Page 83 of Black Hearts
I couldn’t see what was happening, but I heard my father’s screams. They were loud, garbled, and they rang out through the air so loudly I swore I could feel them in my bones. I must’ve flinched, because I felt Theo’s hand on my arm, his body inching closer to mine. He stood right behind me, while Jaxon and Bennet were on either side of me. Markus stood closest to the glass window, watching.
Will’s arm jerked away from my father, and he turned and held up the tool to show us what he’d done.
He’d pulled out a tooth. Just… yanked it right out of his mouth. My own teeth hurt just imagining what that had to feel like.
And then my father muttered something like “Fuck you,” only it didn’t come out quite right given the state of his mouth. But it was enough to sour Will’s good mood.
Will turned back to him, and without thinking, he swung the tool at his head. A loud crack echoed through the air, and I was fairly certain he’d just cracked my father’s skull. I had to look away. It was beginning to be too much for me.
Markus, on the other hand, sprang into action. He rushed into the room, grabbed Will and pulled him off my father, saying, “I told you one. Just one.” He shoved him away, snatching the pliers from his hands. He corralled him out of the room.
Turning sheepish, Will gave us a look. “Sorry, but he said—”
Against the window, still inside the room, Markus scowled. “I don’t give a shit what he said. I said you get one turn on him, and what I say goes.” He stormed over to the counter and slammed the pliers down, seething.
“Someone’s grumpy,” Will muttered to himself.
Markus must’ve heard him, for he audibly sneered. He worked on taking his suit jacket off, folding it in a neat pile beside the array of tools. He then loosened and took off his tie, and then his watch. He moved to stand before the window, and he met my eyes as he began to roll up his sleeves, exposing his forearms.
There was a time when his ritual might’ve unnerved me, but now, standing there watching him, his towering body blocking out my father’s image deeper in the room, it was enough to make me forget all the pain and enough to help me remember.
I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him. I would be nothing but a brainwashed girl if it wasn’t for him. The rest of my life, I owed to Markus Scott and the other men surrounding me. I’d finally found where I belonged. Today was the start of a new chapter in my life, and for once, I was excited to see where it would lead us.
Markus turned toward my father after giving me one final lingering look, and he cracked his neck. “I hope you’re not losing consciousness yet, Fred. You and I have some unfinished business as well. You tried to kill Juliet, and I warned you: Juliet is mine. You try to take what’s mine, and I take everything from you.”
His hand shot out, and the garbled cry that left my father told me he’d dug his fingers into the stab wound on his stomach.
“I don’t often like getting messy. I typically use gloves, but for you… I want to feel your blood on my hands before I end you,” Markus growled out, and I bet he was a terrifying sight to my father, his imposing figure bending over him, fingers digging into his gut.
For the first time, my father couldn’t say anything.
Markus withdrew his fingers, and I could see them dripping red as he went to the counter to pick up a large knife. Something in me twisted when I saw it. It wasn’t as shiny and new as the other metal instruments. It was older, its wooden handle stained in red.
That was the knife my father had used to stab me. I knew it immediately. He must’ve had the others take it when they found it and saved it for this specific occasion.
“Do you remember this?” Markus asked, taking my father’s hair in one hand and shaking his head to keep him awake. He held the knife directly in front of him, standing on his left, allowing us to see. Letting me see. “You tried to kill Juliet with it, and now I’m going to end your pathetic life with it. Say goodbye, Fred. By the time I’m done with you, your body will be unrecognizable.”
Little did I know that was a promise on Markus’s part.
Markus was a brute. He held nothing back. He went at my father like an animal, like a creature who fed off pain and blood. I watched him drag that knife along my father’s arms, along his chest and his collarbone. I flinched when he stabbed him in the chest. So much blood. I think my father had passed out.
I couldn’t say how long it was before Markus had had his fill of torture, but after a while, after my father was still, his eyes shut, he went around the back of the chair, undid the neck restraint, and took my father’s head in his hand as it bobbed down, no longer held up by anything. With a grip of steel, Markus exposed his neck, and with nothing but a flicker of fury in his dark, devilish gaze, he drew the knife along my father’s throat.
The wound was deep. So deep it separated muscle from muscle, tendon from tendon. So deep the wound bled like a waterfall. So bright, so garish, it almost didn’t look real. The blood fell from his slit throat, cascading down his chest and dribbling to the floor.
I had to turn away at that. It was too much. I whipped around, and Theo held me close. His arms wrapped around me, silently comforting, but I knew he still watched. He watched with the others. Like me, they had a sick fascination with watching my father die.
I couldn’t blame them, truly. A part of me wished I was stronger, that I could continue to gaze upon his corpse and feel not a thing.
But that was the difference between them and me. Even though I hated my father, even though I wanted him dead, his death hurt. It was stupid, I know. He got what he deserved, and I couldn’t think of anyone better suited to deal the vengeance, but… I didn’t know. I thought I’d feel different, seeing it, knowing he was gone. I just thought it would be different.
I didn’t know how long it was until Markus stepped out of the room. His hands were coated in red, and some of it had gotten onto his shirt. I turned my head against Theo’s chest to look at him, and when those dark eyes took me in, the menacing aura about him softened.
Not a lot, but enough.
“It’s done,” he said.
Will chimed in, “You don’t say? I could’ve sworn he was somehow still alive in there, even with half his body’s blood on the floor.” He might’ve said more, but Jaxon elbowed him in the gut, stopping him. Maybe because of me.
