Page 91 of The Beautiful Dead

“And?”

My patience was hanging by a thread. My control was slipping. He trembled in my grip, unable to meet my eyes.

“When we dragged him free… he smiled. Like a fucking maniac.” Angelo’s breath shuddered. “Said he had a message for the DeMarcos. For you...”

The implication hung in the air like a viper coiled, ready to strike. I wasn’t afraid of the Gallos. God knew I had put enough of them into the ground. Especially recently. They were a rat-infested plague infecting my city. I had to put an end to it.

“Is that all?”

The blade’s tip traced over his carotid artery. I could see it now. A little more pressure—just a twitch of my wrist—and fountains of blood would paint the walls.

I licked my lips, tasting the copper tang, but there was only one person’s blood I wanted on my tongue. The image clawed through my mind, dark and consuming, but I shoved it down. Refused to let my mental walls break completely and shook it off.

Angelo collapsed to the ground the moment I released him, gasping. Hand wrapped around his throat as I stepped back.

The back door slammed open as two of my men threw a body across the floor. The message arrived wrapped in blood and agony. Stephan—bound, beaten, barely breathing—had been dragged through the warehouse and dumped at my feet.

His head cracked against the tiled floor with a sickening thud. He let out a strangled noise, somewhere between a whimper and a curse.

I took my time stepping forward. The sound of my boots echoed through the vast space.

He was a soldier. A low-level one. No scars of war. No hardened exterior. Just a kid. Another desperate idiot trying to claw his way up the Gallo family ranks.

Wrong fucking ladder.

Crouched beside him, I tilted my head as I examined the damage. Busted lip. His right eye was swollen shut. Knuckles raw—like he had fought back. Like he had thought he had a chance. I gripped his jaw, forcing his battered face toward the light. Blood dripped from his nose, thick and dark, staining the floor in slow, deliberate drops.

I would carve the truth from him.

One scream at a time.

“I want the name of the person who sent you.” My voice was even. Calm. Controlled. Steel wrapped in velvet. A tempting lure that could prize blood from stone.

He glared at me through his one good eye, lips pressing together. Stupid move. A wicked smile curved my lips. I loved when they made it difficult.

Reaching behind me, I pulled the serrated blade from the back of my jeans, swinging it in front of him with a smooth, practiced motion. The metal sang through the air, slicing the silence like a guillotine.

He tensed, but he didn’t break, his fear ratcheting higher. It wouldn’t be long till he broke. They all did—eventually—before they took their last breath.

But I wouldn’t kill him. Not yet.

I’d drag him to the very edge of death before I sent him back to his masters. Let them watch him rot from the inside out. Using the husk of his body to deliver my message in return.

“You’re going to tell me what I want to know,” I murmured, pressing the tip of the blade just beneath his eye, where the skin was thinnest. “You’ll beg to give it to me. The only choice you have is how much of you is left when you do.”

Silence. His split lips trembled, and a single tear slipped from his one good eye. I pressed down slowly, increasing the pressure. His body seized as the blade broke skin. A thin rivulet of blood rolled down his cheek, bright against the grime and sweat.

“Fuck. You.”

I hummed, amused. “That’s the best you’ve got? I expected more.”

The blade trailed downward—slow, deliberate. I took my time dragging it along his cheek, down the column of his throat. He swallowed hard. I felt it beneath the tip of my knife.

He thought I was bluffing. He was about to learn I never bluffed. A barely audible sigh left him when the knife left histhroat. My teeth sank into my lip as I swallowed down a hollow laugh. The stupid fool thought it was over.

Power radiated through my veins. I pressed the knife against his cheek and drove it in. He screamed. A raw, ragged sound that choked off when I twisted the blade, shredding flesh from bone.

“You feel that?” I whispered, my mouth close to his ear. “That’s reality sinking in. I own you now. And the longer you hold out, the worse this gets.”

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