Page 82 of The Dragon 2
He stood a little removed from the others, spine straight, silent, unmoving. White gloves covered his hands, pristine and spotless.
From what I understood, the man was obsessive about germs.
Therefore, Giorgio didn’t kill quickly. Before he laid a finger on a man, he’d scrub him down with hospital-grade disinfectants, muttering prayers for sterility.
Germs disgusted him.
But pain?
Pain, he adored.
He was their secret enforcer—their ghost in tailored wool—and he hadn’t blinked once since we entered the box.
I checked Reo. He scanned the box, eyes narrowing at the angles, exits, and tech tucked into the velvet and gold. Then, with a quick nod to me, he moved to the side, choosing a spot with a full view of the Butcher’s cousins.
Hiro followed, unwrapping another lollipop with one hand, his other never straying far from the knife he kept tucked under his jacket. He took a seat on the arm of a banquette, one leg draped lazily over the edge, but I knew better—he was coiled, watching everything.
They were giving me space.
The Butcher still hadn’t turned. His hand rested on the gold rail like a monarch surveying the land he ruled in shadow.
So, I crossed the room alone and as I got closer, I saw something that put me on edge. There—leaning casually againstthe front of the balcony rail, just beside Jean-Pierre—rested his black violin case.
Slim.
Worn at the edges.
Elegant in its deception.
There was no violin inside. Only a bow, and this bow was not one strung with horsehair or gut. This bow was a blade. Thin and gleaming, honed from steel and shaped like an instrument of art.
I’d heard what he could do with it. How he would draw that blade across flesh like a virtuoso, summoning notes of agony no man should be able to orchestrate.
Apparently, the Butcher didn’t like to torture, but he did love to compose—melodies of suffering, symphonies of screams, concertos of bone and blood.
And tonight, he’d brought that bow with him.
You take that bow out and we will have a serious problem, Butcher.
I continued past more naked women glittering in diamonds and past the Cousins of Death, each one more unnerving than the last.
Next, I stopped just behind him.
The air changed.
Not from words.
Not from weapons.
But from thearrivalof my Claws and Fangs.
I glanced over my shoulder.
They didn’t make a sound—not a boot scrape, not a breath out of place. The Claws came in first, slipping in from the hallway. They took their posts along the wall.
Then came the Fangs. Their entrance was slower. Deliberate. The moment they entered, the temperature of the box dropped.
I felt it in my bones.
