Page 179 of The Beautiful Dead

My deft fingers worked quickly, looping the rope around his trembling throat, feeling his rapid pulse beneath my fingertips. He jerked in protest, but Domino was stronger. He forced Casiusonto the chair beneath the beam, shoving him upright, making sure the rope sat snug against his throat.

Casius wheezed, eyes bulging, realization dawning. He knew. This was how he would die. Displayed like the pathetic imitation of an artist he was.

I tugged the rope once, testing its hold. It tightened beautifully. Casius gasped, his hands flying to the noose, fingers clawing at the rough fibers.

A laugh slipped past my lips. “Oh, you don’t like that?”

Domino snickered, stepping closer, his presence a heady weight at my back.

“This is where you belong,” I murmured, brushing my fingers over Casius’s sweat-slicked hair. “Hanging like one of your installations. A true work of art.”

Domino hummed in agreement.

“I wonder,” I mused, tilting my head. Toying with his fragile mental state was glorious. “Should we leave you like this? A slow, suffocating death, every moment a stretch of agony?”

Casius shook. His lips moved, but no words came out. His terror was delicious. I let my fingers slide down his chest, feeling the rapid stutter of his heart beneath my touch.

“I could gut you first,” I suggested lightly.

“Or maybe,” Domino drawled, stepping in front of him, “I should just do this.”

I barely had time to register the glint of silver before Domino’s switchblade drove straight up through Casius’s jaw. The blade disappeared into soft flesh, punching through muscle and bone, embedding itself in the roof of his mouth.

Casius convulsed. Blood burst from his lips in thick, bubbling spurts, gurgling down his chin as his throat spasmed around the noose.

I shuddered at the sight, breath catching in my throat.

Beautiful.

Domino’s eyes met mine, dark with hunger.

“Pull the rope,” I breathed.

He obeyed instantly. Casius jerked upward, his body hoisted by the neck, legs kicking, arms flailing. A dying marionette. His strangled screams drowned in his blood. I let out a slow breath, watching the way his limbs convulsed, the way his body fought to cling to life. A futile, pitiful thing.

Domino sighed, almost bored at his futile display, and kicked the chair out from beneath him. Casius dropped, the noose snapping tight, cutting off the last wet gurgle of his existence. His body twitched, his fingers curling inwards, eyes bulging—until finally, he stilled.

A quiet settled over the gallery.

The perfect stillness of death.

Domino wiped the blood from his blade with practiced ease, smirking up at the body swaying in the spotlight. “That was for taking Federico from me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Do you miss him?”

Domino scoffed, shoving the knife back into his pocket. “I felt nothing for him then and even less now. He got what he deserved.” His gaze flickered to Casius’s corpse, and that smirk sharpened. “Just like you.”

A shiver raced down my spine. Domino was art in motion. A masterpiece in flesh and blood. And as I looked at him, bathed in the glow of our creation, I knew—I would never love anything more than I loved this.

More than I loved him.

“He’s making a mess.” I huffed a laugh, tilting my head as I watched Casius’s body, twitching, jerking— even after death—bleeding out onto the pristine floor. A masterpiece in motion. “A beautiful mess.”

The way the blood pulsed from his wounds, pooling in a slow, creeping stain across the stark white floor, reminded me of adying star collapsing in on itself. But it meant my vision had to change.

I was nothing if not adaptable.

Slowly, I walked around him, studying the way the light fell—how it illuminated the broken arch of his back, the angles of his limbs, the way his trembling fingers scratched at the ground as if trying to claw himself back from oblivion.

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