Page 113 of Dance of Ruin

“Gloves are over there,” Nero says casually. “If the smell gets to you…I dunno, light one of these.” He tosses Roman, who doesn’t smoke, a pack of cigarettes.

“Yeah, ordon’t,” I growl, snatching the pack from Roman’s hand. “Don’t light anything, for that matter.”

I nod my chin at the shelf on the far wall of the basement room, peppered with bullet holes, and the gallon bottle of paint thinner on one of said shelves, dripping the last of its contents all over the floor in a big, smelly,highlyflammable puddle.

Nero follows my gaze, his brow furrowing. Not out of concern for the massive explosion waiting to happen, but like he’s wildly curious about what might happen if that explosion actually occurred.

Nero is fuckingnuts. I tend to think of him as “Carmine-adjacent”: notquitethe same level of psychopath that my brother is, but not far off.

But where Carmine is methodical, rigid, and utterly in control in that Dexter way he has, Nero is the exact opposite.

He’s a lunatic. Unhinged, manic, and basically a reincarnation of his namesake, the mad Roman Emperor Nero, known for his barbarism and debauchery.

Andthisis the guy in charge of the De Luca mafia family.

God fucking help us all.

He’s still staring almost lovingly at the puddle of paint thinner, a canine grin on his face, when I walk over and snatch the cigarette from his lips.

“Rude,” he snaps pettishly.

“I just feel likelivingpast the next five fucking minutes, if that’s okay with you. My apologies,” I grunt, dropping the cigarette into a glass of whiskey and melted ice.

“Fuck.Me.”

Laz walks in behind Roman, an amused look on that pretty-boy face of his that made him so ridiculously popular with girls while we were at Knightsblood together. His brows arch, surveying the carnage.

“Glad I answeredthistext,” he grins, his tone devoid of sarcasm.

Laz and Nero share the same fascination with blood, bodies, and violence.

“What the fuck actually happened here?” Roman grunts, nodding to the holes in the wall and shattered light fixtures.

Nero shrugs, lifting the guy at the table up by a handful of hair and tipping his head back, his mouth falling slackly open.

“You really wanna know?”

Roman frowns. “Why the boss of the De Luca family is down here getting blood on his shoes? Like fuck I wanna know. Isn’t the whole point of being the boss having underlings?”

Nero glances up. A wild glint flickers in his eye. “And let them have all the fun?” He blows air through tight lips. “As fuckingif. Anyway, if you guys want in, there are more hedge clippers and pliers in that bag in the hallway.”

I snort a dry laugh and turn to glance at Roman, who has a sour look on his face.

“When you said you needed help cleaning up some bodies, Nero,” he mutters, “I assumed you meant rolling them in tarps and putting them in a trunk.”

“Nah,” Nero shrugs. “They’re staying here. I just need to…sanitizefirst.”

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a pair of pliers. Then he leans over the dead guy’s open mouth and starts to stick the pliers inside.

“Oh,hellfucking no,” Roman rumbles as I chuckle. “Absolutely not.”

“Pussy,” Nero retorts, the room suddenly filling with the horrifying sound of a tooth being yanked out of its socket.

Wetly.

Roman makes a face. “I’ll do fingers. I’m nottouchingteeth. Fucking filthy.”

“I’ll play dentist,” Laz shrugs casually.

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