by Nikki Wild
These were questions I could only ask myself. Delfino wasn’t an option. And in either case, the only answer I received was silence. So I asked something else.
“What are we waiting for?”
Delfino regarded me coolly over the rim of his mug. He sipped quietly, gingerly from his tea, then rolled the flavor over in his mouth. He set his mug down and sat forward, then reached into the inner pocket of his coat. I winced, but all he pulled out was a flask. Wordlessly, he poured a splash of whiskey into his tea.
“We have to be waiting for something,” I reasoned. “You haven’t asked me any questions. You haven’t said a single word to me since the church. We’re just… sitting here, staring at each other.” I wet my lips. “So we must be waiting for something. What is it?”
At the end of my monologue, Delfino tipped his hand, adding another splash.
I grit my teeth. “You can’t tell me this surprised you. You’ve treated me like garbage for years, held me prisoner here with you! All I’ve ever wanted is to leave, and all you’ve ever done is deny me that. You’ve never needed me—sure, I’m a good cover for your life here in town. Maybe I add an element of humanity to the monster everyone can see you’re hiding…”
That provoked a small lift of Delfino’s brows. He capped the flask. Returned it to the pocket of his coat. The man was sitting in front of me wearing sky blue flannel pajama pants, a white Hanes t-shirt, and a forest green, fleece-lined hoodie with toggles. He shouldn’t have seemed as menacing as he did, but even in a state of just-woke-up, the man was intimidating—nothing but stoic and unfeeling in demeanor.
“…but you could have easily explained my absence away,” I continued, since he hadn’t stopped me. He took a sip of his tea, followed by a small nod to himself as he discarded the teabag right onto the table. Again, he afforded no thought to the state of things, to the mess he was making. I shifted, once again discomfited. “You could have let me go to nursing school. Told everyone your dear, sweet daughter was off at college. You might have even gained some sympathy for that. But no—you chose to keep me locked up here, reliving the same routine day in and day out. Driving me mad with monotony until the weeks and the months and the years all passed in a gray, empty blur.”
I shook my head, trying to clear some of the tears welling in my eyes. The last thing I wanted to do right now, knowing what I did, was let him see me cry. I didn’t want to let him get that close to me ever again. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
“Why, Delfino? What was the point of all this?”
Still no answer—nothing more than Delfino running the tip of one finger around the rim of his mug. He didn’t look at me, didn’t so much as spare me a fleeting glance. I hated this game, the one where he froze me out, knowing how furious it made me. Knowing that I would work myself into a state of near-hysterics so he could have a good chuckle and then dismiss me. Hot needles pricked at the inside of my chest, throat, and face as an indignant fury rose within me. It was no use. Whatever the reason was, Delfino wasn’t about to give it away. It was a secret he would probably take to his grave.
I just hoped that day came sooner rather than later.
“A phone call,” he said suddenly.
I looked up from where I’d been trying to bore holes through the table with my glare. My face twisted, wrenched by confusion. “You… you kept me here all this time… because of a phone call?”
He lifted his mug again and drank from it. Then he relaxed, one arm draped across the back of the couch. “That’s what we’re waiting for. A phone call.”
I found myself leaning forward with interest. I hated myself for it, hated that I couldn’t play the same game he did, the one where a good poker face was everything. I didn’t have that, not really. Sure, I’d learned to hide certain reactions from him, learned to smile even when I felt like screaming. But this close to answers, this hungry for the truth, I was an open book to him. I could feel him reading my thoughts and emotions as easily as he would the ink upon a page.
“What phone call?”
A slight tilt of his lips. “The one I should be receiving any moment now.”
“Why?” I pressed him. “And from who?”
Delfino shrugged and brought the tea up again. “From my employer. To tell me what happens next.”
So, my fate would be decided by a phone call. I supposed I should be grateful it wouldn’t be determined by a mere text message.
“Don Carliogne,” I whispered.
“Francis, to his friends and family.”
My stomach clenched. “Is he? Your friend, I mean. Or… or family?”
Delfino chuckled wryly. “No.”
I touched my fingers to my lips, thinking. If Delfino was in a talkative mood, far be it for me to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe he wouldn’t answer any questions about why he insisted I stay with him all these years, but he clearly didn’t feel the same way about business matters.
“Why does there have to be a ‘next’?” I asked him. “I mean… what went wrong?”
Another sip from his mug. “You, mostly.”
“Because Leo and I broke into your office and took your hard drive?” I shook my head. “We didn’t do anything with it, though. You caught us. You took it back.” He nodded. “So why does it matter?”
“It matters,” he said.
“Yes. But why?”
“Because in my line of work, discretion is everything.”
“And two twenty-somethings got the best of you.”
“That calls into question my ability to remain in my position.”
“And Don Carliogne—he can’t have that.”
Delfino smiled. “No. He can’t.”
I sat silently for a time, absorbing this information. For all the time we’d spent together, Delfino had never been this open with me. It was yet another anomaly to add to the growing list.
“But… Leo’s as good as dead.”
His expression cooled once more. “Yes.”
A lump sat heavy in my throat. I tried to speak around it, tried not to let my voice crack. I failed. Miserably. “So then it’s taken care of. You’ve handled it.”
