Page 106 of Winter
Belinda looked down at Olly’s prone body. “Pity. He was a good fuck, if nothing else.”
Knox smiled. “And yet your hatred of Inca Sardee outstripped your need to get laid.”
Belinda laughed. “Just the thought of you gutting that bitch is keeping me warm. So, what now?”
Knox met her gaze. “Like I said … loose ends.” And he shot her in the head.
Tommaso racedalong the road to Tyler’s house, the car skidding and swerving on the icy roads. The car almost smashed into the porch steps of the house, such was Tommaso’s hurry and panic, but one quick search of the house proved fruitless. He was back in the car in seconds and racing back towards town. Then he stopped as he reached the main street. Olly’s car was outside another home, one he didn’t recognize. He got out of the car and searched around, calling Olly’s name, the blizzard taking his words and flinging them to the wind.
Then he saw it, glinting, half buried in the falling snow. He went over and picked it up. Inca’s watch. His heart began to beat fast—there were tracks leading away from where the watch was, half hidden now by the snow.
A movement to his side caught his eye and he looked around to see Olly, blood pouring from his head, staggering from the house. Tommaso dashed to help him, moving back into the house, out of the blizzard, kicking the door shut behind them.
Then he saw her. A woman, dead, prone on the floor. “Jesus.” Tommaso stepped over her and checked her pulse, but it was obvious she was dead.
“It’s Belinda. She was working with Knox. He killed her. I didn’t.”
“If she was working with Knox, then she got what she deserved,” Tommaso spat. He grabbed a towel from the kitchen and pressed it against Olly’s head wound. “What happened?”
Olly gave him the basics. “Knox is insane, man. He’ll kill Inca. I know it.”
Tommaso’s face was pinched and pale as he pulled out his phone to call Raffaelo. “I think Raff was right—if he’s this petty, he’ll want to kill her where it’ll hurt us the most. Our own home.”
The snow wasthree feet deep by the time Knox pulled Inca from his car and marched her, hands bound behind her back, into the night. She shivered uncontrollably as the freezing air hit her skin. She recognized the garden immediately and she gritted her teeth. Bastard. He would use her murder to add more hurt and pain to Raffaelo and Tommaso.
Motherfucker.
Knox pulled her into the open garden—a vision of pure white snow. The killing ground. He’d fixed up a light so that it shone in a pool on the snow.
“I’m going to stab you to death here, Inca,” he said matter of factly. “I like the look of your blood on the snow.”
“You’re insane,” Inca whispered. “Completely insane.”
Knox smiled, then cuffed her around the face, splitting her lip. “And you’re a dead woman walking, Inca. Your billionaires aren’t going to save you now. Listen …”
All around them, all she could hear was the cold wind, the snow whipping around her. Knox forced her down onto her back. Her skin reacted to the cold snow, and he knelt above her.
“I waited until it was like this, because I don’t want you to die too quickly. I want to savor this, want you to feel the utter agony of what I’m going to do to you. The cold will slow your heart.”
The knife in his hand was a bayonet knife—Tyler’s knife. He saw her look at it and smiled. “Yes, I killed your mother with the same knife. Both of your mothers. And your father. And all those women who looked like you. Practice runs for the big event. Now,” and he placed the tip of the knife into the hollow of her navel, “I’m going to do this real slow.”
And he pushed the blade slowly into her belly. Inca gasped, the pain unimaginable as the steel sliced through her. Knox smiled. “Beautiful … beautiful.”
He pulled the blade out and Inca felt her blood pumping out of the wound onto the snow. She could smell it, rust and blood. Dark spots were at the corner of her eyes and they whirled in her head. Knox slapped her face, hard.
“Don’t lose consciousness, now, baby. I’m not nearly done with you.”
From somewhere, she thought she heard a voice. A shout. A cry in the night. Another stab from the knife. Her systems began to shut down.
Just let me die …
She heard Knox laugh. “You’re not getting off that easy, my darling.” There was needle in her arm, and she was shocked back to full alertness. Knox’s face was very close to hers. “I told you; we’re going to take our time here.”
“Just kill me,” she said. “I’m already dead.” The blessed delirium of unconsciousness had been taken away by whatever he had injected into her and she watched the knife, dripping with her own blood, as he raised it above his head. Suddenly, despite the agony, despite the hopelessness, Inca began to laugh.
That stopped him. “What the fuck are you laughing at, bitch? I’m killing you, for fuck’s sake!’ His face was a picture of rage that she could have the nerve to be laughing at him at this moment.
“I know,” Inca laughed at him, “and I’ll probably die right here. But right now, behind you, Raffaelo Winter is holding the gun that’s going to blow your head off.”
