Page 23 of The Forbidden Secret

They approached cautiously, all armed to the teeth and preparing to find both me and Evelina. They must have been strictly muscle. Anyone with an IQ of over one hundred would have been wary about the situation. They would have looked at the storage container and wondered why Evelina would be kepthere.

But none of them had a second thought as they all rounded the container and entered through the front door.

I watched from the roof of a neighboring container, snickering under my breath at their ignorance as I adjusted the scope of my rifle, waiting for them to exit through the narrow doorway.

A few minutes later, the first man came through, glancing down at where he held my phone in his hand. A second manfollowed, a phone held to his ear as he likely told his owner about the unusual findings within the container.

I tucked my rifle into my shoulder as I looked through the scope and focused for just a second.

And then I fired.

* * * *

I stood before each of the men, assessing their injuries and varying degrees of resolve. I only needed one of them to talk. They seemed to all be nothing more than the muscle behind Clide’s operations, but for them to agree to take me as a target—knowing my reputation in the industry—he must have given them a damn good reason.

They had to have a reason worth losing their lives.

Based on the colorful expletives they offered, they knew exactly who I was.

I put on the mask of the maniac that I used in this situation, but I couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow my mind to slip into that madness. I knew that was a line that my father had had no problem crossing. There were few distinctions between us, but there were a few lines that didn’t need to be crossed.

Those lines were the reason he found himself living out life in a prison cell while I remained free.

The central man—the most vocal of them—cursed at me again as I ran a knife down the center of his belly. His shirt was already torn from the start of my ministrations, but I carved my lines so shallowly and carefully that the pain was not yet an issue for him.

It wasn’t meant to be.

The shallow line split at his hips, and I dragged it across his body and up his side before inspecting my work with a forced smile.

Then, I did the same on the third man. The quietest of them.

“Do you have names?” I asked as I repeated the shallow carving for the third time.

Panic flashed in my current victim’s eyes as I spoke, but I didn’t acknowledge it.

Nobody spoke.

“Nameless people are the easiest to kill,” I taunted, tapping my knife on the man before me.

“Arjun,” the center man said.

“Elias.”

The first man who had received my carvings said nothing, and I smirked, pointing my fillet knife toward him. “You’re going to be the hardest to break, I take it. Ilovea challenge.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Arjun asked as he glanced between him and his colleague's markings.

“I’m marking my canvases,” I said as I examined them.

I watched as panic overtook two of them. Arjun thrashed against his bindings the hardest, and the silent man began crying tears of terror. The man in front of me, though—Elias—didn’t react. I stepped toward him and tapped my knife across his chest.

“Have you ever done any kind of stencil work?” I asked. “You mark your intended lines lightly first, and then when you get to the fun part, you can be confident in your lines. That’s what this is. When I carve each of you, I want to make sure I go aroundthe vital organs until the last cut. Thefuncut. If done correctly, you’ll be able to watch your bellies fall onto the tarp. That fear… Oh, Elias, there’s no better feeling.”

Finally, he heaved as if to vomit.

I could have shared the sentiment, but this was who I had to be. I had to play the part of my father’s son, as it was exactly who people believed I would be. Playing this part gave me a name. Playing this part had people pissing in terror in my presence.

It made me wonder why Evelina looked at me the way she did when everyone else showed nothing but terror in my presence.

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