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So why risk waking up one morning and knowing that the same thing had happened to her as had happened to Rina? Or something similar, for that matter. In a terribly cruel and unfair way, the fear of losing family members was overwhelming, not just since Amedea had come into my life. Her attempts to interfere in everything did not necessarily make it better, but it certainly was not worse than before.
At least, that's what I wanted to believe. Otherwise, it would have signaled that I attached more importance to this woman than I currently did.
A casual affair within the marriage with each other. Who had not already experienced it?
Dissatisfied with my thought process, my attention shifted back to reality and to Amedea, who was still watching intently and had not made any attempt to interfere.
Something told me she was internalizing the processes and remembering exactly what I was doing, and how I did it. With which tool, how much force it took, and how I processed the different parts into smaller ones.
Morsels of meat, bones with minimal remains, and organs. I filled three plastic tubs.
I covered the bones with plastic wrap as they were going to the pigs at noon today, and I put the rest on the countertop.
It took a few minutes before it was no longer apparent what I had just done. Only when I stepped away from the sink was everything ready for feeding the predators.
* * *
"You don't feed by hand?" Amedea asked, one of the tubs tucked under her arm.
I looked at her in disbelief. I wasn't tired of life after all! "I like to leave it at strokes outside meal times," I muttered and put my tub down right in front of the fence.
It took only a few seconds for Gattina to appear, rubbing herself along the metal grate, accompanied by a yawn and a sound that might as well have come from a house cat.
I grabbed a piece of meat and threw it over the fence. Gattina caught it in mid air.
" I can't get my head around the fact that you own these animals," Amedea said, shaking her head.
"Really? That's what's got you on the edge of your seat?"
"Actually, seeing a tiger ten feet away surprises me. The way she's gnawing on a piece of meat that I know exactly where it came from. I wonder if she can taste what kind of asshole she's eating."
"It suits me if she has a soft spot for terrible people. Anything else would be a diet plan I couldn't quite support," I muttered, amused that we were even talking about it.
After tossing a few more morsels and some of the organs over the fence, I nodded in the direction where we would continue our feeding. I kept the enclosures separate, not without reason. After all, we were talking about three abused predators here, which were hardly predictable in their behaviors.
Disputes between a tiger and a mountain lion quickly ended fatally, and that was not something I wanted to witness any time soon.
Because Amedea had not yet seen the other two animals, I took the time to introduce them to her.
However, Gattina was still the most impressive appearance. No wonder, with her sheer size and stunning coat pattern.
"Do you feed them that amount every day?" Dea asked when we were on the way back to the house.
"About. However, I buy a lot of animal meat in addition. Believe it or not, I don't cut a person into pieces daily."
"You don't?"
"It's very time-consuming. Besides, at some point, the pigs can no longer keep up with the bones." Bones were the only thing that could have led to the discovery of my schemes. A risk that I didn't necessarily want to take, given today's technology and the methods that criminal investigators had at their disposal.
Amedea laughed. "I can't believe we're talking about this like it's natural and normal."
I shrugged. For me, it had become a part of my life, just as it was for Fiero. We didn't regret any of it, not even that we had ended countless lives. Instead, I kept in mind how many people had been saved. How many people had escaped to a better life just because that one lousy part that had always haunted you no longer existed?
"You get used to it."
20
Amedea
