My Soldier: A Miliatary Romance (21 page)

His head tipped back, the most malicious laughter leaving his lips. “I don't need to be reminded. Besides, Sweetheart, he's actually lucky he left this earth the way he did.” Lowering my dog, he slid across my floor, feet barely making a sound. And I was finally able to breathe again, he was free. “Because what I had planned for him was not nearly as easy. The only reason you're still alive is because it wasn't your debt to begin with.”

“You're fucking sick, you bastard. Why can't you just take what I already gave you and leave me alone?”

Vito picked at his nails, holding his hand out and twisting his fingers in front of his face.

“Damn your brother's love of my whores, right? He's the one you should really be cursing and calling names. He just couldn't get enough of fucking all the high class cunts I could throw his way. And he always added extra bruises to my girls. Ones I didn't give him permission for.” His shoulder raised up, false concern mixed in his tone. “You know, I think he had a problem. Did he always like to get a little rough when he fucked? Or was that just something you guys did together as children, and he wanted to relive his youth?”

“Fuck you.” The strength in my voice surprised me, and with one long stride he was inches from my face.

Vito's hand lashed out and grabbed my throat, squeezing tighter and tighter like he was trying to pop my head clear off my neck.

“Tonight... Tonight you finally realize how serious I am. I was tired of waiting for your brother to come home, and now I'm tired of waiting for you. This will be your last warning, I want my money. And if you don't get me it, you'll be laying inches from your precious Kevin.”

The room began to change, the edges of my vision turning fuzzy. But his eyes, his eyes were what scared me.

Vito's lids were stretched to thin strips around the white, the black centers a solid mass of fire.

Tearing at his hand, my fingers ached to ease his grip. The warmth of his blood as I scraped his flesh coated my hands, and Vito went unfazed. His glaring eyes fixed on my airless face.

I needed to breathe, needed the life pushed back into my lungs. And for a brief moment, I wondered if this was it.

Would this be how I went?

Death by a tyrant who only cared about what was going into his pockets, not about life, or the price you actually paid for living.

Money for the escorts he sent to my brother, that was what fueled his rage.

Dropping his hand, my knees buckled and I fell to the floor. My chest was tight, rapidly pulling in the oxygen around me.

Looking up at the evil hovering above me, everything was moving in slow motion. I had lost control of the situation, not that I really had any to begin with.

That was all part of his game, he wanted me to believe I had some form of control.

Vito pulled his hand back, releasing it in one quick snap. My cheek burst into a million tiny bee stings, pulsing and throbbing.

Before I had time to react, he followed it with another. The second... A fist, a closed fist to my eye.

Is this really happening right now!?

Shock had taken over, each repeated blow seemed to be happening to someone else; but not to me.

I was looking down on my body, hands trying to cover my face as he rained punch after punch onto me. And I couldn't stop it, it all happened so fast.

I had underestimated how brutal and unforgiving that man was. I guess I never actually thought he would physically harm me.

Wrong, I was wrong again.

He was a human that was fed by dark desire, greed, and fear. The fear he stabbed into others.

And when I should have felt fear, I felt rage.

The flame ignited inside my gut, the furnace was lit. And as pissed as he was, I was a black hole, ready to vaporize the existence of the waste of life before me.

Leaning over my worn and tattered frame, Vito smiled. The darkest, most sinister of smiles. His lips grew thin, tongue dragging over the razor's edge. “I'll be coming back soon to collect what's mine. Don't make this mistake again, don't make this any harder on yourself, Babe.”

And even then, I couldn't stop the words from cutting the surface. “You're going to regret this you piece of shit. Even if I have to kill you myself.”

My mouth tasted like metal, iron thick saliva filled my throat. Swallowing hard, the only sound was his chuckle as he closed the door.

He went too far.

Falling to my back, I laid on the floor, unable to move. My face was beating as if there was a heart under every inch of flesh.

A high-pitched hum was ringing in my ears, and my left eye was puffing out, lid closing tighter with each blink.

Fuck, I need to go to the hospital.

Pulling myself off the floor, I kept thinking about Levi. His promise of protection.

