The Woman in the Trunk

by Gadziala, Jessica

  Now, I was just cold. And exposed.

  Upstairs, I could hear the muffle of male voices, the movement of feet, the slamming and shuffling and dragging that must have been my father's body being moved.

  I probably should have felt some remorse then.

  For what I had done.

  I wasn't a killer.

  I had a gun out of fear, because I lived alone, because my father had been connected to the mob, because I had been weak and defenseless once, and I didn't ever want to feel that way again.

  And, yes, I had taken that gun to a range and learned how to use it, finding something cathartic in doing so, something I needed in my stressful little life.

  But I hadn't ever shot a living target before.

  I was sure I never would.

  Or that I would at least hesitate to do so, to possibly take someone's life.

  And I damn sure figured I would feel regret or pain or sickness over doing just that.

  Yet here I was. Just twenty or so moments after shooting my own father dead one floor above, and I felt none of those things.

  I felt vindicated.

  I felt justified.

  I felt stronger.

  Stronger.

  Yes, that was the feeling.

  I'd been beat down so much in my life, by people, by circumstance. I don't know if I ever realized just how small I felt until right then, when I felt bigger, stronger.

  Maybe this was why people got into lives of crime. Maybe this feeling could be addictive. Especially if you had been denied it your entire life.

  I took a deep breath, smelling must and stale air and the wet that created mildew in all corners of basements.

  I was in a mafia boss's holding room. Chained to a wall. My hands cuffed.

  And I'd never felt quite as powerful before.

  Maybe Lorenzo would be able to smooth over what I had done to my father. Maybe he would get me free, with minimal damage to show for my time spent here.

  But as I sat there, I made a solemn vow that I would never—fucking never—feel weak again. Be used again. Be manipulated and under-appreciated again.

  I would never be made to feel small.

  I didn't care what it might take to secure those things for myself.

  I didn't care if I had to kill every single Goddamn member of the Five Families to earn my freedom.

  Maybe Arturo Costa had seen a small, easy target when he'd ordered me kidnapped.

  What he didn't realize was that in doing so, he'd freed me.

  And he had no fucking idea what I would do never to be caged again.

  Sure, maybe Lorenzo would save me.

  If not, though, well, I was going to have to save myself, wasn't I?

  Chapter Eleven

  Lorenzo

  My father was having his very own version of a panic attack when I made my way back upstairs, every inch of me wanting to jog back down the steps, grab Giana, and make a run for it.

  Two things stopped me.

  We would never make it.

  And everything we had collectively been through at the hands of our shitty fathers would be for nothing if we ended up with bullets ripping through our bodies.

  I had to be smart.

  I had to keep my fucking feelings out of this shit.

  My father was pacing the dining room, his hand gripping the gun Giana had used to kill her father, the other raking through his thinning hair.

  "Jesus fucking Christ. Goddamn it. What the fuck just happened in here?" he mumbled to himself, clearly starting to spiral.

  And if he got past the baffled phase, he was going to get angry.

  We needed to move and fast.

  Seeming to hear my internal monologue, Emilio gave me a tight nod, moving off to the stairs, to jog up the stairs.

  "Where the fuck is he going?" my father demanded, waving the hand with the gun outward, making one of his men flinch. Everyone who knew Arturo Costa—no matter how loyal they might be—knew to be fearful when the man was losing control of a situation.

  "To go steal some luggage," I explained, voice calm, reasonable, not too authoritative, because he would lose his shit if he realized I was taking control of the situation he should have already gotten a hold of. "Figure those assholes next door would question a rolled-up carpet," I added, knowing I was scoring points by dissing the neighbors. Those "assholes" were actually a nice, older couple who had lived in their brownstone since my grandfather bought his.

  "Those fucking nosy bastards. Probably already called the cops," he said, eyes wide, panic intensifying.

  "They're deaf as shit. You told me that the last time someone popped off by accident when they were cleaning their gun."

