The Goodbye Girl (Red Market Series Book 2)

by A. Giannoccaro

  My peace is short lived when I am met with the face of the brother I never knew I had. Hugo glares at me from across the room. Between us my wayward nephew fucks a corpse oblivious to the unspoken threats that pass from me to him. This is my world, death and chaos.

  “It’s not what you think it is, Caesar,” Hugo bellows at me from where he stands, beds and bodies between us, his hands half raised in innocent surrender.

  “What I think is you lied to me and killed my child. I also think you should shut the fuck up before you make this worse.” My gun is now pointed at him. Trained right at his head.

  “Mateo!” I yell to get his attention, but he is lost in his own world. “Get out you cunt.” I scream louder now. He looks up at me with a contemptuous smile on his face, shakes his head and turns to kiss her dead lips. His blatant defiance sends me over the edge, anger I never knew I harbored towards him bubbles to the surface and I roar at him again. “Get out!” I start to storm towards him. My leg is aching and I am hindered by the tight skin. I move slower than I want to, as he slithers off the bed and grabs his jeans off the floor. He licks his lips and sneers at me before turning to walk away. He passes right next to Hugo who just shakes his head at his nakedness. There is no shame, he just waltzes out as if we didn’t even have to witness his depravity. I zero in on the man who is responsible for this empty feeling inside me, the one who took the last remnants of my heart and broke it. My fucking brother.

  “Why did you lie about her?” I am seething now.

  “I didn’t lie.” He steps backwards, putting another body between us.

  “I called the clinic Hugo, I know she isn’t there. I know she is gone. Stop fucking lying.” I keep moving closer and he keeps going backwards, he will be up against the wall eventually with nowhere to go. I can wait.

  “She isn’t gone, Caesar.” He holds up his hands higher in surrender to me. “She just isn’t there. I had to keep her safe for you. She is safe with my family I swear.” He is stammering out the words glancing around, his eyes stop as he looks to his left. Then his head falls and he shakes it. I turn to see Mateo with the Cheshire cat grin and I just know that he will try to get to her again. She did something to him.

  “You better pray he doesn’t kill her Hugo.” I drop my arm and flip the safety back on my gun. “My mother is no longer a problem.” The words seem to resonate through the entire room, wiping the smile off Mateo’s face; his protector is gone.

  “You must feel like a new man,” Hugo states plainly as he steps out of behind the bed and towards me.

  “Mateo,” he stands barefooted wearing just his jeans in the doorway, “I am not done with you yet.” He lets out a cackle and shakes his head at me.

  “I didn’t think you were, old man.” He darts away, laughing like a mad man in an asylum.

  Hugo

  One to make ready and two to prepare

  I am a self-serving man. I have done what I needed to survive my circumstances all my life. Ramira being the biggest circumstance any young boy could be put up against. I watched her break him down year after year, chopping away at this steel resolve, adding to his internal battle with her incessant talking and singing. I watched her eyes glint when his body betrayed him and she had an excuse to beat him with that stick. I held him down, then calmed his chaos without him ever realizing the truth going on around him. I was this boy his mother took in because he wasn’t good enough, she lorded me over him when secretly she hated my existence in her life. Oh, I was the dirty shadow cast on her by my father's infidelities and her inability to produce more than one son. This was a traditional family and I was not a part of that high and mighty tradition. I was the help. He never noticed how much more I was and I never told him. Some secrets we keep inside us without ever knowing why. I learned to be quiet so he could heal. I would sit with him in silence, watching until he could function again. I would help. I would bring the girls that he couldn’t go out and find to him. I would help him with them after he was over the outburst or episode. When that system was stopped, I became his punching bag. I let him hit me and thrash it out on me. I stood silent for so long trying to be everything. The quiet force that got things done while no one cared to watch, the system behind their impending turmoil. I knew the time would come when this family couldn’t be held together any longer. Did I ever dream Svetlana would be the one to bring the castle down? Not for a minute. I have always known who Svetlana was. I knew the second I saw her. She was all of two the first time I saw her huddled in the corner of his room after he had mauled her mother, who hadn’t learned to shut up yet.

