Page 63 of Trapping His Darling

I sent a glare his way. “It is very much a Bratva matter. If it weren’t, you wouldn’t be complaining about the body count.”

Smirking, my father reached for a bottle of vodka and poured a shot. “Love makes a man weak,” he muttered. He downed the spirit, wincing as he swallowed hard. “And irrational.”

Before I could comment, there was a knock at the office door frame. My lead popped his head in.

“Sir, that guy you flayed alive is awake again.”

With that, I turned away from my father and marched out the door. This was the closest I had come to any information on Tiffany.

In the hallway, the shackled, nearly skinless man hung from his wrists in what had become an impromptu art gallery. Every eyeless face I had collected this week was nailed to the wall, so many in number that the human skin was beginning to look like wet, bloody wallpaper.

The whole scene made me think of Tiffany. She would have loved this. It was why I had brought in people who knew how to preserve such works of art. They were busy too.

Speaking of faces…

The man was moaning, begging to die. He still had his, so I brought out my knife and cut around the scalp.

“Please,” he begged. “Kill me.”

“Better start speaking.” I lifted the flap of scalp and began tugging. And the way he screamed.

The pleasant symphony of tears and blood and horror was interrupted by one of my soldiers vomiting in the corner.

Growling at the interruption, I spun about and pointed my knife at the man. “You there, with the weak stomach, you’re done. Pack your shit and leave. Get on the first plane to America, and go work for my pussy ass brother.”

He didn’t move, staring at me in disbelief.

“Now!” I barked.

He sped out the hall.

“Sir?” Roger came closer, moving like a specter from the shadows. “Is that wise? You have so few men left.”

“He should be grateful I’m allowing him to leave with his life. If he didn’t have two daughters inthe academyto support, I wouldn’t have. However, his daughters will make good wives to reward our remaining soldiers one day.”

“I see,” Roger commented carefully.

“Anyone else feeling sick?” I asked the crowd.

My men scrambled to assure me they were not. None of them wanted to leave the country to work for my brother. Or none of them wanted to be the man I was skinning next. Whatever.

“Tell me,” I ordered. “And if I believe you, I will kill you before your face joins the others.”

“Please,” he rasped. “I heard a rumor among drunk, low-level soldiers, about an angel of death whose touch sapped the life out of men. Beautiful, dark skin,” he wheezed. “You said your wife was like that.”

“Did they say where she was seen?”

“They say… she is… a shapeshifter. Can be your chef, your maid, your cashier, your lover. She is everywhere, and nowhere.”

“She is human,” I growled. “And I fucking need to know where she is.”

The dying man, looking very much like a martyr, or a statue of St. Bartholomew, was beginning to faint again.

“No!” I snarled and tore his scalp off.

Nothing.

Enraged, I began slashing into the exposed meat of his torso. When no longer satisfying, I kicked away his unraveling intestines and punched up through the pulverized cavity.

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