. I feel like I’m getting bigger every day, which has made clothes shopping hard, but I’m not going to complain about it. When Matteo realized that I was struggling to find clothes, he bought me an entire designer maternity wardrobe.
I haven’t been working much, which has given John a level of satisfaction that only a vindictive old man can experience. He’s never wanted me to succeed, and he believes that my absence from the office means I’ve spent the last few months doing nothing. He thinks I’ve been watching The Real Housewives and eating pints of ice cream by myself.
Well, he’s in for a major surprise.
I’ve compiled every piece of information I could possibly assemble into this article. Every relevant detail, every nauseating footnote is here. Everybody who reads this will be forced to face the underworld of organized crime like I was.
And today, I’m going to drop it on John’s desk.
I choose the boldest, most ostentatious outfit that I can find in my closet the day I arrive at the office again. I’m wearing a bright red dress that clings to my curves perfectly, even with my baby bump. I’ve paired it with Louboutins, of course, and a red netted veil over my face. I look like the mistress at the funeral of an eccentric billionaire, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
John is shocked to see me, since I decided not to tell him I was coming in today. I needed him to be surprised, because now it’ll be even more confusing for him when I quit.