  The way her eyes opened wide and her lip quivered were the splitting image of my brother, her father. When he threw her to the wolf a few years later, I was sure she would die within weeks, but she fought. She clung to life and all its misery - just like he did.

  Being quiet means you hear everything. I listen and take it all in every day. I am privy to more than any of them would ever know. I know he is going to kill Ramira today; my heart leaps a little at the thought. I had to let him think his child was gone to get him to this point. Her time in charge has run its course, and if I am to get the piece of this world, I think I deserve then she needs to leave it. Because I know I would only ever be her last resort, a place holder at best for when he is ready. He will never be ready with her alive, her death will set Caesar free. She is his disease. In a way his daughter came and saved him, by turning his goodbyes against him she found his heart. She has given a man who had no reason to fight for anything anymore love, and I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t fight for love. I feel no mercy, no remorse and absolutely no regret for pushing him to kill his mother. I only wish I could watch, but to save my own life, I have to stay away today. Today I will check on my niece and stay with my family until I know the old woman has expired.

  Driving away from the place that seems to only breed madness, my mind clears and I can remember times before these when we boys, home in Spain at the family estate.

  “Why does she do it?” Caesar asks as he sits between my legs on the floor next to my bed, his head rests on my thigh and my arms hang over his shoulders. He is the only person here who even cares that I exist, he needs me. I am his answer when the world is too much for him.

  “Because she hates us, Caesar,” I sigh “she will always hate us because we will never be perfect.” He beat her this time. I got there too late to stop him. Ramira is in the hospital now and he is feeling guilty when he shouldn’t, he should feel victorious.

  “Shhhh, don’t talk anymore… the noise is too much.” He covers his ears and closes his eyes trying to make the madness in him go away. It will never go away, not while she lives to make him suffer. I let him rest until his mood is less volatile. “Come, Caesar, we need to bury the girl before they return from the hospital. People will ask questions.” He stands up, his movements automatic; he has checked out, his body responding while his mind has retreated to heal. The corpse of the girl that I invited here to help him get it out still stares at us from the floor of his room. Blood spattered on the wall behind her, both hers and Ramira’s, mixed together in an artwork of his anger and rage. This used to work better, but I have no doubt after today that we won’t be able to do this anymore. Ramira was seething when she saw what had happened. Rolling her body in the bloody sheets off his stained mattress, her dead weight is heavy as we carry her down the back stairs and out onto the grounds. We know the path and follow it in silence. Through the big trees and thick scrub, my arms ache from her weight. The meadow appears between the dark shadows, the soft clouds of wild flowers mark the graves of the ones before this one. Sometimes they stay quiet and I take them to a clinic and they get fixed in exchange for silence, but this one had to cry. There is always a grave dug, ready and waiting, tomorrow the ground staff will dig another. Her body makes a dull thud as it hits the bottom of the deep excavation, the sheet falling open and her dead eyes stare at the sunny sky. The two shovels sticking out of the mound of eart
h that waits to cover his sin are hot from baking in the sun. The metal handle burns my hands as we begin to cover her up, each bit of ground taking her away. We never talk about them, it’s an unspoken agreement between us, but I am going to have to find a better way. As we buried her, I knew that I would have to put myself at his mercy to save him and myself. We walked back to the house under the cover of darkness, he was better now.

  It never lasted long; after the day he beat his mother nearly to death, we made an agreement. I took the place of the girls and he took his rage out on me. I could take it.

