Page 37 of Brutal Queen

I settle my hands on him and pat his forearms. “Go nuts,mio mostro.He’s all yours.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

NICO

We’ve been at this for hours and somehow he’s managed to withstand most of what we’ve thrown at him. Well, he’s still breathing at least, although he’s a few fingers down at this point.

He’s given us some semi-useful information about the leaders of the gangs Max has been recruiting. There must be a logic to why some gangs are being absorbed into the De Luca organisation while others are being ignored. We’re sure as shit going to need to look into the latest gang to join his ranks—The Knights. Word is that they're financed largely by human trafficking and like fuck do we want that being ramped up in our backyard.

As nice as this is to know, it’s disappointing how little information on Max he has. For someone who considered himself so important, Manny’s next to fucking useless.

And now he’s about to die.

Aurora sent Sinclair and Benny back to the house afterthey’d both had some time to work out their frustrations on Manny. It won’t take four of us to finish him off, and Sinclair was eager to start fact-checking what Manny had already given us.

That leaves Aurora and I alone to push him as far as we can. She’s drifted back to the table I set up. There’s a part of me hoping she picks a couple of the wild cards I brought with me. I’ve no idea if they’ll pique her interest, but if they do, I will love seeing how she’ll use them. It’s exquisite to watch her work.

Aurora slinks towards him like a jaguar stalking its prey. Whatever she picked up was small. I can’t see what she’s palmed behind her back, but based on the darkness of her eyes and the malevolent grin on her face, it has something to do with the hammer in her back pocket. Manny’s about to be in a world of hurt.

He can barely stand and every time his strength wanes, he chokes on the chain around his neck. We’ve long since bound his arms to his chest with barbed wire leaving his torso littered with weeping, jagged cuts. I thought it was fitting to have him experience a fraction of what Aurora and Enzo were subjected to. Whatever we do to him will never be enough to balance the scales of his betrayal, but at least I can have fun in the process.

Reaching into her back pocket, she takes out the claw hammer and starts to roll it in her hand, flipping it from claw to face, like she’s trying to decide which part will hurt him the most.

Claw. Face. Claw. Face.

Manny starts snorting through his broken nose. The sound is ragged and strained. The break in his nose has long since clotted, but the more harsh his breathing becomes, the more blood trickles out of his flared nostrils.

“You can stop with the theatrics, little girl. I already toldyou everything I know,” he snaps, attempting to mask his fear and failing miserably. His eyes widen when Aurora shows him what she’s been holding in her other hand. It’s a small, clear box filled with two-inch long nails.

“There’s no need for name calling, Manny. Besides, we’re past the information gathering stage of this little chat,” she says and then glances my way. “Would you mind holding him steady for me please, Nico? This isn’t going to work if he wriggles.”

It’s difficult not to smile at his throat bobbing as he swallows nervously. “Of course, phoenix.”

I push off from my perch on the pick-up’s tailgate and saunter in his direction. As I get close to him, the snorting gets more laboured, and he winces when he tries to sneer at me. Once I’m almost toe to toe with him, I reach out and wrap my hands around his jowly neck, under the chain. I’m careful to stand clear enough away that the barbed wire won’t catch me when he flinches.

“Get your filthy fucking hands off me,” Manny sneers, only prompting me to squeeze hard enough to make speech impossible.

“Whenever you’re ready, boss,” I say, nodding to Aurora, who’s now standing at Manny’s back.

She fiddles with something and I lean around Manny to see what she’s up to. She’s pocketed the hammer again so she can take out some nails from the little box and hold them between her teeth. I arch a brow at her quizzically.

“Not enough hands,” she mumbles. I’m baffled until she shoves the box in the back pocket and takes a single nail from between her teeth, bringing it to Manny’s back, scratching around with the pointy end trying to pick a spot she likes. “Hold him tight, this is going to hurt.”

Settling on a fleshy part between his neck and shoulder, she steadies the nail and presses it hard into the muscle. Then she retrieves the hammer and raises it high and with no preamble or warning, she whacks the head of the nail with two brutal and effective swings. The first to make sure it’s deep enough to stand on its own and the second to push it as far as it will go.

Manny screams, trying to escape her hammering, but the choke chain stops him ducking and I stop any lateral movement. He tries to twist his spine but he can’t get purchase on the balls of his feet to find enough give to escape the hammer. There’s nothing he can do, and every twitch and turn only causes the nail embedded in his flesh to hurt more if the pained expression on his face is anything to go by.

Aurora doesn’t stop. She continues with a relentless rhythm of agony. She pulls out a nail, finds a spot, hammers once, hammers twice, Manny screams—repeat. To begin with, she chooses fleshier parts, but slowly she moves on, tap-tapping the nails between his ribs, creating an abstract pointillist painting on her canvas. She pauses while she considers her next location and I can’t help but release my grip, eager to appreciate her masterpiece.

My breath catches when I see the streaks of red oozing from the pinholes across Manny’s back. They’ve merged to cover his skin in a sheen of blood and sweat. Some of the nail heads sit flat to his skin and have been concealed by the fluid that oozes from the wounds, but others sit a little proud and shine like little silver stars on a blanket of crimson.

“Stunning,” I say. The words leave my lips without thinking, but they're no less true. Aurora’s flare for creative torture has always awed me. A lot of the standard torture practices rely on brute strength, but she has a knack for delivering maximumpain with minimum effort. It’s fucking smart. It turns me the fuck on to see how her intelligence and brutality combine to summon this powerful and ruthless creature before me.

This is a side of Aurora that others don’t get to see. Our. Brutal. Queen.

I’m overwhelmed with desire and seize her by the back of the neck, dragging her to me so I can lean down and steal a savage kiss. I pour myself into our connection, worshipping her with ragged breaths and hard lips that demand a response just as wild. Our tongues clash and she escalates with eager little bites at my bottom lip.

I push her away from me before I get carried away. I’d love nothing more than to fuck her in the blood of our enemies, but not while said enemy is still breathing. It takes a few moments for me to regulate myself—for my heart to stop pounding in my chest and the pulse in my dick to stop hammering.

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