Divine Deception"Destruction"
The light in her eyes are like two of the brightest stars in the darkest of night. I've never seen anything more perfect in all my life. Her smile, the way she giggles. I don't think I've seen anything so beautiful or that I've ever been this truly happy. Destruction has always been my way at filling a hole inside of me that I knew never could be filled, to make others feel the same. Now, I don't feel the need to hurt anybody anymore. I never believed that moving on could ever be a possibility for me. That I could walk away from hurting others just to feel some balance in my own self. Now I know that it is possible. Delilah has made it possible.
I put Delilah down and pick up my vibrating phone. "Hello?" I say.
I am met with Peters' voice. "Sadie, I expect that we are still on schedule?"
"Of course."
Delilah is the reason why I can't just walk away from this assignment. Finishing it off means that it's over and that I can move on. If I don't find a way to make Peters happy, I know that he will expose me and that would mean taking me away from my daughter when she needs me most and I know better than anyone how much that can affect a child.
"Good. Everything has been put into place."
I take a deep breath. "What happens when it's all over? What if I get taken in?"
"You call the number that I have messaged you. You call it and we will pull you out with a snap of the fingers." Peters' words make me have difficulty swallowing. To know that he has a power greater than anybody I've ever known. That he has the ability to take a criminal out of jail without a second glance. It also reminds me of how appreciative I should be to be on his side. Not against it. "I'll see you on the other side, Sadie. Know that we have full confidence in you."
I hang up without saying another word and look myself over in the full-length mirror across the room. It feels as if my heart is going to break through my chest, shatter any bones in its way, but from anybody looking at me, I seem pretty calm and confident. That's good, because I would hate for anybody to question me when I am already questioning myself.
"That's the end of discussion, Vita," I hear Nick in the other room. Vita's in there with him. They've been arguing all morning. "Alto Manor is going onto the market and that's final."
"How can you do this to me?" She asks with a hint of hysteria. "After all that we've been through together?"
"Been through together?" He scoffs. "You were the one who was going to abandon this family with your bag of donations and the hired help. That was, of course, before the whole town saw what you really are: a vile creature that cares little for anything other than herself." He chuckles. "Oh look, there are two drinks on the table. One for each of your two faces!"
They make their way through the house, room to room. I can't figure out if Nick is trying to find something or if he is just trying to escape from Vita's bickering.
"You are despicable." Vita's heels thump against the ceramic flooring just outside the room I'm in. "Might I remind you that what happened the other night will hurt you just as much as it has me? While I may have needed your assistance to keep crime hidden and the community thinking that it's decreased, you need me just as much. How else do you plan on keep your hired thugs on the streets? Without me as leader, you're going to have to play by the rules!"
"I'm sure we'll survive without you." Nick spins back to the front door and Vita follows as he yells back, "Sadie, we're leaving!"
"And how are you going to manage financially?" Vita prattles on.
I give Delilah a kiss on the head and right as I step out into the hall, I see Nick shoot Vita a dark look. "While it's none of your business," I start, "I have offered to aid him in any way that I can."
Vita glances over her shoulder, rolling her eyes and returning to Nick immediately. "Seeking financial help from the town harlot?" She gasps in amusement. "I didn't think cheap thrills would be able to cover off any missteps your business might be having."
The blood under my skin starts to heat as I make it next to my husband. I raise my hands to encompass the room. "Well, once we get paid for this place, we won't have to worry about anything. You on the other hand..." I grab the door and open it, calling back at Vita as I make my way out, "Goodbye and good luck, Vita."
"I will never forgive you for this, Sadie!"
I smirk as I walk down the steps. "Good, then you will never forget it either. C'mon, hun," I call Nick as I get closer to the car.
Vita grabs onto Nick's shoulder to stop him from taking another step outside. "You can't do this," she says. "That horrid woman has taken everything from me, don't you understand? You, my career, my friends, and now this house, and if you aren't careful, Nick, she's going to take everything from you too!"
