Torture to Her Soul(116)

"What's in it?"

"How about I show you."

She tenses when I reach past her to open the drawer on the bedside stand, pulling out one of Karissa's discarded bobby pins. I bend it, holding it up toward Brandy.

"You see, there is no key to this box… there was, once, long ago, but I got rid of it. The only way to get into it is to force your way in."

It takes a moment for me to break into it, finding the right combination of movements to get the lock to disengage. It pops open, and I pull the lid off, setting it aside. I watch Brandy as her eyes curiously shift toward it, her brow furrowing when she looks inside.

"It's my life," I tell her. I haven't opened the box in a long, long time, since I locked it years ago. "Or the life I used to have, anyway. After my wife died, I locked the little we shared in this box and tucked it away. The rest I burned. I buried the memories under a mound of rage, and I continued on, forgetting this man." I motion toward the box. "Because I became this one instead." I motion toward myself.

She eyes me warily.

I shift the papers around on the top of the box—marriage certificate, Maria's death certificate, the deed to the house we owned—to weed through the rest of the contents. Maria's something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue from the wedding, and a few of her prized possessions, pieces of her I wasn't yet ready to let go of back then. There's a rattle in here, the only thing we ever bought for the baby… the only thing Maria had a chance to pick out. Photos, lots and lots of photos, and finally, at the very bottom, I fish out our wedding bands. I hold her engagement ring up, the diamond shining as it hits the moonlight streaming through the window.

"You know what I did to buy this ring?" I ask. "Do you know what an eighteen-year-old kid does to afford a diamond this big?"

She shakes her head.

"I promised things to Ray," I say. "Anything he wanted, anything he needed, and I was there. I told him I'd do anything for the money, so I could give his daughter the ring she deserved, and he made me work for it. I'd come home at night with bloody knuckles and lie right to her face about how it happened. But I never killed a man. I never took a lie. He never asked me to… until after I got the ring. After we were married, he told me there was a rat that I needed to deal with for him. I didn't know what that meant then. Deal with them. But I do now, and I'm sure you do, too."

She nods.

She's trembling, scared about why I'm telling her this.

Good.

"He told me I still owed him, for the money he gave me for the ring, but if I did this one thing, my debt would be paid. So I agreed. And he looked at me that day, and he said, 'Ignazio, you have to kill your best friend.' And I couldn't do it. Rats had to go, but man… my best friend?"

Shaking my head, I slip the engagement ring in my pocket before closing the box again, leaving it lying on the bed. I stare at the top of it, trying to contain the emotion opening it conjured inside of me.

"I couldn't do it, but I guess Johnny could. It took me almost twenty years to return the favor, but I did it, finally, and now my debt is paid. And I learned a valuable lesson that day, one I'll never forget."

"What?" she asks quietly.

"You take out the rat before it can jump ship."

Before she can react, my hands are around her throat. I shove her into the wall, knocking her head against the plaster so hard it makes a dent. Her eyes bulge as she fights me, but I don't waver. I hold tight until her blood vessels burst and her heart stops beating, stealing her last breath.

I put her in the trunk and drive north, to the house tucked into the woods. I knock on the front door well after midnight, much to the dismay of Carter. He stares at me with disbelief before wordless getting the key to the incinerator, passing it over before going back to bed.

I'm not doing this to cover my tracks or conceal my crime.

Ray will figure it out.

I want him to.

I just want to make sure there's nothing left for the man to grieve.

He toyed with me.

I'll take his Baby Doll from him.





Grief doesn't go away.

You can ignore it all you want, shove it down or swallow it back, pretend it doesn't exist, but it's there. It stays there, lurking in the shadows, living way down in the depths, feeding off of anger, just waiting for the day it can rise up and take control.

No, grief doesn't go away, ever, because grief becomes a part of you.

It roots into your system, infecting your bloodstream. Grief pulsates in every beat of your heart and clouds around you with every breath from your lungs. Grief swims behind your eyelids every time you blink. It lives in every word you speak.

Grief is a fucking leech.