  You need to understand something; I love my brother. I would do anything for him, because he was all I had in the house of horrors. That includes saving the child he loves so much. Maybe I will go to hell for it, but if them being together is what makes them both happy then they deserve it. Hell on Earth has been there home for too long. I will stay here and they can ride off into the sunset, home, together and happy. Because I love my brother and I understand, each of us has demons and she is his cure. There is just one more hurdle between them, one more enemy and I know he will not go quietly - Mateo loves her too. But he loves death so much more. I don’t know if I can save her from him too. When they are all gone I will finally have this place, I don’t want the whole empire just a part in the chain. This part. The place where death comes quietly without screams and torture. We all have a little darkness in us. I have my own monsters that I wrestle each day, but my monsters will leave with them. I will finally be free to find all that I have lost.

  I love my brother and I really shouldn’t.

  Mateo

  Descending into Insanity for Forever.

  I step out of the cab, handing the attractive young Hispanic driver money to ensure he stays where he belongs, and into the Mexican heat allowing it to graze over my tattooed arms. I spread them wide as the sun bathes me, warming the coldness that will forever be buried deep beneath the scars and madness that make me who I am. There is no amount of digging that can unveil the tragedy I tried hiding from the world for so long. I am far too macabre. The realm became unjust the day I was born, and with each day as my existence threatens humanity even more, I become a fiend to all those who surround me, even myself. That is not even the worst part. My lips curl up into a devious smile as I come to such a conclusion. I enjoy these feelings. They make me whole. Every fleeting moment of my life isn’t plentiful; I crave a vast amount of darkness. I am becoming hungrier. Needier. The thought of death sets my heart on fire along with the recollections of my living dolly; how I would torture her to make her see that I was the one in control. Those memories make me lust after blood, craving both demise and cruelty.

  I take a puff of my cigarette, letting the smoke settle deep into my lungs, my heart skipping a beat as the Mexican sun beats down onto my sweating skin. I hear the echo of a beautiful woman’s voice in the background as she sings Ave Maria. My eyes remain closed as my hearing increases, hearing birds flap their wings in an attempt to fly away to a false heaven. They must be flying toward the sound of the voice, the angelic little voice that would surely send Caesar into an irreversible nightmare. I let myself laugh a little, reveling in my madness as the hum of the aged cab brings me back to the present.

  It’s ironic how I can think of something so beautiful one moment, only to prepare myself for the opposite, so fucking horrific the next.

  I open my eyes, looking at the graffiti painted brick alleyway before me. My eyes trace over the brightly sprayed on letters as I try to gain the meaning of this second. I laugh louder. Who am I kidding? There is no such thing as having purpose, not when you are born into the Red Market. There is no chance for anything else but being fucked up and sick. There is no chance for anything at all.

  Resonating beauty travels through the air so lightly, tickling the inhumanity out of my head for a brief amount of time as the sound of the lady’s voice continues. I can only assume it is from a local church. In a city so poor and crime-ridden, churches still litter every fucking corner as people hold onto a faith that doesn’t exist. My throat begins to tighten as my hands twitch with anger. My chest constricts as the disarray and disorder painted before me make me nervous and overcome with unease.

  Honk!

  I flick my cigarette, composed just as much as the day I threw the rock at the back of Ophelia’s head, and pause, taking a moment to look over at the cabbie who is looking back and forth in frustration due to my slow movements.

  “¡Rapido, amigo!”

  Stupid fucker will soon learn what happens to those who tell Mateo what to do. I hurry for no one.

  I feel my jaw crack as my teeth clench together, begging for a piece of meaty flesh to tear apart as the screams of pain shred my soul to nothing, back to the only place I have ever known. Feeling is too much. Dead people can’t feel. They don’t love you back. They also cannot run or speak their feelings. That’s what’s caused me to break. My word was shattered when the one could sway me with her moans of pleasure, her pleads for more, and that fucking dirty wet cunt when I would fuck her.

  That isn’t how I operate. I should have understood then that my days were numbered when her brown eyes blinked at mine, so alive, so fiery, and so goddamn hopeful. I never had room for those things in my world, but I tried, and she broke me harder than anyone before.

