Page 92 of Hearts Held

As my Baba would say,Make the mistake and accept the consequences of your actions. Dumbass.

I smile, thinking of her sweet face, sassy attitude and long white hair.

She would enjoy the sight of this sweet revenge. I can’t wait to tell her about it after.

Crouching down in front of the head chef, I meet him eye to eye, but stay two feet away in case he tries anything. Chaos erupts from the dining room.

“Wh-what did you do?” he stammers, eyes increasingly unfocused and glazed. His large form sways in a tiny circle as he sits on the floor.

I simply reply, “Carnage,” then give a slow, wicked smile. “You loved your ‘prized risotto’somuch, I had to add a little bit more flavor. It was lacking some hallucinogens.” His eyes go wide at my wicked smile.

I stand and begin to walk away from a distraught chef, then remember one detail I didn’t share, so turn back around.

“Oh, I almost forgot. The secret recipe for the truffle balsamic didn’t just include heroin and a fuckton of crushed mushrooms , but that extra-creamy white sauce was an addition from…well. Myself.” I wink at him as he realizes what I just explained, then turns to the side and heaves.

As I move toward the metal double doors, the last man remaining in the room comes running towards me.

Poor decision.

I fling out one of the metal skewers hidden in my pocket and thrust it into his eye socket. His scream fills the kitchen alongside the heaving sounds from the vomiting chef.

I spy one of the hot, cast-iron skillets cooling on the back burner of the stainless-steel ovens.

Tilting my head, I think of an interesting way to use it as a melee device.

As I turn back toward my victim, I see he appears to have pulled out the metal skewer from his eye socket. Blood drips down to his white chef’s uniform.

I gasp mockingly and scowl deeply.

“You feckin’ bellend, that’s going to make the situation worse!” I proceed to swing the cast iron like a bat toward his face, then become overzealous. Repeatedly, I beat the cast iron skillet into his skull, humming the Beethoven I was listening to earlier and swinging the pan to the beat, until blood spatters on my face.

I cackle with relief, then walk back toward the double doors to witness the carnage I’ve created.

Oh, it’s glorious.

I stretch both hands out, one still holding the cast-iron skillet, ignoring the heat from the handle, and begin using the skillet as an orchestra conductor’s baton.

The Italian mafioso are going nuts!

It’s better than I could have ever imagined.

All of these well-dressed, three-piece suit motherfuckers have been reduced to animalistic panic.

Two men are digging their thumbs into either eye socket, exclaiming profanities and Italian jargon.

One man is crawling around the floor while being bitten by snakes. As he mumbles to himself, God knows what he is envisioning.

I’d preset a wonderful steel cage holding twenty adders. It awaited the chaos underneath the vast, gaudy dinner table, and once the timed lock set them free, those lovely serpents went on a full-blown spree.

Running up to one gentleman, I place an iconic gray messenger hat atop his head, then scream frantically, “It’s an Afton Adder!? It’s an Afton, get ’em!” in a terrible Italian accent. Then I slowly recede to the edge of the room and watch in as two of the drugged-out men tackle the poor bloke to the floor and begin kicking, screaming, punching and even biting him.

Relentless.

I relish my work from the far corner, watching the carnage as these drugged-out Italians rip one another apart, either envisioning one another as Afton Adders or terrible, nightmarish monsters from their hallucinogenic adventure.

The yelling crescendos with the music playing in the recesses of my mind.

Ah, that’s what’s missing.Music!