Page 69 of The Cruelty of Thorns

Once the housekeeper was dead, Tomasso stood and backed away from me, his eyes frantically scanning the room for an escape. My smile was icy as I advanced on him, twirling the bloody knife in my hand.

“She’ll be back,” he croaked as his heels hit the wall.

I shook my head and tsked. “Poor Tomasso. Do you really think she cares about you?” I snatched his neck in my grasp and yanked him closer, my eyes boring down into his. “She cares only for herself. But you…” I tightened my grip on his neck, “…you had to tell on us. Had to send that swine Giovanni after us.” I dug my nails into his flesh, his eyes bulging out. “Did you think that made you the hero?” I shook him, watching his head loll back and forth. “Did you think about what she would do to us?”

Part of me wanted to drag him outside and lash him to the bower with the vines like I had been, but I was too impatient for that. I wanted this over with so I could leave this place and move on with the sorry excuse that had become my life.

Still, the threat would make his last moments a delicious torture.

“Have you ever been taken to the garden?” I asked softly.

His eyes widened in fear. “W-wait. I can be useful to you. You need captives…”

He disgusted me. “The only thing I need from you is your last breath.”

The knife went into his gut like butter. It wasn’t a quick death, not like Giovanni’s or Franco’s or even Lucia’s. It took him a while to bleed out, and I watched every moment play out on his face.

“I want mine to be the last face you see before you enter Hell,” I told him.

When he shuddered his final breath, I grabbed him by his collar and dragged him across the room and down the hall toward the dining room, where I lifted and tossed his body up on the table. Then I went in search of the rest of the staff, who were cowering in the kitchen, obviously aware of what had transpired since my arrival back in the house this evening. I didn’t care about the bishop’s edict where they were concerned.

“You are all free to go,” I announced. “The gate is open. Follow the road into the city.”

They looked at each other warily, then back at me. “We have no one there,” one of the maids said.

“Would you rather stay here and wait for Christopher?”

That was the other thing. I had planned for Anastacia’s capture, but what could be done about Christopher? I doubt he would have been as easily subdued by the bishop’s men, especially when he saw what was happening to Anastacia. Which meant I still had to deal with him, and I didn’t know what form that would take. How would he react to my current reign of terror in the house? If I was being honest, I didn’t think he would care about the deaths I had caused to the staff, but what about Anastacia’s fate? They were friends and lovers, going back years, possibly centuries. Would he feel the need to avenge her, to rescue her, or would he shrug it off like the heartless bastard I suspected him to be?

Not that I was letting him off the hook. He was just as much to blame for mine and Rosetta’s fates as the rest of them. But I accepted the fact that my vengeance on him might take a while, if I even survived the night to enact it.

The women servants and the two stableboys seemed to have come to a mutual conclusion.

“We’ll leave,” the girl who had spoken before said.

I nodded. “You’d better go now before he comes back. When you get to the city, go to the bishop’s palace and tell him where you came from. The church will provide sanctuary.”

I saw no reason to elaborate further. They skirted around me and scurried out of the room, leaving me alone in the silent house. I spotted a bottle of red wine in the kitchen and grabbed it and a glass and made my way back to the dining room. Once I had lowered myself into a chair, I propped my feet up next to Tomasso’s body and uncorked the bottle, pouring myself a glass.

That’s where Christopher found me several hours later. He stepped into the room and circled the table, reaching out to trail his fingers through the cooled blood on Tamasso’s chest.

“Did you kill him?”

I nodded, finishing off the wine in my glass.

“Seems a waste of good blood.”

“I have no desire to dip my cock into that.”

Christopher chuckled. “Touché. I suppose you’re responsible for Lucia, Franco and Giovanni as well.”

“I am.”

“And where was Anastacia while all this is happening?”

“In the bishop’s custody. She’s to be tried and burned as a witch.”

“My, my,” he tsked. “You are a devious little shit, aren’t you?”

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