“But I can’t move,” I pant.
“Can’t risk a leak. Now, sit still and enjoy your surprise.”
He gestures in the direction of the floor below where the altar is no longer empty.
A man, naked and wide awake, is bound to the surface. His wide, horrified eyes are fixed up at us, glassy with a fear that pumps his broad chest in erratic, shallow gasps.
Next to him, standing rigid and equally naked is another man. Both have the same dark mop of curls damp with perspiration and faces slick with tears. The strands gleam in the hypnotic sway of candles that reflect in the dark voids of their eyes.
I have never met Augustus or Bernard Duval, but I’ve seen photos of them in papers under some of the worst headlines. Both have always been notorious for getting into legal troubles. Everything from carrying a concealed weapon, to drugs, tothe rape and brutal torture of men and women. Nothing ever seemed to come of the allegations. Witnesses always vanished and evidence mysteriously got lost. Victims either disappeared or dropped their complaint.
But I never forgot.
I may not have met them, but I know what kind of monsters they are.
Spoiled and protected.
A dangerous combination.
Seeing them here before me doesn’t surprise me the way I’m sure I should be. Maybe it’s the serrated claws embedded deep inside me, preventing me from breathing properly, but I’m very blasé about their presence in comparison.
Veyn/Marcus’s finger drifting lazily over my clit in feather-light strokes isn’t helping. Each pass sends a fresh surge of pressure through me that tightens my muscles and urges my hips to shift. But every attempt has the barbs digging deeper. Can feel them cutting into my walls.
“Focus,” he murmurs into my ear, reminding me of the two far below us.
Bernard — the one strapped to the table by seemingly nothing — is no longer looking at us but staring at his brother and the blade clutched in his hands.
I hadn’t seen where the thing came from, but it catches the firelight. The spark lances up the fine edge with every tremor that passes through him.
Augustus has the expression of someone witnessing their worst nightmare. It’s the red blotches rising to his neck. The aggressive vines bulging at this temple and throat. It’s taking every ounce of his control to resist.
In a deep part of my brain, I wonder if this was how his victims felt. Before the stories were changed and got concealed, I readthe original versions. I know what they did to people, especially women. I know about the humiliation and abuse.
Maybe not firsthand, but I like to believe that dozens of allegations can’t be wrong. Hundreds of horrific photos of the scenes and the victims can’t be accidents. They brutalized people for amusement.
Him looking like he’s trying to take a nasty shit does not pull on my heart strings.
“Can they hear us?” I ask.
My question is answered when Augustus jerks his head up in our direction.
“Where are we?” he growls in a weak, shaky croak. “Do you know who we are?”
I study the terror clouding what I’m sure is a moderately handsome face. Neither he nor his brother hold the capability to match Eliah or Ames. Everything about them is harsh. Aggressive. As if the universe had known from their conception that they would be vile and supplied them with faces that matched.
“Did you kill them?” I ask, pushing up the best I can without shredding my insides. “My boys. Did you kill them?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lenora
Bernardflickspanickedglancesfrom me to his brother. Answering my question without saying a word.
“Listen, lady, I have no idea who the fuck you are, but you have made a serious mistake.”
They wouldn’t know who I am.
Even when alive, the boys made it a point to keep me away from the Family. The other members of the underground syndicate. Very few were allowed near me. These two would not have been.
