“Please stop shouting,” I mutter. “It’s very hard to enjoy this when you’re making all that noise.”
“Fuck you! Fuck you!” he sobs.
Veyn understands my wishes and silences the man. The blissful echo left behind is a blessing and I exhale.
“That’s better. Ribs, please.”
Dripping and stained, the knife is set aside next to Bernard’s shaved head, and he reaches for the fold of flesh he’s created with trembling hands.
He’s openly weeping. Deep, heaving sobs that curl his lip. His eyes are practically closed like he can’t watch his own actions.
Old Lenora would be equally disgusted by the scene. She never had the stomach for gore. But I watch with a sort of numbness that crawls beneath my skin. It’s a detachment that rings hollow through my bones. It’s with the same disinterest as watching paint dry sprinkled with a twisted pleasure no one should feel watching another person suffer.
But these aren’t regular people. For years the younger Duval brothers have tortured and killed so many people simply for their own amusement. They have stolen and cheated. Since the death of their grandfather, they have run wild, terrorizing an entire city. Turning it into their own personal playground.
Then, they killed my boys.
They came after my family.
Destroyed the only things that mattered in my life.
Their family is responsible for everything I will do to them. Guilt and forgiveness have no home in my heart.
Not anymore.
Augustus tries to tilt his head away, to squeeze his eyes shut and pretend none of this is happening while his meaty fists close around his brother’s second and third true rib.
They snap with a grating crack that nearly makes me wince. The ivory sticks clatter to the table before he reaches for the next row.
“Do you ever think about the people you hurt?” I ask absently, pushing away from the altar and moving towards a cluster of nearby candles.
I barely make it three steps when something soft lands on my shoulders. My head turns to find Veyn standing behind me, dark eyes swirling as he drapes my ruined top around me.
“He has looked enough,” he states, which I almost find comical because my nudity is the last thing on Augustus Duval’s mind.
Still, I slip my hands through the sleeves and fasten the single surviving button hanging on by a thread near my midsection. Veyn seems satisfied when I raise my eyebrow at him before resuming my task. I collect one of the iron candleholders off the floor and make my way back to the brothers.
“Do you?” I press, setting the candle next to Bernard’s head.
The warm gold light illuminates the twisted lines and sweat on the man’s face. His eyes are practically black voids of terror as he watches his brother snap every rib down his torso and place them in a pile on the table.
I have never seen the inside of a human body before. It had never been something I cared to, but the intricate maze of organs and muscles has me leaning closer.
“Eat shit,” Augustus wheezes, causing me to jump.
“Did you ever regret what you’ve done?” I press, ignoring venom.
“Do you?” he spits back, bloodshot eyes burning through me.
I consider it, but the answer is too quick to ignore.
“No,” I answer honestly. “You and your family are terrible people.”
Augustus bares his crimson teeth. “What does that make you?”
“A terrible person,” I answer evenly. “But the difference is that we wouldn’t be here if you had just walked away when you saw my boys. You chose to call your uncle. You chose to do what you did. In that moment, you probably thought you were invincible, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t personal,” he spits out.
