Page 19 of My Violent Valentine

“You fucking monster!” I scream. “How the fuck could you just walk straight at her and shoot her without blinking? She was a young innocent girl with her whole life ahead of her.”

“Yeah, and we just killed her dad. She walked in on her dad’s bloody body. How do you think she’d have turned out, Mina? We can’t leave witnesses. You know that. She’s old enough to be able to talk to police. I told you back in July that this life sometimes comes with casualties and you’d have to decide if you could handle that.”

“Fuck you! You cold motherfucking bastard! She was just a girl! Just a kid. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I thought something in him was changing, but I was lying to myself, telling myself pretty stories about how my love had turned the beast into a prince. But in real life, they never really do transform into anything good, do they?

The way he’s been watching over Aidan, I thought… I was so fucking stupid. Of course he hasn’t somehow grown a heart in that empty black pit in his chest.

Brian sighs. “I know it’s tragic but…”

“Tragic? Tragic?!? That’s just a fucking word to you, Brian. Like ice cream, or noodles. It doesn’t mean anything to you. You don’t feel anything real!”

My voice is growing raw from the screaming.

“Mina…”

“Do you feel anything for me at all? Can you even feel anything or is it all just a fucking mask? Why bother if there’s nothing inside you? Why bother playing with me and pretending…”

“Do you think I took some kind of pleasure in this?” Brian asks, gesturing to the girl.

“Yes, Brian. I think you fucking did, you psycho!”

“I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

He can’t answer me, but I know exactly why not. Because I wouldn’t like it. The only reason he didn’t like that just as much as any other kill, was because he knows I wouldn’t like it. My displeasure takes the edge off what would otherwise be just a normal day for him.

“I am the only leash you have, and even then you still cross these lines!”

“Mina, we need to go. We can talk about this later.”

I pull myself up off the floor. And there is a part of me that is so defeated right now and ready to just follow behind Brian like some docile kicked dog. But then there’s another piece of me coming apart at the seams. I pick up a wine glass from the table and throw it.

The shatter is so satisfying—the splash of dark red merlot against the wall like the beginning process of a Jackson Pollock. How can I love this monster? Why do I feel these things for him that I know he can’t return?

Yes, I’m a killer too. It doesn’t break me to pull that trigger, but I have limits. I can’t take out innocent kids. Or sweet old people. Or puppies. Brian would probably shoot a kitten if he thought it would be somehow expedient.

I throw the other wine glass, and then I grab the bottle. I’m just getting started.

“Mina!” Brian shouts. “We have to go. Now! We don’t have time for this shit.” As if I’m having a tantrum over something silly. The fucking nerve of this guy.

I see red.

I turn and fling the wine bottle at him. He ducks just in time, and it hits the window behind him. And now I’m on a roll. I throw vases, plates, everything that can shatter that isn’t nailed down.

I grab a steak knife off Clarissa’s napkin… it’s covered in her own blood. I don’t know why she needed a steak knife for chicken primavera, but I don’t care. Brian’s eyes widen like he thinks he’s going to have to defend himself from me. I can’t stab the bastard, but I need to stab something.

I plunge the knife over and over into the wall, screaming. I feel like I’m completely unraveling, my rage becoming a separate living entity with its own soul and backstory.

Brian is behind me a moment later, prying the knife from my hand. He drops it onto the floor. “Shhhh,” he says, holding me in his vise-like grip. He pets my hair like I’m some kind of mental patient, instead of the only one in this house having a normal fucking human reaction to anything.

“Shhhh, Mina. Calm down. Just calm down. It’s okay, just calm down. Just breathe, baby.”

But there’s no time for me to calm down… several doors burst open at once and what I can only assume are members of the rival gangs come flooding into the Nolan estate.

10

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