Page 127 of The Devil's Fire

“Well, sometimes he does come across a bit… stupid.”

“I know. He can be smart when he wants to be.”

“Apparently.” I let out a light chuckle. “What happened to the guy?”

“You don’t need to know.” He furrowed his brows at me, not liking my question.

“But I want to know.” I tried.

“Althaia.” Damiano warned me to not ask about it anymore. I ignored him, leaning closer to his face.

“Did you torture him? Burn him? Drown him wearing cement shoes?” I listed.

Damiano studied me intently, his face remained expressionless. With a soft smile, I softly touched his cheek, silently letting him know I was okay to hear it.

“I made sure he had a painful death.” He admitted.

“How?” I asked, running my fingers through his hair. I wasn’t surprised. I knew he wouldn’t make it out alive. Damiano went silent again, observing my face to see if I was okay to hear the answer.

“For every scratch, wound, and misplaced hair on you, I carved deep into his body and fed him to the rats when I was done.” He said, his voice laced with caution as his eyes locked onto my face, searching for any signs of fear. But I wasn’t scared anymore. I have come to learn what kind of man he was.

“How do you feed someone to rats?” I decided to ask.

“You place a cage that’s opened on the bottom. Place it on their stomach, get a few rats and put them in the cage, then slowly heat the cage. It makes the rats desperate to get away from the heat and burrow through the flesh with their claws and teeth. They gnaw right into the bowel, causing excruciating pain.” He explained.

“Yikes. I bet he regrets not staying in bed that day.” I couldn’t help but grimace a bit at the thought of rats gnawing into the flesh. “Poor rats.”

“They made it out alive. He didn’t.”

“Thank goodness!” I said in relief.

Damiano let out a surprised smile and wrapped his arms tightly around me.

“My Althaia, what wouldn’t I do for you.” He whispered. A soft smile was on my lips as I rested my head on his chest. I closed my eyes as I listened to the sweet melody of his heartbeat.

forty

Althaia

“I’m going to miss you so much!” I hugged Cara tightly.

“Me too! It’s going to suck without you.”

“Ghee, thanks.” Arianna faked an offended expression.

I couldn't help but let out a laugh as I turned to embrace her tightly. It was going to be so weird to be away from them for so long when we had spent so many days together.

“Now we can all get some sleep at night without you fucking like crazy every night.” Raffaele started, and I gave him a blank look.

“Don’t you ever get tired of your own stupid comments?”

“Never!” He grinned and gave me a bone-crushing hug that I returned. He was going to be missed. His comments, not so much.

I gave them one last goodbye and even shared an awkward goodbye with Lorenzo, where I patted his shoulder as a farewell. I didn’t know why I still felt awkward around him, but I did. Probably because of the number of times I have humiliated myself in front of him. I guess he kind of felt the same about me too because he awkwardly patted my head as a goodbye.

“That… hurts to watch.”

“So awkward…”

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