Page 56 of Like An Animal

THE SHADOW

I watched as every single one of those pedophiles, sans Isaac, met their demise. It took half the night and though it was satisfying to listen to their screams and watch the bloodshed, it did nothing to make me feel less guilty about what my wife went through at their hands.

I still feel like I’m responsible for this, even though most of it happened before I met her.

It was my responsibility to protect her and some of this still happened under my watch. She can say differently but I still failed.

I take Bronwyn’s hand as I guide her down into the basement where all of my prisoners are being held. Cheryl follows close behind her as we make our way into the damp space.

I’ve kept Bron and Charlotte out of here intentionally, but she asked to be involved in Isaac’s demise and to watch Dimitri’s death.

“Are you sure?” I ask her one last time. This is her chance to back out but she slowly nods.

“I’m not backing out. This isn’t my first time, Jer.”

I smirk at her response. That’s true. She watched me obliterate her ex-husband who tried to kill her and barely blinked. She has a strong stomach.

Nikolai walks out of a corner, blood soaking down the front of his shirt, and strolls right over to us.

“I took care of the guards. All that’s left is Dimitri and Isaac.

” His gaze shifts to Cheryl as she looks around, anxious as hell.

Then, their eyes lock, but it only lasts for a minute, some strange understanding passing between them. His hard gaze turns to me.

“Nikolai, this is Bronwyn, my wife,” I introduce them. “And this is her aunt, Cheryl. We just got back from Texas. They had to stay at the hospital after everything at The Fathers’ compound.”

Nikolai nods before giving Bron a rare smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Borza. I wish it was under better circumstances.”

“Jeremy!” A scream echoes through the air and Bronwyn jumps from the sudden noise.

“I swear, he never learned when to shut his big mouth. It’s like he thinks you’ll save him, Borza,” Nikolai mutters with irritation.

“Do you have him near the tank?” I ask, my wife’s gaze snapping between us as we talk.

“I figured we’d use his own torture method against him.”

“Tank? What kind of tank?” Bron presses, but Nikolai just smirks at her.

“Come on. I’ll show you.”

All four of us walk around the corner to the far end where a massive above ground pool sits with steps that lead to a deck that surrounds the pool.

Three fins poke out of the water. The exterior is made of shatterproof glass so no matter how much the inhabitants ram it, it won’t break. And, what’s inside it? Sharks.

Big fucking sharks.

“A shark tank?” My wife gasps in shock.

“It wasn’t my idea. Dimitri had it here before I came to Newark. They’re man-eating sharks. Though sharks don’t normally attack people, these were bred to feed off of people.”

I turn to look at Nikolai before speaking again. “After we deal with Dimitri, we can feed the other bodies to the sharks. It will lessen the clean up.”

Plus, it will keep them fed until we find someone to take them. I don’t want them here after this.

“Jeremy! Let me down from here!”

I look up and see Dimitri tied to a crane hanging above the pool. His face looks blood red from screaming. Serves his ass right. A taste of his own medicine must be painful.

“Oh, you want down? Why didn’t you say so?” I taunt him before picking up the remote for the crane.

Dimitri panics. “No! Don’t you dare drop me in there!”

I chuckle, but then Dimitri goes silent and I realize his eyes are trained on Cheryl who’s focus is on the sharks.

“Charly, is that you?”

Charly? Who the fuck is Charly?

Cheryl’s head pops up, her gaze moving to Dimitri.

“Are you talking to me?” She points at herself, confusion on her face.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were dead.”

Cheryl blanches then as if coming to a realization, she laughs. “Oh, my god. I’m sorry. My sister has been dead for so long I forgot how much we look alike. He must be getting me confused with Charly, Bronwyn’s mother. Her full name was Charlotte but we all just called her Charly.”

Bronwyn’s face goes pale for a moment before she looks up at my grandfather. “She’s why you hate me so much, isn’t she? What did she do? Did she kick your puppy?”

Dimitri’s expression tightens, his lips sealing.

“What was his name again?” Cheryl asks.

“Dimitri Borza.”

Cheryl seems contemplative, tapping her chin.

“My sister mentioned a Dimitri once when she visited New York for the summer. She was trying to have some fun in the Big Apple with our cousin, Elsie, and she mentioned meeting Dimitri. She mentioned him once over the phone, but when she returned home and I asked her about him, she just said he was a dirty old man and never wanted to speak of him again.”

