Yes, I was enraged when I heard Duval was responsible for Eliah and Ames’s deaths. Yes, I wanted vengeance. Even if Lenora hadn’t asked. Even if we never had that conversation and she begged me to let it go, I was fully prepared to burn Duval’s entire world to the ground.
Knowing they also killed my brother and his wife … Lenora is correct.
My idea of redemption would not have been enough.
They need to bleed and suffer.
I touch her cheek lightly before dipping my mouth to hers.
“Do it,” I whisper before kissing her.
Her smile is everything when I pull back and she faces the woman.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Marcus
Idon’tknowwhatIwas expecting to happen. Maybe that the demon would snap her neck or stab her. In horror movies, the person gets possessed and throws themselves from the second-floor window.
Sarai continues to unclip the diamond studs from her ears and unclasps the heavy, diamond choker from her throat. She maintains her conversation without faltering while undoing the curlers and letting thick, golden coils bounce around her shoulders.
“I think, now that I no longer have that sniveling baby hanging off my neck, I think it’s time for an upgrade, don’t you?” Fat, pink rollers hit the vanity table. “Julen could use an upgrade from that frigid waste of a woman.”
Hair a wild, sleek wave down her back, she pulls open one of the drawers and fishes out a damp napkin from a packet and starts wiping the makeup off her face.
Without the pink gloss, her lips are white. Ashen almost. Without the foundation and contour, her face is uneven, puckered, with dark patches and deep pores. Without the dark lines, her eyebrows are gone.
She pinches and pulls away the lashes and discards them like torn butterfly wings. The shadows and liners are scrubbed away.
“She would never let you,”the voice on the phone is saying, but Sarai has her fingers tangled up in all that hair she just prepped.
Long, looping strands are torn from the layers. The edges, bloody and clinging to bits of scalp as they’re dropped on the table. More follow. More. Until all that remains is the frayed bob of her natural strands now tinted red.
“You might have to kill her,”the friend is saying as Sarai reaches into another drawer and removes a pair of scissors.
Her arms lift and she starts hacking at what’s left. Aggressive, sawing snips. Chunks are fisted and dropped to litter the flooraround her chair. Satin tufts that glint faintly in the soft light. It amazes me how steady she is. Unhurried. Unbothered. Even her face in the mirror is calm. Blue eyes level.
She doesn’t stop until there is only the torn remains of her ruined scalp on display. The extensions sewn into her head have been ripped free and blood oozes down the back of her neck to soak into her robes.
“Kill her and send those brats to boarding school on the moon,” she says in the same unfazed tone. “I barely wanted to raise mine. Why the fuck would I raise hers?”
The scissors are set aside. The blade, wet with crimson beads and sticky with threads of gold.
Long fingers are lifted and she methodically snaps off each individual nail like she’s snapping open pistachio shells. The subtle rip and click of each one hitting the table makes my stomach churn when I realize she’s torn her real nails off along with the artificial ones.
“At least you won’t have to change your name.”The friend laughs.
Sarai’s face never shifts. No smile. No frown. She continues to watch herself in the mirror as she fluidly rises to her feet. Casually, she disappears into the room she’d emerged from, leaving behind parts of herself.
I think that’s the end of it when she returns.
Naked.
Robe lost somewhere in the other room. Her long, limber limbs bare as they move back to the vanity, not at all the same woman who had entered the first time. Her face is lined with streaks of blood running down from her brow. Blood drips from her fingertips, staining the sleek, silver blade pinched between her fingers.
My stomach jumps even before the blade kisses her high, arched cheekbones. Deep arches are cut beneath each one before she moves down to the bottom lip she pinches and extends…
I look away.
