Page 75 of Taming Seraphine

Di Marco’s face contorts with a mixture of agony and animosity. His breathing labors, even though I haven’t yet hit anything vital.

“If I’m not talking, it’s because I’m buying time,” he says, his voice strained. “My security company would know the moment you cut the telephone lines. In a moment, the police will arrive with reinforcements.”

I close my eyes and focus on the wail of distant sirens. Joseph Di Marco is playing a dangerous game of chicken, and it looks like the old bastard is winning.

“If you leave now, you might escape before they arrive,” he says through labored breaths.

My jaw clenches.

He’s withholding a vital piece of information, but what?

“Leroi,” Miko hisses through my earpiece. “The police are heading toward us.”

There’s no time to torture him for answers. The stubborn old bastard is ready to die with his secret. If we can find the hospital that performed the liver transplant, then maybe we can find the donor, and with any luck, it will lead us to Gabriel.

He falls back on his pillows and gasps. “You won’t get away with this.”

I shoot him through the head, turn on my heel, and exit the master bedroom.

This breakthrough is exactly what I need to soothe the awkwardness between me and Seraphine.

TWENTY-SEVEN

SERAPHINE

I sit on my heels in my bedroom with felt-tip pens spread all over the desk. The picture I drew of Leroi needs more red. I draw gashes down his neck and two down the lines of his chest. His mouth is open in a silent scream as blood pours over the bed and stains the sheets.

Slicing him open in picture form isn’t enough. I need him to bleed.

Leroi made me feel so alive this morning when he fucked me with Pietro’s dagger. For those blissful moments, I felt loved, protected, pleasured. He gave me my first orgasm, then another so powerful that my vision went black.

And when he pulled me into his chest, my mind fell quiet. I was finally at peace and where I belonged.

Then he pulled away.

All the way back. Leaving me in a void of silence.

It’s been years since I felt so rejected. Discarded.

He led me out of Pietro’s house without a word, as though what we’d done together had been a mistake. Maybe he hadn’t meant to kill Pietro in a murderous rage for hurting me, or he was having regrets. Regrets about getting close to a girl he thinks is tainted.

Leroi barely spoke to me at the firing range. My vision was so clouded with rage that I couldn’t hit the target. He stayed huddled close to Miko, looking like they were plotting how to send me away.

My fingers grip the felt-tip pen so tightly the plastic snaps. This feels like Dad all over again. One minute, I’m his angel. The next, I’m nothing more than a disposable toy. Leroi’s compliments and praise ring through my ears like an alarm that won’t stop, no matter how many red slashes I make across his lying mouth.

I squeeze my eyes shut and toss the notebook to the headboard, where it lands with a soft thud. Drawing his demise won’t calm my mind and neither will moping in this room.

Replacing the broken felt-tip pen for the knife I took from Pietro’s kitchen. I slide off the chair and walk out into the apartment.

I’ll just have to slice something open and imagine it’s Leroi.

By now, the sun has set, casting the living room in gloom. I walk past the floor-to-ceiling windows, taking in the nighttime view of Beaumont city.

Leroi is out there, probably wining and dining a tall brunette. If it’s not Rosalind with her fake pregnancy, then it will be Monica, the nosey therapist. If he’s stupid enough to bring her back to our apartment, he’ll wake up on a mattress soaked with her blood and a knife to his throat.

I fling open the kitchen door, turn on the light, and glance at the counter. The block of knives is still missing. I shrug at his attempt to keep them from me, it doesn’t matter since I took another from Pietro’s kitchen after Leroi turned cold and pretended I didn’t exist.

The refrigerator has been restocked with enough vegetables to last a month. I gather an armful and set them on the counter, then return to select a pack of steak.

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