Page 38 of Malevolent King

He laughed. “You really think Antonio De Sanctis is going to give his little princess to a thug like you? Forget it.”

“That’s not my problem. I didn’t bet her. You did. Work it out.”

“It’s impossible.”

I blew out a breath and shrugged off my leather jacket.“I thought you might say that, so I planned ahead,” I said, giving him another grin.

He watched me warily. “What are you doing?”

“Taking this off, I don’t like to get it dirty. It’s a bitch to clean.”

I reached into the pocket for something I’d picked up earlier. It had been expensive, not that I’d paid for it.

As my hand was emerged from my pocket, Silvio went bone white.

The meat cleaver shone dully under the ceiling spotlights.

“What the fuck is that for?”

“Well, since I expected you to let me down, I had to decide how to punish you for wasting my time. And I know you tried to touch what is mine, so I figured I could kill two birds with one stone.”

“You’re crazy,” Silvio sputtered, and made a pointless break for the door.

I caught him in an explosive burst of power and slammed him hard into the wall. He groaned and slumped to the floor.

“Now, Silvio, don’t be a child and try to escape your punishment. Be a man. You are, of course, free to explain to Antonio why this has happened to you. But you’ll have to tell him about sneaking his seventeen-year-old daughter out of the house, betting her in a poker game, and letting her catch the eye of a thug like me,” I said, slapping his belly. The obscene sound echoed around the room.

“Now, tell me which hand you touched Sofia with, and be quick about it,” I said as I leaned in to trail the cleaver down his cheek.

He stared at me, terrified and devoid of fight. Fuck, I’d known he was a coward, but this was even worse than I’d imagined.

He was quiet, shaking his head slightly.

“Tell me now.”

His eyes widened with terror.“Or?”

I was impressed he could form coherent thoughts with how afraid he was.

I grinned down at him, enjoying the taste of his terror. “Or I’ll take them both.”

12

NIKOLAI

Now

The darkness didn’t last nearly long enough, and a splitting headache echoed through my skull only minutes after my wannabe torturers left. I pushed myself onto my side, trying to take the pressure off my wrists, but the tie was so tight around the pipe behind it that it was impossible to relieve the pressure completely.

Resting my head against the hard floor, I took a deep breath, cataloging my hurts. I’d patched myself up plenty of times. There was a lot you could do with duct tape when you had to, and I could tell that most of my injuries would feel better in a few days. My shoulder ached where I’d hauled Sofia up one-handed, and the side of my head throbbed dangerously. Those were the only wounds worth worrying about. I closed my eyes, preferring to picture the enjoyable imagery of burning Sofia’s childhood home to the ground.

The image of violence always comforted me.

I had been sixteen and a student at my father’s school of violence the first time I’d taken a life. It would be a few months before I’d taken another, but that first one stayed with you, or so they said. I wasn’t sure I agreed. When slack faces stack one upon another, they all blend together. Another symptom of a cracking mind.

Tonight, like a watercolor canvas with a maddening drip on one side, the colors were all bleeding together. Life, death, pain, and revenge. Life was an endurance test. A freak show. Something to get through as fast as possible. The only time it paused its sickening grind was around Sofia. A secret power no one in the world had over me. A lure like no other.

My obsession with Sofia was a weakness. Anything important to you was a weakness in my world, and Sofia De Sanctis had always been a precious thing to me. That weakness had landed me here, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret it. Chasing my little swallow through the woods, fingering her into submission, and eating her cunt for hours last night was the highlight of my fucking life.

---