Page 21 of Black Heart

Lifting my arm in a high arc, I plunge a knife behind his kneecap.

He screams but doesn’t scream loud enough. I twist the knife. “Who hired you?”

“Fuck you!”

I pause my torture. “I’ve asked you a question.”

“Fuck yourself.” The hitman spits blood in my face.

I shove the knife farther, my knuckle nearly touching his thigh.

“All right, all right!” he gasps out, the desperation in his voice palpable. “It was the Morellis! They hired me!”

“Who specifically?” I demand, keeping a firm grip on the knife for emphasis.

“Franco Morelli … Frank … The Ghost,” he stammers, dread dancing over his face as he stares unblinking at the hot steel embedded in his leg.

My expression hardens. I knew he was behind this, but to hear it from this amateur’s lips is something else entirely. I take another bite of my licorice, my gaze never leaving the hitman before standing and taking my blade with me.

He screams through clenched teeth.

“What’s your name?” I ask idly, wiping my blade clean with a cloth.

“M-Madman.”

I arch a brow over the fast-cooling silver, though he can’t see it. “Madman? Really?”

His throat bobs so deeply, beads of sweat fall off and into his collarbone. “A contract went out on the dark web. I’m not the only one coming for L?—”

I glance up sharply. “I’ll kill every last one of you.”

Then I pause, pretending to be in thought and picturing a graphic, graphic death. “If any of you tries to so much as utter her name, I’ll make sure you live without a tongue or eyes for a few days first.”

The idiot turns smart. He shuts his mouth.

“I know who you are.” His swampy brown eyes rake overme, watching me chew my candy with considerable unease, muscles pulsing in his jaw.

“Oh?”

“I recognize that mask. You’re the Scythe. Never seen but … always felt.”

That gets a laugh out of me. “Is that what they say? How amusing.”

Madman regards me like—well, likeI’mthe madman.

“You torture your kills.” His voice reverts into puberty. “Prolong their deaths.”

“I find it fun.”

Madman’s shoulders slump. “Why are you here, man? This isn’t—she isn’t your type. Of kill, I mean,” he corrects quickly when my cold neon-green stare claims him. “You usually go for guys like me. Men. Not women.”

“I’m here for her.” That’s all I’ll admit.

I watch the tiny clock of his fate start ticking in his head. “Okay, well, good for you. The Morellis have a whole file on her. But I ... I don’t know all the details. They just tell me what I need to know. Grab the girl, find what she’s hiding. That’s it.”

“What’s she hiding, then? Be specific.”

Snapgoes another rope of licorice through the mouth-hole of my mask.

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