Page 2 of The Beautiful Dead

This was why I preferred working alone. My patience was a lit fuse, and people…people made simple things complicated. They wasted time, drained energy, and pulled me away from what I was meant to be doing. From spilling blood. From watching bodies go still, drained of life.

Smoke curled from my lips as I glared at them. The cigarette had burned down to the end, but instead of crushing it under my boot, I had a better idea.

I stepped forward, circling Rutter, sneering as urine trickled down his leg from his pathetic, flaccid cock. His broken whimpers grated on my last nerve. I slapped him hard, snapping his head to the side and forcing his focus back on me. He tried to anticipate my next move, but being unable to see me, his fear would override any logic left in his mind. I was everywhere and nowhere.

Power. Control.

The cigarette cherry sizzled against his exposed flesh, drawing another hoarse scream from his bloodied lips. The skin blistered, smoking as I pressed the ember deeper into his flabbygut. His body spasmed, but there was nowhere for him to go while he was trapped in my web.

Not until I decided.

Only when the embers finally died did I let the cigarette drop from my fingers. I relished every flinch, each futile thrash, every broken cry.

Pathetic.

“I can’t... I can’t take it anymore...”

I pulled a silver tin from my pocket, flipped it open, pulled out another cigarette, and lit it with a flick of my Zippo. The blue-yellow flame danced in the dim light, licking at the air between us. Rutter whimpered, his breath hitching as the heat singed the hair that covered his body.

This was the man entrusted to protect this city?

He wouldn’t last a single day in my world.

Exhaling smoke through my nose, I reached out, plucking the headphones from his ears. I pressed a button in my pocket, flooding the soundproofed room with the music he’d been tormented by for hours.

I cut the blindfold from his face. His eyes—wild and bloodshot—locked onto mine, insipid brown irises swallowed by terror.

The tip of my blade traced down his nose, over his lips, gliding lower until it hovered just below his neck. A single bead of red welled around the steel as I increased the pressure.

“You’re wasting your breath,” I said coldly. “No one’s coming.”

His panicked gasps filled the room. He rattled his chains harder, the clang of metal against metal blending with his desperate moans.

A chuckle rumbled in my throat, low and dark, curling my lips into something that barely passed for a smile. A fresh waveof goosebumps rippled across his skin—a visceral display of fear, so pure, so delicious.

If only his men could see him now.

So fucking pathetic.

My hand latched onto his jaw, blunt nails digging into clammy flesh. I leaned in, inhaling the sharp scent of his terror.

There was beauty in this—the fragile balance between life and death, hanging by a thread only I controlled.

His survival.

His agony.

Every ounce of his existence now belonged to me. And I liked holding that power. Releasing him, I stepped back, wiping his sweat and snot on my jeans.

“Do you know why you’re here?” I asked, tilting my head like I was speaking to a child.

He shook his head violently, sweat plastering graying hair to his temples.

“N-no.”

My gaze hardened. Rutter flailed helplessly, grasping for answers he wouldn’t get from me. Then—finally—recognition flickered in his hollow eyes. His brain was catching up.

“B-business… j-just business,” he croaked. “It’s nothing personal... DeMarco, please?—“

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