The amount of rage across Dimitri’s face paints a picture. For some reason, he hates Bronwyn’s mother. He hates her with such a passion that it has transferred to her daughter. That’s why he wanted me to leave her behind, why he tried to send her away.

“What happened, Dimitri?” Bronwyn asks. “Did she turn you down?”

“Shut up, you fucking whore!”

“Ah, ah, ah! Watch how you talk to my wife. I have the remote in my hand. One click of a button and you’ll plummet into the water.” I lift up the remote and his face goes pale.

“I don’t need any more answers from him. He’s not worth the air he breathes,” my wife mutters before flipping him off. “I’m going to enjoy watching those sharks rip you apart. Laters. It hasn’t been a pleasure.” Then, she flips her hand around and gives him a little finger wave.

“Just one more thing,” Nikolai mutters before he pulls out his gun. “They’ll need the scent of blood.” He aims his gun at Dimitri as the fucker tries to swing himself around like he thinks that will stop this. Nikolai fires out three shots—one in each knee and one in the abdomen.

Throwing his head back, Dimitri screams like a little bitch.

“Come on, Mr. B! It’s just a scratch.” Bronwyn laughs at his pain. “What I went through was way worse. The same goes for what happened to Max.” I click the button to slowly lower him down toward the water.

“No! No!” he screams as he thrashes around, grunting with each move. He kicks his legs as he moves down. “You can’t do this to me!”

“Oh, really? Watch me,” I chuckle and let it continue lowering until he is submerged down to his knees. Only then do I stop the crane.

Dimitri wails and kicks around the water, probably thinking if he kicks enough that he’ll float out of the water.

Sorry. Gravity doesn’t work that way.

“Get me out of here!”

A shark surfaces right before it sinks its teeth into his right leg.

It bites down until blood sprays and it rips the limb clean from his body.

He screams loud, horror registering across his face, before I hit the button dropping him further into the tank.

He can’t swim with the ropes bound around his chest and arms, holding them in place so he sinks right into the water.

We walk down off the deck and watch through the glass as the sharks circle him.

We keep a close eye on the scene as one of the sharks strikes against his torso as another goes for his other leg.

As soon as his other leg is ripped off, the third shark swims over and opens its mouth, snapping it shut over his head, biting it clean off.

Then, two of the sharks try to fight with the one still holding his torso in its mouth.

Poor things must be starved.

“Let’s feed them before we move onto Isaac.” Who knows how long it has been since they last had a decent meal?

The three sharks are satisfied once we toss two more bodies into the tank.

“Do you need a break?” I turn to my wife and she shakes her head.

“Can I see your pocket knife?” she asks, tilting her head a little.

“Why?” Nikolai presses and she turns her head to look at him.

“Because that pedophile has been raping me since I was ten years old, six years after the other Fathers, and killed one of my best friends in the world in front of me as a way to punish me for running to protect my daughter. He also made me sit there and watch as my friend since childhood was viciously raped and murdered. He also put a hit out on Jeremy to make me do his bidding. You can kill him, but I get to torture him first.”

Nikolai’s eyes narrow and he absorbs what she explained before nodding.

Reaching into my back pocket, I pull out my knife before handing it to her. She glances at Cheryl. “Are you sure you want to be here for this part? It’s going to be a lot worse than what happened to Dimitri,” she warns.

Cheryl lifts her chin before smirking at Bronwyn. “Where do you think you got your thick skin from? My momma didn’t raise no bitch.”

I grin. That sounds like something my wife would say.

“Let’s go then,” Nikolai grumbles under his breath.

“Who pissed in your coffee?” Cheryl snaps and my eyes widen.

Well, that’s a first. I’ve never heard of anyone getting sassy with him before and anyone that has ended up six feet under.

Nikolai snaps his eyes around and glares down at her. “Shut your mouth before I shut it for you.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Bron and I look at each other, amused and confused.

What the fuck is going on?

If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were using an argument as foreplay.

“Do not test me,” Nikolai warns.

Cheryl mocks him. “Oh, I’m so scared. What ever will I do? You’re not as scary as you think you are.”

He snaps around and growls at her before muttering, “I swear by all that is holy that if you don’t stop flapping your lips at me, I will snap your neck. Your voice is so fucking annoying.”

Cheryl glares up at him before flipping him off.

If I didn’t know any better, I would say she was Bron’s mother instead of her aunt because her retorts and energy is on point with hers.

“Sit and spin, bitch boy,” she whisper-yells and he snorts with simmering rage.