But this was Belle.
Beautiful, innocent Belle.
Belle, who wanted to care for people, not cut them up.
Belle’s hand reached out and she started to pick up a gutting knife. I clamped my hand down on hers and shook my head.
“Not that one, babe,” I said, and she withdrew her hand quickly like she’d been burned. I looked over the knives and weapons laid out on the table and picked up a simple combat knife. “This one,” I said, handing it to her.
It looked huge in her small hand and she struggled to get a good grip on it. Or maybe she struggled to hold it because everything in her was telling her to drop it and run. We were so far away from her world now, and waist deep in mine. I wanted to protect her, but there was nothing I could do. All of the things I would usually do wouldn’t work here in this moment, with these people. Blood and violence and releasing the monster within me would only make this situation ten times worse. The best I could do was to stay calm and help her through this.
She stared down at the brutal weapon in her hand and swallowed so loudly I could hear it over the rampant beating of my own heart. I picked up a knife for myself, a classic Bowie instead of my favorite skinning knife. Nothing brought a man more physical pain than having his skin slowly peeling back from his body and seeing his own flesh and blood underneath.
I walked to Mateo and she followed, and I heard Rider zooming in with the camera to make sure he got everything on film. Belle must have heard it too because she started to turn her head to look, but I reached out and gently took the end of her chin in my hand and guided her back to me.
“A man has many spots that won’t kill him,” I began, “many places where you can hurt him and he won’t die, he’ll just bleed. It looks bad, but they can survive it. We’re going to hit some of these, okay?” I said as gently as I could, and she nodded slowly. I pressed a hand against Mateo’s stomach, just to the side, where no vital organs were. “Here,” I said, and reached for her hand with the knife. I pressed the tip of the blade against his side, but I could feel her straining to pull away from it. Her grip loosened on the knife and she whimpered as the tip of it pierced his skin, a small drop of blood forming. He murmured even though he was still passed out, but he was slowly coming back around. He’d sure as hell be wide awake in a moment.
“Beast,” Gauge warned as a thin line of blood trailed from the small cut, basically telling me to step away. This was something she had to do, so there was no doubt that she had done it and hadn’t been forced by anyone.
Belle looked up at me again, her eyes trailing tears down her face. Her chin was trembling and I leaned down and placed a kiss on her lips.
“You don’t have to do this,” I whispered, pressing my forehead to hers again. “We can leave and forget all this shit.”
“You’ll never forgive me for making you leave them,” she whispered back.
And I pulled away to look at her. “I will, Belle. You’re forgiven for everything, if I am.”
She glanced between Mateo and me as he stirred more, his head rolling on his shoulders and his eyes flickering open. He saw Belle and me and a sneer formed on his face when he recognized her. I would have loved nothing more than to cut his throat there and then, but she placed a hand on my arm like she knew what I wanted and then she stepped closer to him.
“The fun we could have had,” he said between bloodied teeth.
Belle looked down at her knife as if contemplating his words, this man, and how her life had ended up in this moment. Tears dripped off the end of her chin, and her shoulders shook, but as I reached out to pull her away from him, she stabbed him abruptly, the knife going in to his side exactly where I’d shown her. Mateo called out in pain loud enough to make Carlos stir in his bonds, and Belle gripped the blade handle tighter and pulled it back out.
Blood dribbled from the wound, trailing down his body, and began to form a puddle at his feet, and she stared down, mesmerized by it. Rider had moved positions to catch every gory detail and she looked up, right into the camera lens, and froze. Long seconds passed before she moved and then her gaze strayed to the blood on the floor and Mateo glaring up at her.
“Babe?” I said, not wanting to use her name on camera, and she slowly turned to face me, almost like she was in a daze. “You okay?”
“Where next?” she asked firmly.
Her tears had stopped, though I could see she was still shaking. Blood splatter was down her front and up her arm from when she’d retracted the knife, and I knew she was going to lose it when she saw it on her.
Carlos had woken up, his head rolling on his shoulders as he tried to focus on everything and everyone around him. He knew his time was up once his gaze landed on me, and he froze momentarily, his fear giving way. He was muttering in Italian until he saw Belle, and then his words died on his lips and a grin cracked his face.
“Pretty girl, I warned you what my brother would do to you, didn’t I?” He smirked and licked his lips. “He’ll fuck you until you can’t walk and then he’ll kill you.”
The room fell away from me and I saw red. I dropped my knife and stormed forward, my fist rearing back and slamming into his face before he could speak again, knocking the breath from his lungs and the teeth from his mouth. I raised my fist again and slammed it into his face over and over until he was coughing and choking on his own blood and Belle was screaming at me to stop. I’d waited for this moment for so long, and the scent of his blood spurred me on. I wanted to beat him to death with my bare hands and show him exactly how the next few months of his pitiful existence were going to be. And if it would have been at any other time in my life, I would have kept him chained like that for months, if not years, repeatedly beating him until there was nothing left of the man he once was but broken bone and dying flesh.
Belle tugged on my arm and screamed my name again and I turned to look at her, my fists dripping with his blood, and one look at the horror on her face had the feeling of rage dying away like the tide slipping out.
She looked terrified of me and what I was capable of, and I felt sick to my stomach that I had caused that look in her eyes. I had made her cry. Me. The monster I was. The monster I had hidden from her, but now she had seen me in all my black glory and there was no point in hiding anything from her now.
“Stop,” she begged, fresh tears trailing down her face.
The world came back in, and I saw my brothers and I saw Carlos’s blood and I heard Mateo yelling at me in Italian, pulling on his chains frantically to get to me, to stop me from killing his brother. It spurred me on and calmed me all at the same time.
I was panting, the blood hot on my knuckles, and I nodded at Belle. “It’s okay,” I said, my voice thick with barely contained rage. She let go of my arm and I turned back to Carlos. Stepping closer to him, I clasped his head in my hands, letting his blood trail between my fingers. “Remember me, motherfucker?”
He spat in my face, blood and saliva sliding down my chin. I reared my head back and slammed it into his, hearing the satisfying crunch of his nose against my skull and he called out. I let his head go and it rolled on his shoulders, his eyes swimming in and out of focus, but he was laughing hysterically a high-pitched hyena laugh that set my nerves on edge.
I raised my blade up. “Something funny?” I asked, and he spat on the ground in front of him, his gaze straying to Mateo, whose blood was still dripping slowly from his stab wound.