Page 49 of Dance of Madness

I shiver.

They've beenbrutalized: bloodied, swollen faces, bruised eyes halfway shut, blood trickling from myriad bashes, cuts, split lips and broken teeth and noses.

“Jesus. Did you getboredon the way here?” Nero mutters under his breath.

“What they did to your family hurt me, too,” Kir growls, his eyes glinting darkly.

Nero just nods, like he knows exactly what that means.

“Who are they?”

Kir grunts as he looks back down at the men. He winds up again and kicks one of them as hard as he can in the side, making the man shriek into what I’m now realizing is a gag. The man's bloodied face twists in pain as he moans and cries.

“These two,” Kir snarls, “were the ones who held your father down and made himwatch.”

The murderous coldness in Nero’s eyes sends a rippling chill through my body. The way his face instantly shifts from human toinhuman is both terrifying and electrifying. And when hereaches into his jacket and pulls out a straight edge razor that would look right at home in Sweeney Todd's hand, it's paralyzing.

I don’t breathe. I just stare, my eyes wide and my pulse jangling as Nero twirls the blade meditatively in his hand, looking right at the two men. They sob and scream into their gags, but it's too late.

Nero’s already decided their fate.

He drops to his haunches in front of to the two men. He holds the glinting edge of the razor to the first man’s jugular, making the captive squirm and cry out, straining helplessly against the ropes binding him.

“Their names were Antonio and Natalia,” Nero growls. “They were my mother and father. And you fuckingkilled them.”

He quickly yanks the blade across the man’s throat, instantly opening it. Sticky red blood floods out, immediately turning the man’s face white as his life-force gushes down his chest and torso. Then his eyes roll back and he flops forward into the dirt.

My eyes bulge as I clamp a hand tight over my mouth.

Holy fucking shit.

The second man is squealing and screaming, staring at his dead friend on the ground as Nero rises. He moves over one step, then squats again, bringing the blade to the second man’s throat.

“Their names were Antonio and Natalia,” Nero repeats. “They were my mother and father. And you fuckingkilled them.”

The second one starts to scream—through the gag, through the sheer fuckingterrorpainted across his face.

I watch with unblinking, terrified eyes as Nero grabs a fistful of the man’s hair, yanks his head back, then slices his throat in one precise motion, like he’s done it a hundred times.

He probably has.

I’m frozen. Every part of me is numb—except my pulse, which is punching behind my chest like it wants to break free.

Kir watches from the side with almost clinical detachment.

Nero wipes the blade on one of the dead men’s shirts, then stands, calmly cracking his knuckles. It doesn’t look like his heart rate has gone up at all.

I press my hand tighter to my mouth, bile rising in the back of my throat.

What the fuck am I doing here.

This was supposed to be a game. Some dark, messed-up chase kink I could dip my toe into and crawl back out of when I was done.

Not this.

Not. At. All.

Kir is saying something to Nero, the two of them talking quietly like Nerodidn’tjust execute two guys in the back yard of a cursed mansion.

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