Page 20 of My Rose

One quick phone call from my father changed at least someof that.

Rolling up my sleeves, I turned and pushed my back into the swinging door that led to a room I also tried hard to forget about.

“P-please, I didn’t…” the guy whose head was covered in a damp cloth said as my feet tapped along the puddles of water on the floor. Each tap of my leather boot made his body jerk in the chair he was tied to. I rolled my eyes as I pulled the cloth from his head.

“They…they said I could just go—”

“Well,theylied,” I said. “What you did isn’t exactly let-go material, Stan.”

“Wh-what did I…”

I circled his chair until he could no longer see me. As I bent down past his wet, grey-peppered hair, I said, “Now, Stan. You and I both know what you did. Question is, do you think what you did is punishable by deathorcan we come to some form of agreement?” Stan was an accountant that merged with a company we recently purchased. Over the past few months, Stan decided to funnel some cash—close to seven million dollars to be precise—into a private, offshore account. The discovery wasn’t made by me, not like his punishment would be.

Stan snapped his head to the side as I pulled back, his eyes following my movement as I crouched down in front of him. His silence wasn’t surprising. “Your offshore account was linked to another, Stan. Several others.” Funneling a few million from our company was one thing—maybe worthy of a day in my chair and some blackmail. But what Stan was doing with his money was enough to make my blood boil. And that discovery was made solely by me.

His posture stiffened as much as it could against the ropes that tied him down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I smirked at him and stood. “Sure you don’t.” My fist landed across his cheek, making him whimper. “You want to try that again?”

He spat blood on the floor along with a single tooth. “It’s my wife, she—” Another punch, because that was the wrong fucking answer and he knew it. Stan’s laugh after more blood dripped to the floor confirmed it, though I didn’t need any more confirmation of whathedid.

“What are you, their reaper?” Had my black fabric mask not been in place, he’d know exactly who I was. I was there just like he was when we purchased the company he worked for. Hell, he probably knew my face like most did—from the news.

“Something like that.” I smirked again and readjusted my sleeves. He’d have no way of knowing who I was, like all who sat in the same place he was sitting in now.

His voice turned dark like the devil he was. “Kill me then,reaper, if that’s what you’re going to do.”

I sighed. “Stanny boy, for the things you did, someone reallyshouldkill you. But my job is to get a confession and seek some form of retribution for the things you did, and death is too easy of an out for you. Anyone who purchases young girls from the internet and resells them to the highest bidder deserves to rot in the worst type of way.”

My father wouldn’t give a damn about Stan’s personal affairs other than the fact that he stole money from VanAndrews. He hadno idea that I’d taken it upon myself to findout whypeople fucked us over when they did. They all had some terrible agenda, and Stan’s made the top of the list.

Stan started chuckling. “So you don’t have the balls to kill me, is that it, kid?”

I let that comment roll off me. There were people in this world who did deserve to die. Stan deserved it, but then he wouldn’t live with the agony I had planned for him. And I much preferred for his life to crumble before him, to take everything from him, then to make him the first person I’d ever killed. I wasn’t afraid to pull the trigger, but his death shouldn’t be on my shoulders.

“Oh, Stan.” I checked my watch, making a show of it, then smiled back down at him. “See, right about now, your wife is going to be coming home with your son in tow—East Killian Elementary should sound familiar to you.” Stan’s face paled. I continued, “She’s going to find a package addressed to both of them and when she opens it, she’s going to find pictures of each of the girls you sold, the amount you got for the sale, along with a file that shows your now very empty bank account.” Stan went to speak, but I held up my finger. “Wait, I haven’t gotten to the best part yet, Stan. See, in a few minutes, the police are going to come and seize your house, finding that elaborately constructed heroin lab in your basement—”

“I’ve never made heroin in my life!”

I laughed. “No, you probably haven’t. Your tastes are more linear, aren’t they?” The lab was a bit excessive, but so was selling girls on the internet—more than excessive, his true acts were vile. I just hadto be sure nothing safeguarded this ass from the life I had planned for him.

“You bastard!”

I pulled the gun from my waistband and tapped it along my thigh, drawing his attention there. The silence echoed in the dark room, lit only by a single light that hung right above the devil’s head. “I wasn’t finished, Stan. Don’t you want to know what I have planned for you after? For when you return to…well, you won’t have a home anymore. Or a job. But I know the man your wife is fucking does, and he would be happy to take your wife and son back to his house because, by some odd, cosmic coincidence, he just found out about your dealings and he’s on his way to save them. From you.”

I lifted the burner phone from my pocket, confirming a text from said man, who truly was a decent enough guy. Kind of vanilla, but not everyone had acquired tastes like myself. Stan remained silent, his face turning crimson. “He got a detailed description of the things you like and the things your poor wife is going through and will be there within the next fifteen minutes to get them.” I laughed at the next part. “He even said thank you.” I dropped the phone and smashed it with the heel of my boot.

Stan stared down at the shattered pieces on the floor. “What do you want?”

I rubbed the barrel along my cheek. “See, that’s the thing. You don’t have anything to offer that my client wants.” I aimed the gun at his foot and fired. Stan cried out and I grinned back at him. “Knowing your life will be miserable from here on out mightjustbe enough to keep him satisfied.”

“Please, just kill me!”

I shook my head and slid the warm barrel back into my waistband. The water on the floor began to turn red, mixing with the blood leaking from his foot. “If you’re so hellbent on dying, then do it yourself.” I thought of his son briefly, of the pain his death would cause their family even though his father was a terrible person whose rap sheet didn’t stop at the sex trafficking of minors. The number of women who claimed to be sexually harassed and assaulted by him over the years was astounding. Money really did buy the worst things for some people.

Stan quietly sobbed, his head hanging low. “That seven million you stole from my client will be used to track your every move until the day you do decide to leave this Earth. You will be watched, and if you even think about divulging back into your ways, you will end up right back here again. Are we clear?” Stan’s head lolled in agreement. “Good. Someone will be back in an hour to release you.”

With that, I turned and left, shedding my mask once the door swung shut.

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