Page 15 of Unleashed
Her body—completely bare, tied with thick rope to the post—slumps unnaturally, held up only by the tension in the bindings. Rope digs into her flesh, causing crimson to seep through, soaking into the fibers like a sponge, her skin ghostly white, lifeless, and the violence of the display strikes with gut-wrenching force.
“Fuck,” I mutter, stepping forward despite every instinct screaming at me to turn away.
Blood isn’t new to me. Violence, murder—hell, it’s practically in my DNA. But this? This is something else. It’s not just the murder. It’s the ritualistic brutality of it. The obscene display of power. It’s meant to be a message. A dark, bloody signature left for us to decipher.
The worst part? I’ve seen this before.
We all have.
Micah.
“Looks familiar, right?” Caelian’s tone lacks the sarcastic edge it usually has.
“This is insane.”
Mrs. De Luca’s lips are sewn shut with thick, crude black thread, X’s jaggedly woven across her mouth as if they were done hastily, violently. Three stitches. One already torn open. Butit’s her eyes—or the absence of them—that sends a fresh wave of nausea through me. Her sockets are empty, blood crusted around the edges, the dark, gaping holes staring back at me as if they’re mocking us.
“This can’t be real,” I whisper, my voice strangled, though every sick detail screams that it is.
Caelian steps up beside me. “Oh, it’s real, brother. I don’t know what this is, but it’s fucking real.”
We stand frozen, tension wrapping around us like a noose. Everything about what we’re looking at takes us back a few years, when Micah, the brother we never knew we had, went on a murderous rampage, killing in the name of God.
Micah was a fucking lunatic, using religion to justify his twisted actions. His mind was broken, corrupt, and he even became fixated on Mirabella. He tried to kill her, convinced that her beauty was to blame for his "sinful" desires. She still carries the scar of his sick obsession—a constant reminder of how far his depravity went.
But we killed him. Buried him. Yet it’s like I’m staring at his resurrection right here in front of me.
Alexius and Maximo storm into the room, their expressions as dark and twisted as the scene we’re forced to witness. Their usual calm, deadly composure is cracking under the weight of it all, fury and confusion battling for dominance on their faces.
“Alexius, what the fuck is going on?” I ask, my voice thick, my chest tight.
Alexius doesn’t speak right away. Instead, he holds up a piece of paper, and my stomach twists as I step closer to read it.
“Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.”
Deuteronomy 32:35
Heat drains out of me as the words sink in. “This... is that written in her…?”
Alexius gives a tight nod, his jaw clenched. “Yeah.”
“This is exactly howhedid it. How is that possible?”
Maximo steps in with a half-shrug, his face unreadable. “We’re not sure.”
The room seems to spin for a second, reality warping as my thoughts scramble to connect the dots. The memory of Micah’s killings slams into me, the way he tortured his victims, leaving twisted religious verses written in their blood. The method, the verses—it’s all too familiar. But Micah is dead. We made sure of it.
“This can’t be happening.” I narrow my eyes as I stare at the body. “Every detail.”
Maximo moves closer, arms crossed, the leather of his jacket groaning under the pressure. “We might be looking at a copycat.”
“A copycat?” Caelian snorts, dragging a hand down his face. “It’s one dead woman, not a Netflix docuseries. For all we know, she’s a cheating wife and all this,” he waves his hand in front of the body, “is just a horny idiot who tied her up and forgot the safe word.”
I glare at him. “Are you serious? This is the exact same way Micah murdered those girls.”
“It’s not impossible. Maybe there’s a Murders-Are-Us website where they list a thousand different ways to do it, and this son of a bitch just happened to have picked the same one Micah did.”
“Are you that dumb, or is this your fucked-up version of trying not to expect the worst?”
