Slowburn

Chapter 106

       There was a lot of hustle and bustling happening in and around the apartment tonight. To cover up a murder and all that. It doesn't totally feel real to me yet. I was horrified, but once stepping away from the crime scene...from the body, it just stopped feeling real. 

This is probably the strangest thing I could compare it to, but it almost felt like, how you feel when you go to a movie theater and you get so engrossed in the film and the characters that you almost take on their personalities and feel involved somehow...

that is until the film ends, the lights turn on, and everybody starts slowly shuffling out of the theater. You have that weird feeling of surfacing to reality again, and on the walk to the car you're just slowly fading out from the character you just felt like back to yourself. Then your head remembers it was just a film and none of that was real. 

Yeah...it kinda feels like that right now.

       Renzo is in boss mode right now making sure to take care of everything. A lot of phone calls, cussing, and he pops outside every once in a while, but he doesn't want to leave me alone, so he always rushes back. I'm just on my lovely teal sofa staring at nothing. Renzo doesn't know what to do with me. He doesn't know how to console people or have a heart to heart. So he's keeping himself busy.

That, and he called on Dante, because he always calls on Dante, because Dante understands basic human emotions and is never afraid of saying sorry when it's needed.

        I saw from the corner of my eye that someone was approaching and I knew it was Dante. He knelt down in front of me and looked me square in the eye. "Hi kitten" his tone was soft and forgiving. I don't want to be forgiven. 

I haven't spoken in what feels like hours, but the first words out of my mouth were, "Kind of comical how much of a hypocrite I am. I'm a murderer. Do you guys have a club or something?" 

I don't usually make crude jokes or any jokes really. I always feel like I would offend someone and say sorry right after I make the joke. I also don't usually murder people, so I guess tonight is the night of trying new things. See, again, a deflection with crude dark humor.

        Dante sighed and leaned forward to give me a hug. I accepted it, but didn't lift my arms to hug him back. When he pulled away he came and sat on the sofa instead of kneeling in front of me. He sort of fixed my position so that I would turn my body slightly to face him. 

"Kat, what you did wasn't murder. You aren't some heartless killer. In fact, it was your heart that was entirely in it. You defended the man that matters to you. You didn't even do it to save yourself. What you did is called self defense, and it's actually legal" Dante told me. 

He wasn't even there when it happened, but I guess Renzo probably told him all the details. Because he is right, I didn't do it for me. I killed Sven because he was about to kill Renzo.

        'Self defense' Dante called it. Would that hold up in the court of law? It's funny, you think I would be worried about being arrested and caught, but I'm not. Mob business doesn't make it onto police desks. Still, if this crime did go to court would the jury side with me? 

Innocent or guilty? Either way, no matter the outcome of my defense, a man is dead and I am responsible. No court or cage can raise the dead. 

If I died tonight instead of the other two, would my picture have been in the newspapers? 'Innocent girl slain',  'Innocent girl shot down in the wrong place at the wrong time', would probably be headlines. They would have quotes in the paper of things people that knew me said.