Page 185 of Healed

“Your ‘princess’ is on her way back to her home. Our home. The one we’ve built together.”

Nico flinched at my words, and with a grin, I continued.

“Your ‘princess’ will take a shower, wash off the stench of yet another failed attempt to harm her from you, and then she’ll climb into my bed to wait for me. Exactly where she fucking belongs.”

Nico’s face clouded over with rage. “Princess!” he called out. “Princess, I’m sorry!”

Dante looked at me as though to ask, “Is this man deluded, or what?”

I simply shrugged my shoulders.

“She loves me,” Nico called, panting wildly. He buried his head in his hands, clutching at his hair, ripping it from the roots. “She fucking loves me. She’ll come back. Princess!” He looked past me, scanning the distance for Gabriella. He tried to make a run for it, barging between me and Dante.

Dante grabbed the back of his cut and threw him backwards, sending him flying to the floor.

“She loves me, lads. It’s always been me. Ask her. Ask her how many times I’ve fucked her. Ask her—”

“We know everything already,” I sighed.

This was the famous and feared Nico?

This pathetic, snivelling piece of shit crawling on the floor and shouting hysterically?

What a miserable ending to a god-awful story.

But sometimes that was reality. Not every villain went out with a bang. Sometimes, they were simply defeated.

Nico had always been cruel. That much was undeniable. But over the last few weeks, something else had crept in. Obsession had given way to delusion, and the delusion had finally consumed him.

Every failed plan, every rejection, every reminder that Gabriella had chosen us over him had chipped away at whatever grip on reality he still possessed. Now there was nothing left but madness.

He wouldn’t go out fighting. He wouldn’t go out with dignity. He would go out a broken man, barely coherent.

“She hasn’t told you everything, she hasn’t,” he muttered. “She won’t admit it, but she loves me. She loves me!”

“I’ve had enough of this shit,” Dante muttered.

He marched forward and grabbed hold of Nico, slamming his fist into his face over and over.

But Nico just laughed and spat blood at Dante. “Is that the best you’ve got?” he said, grinning manically. “Princess! Is this what you felt? Is this the pain I made you feel every day? Princess, answer me!”

Dante hit him again. Nico’s head flew back, and as Dante shook his hand, blood dripped from his knuckles.

“Just kill me,” Nico panted. “Get it over and fucking done with. Life isn’t worth it without her.”

He could say that again.

“Oh, I won’t be killing you,” Dante said with a chuckle. He pulled his knife from his cut, and drove it into Nico’s side, leaving it buried there. “That’s for my wife and kids,” he whispered in his ear. “Everything else I’ll leave to Vienna. Good fucking luck to you.”

Nico’s face cleared. The confusion, delusion, and anger disappeared. As he looked at me, the blood drained from his face, and I grinned at him, offering him a little wave with just my fingers.

For the first time since we’d caught him, he looked genuinely afraid. Dante let Nico drop to the floor and he scrambled backward on his hands, eyes never leaving mine, his breathing becoming short and frantic.

“Any ideas?” Dante murmured to me as we watched Nico scurry on the floor, muttering nonsense to himself.

I chuckled. “Plenty. Get Hacksaw here with the van. I’d like to make Nico comfortable.”

And then I walked forward and stomped on Nico’s face, knocking him out cold.