Me? I’m looking back at her the way I look at things I'm about to take apart.
I shift the heavy iron chair across the concrete floor, closer to her. The screeching of metal against stone fills the room like a threat—raw, ugly, endless. I’m close enough that she can smell the paint on me. Close enoughthat she can see the black already drying in the grooves of my scar.
Valeria snarls. “I’m not one of your helpless targets. You won’t break me that easily.”
I dip my fingers into the white. She tries to jerk backward, chains rattling as she twists in the seat, but there’s nowhere to go.
Her lips peel back from her teeth in a vicious, animal sound—half fury, half fear. She yanks at the restraints hard enough that the gilded arms creak, eyes wild beneath the first streaks of white I haven’t even applied yet.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
I simply lean in closer and smear it across her cheekbone. Skin on skin. Slow. Deliberate. She snaps her head to the side, trying to escape my touch, but I grip her jaw with my other hand, squeezing so hard her lips pucker as I hold her still.
I drag my fingertips down the other cheek, coating her flawless skin, then scoop more black and smear it thick around her eyes. She thrashes harder, a snarl ripping out of her as the paint ruins her face, but the chains keep her exactly where I want her.
I paint over her lips last, forcing the black into every fine line, turning that once-elegant mouth into a smeared, monstrous gash.
When I finally sit back, we are mirror images. Painted. Ruined. Matched.
I look at her in silence. Let her feel exactly what it’s like to wear the face of the thing she created. The silence stretches so long it becomes a living thing—thick, suffocating, pressing against every corner.
She tries to hold my gaze. Of course she does. She’s always been good at pretending she’s still in control. But I see the cracks. The way her fingers twitch against the arms of the chair. The way her throat works as she swallows again and again, trying not to break first.
I let minutes bleed by.
She breaks first.
“You think this changes anything?” Her voice is hoarse, but she forces that old, silky venom back into it. “You think painting me like some cheap imitation makes you free? You’re still mine, Nazareth.”
I lean my head to the side, waiting for it. Waiting for those two words she fucking loves to say. I know it’s coming.
“You think you and your little therapist will ever find peace?” She laughs, and it’s evil as fuck. “You will never find peace, Nazareth. Not without me. Because inside that broken mind of yours, you’ll always be my,” she leans forward as much as the chains allow, painted lips curling into a sneer, “pretty boy.”
And there it is.
The iron chair scrapes back with a screech as I stand. My hand moves to the karambit at my thigh, and the moment my fingers close around the handle, something ancient and hungry clicks into place.
I step in close, grip the front of her dress with my free hand, and drag the curved blade down the center in one vicious tear. The fabric parts like wet paper. Her tits spill out, nipples tightening in the cold air of the basement. She gasps, a sharp, involuntary sound.
I press the tip of the karambit to her forehead while myother hand fists tight in her hair, yanking her head back against the chair with brutal force.
“Stop.” She tries to jerk free, but I let my thumb dig hard into her temple, pinning her skull exactly where I want it. She thrashes—a wild, animal jerk of her whole body—but the chains bite into her wrists and ankles and hold her fast. There’s nowhere for her to go.
The blade sinks in, and the euphoria in my veins is indescribable—watching the curved steel part her skin with a wet, sickening rip.
“Nazareth, stop!”
More pressure, and blood surges up immediately, hot and bright. It mixes with the thick white paint, turning it into a pinkish slurry that bubbles and drips down the bridge of her nose in thick, sticky rivulets. The black around her eyes cracks and runs as the blood floods into it.
She screams—a raw, high-pitched sound that tears out of her throat and echoes off the stone walls. It’s fucking beautiful, her painted mouth stretching wide, black-smeared lips peeling back as spit and blood spray. Her body convulses against the chair, tits bouncing with the violence of it, but I keep her head locked in place, fingers buried deep in her hair.
I don’t stop, carving slow and deep, her screams cracking higher, turning into a broken, sobbing wail. I relish every second of it. Music to my fucking ears.
This is the woman who once watched me bleed without blinking. Who smiled while the boy got his soul torn out of him. Now she gets to wear the same ruin I did.
I finish the last letter with a slow, deep drag, pressingharder than necessary.
P.R.E.T.T.Y
