I don’t feel the pain, just the rage. The anger. The uncontrollable need for violence. My knuckles ache. My fist fucking throbs, and I can practically taste the blood in the air. But I don’t stop. I can’t stop. The sound of bones cracking under the force of my punches is like music to my ears. His face is a swollen mass of purple and blue, blood and snot pooling over his top lip dripping down his chin. His nose is awkwardly bent to the side and bleeding, his lips are cut, and a trickle of blood is leaking out of his ear. But not a single part of me feels bad for beating him to a pulp. All I want to do is hurt him some more. I want to hear and feel every bone in his body break. I want to watch every last drop of blood drain from his veins and witness his marrow get ripped straight out of his spine. It’s the price this world pays for letting her get hurt. It’s the universe’s penance for allowing her to suffer like no woman ever should. And I don’t care how long it takes or how far I have to go. I won’t stop torturing, hurting, killing until I’m satisfied that the debt to my wife has been paid.
I pull my Espada knife from my pants pocket, flicking the blade with every intention of slicing open his hand. But then I remember that night in the kitchen, the night Mira tried to cook for me—emphasis on tried. We ended up fucking on the kitchen table, and she begged me to cut her, to unleash my most twisted desires onto her body. So I did. Maybe that’s why all this shit happened; because I maimed my wife’s body and made her bleed, only to find pleasure in it. Maybe what happened to her is supposed to be my punishment, yet she’s the one paying for it.
It was her blood this blade tasted last, and I intend to keep it that way, so I slide it back into my jacket pocket, then hold out my hand to Caelian. “Knife.”
“You’re not gonna get anything out of him if he’s dead,” Caelian remarks as he hands me his knife before casually leaning against the dirty wall, smoking a cigarette. The smell of burning tobacco is overshadowed by the more familiar stink of urine, feces, and sweat that lingers between these four walls.
“Please. Please,” the man begs, but not even a goddamn puppy can make me stop.
I lick my lips, and with a snarl, I jab the knife through the fucker’s hand, feeling the blade slice through bone, crunching it, and hitting the wooden armrest.
He screams. The sharp, ear-shattering wails of a grown man practically lick my motherfucking balls.
Caelian starts to circle him while glancing around the room. “When do you think is the last time he cleaned this place? Jesus, is that…” He looks closer at the stains on the torn sheets bundled up on the broken bed. “Is that cum?” Caelian looks at me. “Is that cum?”
“It probably is. And yes, this place is a dump. Now, can we focus here?”
“Oh. Of course.” Caelian stills and retakes his place against the wall. “Please continue killing the only lead you have right now since you slaughtered the others.”
“Fuck you very much,” I grit out before balling my hand into a fist once more, sweeping my arm back and launching it forward, hitting the fucker square in the jaw. Blood explodes from his mouth, a tooth clattering across the tiled floor.
Caelian snorts. “Souvenir?”
“No, thanks,” I spit out, grabbing the fucker’s face. “What I really want is his jaw on my bedside table holding my fucking beer.”
The coward begins to whimper, so I grab a fistful of hair and yank his head back. “Where is he?” I growl. “You better start talking…” Fucker’s name slipped my mind, so I glance at Caelian.
“Ben,” Caelian answers, and I frown.
“His name is not Ben.”
“It is now.”
“Fine. Ben,” I mutter, turning my attention back to him and pulling his head back even farther. “Start talking, Ben.”
“I don’t…I don’t know,” he sputters, the sound of gargling blood coming from his throat. “I don’t know where Nunzio is.”
“Liar!”
“I’m not lying. No one knows where he is. No one’s seen him for weeks.”
“Are you telling me your boss just vanished into thin fucking air?”
The son of a bitch spits more blood, and my top lip curls in a snarl as the need to beat him to a pulp knocks against my chest, breathing heavily. “All I know is he has safehouses all across the city.”
“Safehouses?”
He nods. “When he stays in a safehouse, it’s just him and the lady of the house. No one else.”
I shoot Caelian a questioning look before scowling at the bleeding fucker whose piss I’m currently standing in. “Lady of the house? You mean his whore?”
“I dunno what these women are to him. All I know is they live in the safehouses, take care of them, make sure they’re always ready for him.”
I grind my molars together, fighting the need to fuck this guy up for a moment before my eyes flick to Caelian, silently asking if he believes the shit this loser is feeding us.
Caelian shrugs. “Makes sense. We all know Nunzio is a fucking coward. Of course, he’ll have hiding places with pussy ready.”
My attention is back to our bleeding friend as I lean forward, wrapping my fingers around the knife’s handle, causing it to shift slightly and earning a beautiful moan of pain from Ben’s bloody mouth. “Give me specific locations.”
“I told you. I don’t know where.”
“Why are you protecting this asshole? Look at where you’re living. It’s a fucking hole in hell’s back yard. One would think Nunzio could at least take care of his loyal, albeit stupid, worker bee motherfuckers.”
“Like I said,” he bites out, sucking in a deep breath, “I don’t. Know.”
I pull out my gun, placing the barrel under his chin. “How about now?”
“Jesus,” he cries. “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know!”
“Do you know how badly I want to squeeze this trigger, Ben? I really want you to keep lying so I can blow your tongue out of the top of your head.”
His bloodied bottom lip trembles, more piss running down his legs, wetting the floor. “Louis,” he whispers, and I cock a brow. “My…my name…it’s…Louis.”
