Giovanni (Benedetti Brothers 4)

But I push those thoughts away. There’s work to be done.

Sitting behind my desk, I lay out the photos again. All of them. I take a permanent marker out of my desk drawer and put a big red X over the faces of the two dead men. I do this in each of the photos they’re in. I pick up the one where they’re stringing her up by her wrists. Watch them as they pull the chains over a beam until her toes barely touch ground. She’s naked, and there’s already blood and cum between her legs. They’ve already raped her. All of them. All but Alessandro.

I want to know who took the photos of the whipping. It’s neither of the two I killed. They’re in the shot.

Her back is still unmarked in this one, and from the corner of the shot, I see Alessandro’s arm, his angry grip on the whip. Twenty-one lines. I wonder if there’s a significance to the number, or if his arm tired or if he just ran out of skin.

The blood from her open back stains them when they rape her again afterward. They don’t seem to care. I wonder if they were stoned because, even given who I am, what I’ve done, it’s inhuman what they do to her.

But I have to look at these differently. Block any emotion. Anything human. And I can’t ever let her see them.

I collect the photos and lock all but one in one of the desk drawers. The one I keep, it has all their faces in it. The two dead men. The four with their days numbered. Her.

I boot up my laptop. As I wait for it to load, the study door opens, and Emilia is standing there. My mind immediately wanders to earlier tonight. To her whispered words. I wonder if she remembers.

“You can’t hurt those women.”

It takes me a second to understand what she’s talking about. The women I threatened to have marked up like she’s been marked up.

“Don’t worry about that right now.”

She steps inside without waiting for an invitation. “I mean it. You can’t do this to them. You don’t understand what it’ll do to them.”

“I’m not going to have them raped.” I realize my mistake the instant the word is out because she flinches, like I’ve slapped her. I get up to go to her, but she straightens, steels her spine.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

I’m glad I put the photographs away. “Nothing. Why don’t you go back to bed. It’s late.”

“I’m not tired.”

I can’t read her. She’s closed herself off again. I don’t know why that bothers me. “I thought you’d be exhausted.”

“You mean after my breakdown?” She walks inside and comes over to the desk.

I turn the photo over.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

“Is it one of the photographs?” She’s a different person to the one she was a few hours ago.

“Go back to bed, Emilia.”

She raises her gaze to mine. “No, Giovanni.” She reaches out for the picture, but I put my hand over hers.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?”

“You don’t have to see them.”’

“How many are there?”

“Enough.”

“Your clothes were bloody,” she says, shifting gears. “Upstairs, I mean. From tonight.”

She touches the back of my hand, the one that’s resting on the image. She lifts it up, holds it between hers, and traces the swollen knuckles, the cut skin. She then pushes it out of the way, and I let her. I watch her turn the photograph over, and I study her when she does, when she looks at the image. And for the smallest millisecond, emotion flashes through her eyes. For that uncountable sliver of time, she’s vulnerable again. She’s that broken girl on the floor.

She moves her hand, and with her pointer finger, she traces the two X’s. She’s pressing hard on the photo because it moves in the line she makes. When she’s done with those, she points to one of the men. Says a name. She does the same with the other three I don’t know. I don’t have to write them down. I memorize them. I won’t ever forget them.

But then she starts to rattle off other names, facts, birthdays, and finally addresses.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

She has her finger over her own face in the photograph like she’s blotting it out. She looks up at me.

“Names and addresses. You said you wanted those.”

“You’ve known all along?” They’re all in the city. All but one, who is in New Jersey, but all are close. Too close.

“I don’t ever plan on being taken by surprise again.”

“Why did you decide to stay in the city?”

“I grew up in this city. Where else should I have gone?”

Anywhere, I think. But I don’t say it. “I’ll pick up these men within the day.”

She nods. “Can I see them when you do?”