Page 168 of The Fire We Make

“Go ahead, baby,” Ace encouraged, nodding towards the men.

Joy smiled up at him, and he pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

Joy turned finally to face the men. She stepped forward slowly, heels clicking against the concrete as she sized them up.

Marco looked her up and down as she passed, licking his lips. She smiled at him and in one motion, drew her knife from its spot at her thigh and made a shallow cut at his neck, not deep enough to kill, but enough to make the threat of it clear.

His eyes widened and hand flew to the spot as the other men began to mumble nervously. Joy looked up at Ace to see him grinning.

Joy relished in the feeling of it. Of doing this not for someone else’s gain and not having fear of being shunned afterwards.

The men straightened, not out of respect but fear of the unknown.

Joy craved more of that.

She crouched in front of Marco, dragging the tip of her knife up Marco’s thigh and stopping a few inches away from his groin.

“Let’s make this easier. You’ll want to answer his questions before I get mad,” she said softly. “Trust me.”

Marco swallowed hard, trying to keep his composure.

“You don’t scare me, crazy bitch,” he muttered through bloody teeth.

Joy smiled.

“You know, there’s this stereotype of cutting off hands and fingers in the mafia,” she started, dragging the tip of the knife up his body, then down arm.

Ace pulled up a chair, sitting back and watching with a wide smile and intense eyes as he waited to see the direction this would go.

When Marco tried to move, she pressed the palm of his hand into the concrete with the heel of her shoe, causing a pained grunt.

“I guess that’s cool if you want a souvenir to make a statement. But if you really want to inflict the most pain, it’s the fingertips you want.”

She picked up his right hand. “Do you know why that is?”

He tried to yank his hand free but Joy bent it at the wrist, not enough to break it, but enough to make him howl out in pain.

“I’ll tell you anyway,” she continued like nothing happened. “It’s because the fingertips are full of nerve endings so they’re super sensitive. That’s why paper cuts hurt like a bitch.”

With that, she snipped off the tip of his index finger in one swift movement.

Marco let out a blood curdling scream as he tried to take his hand from her grasp.

“We can do this all night, Marco,” Joy spoke over his screams. “You have nine more fingers and since the area is so small, you won’t bleed out before you can tell us what we want to know.” She maintained eye contact with Marco as she spoke.

“If we run out of fingers, I know five more places that will make you wish your mother had swallowed you. How you wanna do this?”

The front of his jeans darkened and the distinct scent of urine filled the air as Joy snipped off another fingertip.

There she is, Ace thought as he watched her sink calmly into her darkness, his dick hardening by the second.

Joy dropped Marco’s hand then kicked his legs open, bracing them open with her own.

“Another place that has a lot of sensitive nerves,” she started, “is right here.” She plunged the knife into his inner thigh, a few inches from his groin. Marco screamed out but the pained sound that escaped him when she twisted the blade was animalistic.

Dark blood mixed with the urine that coated the front of his jeans as he wailed.

“Holy shit!” one of the men yelled as Marco’s screams bounced off the walls.