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My scalpel and forceps are my tools.
My hands.
The incision scar that will remain on Mitchell’s body will be the proof to the world of my masterpiece.
I wash up, coming out of my reverie. The Hibiclens soap cleans my skin and kills germs on contact. The surgery is over, and I have no recollection of it.
My preoccupation with Lyra runs that deep.
In an effort to give myself space—and Lyra asked for it as she works a late shift at the Velvet Piano—I meet up with Nolan and Klein for drinks. On the drive there I listen to more of my recordings of Lyra’s music. I check my phone more than once. The apps show me what she’s doing at the moment.
She relaxes on her laptop enjoying an edible until it’s time to get ready for work and she takes a shower. Over the past couple days, she’s learned a mild high takes the edge off her performances at the Velvet Piano. For the first time, she won a duel and earned the crowd’s applause.
Nolan grins at me as I enter the Mint Room. The upscale lounge has walls papered a deep forest green and lacquered wood that’s polished and attractive to the human eye. The Mint Room would settle for no less, designed to entertain a rogue’s gallery of clientele willing to spend sixty dollars per cocktail. Clients like big bankers and corporate lawyers out for a location where they can lounge in tufted leather armchairs and wax poetic about how important and wealthy they are.
Walking into the moodily lit den of insipid vultures, I’m tempted to turn around and go. I meet Nolan’s Cheshire Cat grin with the growing homicidal urge to swipe a knife off a table and lodge it into his throat. Would he scream like a terrified schoolgirl like Klein had when Lyra bit his dick off?
A smirk comes to my face at the thought.
She’d boldly done so in front of a sea of masked spectators worth infinitely more millions than she was. His blood had filled hermouth. She simply spat it out and made her escape.
A thick pulse of arousal awakens inside me, though I stamp it down just as quickly.
Nolan extends his hand and gives mine a shake. “I didn’t think you’d make it. Klein was saying you’d stand us up.”
Klein doesn’t shake my hand. He remains seated, his Bourbon Sour in hand, his pale eyes studying me.
I glance down at his groin area and take my seat. “How are you holding up? Are your parts sewn back together?”
Nolan snorts. “They’re back together alright. Klein, show him the photo.”
Klein’s weak chin clenches hard. He sips more of his Bourbon Sour in response.
Unfortunately for him, Nolan’s rarely one to let anything go. He nudges his pal with the same grin he’s greeted me with. “Kleiny boy, don’t be shy now. Show our resident medical professional the Frankensteinian hack job that was done to your toy soldier.”
When Klein still doesn’t bite, Nolan shifts his attention onto me. He’s buzzing with the excitement of a teenage girl fresh on the hot gossip. Something he should be ashamed of, though he thrives on chaos too much to be.
“Klein tried to fuck Talia Weinberg last weekend. It was when they got sloshed at the Vanderson soiree. An event you didn’t turn up to, by the way. I suspect Talia was feeling sorry for him—that, and she’s a stupid pageant queen with air for brains. She’ll open her legs so long as you’re nice to her for five minutes. Turns out, he couldn’t get it up! We were right—his dick’s broken!”
Uninterested in what he has to say, I motion for the server. Nothing Nolan says surprises me. Everyone knows Talia Weinberg is an empty-headed bimbo, and I don’t care to hear about any sexual encounter she had with Klein.
If I’m honest, Klein’s very existence has begun to bother me. Significantly more than usual.
Time passes and Nolan blathers on. The server delivers my Old Fashioned. I try my best to be unbothered and indifferent, however, irritation uncoils inside me. It slithers through me as I’m forced to sit across from Klein and his stabbable face.
He stuffed his dick inside Lyra’s mouth. Despite her protests to the contrary. My grip on my glass cinches and red-tinted fantasies of Klein’s murder play before my eyes. What would he do—what would any of them do—if I leapt over our table and shattered my glass over his face? If I used its sharpest shard to puncture his organs?
I could have him bleeding out on the floor.
In revenge for Lyra…
“Kaden?”
“Yes?” I turn a glaring eye on Nolan for interrupting my violent runaway imagination.
“Klein asked you a question. About the prostitute.”
I’m about to snap what prostitute when it occurs to me who he speaks of. Focusing across the table on Klein, I’m already under his intent study. The glint in his gaze tells me what I need to know—Celeste informed him of what she found the last time she came over to my penthouse.
