Page 108 of Crimson Tears

He has to be joking, right?

“How the fuck did you find two of them?” Havoc asks Evie.

“Alright,” Alexi interrupts whatever she was about to say as he comes down the stairs again with Evie. “That is enough. We are here for a purpose, and I have other plans tonight that do not include standing around here talking about the names of weapons. If you do not wish for me to go into explicit detail of exactly how I will be going about using one of the rooms here tonight, I suggest we move into the torture part of the evening.”

Boris raises a hand before any of us can ask for the details because I want to know what there is in all of these rooms upstairs.

“Son, no one wants to hear that.” Boris eyes me as if he knew I wanted to. “Our girl is on a mission.”

I sigh, he’s got me there. Damien opens the door and we all file in. Once we’re all in the room, I whisper to him so just the two of us can hear. “I’ve got your back on the sword thing, bro.”

He fist bumps me, and I have a feeling we’ll be having one of those sleepovers soon.

“This one is mine,” Nessa says, and everyone takes a step back. The man on the bed with tubes and wires all around him smiles. His limbs are restrained, allowing zero movement. There is even a belt around his stomach.

Doc is on call if we want to make this last longer, but my girl said she just wants it to be over, so I don’t think we will need to contact him.

She takes a step towards him and he coughs.

“Hey there, little Reaper. I thought you might want to see me again.”

His teeth are bloody as he speaks, but Nessa doesn’t pay him much attention. She just walks up and touches one of the IV lines he has connected to his body.

“You know,” she starts, still staring at the bag of fluids pumping into his veins, “I thought a lot about what I would say or do to you when I got the chance.”

He grins. “Think about me often, doll?”

The way she cringes at the word makes me think of how Ronan used to call her that. It takes everything in me not to stab the asshole for the remark, even if he likely has no idea what he did.

“At first, I wanted to tell you about how I can practically feel you eating my flesh some nights.”

Her hand trails over the restraints holding his arms to the bed as she walks around it.

“Then, I thought about finding a way to make you understand that type of violation.”

He gnashes his teeth at her, and I step forward, intent on holding his head down, but Nessa holds up a hand to me and I respectfully take a step back.

“She’s got this, bro,” Damien whispers and I nod.

Boris watches closely but makes no move towards her. While I want to help her slay her enemies, Boris is the one who likes to sit back and watch as she enacts her revenge.

“But then I realized,” Nessa continues, “that none of that really matters. I could stab you a thousand times, I could make you cry and apologize until you can’t speak anymore. But none of that will change the result at the end of the day.”

His brows pinch. She has confused him. Green is the kind of man who knows nothing but violence, so not having it aimed at him is likely unsettling. Which my girl must know because she plasters on a sinister smile.

“So, I decided you’re not worth the effort or risk of hearing loss.”

We all watch as Green goes quiet, his end closer than he realized. Nessa goes to the table with medical supplies laid out and grabs a large syringe.

“You know what I learned when my father had me shooting people, making a mess of beautiful places with their blood?”

Green says nothing, his face cold and impassive. But this is the moment I’ve been waiting for. The moment Nessa turns into the monster that complements mine.

“There are more simple ways to kill people and still have them suffer. In fact, did you know that an air embolism is ten times more painful than a heart attack?”

She draws back the syringe, filling it with nothing before attaching the end to his IV.

His breathing kicks up. “Wait, you’ll want to know what I know.”

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