Page 82 of The Beautiful Dead

Kyran’s breath hitched, his pupils wide, tears streaking his face. A limp hand reached out toward Remi.

Remi sneered, stepping back.

I crouched beside Kyran, my voice dropping to a whisper as I yanked the knife from his throat. Thick red waves poured down his body.

“You will never know what it’s like to watch him kill.”

His breath stuttered, wet and shallow, blood staining his lips. Another tear slipped free.

“B…b-but…”

A hollow laugh curled from my lips as his slack hand fell into the growing pool of blood.

I leaned in, pressing my lips to his ear. “He’ll draw your death when we get home.” My fingers curled tighter around the blade at my side. “Then I’ll fuck him with the knife I used to kill you.”

Kyran shuddered—one last, pitiful tremor. The smallest puff of air left his lips, and then… nothing. His body went slack, folding into the crimson pool beneath him.

Remi stood there, head tilted slightly, watching every minute shift in Kyran’s body with something like fascination. Curiosity.

His eyelashes fluttered against his sharp cheekbones, and when those ice-blue eyes met mine…blackness. A visceral hunger so deep, so insatiable, it burned through him like a fever. Like a calling.

Mine.

Anything he asked of me, I’d give him.

CHAPTER 17

REMI

The bone from my necklace rolled between my fingers, its jagged edges pressing deep into my skin. It was warm—still holding the ghost of my body heat. A gift from Domino. If you could call it that. Possession disguised as sentiment. A leash disguised as devotion. A promise, unspoken but understood.

I was his. That much was undeniable. But was he mine?

That thought sank its claws into me, gnawing at my ribs like a starving animal. He was carved into my bones, stitched into my very being. Without him, I couldn’t breathe. He’d unleashed me, set me free, but the fear that his infatuation was fleeting—that I was just a passing obsession—suffocated me. Life balanced on the edge of a knife, and I was terrified that one day, his blade would cut me loose.

I clenched my jaw, forcing my eyes back to the canvas stretched before me. Charcoal smeared against my fingertips as I traced the delicate lines of Brielle’s ruined body. She was on her hands and knees in the dirt, skin peeling away in ragged strips, revealing gleaming bone. The forest swallowed her whole, a black maw of shadow and silence. Fear dripped from everystroke, her wide, vacant eyes pleading with a god that wasn’t listening.

She didn’t know what was coming. That death was already coiling around her like a noose. She didn’t understand how fragile she was, how easy it would be to crush her. To peel her apart one strip of flesh at a time.

I had broken her mind. That was undeniable. But biding my time was becoming excruciating. My skin burned with the need to feel hot blood spilling over my hands, to breathe in the thick, coppery scent until it drowned me.

I hungered for it.

I ground my teeth, throat tightening as frustration curled through me like a storm.

“I don’t have time for this bullshit.” Domino’s words slashed through the quiet, sharp and raw with frustration.

I tilted my head, listening. Somewhere in the apartment, a door slammed shut, the sound vibrating through my ribs.

My blood pounded in my ears, drowning out everything but the memory clawing its way to the surface.

A memory soaked in venom.

“Get rid of the little freak and focus on your job.” Federico’s voice was a slow, slithering thing. It coiled tight around my ribs, soaked into my marrow, poisoning every inch of me.

I had heard it before. A dozen times. A hundred.

But this time, Domino hesitated. “What we need to do,” Domino bit out, voice hard, “is focus on the Gallos. They’re getting too bold. They’re testing us?—”

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