Page 82 of Love Me Darkly
“You’ll be the first UNSUB I bring in in pieces,” Mateo growled, curling his fingers and scraping the wood. It splintered and stabbed beneath his fingernails, drawing blood. “By the time I’m done with you, they’ll be cleaning up your remains with a mop and picking up your teeth with a pair of tweezers!”
“Do you think she’ll cry out for you? Mari did.”
“I will cut you open from your throat to your groin and make you eat your own intestines!”
“She screamed so beautifully for me, Agent, the most soul-stirring notes I’ve ever heard. Like the soprano’s aria of an opera. I nearly came just from the sound of it.”
Mateo lowered his head, choking down bile. His stomach heaved and burned as he was methodically ripped apart and strewn into the wind. He could hear Mari’s screams echoing in his mind, as real as if he’d been there to hear them. As real as they had been in his nightmares.
“Angelica won’t scream,” the UNSUB taunted, his voice now taking on a slow, hypnotizing quality. “Not for long. I rather fancy the sound of her gasping and choking, fighting so valiantly for that very last breath as I strangle her from a garrote made of a pretty pink ribbon.”
Something within Mateo ignited, and he lashed out at the first thing he got his hands on. The phone went flying across the room, crashing into the wall.
“The blade is not punishment, but invocation,” the UNSUB went on, his voice dropping back to that soft, soothing tone. “The first cut is sacred; a hymn sung in red. Pain is the chorus by which the soul remembers its origin. For it is through rupture that the vessel is made ready. And what a beautiful, perfect vessel your little girl will be.”
With an animalistic howl scorching his throat, Mateo flipped the desk, denting the wall, then battered it with a flurry of kicks.
“No!” he bellowed. “No, no, no!”
He stumbled blindly through the room, fists swinging, fury and helplessness unfurling from his middle in a torrent. He tore a lamp from the wall and threw it through the window in a shattering of glass. The wall trembled under his fists, apple-sized holes appearing everywhere he struck, sending up bits of plaster and flecks of blood. A mirror showed him his reflection, demented and tortured, mocking. He drove his fist into it, shattering it, then snatched it off the wall and beat it to pieces against the nightstand. He roared like a beast, pouring out every ounce of his anger and grief. He fell against the dresser, sweeping out one arm to send the T.V. crashing to the floor. He gulped mouthfuls of precious air, his throat raw and his chest on fire. He trembled, sinking toward the floor, hands grappling for purchase. His knees hit the carpet, and he fell forward, resting his forehead against the drawer he had abused until it hung crooked on its track. He raised a fist and let it fall weakly, sobbing out another ragged, “No.”
A knock sounded on his door and a raised voice came at him, muffled. He blinked, registered the first hot splash of tears. There were more of them, wetting his face and dampening the collar of his shirt. His shoulders heaved from the sobs he fought to contain, certain that once he let them out, he might never stop weeping.
His eyes fell to the phone, lying near the wall it had crashed against. The screen was shattered, marred by pixelated lines and dots of color. Mateo went down on his hands and knees, too weak to even lift his head, and he shuffled through splinters of wood and broken glass. Blood trickled from his knuckles to stain the carpet. The tears that fell from his eyes stung the cuts and abrasions there with their salt. He nearly went facedown on the carpet, but managed to turn and prop himself against the wall, lifting the phone with a shaking hand. Through the ruined screen, he could see that the call was still active. For a long moment, only breathing came from the other end of the long. Soft and slow. Eerie.
Then, a series of twenty-four clicks before the UNSUB spoke again.
“Let the Seal be opened in blood. The Silence be sung. Let the vessel break. Now you understand what game we’re playing, Agent. Up to now, I’ve been three steps ahead of you. This is your only warning—forfeit or be destroyed. It is the only offer you’re going to get.”
Mateo rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes. His breaths had begun to slow, even as the strength continued to leech out of him. Every fiber of his being focused itself on keeping him alive, drawing breath, in and out.
“I’ve got a counteroffer for you,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. Yet he knew the UNSUB heard every single word. “Run, you motherfucker. Run and keep running until you reach the end of the fucking world, and even then it won’t be far enough to put you out of my reach. I will not rest until we’re eye to eye while I break you open, rib by rib, and cut your heart out.”
The UNSUB chuckled again. Another three clicks. And then, “Have it your way, Agent. Good luck.”
“Love is both the blade and the wound, and Azrael writes that such endings are only beginnings in disguise.”
Mateo swayed on his feet as he was led past a row of holding cells, into the bay of desks where NOPD’s finest gathered around to gawk at him. At least they’d let him take this walk without handcuffs. This would be his second walk of shame, the first having occurred late last night when he’d been arrested. The manager of the Marriott Bonvoy had called the police after reports of his violent outburst. After scraping himself off the floor, Mateo had staggered over to the door and swung it open to find an officer with his gun drawn. Resigned, he had raised his hands with a sigh before clasping them at the back of his head.
He'd been cuffed, patted down, and shoved into the back of a squad car. Only after arriving at the station, where he had revealed his identity as a federal agent, had they tended to his bruised and battered knuckles. He had used his one phone call to inform Smith of his whereabouts. The agent hadn’t reacted to Mateo’s announcement that he was being held at the Orleans Justice Center.
He had simply grunted, “Have you out by morning.”
Mateo had been thrown in isolation and left to rot overnight, after threats of charges like destruction of property and disorderly conduct. Mateo didn’t have it in him to try to explain what had led to his meltdown, not that these officers would understand. He wouldn’t explain himself to anyone but the people responsible for his fate—and he wouldn’t have to face them until he was bailed out.
He'd spent the night laid on a rough cot in the corner of his cell, staring blankly at the ceiling. Surprisingly, his mind had gone quiet, eased by the silence and solitude of his current location. There was nowhere for him to go, nothing for him to do but wait and breathe. He closed his eyes but didn’t sleep, sinking into darkness and fighting off images and voices. By the time morning came and his cell clanged open to free him, Mateo had gone completely numb. All of his rage, all of his helplessness, all of his grief, had been poured out on that hotel room floor. He had purged it from him in a volcanic burst, and now he’d been left cold. Dead inside.
As he was led toward a row of interrogation rooms, Mateo steeled himself for the upcoming confrontation. He was going to have to talk fast and use his powers of persuasion to keep hold of his position as the lead on this case. He had acted with conduct unbecoming of a federal agent. He’d trashed his hotel room like a rowdy frat boy and left a smudge on the bureau’s name. He wasn’t stupid enough to think he wouldn’t have to answer for it, but hoped he would be allowed to stay in New Orleans.
Because solving this case, finding this UNSUB, was the one thing driving him. The one thing that should have held his attention this entire time. He couldn’t stop now.
Mateo was pushed into one of the rooms and then the door slammed behind him, leaving him with the last person he had expected, but the one person he ought to have known would come. She had to have taken an early flight, but was immaculately put together in a black power suit and crisp white blouse, her manicured hands folded in front of her. The dark circles under her sharp blue eyes were the only hint that she was anything other than composed. Mateo supposed he was mostly responsible for any recent sleepless nights.
“Ma’am,” he muttered, falling into the chair across from her. “I didn’t expect you to make the trip all the way down here.
Carlisle stared at him over the frames of her glasses for a moment before responding. “I came all the way down here so that you could look me in the eye while you try to convince me not to snatch you off this case, send you back to D.C., and chain you to a desk for the next six months.”
Mateo sighed and closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted beyond words. He couldn’t find the passion within himself to argue with or cajole her. He simply rattled off the facts.
