Asylum

Chapter 31: The Beast

Ivan was right; I obviously could not step in – that would very likely escalate the situation to one that included a few deaths, notably my own, instead of being limited to what was hopefully just a violent beat-down – but I was torn between staring down at the deck as the other women were, and bearing silent witness to the horror unfolding before me. I turned to look at Ivan. His face was unreadable, even to me, but the eyes staring out of that mask were fixed on the tableau in front of us, as though committing each punch, each ignored plea for mercy, to memory.

Lana would be too scared to watch, I reminded myself, so I turned my eyes to the hands clenched around the champagne flute in my lap, flinching imperceptibly every time I heard another squelching blow land.

After a what felt like an eternity, Emilio finally tired of pummeling an unresponsive body and dropped the motionless waiter back to the deck, delivering a final rib-snapping kick to the abdomen to signal his completion. A faint moan was the only sign that the bloody heap that had once been a sweet boy with a shy smile was still alive.

Emilio grabbed some napkins from the bar and wiped at the blood on his hands. "¡Tirad esa basura! (Dump that trash!)" he ordered his guards.

The two men shifted their assault rifles to their backs and walked over to the young waiter, grabbed him by his hands and feet, and before I could even understand what was happening, unceremoniously tossed him over the railing. I frantically blinked back the tears that sprang to my eyes the moment I heard that pathetically small splash.

"Limpia eso (Clean that up)," he ordered the head waiter with a slight jerk of his chin towards the mess of blood, alcohol, and broken glass smeared all over the deck. He swiped again at his hands in disgust and flung the bloodied napkins to the deck. "Alguien me traiga una toalla (Somebody get me a towel)," he demanded, his voice a few decibels lower, his temper banking to an angry smolder as it searched for another target. Lucia scampered into the dining room, intent on appeasing him, while the other women tried to look as small as possible. Emilio saw them shrink into each other and his rage flared back to life. "¡Joder! ¡Deja de acobardarse y tráeme mi bebida! (Fucking hell! Stop cowering and get me my drink!)"

The women were paralyzed – Elena was beginning to cry, Sofia was staring at Emilio in numb terror. Now, I thought, I finally know what to do.

Either I was too quick or Ivan was too intent on Emilio to realize what I was thinking, but his grip on my dress had loosened enough that I stood before he could stop me.

"Сядьте (Sit down)," he commanded me, but I ignored him. At the sound of Ivan's voice, Emilio's head snapped around and his maddened gaze followed me as I picked my way across the deck to the small bar, stepping around the head waiter still feverishly wiping the deck, careful not to slip on any blood or liquor he might have missed.

I scanned the stock quickly and released a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding; I had everything I needed. I scooped some ice into the stainless steel cup of the cocktail shaker and poured a generous few ounces of Maker's Mark on top of it. The silence on the deck was broken only by Elena's soft sobs and the tender slap of the waves on the hull below me. I tried not to think of the body of the young waiter slipping beneath those waves, or of the pairs of eyes watching my every move, the energy so different from that of my usual audiences at Asylum.

Lucia returned with two towels – one damp, one dry – and held one out to the blood-spattered psycho standing rigid in the middle of the deck. Emilio accepted the damp towel without a single glance at her and wiped his bloody hands and face, his eyes never leaving me. I tried to ignore the hole those eyes were burning in my head and focused on the most important cocktail I'd made in my life. I added a bit of sweet red vermouth and a dash of bitters, carefully screwed the top onto the shaker – no flair here – and began mixing and chilling the psychopath's drink while searching for a glass.

Not the martini glass, I decided. Though that was the traditional choice, I was afraid it might seem too dainty for Emilio's affronted, hyper-masculine sensibilities. I chose two squat, heavy-bottomed lowballs and strained the cold liquor into each before too much of the ice could melt and dilute its strength. I grabbed two maraschino cherries for garnish, and, rather than dropping them straight into the drinks, I first impaled each on long wooden toothpicks and then placed the pierced fruit into the glasses. I hoped that was enough subconscious macho symbolism to soothe even Emilio's sensitive ego.

I carefully placed the drinks on the boy's wiped-off tray that I found at the end of the bar, mindful to keep my eyes down and allowing every ounce of trepidation I felt to radiate from my every pore. Emilio finished drying his hands and threw the second towel back at Lucia as he watched me approach. I held the tray out to him with both hands, a supplicant to a capricious god.

"¿Qué es esto?" he asked for a second time tonight, his voice filled with quiet menace.

"A Manhattan," Ivan answered calmly, still seated in his deck chair as though the entire evening had been the most normal dinner party he'd ever attended.

Emilio took the glass from me and, lightning quick, before I could begin to make my way back to Ivan, shot a hand out and grabbed my chin. I kept my eyes locked on his wrist, on his wristwatch, and on a tiny, overlooked red droplet drying on the gold band, but his fingers tightened, and he jerked my chin upwards impatiently.

I looked up at last, willing my eyes to be as flat and unresponsive as those of a great white swimming past a Discovery Channel camera crew. I'd never stared the devil in the face before, but I could now cross that never-on-there-in-the-first-place item off my bucket list.

Emilio lifted the glass to his lips, never breaking eye contact with me, and swallowed half the cocktail in a single gulp. A sneer twisted his upper lip as he finally moved his gaze to ogle me from neck to ankle at excruciatingly close range.

I knew that the grin that split his face when he finally looked me in the eyes again would feature prominently in my nightmares for years to come. He snorted in something akin to admiration. "Nueva York."