Page 104 of Brutal Devil

Disappointment slides through me.

I click again, and the folder with all my writing opens.

Everything is still here, thank God. I open my most recent document, a poem I was working on when the call came in from my father. My father who’s now gone.

The poem is eerily prescient, tackling the swiftness of life passing by. It was the culmination of my emotions after watching the same elderly couple holding hands on a park bench. For weeks, they showed up every Tuesday and Thursday, enjoying the shade of a wizened oak tree. Their love had been palpable.

And then, one Tuesday, only the man had been on the bench, looking lost and alone. The same on that Thursday and the next week and the several that had followed until I reached the only logical conclusion.

The wife had died.

And the husband still came to the same bench, sitting in the shade of the same oak tree. Remembering. Somehow carrying on when his other half was gone.

In the craziness of the last few weeks, I’d forgotten that I never finished the poem. With a deep breath, I settle my fingers on the keyboard.

Time to get it done.

An hour later when I type the last line, I notice a smear of blood on the desk that I’d overlooked until now.

I think about Priest’s raw hands.

And then I wonder if he really did build this office just for me, before I tell myself it doesn’t matter anyway. He’s made the wayhe feels about me clear. We’re never going to have a love story like that couple on the park bench.

Priest

“You going to tell us everything you know, or are you going to make this more difficult than it needs to be?” I ask the Revello soldier who’s bound to a chair before me.

We’re in one of our downtown warehouses where it’s easy to bring guys for questioning. Or torturing. I may be the don now instead of the confessor, but I’m in the mood to draw blood this morning.

I haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours, my wife hates me, and this piece of shit is keeping a secret that would help us get the answers we need.

“I’m telling you, I don’t know anything,” the guy says, eyes wide with fear. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

I pull my favorite knife from my pocket and hit the switch with my thumb. The blade juts out, menacing and sharp.

“Let’s not lie now, Carlo. I think we both know why you’re here.”

He starts sweating as I drag the tip of the knife along his throat. A little pressure, and a thin bead of blood appears.

“Please,” he begs. “Don’t torture me. I didn’t do anything wrong. I swear it on my mother’s grave.”

“Carlo, Carlo, Carlo,” I chide calmly, digging the knife in a bit more. “First of all, your mother’s not dead. But that can be arranged if you don’t want to cooperate. And second, we both know that you were working with my cousin Antonio, running an underground casino on the sly.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

More blood trickles down.

I make a shallow cut, starting under one ear and ending beneath the other.

“Fuck,” he cries out. “Okay, okay. I was running an underground gambling outfit with Antonio.”

“In Bratva territory,” I add, keeping the knife to his throat.

“Yes,” he agrees.

“Did you know it was Bratva territory when you started?” Saint asks.

Before Carlo can answer, Saint puts a bullet in his kneecap.