Page 118 of Iron Blade

Instead, I watched his eyes flutter closed. His head drooped, as his arms slackened. The man was falling asleep.

“So your nephew,” I said with derision, allowing a bit of the acid in my gut to spit out into the air. Then I smirked, feeling the cold fury of the devil himself taking over my limbs. “He's the reason my darling wife lost her only family.”

The reason she didn’t love me.

I looked up at the man, and thought about his nephew, the old loan shark. I knew that was part of the Italian Mafia racket, but never thought to associate that with the orchid bloom that was my darling wife.

She had told me that she would never be powerless again. She’d never be in a position to owe anyone. And now I knew why, and I conveniently had the man responsible… well, the uncle of the man responsible. I imagine that the nephew was long dead. Maybe even by my wife’s hand.

But I’d think about that later.

Instead, I wanted to get my pound of flesh.

A pound of tenderized, slow-roasted, and finely aged pound of flesh.

“She’s nothing but a whore,” Morelli said, his voice fading into unconsciousness.

“Hmm,” I said, pensively. “I think you will regret saying that.”

“The moment she said…” he wheezed. I had killed enough men to know that he was starting to give up on life. That simply wasn’t going to do. “We were going to take her, and…” He wheezed again, coughing, and hacking as his lungs gave up.

Morelli was exactly the kind of bastard to make his last words ones of spite. People like him were absolutely devoid of beauty, love and art. So I would give him a taste of his own medicine.

“We would do to her what the Russians did to Isla,” he chuckled, low, and exhausted. “Too bad she got away… it would have been…”

His voice faded away into silence.

The Devil, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Vlad Tepes, Hades - they were all men who led demons. The literature called them evil. But that was just angelic, religious propaganda.

The Morningstar’s real job wasn’t just to torment, but to torment the sinners and devils that roamed the earth while they were living. The Devil balanced the scales and punished the wicked. He provided an incredible service, like a judge, bailiff, and prison guard.

People disliked him because he enjoyed his work, and had endless job security.

“You can call me the Devil now,” I said more to myself. “I am the Punisher.”

How perfect was my self portrait?

An image of me as the Devil himself, shepherding the souls of the damned into the underworld, and torturing them along the way.

I stared down at the canvas, marveling at the detail and the faces of all the men my devil was welcoming to the bowels of the underworld: Anton Vasiliev, the head of the Bratva, and his father Yuri Vasiliev who was already dead, but certainly in Hell. There was Cosimo Durante, the head of the Mafia, and Morelli at his side. There was the Italian loan shark who had harmed my sweet Kira. The other souls were kept in shadow, facing away and suffering beneath my menacing hold.

Except for one more, that I had placed there on a whim, but now it felt like a heavy decision. My father’s face was on a naked man, covered in wounds of his own making, as he walked himself into the gates of Hell. Walking of his own volition to his doom.

I wouldn’t wait for them to die, to render my verdict and punishment. I would do it while they were alive. It was a public service.

I stayed up for hours more, draining him of blood, checking just long enough to see that his weak heart still beat. He and I had miles left to go before we were finished, and he needed to be alive and alert for at least a part of it.

The morning hours turned into evening, and O’Malley’s light footsteps announced his presence in the hall before he opened the creaky metal door and gasped at the blood-soaked horror he walked in on.

“Keep him alive,” I told O’Malley, as I leaned down to roll up the dried canvas, so I could take it upstairs to where it would finally take a place in the light of day. “He’ll stay in this purgatory until Kira comes home.”

I already knew where this painting would go. It would be a testament to the new management of Green Fields Enterprises. It was a beacon that would tell the world that I was not a man to fuck with, and that I was madder than they could have ever imagined.

“When she’s found,” I told my men, feeling the tickle of copper touch my nose. “I’ll decide what to do with him.”

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