Page 46 of Spiteful Heart

The blood was the next thing I focused on, merely due to the fact that something deep inside told me it belonged to Lola. A sinking feeling rose within me, a kernel of doubt. What if Lola wasn’t okay? What if Harvey brought her to the hospital, but she still didn’t make it? It wasn’t a lot of blood, not pints, but it was enough to tell me she’d been severely injured here.

Fuck.

And, lastly, the final thing that drew my attention in the room was the body not far from the bloodstain. It lay near Lola’s forgotten mask, unmoving, nothing more than another corpse—only this one wasn’t complete. This one had knives for hands, and that told me this motherfucker was our serial killer.

“Look,” Mike said, sinking to his knees as he pulled the body onto its back, revealing his face to me.

“Shit,” I whispered, staring at the familiar face of someone I’d marked off as dead a long time ago, because he should’ve been. He’d lost a hell of a lot of blood when Lola had cut off his hands and we’d tossed him into the river.

How the fuck was Tony here? How did he get here? There was no fucking way he’d survived that night on his own.

“Tony Torio,” my brother mumbled, slow to stand. “Looks like he’s our guy. Sylvester’s not going to believe this.”

“I don’t fucking believe it, and I’m right here looking at him,” I muttered. Meeting my brother’s stare, I added, “Go upstairs, wait for Roman and Carter. If you see anyone else pull up, shout. I’m going to call Sylvester and tell him.”

Mike didn’t say anything else, giving me a short nod before exiting the basement room and heading up the stairs. I couldn’t take my eyes off the corpse, off Tony. His skin was pale, but I credited that to the current state of him: dead. Even if he was alive and moving, I bet he didn’t look healthy. I bet he’d looked like a dead man walking until death finally took him for good. All of this was because of him. He’d lived his days on borrowed time.

I dialed Sylvester. He picked up on the second ring. “Viper,” he said. “Status?”

“Everyone in the house is dead,” I said. “Harvey took care of them… along with our killer.” I frowned as I spoke, as I stared down at Tony’s body. It was the weirdest thing, an out of body experience; this didn’t feel real.

“Who is he?”

“Someone we all know,” I said. “A man who had it out for Lola, since she took his hands away.”

Sylvester was silent for only a moment before he said, “What? What are you… you’re not saying what I think you’re saying, are you?” To describe his voice as incredulous would be the year’s biggest understatement. It sounded like he was seconds from accusing me of lying.

“Once you take care of everything where you are, come here and see for yourself,” I said. “But it’s him. I’m looking at him right now. He’s got knives where his hands should be.”

The state of the bodies we’d found, of Tony’s victims, made sense now. His method of murder, the reason behind it… this man had died and come back to life as a monster, all because of his ambition, because he’d sold his soul to the devil herself, to Bianca DeLuca.

He’d sold his soul to the wrong devil.

“Knives for hands? What the fuck—” It sounded like Sylvester relayed the information to Maddox, who in turn pretty much repeated thewhat the fuckquestion. “Are we sure he’s dead this time?”

My eyes stared at the bright red spot in the center of his forehead, the bullet hole that had taken his life for good. “Yeah, he’s dead.” Ain’t nobody coming back from a hole in the skull, not straight-on like that.

“I got word from Harvey,” Sylvester said, changing the subject off our killer. “Lola needs surgery. Cops will be there, asking about the chains. I need you and your brother there to answer any questions. Remind any cop you work for me and that Lola is mine.”

Ours, but now wasn’t the time to bicker. I understood what he was saying.

“Wait until Roman and Carter get there, though. Like I said, if there’s any more of these assholes, I want them dead,” Sylvester finished.

“Yes, sir.” I hung up the phone, and even though a part of me wanted to stay down there and continue staring at Tony’s lifeless corpse, I pulled myself away from his body and went up the stairs after grabbing Lola’s mask, meeting my brother near the front door. The house wasn’t overly large; considering how many corpses filled the square footage, it was pretty cramped.

I relayed everything to him, and then we waited. All this waiting around was torture enough, but I knew we’d only wait more once we got to the hospital.

“Well, at least it’s over, right?” I didn’t know why I said it, but the look my brother gave me after I asked told me something I didn't want to think about: it wasn’t over. I wasn’t the brains behind anything, but even I knew the men we’d encountered tonight, the ones that were here, dead… none were the mastermind.

And I highly doubted Tony himself was the mastermind.

Time would reveal all. Hopefully.

Chapter Twelve – Lola

I stood in front of a tall mirror, staring at myself in its reflection. My blond hair was done in a loose French braid, off my left shoulder. Not an ounce of makeup was on my face, and yet my skin was flawless. I wore a long dress, its fabric flowing and a pure, bright white. It had no sleeves, strapless, yet it clung to my tits perfectly. It hid all the scars on my body, making me look like an angel.

But that’s the thing: I wasn’t. I hadn’t been an angel for a long, long time. Everything in my head was fuzzy, and I couldn’t remember why that was, but I knew it for a fact.

---