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Seeing the flash of terror in his eyes as he pales is beyond satisfying.
“You touched what is mine. You took what belongs to me. Do you know what I do to men who are fucking stupid and cross that line?”
His lips curl into a snarl, but there’s a hint of defiance in his eyes. “I didn’t touch that trash. I never laid a finger on her. I have standards, unlike you,” he spits out. The venom in his voice doesn’t match the fear in his eyes, but his blatant insult toward Ella ignites a rage in me that’s darker and more violent than anything I’ve ever felt.
I walk toward him and slam my fist hard into his face, filling his mouth with blood as he spits it out. “If you have any sense, you won’t insult Ella in front of me.” I clench my fists harder. “I know what you had planned for her because she told me. I intend to make you pay for even thinking it.”
With a smirk, I pull the blade from my jacket pocket, its gleaming edge reflecting the dim light in the room.
Alex’s breathing hitches at the sight. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Am I?” I circle him, allowing the silence to stretch through the space. The terror mounting in his eyes tells me he’s beginning to understand the gravity of his situation, but perhaps he always knew. He was just in denial.
He won’t leave this basement alive.
My boots echo on the concrete floor as I come full circle to face him. “Did you think,” I murmur, leaning in close, the cold steel of my knife dancing dangerously near his throat, “you could take something that belongs to the Morrone Famiglia and not pay the price?”
I drag the blade’s edge over his bare, sweat-soaked skin. I revel in how his body tenses under the cold steel, the fear in his eyes growing with each second the blade dances over him.
I don’t cut, not yet.
Torture is an artistry, the fine line between fear and pain, and I’m the master.
“You know, Alex,” I purr, “fear is a powerful motivator. You should’ve been more afraid of me before you crossed me. You should have believed the rumors about my reputation.” Each word is punctuated by the movement of the blade, a whisper against his skin, promising a world of agony.
I’m furious at what he did to Ella. There was no world in which I would have let what he did go. Alex was dead the moment he stole her. However, the scars he inflicted on her skin sealed how he’d die. A slow, painful, and tortuous death.
The whip on the wall draws my attention. Alex may need a taste of his own medicine. I stow the knife back in my jacket pocket before retrieving the whip and uncoiling it behind him.
“W-What are you doing?” Alex stammers.
“Making you feel the pain you inflicted on Ella.” I draw it back and whip him with all my strength, cutting the flesh on his back to the bone. He screams, and I continue, each strike harder than the last.
His back is a quivering mass of raw flesh when I’m finished. I stand back and survey my work with satisfaction.
“How does it feel?” I ask, walking around to gaze into his eyes.
He’s barely holding onto consciousness. I wonder if that was the same for Ella, as she won’t talk about it since we returned from Vegas. It will take her time to get over the trauma, but I convinced her to see a therapist she could talk to. She thought she would die and harbored deep-seated fears of dying because her mom and dad died so young.
A momentary flicker of dullness crosses his eyes, and I slap him hard across the face to jolt him back to the present. “Stay with me, Alex,” I command, a smirk pulling at the corners of my lips. “I’m only just getting warmed up.”
I retrieve the knife from my jacket pocket again. The terror in his eyes spikes as I casually trace the blade’s sharp edge with my thumb.
“Now, let’s continue, shall we?” I press the tip of the knife against his trembling, sweat-soaked chest and slowly slice through the skin, relishing the guttural scream that rips from his throat. The hot, fresh blood pools around the cut, dribbling down his stomach in rivulets. The sight of it, the smell of it, it’s intoxicating.
Ella wanted to be here for this, but I refused. I can’t have my angel see this side of me. This side of me she doesn’t ever need or want to see. She knows darkness thrives inside me, but that’s as far as it will go.
His pleas for mercy are music to my ears as I continue my grim work. Each scream, each whimper, is a symphony, a testament to the pain he’s going through. The knife dances across his skin, leaving trails of crimson in its wake. His body jerks and convulses futilely to escape the agony, but there’s no escape. Not from this. Not from me.
“You really shouldn’t have touched Ella, should you?”
He jerks his head from side to side. “Please,” he begs.
Pathetic.
His tears mix with the sweat on his face, his eyes completely black as the pain has dilated them. This is his hell. And I’m his devil.
“Please, what?”
