Revenge for His Daughter

     "Still alive," Alex thought as he struggled to lift his head from the rain-soaked pavement. His body ached. He could feel every heartbeat pound in the base of his skull. As he pushed his body up in an effort to sit, he noticed the pavement wasn't only wet from rain, but his blood as well.
     He sat in that alley, trying to regain some sort of rational thought, trying to piece together the events he remembered. There was the wedding, and then reception. An old college buddy had finally decided to tie the knot.
     Unfortunately, Alex was forced to be in the same room as the woman who had left him just weeks earlier for her boss. In the whole grand scheme of it all, he actually didn't mind the circumstances. Their friends had heard about her leaving him.  It was no secret. When they saw her sitting with this sixty-five-year-old man though, twenty-two years her elder, the snickers must have taken their toll. His future ex-wife and her new boyfriend lasted only an hour at the reception.
     After the reception, Alex had stopped by the restaurant where his daughter worked to pick her up. The same restaurant where his wife was the head chef. In the heart of historic Boston, it was a rather fancy place. Candles on every table accompanied by fine linen and glistening silver.
     When he arrived, the lights were dimmed, but the door still unlocked. He opened the door. It offered only a click as it shut behind him.
     Small square tables lined the narrow restaurant walls to his left and right, and had been made ready for the following day's business. His daughter was proud of how tight she could wrap the fine silver with the linen napkins, and still have it look perfect.
     Alex walked toward the back of the restaurant, passing an immaculate mahogany bar. From ahead, he thought he had heard a muffled scream.
     "Celeste?" he yelled. "Celeste, is that you?"
     Another muffled scream.
     He started to run back a hallway in the direction of the kitchen. He could see a light on. And then he saw nothing.
     Judging by the scent of his suit coat, and the now dried-blood that caked the back of his head, he guessed it was a wine bottle that caught him. It was her favorite red wine. He had smelled it before. He never committed the name of that horrible stuff to memory. She drank too much of it. So much, just the smell of it now was tugging at his gag reflex.
     He stood in the alley, it must have been an hour, at least, that he was out there. He would have to walk around the block to get out front to his car. As he did so, he checked his phone. Much to his dismay, he had no missed calls from his daughter.
     As he sat in his car, he decided he would go to this guy's house. A feeling of dread had replaced the throbbing he had felt when he came to. The last thing he remembered hearing, that scream, filled all conscious thought.
     Not much more than five minutes outside of the city, Alex stopped his car. The lights in the front room of the house were off. Alex tried the front door of the sand-colored Cape Cod. It was locked. Around the back he ran. Of course, that door was locked as well.
     Alex looked down and the doormat. Hoping against hope, he lifted it.
     "Of course not, that would have been too easy," he thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a rock.
     "Idiot."
     He lifted the out-of-place rock, and flipped it over. Nestled in a crevice was a key.
     He opened the backdoor. On an island centered in the kitchen, he saw a rather expensive cutlery set with magnificent stainless-steel handles, and an empty wine bottle. As he walked past the island, he reached and grabbed the knife with the largest handle, as well as the bottle.
     Up the carpeted staircase he crept. About halfway up, he heard a sort of muffled crying, followed by a voice.
     "You're sixteen years-old. This can't be your first time, stop crying."
     Anger raced through him faster than a bolt of lightning crashes upon Earth. Three bounds and he was up the staircase. At the end of the hallway was a closed door with a light emanating from underneath. At a full sprint, his 200lb. frame burst through the door, blowing it from its hinges.
     In the bedroom, he saw the balding man at the bed with his pants around his ankles. He turned just in time to see the empty wine bottle break into thousands of pieces as it shattered upon his face. In the corner of the room sat his daughter's mother. She, at this point, didn't deserve to be considered his ex, or his daughter's mother for that matter. She had been finding pleasure in the ordeal.
     His daughter rolled from the bed and pulled up her jeans, still crying.
     "Go downstairs and call the cops. Say only that there was a break-in, then hang up. Then take these," Alex said as he tossed Celeste the keys, "and go home."
     "I don't have my license."
     "Just do it."
     Celeste took the keys and ran.
     Not much more than ten minutes later, the first police officer arrived. Alex, sitting on a porch a couple houses down, watched. He wondered what the police thought when they entered the bedroom. Two naked bodies were on the floor, one on top of the other. A few feet from the bodies was a bloodied knife. The woman, on top, held in one hand, a gun, and in the other, her lover's reproductive organ.
     After a twenty minute walk back to the city, he returned to the alley, and sat in his drying blood.
     "Hello, 911? My name is Alex Burgess. I just came to in the alley behind the Italiano. I think I've been mugged."
     He smirked as the dispatcher on the other end said she'd send an officer.