  "Right. Yeah. Probably thought it was just thunder if they did hear it."

  That was unlikely. No one confused gunshots for thunder. For fireworks? For a car backfiring? Sure. But not fucking thunder.

  "You still have that giant suitcase from your trip out to Chicago, right?" I asked, cringing at the memory of that shitshow. The Chicago families weren't like the New York ones, weren't quite as under the thumb as my father's ego wanted them to be. It had been ugly, with all sides leaving pissed off and losing respect for one another. If I ever got my place as Capo dei Capi, that was yet another thing I needed to try to repair.

  But one thing at a time.

  "It's up there somewhere," he agreed, back to pacing. "This blood is never going to come the fuck out."

  It would have, had he bothered to get the floors redone, like they'd been needing for over a decade. But with the protective finish worn down? He was right. We would need to sand it down ourselves, or rip the floor up entirely.

  "Found it," Emilio said a moment later as I stared down at Leon Lastra's body, still coming to terms with the fact that Giana had been the one to take the bastard out. Sure, he deserved it. But that was some Biblical shit I had not seen coming.

  The luggage was really more of a medium trunk, ornate and leather, which likely cost a fortune. We were in crisis mode, though. We would deal with replacing it some other time. Luckily, my father had very little attachment to possessions once they weren't shiny and new anymore, so he didn't even flinch as Emilio dropped it down next to Leon's body, clicking it open.

  "It's big, but..." Emilio started, making me sigh.

  "But so is he," I agreed. "Fuck. Go get some trash bags and an ax," I demanded of one of my father's men who took a moment to give me a grim look before rushing off.

  It wouldn't be my first—or last—dismemberment. And the shock of it wore away once you did it the first time.

  There were plenty of tricks to the trade, though, things you learned through personal trial and error.

  Serrated blades didn't cut through bones easily. Slashing didn't cut a bone.

  Your best bet was a weighted blade, like a machete or ax which would help break the bones when you swung them with enough force.

  Of course, a chain saw was always a great choice. But the neighbors would definitely hear that. At least an ax was quiet.

  My father's man returned a moment later with a box of black bags and a heavy ax, handing them both to me, stepping away, message clear. He wanted no part of this dirty work.

  I'd been shoveling shit all my life in the name of this family. What was one more disgusting act?

  I took one of the bags out of the box, set it open on the floor, then removed my jewelry, putting it down on the table. Everything else I had on would need to be burned, but I'd preferred to keep my crucifix which had been a gift from my mother, and my watch worth down payment on a very nice car. With that done, I wrapped the head, legs, and arms in black bags to try to minimize splatter, and I got to work hacking.

  By the time I was done, sweat was slicking every inch of my body, with blood spread up my arms and down my face, but Leon's body was in enough pieces that I could shove the rest of him in the trunk relatively easily, stick the rest of the bags in there, and let Emilio zip it up.

 
"If there is a tarp anywhere, it would be good to have that for my trunk," I told my father, who had been staring at me like a demon that had just crawled out of the pits of hell. I probably looked just like one, too. And I realized in that moment that my father had not even needed to do one-tenth of the evil shit I'd needed to do in my life. Because he liked impersonal kills with a gun. He liked delegating the ugly work.

  I'd never known that luxury.

  He'd been tossing every horrifying, disgusting job at me since I was eighteen years old.

  "Emilio and one of your guys can handle it, handle it," I added. Normally, I wouldn't trust my father's men, but with Emilio there, I knew everything would be handled correctly, even if that meant it took twice as long. "I would do it, but I am covered in evidence right now," I added, waving a hand at my ruined suit, my bloody hands and face.

  "Right. Yeah. That will work. And the others can get to work at ripping up the floor, burning the wood and clothes."

  Thankfully, the fireplace was one of the few things that worked in this place, mostly for just this reason. You never wanted to leave a trail of anything in this lifestyle. We lit fires all year round. This wouldn't be cause for concern to the neighbors.

