From Angel to Delinquent

“Don’t hurt her!” he exclaims, abandoning his patient and standing between the armed man and me with a scalpel in his right hand.

“Get back to your work, Doc,” the other growls, refusing to give up.

“I will when she’s safe,” he insists, showing no hint of doubt in his voice.

The taxi horn honks, calling me back, and they both stare at each other. Dante returns to his work, and finally the armed man breaks the silence.

“I hope your little girlfriend knows how to keep her mouth shut.” He takes my arm and leads me to the living room. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’ll go outside and tell him you no longer need him services. You’ll pay him and come back in here. No funny business, or he’ll pay for your actions.”

He lets go of me, puts his left hand in his pocket, and hands me a few crumpled bills while still pointing the gun at me.

“No funny business,” he repeats, leaving me in front of the door.

I walk to the taxi, praying my legs won’t give out, and when I arrive, I tap on the window softly, and the driver opens the door.

“Excuse me, I think I’ll stay,” I say, extending the money to him.

“Is everything okay, miss?” he asks, genuinely concerned.

“Yes, I’m sorry, but my boyfriend is feeling ill, and I think it’s better if I stay. Thank you for your concern.”

He holds my gaze for a moment that seems eternal, then starts searching for change. He hands it to me, and I start my walk back to the house. Gradually, I hear the only possibility of escape fade away.

“You did the right thing,” the man says as soon as I enter. “Now let’s go over there until it’s over.” He points down the hall with the gun, and every cell in my body trembles.

I walk with dragging steps, he opens the door to the studio and points inside. I exhale, thinking I was headed to the bedroom. I enter and move as far away from him as possible.

“You’re going to stay here quietly until the Doc finishes his work, and then we’ll see what happens.”

Close the door and I hear the key turn, leaving me locked in. A beautiful library forms the walls, there is no window to escape through, I begin to scan the titles with my eyes trying to focus on anything and calm down, slowly making my way to the desk. Perhaps there’s a copy of the key on it or something to use in case I need to defend myself. A small bronze statue on it catches my eye, I pick it up and mentally calculate if it will have enough weight to do damage, but it’s quickly overshadowed by the sight of an open blue folder: a photo of me is clipped to a sheet that includes data like my address, my parents’ names, phone number, and even blood type.

My heart beats in my chest, I gently remove the first page and see the obituary of my parents printed. Who the fuck is Dante? My brain goes into critical state, there must be a rational and not sick answer to this.

Why would he have these papers? Was he investigating me? “Maybe it was to give me back my bag,” I justify, futilely clinging to this new illusion. He said he found it the same day we crossed paths on the bike path, he wouldn’t have even had time to start looking for how to return it. And suddenly nothing seems like a coincidence, after all, how many chances were there that he was in the same place at the same time?

I walk around the room, breathing deeply, trying to calm down to think clearly. When I manage to calm down a bit, I continue my search, opening drawers and rummaging through everything. Several newspaper clippings catch my attention, I take one of them and read it slowly, at least what happened to his sister is true. Almost all of them are like that, except for one that reports the murder of a young man.

“The cause of my torture finally banished,” I quote, remembering his words.

The lock sounds at that moment and the door begins to open, Dante’s gaze meets mine.

“I think we need to talk,” he says entering the room.

I let go of the clipping, take the small sculpture, and press myself against the bookcase with my hand up, ready to throw it if necessary.

“You don’t know how much it hurts me that you’re afraid of me,” he whispers, stopping his approach.

“Who the fuck are you?” I blurt out feeling deceived.

“This is going to be a long one, do you want to lower your arm?” He shakes his head. “Okay, but don’t call me if you get a cramp,” he jokes, trying to relax the mood.

“What’s going on? Why is there a bloody guy and another one with a gun in your kitchen?”

He walks up to one of the walls and leans his weight against the books, takes a deep breath, and says:

“When my sister died, I lost everything. I no longer felt alive, and I started drinking. But that wasn’t enough. Drugs helped for a while; they took me away from reality and gave me some relief from the fact that the person who did it was still out there. But I started to mess up on the job because of these excesses, and my license was revoked, another reason for my downward spiral. When I ran out of money, I began selling everything I had to keep up my addictions. That’s when I met Ivan. The deal was simple: I helped his guys when they got hurt, and he paid me with drugs. The first time I did it, my hands were shaking so much because of withdrawal that I made a fucking mess. Luckily, everything turned out okay, and the guy lived, although he had a horrible scar that could have easily been avoided. Order after order, we became closer until I finally told him what triggered my descent.