Irrevocable (Evan Arden 5)

He shakes his head rapidly.

“Lying sack of shit.” I move the lit end of the cigarette close to his foot, and he moans through the gag. I don’t touch it to his skin –I don’t want that kind of evidence left on his body—but I let him wonder for a moment. “I had a lot of thoughts about how to deal with you. Considered bringing over a few buddies to use your ass until you bled to death from it. Funny thing is, Alina doesn’t want me to do anything. She just wants to leave it all in the past, but I have problems letting go of that kind of shit. I don’t forgive—that’s God’s job.”

I walk around the back of the chair, and he follows me with his eyes. Standing behind him, I take hold of what little hair he has and pull his head back.

“I don’t think God forgives fuckers that rape their own daughters, though. I’m pretty sure they got a special place all ready for you.”

I shove the gun into the back of my jeans and pull out a knife instead. I hold it up to his eyes so he can see it.

“I’ll give you one guess what this is for,” I tell him. “Oh, and here’s a hint—it’s not to cut you out of those ties.”

He tries to talk through the gag, which is pointless. I smack him in the back of the head to shut him up, but he keeps trying until I place the knife at his throat. He stills.

“Good boy,” I say. “You just be nice and quiet. Well, as much as you can. Frankly, I’m going to hurt you, so I don’t begrudge you the odd scream. That’s what the gag is for. You try to take it out, and I’m going to slice off your dick, though.”

He nods ever so slightly, likely afraid the blade will cut him if he moves too much. I’m not going to slice his throat though—that would be far too quick.

“I’m not usually into the torture thing,” I tell him. “I’m more of a distance shooter, you know? Been tortured though. I’ve been tortured a lot. Never told them anything.”

A shiver runs through me, and my skin goes cold in the aftershock. Bile comes up to the back of my throat, and I swallow to get the taste out of my mouth.

“I was close though,” I say quietly. “I never told anyone about that. No one. Ever. There was one day when I nearly cracked. They’d already tried to beat it out of me. Beat me, burned me, left me alone without food or water—none of that would have ever opened my mouth. There was that one day when they thought they’d try something else.”

A wave of nausea threatens, and I have to swallow again. My vision goes a little dark, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. I never think about this—not even in my dreams. I barely remember it at all. I shake my head and pinch my forearm hard to bring myself out of it before I pass out. Crouching in front of Jimmy, I raise the knife up to his eye.

“I know what it’s like to be raped. I know what that does to someone. I nearly cracked as a grown man, and she was just a little girl when you did that to her.”

I lower the knife and cut into his stomach through his shirt. It’s not a mortal wound, by any means, and the knife is sharp. He probably barely feels it. As I shove my fingers in the hole I’ve made and twist upward, he closes his eyes, screaming into the gag. He twists his legs, trying to free himself to kick at me. I pull my hand from his gut and punch him on top of the wound. He doubles over, and I stand in front of him, wiping the blood on the back of his shirt.

“Now that I think about it, I’m surprised Alina doesn’t seem to be as fucked up as she probably could have been from all of that. She’s really pretty put together. Maybe that’s just comparing her to me, though—I’m not a great baseline for that, ya know? Still, she fucks guys for a living and has you to thank for that.”

I walk away from him. As far as I’m concerned, he’s getting off easy, but I want to give the impression of a burglary gone bad, not an execution. I would have preferred to cut him to death. Alina would know it was me for sure if I did that.

“She’s smart, you know. She figures things out really quickly and isn’t afraid to speak her mind. I don’t think she got that from you. Makes me wonder who pulled her out of the gutter and taught her to stand up for herself. Maybe no one did. Maybe that’s all her.”

I start pulling things out of drawers and dumping them out. I find his wallet and remove the few bills that are inside, not bothering to count the measly take before I toss the wallet on the floor. It’s a small apartment, and it’s pretty evident that there’s nothing worth stealing.

“Gone all destitute without a little girl to whore out?”

He doesn’t respond. At this point, he’s just watching me and trying to stay still. Maybe he thinks I’ll forget that he’s there. Maybe he’s going into shock from seeing his own blood soak his shirt.

“Part of me wants to know the details,” I say as I sit back in the chair and light up another cigarette. “I don’t think she’ll ever tell me, but I get that. There’s plenty of shit I’ll never tell her either. Sometimes it has to stay buried. The shrinks tell us we need to talk about all that shit to get it out, but some things are best left untouched.”

“It’s funny that she and I are in each other’s lives, really.” I’m babbling and I know it. I’m not even sure why I’m saying all of this except that I know he’ll never have the chance to repeat it. It’s my own verbal journal, maybe. I’ve had a couple of counselors who wanted me to write shit down in a journal, but I never did it. I don’t need a book of memoirs. “Considering what you did to her, she should be even more screwed up than I am. At least I was at war with the people who fucked me over. You were supposed to be the one protecting her. It’s a wonder she can function at all.”

I get back in his face and tap the edge of the knife against his nose.

“Did you get off on that? Betraying the girl you should have loved and protected the most? Did you get off on making her do all that shit?”

He’s completely still, which is a wise decision.

“Are you even sorry about it?”

Again, he is motionless.

“The worst part was in between deployments.” I sit back in the chair. “Telling family members that the guys you were supposed to protect weren’t coming home. Trying to explain that there was nothing you could do to stop what hap

pened. Then again, maybe you’re more like that woman whose husband was executed right beside me. She was glad he was gone. She was happy to get his death benefits and move on with her life.”