I needed him. Protection from the hands of a monster...

Protection from myself and what I might do.

Avni

T
he huffing and puffing of voices filled the hall outside the door. “How is she? Is she okay?” The worried, panic filled voice of my mother floated into the room.

“Yes, Mrs. Boyd, Avni's fine. She's a bit bruised and banged up, but she'll be fine.” The flip of papers filled my ears. “She needs to take it easy for a few weeks, her left eye is extremely swollen. I'm hoping there's no lasting damage to her optic nerve, but we won't know for sure till the swelling goes down. There's bruising to her face, she has two cracked ribs, and she needed stitches in her lower lip.”

My mother let out a loud gasp, the rush of air whirled around me as her head broke through the curtain. “Avni? Oh my God, Avni.” Her hands swept her mouth, eyes giving way to streams of tears.

“I'm alright, Mom. It looks worse than it is.” My mother collapsed at the side of my bed, gripping my hand with a death hold.

Muscling up a half smile, I tried to put on a brave face. Watching the way her frame seemed to shake with worry and concern, I wanted to ease her the best I could.

“What happened? Who did this to you?” Her hand brushed my hair away from my face as she stared at me with loving and painful eyes. The crystal blue of her gaze was weathered, crinkles forming in the corners.

“I was robbed and attacked outside my apartment.”

I lied.

There was no way I could tell her the truth. Her feeble and weak heart couldn't handle that type of news.

The pain and stress she'd dealt with over the years had already forced her to look much older than she was.

How do you tell your mother that you were beat up over money that her saint of a son had owed from using prostitutes; prostitutes that he sometimes got too rough with when he lost control, when he got caught up in the moment?

How would that go over?

How do you explain that he promised that evil son of a bitch pockets full of cash when he returned from war, only to never make it home?

And that the man hunted your daughter down the day of Kevin's funeral to hold her accountable for his debt?

How?

I couldn't, it would kill her again. She'd die just like she did the day the Army came to inform us of his demise.

For her to find out her son had an addiction to sex; to dirty, violent sex, that he indulged himself with to the point he drained his bank account, and still owed ten grand to an evil, manipulative maniac...

Whatever piece of her soul still held onto her son would be smashed to bits.

I wouldn't do that to her and my father.

Or to Kevin. He was my brother, and I loved him regardless of his demons.

“Oh, Avni, see? I knew you shouldn't have moved out. It's not safe to be a single woman living on her own. I'm just so glad you're alright.” She squeezed my fingers, sending a sharp pain through my arm.

When I got to the hospital, I found out there was a lot more damage than I thought.

In the chaos of Vito pummeling me on the floor, he had broken three of my fingers. I was sure it happened during my attempts to block his hits. I had a split lip, that resulted in five stitches, and a hemorrhage to my right cheek, which also had two hair-line fractures.

And in the mess of him beating me down, there must have been a kick. According to the doctor, my broken ribs resulted from a serious hard blow.

But with the adrenaline rushing in that moment of horror, I didn't feel any of it.

Overall, I looked like I had been hit by a car and taken for a spin under the wheel. Every inch of my body was sore, but my face was a giant pulsating pile of pain.

Oh and there's something else...

Not yet, now is not the time.

“I'll be fine, Mom. But my meals are going to be shit for awhile, huh?” I tried to laugh, the fake chuckle escaping by force.

Her eyes opened wide, shining with a spark of humor as her lip lifted into a crescent moon. “I'm glad you can humor yourself, but your meals have been shit unless you were eating at home anyway.” Rubbing my arm, she pulled the universal staple of a hospital blanket higher on my chest.

“Please don't make me laugh too hard, it hurts.” Letting my eyes close, I tried to wish the intense pain away. Only to start hitting the red button on my bed to signal the nurses I needed more pain medication.

Wishing wasn't doing shit.

“Excuse me, Ms. Boyd, this is Detective West.” Dr. Creed was standing next to an older man, dressed in a deep black suit. “He would like to ask you a few questions, if you feel up to it.”

