Page 43 of Monstrous Urges

The look of pure horror on his face is the sweetest thing in the world. It’s not a bluff, and it’s the icing on the cake to see in his eyes that he knows it’s not.

Daniil’s only son and heir, Peytor, “accidentally” fell out of the window of his Milan penthouse on the fortieth floor earlier today. Clumsy, clumsy.

“But…if you’d like…” I venture quietly. “I can call the street cleaners and see if they can scrape up a few bits of Peytor to mail to you.”

Daniil crumbles. Whatever spirit or soul he has left breaks and shatters, right there in front of me.

My smile splits my face. Christ, I’m almost hard I’m so pleased.

Not that it matters—Peytor could have been curing cancer and I’d have still erased his existence just to make Daniil suffer—but as it happens, I’ve actually done the world a favor by wiping a known child predator and trafficker off the face of the planet.

You’re welcome, everyone.

“But, enough about your dead son,” I say chattily. “I believe we were trying to recall which of your hands you used to hold me down.”

Daniil’s not even present anymore. He’s sobbing, broken, his spirit and I’d bet even his will to live utterly destroyed.

Over the past few years, I’ve taken it all from him. His business holdings, one by one. I’ve bribed away his most trusted advisors and lieutenants, or paid them to stay with him and subtly betray him or sow doubt in the ranks.

I had his piece of shit father killed. His uncle. His three cousins. I had his family homestead on the Black Sea burned to the ground, and the prized, six-generation vineyard sowed with salt.

I had every corrupt cop and politician on his payroll either murdered or jailed. I bought the land used as the cemetery where his forefathers were buried and had the entire thing paved over and turned into a slaughterhouse for pigs.

Now, with his only son gone, Daniil is officially broken—spiritually and emotionally, that is.

I’m not done with him physically yet.

“Wait, wait…” I muse, rubbing my chin as I walk over to the small folding table near the wall and lift the giant machete. I half-turn toward Daniil, snapping my fingers. “You know what? I’ve just remembered.”

I glance at two of my men standing guard by the door and nod, smiling widely.

“It was both hands.”

They move instantly. One of my men drags a heavy wooden chopping block across the floor until it’s right in front of Daniil. Then the two of them grab hold of Daniil’s filthy, bloody hands and yank hard, laying his arms across the wood. His one eye bulges as he realizes what’s happening.

“No…” he manages to burble out.

“You don’t get a vote, you fucker.” I let my gaze level on his. “I hope you had fun the last time you jerked off. Because it’ll be the last time.”

I raise the machete as Daniil screams.

He’s still screaming when he’s in three pieces.

“Enjoy yourself?”

For a moment, when I hear the voice in my ear as I step out of the basement under the cantina, I freeze. It takes skill to get past my men like he clearly has. It takes even more skill to sneak up on me and get this close without my being aware of it.

In fact, there may only be one man on Earth who’s capable of it.

Luckily, we’re…well, I wouldn’t say friends. But we’re not enemies, either—for the present.

“I did, in fact.”

Kenzo Mori doesn’t even blink at my appearance—half-drenched as I am in Daniil’s blood. I wouldn’t expect him to. Again, we’re not friends. But at times, we’ve had “aligned interests and goals”. We’re also not dissimilar.

Both of us live for the taste of sweet revenge. Both of us toil to rebuild empires and lives that were taken from us.

Kenzo eyes me coolly. His mix of Japanese and what I assume is Northern European ancestry always gives him this cold, dark, zen-like aura, as well as an appearance somewhere between a samurai and a Viking berserker. Plus, his height and broad shoulders sort of put us on equal footing, physically speaking.

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