Nick wiggles his arm free. "You've been through a lot lately, Vita. Take a long walk and figure things out." He shrugs into his jacket. "Go take a wander down by the beach and look at the house my mother left to us before she died, because right now, I'm going with my wife to go see her like I do every year." He heads out the door, following my exact footsteps, leaving Vita screaming behind him about how he needed to believe her, that I am the very definition of evil and if he doesn't return to her, that I will find a way to hurt him like I have so many other people. He doesn't respond as he takes a seat in the passenger seat and I drive out of Alto Manor.
The car ride to the cemetery is a silent one. Nick just stares out of the window, reminding me of the day this assignment was put into action. The day Peters told me about my parents and the fact that the Altos were involved in their demise. I can still remember how focused I had been jogging from the beach to Nick's workplace with the world passing me by, yet feeling as if I wasn't moving a beat. The difference is that I have done that only once and Nick does this every single year.
We arrive not long after. The place is deserted and the rain has started to pour harder to the point where my umbrella is doing little to protect me from the sky's tears. Nick is quiet, though he explains to me that he would have expected this to get easy every year, but it doesn't.
"I'm here for you, Nick," I say, placing a hand on his shoulder and giving it a soft squeeze. His smile shows me that he's appreciative and he grabs my fingers into his palm and squeezes back. "Does anybody usually come with you?" I whisper as if I might wake the dead.
Nick shakes his head. "Usually I come alone." He looks up into my eyes. "You're the first person I've felt should come with me. I want to show my mother that I finally made the right choice."
It takes me a moment, but I realize what he means. That I'm the first choice in his life that his mother would approve of. My gut twists and I taste bile at the back of my throat. I have to swallow hard to force it down again. "Nick..."
"Come on, she's this way."
Nick leads me off the brick pathway onto the grass. "My mother never accepted Vita as my wife. She always said that she was a woman with an endgame and would ruin my good nature. I was always too arrogant to listen to her, too young." He crouches down to the gravestone, kissing his fingers and touching them to the wet stone. "I'm sorry for that, Ma. I should have listened."
I put my umbrella down and put my hands in my pockets, the rain running its icy fingers down my spine. I tighten around the handle. "And you come all the way here every year to beg for forgiveness?"
He nods, though he doesn't turn around. He just looks at the engraving to Delilah Alto, the woman our daughter is named after. "I was never a good husband, Sadie, and I was even a worse son. I wish I could take everything I said to this woman back. She was right about everything. Vita, the life I'd chosen, how unhappy I would be." He takes a deep breath. "You're the only good thing in my life and I don't think that I deserve you."
"That's not true," I mumble as tears start to pool in my eyes. He starts to stand. "Don't... Don't turn around."
Nick does anyway. The look of surprise on his face, the look of betrayal as he spots the knife in my hand. I can't hold his stare as his eyes make their way to mine. They're streaming with tears and it feels as if somebody else has taken control of what my body is doing. I clear my throat in a weak attempt at recomposing myself. "Just turn around," I tell him. "Just turn back around and this will all be over."
"Sadie, what are you doing?"
"Just turn back around and this will all be over," I repeat.
The emotions on his face are like a freight train that's lost all control. Treachery and bewilderment, revelation and malice. "You..." he sputters. "It was all you."
"I'm sorry."
"Vita was right. You targeted us since the beginning."
I don't speak. I just watch his every move, waiting for him to act.
"Devil's Night, the motel, our child!" He huffs with exasperation. "You set it all up. It was all a lie!"
"It wasn't--"
"Don't lie to me anymore!" He yells at me. "I bet every chance you got, you laughed at me, laughed at Vita for questioning you. You just fed us more and more of your lies! Vita's right. You are a horrid person. Now get out of my way!"
Nick pushes past me and it's that quick. I can feel as his body tightens in an attempt to protect the muscles in his body. The way he stands there in complete shock, still questioning the pain that he feels, both physically and mentally. Then it's as if his legs can't hold his balance any longer and reality sinks in. He doesn't fight it. He can't, and he collapses back into my arms.
