I walked unevenly from Kevin Driscoll’s vehicle, leaving the door open, the interior lights on. I went back, wiped my fingerprints from the gear stick, door handle, the steering wheel and keys, then stood dumbly, trying to think what to do. How to stop it all unfolding. But I was an actor on a stage, unable to do anything but follow the script. I went to my car and looked it over, ran my hand over the hood, as though to affirm it was really there and not a prop. Out of the darkness beside me, Linda emerged from stage left. I heard his heavy, nasal breathing before I saw him.

“When you’re ready, bro,” he said.

When you’re ready. Like an usher seeing a gentleman to his seat in a crowded theater, his voice quiet to avoid upsetting the patrons already seated. It was all so organized, so routine. But this is what they did, after all, these people. Khalid’s men. What I was about to see, to experience, was his everyday work. A little evening production pieced together carefully, a pet project.

Linda pushed open the door, led me forward. They were all there. Sharon watching, his arms folded, impatient to continue into the next act. Khalid standing off to the side, a supervisor, production manager. His suit almost luminescent in the glow of a hastily acquired lamp. Dale Bingley was standing with his bloody, grazed fists clenched, watching me enter. And there, among them all, was Kevin Driscoll, the young man I’d spoken to what felt like minutes earlier at the Lord Chesterton Hotel.

He was sitting lopsided in a plastic chair. He had been beaten badly. The smooth, handsome face I’d barely taken in before was now bloodied, swollen, the mouth gaping and running with blood. One eye looked me over from head to toe. I watched as a flash of recognition caught his damaged features. An almost friendly look, the glance of a wounded fellow soldier. We’re in this together, brother.

“Did you call the police?” Khalid asked me. I didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. He knew that, while I’d never have wanted to be a part of this, a sick curiosity about their plans had drawn me here. I wanted to see. I needed to see my revenge fantasy playing out, even if it was only for a moment of delicious real life. How many times had I imagined this as I lay awake in my prison cell? In my empty house, away from my family? Claire’s true attacker bound. Beaten. Pleading with me as I did whatever the illusion required to get me to sleep that night, made him pay for what he had done to me, to Claire, to all of us.