“What I want is your corpse rotting in a grave. The reason I sent those pictures was to show you the many different ways you could die.” The muscles in his throat tense and release as he takes a deep swallow. “But I do have a question before we get started.”
He takes a small step to the side, one of his hands dropping away from the chair, inching closer to the desk. Crossing my arms over my chest, I face forward and look at the blank wall ahead of me.
“Tell me, how is it that my mother ended up in prison while you got away?”
The answer will hold no meaning; the woman who gave birth to me was just as bad as Mitchell, but I’ve always wondered. When I left, he was on the floor. If anything, I would have thought my mother would have escaped while my father was taken into custody. I was only fourteen at the time, but I wasn’t small. The force behind the punch that landed against his jaw would have been dizzying.
I keep my eyes on the wall as he darts his hand out, slides open the desk drawer, and pulls out a gun, leveling it at my head. I don’t so much as twitch when the click of the hammer being pulled back sounds in the room. Turning my head, I don’t acknowledge the gun, but look him straight in the eye, waiting for his answer.
There’s a fine sheen of sweat coating his haggard face, and his scruffy cheeks are tinged pink. Eyes narrowed, the fearful look of before is replaced with confidence. The look brings a smirk to my face.
“Well?”
He lifts his other hand to grip the gun better. “Move back,” he demands boldly.
I slouch lower. “I think I’ll stay right here.”
His eyes flicker with uncertainty, but after a couple of seconds, he squares his shoulders, his expression turning flat.
“Move the hell back or I’ll shoot you.”
I bare my teeth in a false smile and get up from the desk, turning to face him fully. “You won’t shoot me,” I taunt. The gun rattles as his hand shakes. I eat up the space between us until the barrel of the gun hits my chest, directly where my heart beats a steady rhythm.
“Kayn,” he starts, pauses, then continues. “I’ll shoot you before I let you kill me.”
“Pull the trigger, old man.” I press closer, forcing him to step back. “Because your life has reached its end.”
The muscles in his jaw twitch. A split second later, there’s a loud click. His stunned eyes dart to the gun and it jerks against my chest as he squeezes the trigger over and over again.
I pull my hand from my pocket and hold up my fist. “You won’t shoot me because you don’t have any fuckin’ bullets, you dumb fuck.”
One by one, I open my fingers, and the bullets I stole from his gun earlier clatter against the keyboard of his laptop and roll to the floor. I take the gun from his shaking hand and toss it to the floor. My other hand wraps around his frail throat. Fear widens his eyes, and his hands grip my wrist, but he doesn’t put up much of a fight.
“Now answer my question. How did you get away while Mom was hauled off in handcuffs?”
His throat bobs beneath my hand as he tries to gulp in air. I loosen my grip, just enough for him to talk.
“S-she gave herself up,” he sputters. “She t-told me to leave, that she would distract them while I got away.”
“And you were just man enough to let a woman stand in front of you,” I state calmly, even though disgust at the man has my blood boiling. I hold no love for my mother, in fact, she’s lucky she’s still breathing in prison, but men who use women for their own selfish gain are the lowest of the low.
“You make me sick,” I spit, squeezing his windpipe and feeling the flimsy cartilage flex.
He wheezes and scratches at my leather-covered hands, but his attempts are useless.
I pick up a paperweight, his eyes going wide when he sees it, and I smash it down on the side of his head. His eyes roll upward, and his body goes lax. I release his throat and he falls limply to the floor, his head hitting the edge of the desk on his way down.
Pulling a small screwdriver from my pocket, I flip the laptop over, unscrew several screws, and take out the hard drive. I highly doubt he saved the images, but I’m not willing to take any chances.
I leave the laptop dismantled, pocket the hard drive, and turn to Mitchell. With a heave, I hoist his body over my shoulder and stalk out of the office, straight to the back door, slip outside, and walk to my car in the alley behind the house. Each house that butts up to the alley has tall fences, so I go undetected as I throw him unceremoniously into my trunk and tie his hands and feet.
It’s a seven-hour drive back home. The temperature is in the high nineties, so it’s sure to be a very hot and uncomfortable ride for him.
Which will make the trip for me all the more enjoyable.
TWELVE HOURS LATER, I rip off the final piece of duct tape and stare down at Mitchell. He’s lying face up on the same table Billy died on. It’s long since dried, but the blood and gore are still present beneath him.
I rake my eyes over his naked body, taking pleasure in seeing him in such a vulnerable position. It took four rolls of duct tape to tape him down in multiple layers. It wraps around him and the table. His legs, arms, waist, torso, and neck are immobile, not allowing him even an inch of wiggle room. Only tiny slivers of skin pudge out between the strips of tape. He even has a strip across his forehead and over his mouth, preventing him from screaming.