Page 117 of Like An Animal
“Are you talking to me?” She points at herself, confusion on her face.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were dead.”
Cheryl blanches then as if coming to a realization, she laughs. “Oh, my god. I’m sorry. My sister has been dead for so long I forgot how much we look alike. He must be getting me confused with Charly, Bronwyn’s mother. Her full name was Charlotte but we all just called her Charly.”
Bronwyn’s face goes pale for a moment before she looks up at my grandfather. “She’s why you hate me so much, isn’t she? What did she do? Did she kick your puppy?”
Dimitri’s expression tightens, his lips sealing.
“What was his name again?” Cheryl asks.
“Dimitri Borza.”
Cheryl seems contemplative, tapping her chin. “My sister mentioned aDimitrionce when she visited New York for the summer. She was trying to have some fun in the Big Apple with our cousin, Elsie, and she mentioned meeting Dimitri. She mentioned him once over the phone, but when she returned home and I asked her about him, she just said he was a dirty old man and never wanted to speak of him again.”
The amount of rage across Dimitri’s face paints a picture. For some reason, he hates Bronwyn’s mother. He hates her with such a passion that it has transferred to her daughter. That’s why he wanted me to leave her behind, why he tried to send her away.
“What happened, Dimitri?” Bronwyn asks. “Did she turn you down?”
“Shut up, you fucking whore!”
“Ah, ah, ah! Watch how you talk to my wife. I have the remote in my hand. One click of a button and you’ll plummet into the water.” I lift up the remote and his face goes pale.
“I don’t need any more answers from him. He’s not worth the air he breathes,” my wife mutters before flipping him off. “I’m going to enjoy watching those sharks rip you apart. Laters. Ithasn’tbeen a pleasure.” Then, she flips her hand around and gives him a little finger wave.
“Just one more thing,” Nikolai mutters before he pulls out his gun. “They’ll need the scent of blood.” He aims his gun at Dimitri as the fucker tries to swing himself around like he thinks that will stop this. Nikolai fires out three shots—one in each knee and one in the abdomen.
Throwing his head back, Dimitri screams like a little bitch.
“Come on, Mr. B! It’s just a scratch.” Bronwyn laughs at his pain. “What I went through was way worse. The same goes for what happened to Max.” I click the button to slowly lower him down toward the water.
“No! No!” he screams as he thrashes around, grunting with each move. He kicks his legs as he moves down. “You can’t do this to me!”
“Oh, really? Watch me,” I chuckle and let it continue lowering until he is submerged down to his knees. Only then do I stop the crane.
Dimitri wails and kicks around the water, probably thinking if he kicks enough that he’ll float out of the water.
Sorry. Gravity doesn’t work that way.
“Get me out of here!”
A shark surfaces right before it sinks its teeth into his right leg. It bites down until blood sprays and it rips the limb clean from his body. He screams loud, horror registering across his face, before I hit the button dropping him further into the tank. He can’t swim with the ropes bound around his chest and arms, holding them in place so he sinks right into the water.
We walk down off the deck and watch through the glass as the sharks circle him. We keep a close eye on the scene as one of the sharks strikes against his torso as another goes for his other leg. As soon as his other leg is ripped off, the third shark swims over and opens its mouth, snapping it shut over his head, biting it clean off. Then, two of the sharks try to fight with the one still holding his torso in its mouth.
Poor things must be starved.
“Let’s feed them before we move onto Isaac.” Who knows how long it has been since they last had a decent meal?
The three sharksare satisfied once we toss two more bodies into the tank.
“Do you need a break?” I turn to my wife and she shakes her head.
“Can I see your pocket knife?” she asks, tilting her head a little.
“Why?” Nikolai presses and she turns her head to look at him.
“Because that pedophile has been raping me since I was ten years old, six years after the other Fathers, and killed one of my best friends in the world in front of me as a way to punish me for running to protect my daughter. He also made me sit there and watch as my friend since childhood was viciously raped and murdered. He also put a hit out on Jeremy to make me do his bidding. You can kill him, but I get to torture him first.”
