I know some would say that I too am innocent in all this, that I had no part in what had been done to Ma. But they’ve never had to live with the knowledge that they’d been forged in hell. I snapped out of it and turned the monitor off before I became even more maudlin. There’s no time for a pity party, and I wouldn’t know how to throw one anyway since I’m not built that way.
I only have a couple of days left before we leave; time to take care of Felix Fontane because I’ve decided that he too is not worthy of Gianna. I’d had Becky moved to the homeless city downtown after two hellish nights in the woods. Tommy said when he went back to get her that she was damn near catatonic; perfect.
I knew by then the pain from being out in the cold with a broken body for that long would have her climbing the walls, just a little payback for all the years she’d made Gianna feel the same. But there was a more sinister reason behind it. I knew that putting her in the midst of that hell would expose her to something else, something that would help her with the pain she’d been enduring for those two days and nights in the woods. I knew by then she’d gnaw off her own face to get away from the pain.
The man I’d paid to offer to help her with that pain had done a good job since she was now strung out on meth, while her daughter was slowly losing her mind locked away in a room with no way out until I was ready to release her. Messing around with Anonymous had introduced me to some of the darker places that exist in the world.
I’m not sick enough to have her trafficked or put in the hands of someone like Ricci. But there are other more fucked up people out there, people of high intelligence who have to fly beneath the radar to conduct their experiments. Right now, someone is probably peering into Victoria’s brain beneath a microscope before putting it back together. I like that the world likes to pretend that people like Mengele no longer exist, keep those blinders on so that people like me can move in the shadows when need be.
I closed my eyes for a few seconds and took a deep breath. This thing I’m about to do is skating pretty close to the line in my head that I dare not cross, but it has to be done. I got up and went towards the gym to get her, putting my game face on as I opened the door. “Gianna, I need you for a minute. She’ll be right back.” I assured the twins and the matron-like woman who was giving them lessons.
“What’s wrong?” She slipped her hand in mine and followed me down the hallway back to my room.
“I’ve been thinking. Wouldn’t you like to move your mom’s things out of storage?” She stopped walking with a quizzical look on her face.
“I haven’t thought of it, but now that you mention it….”
“I can take care of it for you, but I don’t think you should send it back to the house, not right now anyway. How about sending it to your grandmother’s?” If she thought the request was odd, she didn’t mention it, though I could see she was wondering why we’d do that. This was sticky, the one thing that had stumped me as well.
I can’t very well tell her the real reason why. That I plan to make her go there when we get back, or more like I know that it’s the only place she could run to. But I need her mother’s things gone in order to carry out the next stage of this play I’m writing for Fontane. It’s like killing two birds with one stone.
When she didn’t answer right away, I opened my mouth and lied to her for the first time. “I don’t think you should send them back to the house, not right now with things up in the air with your dad and Becky. At your grandmother’s, we’ll know that they’re safe, that no one would destroy them.” She nodded her head in agreement, and I released the breath I held.
“Okay, you can go back to the others. I’ll take care of the storage unit.” Another lie, I’d already set things in motion there since we were pressed for time. She didn’t even think to ask, but her grandmother already knew I was having her daughter’s things sent to her. Thankfully the old woman hadn’t asked any questions. She was just happy to be receiving all that was left of her child.
I waited for Gianna to leave after a quick peck on my lips, glad to see her this happy and excited about the upcoming trip and her first coming out Ball. At least I can give her this before turning her life upside down. As soon as the coast was clear, I picked up the phone and called Tommy. “It’s a go. Do you have the address?”
“Yes!” He read off the address to her grandmother’s place in Virginia.
“Cool! You’re expected.”
“Aren’t we playing it a bit close? It’s gonna take at least twelve hours there and twelve hours back. Your Pop wants us to do a final walk-through before the trip….”
“I don’t trust anyone else to take care of this but you. And you’re not driving back. The plane will bring you home. The pilot has the info already. He should be contacting you soon. You just need to time it the way we planned.”
“Oh, okay, that will work.” I hung up the phone and went back to my computer. He’s right, we’re playing it a bit close, but it was the only way to do it. I don’t want Gianna here for the final showdown between Felix and Becky, but if I move her mom’s things out of storage too soon, it might alert Felix, who seems to go there every other day. This way, she’d be long gone by the time he realizes, by the time he reacts to what I have planned.
GABRIEL
“Hey, your guy just moved a shit ton of cash in the last few days. I traced the transfer to an account that has been open in his daughter’s name since she was about three months old.”
“Oh really!”
“Yeah. Not only that, but from his movements, it looks like he’s tying up loose ends almost like he’s preparing to go away or something.”
“Ok, thank you.” I sat back and smiled after hanging up the phone with one of dad’s people who specializes in financial forensics. I’ve been keeping my eye on Felix this whole time, watching his movements listening in on his calls to get a feel for where his mind is at. He had no idea that Becky had been attacked and was in the hospital until I made sure that one of the women she’d tried so hard to befriend knew about her circumstances.
Of course, word had already got back to him that she’d been staying in a motel, and then once she was moved to the homeless city, I made sure those same women were made aware. Just to up her embarrassment and add insult to injury, of course. The fact that he showed no interest, not even to ask how she was doing, was good enough for me.
I’ve been playing him like a puppet on a string, using his mind against him and calling the plays even before he made them. Because I had a pretty good idea where his mind was at, I put things in motion and have been keeping an eye on his business dealings. I know that if it were for Gianna alone, things might not have changed, but for him, the thought that he’d failed his Adrienne would be too much for him to bear, and I exploited the hell out of that shit.
I made sure in the last two weeks that those women pulled no punches reminding him of the things that Becky and her daughter had done to his kid right under his nose. Their disdain was just more salt added to the bleeding wound I’d opened. A daily dose of reminders, added to the fact that he now knew what she’d done to his wife, is more than his weak mind can handle.