Page 2 of Axel

She’swhat I need.

Not this.

This annoys me.

If I want to chase Ruby this morning, I’ll have to forgo sleep. It’s four a.m., and murdering this asshole is really fucking with my stalking routine.

Donald Ashcroft squirms in the chair I’ve tied him to, fighting the rope I’ve used to restrain him. It’ll eventually break with his force, but not before I burn him alive.

“So tell me, is it just helpless old women you abuse?” I lift the metal spout to a paper can of salt, and his eyes widen with fear. “Or when we empty your loaded bank accounts, will we find more than four victims?”

His protest is muffled by the saline-soaked bandana I’ve stuffed over his busted lips. I punched him in the mouth so many times I lost count. I just wanted him to taste the saying about salt in a wound.

Getting creative with our punishment is part of the thrill. If not, justice gets quite boring.

“What was that, you say?” I hold a finger to my ear. “You have a little dick, so you compensate with violence? You’re one ofthosemen?”

“Frrrrgh ohhh.” His curse is hysterically muffled.

Yes, I hear the irony. But there’s nothing little about me, and this isn’t violence. This is vengeance.

“I get it. It’s hard to talk when your tongue is two inches thick.”

I teeter the can of salt over his bleeding bare feet that I bound to the front legs of the chair. I twisted them, exposing the damage I inflicted. It’s a trick of the trade I learned in the most excruciating way.

If you want to trap someone? Mutilate their feet. It makes escape virtually impossible.

“But at least you’ll die with something of a decent size on you.” I wink, pouring a stream of white granules over his bloodstained soles.

His howls are swallowed by the cotton in his mouth, and for a moment, empathy whips through me. Memories, too.

But fuck that.

This man has stolen thousands from four elderly women, the tenants in this dilapidated double duplex north of town. He’s trapped them in leases they can’t afford to break. He’sstolen their checkbooks and committed elder fraud and abuse. Then, he beat Ms. Patel, my client, when she threatened to call the police.

I wanted to murder him that day, but I’m not an impulsive man.

It took a week for my brothers and me to plan our justice. Not like we don’t have enough shit going on with catching a ruthless sex trafficker, too, but I insisted on this side gig.

While Ashcroft writhes in pain, I turn and set cans of cooking spray into a rusty microwave in the crumbling kitchen. Then, I turn on a gas burner to the old stove. Conditions like these are illegal to rent. But since when does justice find the poor? The most vulnerable?

Since us.

Since me and my brothers.

We found the elderly tenants new homes. Safe and affordable ones, while this one will look like it perished in a kitchen fire, along with its slumlord.

Do I worry that Ashcroft’s pain is oddly satisfying? That his blood is my balm?

Maybe it’s inmyblood. Maybe I’m just like my father, who kidnapped, raped, imprisoned, and forced my mother to marry him at fourteen? Did I learn his brutal Bratva tactics and torture by watching? Or does it lurk in my DNA?

Men like Ashcroft aren’t worth my time considering it.

I just press the buttons on the microwave and have three minutes to escape before this shithole explodes.

“This is for Ms. Greene, Ms. Craig, Ms. Eagle, and Ms. Patel.” I turn back, smirking at his frantic eyes. “Now you know better than to fuck with women. Karmaisa bitch,” I open the side door, calling over my shoulder, “and I’m her son.”

The door closes behind me as I tug my baseball hat downfor any watching eyes, but still, I smile. Concern. Guilt. Remorse. Nope. I don’t feel them.

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