“Matteo, you piece of shit!”
We drag him all the way to the back of the alley, where I know no one will ever find us. It’s too dark for anyone to spot us here, and now that his lackeys are gone, there’s no one left to protect him from our wrath.
“Let go of me!” he yells.
Franco pulls out some zip ties and locks his arms behind his back, sealing his wrists while I keep him in place. He struggles against me, but I won’t allow him to escape. Not this time.
“You motherfu—”
Franco tears off a piece of his shirt and hands it to me, and I shove it into Lucio’s mouth so he’ll keep quiet.
He yelps against the cloth to no avail, while flicking his enraged eyes back and forth between Franco and me, wondering why on earth we would ambush him like this.
“You think you’re safe from me?” I slap him in the face. “You thought I wouldn’t be able to find you wherever you went? Wrong.”
I slap him again for good measure. Hard enough to leave a red mark on his skin.
His nostrils flare.
“The only reason I let you walk was so I could slowly siphon the joy of life out of your filthy fucking bones,” I spit in his face. “I didn’t kill you because I deemed you unworthy of a quick death.”
He just stares at me, but I know he understands.
I pull my knife from my pocket and flick it open. The glint of the metal draws his gaze, and his eyes immediately widen.
“But then you decided to put your hands on Stella.”
He shakes his head and yelps against the cloth.
“You tried to make her yours when she didn’t want you, and you hurt her out of spite.”
Murder would be too easy.
Death wouldn’t satisfy me, nor would it undo the damage he did. But I know a harsh lesson that will teach him the price. Men like him need to learn through pain.
I grab him by the throat and make him look at me. “Which hand was it? Which hand did you hit her with?”
His eyes are filled with panic.
“Show me, and I may let you breathe another day,” I growl.
Finally, he tilts his head to the right side.
My lip twitches. “You’re going to pay for that in blood.”
Franco hands me the butcher’s knife I told him to bring, then grabs him by the arms and spins him around for me. Lucio screams like an absolute maniac. But no one will come to his aid now.
“You marked her like she was yours to taint. You bruised her skin, so I will take yours as a fucking payment for your crime,” I growl, as I set the knife against his fingers right above the knuckle. “Now say bye to your fucking fingers.”
He cries out in agony as I begin to cut off his index finger with the butcher’s knife. I slice and slice, while he screams and cries, saliva dripping from the cloth in his mouth. He’s screaming out expletives, but they fall on deaf ears. Blood squirts everywhere until I hit the bone, and even then, I continue hacking until it’s off completely.
I grab his other finger and force it to lengthen before cutting it off too. Franco keeps Lucio in place while his eyes nearly roll into the back of his head.
“You thought I was done?” I growl.
I’m not finished until I’ve taken off each one of his fingers. There’s nothing left but an empty hand he won’t ever be able to use.
When it’s done, I stand and show him all the fingers I took.
