Page 137 of The Silversmith

“What—what do you mean?” His useless fingers pried at my grip.

My hand twitched—yearning for the feeling of his thin neck crushing beneath it. Playing dumb—I didn’t like that either.

“I said,” my other hand clamped down on his shoulder, “what did Molochai promise you for facilitating this little trade?”

“N-nothing!” Felix panicked. “He didn’t promise me anything, Smyth! I’m just trying to help you.”

“He doesn’t have my wife, Felix.”

“W-what do you mean?” He tried to shift out of my grip, but I tightened my hold. “He does. He has her.”

“I don’t think so, my friend.”

He screamed when the switchblade hidden in my sleeve made a spectacular squelch in the flesh of his side, between his ribs.

I loved that sound.

“How do you know?” he wailed as I slowly twisted the blade into the weak muscle of his abdomen.

The poor bastard whimpered and gasped for breath and wheezed. The warmth of his blood on my hand soothed me. But it was still ice cold compared to the warmth of her.

Snarling, I gripped his hair and jerked him backwards before thrusting my fist once into the center of his face. The bone in his nose crunched while unhinged whimpers left his throat.

“Because I have her, you fucking imbecile!” I roared, casting him down to the earth, hovering over him. “And no one will ever…” I bent down to flatten his hand on the frigid ground and readied my fingers to break each of his.

“Take!”

Thumb.

“Her!”

Index.

“From!”

Middle.

“Me!”

Ring.

“Again!”

Pinky.

“Please!” he howled.

But I soaked in the sound of his agonized cries. Glorious retribution for even thinking of hurting my Ella.

“I’m sorry! Oh, gods!” He was on all fours, snot and blood dangling in strings from his broken nose. “Gods, please!”

“Oh, I assure you,” I shoved him onto his back with my boot, “I’m as far from your gods as you can get.” I squatted beside him and ripped my blade from his side, then gripped him by the hair and exposed his neck. “Time to go, Felix. Give your father my regards. For his sake, I am sorry.” I clicked my tongue on the roof of my mouth, feigning reconsideration, and then sighed, shaking my head. “Just not sorry enough.”

“It was money!” Such a mewling cry from a greedy, blithering idiot. He had sold out my Ella for money. Fury roiled through me. But he was so shockingly stupid that it became an effort not to laugh. “My family!” he gasped. “My wife and son, please don’t hurt them.”

“I’ll see to it myself that your family is taken care of. They are safe,” I assured him calmly. That was true. I had killed so many innocents in my long, miserable life and would be more than happy not to kill any more. And it wasn’t his wife or child’s fault that he was a whimpering, conniving shill.

Felix exhaled a sigh of relief. His last breath.