"I'm sorry," I say, resting my head on his shoulder. As much as he needs me to keep upright, I need him. The scent of his woodsy cologne reminds me of the first time I'd met him and the memories of the last year rush in, flashing back and forth at the back of my head like a strobe light.
"It wasn't all a lie," I tell him as his body goes limp and I let him slide to the ground, trying to steel myself from the hatred I know Nick has for me, but it's nothing for how much I have for myself.
He reaches out to me. I drop the knife and raise my own. It's the least I can do. I don't know what else to say to him. I can't apologize anymore than I already have and even if I could, I doubt he would listen. He looks at me with pain in his eyes. I can only wonder what he must be thinking. Is he reaching out to say sorry for what he's done to my parents? Or is he accusing me of being the demon that swindled the naive? Before I can get an answer, before I can grab his hand, he's gone.
The graveyard becomes eerily quiet as I look at him, tracing his body with tear-filled eyes. Water pools around him and for some reason unknown to me, I want to put up his umbrella and protect him from the harsh rainfall. Instead, I cover my face and burst into tears. Sirens can be heard in the distance. This is the end. I keep my eyes close, imagining Nick looking over me like he believed his mother did when he would come here.
When I close my eyes, I see Death. He's there to take Nick to the afterlife.
Babe Hart's there too. She's come to comfort me, support me in this difficult time where I have lost my husband. She tells me that it's not my fault. That Vita came in and took the man that I loved away from me. That Vita hated both Nick and I so much that she wanted to make sure I suffered. Vita's the Destroyer in my mind. Vita did all of this.
"She's telling the truth," Death says, stepping forward on the opposite side of Nick. Death's cold and dark, although something inside of me tells me that I can trust him. "Now, do you allow your husband to be transferred over?" He asks and I say yes.
When I open my eyes, I am in the back of a police car. My hands are cuffed behind me and an older woman sits in the front, driving. She doesn't seem to be one to talk and to be completely honest, I don't even know what I would say. I'm not innocent. It wasn't Vita who killed Nick and gradually I am forced to accept who I am. I am a Destroyer, sent on a mission to ruin the Alto family. I befriended a woman who would later despise me. I seduced a man from his wife. I stole a child from her family and married into it just to hurt Vita. I set everything up all the way to the point of conceiving a child with a man who was targeted for death. I scorned and swindled everybody within a ten mile radius and it led to blood on my hands.
The car stops and the officer assists me out. "This way, Ms. Alto," she says, taking me to the doors of the police station.
I go through hours of questioning. Pictures are taken of me and I have to give my fingerprints up. When I am given the opportunity, I demand that I get my one phone call. I am taken to a cheap phone and rummage through my pockets for the number Peters gave to me earlier. I have to take a deep breath to stop myself from shaking. I don't want to accidentally hit the wrong keys. Once I have finally steadied myself, I type in the number and listen to the tone on the other end.
"The number you have dialed is no longer in service. If you think you have reached this number in error, please hang up and try again.""What?" I say aloud. My heart has sunk to the pit of my stomach. "No, that can't be right. Peters, pick up the phone."
"The number you have dialed is no longer in service. If you think you have reached this number in error, please hang up and try again.""Peters pick up the phone, Peters pick up the phone!" Anger swells inside of me and I punch the wall as it forces its way out. "PETERS PICK UP THE FREAKIN' PHONE!!!"
Officers have pulled me away and I am kicking and throwing my hands around, screaming at the top of my lungs at Peters even if I know that he can't hear me. This was his plan. I know it was. I was hired to destroy a woman and man who brought havoc to my family and yet, here I am, screaming into a phone that has nobody on the other end.
"I am the Destroyer, not the Destroyed!"
I can hear Vita laughing back home. I can hear her asking "who really got destroyed?" I'm here and the one thing I care for more than anything in the world, is stuck back in the house with a woman who despises me. A woman who will bring Delilah up as her own and I can't do one thing about it. I've lost everything.
