Page 37 of Tortured Eyes
“I’m sorry, Logan.” My fingers pick up the dice, rolling them in my hand. “Do you need me to come?”
No. The last thing I need is Samuel in my head any more than he currently is.
“I can catch a flight early evening,” he says.
The pain in his voice, there because of what he thinks I might be feeling, is damn near overwhelming. It soothes me, makes me feel like someone gives a damn about my thoughts. The dice drop absently from my fingers, and I walk out of my room and down the hall to get to her. She doesn’t give a damn, does she? She doesn’t give a fuck about me or my family, or the death she’s caused. We just fucked, that's all. I got off my head and felt something, something that's not true.
“Logan?”
I keep walking, head tilted at my feelings turning rancid toward her again.
“Logan, listen to me. You don’t have to do this. They can pay without you delivering your own justice.”
I sneer at that and head down the basement stairs, wondering what he thinks will happen to a cop who busted a drug deal. A hollow laugh comes out of me at his naïvety. Good Samuel. Kind, decent, honest Samuel. Samuel who lives in a world where some fucking religious icon rules our existence, delivers vengeance for us. “I’m worried about you, Logan. I’ll come tonight. I’ll get these matters organis-”
“No,” I snap, throat rattling around the word.
He isn’t coming here. Shouldn’t. He’ll get in my head some more, make me think about decency I’ve neither got nor am interested in trying to find. He’ll be soft, calm, relaxed. He’ll stay by my side and remind me of human morality, of consideration. And then he’ll start spouting religious crap in my face while he reminds me that even Vico came to God in the end. Even he, with all his years of atrocities, needed to confess and be forgiven. “You stay there, Samuel. Be priestly. You're not welcome here.” That does cause a small gasp. Tough. This life isn't for him. And I’m not the man for him either, certainly not with what I’m about to do with this bitch. "You should…"
An open door greets me before I can get the rest of my words out. I squint, looking around the area for her. Who the fuck left a door open? She’s nowhere to be seen when I look inside. All that remains is an empty room. I walk to the other door and peer through at Emilio. He’s still there, body collapsed in the corner, blood trailing the guts of the room.
“Logan?”
“I have to go,” I mutter, moving the phone to end the call.
“Logan wait.” I hover the phone, eyes checking out the surroundings as I hurry back up the stairs. “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” My frown drops at his words, trying and failing to find any meaning in them relevant to me now. “Please, Logan. Try. For me. Try.” The phone goes dead the minute he’s said it.
Try what? Forgiveness?
I hover at the thought, part of me trying to understand what the hell he sees in me that I don't. It makes me shake under the self-scrutiny, all the time thinking of that word he used to describe me—lost.
Where the hell is she?
No sound comes back at me as I stare around. Nothing. It’s quiet. I half-laugh at the thought of playing cat and mouse around my house. Cane doesn’t do forgiveness. It isn’t in my damn bones to believe in it. Wasn’t there when I was a child, and it isn’t here now. Forgiveness is an attribute that neither offers penance nor helps to offload grief. Certainly not in this circumstance.
Footsteps sound along the hall, hard and long in stride. I turn to the sound of them, knowing them only too well. Carter.
“You know where she is?” I mutter, turning my face from him to look the other way.
“Who?”
“The cop?”
“No, she was downstairs.”
“Not anymore.”
He tosses a towel at me and walks straight past, almost barging me out of the way to get down the stairs. “The fucking state of you, you probably left the door open,” he growls, leaving me. "Dry off. Get your head straight."
Maybe I did. Who knows? I stare after him, listening to his footfalls as he disappears. He doesn’t give a fuck about the cop. He wants Emilio. Nothing more. He’ll keep damn well pounding until Mortoni is nothing but a mass of broken bones and bloodied sinew. That’s how he’ll recover from his own grief. Simple, direct. Aggressive. Me, though? That’s not enough. I want to toy with the reason it happened, let her feel what it’s like to piss on Cane bones.
My lips sneer, feet walking down the hall to start stalking the bitch. There isn’t any way out of this place. It’s all coded for thumbprints and passwords, and Carter’s the only one who has that. I’ve even changed it so the staff can’t get back in. Locked this place down. It’s just her and me now and this game I’m playing because Carter couldn’t give a fuck what I do to her.
“Here, kitty,” I call, laughing.
Nothing comes back at me. No fear or scream of panic. Not likely too with this hard-nosed bitch. Four strides and I turn my head around the dining room door, not bothering to enter. “You in here, Kitty?”
I scan the interior, looking at all the nooks and crannies hidden behind gilded furniture. Nothing again. I chuckle and turn away, hands towelling off my shirt and hair as I wander through to the lounge. Still nothing. Maybe she’s trying to access my laptop, dig for information. She might even have tried calling the cops for help. Good fucking luck with that. Even the phones are locked with thumbprint recognition.