Delfino took a long draught this time. He seemed about halfway done with his tea and whiskey. “That’s not the point.”
I shook my head uncomprehendingly. “Then what is?”
“That it happened at all. That there are still loose ends.”
I felt my face pale. “You… you mean me.”
“Yes.”
Oh, God. “So you’re waiting to find out if you have to kill me. Is that it?”
“No.”
That was it. I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Then what’s the problem, Delfino?” I shouted, standing up so fast my knees struck the edge of the table. My tea sloshed, spilling over the surface, dripping onto the rug below—but I didn’t care. For the first time in a long time, I couldn’t find one single fuck to give about the mess. Delfino didn’t care, clearly. Maybe he never had. So why should I? “Explain it to me. Exactly, and in no uncertain terms, explain to me what the hell we’re waiting for!”
“To find out what happens next,” he said again. I waited, but there was nothing else he seemed willing to give me.
And then all at once, it hit me. And the wind promptly left my sails.
“…because you won’t kill me.”
He stared up at me, unblinking. “Yes.”
Breathlessly, I added, “But you could.” It needn’t be a question. I already knew the answer. “You could kill me. And then maybe this would all go away.”
Now Delfino looked away from me, preferring instead, it seemed, to inspect the contents of his mug. He swirled them for several moments, enraptured enough with the effect that I almost began to believe he’d forgotten I spoke.
Then he said, “But I won’t.”
I sat down, hard, on the couch. My legs simply wouldn’t hold me up anymore. What was I supposed to say to that? The idea that
my captor, my abuser, wouldn’t give up my life to potentially save his own… that he’d put me before himself in that way… How was that supposed to make me feel? What did it mean? And did any of that, at all, matter when he’d sent Leo away to die? When for all I knew, he was already dead?
I started to say something. I wasn’t sure what it would be, but I started to. And then the phone rang.
Delfino looked at it. Twice, three times it sang, warbling like a nightingale out of tune. He put his mug down.
“Wait,” I whispered. He looked at me. “Just one more question.” He didn’t move. “Why… why did you tell me all of that? Those things you said, they were… they were private, weren’t they? You’ve never told me anything like that before.”
Delfino blew air through his nose. I wasn’t sure if it was a sigh or a laugh. Maybe it was some melancholic mixture of both. “Because it no longer matters if you know.”
My heart thundered. The room spun around me. Sweat, cold and sticking, budded on my nape. It was all I could do not to throw up.
“…because you already know what they’re going to say.”
The phone rang again, for the fifth time now.
“Yes,” he answered. “Because no matter what anyone may tell you, Lucy, I am still good at my job.”
And then he picked up the phone.
Twenty-One
Leo
“Come on, Old Jack. Is that the best you can do?”
It was probably a stupid thing for me to taunt him like that. I wasn’t exactly in a position where arrogance would benefit me. In fact, I was very much in the kind of position where running my mouth might get me killed. But I couldn’t help it. There are worse things than dying, and considering the hell Jackal had put me through already, I was pretty sure that making it easier to beat my ass would be one of those worse things.
If I was gonna go out here, like this, cuffed to this chair and covered in my own blood, then I was gonna put up whatever fight I could. Even if that meant grinning up at Jackal through every punch and hoping he didn’t knock my teeth out in the process. Last thing I needed, on top of every other indignity I’d suffered, was to leave a bad-looking corpse.
Won’t be open-casket, anyway, I thought as a white arc flash split the air where Jackal’s fist had swung down on me a moment before. The pain in my cheekbone was searing, blinding. At least he’s not hitting me in the ribs.
Despite his age, Jackal wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Maybe he was enjoying it too damn much to feel the strain. Or maybe all that coke he’d snorted before he came here had done wonders for his stamina. Dude was always a fiend for it, enough that I knew how to spot the signs of his use.
There was the tell-tale sniffling, of course. A grinding of his teeth and a little twitch in his right eye. But the big one was the snapping. It was incessant, a nervous tic. Both hands would go at it in quick succession, following no particular rhythm—just a frantic flurry to accompany all that pacing he did around the room.
Yeah, Jackal was totally strung out. Which wasn’t good news for me. It meant he’d be feeling no pain, not even after he’d split his knuckles on my skull. It also meant there’d be no reasoning with him, no bargaining, no negotiation possible. He’d come here for sweet revenge, and he wasn’t gonna stop short of achieving that goal. And the cops here sure as hell weren’t going to stop him, which meant nothing stood between him and me. And nobody else knew where I was.
Well, no one except Delfino. And he was the one who’d put me here. Fat chance of him riding in to save the day.
Wasn’t that what I’d come here for—to save Lucy? And look where I was… I’d become the one who needed saving. I couldn’t have felt more pathetic, or more sorry for myself, if I’d tried. But who had time to try when getting your face pounded in occupied so much of your time? Seemed to me I had a full schedule.
“You always did have a mouth on you,” Jackal said, wheezing a laugh as he stalked around me again. I couldn’t keep the bastard in my line of sight. Not that it mattered. It was unnerving as shit, sure, but I wasn’t about to let him see that. “Wonder if you’ll still be as talkative once you’re missin’ all your teeth.”
