Page 65 of The Sound of Silence

I seriously didn’t know who that guy thought he was. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him. All I knew was his name was Derek.

Derek.

What kind of name was that anyway? Apparently,Derekthought he could put his hands on my girl—on my wife. Oh, yes, they had thought nobody was watching, but I saw them.

The little slut.

I saw everything.

Anybody walking by could have seen them through the small gap in the partially drawn curtains on the restaurant windows. It was as if she wanted me to see her.

Maybe she did.

After all, my girl liked to taunt me to make me do things I shouldn’t. That had to have been her plan all along. It was a good thing I caused a distraction with the door. Who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t thought ahead to the what-ifs? If I’d allowed things to go further, I might have had to kill her lover, and there was enough heat on me already. No, I didn’t need the aggravation that came with staging an accident. I had more important things to do—like getting my girl back.

I should have come for her months ago. It wasn’t until she seemed to take an interest in the musclehead that I felt the need to come here more often to intervene. I used the toothpaste just to fuck with her—to let her know I was watching. Her infatuation with Derek the Dope would go away soon enough and she’d be mine again. And if she didn’t want me, I would deal with it, but I’d be damned if anyone else would have her.

It was past ten, and Ferrara’s began closing up shop. I had little choice but to leave. When I stepped outside, I pushed past a small crowd of people who had gathered to listen to a man playing the accordion just outside the bakery. He was a heavy-set guy, wearing a red, white, and green Italian Gatsby hat. He pulled out on the instrument to suck air into it, reminding me of a harmonica. The high crescendos grated on my nerves, and I couldn’t get away fast enough.

“Such a fucking cliché,” I muttered.

Glancing at the windows of Camilla’s, I saw the lights were still on. I pulled the bill of my baseball cap low and walked as inconspicuously as possible up and down the sidewalk across the street from the little Italian restaurant. With all the people bustling about, trying to beat the incoming storm, nobody paid me much notice. I felt a few raindrops and heard a distant rumble. Lightning lit up the sky and cast an eerie glow around the shops in Little Italy. The clouded skies meant no moon, and I could stay hidden easier, but rain could complicate things. I wasn’t in the mood to get soaking wet while I waited for my girl and her lover.

Whore. Slut.

That’s all they were, every last one of them—including Cynthia, my beautiful dominatrix. Such a pity. She was one temptation I should have refused—my very own Jezebel, seducing me with her sexual immorality. It was her fault I was in this mess, to begin with. I should have killed her the moment she started asking too many questions and saved myself the stress. I’d thought if I could teach her a lesson, she’d get in line

But Cynthia was no Gianna.

She didn’t learn a thing. Instead, she continued asking questions until I could take it no more. After she escaped the White Room, she came after me like a rabid dog. She may have succeeded in getting me suspended, pending an investigation, but that was as far as she got. A buddy of mine at the precinct told me she was considering contacting the FBI. For some reason, she thought they would be of more help to her.

Fuck the FBI.

I could easily hide in plain sight from the likes of those self-righteous assholes. Hadn’t my mother and I done exactly that after the little incident with the sixteen-year girl in Salt Lake City? I mean, how was I supposed to know she was only sixteen? Not that it mattered. That temptress deserved to die, too. She was just another whore.

After passing by the accordion player for the eighth time, I looked toward Camilla’s again.

“Why the fuck haven’t they left yet?” I said under my breath.

As soon as I uttered the words, Gianna and her new boy toy exited through the front door. I watched her fiddle with the lock for a moment before they walked hand in hand up the street.

Hand-in-fucking-hand.

Whore. Slut.

They stopped at the street corner and he put his arms around her. My fists clenched as I watched him kiss her—kiss my girl—as if she was his to have. The worst part was watching her kiss him back. I wasn’t sure if she’d ever kissed me that way. Her small hands were in his hair, weaving through it like he was a fucking loom for her own personal tapestry. Painful nausea roiled in my stomach, and I felt the urge to vomit.

“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”

Gianna was defiling our marriage bed—our sacred vows.

“May fire and sulfur rain from heaven and destroy you both,” I quietly hissed.

An Uber pulled up to the curb next to them, but they took their sweet time getting in, too busy with their disgusting public display of affection. I couldn’t help wondering where they were going after this. Stepping out to the street, I kept my head low and raised an arm to hail a cab. The rain was beginning to fall harder now, and I rushed to climb inside.

“I want you to follow that Uber,” I told the cabbie, pointing to the silver Toyota my girl and the musclehead were getting into. The driver looked at me questioningly.

“Follow it?” he said in a heavy Indian accent.

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