Page 73 of Insidious Heart
Married a pretty girl right out of high school, one who earned herself a college degree while pregnant and raising a baby girl but chose to stay home with her full time shortly after.
Got a job in the same police force his dad retired from thanks to thegood wordhe put in, and he’s slowly moving up the ranks despite being a dumpster fire of a human.
Anthony Salinski has no idea what it’s like to fight and claw your way through the shit just so you can survive long enough to do it all over again the next day.
He has no clue what it’s like to not know when your next meal will be, whether only your mother will beat you or if your father will join too. He doesn’t know what it’s like to get bullied then shunned, what it’s like to want to make your life to be so much more than it is so you can get the hell out of town, only to realize there is something so goddamn wrong with you that it’ll never happen.
Anthony Salinski has no fucking idea what it’s like to finally stand up for yourself, and finally try to protect the one person you give a shit about, then turn around and have your life explode into a heaping pile of shit because of it.
No, this fuckstick has no clue what any of that is like, and instead of taking the silver spoon he was born with and using it to dig through all the bullshit in the world, Anthony uses it to break defenseless children until they turn out likeme.
But you know what else Sack-linski doesn’t know?
He hasnoidea who’s coming for him, andthatis exactly what this piece of shit deserves.
I crouch down and follow Anthony toward the kitchen, losing my visual briefly when I round the back of his house. The light comes on just as I grab my bag from the bushes and squat behind them for a beat while I watch his shadow move across the sliding glass doors in the dining room.
Before Sack-linski got home, I broke in through the side door that leads to the detached garage.
The only blueprints I could find on the little one-level ranch were from about ten years ago, and since Anthony likes to keep up with the Jones’s, I needed to be sure he hadn’t remodeled the fuck out of the inside before I went in. And I’m glad I did because he’d knocked down a few walls, moved into his daughter’s room—sick fuck—and turned the master bedroom into an extension of the third bedroom, but he must have given up halfway because it’s full of paint cans, drywall, and tarps.
I wait for the kitchen light to go out before I dart across the deck, rounding the opposite side of the house then pausing at the side door. I hold my breath while I listen to make sure Anthony is headed toward his bedroom then quickly pick the knob lock.
Letting myself in quietly, I look around and see nothing but the blue glow coming from the now dark living room and a light on in the hall.
Perfect.
Anthony has no idea I’m here, and he’s about to find the little present I left him.
I sling my bag over my shoulder as I nonchalantly walk through the kitchen, my adrenaline spiking, my endorphins already responding to the thrill of the kill, my high kicking in and reaching a peak that will make this even more satisfying.
With a smile no one can see, I turn the corner and start down the hall, fighting the urge to whistle a happy little tune.
It’s disturbing how much I love this shit, even to someone as fucked up as me, but I can’t argue with the way it makes me feel. My blood rushing through my veins, my heart pumping wildly in my chest. Thankfully, actually killing people doesn’t give me a boner but the anticipation leading up to it easily could if I let it.
I don’t, though.
That’s not really my thing.
But the way my entire body reacts to the idea of watching the life leave someone’s eyes at my hand? That shit is addictive as hell and can be considered some hardcore fucking foreplay.
Maybe I’ll swing by and see if Stevie is still up when I’m done.
My smile grows at the thought, along with others of fucking her while Joker lay in a pool of blood on the floor less than a foot away flash through my mind. I don’t have time for that kind of distraction right now, though, so I need to shelf it for the time being.
Especially when I peer in the open bedroom door and see that Anthony found my gift.
“What the hell is going on… “ he mumbles as he snatches one of the dozens of photos I printed off his computer from his desk. Sack-linski looks it over for a second before turning slightly and reaching out to grab a pair of stained underwear, little girl’s underwear, from the foot of his bed.
Sick fucking bastard, I think as I shake my head and lean against the door frame.
During my walk-through I managed to find all of Anthony’s hiding places.
He had quite the disgusting stash under his floorboards, so much so that I left a decent amount underneath and only set out thetrophieshis coworkers should see right away.
The ones with blood and other stains on them.
I left the hole in the floor exposed, though.
