Angry God

He also loved to paint sad faces. I always thought there was something sadistic about his art. I was surprised Mom couldn’t see it.

“Fine,” he clipped impatiently, standing and hurrying toward me before I tarnished the rest of his precious baby. His art. His painting. I made a V sign with my fingers, digging them into the girl’s eyes. The canvas was rich and thick, the paint over it dry and resistant, but I managed to pierce the holes deeper, slashing her face with two strokes of my fingers. The painting was officially ruined now.

“Clumsy me.” I turned around, flashing him a smile. “You were saying? Just fine? Sounds a bit lackluster.”

“Actually…” He cleared his throat, lacing his fingers behind his back, trying to salvage some kind of pride as he stood in front of me. “It’s been a very good year. My paintings have just been purchased by a private curator—nearly all of them, across the world. My guess is they’re going to open an exhibition, perhaps even a museum.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” I said smoothly.

He frowned, but said nothing.

“See, I’m the investor, and I already found a fitting purpose for your paintings,” I said, taking my phone out of my back pocket and sliding my thumb across the screen. “It took a bit of effort. I even had to break into my trust fund, but I got my hands on them. All one hundred ninety-three paintings. Wanna guess what I’m going to do with them?” I looked up, my voice cheerful, my stance confident.

His Adam’s apple dipped with a swallow, and his face drained of color.

“Don’t be shy now, Fairhurst. That’s not who you are.” I shoved my phone in his face, showing him exactly what I’d been up to in the days following my breaking and entering his house. All the paintings had been shipped express to Knight’s address, which had cost me dozens of thousands of dollars. After that, my best friend was all too happy to make a bonfire on a local beach and feed the flames with rich canvas and elaborate paint. They’d all melted spectacularly into the sand, the ocean washing away whatever was left in them.

Fairhurst grabbed my phone and scoffed, watching the video of teenagers running through the fire, laughing and pouring gasoline onto the flames. After a few seconds, he tossed it back to me.

“You’re dead! You are fucking dead. I’m going to kill you!”

I tucked my phone back into my pocket, yawning as he paced the room, back and forth. His entire career, up in flames.

He stopped abruptly in the middle of the room. “You ruined all of them, but not the one you want gone more than anything else—the one hanging in front of your childhood room.” His voice was laced with venom.

I laughed, ignoring the dull pain in my chest. “Working on it.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t?” I rubbed at my chin. “Or shouldn’t? Those are two very different things. I could kill you right now and you wouldn’t even stop me. Because if I spill the shit I know about you out in the open, you’ll be as good as dead, anyway. Jailed, stripped of your money and prestige, living in solitary confinement so your fellow prison mates don’t kill you.”

“I’ll deny everything you say. Every single word. I will start from scratch. I can—I can paint new paintings!” he screamed in my face. “I’ll work twice as hard.”

I frowned. “That’ll be a bit difficult.”

“Why’s that?” He took the bait again.

I grabbed his left hand, his darling, moneymaking hand—funny how we were all left-handed in this business—insured for two million bucks, and found his pressure point, squeezing hard. He shrieked in pain, tears running down his cheeks. I raised his hand to my chest, shoving my hand forward until I heard the crack of his thumb breaking. Satisfaction shot through me. Revenge.

Our eyes met, and his were so shocked and horrified, I wondered what he’d feel like when I had my knife at his throat. Expressionless, I made a ninety degree angle with his wrist, moving it to the other side of my chest. With my forearm on his elbow, I applied pressure until I heard his arm snap. He screamed to the fucking roof before I shoved him against the wall and let him drop to the ground. Whimpering, he stared at his twisted thumb and the bone poking out at his elbow. I darted to his desk, grabbed my untouched cup of coffee, and poured it onto the floor beside his sagging body.

“Oops,” I said dryly. “Better be more careful. You could slip and break your other arm, too. Worse still, you could have a fatal accident. Now that’d be a shame.”

His eyes were blurry with tears, his body shaking and arching with pain. When your entire existence is hanging by a thread, by the revenge you seek, you sometimes ask yourself if it’s worth it, if you’ll ever get the satisfaction you’re after.