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When I stepped out of the shadows, I knew my face paint had startled them, and it gave me great satisfaction. Ivan’s eyes were wary. The other two were still both defiant. I didn’t care.

Slowly, I walked around the room, lighting the candles on the floor. The stench from their excrement was already acrid. The damp floor told me they’d already been hosed off at least once, with everything running down the drain in the center of the room.

When I stopped in front of them, I set up an altar. A silver bowl and a small, sheathed razor-sharp blade were the first items I brought out of the satchel. Then the rest of the items were set on the altar as I arranged everything the way I wanted it. Pulling my piece from the holster at my side, I set it on the table too. Specific candles were lit for the altar. Finally, I removed the ornate scabbard. The surgically sharp blade slid out with a metallic zing.

“What’s with this freak?” Kalashnik spat. “You think you scare us with this Halloween charade?”

I allowed a slight smile to move my lips as I otherwise ignored them. He came across as brave, but I’d seen the sheen of sweat over his upper lip and brow. The blood from his gunshot wound was dried on him, but the opening was mostly healed closed.

I knew that had been Angel’s work, and my eyes sought him out in thanks.

Carrying the bowl, I stopped before Ivan first. Kalashnik would be last so he had time to appreciate what was coming. My brothers all waited in the shadows.

The blade sliced through his skin like butter as he screamed, “You are all going to die! Fucking biker scum!” Then he let loose a tirade of Russian that I didn’t understand, nor care about. When he tried to pull away, he stopped suddenly. Not that he would’ve been able to get far.

De Luca had simply wanted him ruined. For trying to kill Kira, he wouldn’t only be ruined. He’d be dead.

“You must be more stupid than you look in your childish face paint,” Kalashnik sneered. Again, I didn’t acknowledge him or deign to reply. Anatoly remained stoic and silent. It didn’t matter if it was a ruse or if he was truly so brainwashed and cold-blooded that none of this affected him.

Ignoring Ivan’s ranting, I continued to carve the appropriate symbols into his chest. The blood that ran from the cuts was collected in the silver bowl.

The only time I interacted with him was when he tried to spit on me. Then I drove the knife up under his chin until the tip pierced the tender flesh behind the bone. Barely above a whisper, I told him, “Spit at me again, and I’ll cut out your tongue and slice off your tiny dick, then shove them both down your throat. When I’m done, I’ll sew your lips together. You hear me?”

He didn’t reply, and I pushed the knife in deeper, making him gasp. He didn’t yell, because it would’ve probably shoved the knife up into his mouth and he knew it. Finally, he replied with little movement of his jaw. “Yes!”

“Good,” I replied evenly. Then I finished with him and moved on to Anatoly.

The second the knife pierced his flesh, the beast in me rumbled to life. This was retribution for Kira’s childhood he helped destroy. Every cut, every drop of crimson blood, every grunt that it pulled from his blackened soul, fed the beast.

By the time I finished with him, he still remained wordless, but the greenish hue to his face told me I’d affected him. The sweat that was mixing with the blood told me he wasn’t completely unfeeling. I’d seriously fought burying my blade in his eye.

Kalashnik had been bitching and threatening the entire time. He really hadn’t liked that I’d hurt his baby boy.

Too fucking bad.

When I turned to him, I had to hold myself back. A shiver coursed through me as the demon within shuddered and thrashed. The smell of their blood, the desperate need to end their lives, all of the feelings that went along with it—I knew were part of the me that I despised. My legacy from the demon that called himself my father.

Teeth clenched, I breathed deeply for control. For what he’d done to his own daughter, I wanted to slice his dick into a million pieces. Intently, I stared in his eyes as I allowed my peripheral vision to make the marks I could make in my sleep. Then, I demanded, “Tell me why you were doing business with the Bloody Scorpions.”

“Fuck. You,” he gritted out. He was soaked with sweat by then, and his skin was clammy. Though I hadn’t expected him to answer me, it had been worth a shot. It didn’t really matter. Because we’d find out what we needed one way or another.

“You know you’re dying, don’t you?” I asked in a calculatingly cold voice. My eyes narrowed as I studied him—trying to see what made him tick. With each mark I made, I prayed to get something off him. An image, a flash of his dealings with the Bloody Scorpions—anything.

Except there was nothing.

The longer I spent on their preparation for death the more I wanted to let loose and tear them limb from limb.

Instead, I breathed deep and stilled the angry beast.

Once the marks were made, I chanted low and mixed the dark blood in the bowl with the tip of the knife. The rituals my grandmother had taught me weren’t for the weak of heart. Nor were they ones that were openly spoken about. Hell most modern-day practitioners of voodoo and hoodoo didn’t know anything about the rituals that were part of my family’s legacy.

The tips of my fingers dipped in the still-warm liquid, and I marked each of them as they tried to fight me. It was useless, and all they succeeded in doing was tiring themselves out.

My eyes met Squirrel’s, and I knew he’d picked up on what I’d said about Kalashnik knowing he was dying. He would have no reason to answer because he knew he was a dead man walking. His son, however, was his weakness.

“When my men find you, there won’t be anywhere for you to hide. You are all dead! You. Your families. Your fucking dogs. Dead!” Ivan was screaming as blood ran down his naked body.

“You’re making a bold assumption that anyone has a clue as to where you are.” Venom’s voice carried out from the shadows.


Tags: Kristine Allen Royal Bastards MC: Ankeny, IA Fantasy