Page 52 of His Sacrifice

“You must be Raoul Burlusconi,” he forces the words out through his agony, The pressure of the hood crushing his hands causing all the veins in his neck and forehead to pulse. “You know she used to cry herself to sleep over you. She even kept a pretty little journal under her pillow to write all the stories about how you’d come back for her one day.” Somehow the fucker finds enough strength to laugh.

“Stop talking.” I shove the gun deeper into his flesh, I won’t have this weak, pathetic asshole get to me.

“You hurt her more than I ever did.” Kevin’s phlegm lands on my face as he says words that make my guts wrench.

“You're a brave man.” Niko steps closer behind me.

“If you want to blame someone for hurting that stupid little bitch, you might want to look at yourself.”

I’ve heard all I can stand out of this cunt, but before I put his lights out for good, I move the gun between his legs and fire a close-range shot straight into the fucker’s ball sack.

“That’s for insulting me,” I tell him over the sound of his cries, then I raise the gun back up to his temple and watch the fear strike through his pupils as I pull back the slide with my other hand. “And this is for ever thinking you were good enough to lay a filthy finger on what’s mine.” I pull the trigger, putting a hole in his skull and watching his useless body slump over the front of the car. I toss my gun to the wall and lose my shit. Kicking the dead bastard's body, grabbing whatever tools I can get my hands on, and launching them at him. Then once I’ve pulled all the shit from the walls, I slide down the galvanized metal wall onto my ass, pull my knees up to my chest and drop my head in my hands.

The asshole’s right, this is all my fault. I should never have kissed her that night I left. It wasn’t a goodbye for her, it was a promise. One that I could never have delivered on.

“You done?” Niko asks me after a few minutes of silence. I look around the garage at the mess I’ve made, but it’s not enough to distract me from the destruction I’m making back at home. If what the man said is true, what I’m doing to Evelyn now is going to destroy her. I can’t be the reason for putting her through that pain again.

“Take me to her mother’s place.” I pull myself back together, picking up my gun as I stand up and tucking it back inside my holster. I spit at the dead piece of shit as I pass him on the way out and march back to the car.

“Have someone clear the place up,” I instruct Niko, who's already pulling out his cell phone to dial a number. And as I get in the back of the car and take the time to steady my breathing, I’m relieved by the fact that there's one less person in the world who could hurt her.

There is no one home when I arrive at Helena Lane’s house, and Niko checks the coast is clear before he picks the lock of the back door and gets us inside. The place is filthy, nothing like how Helena used to keep her cottage, and I can’t help wondering what sort of woman she’s become over the years.

I pass the mirror in the hall on my way to search the bedrooms and notice the blood streaks on my face, but I’m numb to it as I move on in search of the room that used to be Evelyn’s.

I find the main bedroom at the top of the small corridor, the bed is unmade, there are empty bottles all over the nightstand and clothes thrown all over the floor. This must be where her mom and that low-life scum sleep. I close the door and move on to the next room. There’s no bed in here, just some weights, an exercise bike, and a pile of boxes that are labeled with Evelyn’s name.

Perhaps the journal is inside them, or maybe it’s one of the things she took with her when she left. Either way, I couldn’t bring myself to try and find it. Very few things in this world scare me, but reading her thoughts, and learning all the details of how I broke her heart petrifies me.

“There’s nothing here, sir, and we have a flight path booked for an hour. We should leave.” Niko steps into the room behind me.

“I should have made sure she was okay,” I say to myself as I look around the house where she spent the last of her teenage years. I move into the open plan living area and stare at the small table set in the kitchen, imagining that sick asshole glaring at her while she ate her breakfast makes me want to kill him all over again.

I’ve been so selfish. When I came back to the States, I’d known how much seeing her would have hurt me, so I avoided it. All this is as much my fault as it is theirs.

“Sir, we really need to leave,” Niko reminds me, saving me from my own thoughts.

“I’ve spoken to one of Ludo's contacts, they’re sending a clean-up crew to the garage.”

I nod my approval and take a seat in the tattered armchair that’s positioned in front of the tv. It smells of stale alcohol and smoke. The upholstery is full of cigarette burns.

“Sir, do you need me to call someone else?” Niko sounds concerned.

“No.” I pull myself together and stand back up, taking one last look around the place where my girl lived out her nightmares.

“Let’s go home.”

***

When I step back into the house, the first thing I hear is the sound of laughter. Evelyn rushes to greet me, wrapping her arms around my neck and kissing the cheek that just a few hours ago was stained with her stepfather's blood.

“Did you have a good day?” she asks me brightly, moving to stand beside my sister and picking up a glass of champagne.

“Let me get you a glass while Violetta tells you what we’re celebrating.” She dashes off to the bar on the other side of the room excitedly, grabbing the bottle from the ice bucket before she fills a fresh glass with bubbles.

“Tell him,” she coaxes Violetta.

Violetta clears her throat. “I’ve decided to go back to school,” she informs me with a smile.

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