  I stripped out of my clothes, wiped any wet blood off my face with the fabric, made sure my wallet and keys were removed first, then watched as they threw my clothes into the fire, leaving me there in my boxer briefs in the middle of the dining room.

  "Go take a fucking shower," my father snapped, lip curling; knowing him, likely pissed that he'd never been fit, that he never would be, that everything about me was an external exertion of power, while nothing about him was.

  "What else needs to be done?" I asked, needing to know his plan, that if I was going to walk away, he wouldn't rush downstairs to deal with Giana.

  "I need to watch the fire to make sure everything gets burned down," he said, going for the liquor cabinet again.

  That was exactly what he would do, too. Get drunk and watch the fire.

  I just needed ten minutes.

  "You know what to do," I told Emilio as I walked past. "Don't skip any fucking step, no matter how frustrating it gets. Or annoying your company gets," I added, voice lower.

  "Don't worry about me. I've done this with you more times than I can count. Nothing will trace back."

  With that, I made my way upstairs, going into my childhood bedroom to wash off with ancient soap, making sure I scrubbed every inch of me five times over, getting under my nails and in my hair, until every inch of me squeaked.

  Only then did I get out, dry off, and find an old t-shirt and running pants in my closet that still fit even if they were a little tight across the shoulders, arms and close to floods at the ankles. But they were clean and evidence-free; that was all that mattered.

  I bleached the tub and the floor, then made my way back downstairs, finding half the dining room floor already ripped up, boards cut up and sitting in black bags, waiting to be burned.

  "Leave," my father demanded as soon as I walked into the room.

  "What?"

  "Leave. I'm done with you for the night."

  Done with me.

  That was a rich way to put it.

  I'd just saved us all from indictments.

  But he was done with me.

  "There's still—"

  "Did I fucking stutter, boy?" he snapped, using a tone I hadn't heard from him in a while. One that said if I pushed, that gun in his hand would be pointed at me. And his men would be cleaning up another mess.

  He was unstable.

  But that was all the more reason I needed to stay.

  To make sure he didn't go downstairs, didn't take it out on Giana.

  "Get out of my mother fucking house, so I can get some goddamn peace," he snarled, grabbing his bottle, heading toward the stairs.

  Good.

  That was good.

  My father liked to drink, but it always hit him like a handful of sleeping pills.

  If he was heading upstairs with a bottle, in another twenty minutes, he would be out cold.

  I could leave now and come back, to be there when he sobered up to discuss the Giana situation.

  And until then, I knew Chris was down there to make sure none of the other guards went in.

  It was fine.

  I actually had one more dark mark to etch into my soul before the night was over.

  I put up with a lot when it came to our family.

  Men with their addictions, their bad habits, with their rage issues.

  But I would not tolerate a fucking child rapist.

  That was just not going to stand.

  Decision made, I caught a cab back to my place to grab my second car, one I rarely used because it was flashier than what I typically drove. But it was wheels. And it had a nice, roomy trunk.

  I wasn't planning to take him far, anyway.

  I just needed to get him out of his apartment, into my trunk, then across town to the butcher's shop.

  I needed a little time with this particular bastard.

  As a whole, I didn't enjoy having to beat men whose only crime was having a family emergency that ate away at the money they saved to pay us. It was a necessary evil. A duty I carried out because this lifestyle didn't work if you weren't able to stomach doing terrible things to bring about the wanted result.

  But once in a while, when there was a particularly annoying asshole you knew beat on their wives or kids in their spare time? Yeah, you could enjoy that shit a little more than usual.

  There were only a handful of times I had craved the bloodshed, though, and thought of pained screams as music to the ears.

  In fact, I was pretty sure this would only be the second time that I grabbed someone, knocked them cold, tied them up, and threw them in at trunk—only to carry them down the stairs and string them up in a basement—and done so with absolute fucking glee.

