Page 49

“Baby…” his voice croaks and breaks “…who’s this? What are you doing here? Why are you involved with the business…?”

I can’t answer him, biting my lips closed, watching him blur through my tears. I can’t even look at him through my shame. He suffered all of that, because Harry threatened to hurt me. He went through all of that without saying a word, without saving himself, to keep me safe?

“I… thought you’d wait for me… I was only gone a few weeks… twelve years, baby, who is this guy?” his voice croaks further, he’s losing his breath from the physical effort it’s taking him to stand, and the emotion that’s hitting him. He’s ruined. Everything about him is ruined. He’s thrown back to the secretly vulnerable young boy I met all those years ago. My hands clasp over my mouth as I watch him.

“Why’s he touching you… like that? What…” and his face contorts. Everyone at the table sits in shared silence, watching Dan realise what’s happening. I imagine this is what it’s like watching a nuclear missile head to its target. You know you shouldn’t watch for the flash and the mushroom, but how do you look away? “You… and… you’re fucking him?!” he spits like venom.

Harry’s stillness carries smugness, whilst Nik’s carries imminent danger.

“You’re not fucking leaving me for him. You’re fucking not. You dirty fucking whore, I should’ve left you on that estate, fucking disgusting slut… I’ll fucking kill you”

I forget, for a second. I’m transported back to all the nights when there was nothing between me and his temper. I cower in my chair, shaking and awaiting my deserved beating. I shouldn’t have done it, I shouldn’t have pissed him off. I shouldn’t have been such a dirty whore. I should’ve been better, I ruin everything.

Then, somewhere deep inside me, I find the familiar urge to forgive him. Imagine how he must feel, one day he’s on top of the world, then he gets arrested, remanded, faces life. Has clearly an awful time in prison, what have they done to him while he’s in there, will I ever know? All to keep me safe. Then he comes out and sees me and Nik together like this. I’d probably lose my shit, too. Fuck, how could I do it to him? What a horrible fucking person I am.

When I glance up, Nik is stood, as is Craig. Harry watches his personal cinema with amusement. Nik’s chest puffs out and he peacocks. I’ve never seen him do that before. It’s like slow motion, as Nik flips the table and Craig stands between my past and future with unbelievable fortitude and courage in the face of a detonating Nik.

Terror prevents my veins from thawing as I watch everything unfold, Dan somehow being brave despite his injuries. Craig holds his hands up, like an umbrella against a tsunami. Optimistic in its futility. His outstretched arms open, he turns his back to Nik, facing Dan.

The next few seconds take years, as Nik pulls a gun from the small of Craig’s back, under his jacket and squares it firmly at Harry’s forehead. Harry’s amusement turns to fear as he tries to backpedal away from Nik, his face twisted and brow furrowed.

“Everyone fucking freeze” Nik declares, following Harry’s panicked gaze, I see Baldy’s eyes bulging from his bulbous head turning red as his lips look like they might burst, Reaper holding the wire that cuts his life. He lands with a thud, Reaper dusts his hands off and returns to his seat, flipping a newspaper open.

“You are a dirty, lying, thieving cunt… and that’s why Craig here has found himself a better employer, and why Dmitri will be taking your business…”

Harry begins to chuckle, he tries to compose himself. Desperately clinging onto a reality that is slipping away from him. He panics, kicks and tries to push himself away, falling backwards from his chair. On his back he tries to crawl away from the Grim Reaper. His life flashing before his eyes, his vocabulary failing him, with no cards left to play.

Nik turns to Craig, dismissing him with a pat on the top of his arm and simply “You did good, lad”. Craig manages a quarter-smile before quickly and silently departing.

“You are a dirty bastard, Harry…” he tells him, his voice dropping dangerously. This is the calm before the storm. I’ve seen it before. My heart starts to drum through my ears, almost drowning out what’s happening. But not quite. I don’t close my eyes. I hear the bullet thud the concrete floor, after ripping through his kneecap.

Screaming for mercy, he realises none is coming when Nik grabs him by the scruff of his jacket. Face to face, he growls “You’ve done some stupid shit, and coming for her, that was a fucking mistake”.

My whole body crawls as the once-powerful Harry tries to slap and claw his way out of Nik’s grasp. I turn to ice when he turns his gaze to me, staring deep into the soul of five-year-old me.

“C’mon, Sawyer baby… don’t let him do this to Daddy… don’t let him kill me” he pleads. It’s disgusting, I bite down hard on my lip. Determined not to let him see me cry.

Nik’s gaze finds me next. His eyes open wide, and catch light. He realises something. If he had a heart, it would break. Right now there’s no humanity in him, I watched it fade, and be replaced with pure, feral demon.

“Daddy…” he spits at Harry, an almost guttural growl “…you are a dirty, dirty bastard…” his grimace wild and wicked as he stamps on Harry’s bullet wound and twists his boot. Laughing at him, taunting him, enjoying the terror he’s inflicting. I am stuck to the spot. Unable to help, hinder, or hurt proceedings.

“Bottle!” he shouts at Reaper, who retrieves a bottle of house vodka from the optics.

“You… do not… get… a… clean… death” Nik’s speech is punctuated only by kicks, each one causing further cracking sounds to come from Harry’s ribcage. His screams of agony and pleas for mercy go unheard.

He takes the bottle by the neck, chest heaving with effortful breaths now, and smashes it on Harry’s forehead, causing blood to immediately pour from the open wounds.

Straddling his blood-soaked victim, whose pleas have simply turned to sobs now, he proceeds to thrust, slash, and stab the entirety of Harry’s neck and face leaving it unrecognisable. The sounds he produces are slurred, alien and incomprehensible.

In his last moments of gasping agony, Nik grabs him by his hair and forces him to look up at me. My soul feels every second of hurt he has ever caused me all in one moment, as I look at the gored barely-alive remains of his face, I hear every harsh word he ever told me. My fingertips hurt from how hard I have gripped my chair, where the pads of my fingers have been pushed into the ends of my chewed nails.

He calls out, one last time, my name unrecognisable as it leaves his deformed face. I feel a wave of power surge through me, as I repeat the phrase I only dared speak once before.

“You’re not my Dad”

I feel no pity, no remorse, and no desire for mercy as I watch the final moments of his wretched life, before he finally surrenders his soul to the depths of hell.

Watching Harry die like that, powerless and begging for a life that wasn’t coming to save him, as penance for his own sins twists something inside me. As horrifically as it sits on my immortal soul, his death was necessary, and his suffering well and truly deserved.