That wasn’t an idle threat, and unlike the other indignities he’d inflicted upon me, that one made me shudder just to think about. There’s something about the idea of losing your teeth that makes you react all visceral. Dunno why that is—maybe it’s because a full set is such an integral part of daily life. Or maybe it’s a predator thing. What good is a wolf without its jaws?
I must’ve gone quiet for longer than I’d thought, because when Jackal came back around, he had this triumphant smirk plastered across the creased leather of his face. “What’ve I told you, boy? Never let ‘em know your weak spot. Silence can be just as telling as loose lips.”
Made me wonder if he was all the more intent on doing it now. Behind my lips, I cleared blood from my teeth with my tongue.
“Do your worst,” I spat, flashing my pearly whites, grinning at him through the pain. If I was going to bite it here, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he broke me. “You hit like a bitch, anyway.”
Jackal let out a wheezing laugh that sent a shudder through me. The kind of laugh you hear when something really shouldn’t be as funny as it is—that almost mad laugh that leaves you in tears. I felt my skin crawl as he paced around me, circling like a dog about to lunge for my throat at any moment. I could feel my heart hammering away, and I thanked whatever god there might be out there that I couldn’t feel most of the pain I was in right now.
“You’ve really got some fucking balls, don’t you, Leo?” he said, kneeling down in front of me, just far enough away from my face so that I couldn’t slam my head into his teeth. “I’m honestly kind of glad that you’ve lasted this long—I wouldn’t have wanted to this have been too easy. I wanted to enjoy every second of this… and when you do break, it’ll be that much more satisfying.”
Another flash of white spread across my vision as Jackal drove another punch right into my jaw, and for a moment, I could have sworn that he’d actually knocked one of my back teeth loose, another copper gush splashing over my tongue. I think maybe I blacked out for a second. My head turned so quickly the muscles in my neck burned and seized. It seemed like at least a few moments had passed before I could think straight again.
“That feel like a bitch to you?” he asked as I blinked through the white haze that had overtaken my vision. He leaned down once more to look right into my eyes. “Or do I need to beat your ass a little harder?”
“Fuck you,” I snarled, rearing my head back and hurling a glob of spit and blood right into that smug prick’s face. If this was going to be the end, I was going to go down like a goddamn legend—not that anyone would ever know about it.
Jackal stared at me wordlessly, my blood dripping down into the stubble that lined his jaw. He blinked through the crimson trickle that had gotten into his eye almost like it wasn’t even there. His smile was gone, his expression eerily impassive, devoid of emotion as he stood straight once again and started to wipe the insult from his face.
“You’re going to wish you never did that,” he said, his voice just barely louder than a whisper. Slowly, deliberately, reached behind his back and grabbed something that made my stomach turn. In his hand was a knife I’d only ever seen him use once before, during the few times I’d witnessed him “work” on someone that had fucked over the club.
His eyes flashed, brighter and more menacing than that blade. “I was hoping to make this last a lot longer.”
I don’t think I’d really let the reality of my imminent death sink in until that moment. The true and undeniable fact that I wasn’t going to make it out of this room alive hit me like a ton of bricks as I saw my reflection in the blade of Jackal’s knife. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, I looked fucking terrified. I’d seen that look in other men’s eyes before, right before the end came for them. That grim acceptan
ce. I knew my time was up.
End of the line, Leo.
But then… it wasn’t.
As Jackal turned toward me, he stopped mid-stride, his head cocked like an animal that had just heard the telltale sound of a predator nearby. I narrowed my eyes, panting, confusion compounding my dread of what was about to happen. I strained to hear whatever had made him halt so suddenly, his attention turned away from me for the first time since this little torture session of ours had started.
At first there was nothing, not a sound that I could hear that would have made Jackal go so still, his muscles taut as though he would need to spring into action in an instant. But then, as I strained to listen, I heard something from outside of the holding cell. It was so far away, so distant, but the longer I waited, the closer it became.
Shouting.
There was something going on outside of the holding cell in another part of the sheriff’s station, something that was getting those deputies riled up. I wasn’t sure why something like that would have gotten Jackal so tense, and for a moment, I was thinking that maybe the coke was fucking with his brain, making him paranoid. He was starting to look jumpier and jumpier as the seconds ticked by and the sounds of what was definitely some kind of struggle began to grow closer.
An odd thought crossed my mind as I listened to the sounds of shouting, crashing, cries of pain, all becoming clearer and clearer, even from within my closed-off little corner of the station: Was someone coming to save me? I wanted to kick myself for even thinking something so stupid. No one who gave a damn even knew I was here, and the only person who did was probably either dead, or well on her way to being dead right now. But whether I believed it or not, someone was sure as hell starting a commotion outside.
“Shit,” Jackal hissed, backing away from me in the direction of the door. His lips were dry and cracked, and when he wet them, the lower one split open in a thin half-moon of blood.
I didn’t speak. Whatever Jackal thought was happening outside was enough to get him ready to make a break for it… but the question was whether or not he’d take the time to finish me off before then.