The detective cut in, holding up his leather wallet, and letting it flop open to display his shiny silver badge. “Ms. Boyd, it really would be best if we did this now. Especially while it's all still fresh. I don't want to bombard you with questions, I know you're in pain. But if we're going to catch this guy, we need any info you can give us.”

You're not going to catch him, because I can't tell you the truth.

Nodding my head, I asked, “Can my mother stay?”

“It's up to you. Do you think she'll be able to handle hearing the whole story? Mrs. Boyd, I don't mean to talk like you're not here, but this is up to your daughter.”

Looking at my mom, she had an uncomfortable glare in her eyes. I don't even think she  knew if she could handle hearing what happened.

Not that what I was going to tell the detective was even going to remotely be close to the true story.

“Mom, do you want to stay?”

Pursing her lips, she said, “You know, I think I'll go talk with the doctor, find out about what you're going to need once they release you.” Standing, she played with the edges of my crusty, crimson coated hair. “Unless you want me to stay, Honey. I'll stay if you need me to.”

Shaking my head no, I smiled. “No, I'll be fine. Go talk to Dr. Creed. He'll make you feel better anyway.”

Tossing me one last smile with her eyes, she kissed my forehead, and stepped out of the room.

Detective West flipped open a small notepad, tugging a pen from behind his ear. His hair was peppered with black and gray, a trace of youthfulness still hung on his face.

I wondered if he was actually younger than I pegged him for, one of those men that go gray much sooner in life.

Flattening his tie against his chest, he pointed to a chair at my side. “May I?”

“Yeah, help yourself.” I mumbled out, my voice a shade deeper than usual. My throat was dry and scratchy, the small ice chips the nurses left on my tray did nothing to quench the desert in my throat.

“Okay, so let's start at the beginning. What time did you get home? Where were you coming from? Run me through your night up to the attack.”

In that moment, I thanked my parents for having more than one child. Having grown up with a brother like mine, fibbing became second nature. I had learned early on how to falsify silly stories to get him in trouble, or get me out of trouble.

Another thing I suddenly missed, and my heart began to hurt more than my body.

“Well, I came home from work about eleven-thirty. Nothing seemed unusual, I gathered my things together in the car before getting out. Then I started up to my door, when a guy came running out of nowhere.”

The detective nodded attentively, jotting notes on the paper.

Imaginary notes I'm creating on the spot.

Mostly on the spot, I had of course given myself a pre-story before calling for the ambulance.

“Then what happened? Did he come at you from behind?” Holding his pen, Detective West sat in a momentary state of suspension. His finger eagerly tapped the pen, staring at me for more information.

“Honestly I'm not too sure, I caught a quick flash over my shoulder. But he hit me so hard I fell to the ground, I can't say for sure if he was behind or to the side.”

His hand moved wildly against the white lined tablet he wrote on. “Then what?”

“He hit me a few times, then yelled for money. I didn't have any, so he beat on me a few more times. How much, again I'm not sure. At that point everything went into slow motion, and I blacked out.”

“Did you ever see his face? Any identifying marks?”

Yeah, he was a weaselly looking man. Mustache, sinister stare, royal dick.

“No, I didn't get a good look at him.”

“What about a car? Did he get into one when he left?”

“I'm not sure, I blacked out. I woke up on the sidewalk, and he was gone.”

“No one else saw anything? Were there any other witnesses?” His mouth contorted into a warped figure eight.

Is he buying it?

It was hard to tell. He wasn't really giving me anything to go on. His facial expression was a torrent of hard and soft stares, he fiddled with his notepad, shifted in his seat.

I wasn't sure if he was questioning my story inside. But I stayed as calm as I could, firm in my words and actions of the night.

“I don't know, no one came running to help. So I'm assuming not. Shit, if they did and just kept going after seeing some fucker beating a woman, then hell has a special place in it for them.”

Hell has a special place for Vito. And so help me if I get the chance, he's going to meet his maker.

I had never felt so angry or enraged in my life. He had turned me into a walking hand grenade. And I was ready to pull the pin, give him a taste of his own medicine.