Page 62 of Shadows of Justice

I reach the jars and fish out the crucifix, pressing the flat button on the bottom to begin picking up video. I hold it out, similarly to how someone would in an exorcism. I’m not sure how wide of an angle the tiny camera can pick up, and I’m not willing to waste this opportunity.

I pick up one of the jars and set it on the ground so that I can unscrew the lid. Glancing back the way I came, I open the lid and reveal the rust-colored powder, as fine as sand inside the jar. I make sure to get a really good shot, adjusting my distance with the crucifix to make sure it’s perfect.

Once I’m sure I’ve got what I need, I screw the lid back on and replace the jar, putting it back into the packing crate with the others. There’s enough here to make ten MG-T12s, a fact that makes me just that much more certain that I’m doing the right thing in taking these guys down.

I turn to leave and everything goes white, my head suddenly feeling like it’s being split open. I fall to the cold cement, my knees cracking, and clutch at the back of my head. Warm, sticky fluid meets my fingertips and I blink repeatedly, trying to get my eyes to focus. Ears ringing, I lift my throbbing head, and look straight into the dripping teeth of Dante. The canine stands over me, looking down with the kind of curiosity a cat has while batting an injured bird between its paws—moments before it swallows it whole.

A whimper escapes me, and I distantly process the sound of footsteps. Shoes come into my view, and then one lifts and turns me over, pressing the toe into my shoulder until I flip onto my back. Upside down, I see Trismo’s wobbly form standing over me, looking down at me with a shit-eating grin on his ugly mug, and a stained baseball bat propped on one shoulder.

I can’t think, I can’t move—my thundering heart is the only thing convincing me that I’m alive. I don’t even have enough presence of mind to raise my arms as Trismo swings the bat, aiming for my head.

Then everything goes black.

Chapter Twenty - Retribution and a Baseball Bat

Saturday, July 25th

Leo

There haven’t been a lot of moments in my life in which I’ve completely lost my grip.

When my father died, that was the first. I was fourteen, and he was gunned down in front of me during a convenience store robbery gone bad. We’d only gone inside to get me the damned burn cream I needed after yet another chemical endeavor gone wrong—a ridiculous mishap I’ll never forgive myself for.

I don’t remember beating the gunman to a bloody pulp with my fists. I only remember being dragged off his lifeless body, the blood on my hands still warm from his mutilated face.

I think my mother was a little scared of me after that.

The second time was when Maricruz died. The cancer had already rotted a shocking amount of her colon before we knew about it, its poisonous reach spread into nearly every organ surrounding it—stomach, uterus, bladder—all of it tainted beyond repair.

I didn’t lose it when I lost my scholarship and was kicked out of university. That was my fault, within my control. I fucked around and ended up paying for it. But watching the first woman I’d ever loved be slowly ravaged by a disease and lose the ability to function at a basic human level—that was within no one’s control, no one’s fault.

That was a special brand of torture.

I lost it when my father died because I was powerless to stop the gunman. I lost it when Maricruz took her last breath because I was powerless to keep the cancer from ending her life.

And as I watched Trismo follow Genevieve into that storeroom through The Roost’s cameras, I was powerless to stop him. She didn’t come back out, and hasn’t since I lost audio and visual on her at 3:51 AM.

My hands are shredded. Open slices crack every time I move them, leaking blood all over my jeans. I have to look out the driver’s side window of my Malibu in order to drive, because I smashed the windshield into a bloody, shattered mess. The doors are kicked in, and the passenger side mirror is only hanging on by a few wires.

I’m not proud of my reaction. I know it didn’t help Viv. But it sure felt good to picture Trismo’s sick fucking smile underneath my fists as I unleashed my wrath on my car.

I didn’t used to think of myself as a selfish man.

I’d actually like to think the opposite, especially when it comes to money. Yes, I do have a lot, but I give thousands away anonymously to charities every single year, and it’s not like I’m getting incentivized by a tax write-off for doing it.

But in the short time that I’ve come to know Genevieve Schaeffer, I’ve realized that maybe I am a selfish man. She’s ruined me, all without even trying. Once I had a taste of her, had her at my mercy to bend to my every want, I became a man constantly battling with my consuming desire for more of her. I’d imagined again and again what she’d taste like, what she’d sound like, and after having experienced it, I’m confident that it’s all I’ll ever want. Every smile she gifts me, every sigh, every laugh that scrunches her nose, I want to keep them all for myself. I want to breathe in as she breathes out, so no other fucker gets to have a part of her inside them.

It’s the same selfishness that’s making me drive like a madman right now, ignoring speed signs and traffic laws.

It was also the same selfishness that required me to teach a particular LAPD cop a lesson after I watched him over a certain gun range’s cameras, witnessing as he dared to lay a finger on her.

I wonder if Chase was ever able to untie himself from his kitchen table chair, considering I relieved himself of the ability to use his hands.

But, I digress.

I’ve done my best to respect her wishes, to let her handle what she deems as “her choices,” but it was like having my heart ripped out to wake up to find her gone, and my equipment missing. Then, to have her refuse to leave with me in the bathroom at The Roost—that was like slipping into the next circle of hell. I am doomed to be obligated to give my brave girl exactly what she wants, because serving her needs is like retribution for me.

What she wants also happens to rend me open—left with nothing but my gaping, empty chest bleeding on the floor.

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