Anger ruptures, the flames licking my skin while heat melts every last ounce of control I have left. “See you in hell, motherfucker.”
I pull the trigger. The gunshot reverberates through the room, blood spattering on my face, and I slowly straighten, gun still in hand, as I stare at the bloody mess that was Ben’s face. It looks like he’s been mauled by a pack of starved dogs.
“Jesus Christ, Nicoli,” Caelian whines as he wipes drops of blood from his cheek. “How about a little warning next time.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Was my gun on his face not warning enough for you?”
“I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to actually kill the fucker.”
“What?” I snap in disbelief. “Please tell me, brother, what about this entire scenario had you thinking that I won’t actually kill Ben here?”
“Louis,” Caelian corrects, grabbing the knife lodged in Ben’s hand and yanking it out. “His name…is Louis.”
I press my lips together and lift my gun, aiming it at my younger brother. “I dare you to say that again.”
Caelian is unfazed. He doesn’t even fucking blink as he locks his glare onto mine. “Louis. Say it with me. Loo-ee.”
“Fuckers.” Maximo stomps in. “I leave you alone for two goddamn minutes, and there’s a dead body tied to a chair, and Caelian has loaded ammunition dangling in front of his face again.”
“What do you mean again?” I ask.
“Last week, there was an old fart at the club who thought Caelian and the new girl were a duo.”
“Maximo,” Caelian barks. “We made a pact to never talk about it again, man.”
“And now I’m breaking that pact.”
“Is nothing sacred anymore in this family? Look, my brother has a gun aimed at my head. A fucking gun.”
Maximo starts untying Ben’s hands. “He won’t shoot you.”
“I might.” I keep my gun trained on Caelian’s head as Maximo instructs the clean-up crew to remove what’s left of Ben.
“You see?” Caelian points at me. “He’s one temper tantrum away from shooting me.” He turns to face me. “Are you done jerking off?”
I lower my gun and smile. “Yeah, I’m done.”
“Great,” Maximo says, pulling out a packet of cigarettes from his leather jacket pocket. “Caelian, I need to speak to Nicoli in private.”
“If you’re thinking of sucking his dick, he already creamed his pants when he killed Ben.”
“Loo-ee,” I enunciate as Caelian walks out, flipping me off over his shoulder. The door slams shut, and I’m pretty sure I heard the wood crack around the hinges.
Maximo grabs a sheet off the bed and holds it out to me. “Clean your face.”
“With the dead man’s cum-rag? No, thank you.”
“Ew. Goddammit!” Maximo drops the sheet and curses. “That’s just nasty.”
I pull off my jacket and wipe the blood off my hands and face, tossing the two-thousand-dollar Armani suit jacket in the dead man’s piss. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Mira,” he responds simply, leaning back against the wall and finally lighting his cigarette. “I, uh…I overheard a conversation between her and Leandra this morning.”
“In other words, you were eavesdropping?”
“Exactly.”
“Good man.”
His expression hardens, and my spine tingles with warning.
“What’s going on?”
Maximo glances around the room. “Maybe we should have this conversation somewhere else.”
“Maximo,” I warn. “Spit it out, man.”
“She remembers.”
I freeze on the spot, my mind completely blank. “She remembers…what?”
When his eyes finally meet mine, reality seeps in.
A beat passes, and I press my hand against the wall, rubbing my eyes with my fingers. “Marco.”
“Yeah.”
“And you overheard her tell Leandra this? That she remembers…killing Marco?”
Maximo simply nods, then takes a long drag of his cigarette, the amber bud glowing angrily before it fades again. “She got her memory back the night…” His voice cracks. “The night of the hunting.”
“Jesus Christ,” I exhale, pulling my hand through my hair and grabbing a fistful at the back of my neck. “I can’t fucking believe this is happening. And why…why wouldn’t she tell me?” I glance at him. “What else did you hear?”
Maximo shakes his head lightly. “You’re gonna have to speak to her.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Maximo. What else did she say?”
He drops the cigarette to the ground, stomping his heel into it before straightening. “That she’s tired of us treating her like we’re scared she’ll break. And that’s why she didn’t tell you that she remembers everything. She thinks it will only make it worse.”
“Oh, my God,” I mutter, leaning my head back against the wall, staring up at a giant crack through the yellowed ceiling. “She should have told me.”
“We need to get our shit together,” Maximo counters.
“What do you mean?”
“She’s right, Nicoli. I’m avoiding her as much as possible because when I see her, all I think about is how it’s my fault. That if I never took her to that motherfucking hotel, never left her side while she sorted through fucking flowers, it would never have happened. And you—” he points at me “—you’re different with her.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are. You talk to her like you think your voice will shatter her skull. And when you’re around her, you’re like a little fucking puppy wagging your tail at her all day long because God forbid you piss her off.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Maximo scoffs. “What’s wrong with that? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that. You used to be the motherfucking dragon who breathed fire around her, protecting her like she’s your queen. And now…now you’re shielding her like she’s that little girl in the yellow coat who is too small, too weak to defend herself.”
I’m biting the inside of my cheek, trying to stop myself from tearing his head off with my teeth. But deep down, really fucking deep down, I know what he’s saying is the truth.
Maximo steps up, placing a hand on my shoulder. “It seems like, once again, we’ve underestimated my sister. It’s not her who needs to deal with this shit, Nicoli. It’s us. We need to deal with it and move the fuck on. Otherwise, we’re both going to lose her.” He leans his head to the side, eyebrows arched. “For real this time.”