  "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Paulie asked, finally coming to, doing so slowly at first, then all at once, finding himself suspended from a meat hook in the ceiling, the cuffs biting into his wrists from hanging while unconscious.

  He had a giant fucking egg on the side of his head from where I'd needed to whack him several times to keep him down while I moved him around, got him strung up.

  From the looks of that thing, he had to have a killer migraine jackhammering through his head right about then.

  I liked that more than I should have, too, as I leaned back in my fold-up chair, a small table situated next to me, laid out with a bunch of fun little tools I'd stolen from the butcher shop above. All kinds of little tricks of the trade. It was rather disgusting, if you thought about it, what kinds of tools were used on dead animals.

  But they sure as fuck came in handy when dealing with the very-much-alive Paulie, a different kind of beast, one that didn't deserve to keep walking the earth alongside decent people.

  "Well, Paulie, I have learned a few disturbing things about you this evening," I told him, finding a roast needle, turning it around in front of my face where he could see it, and come to his own conclusion about how I intended to use it. Whatever he was thinking, it was much worse.

  Sometimes it wasn't as flashy as something stabbed into a testicle or an eyeball.

  A roasting needle driven into an eardrum had a certain finesse to it.

  "Your father is going to have your head for this," he added, yanking at the cuffs, trying to get the hook out of the ceiling since I'd had the forethought to make sure I closed the loop so he couldn't just slip right off of it. He was a tall guy. It really was a shame that he didn't dangle. Cuffs biting into the wrists was a throbbing, insistent kind of pain, one that you couldn't ignore, no matter how long you found yourself trapped in them.

  I put down the roast needle, reaching instead for a skinning knife.

  "My father is very much concerned with this family's reputation, Paulie. We like being known as brutal, ruthless, torturous murderers," I told him, getting to my
feet. "But we aren't too keen on being seen as child molesters."

  "You don't know what the fuck you are talking about. I'm no child molester."

  "I know sick fucks like you can get it twisted sometimes," I agreed, slipping the blade of the knife under his top button, cutting it clean off. One thing you had to admire about butchers —they took pride in their equipment. There wasn't a dull blade in the entire shop. Parting his shirt, I ran the very tip of the blade up his front, his chest. Really, it took no pressure at all to make the blood bead up on the surface. Superficial, just a hint of my intentions in case they weren't already clear enough. "But just so it gets clear to that fucked up thing you call a brain, fifteen-year-old girls are still fucking children," I told him, dragging the tip of the blade across his collarbone, feeling my lips curve up when he hissed at the searing pain.

  "You mother fucker," Paulie growled, trying to pull up a knee, kick me in the balls.

  But his fear was making him slow.

  And I ducked out of the way before he could make contact.

  Not that it would have stopped me.

  I was beyond pain in that moment.

  Revenge for yourself was sweet. I always thought it was the epitome of highs.

  But revenge for someone else, someone smaller and weaker, someone who couldn't have saved themselves no matter how hard they tried? That was some next-level shit.

  I understood why there were tribes of women in the world who spent their lives tracking down and killing rapists.

  What a fucking rush.

  "She was begging for it," Paulie declared, making me turn away, going back to my tray to trade the skinning knife for the fork.

  Turning, there was no hesitation.

  I dug those prongs deep into his stomach, careful to miss any major organs, not wanting this over that quickly.

  Giana's pain deserved more than a quick death for her rapist.

  I was going to drag this out until the walls were dripping in blood. Until parts of him were dangling off.

  Then I might go ahead and let him bleed out.

  "First of all, no, she wasn't," I told him as I yanked the fork back out. "Secondly, even if she did, it's still rape, you sick fucking bastard," I informed him, going a bit lower, putting the fear of God into him. Or, maybe more accurately, the fear of the devil, since we both knew his soul was bound for the fiery pit. Getting anally fucked with a barbed wire bat, if there was any justice in the afterlife.