Page 114 of Princes of Carnage

Pathetic.

In one smooth stroke, I bring the cleaver down, cutting through his wrists and the ropes.

His scream of agony is shrill and piercing. He heaves broken sobs, jerking back and trying to cradle the stumps of his bleeding wrists against his chest, like that will keep me from hurting him more.

In his thrashing, he manages to spit the gag out, the wad of material sliding down around his neck.

“Please,” he sobs. “Please, don’t kill me. We didn’t know. We didn’t know who she was or that she was—please!”

My jaw clenches, and for the first time since I stepped into this container, emotion flashes through me. I felt nothing while killing the others, nothing while they screamed and begged and tried to shout threats through the fabric stuffed into their mouths. Killing them was just another thing on my to-do list for the night, and it was no less than they deserved.

But now there’s… irritation. A bit of anger sparking inside me at the audacity of this fucker to beg me for his life.

“I can pay you,” he continues. “Anything you want! I’ve… I’ve got access to money. Drugs, guns, whatever you want! Just, please. Please let me—”

“I asked you a question before,” I say, cutting him off, my voice low and intent. “Did she beg too?”

His face is swollen with the force of his crying, snotty and bloody and foul. He shakes his head, trying to drag his body away from me.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” I huff a humorless laugh. “Because she’s braver than you’ll ever be.”

“We—”

Whatever he was going to say is cut off by me shooting him in the kneecap.

He screams in pain, going down hard on the metal floor of the shipping container. Without hands, he can’t really get very far, and he flops around like a worm, trying to use whatever momentum he can get to put distance between us.

But there’s nowhere for him to go. It’s not a large shipping container, and there’s a pile of his friends’ dead bodies behind him.

I don’t even advance on him that quickly as I follow, cleaver in one hand, gun in the other.

I roll him over onto his back with my foot and then shoot him again, this time in the stomach—low enough that he’s guaranteed to die from it, but not quickly.

He twitches, gurgling blood as he bleeds out from all of his wounds, his horrified eyes dimming more and more as he gasps for air.

While I wait, I gather up my things, cleaning up the scene as best I can. I wipe down the blade of the cleaver, then scoop all the hands up into a waterproof bag and tie off the top of it, tucking that and my weapons back into my work bag.

The man finally dies, going still on the floor. I glance around to make sure there’s nothing left behind, then pull out the accelerant I brought with me, dousing the shipping container in it.

Once I step out of the small space, I toss a match in behind me, and the whole thing is ablaze in a matter of seconds.

The flames snap and crackle as the shipping container goes up in smoke. I don’t turn back to look at it as I leave, striding away with purpose with the bag in my hand as I go.

The sky is just starting to lighten, the smell of morning dew hanging in the air. I was out all night collecting my prey, going after each of the men who attacked Quinn.

Thinking about her makes me think about last night, when I walked into the living room to see her being fucked by Nico and Atlas. She was so fucking beautiful, her eyes hazy, her body trembling as they overloaded her with pleasure. There was something wild about her in that moment. Something I’ve never seen before, even in all the times I fucked her at Le Bal Masque. She was wild and ravenous, taking all the pleasure she wanted. Everything she deserved.

More than anything, I wanted to stride into the room and let her know I was there. That I was watching. Even if she hadn’t let me touch her, it would have been enough for her to know that I was there.

I didn’t do any of that, though.

There was something I had to do that was more important. It’s been gnawing at me ever since she told me about what happened to her, knowing those men who hurt her were still out there. So I decided to do something about it.

I know she’s still pissed at me about the stalking and not telling her who I was at the beginning of all of this, when she and Nico agreed to marry each other. I also know that she might never forgive me for it. But I won’t apologize, because I’m not fucking sorry.

It’s a long trip back home, and by the time I get there, it’s later in the morning. The sun is fully up, and there are lights on in the house.

Quinn is in the kitchen when I walk inside, sitting at the table with a bowl in front of her, eating cereal absentmindedly as she looks at something on her phone.

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