“None of them,” Madison said, shaking her head. “Darragh isn’t here.”
“The man who raped Irina isn’t here?” I asked, everything in my body stilling. She shook her head, her eyes wide in fear. I forced my feet to move to the closest person, the boiled husk of a man who lay on the floor. Grabbing him by the hair, I tore his neck back so sharply that his burns cracked and bled. “Did you touch Irina Ryan?” I asked.
He shook his head, screwing his eyes closed against the pain. “No,” he mumbled, his voice barely audible with the strain it took. I imagined the heat of being boiled alive did a number on the esophagus.
“Who did?” I asked him, leaning into his space so he could see me when those eyes peeled open.
He swallowed, shaking his head when I pressed my knuckles into the worst of the burns on his chest. “Just Darragh. Wanted her all to himself.”
“Who cut her? Who beat her?”
“Was all him. Did her arm when he took her. Did her leg and beat her when she protected the girl. He cut her stomach while he fucked her on the desk,” he wheezed, his stare turning to a glare when I released his hair. “Shoved his favorite knife handle inside her fucking pussy when he was done with it, and then fucked her ass while she was bleeding. Does that answer your question, Bellandi scum?”
I went still, my body sinking into the place where nothing existed but the rage building inside of me. “I have one question left,” I said, the calmness in my voice matching the casualness of my posture as I strode to the table and picked up a knife. “Did you watch?”
“Of course I fucking watched. She’s a hot little piece and she screamed so fucking pretty,” he snarled, practically begging me for the death he thought I would deliver in my rage.
I nodded, pursing my lips as I tore his head back once again. The knife touched the skin just beneath his eye, pressing in until blood welled beneath it. Madison gagged behind me as I shoved through the eyelid he squeezed shut in a pathetic bid to save his eye. I curved the tip of the knife around the edge of the eyeball itself, severing it from the connective tissue holding it in place while he screamed.
It fell into my palm with a pop as it came free, the wetness of it making me cringe. Rafael helpfully handed me a jar from the shelf, letting me drop the unseeing orb into the glass. I moved to the other, watching as Rafael leaned forward and poked at the empty eye socket with the needle he’d shoved up the other guy’s cock.
“Hope he was clean. Syphilis of the eye socket sounds slightly unpleasant to me.”
“I think that’s probably the least of his worries at the moment,” Rafe said, leaning back and staring down at the man as I pulled the second eyeball free and dropped it into the jar. “It is amazing how much a face resembles a skull once you remove the eyes.”
“Amazing isn’t quite the word I would use,” Madison croaked, curling into herself by the freezer door. I should let her go wait outside with Simon, but something about her being there felt right.
Like she belonged in that room, witnessing the destruction the Bellandis would sow when one of our own was hurt.
There were five other men in the room. Five men who might have witnessed Irina’s pain. Ten eyeballs to remove.
“Have they told you anything?” I asked, turning to Ryker in question as I stepped up to the next man. The one hanging upside down would have to wait until Rafael was done playing with him. Cutting out his eyeballs would give the blood rushing to his head a place to drain, speeding his death far too much for the devil’s taste.
“They don’t have a clue where Tiernan and Darragh are. We’ve asked, and I think we’ve properly motivated them to tell the truth. It makes sense that Tiernan would keep his circle small, knowing we’re looking for him,” Ryker answered, sawing through the last piece of scalp until the man’s hair fell to the floor in a wet, bloody heap.
“That will leave a stain,” Madison said dryly, staring down at it as she swallowed. She’d gotten a little of her natural color back, working through the worst of her sickness as the shock wore off.
Ryker chuckled. “I think I like her.”
Considering the concrete floor of the freezer was covered in red and brown stains from old blood, I hardly thought the stains mattered. Pressure washing could only wipe away so much blood, and with a war in the city, the freezer ran red with it.
I jerked back the second man’s head, ignoring the way he pressed his thighs together as if that would save his little dick from me, if I wanted to be like Rafael and use him as a science experiment. “Did you touch her?” I asked, watching as the man shook his head.
He pleaded for his life, begging for freedom but offering nothing in return. There was nothing a man like him could give outside of information, and unfortunately he had none.
There was no forgiveness for men who crushed butterflies.
There was no mercy in war.
36
IRINA
I opened my eyes when there was nothing but silence. Nothing but the rhythmic breathing of Samara sleeping in the chair next to the bed. She snored lightly, the tiniest trickle of noise escaping her nose with each deep inhale.
I peeled back the covers slowly, looking around the room in case I had missed Enzo’s return after one of the men had pulled him into the hallway to ask a question. Forcing myself up to sit with my good arm, I ignored the pain in my ribs.
If anything, it only served as a reminder that I was still breathing. That I was still alive to feel that hurt, even when I didn’t think I wanted to be.
Even when the world was so ugly I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.
I scooted over to the edge of the bed, the splint I hadn’t even realized the doctor put on my leg making it awkward to lift it out until my foot touched the floor. Pain radiated up as I pushed myself to stand, but I forced myself through the agony. Leaning on the nightstand as I passed, I made my way to the bathroom.
The mirror gleamed in the dim lighting streaming through the small skylight, beckoning me forward. I risked the few steps between the nightstand and the bathroom vanity, gritting my teeth through the pain that managed to permeate the haze in my head from the drugs Scar and the doctor had given me.
By the time my hand landed on the counter surface, I was out of breath. I leaned over it, looking up at my reflection as I drew in deep breaths of air. My face was almost unrecognizable through the swelling, but it wasn’t that or the bruising at my throat that interested me.
I lifted the shirt they’d put me in until the bandages on my stomach were revealed. The white was stained with a fresh smattering of blood. I grasped the edge of the bandage, peeling it back from the sensitive skin surrounding the wounds.
The drying blood caught as I pulled back the cloth, drawing a hiss through my teeth. But I needed to see it, needed to see the words carved into my skin for all to see. I peeled it back slowly, until it dropped to the counter gracelessly.
The words at the top were smaller, covering my ribs in chicken scratch that was minor compared to the rest.
One Bellandi Whore
He’d crossed that out, as if he’d changed his mind as he was using me. As if being inside me made something else awaken within him, shifting him from simply taking from someone else, to claiming what he thought was his.