Page 147 of Craving Venom

A tremor racks through his frame.

“You should. I think about it a lot.” I press harder, and he lets out a high-pitched, animalistic sound as his body locks up, paralyzed by his own fear.

His goons are still frozen, watching in horrified silence.

I shove him back and watch as he stumbles, catching himself against the bench while his breath turns into a ragged mess.

His cronies don’t move. Nobody does. The whole yard watches in heavy silence as Frank coughs, blood dripping down his face and staining his teeth but he doesn’t make a sound. I turn my back on him without hesitation, because he’s not worth my time.

The kitchen smells like grease and steel, the kind of place where everything is either burnt or rotting, and yet somehow, I make it work.

The knife in my hand sinks into the flesh of the chicken, slicing through the muscle. I don’t look up when the door swingsopen because the sound of footsteps is too familiar. Mark drops into the seat across from me, making himself comfortable. I still don’t spare him a glance.

He doesn’t say anything at first. Just grabs an apple from the counter, rolls it between his fingers, debating something. Then he takes the first bite, and it’s so obnoxiously loud that it feels like it’s trying to crawl under my skin.

“How was it?”

I don’t look up or stop chopping.

I slide the sliced chicken into a battered tin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit,” Mark snorts, taking another crunching bite.

“I’m serious,” he says, licking juice from his thumb. “She’s the first thing you’ve been obsessed with in—fuck, I dunno—ever? I’m just asking if it was worth it.”

“What do you want, kid?”

He shrugs, taking another bite of that apple, chewing so deliberately loud I swear to god he’s doing it just to piss me off.

“I’m bored.”

I flick my knife toward the corner without looking. “Go be bored over there.”

Mark laughs, shaking his head. He doesn’t move. Just leans back, stretching his legs out. “For the record—” he says, tapping the apple against the table. “I shouldn’t have overstepped about Terry.”

I keep chopping. The sound of the blade hitting wood is the only answer he gets.

Mark exhales, rubbing his jaw. “Look, man, I—”

“What communication I had with Terry is none of your fucking business. You don’t know shit, and frankly, I’ve long forgotten most of it anyway.”

It’s a lie, but it does the job, and Mark doesn’t push.

Then the door opens again, and a guard steps in, stopping right beside the table.

Something drops onto the surface with a dull thud.

“Package for you.”

When I don’t acknowledge it, the guard lingers for half a second too long, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of looking up.

Eventually, he gets the message and walks out.

Mark, however?

He grabs the package, flipping it in his hands. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

“Not interested.”

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