Page 17 of Ruined

Bobby is a kill target.

Bobby made me bleed my own blood.

Bobby is going to die.

I plan to pull the knife and stab again, but before I can a large hand wraps around my neck, yanking me back at just the moment I decide to press the advantage. Bobby grips at his throat, one hand going to the craft knife, the other going to his neck. He sinks down, stabilizing his wound by himself with a surprisingly practiced grip.

Angelo tuts, as if he has caught a pup gnawing on something she shouldn’t. He pulls me out of Bobby’s reach and yanks both of my wrists behind me hard, putting me into a position of immediate submission. It hurts, but I don’t care. I don’t cry out. And I don’t feel the pain. Everything in me was focused on hurting Bobby, and now I no longer care what happens to me.

I draw a deep breath and close my eyes. I expect Angelo to kill me outright. Everybody knows how protective he is of his little psychopath.

“You are a bad little thing,” Angelo murmurs in my ear while Bobby slumps against the kitchen island, holding the knife in his throat. It’s pretty clear that this is not the first time Bobby has been stabbed somewhere potentially lethal. He’s not panicking. He’s not doing anything but staring at me with those hollow, shark-like eyes.

Slow realization is setting in. I haven’t killed him. And that means he will be coming for me. I just made the first move in a very lethal game with Bobby Vitali.

Angelo marches me back through the house to the room in which I was first imprisoned. He turns me loose inside it, but not before unleashing a hard slap to my ass, hard enough to make me rise off my feet and skip a step inside.

The door is closed and locked before I can turn around and look at his face.

I am stuck now until he comes to get me. Trapped with nothing but my own thoughts. I regret nothing except missing my target. Bobby Vitali deserves to die, and Angelo deserves to be captured. All these attempts to make me break are doomed to fail, because I know those two facts without the slightest shadow of a doubt.

7

The hours pass and for the duration of each and every one of them I am tormented by the promise of punishment to come. How will Angelo kill me? Will he do it fast? Will he do it slow? Will he let Bobby take his vengeance first?

Suddenly, I can hear them coming toward my room. I startle up, alert and ready to fight. My initial reaction after stabbing Bobby, the one that made me give up and submit to death, that is gone. My body is back in the mode of defending itself, and I intend to leave a few more marks on these men before I go.

“Just a flesh wound, boy.”

“She’s vicious.” Bobby doesn’t sound angry. He almost sounds excited. “She tried to kill me. If I’d been a fraction slower…”

“Yes, you’d be all over the rug,” Angelo purrs back. “And what a pity that would be.”

The door opens and two figures are silhouetted in the passage.

Bobby has a bandage on his neck. It looks expertly done. The Vitali first aid kit must be well-stocked. There are stitches beneath that bandage, I would bet. At least three, maybe four. I feel some small amount of satisfaction seeing that, but beneath the twin stares of Angelo and Bobby, that satisfaction dwindles and becomes diminutive in the face of fear.

I am standing by the bed because there is nowhere else to be in this room. I am facing the door because I know it is better to face danger than it is to let it come up behind you.

Angelo has a hand on Bobby’s upper back. He uses that hand to guide Bobby into the room. There is a tenderness to his touch, though I am well aware that Angelo technically took care of me before Bobby. He left his boy bleeding by the wall and settled me away first. Arguably that was because he wanted me under control, but he could have knocked me out. He didn’t.

He is a cruel master, and he expects strength of his acolytes. I know that pain is coming. I also know that it will be twisted, and that when it is over, I will bear fresh scars.

I feel a sudden, helpless desire to beg for mercy, but there is no mercy in either one of their gazes. There is predatory anticipation instead. I didn’t kill Bobby. I didn’t even hurt him. I gave him justification to make my life a living hell from this day forth.

I say nothing. Angelo speaks first.

“You owe Robert an apology. But first I intend to make sure that you are properly sorry. Then you will make your apologies.”

I don’t think saying sorry is what Angelo has in mind. I think these two twisted men are about to take me to pieces.

“Just kill me,” I say.

Angelo’s chuckle is deep and potent and full of charismatic evil. “You will not escape your punishment so easily. Remove your clothes.”

I shake my head. I will not be complicit in anything they do to me. They will never be able to say I participated in any of my downfall when they come to trial. One day I will see Angelo Vitali in a witness box and then behind bars. One day, I will have the power he now wields. I will watch him be broken by the system I serve.

But for now, Angelo steps into the room, turns the light on, and closes the door. The room becomes Angelo and nobody and nothing else. There are still walls and a little furniture, but I can’t perceive anything other than his strong, mature Sicilian features and the dark eyes that capture mine and will not release them.

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