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I can’t breathe.
My eyes slam shut but my eyelids burn with red splotches, with an old wound that’s torn open and bleeding inside me.
Baby girl.
That’s what he said. The man who came into my room that night. The one who’s seen my real face.
Baby girl.
Noah drops beside me, grabbing me under the arms and holding me against him. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t answer him. I can’t. My whole body goes slack. Noah’s yelling something at me, but I can’t hear what over the pounding of my own heart in my ears.
Behind his back, Antony meets my eyes. Realization dawns on him. His jaw sets as he reads the note again.
He turns and smashes his hand into the tiles.
Noah second-hand winces as shards of tile fly from the wall. I guess Brentwood’s decorator hadn’t used the best glue.
“What’s going on?” Gabriel asks. Noah doesn’t say anything, but he stares at me with those coal-black eyes and I know he sees I’m hiding something.
Antony wipes his bloodied knuckles on the hem of his shirt. He’s back in control now. “We know who did this. It’s Brutus. He must’ve found out about the appointment I made with Brentwood. And this note confirms he knows Claudia’s real identity.”
I’m grateful Antony doesn’t tell the rest of the story. “What do we do now?”
“We get the fuck out of dodge before anyone sees us here and reports it to the police. We don’t have time to wait around for Dio’s clean-up team – we’d have to explain what we were doing here in the first place. Better they believe Brentwood’s disappeared.” Antony pulls something from his pocket and tosses it to Gabriel. “Pretty Boy, put those on and dig around in his closet. We’ll need three pairs of shoes and a pillowcase to stash ours inside.”
Gabe pulls on the latex gloves and locates three pairs of shiny Brionis, which he lines up on the carpet. We take turns to slide off our blood-soaked shoes and step into the clean ones. I drop my spike heels into the pillowcase. “I liked these shoes.”
“Are we leaving him here?” Noah jerks his head in the direction of the bathroom. But Antony’s already on the phone to Tiberius.
We wait in the house until Tiberius arrives with the supplies we need. Antony goes downstairs to guide him through the booby traps. They appear in the doorway, their arms loaded with vats of chemicals and a large kettle.
“You might want to get out of here.” Antony plugs the kettle into the power outlet beside the sink and starts boiling. “This will smell delightful.”
I sit down on the corner of Brentwood’s bed. I don’t care about the smell. I’m numb to the world – the only thing that pierces my haze are those words repeating over and over in my head. Baby girl baby girl baby girl…
Gabriel wraps me in his arms, pulling me back against the Egyptian linens while Antony and Tiberius get to work.
Noah helps Antony, pouring the boiling kettle over Brentwood’s body as Antony mixes the chemicals and uses the plunger to move the slurry forming in the bathtub down the drain. I’m too lost in my pain to pay too much attention, but the fact Noah is so calm and so willing to throw himself into this is… perturbing. He doesn’t throw up once, even as Antony asks him to hold Brentwood’s limbs while he chops him into pieces so the chemicals will work faster. Gabriel won’t even look inside the bathroom, but the smell has him heaving into the pillowcase at least three times.
Gabriel holds me, stroking my hair. He whispers song lyrics into my ears, filling my chest with warmth. But he can’t kiss away that cold as I clutch that ribbon between my fingers.
All these years, and the man who hurt me finally has a name.
Brutus.
The accursed man.
The betrayer.
He killed my parents.
He broke my spirit.
He will die.
Claudia
