Page 148 of Dance of Ruin

Hey—I don’t make the rules.

“How about you, fuck-head?” I smile coldly, turning back to Steven. “Your balls need itching too, or are you feeling talkative?”

He whimpers, his eyes sliding toward Adam.

“Don’t look at him,” I grit. “Look at fuckingme.”

“Th-they call him the Marquis,” Steven croaks. “I only met him once. I don’t know his name, I swear! But dresses really sharp, definitely has money.”

“Something I canuse, Steven,” I growl. “Not his fashion choices.”

His lip quivers. “H-he…” He glances at Adam again before he apparently makes up his mind about something and drags his gaze back to me. “There’s tension,” he mumbles. “In the Obsidian Syndicate ranks?—”

“Stop…talking…” Adam wheezes.

I flick him in the balls, relishing his pained shriek before I turn back to Steven.

“…You were saying?”

Steven nods eagerly, blood smeared all over his body.

“Th-there’s a splinter faction within the ranks. Some people say the Marquis is getting sloppy. Going soft. Taking too much off the top.” He turns his head, and blood dribbles out of his mouth. “Some of the guys…they want something new. New leadership, that kinda thing.”

I’m not sure yet how any of this might be useful. Still, I mentally file it away.

And now I get to be the avenging angel of motherfucking death and fury.

“The sort of new leadership who might, for example, not userapeas a tool of coercion?”

My voice is pure venom and acid.

Steven trembles, blood dripping from his lip. “Look… We didn’t even know who that girl was. We were just told to get it done. She was just a message.”

Just a message.

The words crack something open in my chest.

I stare at him for a long second. Then I take a slow, deep breath, walk over to the table and pick up a crowbar, and turn back to the pair of them.

“Her name is Naomi. Not ‘that girl.’Naomi.”

Adam tries to mumble something, but I crack him across the jaw with the crowbar.

Steven starts bleating in terror.

“We didn’t know who she was!” he sobs. “They just told us to—please—we didn’tknow!”

I turn to him, my grip tightening around the crowbar.

“It didn’tmatter,” I hiss coldly. “Itdidn’t fucking matterwho she was when you drugged her and put your filthy hands on her, and rubbed your limp little cocks to her.”

I raise the crowbar to his jaw, lifting his chin slightly with the end of it to makedamnsure he looks into my eyes.

“Now, though,” I growl, “it matters.” My eyes narrow. “Because she’smine.”

Warm liquid splatters my shoes, and I realize Steven’s lost control of his bladder.

“Now then…” I murmur, walking back to the table. I trade the crowbar for a rusty, not-very-sharp pair of gardening shears and turn back to them. “I’d like to knowexactlywhich fingers you each touched her with. And don’t be shy. If you say nothing, I’ll take themall.”

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