Page 74 of Beautiful Revenge

“I’m just a man with a job. How does that make me a monster?”

God, this man is crazy. He doesn’t even realize how wrong he is.

“You want to know what else I did?” he asks.

“Tell me.” Maybe if I keep him talking long enough, he won’t hurt me again. Some of my cuts have dried up but a few are still open and trickling blood. I can’t take anymore.

“I went to the wife who paid me to kill her husband. She paid me incredibly well. But you see, I don’t like to leave witnesses behind. Especially when they’re cunty women who think they can murder their husbands without consequences. So, I took that same hot poker and I shoved it right up her cunt. Then I killed her.”

The terror coursing through my body is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. It’s wild and intense. There’s never a moment of peace.

“But she was your client,” I say. My voice sounds scared. It never sounded scared when I was with Finn.

“She was. But I don’t like it when women hire me to kill men. I mean, I kill the men because it’s fun but I think it’s fucked up that a woman could have that kind of power to kill a man.”

“But if a man does it, it’s ok?”

“Of course. Men are supposed to be in power. You women are our playthings.” He runs his hand down my face and I resist the urge to jerk back. “You are at our mercy.”

“So, a man can hire you to kill his wife and you approve but if a woman does it, then it’s a death sentence for her? That’s fucked up.”

He rips his hand away like I’ve burned him. “It’s not. It’s just the natural order of things. Women deserve to die for being cunts.”

“But if no more women existed, the human race would end.”

“And I would laugh on top of all the bones.” He pulls his knife back out. “Now, shall we resume what we were doing before?”

Oh god. I can’t take it. The cuts he’s given me have been shallow but now I’m worried he’s going to cut deeper until I’ll die.

“I want to keep talking to you,” I blurt out. “I want to know what’s on your mind.”

“Oh.” He puffs out his chest. He likes it when I stroke his ego. “Well, I can tell you what’s on my mind as I cut you.”

“No. No!” I buck and pull at my restrains but I’m stuck. Sal presses his knife to my shin and cuts a line right down it. It burns. I bite down my scream.

“Death by a thousand cuts is a very painful way to die,” Sal murmurs like we’re in a museum and he’s commenting on the beautiful artwork.

“I never hired you to kill anybody. I don’t deserve this.”

He places the knife to my throat. “Just by being a woman you deserve this.”

At that very moment, his phone rings. “Ah.” He pulls the knife away and answers his phone, turning his back to me. “Yes. Got it.” He hangs up. “Well, it’s your lucky day, plaything. I have another job I need to get to. But I’ll be back in a few hours. I’ll leave you with this.” He cuts down my stomach and stops right above my pubic mound. “As a reminder of me.”

The cut isn’t deep, thank god, but it burns. I’m going to be covered in small scars after this. I’m going to be ugly. The only thing I had was my beauty and now Sal is trying to take it away from me.

He leaves the house with a whistle like it’s a normal day off to work.

I desperately try to get out of my cuffs but they’re too tight. There’s no way I can cut them. I’ve never felt so powerless before.

Finn

I arrive at the house of the address Aiden gave me. It’s a simple, nondescript house. It blends in with every other house on the street. Does the hitman I met earlier really live here? I would have expected some freaky torture gothic mansion for how evil he was.

I knock on the door. If he doesn’t own the house anymore, I don’t want to kick the door in and scare some random family. While that would be funny, I don’t want more attention drawn to myself at this moment. My mission is to find Aria. Nothing can get in the way of that.

No one answers.

I try to peer through one of the windows but the blinds are drawn. I can’t see in. “Is anybody home?” I ask, then strain to listen.

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