Page 18 of My Violent Valentine

Clarissa is crying. Crying. She’s a crime boss now, for fuck’s sake. Cole remains stoic. Just once I’d love to see the man break down and the woman be cold as ice.

“This is why you wanted me to wait?” Brian says.

I shrug. “It smelled so good.”

“Can we do this now?”

“One sec.” I grab a piece of garlic bread and dip it into the olive oil. “Oh my god, Brian. Are you sure you don’t want some of this?”

“I’m sure.”

The music abruptly stops, and then there are screams. The string quartet has finally noticed our presence.

“I’ll take you for Italian later,” Brian says.

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

“Fine,” I grumble and push the plate away. “My compliments to the chef,” I say as I fire on Cole and Brian takes out Clarissa. By this point my adrenaline is surging, so when the members of the string quartet get up to run, I’m not as upset about the collateral damage.

When it’s just us in the large quiet house, I blow out the candles on the table while Brian snaps photos of each of the kills with a thin black digital camera and slips it back inside his inner jacket pocket. He refuses to buy a smart phone for any reason. He says the security risk isn’t worth the convenience. He only deals with prepaid burners that don’t tie back to him, that he can easily dispose of after a job. Of course, cameras leave their own data and digital fingerprints behind, so he trashes those as well. We go through a lot of electronics in our line of work.

We’re about to make our exit when the front door opens, and a brunette girl who looks to be about seventeen steps inside. She drops her book bag in the middle of the floor. Her head is bent, focused on her phone. She laughs at something someone must have texted her and then says: “Sarah has a stomach bug, so I called an Uber. He’s outside waiting for his money.”

“Fuck,” Brian mutters.

She looks up, takes in the bloody scene in front of her, and starts screaming—one long never ending wail, a mix of horror, fear, and grief, each fighting for dominance. Finally she’s able to form one word.

“D-Daddy?”

My heart breaks for her. Crime lords and various random pieces of shit with heavy prices on their heads… I can kill those worthless motherfuckers all day long without breaking a nail or a single feeling of remorse. It’s almost a healing and cleansing act. Cathartic even. But I try never to think about those left behind. I have to compartmentalize. But it’s hard to compartmentalize when the innocent young daughter of the guy you just killed walks in on your bloody art project.

“Take her, I’ll get the Uber driver,” Brian says, heading for the door.

“What?” I can’t have heard him right.

Brian takes one look at me, and he knows I would never shoot this kid. I can’t believe he even suggested it.

“No!” I say, seeing the intention in his eyes. “Have you lost your mind, Brian? Don’t you fucking dare pull that trigger!”

He shrugs at my lack of compliance, shoots the girl, and without breaking his stride, continues out the door to take care of the driver.

The girl stands there for a moment, completely stunned. I’m sure my expression mirrors hers. Neither of us can believe it, though I should be able to by now. Her hand goes to her stomach. She pulls it slowly up to her face to see her own blood.

She glances back to her dad and then to me as though she’s trying to use her last few moments alive to understand what happened—as if knowing the details will make any difference to the ending. Then she stumbles and falls to the ground.

I rush to her, my hand pressing against hers as if together we can hold the blood in, but I know we can’t. Even if I could call for help, they wouldn’t get here in time. A hit to the stomach like this isn’t salvageable.

“I’m so so sorry,” I say through my gathering tears. “Honey, I’m so sorry.”

But she’s already gone, staring unblinking at the ceiling.

I’m numb. I can’t believe this just happened. I can’t believe Brian just… But why not? Why can’t I believe it? It’s not as though I haven’t had mountains of evidence of what he is. It’s not as though I somehow didn’t know he was a sociopath. But I compartmentalized. I romanticized. He was my hero so it didn’t matter if he was the rest of the world’s villain.

“Come on, we’ve got to go,” Brian says. His words are as casual as if we were just running late for some inconsequential meeting.

I’m covered now in this poor girl’s blood, and I can’t stop the tears. The tears quickly turn into sobs, and I look up at Brian who just stares at me as though he can’t understand this meltdown. And he can’t. He’s not even human.

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