The Woman in the Trunk

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.

"You don't understand—"

"You're goddamn right about that," I agreed, reaching for the lamb cleaver before turning back, testing the weight in my hand.

"We were owed!"

"So we take the money. We take the blood of the man who owes us money. We don't spill the blood of the wives. We don't take the innocence of the fucking children. You should have known that. Now you're going to learn the hard way."By the time my phone rang in the plastic bag I'd tucked it into to make sure there would be no chance I'd have to replace that as well as the suit I'd already lost, Paulie looked more like a prop in a horror movie than a man. Bones sticking out of skin. Intestines dangling. Piss mingled with the vomit on the floor, diluting the bright red of the blood.