RAISE YOUR HAND

Chapter 25

He tortured him. He disfigured him. He put him in a body bag. Dante Venturi was a murderer. David's murderer.

Trinity sat cross-legged against the headboard of her bed, rocking back and forth in a daze. Dante Venturi killed her husband. She couldn't stop the thought from running over and over and over in her mind. The stone-cold look on his face when he told her he wasn't filled with regret for what he had done, was chilling. His voice had been full of confidence. He would do it again. She believed him.

His eyes confirmed as much. Sniffing, Trinity picked up her phone and pressed the photo app. She scrolled until she found a picture of Dante and zoomed in on his face. Dark, fathomless eyes stared back at her. They were inkwells. One couldn't see the bottom. But this wasn't new. She had stared into their abyss many times. Became lost in their depth. Was that what happened? Had she been so spellbound, she missed the truth once hidden now revealed? A truth so horrendous, surely she wouldn't have stayed had she known. A tear slipped down Trinity's cheek. It was all surreal.

Dropping her phone down, she scanned her bedroom. Anyone would gush over how lovely a room it was. The entire house was one from a magazine. When she first saw it, she could hardly believe her eyes. Could hardly believe she was the one fortunate enough to stay in a house like this. Was the temptation of this place part of an evil glamour?  Was Dante's deeply handsome looks apart of it as well? What about his sweet words? 

It was a sort of evil, disguised to persuade. She fell for it too. She fell for the beautiful man, the beautiful words he spoke and the beautiful place where he kept her. While underneath it all, was a monster laying in wait. Yes, a monster. Because, only a monster could do what he had done. And she saw what he had done. Up close and personal. She herself unzipped the body bag to reveal the carnage Dante left behind. Seemingly, without any remorse.

What had he told her? He had done to David what David had done to her. Trinity's stomach curled recalling when Dante asked her to explain what David did to her. And she did. She told him about the bathtub incident and the kitchen chair incident. Thank God she hadn't told him about all of it.

Guilt coursed through her. David suffered because of her. Had she known what Dante was planning at the time, she would have never told him. But how could she have known she was writing the prescription for David's death?

Dante scalded David's face with hot water to a point where there were so many blisters. The burns suffered, far worse than what David had done to her. For Dante, it couldn't have mattered the pain David endured because it didn't end there. Something else must have happened to David's face for him to lose part of his skin. The images flashed through Trinity's mind like a strobe light. She pressed her palms against her eyes causing starbursts of light to swirl.

No matter how hard she pressed, the horrible images broke through to the forefront. From his face to his mangled hands to the giant gash at the side of his arm where he had been stabbed and shot, his battered body was clear in her memory. How would she ever erase what Dante had done from her mind? Worse yet, how had she been able to go through life after she saw David's dead body? Somehow she had managed to press ahead and never think of it. Until now.  

Was it because she didn't feel responsible? Had to be. Knowing Dante killed David assigned responsibility to her for the manner in which her husband died. She was the one to blame. This was her fault. Had she never gone in for that interview, David would be alive today. But...would she? Trinity pushed the rationalization away. She didn't deserve to rationalize. 

The ringing of her phone had her screaming startled. With shaking hands, she looked at the caller id. It was Gio. She didn't want to talk to him but if she didn't, he would come over. The last thing she needed right now was for anyone to come over and try to talk her out of anything. She answered, her voice weak.