Page 116 of Fracture

“No problem.” He smiles at me warmly, before dipping his head to go back to his work. “See you there.”

I shrug on my jacket and pull on my helmet, before climbing onto my bike. I check the location for the millionth time. The little red dot shows my target hasn’t moved. He’s still right where he was two hours ago, when Flea sent me the pin.

I gun the engine, and the bike roars as I head out of the parking lot and out onto the open road.

The past week has been hell. And it wasn’t just dodging reporters, avoiding all the drama Gloria had rained down on us with her lies.

No, it was much more than that.

I can’t think about it too much. I didn’t know what I was expecting when Flea sent me the access to Oswald’s phone, with a warning that there was stuff on there that would be extremelyhard to watch. I thought I was prepared. I’d seen terrible things before.

Nothing could have prepared me for a video of Stella,myStella, my beautiful girl, being raped and defiled by three filthy fucks in a dingy motel room. My stomach curdles at the memory. Her dead eyes, her screams, all silent on the video, but loud enough to rattle my soul to its very core. I heard everything, felt everything, smelled everything, as though I was in the room with her.

And when I saw her mouth the word that broke me, when I saw tears slip down her cheeks and her lips move as she pleaded, “Papi, papi, please”, I knew what had to happen. This was a matter for me to settle. She’d lain on that floor, pleading for me to come and rescue her while she was drugged and assaulted…

I’d said nothing to Stella or Levi. I’d just asked Flea to find out where the video had come from, who’d filmed it. A feat that should have been impossible.

But then this morning, a location was shared to my phone, for an apartment an hour away, in Bakersfield. The shitty side of town. The loser who’d filmed himself and his buddies assaulting Stella lived there alone. Flea was still working on identifying the other two.

One name is enough for me right now. The late afternoon sun beats down as I coast down the interstate, and after a half hour, I take the Bakersfield exit. A text from Flea pops up on my phone.

The guy owns a gun, just thought you should know.

I expected nothing less. Which is why I stowed the gun Eric procured for us under my seat. Risky? Sure. A cop pulls me over and searches me, I’m done. And a brown man like me, I know he’d sure as fuck search me immediately. But I send a prayer up to my parents, to have those angels looking after me, so I can make this right.

Revenge might be a sin, but since I’m damned anyway, who gives a fuck? Maybe God can give me a pass on all of this. An eye for an eye, right?

I pull up outside a run-down apartment block. Craig Ellis lives in the apartment at the end, facing the dumpsters. Fitting.

The apartments are quiet, their occupants all obviously at work. A beat up Camry is parked outside Ellis’s door, a Confederate flag sticker on the bumper. I park my bike down the side, out of sight, and tuck the gun into my waistband, under my jacket.

Something clicks beside me as I walk towards Ellis’s door, and I know I’ve activated someone’s ring camera. I keep my head down, pulling out my phone to text Flea.

Apartment 221 has a camera. Deal with it.

That’ll cost you.

Just get it done.

Flea sends me a thumbs up, and I move to Ellis’s door. A tv can be heard inside, and I test the door handle. This idiot has his door unlocked. It’s almost too easy.

I let myself into the apartment, and withdraw the gun. The lounge room is empty, and the sound of water running drifts down the hallway. While Craig Ellis washes his hands or his ass, whichever, I settle myself down in the arm chair, the gun resting on my knee, and wait for this fucker to emerge.

After a couple of minutes, he walks out of the bathroom, running a hand through messy dark hair, shirtless in a pair of basketball shorts. He doesn’t spot me at first, moving towards the kitchen and opening the fridge to retrieve a beer. He turns towards me just as he opens the bottle, and it drops to his feet as he yelps.

“Who the fuck are you?”

I raise the gun and gesture to the couch with it.

“Shut up and sit down.”

“Get the fuck out of my place!”

I cock the gun, and he goes pale. “I said, sit down, Craig.”

He lunges for the pantry, presumably where his gun is kept, but slips in the spilled beer on the floor, tumbling down hard. I’m over him before he can flip over, and his eyes widen as he stares down the barrel of my gun.

“Try that again, and I’ll put a bullet in your fucking eye.”

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