Page 113 of The Ripper

There it was again.

My daughter.

Reina.

Anger bottled up inside me and I felt like a champagne bottle, agitated and ready to explode.

“She’s finally come back home…”

He didn’t have time to finish the sentence as I took the knife out of its holster and threw it at his head,

I missed my target on purpose but made sure it grazed the shell of his ear.

A drop of blood fell into his glass and mixed with the alcohol.

Gasps echoed in the room.

The band stopped playing.

Every head at the table turned towards me.

Julio laughed out loud.

My grandfather bowed his head and raised his glass to me.

I slowly stood up and casually fished for the cigarette and lighter I had stashed in my bra. I lit it and took a long drag, then downed the glass of champagne and leaned over the edge of the table to grab a bottle of the Tequila, making sure I gave everyone a prime view of my cleavage before straightening up.

“Fucking welcome home to me,” I raised the bottle at him, and I could have sworn that glass he was holding was about to break in his hand, while the vein in his temple seemed ready to burst.

With the cigarette in one hand and the bottle in the other, I gave everyone at the table a double middle finger, then kicked the chair aside and turned my back on them, slowly walking towards the stairs, taking a few healthy swigs of the burning alcohol as I climbed up.

You’re going to wish you left me in Chicago.

Because my heart was there.

My warmth was there, along with my entire future.

CHAPTER 22

MIDNIGHT

GRIMM

The metallic taste exploded in my mouth when the blood of the man under me splattered on my face. I had no idea how long I had been hitting him, and even though he was long dead, I couldn’t stop.

His skull had cracked from the many knocks against the cement pavement, and his face became unrecognizable beneath my knuckles. I screamed as loud as my lungs would allow as I delivered a final blow to his already shattered face.

In the last few days, I made a habit of looking for trouble in the most dangerous areas of the city, and if I found someone, mostly drug dealers, rapists, and cartel affiliated assholes, I killed them.

This guy though, I had no idea who he was. He bumped into me while I wandered aimlessly through the alleys of Washington Park neighborhood, in the heavy rain, looking for absolutely nothing because I had no leads to follow, and the asshole had the guts to tell me to watch where I was going.

~ The fucking audacity.

I wiped the blood on my T-shirt as the rain pelted down on me.

The sky above thundered with the same agony I felt inside my chest, and physical pain no longer satisfied the monster inside me, the one who now seemed to tear at my flesh from the inside out, using her memory like a well-sharpened butcher knife, tirelessly striking my ribcage and making me spill my anger onto others.

~ As it should be. Why should we be the only ones who suffer?

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