Page 250 of Untamed

“This little bottle?” I flick it toward his feet. “It’s not the only reason you’re going to suffer.” I step closer, boots echoing onconcrete. “No, Luca…thisis personal.” My voice sharpens to a whisper. “Your hurt what’s mine.”

I close the distance, crouching to meet him eye level.

“But that wasn’t the end of it, was it?”

“You poisoned her and walked away. Left her convulsing on the bathroom floor like she was nothing. That alone earned you suffering.”

I rise to my full height, the weight of my shadow swallowing the space between us. “But then your father crossed a line even hell won’t forgive; he reached for what’smineand sealed your fate in the process.”

Luca’s eyes widen, panic blooming now like a heartbeat in his throat.

“What? No. I didn’t know!” he blurts. “I didn’t know he was gonna, fuck, Ares, please, I didn’t know! I swear to you, I didn’t know!”

“I’m not here for what you knew and quite frankly I don’t give a fuck.” My voice is calm and flat. I don’t need to shout. It’s not my style. Only people who can’t control their emotions shout. “I’m here for what you did. And what you represent.”

I glance at Dante, who steps forward like a ghost.

“She’s not just some girl. She’smine. And you—” I gesture toward the chains. “you’re going to bleed for your father forgetting that.”

“No,” Luca gasps, his brows eyes brimming with tears. “Please, please?—”

But I’ve already turned away, rolling my sleeve, jaw set like granite.

“Start with the eyes,” I tell Dante. “He doesn’t need them where he’s going.”

Dante doesn’t flinch, only nods once, like I asked him to pass the salt.

He moves to the table behind us, where the tools are laid out, clean, orderly, surgical. He doesn’t reach for the blade first. No, he picks the one that whispers instead of screams, a slim hook knife, curved just enough to slide under the soft parts without breaking the bone.

Luca sees it. And that’s when the panic sets in.

“No, no, wait, please, Ares?—”

I stay still. Let him talk. Let the begging spill out like blood before the wound even opens.

“I swear to God, I didn’t know she was yours, I didn’t know who she was, I thought she was some random girl, I didn’t know, please, please, don’t do this?—”

I crouch again, tilt my head. “Your first mistake was thinking.”

His breath hitches. “Please,Ares, I’ll do anything you want. Please, I’m begging you.”

“There isn’t anything you have that I want, Luca.” My voice is low now. Calm. Final. “And now you’re going to feel what it’s like to be nothing.”

Dante steps beside him, slipping on gloves like he’s prepping for a procedure.

Luca thrashes hard, the chains clanging so loud it echoes off the warehouse walls.

“Don’t, don’t touch me, Ares, I’m begging you?—!”

But I don’t blink. “Beg louder. Maybe God’s listening. I’m not.”

I nod again and Dante steps forward.

The screaming that follows isn’t human. It’s something ripped from the lungs of someone who thought pain was a myth until now. Until nerves were peeled back like petals. Until sight, his last claim to freedom, was taken from him with the sound of wet steel and silence.

I don’t look away...not once. Because this isn’t vengeance.

It’s a warning dressed in flesh.

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