Page 147 of The Beautiful Dead

I turned, my breath catching at the sight before me. Remi knelt beside Brielle, a rusted nail pressed to her thigh, his other hand wielding a brick as a hammer. With a single, decisive strike, he drove it deep into muscle. Blood welled around the jagged metal, spreading through her pale blue jeans in a slow, creeping stain of crimson.

Her cries were raw, barbed sobs torn straight from the depths of agony.

With the cables freed, I coiled them over my shoulder and stepped behind him. He worked with cruel precision, embedding nails, slivers of rusted metal—each one a conductor, a gateway to the torment we had planned. The cacophony of herscreams was a symphony of suffering, a beautifully discordant melody that thrummed through my bones.

Federico’s would sound even sweeter once I had him under my tender, loving care.

“You done?” I asked, my pulse thrumming in anticipation.

Remi didn’t look up. “I’ve only just begun.”

His gaze flicked to the coiled cable over my shoulder, the live end held safely in my hands, his fingers twitching with barely contained excitement. The air crackled, static energy thickening the space between us.

Remi grasped the cable, carefully positioning the exposed wire end against the embedded nails and metal lodged in Brielle’s leg. The moment contact was made, the dim, dust-coated bulbs overhead flickered, their filaments screaming before shattering in bursts of dying light.

Brielle arched violently, her head snapping back as a hundred and twenty volts surged through her. Her body jerked, muscles contracting so brutally she nearly lifted from the chair. Her teeth were clenched, foam bubbling at her lips as she choked on her agony.

Remi watched, entranced, then threw the second cable into the stagnant puddle beneath her chair.

The sound of her torment was unholy. The air filled with the stench of searing flesh, the acrid smoke curling in thick, suffocating tendrils. Her skin blackened, blistering, peeling back in charred ribbons as electricity crashed through her, in wave after relentless wave.

We watched. We waited. When her blackened body finally stilled, her eyes were glassy and hollow, and we knew?—

She had accepted the inevitable.

She had burned.

And we had won.

CHAPTER 27

REMI

The elite never ceased to amaze me. With battle lines drawn across the city and whispers of an impending curfew, they paid it no mind. They clung to their gilded delusions, celebrating art and wealth as though the ground beneath them wasn’t shifting. As though judgment day wasn’t coming.

But it was. And when Marlow Heights was burnt to the ground and rivers of blood flowed through the streets, their world of excess and ignorance would crumble.

Yet, here we were, in tailored tuxedos, slipping into a world that would soon be unrecognizable. The invitation to The Elysian Chamber had arrived like a taunt, a reminder that some still believed themselves untouchable. It meant nothing to me, nothing more than a momentary distraction, a lure that we hoped would draw Federico from whatever sewer he’d buried himself in. We had dismantled his empire piece by piece, but he refused to rise to the bait. Tonight, that changed.

The moment the SUV rolled up to the entrance, the red carpet unfurled before us like a sacrificial altar. Flashing lights exploded from every angle, a frenzy of journalists desperate for a glimpse of the elusive Demarco heir. The press lined the velvetropes like a swarm of hungry piranhas, each hoping to rip a soundbite from Domino’s lips, to capture a photo that would make their career. But they were nothing more than noise.

Inside the car, the air was thick with the scent of bloodlust. Ghost glanced in the rearview mirror as he shifted the vehicle into park. His expression was sharp, a predator coiled and ready to strike. “I’ve got cameras everywhere. If he shows, we’ll see him.”

Domino exhaled a quiet laugh, the sound dark and knowing. “He’d be a fool to show.” His rings caught the dim glow of the streetlights as he scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “It’ll be a massacre. He’ll lose whatever traction he’s deluded himself into thinking he’s gained.”

I slid my fingers through his, tightening my grip. “We’re not here only for him, though.”

His lips curled into a wicked smirk, eyes gleaming with something raw and consuming. “I know we’re not,piccolo agnello.”

“Good.”

“Tonight is just reconnaissance, though.”

I barely held back an eye roll, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip to suppress the hunger clawing at my insides. They wanted patience. Restraint. But my mind was already painting the scene of his suffering in vivid, visceral detail.

Casius Moreau. A name that dripped from the lips of the elite like he was something to be revered. They celebrated him—but I saw the rot beneath the mask. The monster was draped in silk and civility, hiding behind wealth and power.

I was going to strip him bare.

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