Page 79 of The Italian Reckoning
Not Rocky.
It’s not fucking Rocky.
“Bobby?” I choke out, almost making the word audible.
A cold smile creeps across Bobby’s lips and he massages his beard, pressing his fingers into his jaw while tossing the motorcycle helmet aside. Three fresh, red scratches score red lines down his left cheek. “How the fuck does he stand it, getting his head squashed by that fucking thing?” he mutters.
Bobby.
What thefuck.
Bobby. Coffee guy Bobby. Sweet, funny, calm Bobby who knows my order by heart and gives me free pastries, is standing over me,laughingwhile complaining about Rocky’s helmet.
Two things hit me at once.
The first is that if Bobby has Rocky's bike and helmet, does that mean Rocky’s dead? Did he kill him and steal them? I can’t picture Rocky giving any of that up willingly.
The second thought strikes me like a jolt of lightning or the sharp spark of static electricity from a fluffy cardigan.
I recognize him.
In a blink, I’m back in that dank cellar with the stink of blood and dirt clogging my dying lungs as I try to breathe but can’t. The plastic over my face is wrapped so perfectly tightly that there’s no room for anything but death while Bobby’s face floats in front of me. He caresses my cheek and gleefully watches me die.
I remember.
I remember him.
Holy fuckingshit, how is this real right now?
It's difficult to gather coherent thoughts between the flood of memories and my rising panic. Everything’s jumbling together and once the tears start, they don’t stop.
Bobby leans forward and then, to my horror, he leans down and drags his disgusting tongue from the leather muzzling me up my cheek to my eye. I try to twist away from him with a muffled sob of disgust, but there’s nowhere for me to go and I’m trapped as he repeats it on the other side of my face. He licks up my tears with a moan and bile burns the base of my throat.
“Do you remember me yet?” he asks softly when we’re nose to nose. “You do, don’t you?”
Cold terror creeps up from my gut as understanding dawns on me. All this time, he was right there. Watching me. Befriending me. Reveling in the fact that I couldn’t recognizehim. I even discussed the details of the case with him because I thought he was a friend.
“The first time I saw you after I escaped, I thought I was seeing a ghost.” Bobby chuckles. “You survived. I killed you and yet youlived. And more than that, you didn’t know who I was. You looked me right in the eye and kept on walking. I knew then that you were special, Sarah. That you and I had an unbreakable bond.”
He presses his disgusting lips to the leather strap covering my mouth and then leans up. A blade glints in his left hand and my heart leaps painfully.
“I wanted to get to know you. Wanted to understand how I looked in your eyes as you died and yet you were still here, walking among us. Like some kind of angel.” He smiles proudly and cups my cheek with the scalpel gleaming in the light. “Don’t worry, I won’t make any mistakes this time. But it’s been some years since we were last…intimate. You don’t mind, do you?” Bobby waggles the scalpel in his fingers and laughs. “Of course you don’t.”
The first tear of that scalpel through my shirt jolts me right back into the depths of my buried, terrified memories when he stood over me with the same tool in hand and cut my clothes aggressively from my body while ranting about the failures of the police force.
The scalpel nicks my ribs and pain jolts me back to the present with a stifled gasp.
“Sorry.” He chuckles, dragging his rough thumb over the small scratch. “I got a little eager. We’re not there yet. Foreplay is important. And given all the time you gave me, Sarah, it’s only fair that I return the attention. Did you like the gifts I left for you? I was worried you wouldn’t get the second one. Took you a little longer, hmm?”
Fabric rips like butter under the skilled movements of his scalpel. Piece by piece, he cuts my shirt from my body and drags the remaining shreds out from under me. My leggings are next and each time his rough hand grazes my thighs, bile threatens to surge up my throat.
I can’t stop crying. Breathing is barely even possible through the terror flooding my chest, and each flinch away from him just makes him grip me tighter. But my flinches are involuntary. My body remembers just as much as my mind does. Each cut and slice flashes me back to when I was last under his blade. He was angrier back then and much more performative.
This time, he’s slow.
“Oh, baby, don’t cry.” Bobby leans over me and grasps my chin with one hand. “I’m going to make you the best one, understand? My final piece. The other two were the lead up, and the third was supposed to make a triangle, but the bitch got away.” Anger leaks into his tone and when he slides the scalpel through my bra, severing the small boning keeping the cups together, the blade cuts into my skin.
He doesn’t apologize this time, instead focusing on cutting the straps until my bra is removed. My stomach recoils in horror as he grabs a handful of my naked breast and grins. “Still as beautiful as ever.”