  Lettie is the reason that I am the way that I am now. This is all her fault.

  “Didn’t I tell you to hold on, puta? How many more pesos do you need to keep your dick wet?” I retort, throwing my cigarette down the dirty alleyway towards the trash that dances effortlessly in the thick summer wind.

  I smile, walking towards the driver’s side door, seeing that my words have quite an effect on him. He leans further back into his seat, gripping the steering wheel until his bronze knuckles turn white. My eyes glance down to his throat, and he sees my actions, more than likely sensing the roughness in the air. I bite my bottom lip, and he swallows while his pulse in his neck throbs to life; a life that will soon be cut short. But I will not be slow, sweet or gentle. He will feel every painful minute. Every unwanted thrust, punch, prod, and slash, I will make him feel it.

  “What has you so nervous, perra?” I whisper, grabbing another cigarette from my back pocket, lighting it as my eyes drift across the flames.

  I can hear the faint pants coming from his mouth. His nervousness makes my dick hard and my veins fulfilled. My restlessness nearly depletes to nothing as the drumming in my ears quiets. The fire in my soul is set alight by the torment that my hands will soon deliver.

  My fingers toy with the lighter in my hand, and for a second my brows furrow as my thumb traces the outline of the metal on the hard surface. I can’t believe I never got rid of this thing. I suppose when I found Caesar’s lighter in the incinerator room, I wanted to think he was dead, but I also wanted to hold onto the only good part of this disgusting life. He is the healer when I am the decaying body. I would have never admitted it before, hoping in my subconscious for him to be dead so that I could be the sole proprietor in something so dark and awful, letting myself be surrounded by the things that make me feel normal. But he came back. He is back, and Caesar fucked it all up. Lettie Doll destroyed my world, and even though she said she loved me, I know her love only belongs to him.

  I flick the lighter, staring at the orange flame, playing with it with my free hand as my cigarette hangs out of the corner of my mouth. The boy in the driver’s side of the cab is still, unmoving and without words. Perhaps I can keep him. His attributes are more appealing as they relate to those without the ability to know any differently. My little dollies… My mind wanders to the pain that Lettie Doll must have felt as her cunt was burnt by the Russian. I should be ashamed at my body’s response, but I’m not. I have come to yet another conclusion that my ability to feel any sort of empathy is lost. It left when my Lettie Doll did.

  I take a long drag from my stag, tossing the lighter down the alley and watching it sputter and clink on the dirty concr
ete. I can’t help but feel like I am throwing away another piece of my life as I toss away the last bit of hope that I held onto.

  I walk over to the cabbie’s door, my fingers sliding beneath the handle effortlessly like I was made to murder and torture. My heart starts to increase its pace as I face my own suicide, the death of the last piece of humanity that I have. I open the door and lean in, cocking my head as I study the handsome young man. His arms are locked while his hands are gripped tighter than before on the steering wheel. The black strands that hung over his forehead before, highlighting his brown pools, are now stuck to his forehead. I can smell his sweat in the air as the thick Mexican heat sticks onto my body. It feels like the perfect concoction for a deadly disaster.

  “I bet you never have had much money before, have you? You are a poor bastard.” I shake my head at him, wishing I could feel sorry for him, but there is no lost will for a man like me. What I am about to do cannot be undone. When I run with this, there is no turning back.

  “No English, Senor,” his voice shakes. His eyes still refuse to look at mine.

  “Out.” My tone is demeaning as my patience is wearing thin.

  I look down the alleyway, appreciating this city for what it’s worth. It reminds me of New York City in some ways, driving in decent parts one second then minutes later arriving at poverty and shit-filled streets with grovelers.

  The good-looking young Mexican man stays motionless. There are times when I would appreciate stillness, but now is not the time. I need him to understand that his inability to listen the first time will only equal more punishment. My hands were built to harm. My heart was built to hate.