Eye for an Eye by Dwayne S. Joseph Page B

the pain that she’s made me feel. The heartache. The emptiness. The loneliness I’ve had to endure. I want to look directly into her eyes as her life extinguishes the way mine did.
    Hell.
    Pure goddamned hell.
    I squeeze. Feel the ache in my leg. I’m gripping so tightly, I’m causing trauma to the muscle. I’ll have a bruise tomorrow. Another one to add to the collection of bruises, cuts, and scars I’ve accumulated.
    I watch her.
    I can’t hear what she’s saying, but I know the words coming out of her mouth are laced with pompous ignorance. Fucking bitch. Fucking whore. Fucking prostitute. She doesn’t know how lucky she is. She could die right here and now. But I have to wait and that kills me. Makes me hate her even more. She likes to have everything go her way. I hate making her think that it is. But I have to. Revenge will look, smell, taste, and feel so much better if I wait. If I stick to the plan.
    My leg bounces. Says fuck the plan. Do it now.
    Now!
    I squeeze. My cotton slacks don’t prevent my nails from digging into my flesh.
    Bitch. I’m going to kill you and it will be all your fault.
    God, I can’t wait until that moment comes. I’m going to savor it. I’m going to replay and relive it in my mind over and over.
    I take a breath, hold it for a moment, and then let it out slowly. Look at her. Arrogantly plotting out how to ruin someone else’s life.
    You’re going to pay for what you’ve done to me, bitch.
    My leg stops bouncing and I unclasp my fingers from around it. My body is in tune with my mind now. It understands that patience is the key to salvation. Patience will deliver to me the freedom that I need to move on. It will be hard, but at least then, without her in the world, I can try. But only when she’s no longer a part of this world.
    My leg starts to bounce again. I clamp my fingers around it again and squeeze. My muscles hurt. I wince. But I enjoy the pain. It’s sadistic, I know.
    I wasn’t always this way. Before the pain she’d caused, I was sane. I was happy. I was living a life filled with love. The sun shone and brought heat and light to every one of my days. I looked forward to the beauty of sunrise and the imminence of sunset, knowing that I would be blessed with the magnificence of sunrise again.
    But then that bitch took it all away.
    She got rid of the sun and brought the cold and the darkness.
    I hate her.
    I wince and grit my teeth, I’m squeezing my leg so hard. I’m sure I’m going to limp when I leave. But that’s OK. I’ll squeeze and deny my muscles the pleasure of getting up and ending her life now, because the pleasure will be so much sweeter when the time comes.
    Be patient. Breathe and be patient.
    Stick to the plan.
    She’ll get hers.
    I promise.
    I watch her. I squeeze my leg again. Shit, it hurts.
    Fucking bitch.

12
    â€œHi, Lisette.”
    I’d just finished my meeting with Shante Hunt and was folding a cashier’s check she’d given me for $37,000 dollars. Half now. The rest when she had Ryan Scott by the balls. The sum was commonplace to me now, but the sensation of holding that much money at one time was still intoxicating.
    Ruining marriages was a very lucrative business.
    I looked up to see Rebecca Stantin standing in front of me. She was the wife of pastor extraordinaire Bruce Stantin. He was a charismatic womanizer and abuser, who had everyone fooled. He preached the Word of God on Sundays, and verbally and physically abused his wife Monday through Saturday.
    Rebecca had come to me because she wanted explicit photographs of the good minister committing the sin of adultery. She wanted to use those photographs as leverage to not only get out of the marriage, but to walk away with as large a settlement as well. She was seeking peace and freedom. I’d given her the photos she wanted, but before I let her walk away, I showed her how she could have