Page 123 of Sinful Blaze

With… himself. Apparently.

That’s the other half of the image I did not need to ever see in my lifetime: Sidney Conrad Ewing, completely naked, glistening with oil. On his knees before the painting of Daphne, head thrown back in loud moans of pleasure mixed with rapture.

While his fist goes to town on his dick.

To think I was even considering letting him live.

I grab him and throw him against one of the bare walls. “What the fuck are you doing?” I know I don’t want the actual answer to that question. Hell, I don’t want to ask him shit because he’s still too… excited… to think straight.

“I don’t have anything!” Conrad squeezes his eyes shut. “I don’t have anything of value!”

“Understatement of the year,” Sofi mumbles as she looks around the room. “This place is a dump.”

I don’t have the time or the patience to play games with him. “I’m here about Daphne.”

“Daphne? I haven’t seen her in months! I swear!”

Sofi turns around to stroll up to him, arms folded. “You sure about that?”

Ewing visibly pales. “Okay. So I just saw her today. It’s her job! I have a showing there! Besides, I’m getting married?—”

“Exactly.” It is taking every ounce of self-control to not bash his face in. “So you have no business, professional or otherwise, coming anywhere near my wife.”

“‘Wife’?!” He sputters and stares at me like I’ve grown two new heads. “I never saw a ring!”

My arm is at his throat before I can even register the amount of fury now boiling in my veins. “So you noticed that, huh?” I press harder. If he chokes to death on his own blood, it will be the better part of my day. “Was that before or after you noticed she’s pregnant with my child?”

All the fight is gone from Ewing. He sags against the wall; if I wasn’t so hellbent on strangling him, he’d probably fall to the floor. Tears spill from his eyes and he starts to sob.

Oh, for fuck’s sake…

“You were never enough for Daphne,” I snarl in his face. “And you never will be enough for her. Or for anyone, you pathetic excuse of a man. Your art is trash, your behavior is trash, you are trash. And you dared to think yourself worthy to touch my wife.”

An idea springs to mind.

“Hey, Sofi?” I call over my shoulder. “Which hand does our friend here use?”

She’s silent while she types in the search on her phone. Then: “According to this wiki, Sidney Conrad Ewing is right-handed.”

“Perfect.”

His terrified protests and pleas fall on deaf ears. I can only think of one thing, and that’s how his grubby, slimy hands laid a finger on my beautiful plamya. Mine.

Let’s make sure he never does it again.

I yank him hard over to the table, slam his right wrist down, and hold my free hand out. Sofi places a hammer in it—one of those large, heavy motherfuckers they use for sculpting. Then she moves behind him and forces a gag into his mouth.

I don’t know what satisfies me more: the way his screams pitch so high he goes silent, or the way his bones crunch under the first blow of the hammer.

The second and third blows are pretty satisfying, too.

By the time I’m done, what used to be his artistic hand is nothing more than a skin sack filled with shattered bone.

Ewing is just this side of passing out. His eyes have rolled back in his head, and he’s pissed himself. Thankfully, none of it got on my shoes, or I’d be moving on to his other hand, too.

“Good luck with your paintings now, asshole.” I toss the hammer aside and enjoy the way he cringes when it clatters on the floor.

With a nod to Sofi, we leave Ewing there at the table. Sobbing, dry-heaving, kneeling in a puddle of his own piss as he stares in horror at his mangled hand.

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