Page 47 of Brazen King

“Yes,yes!” He squirms against the restraints as I stalk toward him slowly, twirling the butcher knife’s handle in my palm.

“Good.” I bring the blade down with ruthless unconcern, severing his hand from his wrist.

The man howls, his gaze stunned as he stares down at the truncated limb, and he thrashes. The arm, no longer tethered by the size of his hand, slips free, and he pulls it protectively against his chest as he attempts to cradle it.

I gesture to my men, and they get to work on the others until our warehouse is an echoing chasm of fear and pain. Blood paints the floor as we turn them into gory masterpieces. And when we’re through, only two have survived the brutal christening.

Lance breathes heavily beside me as we stand looking at the crimson mess slowly oozing toward the drains. My men will clean up after I’m gone, sure to leave no trace that could incriminate us.

“I don’t know, Lance. What do you think?” I ask casually, resting my hands on my hips as I inspect our remaining victims.

One is missing an ear, and blood flows freely down his neck and shoulder, staining his grimy shirt. The other’s face is closer to a bloody pulp. His head hangs loosely forward, his chin resting on his chest as a bloody trail of spit stretches from his lips.

The man with the missing ear is definitely more with it, though he’s in rough shape.

“I don’t think this guy will make it,” Lance observes, grabbing the drooling one by his hair and lifting his head.

His glazed eyes attempt to focus on us but fail, and when Lance releases his hair, his head lolls dangerously back onto his chest.

“It only takes one man to deliver a message, right?” I ask, locking eyes with the yakuza man missing an ear.

He trembles now as I give a wicked grin.

“Seems like it,” Lance agrees.

With a nod, I draw my gun from its holster and put a bullet through the other man’s skull. And the last man standing stares in dumbfounded silence as his final companion dies.

Lightly slapping the man’s cheek, I draw his attention back to me. “You with me, friend?”

He nods, though the quivering intensifies as he loses his bladder all over his pants.

Studiously ignoring the dark stain that grows across his crotch, I hold his gaze with mine. “Tell Saturo, that if he ever tries to betray me again, I’ll be coming for him. And next time? Not one of you will make it out alive. Got it?”

The man nods vigorously, his skin paper-white in contrast with his dark hair and the crimson of his blood.

“Good.” I look toward my right-hand man, turning speculative. “Maybe we can wrap up that hole in his head—just so he doesn’t bleed out before he delivers our message.”

“Smart,” Lance agrees, and he jerks his chin in a silent signal.

A blood-spackled Luther stalks toward the office. He returns a moment later with some gauze and a bandage, which he slaps unceremoniously against the bleeding man’s head. The man flinches but waits for my man to wrap him up.

Then Lance leans in to cut the zip ties holding him to his metal chair.

Smirking, I grasp the man by the collar of his shirt and hoist him back onto his unsteady feet. His legs are too weak to hold him up, and as soon as I attempt to release him, he collapses to the cold cement.

“Come on, buddy,” I encourage gruffly. “You’ve got a long walk ahead of you.”

Hauling him back onto his feet, I keep my grip firm, eliciting a choking sound from him as his collar bites into his neck. But he stumbles along as I half drag, half steer him toward thedoor. Outside, the air is crisp yet calm. A hint of sunlight is just starting to creep over the horizon.

My mind immediately shifts to Natasha and how, by all that’s fair, I should have been fucking her these last few hours, not chopping men into pieces and listening to their screams. Without a doubt, I prefer the sound of my little tigress’s cries of pleasure, and I ache to hear them again soon.

“You have my message clear in your head?” I taunt, keeping the yakuza man on his feet as I turn him to face me.

He nods emphatically, then winces, as I imagine the hole where his ear used to be can’t feel great.

“Good.” I throw him down on the hard gravel, and he scrabbles across it in his haste to get away from me.

It takes several yards of a crab-like crawl before he manages to find his strength, and then he’s off, sprinting into the night as quickly as his weak legs will carry him.

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