No Love For The Villain - Chapter 43
“Are you… threatening me right now…?”
The husband’s eyes, looking at his defenseless wife in the photograph, were helplessly swallowed by fear.
Eli grabbed Dominic’s hand.
Holding fast to the trembling hand, he snapped open the Zippo lighter.
“No. Not yet.”
Eli placed Dominic’s thumb on the wheel and rubbed it back and forth.
“Aren’t you curious whether your wife is safe?”
Flames leapt up.
“Couldn’t that be the last photo taken before she’s killed?”
Eli pulled Dominic’s hand holding the lighter up toward his mouth and lit his cigarette.
No—no.
Despair flickered through Dominic’s eyes.
Unlike someone who had just come from killing, the man in front of him was perfectly calm.
After planting horrific images in his opponent’s mind, he simply watched as Dominic burned himself alive in his own fear.
“Why don’t you try calling?”
Eli picked up the receiver.
He dialed, and before long a voice came through.
[Hello?]
His wife’s voice.
Realizing it, Dominic lunged toward the phone.
Eli handed the receiver over.
…and Dominic clutched the receiver desperately.
“Hello? Camilla—honey, it’s me. Is that really you?”
[Of course it’s me. What’s wrong? I was making a pie so we could eat together when you get home. The kids keep asking when Daddy’s coming back. You are coming home this evening, right?]
Dominic’s throat tightened, as though he were hearing the voice of someone returned from the dead.
He was just about to let out a breath of relief when his wife’s voice continued.
[One of your colleagues stopped by. He said he was close to you, and he even brought gifts. He knew all the kids’ names, too. They’re completely absorbed in looking at the toys right now.]
Faint laughter from the children could be heard.
[Is that Dad? Dad! Mom, I want to talk to Dad too.]
Dominic’s face twisted as he heard his child’s clear voice.
“…A colleague?”
[Yeah. His name was—ah, thank you. He said his name was Dimion.]
Realizing that a killer’s subordinate was standing beside his wife, Dominic’s eyes shook.
The line went dead.
His wife’s and child’s voices disappeared.
“Hello? Hello! Camilla!”
No answer came back.
Dominic remained frozen in place, still holding the receiver.
Eli held out the photograph of the wife to the husband.
“If the prosecutor’s daughter dies, your wife will die too.”
He slipped the photo into the pocket of Dominic’s suit, the man standing there in a daze.
“You should keep your wife alive, shouldn’t you.”
After drawing deeply on his cigarette, Eli pushed the burning tip between Dominic’s lips.
Forced to inhale the smoke, Dominic broke into violent coughing.
Gagging, he took the cigarette into his mouth.
The husband, shackled by the fear of losing his wife, sank down onto the bed.
The cigarette trembled between his shaking fingers.
Tears fell quietly.
His face looked like that of a man who had already lost his wife and returned from her funeral.
Having traveled to the extreme end of terrifying imaginings in such a short span of time, Dominic sat slumped back, powerless.
The cigarette burned like funeral incense.
After a long silence, Dominic picked up the receiver.
He delivered his decision to the operative who had been waiting for orders.
“Pull out. Leave the woman and return to Newland.”
He turned his back on his father’s will and chose his wife’s life instead.
The receiver fell heavily from his hand.
Eli picked up one photograph of Sierra that lay near the phone and left the room.
The sight of Dominic burying his face in his hands was cut off as the door closed.
Riding the elevator down, Eli looked at the photograph of Sierra in his hand.
Though it was less vivid than the real thing, her pretty face was carefully captured.
A photograph that could not contain whatever conversation had passed between them made the man and woman in the photograph look tender.
Perhaps because Sierra, seated in the passenger seat, was gazing quietly at the man in the driver’s seat.
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