Page 100 of Taming Seraphine

Artistic.

I rub my chin. How many lies is he prepared to tell for his new boss? All clues point to Samson being alive, starting with the mystery client who wants me dead and ending with Seraphine seeing him outside the club. There’s no other explanation.

“Who identified the bodies?” she asks.

I nod. Whoever lied about Samson being among the corpses must have colluded with him to form the pretense that he was dead. I’m impressed that Seraphine is keeping a cool head during the interrogation, even if her methods are unconventional.

He coughs, spraying blood across the floor. “Rochas said he walked around and found the family murdered in their beds.”

Paolo Rochas moves to the very top of our list.

Seraphine asks a few more questions, mostly rephrasing her previous inquiries to see if Catania’s answers change, but they don’t. Eventually, she tilts her head. “Is that everything you know about Samson and Gabriel?”

“I swear it. On my daughter’s life.”

“Then I hope she’ll appreciate that I’m getting rid of one more rapist,” she says, her lip curling.

His eyes widen. “But I’ve told you all I know?—”

“It’s time to pay for what you did to Evangeline.”

“She was a whore,” Catania yells. “Evangeline was fucking Raphael the entire time she was with Frederic. She only got was what coming?—”

Seraphine plunges the knife into his gut, twisting his words into an anguished howl. “Now, you know what it feels like to be penetrated against your will.”

Blood spills down Catania’s belly and soaks into his pants. The vehicle’s walls tremble with his screams. She shoves the knife in and out of the same spot over and over in rhythmic thrusts.

A shiver runs down my spine and settles in my balls. If she wanted him dead, she would have chosen a longer knife or stabbed a vital organ. She’s showing him what it’s like to be violated.

“Stop,” he rasps. “I’ll tell you everything.”

Seraphine pauses, mid-thrust. “Go on.”

“Samson is alive,” he slurs, barely able to form the words through his pain. “I haven’t seen him since Frederic’s birthday party. He’s keeping a low profile until the people responsible for killing the family are dead.”

I turn my attention to Seraphine, who asks, “Where is he staying?”

“It was his fiancée’s house at first,” he says through panting breaths. “But after they got to her father, he moved somewhere else and didn’t say.”

What?

Miko and I didn’t pick up any signs of Samson at Joseph Di Marco’s house unless he was staying in the servant’s quarters or in a building on the grounds.

“Put down the knife,” Catania sobs. “I’ll do anything. I’ll even go back to them for you and spy.”

She returns the paring knife to the table, making me frown. Surely she doesn’t believe this asshole? Her fingers hover over the tools, pausing briefly at the spirit level before she picks up a claw hammer and the measuring tape.

“You like choking women while fucking them,” she says, her voice flat.

“What?” He shakes his head. “I-I don’t?—”

She swings the claw hammer and connects it with Catania’s nose, eliciting a howl that spikes my pulse. Blood explodes from the wound and splatters across her beautiful face.

My balls tighten at her elegant display of violence, and my cock pushes painfully against my zipper. I can’t believe I ever criticized her methods. Seraphine is an artist.

Instead of swinging once more, she walks behind Catania and loops the measuring tape around his neck.

“This is what it feels like to be choked,” she snarls, her voice menacing.

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