Page 25 of Reaper
Am I just going to repeat my sister’s mistakes? To ignore every warning of my heart and mind and let myself give in to Ricky’s charms?
No.
I can’t stand here. Can’t spend another second in his fucking presence. I have to get away. Have to get away from where my lie hangs in the air like a grim reminder of my failure. Have to get away from that man who stands watching me, a living, breathing reminder of all the death and pain my sister and I have suffered, looming over there like the grinning reaper himself.
That’s what he is. The fucking Reaper.
But I won’t let him take me.
I storm into the cafe, slamming the door behind me so loud that all the truckers, even the bleary-eyed one in the corner who’s clearly on the comedown from too much illegal stimulants — meth, probably — looks up at me, startled.
“I want your least shitty whiskey right fucking now,” I yell out to no one in particular before hurling myself into a booth and praying that my alcohol gets here before Ricky DeMarco —no, I can’t call him that, I can’t fucking humanize that monster— gets here.
The door opens. That murderous bastard enters, and my whiskey — delivered by a server who looks so beaten down by life that it’s a miracle he’s here and not in the center of the earth — barely beats him to the table. I down it in a gulp, and bark at the server’s back as he scurries away. “Another.”
“This isn’t the time to get drunk,” he says.
“Such sage advice from the Reaper himself.”
“Who? What the hell are you talking about?”
The whiskey arrives, this time in a soda glass filled halfway. I make a note to leave a nice tip for the server.
“You. It’s you. You took my sister from me. She’s dead because she met the fucking Reaper.” My words would sound a lot more convincing if I weren’t crying and dribbling cheap whiskey out of the corner of my mouth like some intoxicated toddler.
“What’s gotten into you?”
“I’m just reminding myself of the truth, that’s all.”
More like desperately trying to convince myself of what I need to believe. What I have to believe to keep my entire world from crumbling.
Even if my heart and mind both tell me otherwise.
And where does that leave me? What have I done with my life over a lie?
Sure, Ricky ‘Reaper’ DeMarco still maintains that he’s the one who killed Vanessa. That she’s dead because of him. But I have ears, I have eyes, I have a heart, I have a functioning, semi-intoxicated mind, and all of them have witnessed enough to make me question his story.
My hand is shaking, and it’s only partly because this whiskey — of which I’m now on my third glass, thanks to the attentive server — kicks like a horse and tastes like horseshit smells on a hot August day.
“You need to get ahold of yourself. We’ve got to figure out how to take care of Ruslan Volkov and get him off your back so you can do what you came here to do,” Ricky ‘Reaper’ DeMarco says.
I finish the whiskey and put the glass face down on the table.
I’m sick of the doubt, I’m sick of wondering if I’ve done the right thing, I’m sick of waiting.
“Fuck that.”
“What?”
“Fuck dealing with the Russians.”
“I will not let you go the rest of your life with a pack of fucking Bratva after you.”
“I don’t give a shit. I’m drunk, I’m angry, and I’ve got a date with the fucking Reaper.”
“Adriana — ”
“That’s you, by the way. You’re the fucking Reaper who took my sister from me. I’m ready to do this now. I don’t give afuck about the Russians. Bring them on. I’m tired of doubting, waiting, wondering. I just want this over with.”
