I gasped for breath. Every intake stung in my chest.
“Shhh, Dinara. Everything is okay. Calm down. He’s dead. Calm down.”
Adamo’s soothing voice waded through the fog clouding my brain and slowly I came to myself. Adamo ripped a piece off his shirt and wiped my face with it. I closed my eyes, allowing him to clean me. When I opened them again, my surroundings came back into focus. Shock crashed down on me as I saw the sight before me. The man lay in a large puddle of blood and his corpse was littered with stab wounds. His hands, his arms, his chest, his face, his throat…the blade hadn’t spared any part of his upper body. I hadn’t spared a part of his body. I had done this.
I released a shaky breath. Slowly I looked down at myself. Adamo’s arm was still wrapped around my waist and I sat between his legs, his warm chest pressed against my back. My bare legs were smeared with blood, and my jean shorts were completely soaked with it. I raised my hands, also covered in red. The knife clattered to the floor and the sound made me flinch. My shirt, my hair…everything was covered in blood. And the shred of fabric Adamo had used to clean my face and eyelids was now red. I blinked, stunned by what I had done. “Why did you stop me?” I said, but my voice sounded distant, as if something was blocking my ears. Maybe more blood. I shuddered.
Adamo took my hand and turned it so I saw a long but shallow cut in my palm then he pointed at another deeper cut in my calf. “You cut yourself in your state and I didn’t want you to seriously injure yourself. He’s been long dead.”
I nodded. “I don’t know what got into me. I just lost it…”
Adamo pressed his cheek against mine, even though I was a mess. “Maybe this is a start. Maybe this is your way of releasing the pain you have bottled up.”
There was no pain now. No memories. No fear or anger or hatred, only numbness and a blissful calm.
“What do we do now?”
“I have to call our local cleaning crew so they can come over and take care of this.”
I laughed hollowly. “I guess it’s a good thing this is Camorra land.”
“It makes things easier. Vegas would be even better, but our men will clean this up and dispose of the body. Nobody will be able to trace anything back to you or me.”
Adamo got up then held out his hand. I took it and allowed him to pull me to my feet. My legs felt shaky. Now that the first wave of adrenaline waned off, my palm and calf throbbed where I’d cut myself. The realization that my blood mingled with the blood of my abuser sent a new wave of revulsion through me and I couldn’t suppress a violent shudder. Adamo touched my arm, seeking my eyes. “Dinara?”
“I have to shower. I need to get rid of his blood.” I sucked in a deep breath, realizing I was close to panicking, something we really couldn’t use right now.
“You could shower in the back?”
I shook my head jerkily. Just the idea of using the same shower my abuser had used made me feel even sicker. “In our motel,” I pressed out.
“Okay,” Adamo said slowly, as if he was talking to a frightened child, and maybe that was exactly the impression I gave off. “I need to call the crew first and we need to clean up a bit and find something to cover our bloody clothes with. We can’t cross the street looking as if we’d bathed in blood.”
I nodded, even if my desire to flee was getting stronger by the second.
Adamo picked up his phone for two quick calls before he appeared in front of me again. I was busy staring at the remains of my abuser. “I was worried I couldn’t kill someone. Worried I wouldn’t be able to pull a trigger. Instead I slaughtered him with a knife. This is so much more messed up than shooting someone.”
Adamo stroked my cheek. “It’s more personal. What this man did to you was very personal, and you paid him back in a personal way as well. It’s not that strange if you think about it.”
“I think most people would disagree with you. Nothing we do is normal.”
“Who cares?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
Thirty minutes later, we left the hardware store. Adamo, who looked less like a bloody mess, had gotten the car and parked at the curb right in front of the hardware store. His clean-up crew was already busy sorting out the mess I’d caused. They’d even brought me new clothes to wear instead of my own for the ride back to our motel. I’d awkwardly freed my hair from the blood in the sink of the customer bathroom, but my skin was itching all over. I needed to shower as soon as possible.