Page 143 of The Wicked

“Fio got an amazing offer worth millions of dollars about a year later. It was so huge that he got a lovely bottle of wine to celebrate this good news. Sofia was his biggest supporter; together, they took a renewed honeymoon to a little cabin outside Mexico City.”

“Stop, please…”

“The air was fresher, the smell of pine wood and raw earth, the sheer luxury of peace and freedom. It was the best time of Fio’s life. After six months, he finished the job and returned, receiving extra money for his efficiency. Fio was indeed set for life.”

“I will tell you all you need to know… just don’t finish the story.”

I ignored him. “Years later, his wife gets pregnant.”

His shoulders shook with sobs.

“Unfortunately, she was only six months in when he got kidnapped.”

“Ask me any question; I’ll give you your answer.”

“He was kept in the hands of terrible men, tortured every day, his fingers were chopped off, and he knows he’ll probably never be able to hold a brush to paint ever again, so he decides to be stubborn. To take the truth to his grave.”

“Jesus Christ, I beg of you. There’s a tell, okay! There’s a fucking tell in the original painting!”

“He tried to tell the truth when the bad guys told him a story of himself, but it was too late. He shouldn’t have been stubborn. The bad guys didn’t have time for a story, you see, but he made them tell it anyway. So, they got very annoyed. Irritated… And they brought in his pregnant wife.”

The sound of the door opening had him jolting. Soft whimpers and footsteps reached my ear, and I didn’t have to look to see the red-haired pregnant woman by the side of the room, next to probably a stunned Casmiro and Angelo.

I couldn’t care less about what they were thinking because my eyes were solely on Fio, whose body started to thrash at the sight of his blindfolded wife.

“Sofia!” he yelled.

A sob racked out of the woman. “F-Fio?”

“When Fio caught sight of his crying wife, he yelled her name, so loud, so fierce the bad guys felt it right in their guts, and when sweet Sofia responded with a stutter, they wanted to feel pity, but then they remembered they had given Fio a chance to talk, and he didn’t.”

“For the love of God, she’s pregnant; she has nothing to do with this. We have nothing to do with your search; I’m just an ordinary artist who got paid for a fucking job—please—please just let her go,” he cried.

“Then Fio tried to bargain and make the bad guys see reason. To let his pregnant wife go, but no one said this was a romance story or a happily ever after…”

A shiver of fear ran through Fio’s body. “Th-there’s a little white s-stroke underneath the eye of the chihuahua in every fake. It is absent in the original. Mr. Garza sent out ninety-nine of thosepaintings after I had them delivered. The original—the original was only with me until I painted the first duplicate. I don’t know, but I think he hid the original himself; he went on a trip outside of Mexico, I don’t know where, but I bet that trip was to find a perfect s-spot to hide the original. Maybe at a family landmark, I have no fucking idea—but I swear—I swear this is all I know.”

“Fio, in a state of panic, told the bad guys all he knew about the painting, and since the bad guys had gotten all they needed from him, they decided to let him go…” I let a pause ring through, and I could feel every breath in the room pause with my last statement. “But then, the bad guys thought, if we let him and his pregnant wife go, what would happen if someone else got to them?”

“No, please.” Fio choked out a cry at the same time Sofia let out a sob.

“The bad guys took pity on pregnant Sofia and removed her blindfold so she could see her husband alive one last time.” I didn’t look to see if the blindfold had come off, but the gasp from Sofia and the loud crying that followed told me it had.

“Fio… amore… p-please, sir—don’t hurt him; he hasn’t done anything. He hasn’t hurt anyone in his life—he hasn’t caused any trouble; he’s innocent, sir.”

“Sofia tried to beg the bad guys, tried to save her husband, but the bad guys knew it wouldn’t be possible. If Fio could break so easily, someone else might do even worse, and he’d spill the truth to that someone else, and the bad guys couldn’t have that, so they decided…”

I turned my gaze from Fio for the first time, looking at Angelo, whose eyes showed wariness, and then Casmiro, who looked uncertain, but remained firm in support of every decision I’d made, no matter how cruel.

I looked back at Fio, whose eyes remained pleadingly on me.

“I beg you, do whatever you want with me, but please let her go, ple—please.”

“Fio begged.” I raised my hands from his wrists, placing them on both sides of his face. “His eyes, once hopeful for a brightfuture, his eyes that had shined in happiness after he received that hat on the streets of Paris, now flowed with tears, knowing the very thing he loved the most was now the one thing that would put him under.”

Sofia’s heart-wrenching cry met my ears.

“It was so sad a scene. Too… emotional for the bad guys to spend even a second in the room, knowing how it would all end. They decided to snap the neck of Fio, and they probably should have asked Sofia to look away. Still, the bad guys were so bad that they derived pleasure from the scream the wife gave afterward… They knew they would derive even more pleasure when they buried her six feet under… alive with her husband.” My eyes searched his as my grip tightened on both sides of his face. “A very tragic end to a beautiful story.”