Page 158 of The Beautiful Dead

Remi sheathed his knife, rolling his shoulders, stretching his fingers. I caught the subtle flicker of excitement in his eyes.

He loved this.

Not just the violence—not just the hunt.

But this moment. The weight of inevitability.

The knowledge that Federico was already dead.

That he was simply waiting for his fate to arrive.

I lifted my boot and kicked the door in. The wood shattered inward, splintering as it slammed against the far wall with a deafening crack. The room reeked of sweat, fear, and blood.

And there he was.

Federico DeMarco.

A wounded animal, slumped against the far wall, his once-pristine suit a shredded mess of dark stains and torn fabric. Blood smeared his face in sticky, half-dried streaks. A gash split his temple, his left eye nearly swollen shut.

He was already broken. What a shame. I’d been looking forward to a blank canvas.

Remi let out a soft, amused hum. “Looks like someone’s been having fun without us.”

I stepped forward, slow, deliberate. Federico flinched. His chest heaved, every breath a struggle, his fingers twitching where they lay limp against the floor.

But his eyes…His eyes were still moving. Still calculating. Still trying to find a way out.

There wasn’t one.

“Please…” he rasped, voice cracked, raw, either from pain or the screams he’d already given.

Remi laughed—a low, breathy sound, sharp with amusement.

“Please?” He mimicked, crouching beside him. “Oh, Federico. You think we’re at the part where begging helps?”

Federico’s lips parted, swollen and trembling. He swallowed, tried to shift, but his body was wrecked—too battered to fight, too weak to run.

Which meant all that was left for him to do was suffer.

I grabbed a chair from the corner of the room and dragged it across the floor, the wood screeching against marble as I set it down in front of him.

I sat. Unhurried. Comfortable. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, gun dangling lazily from my fingers.

“Talk.”

Federico’s breath shuddered out, his gaze flicking between us, his body visibly trembling. “About what?” he croaked.

Remi clicked his tongue. “Wrong answer.”

His knife flashed, and in a blink, he drove it through Federico’s palm, pinning it to the floor.

Federico screamed a wet, garbled sound, his entire body convulsing from the pain.

Remi twisted the blade. The crack of splintering bone was music to my ears.

“About what?” Remi echoed, voice mocking as Federico gasped, struggling against the pain. “I don’t know, Federico. Maybe about how you thought you could fucking get away with it?”

Remi twisted the knife again, then rested his boot on top of it, slowly increasing the pressure.

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