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“True.” Jordan’s eyes fluttered like he was struggling to keep them open.

It was time for me to leave.

“Get some rest. We’ll talk later.” I slid the diamond off my finger and pressed it gently into his palm. His hand curled around it as I leaned down and kissed his cheek. “It was a pleasure being your fiancée, Jordan Ford.”

His smile held all the nostalgia of our long friendship. “Back at you, Ayana Kidane.”

His parents were already gone when I exited his room.

I took the elevator to the lobby and walked out into the sunshine, feeling lighter than I had in years.

CHAPTER38

Vuk

Dexter, also known as Bone Man. Age: forty-one. Kill count: fifty-plus, making him one of the Brotherhood’s most prolific killers.

He hadn’t changed much over the years. Same eyes, same glasses, same shitty attitude as he smirked at me.

“Markovic.” His soft, almost high-pitched voice was deceptively gentle. “Still alive, I see. What a shame.”

I ignored the bait and walked over to the table. A range of instruments glinted atop the wooden surface. I selected the pliers—something easy to start us off.

When I turned, Dexter’s face was placid, but I caught the split-second flick of his eyes to the table.

He knew exactly what each and every instrument was for. He hadn’t earned the nickname Bone Man for nothing.

Most hitmen liked clean kills. He was the one clients called for…messier jobs.

“Attacking during the wedding was a mistake,” I said softly. I untied one of his hands from the chair and, without ceremony, ripped his thumbnail off with the pliers.

A lesser man would’ve screamed; Dexter simply gritted his teeth, his muscles tensing. Blood splashed onto the tarp.

“I thought I made myself clear years ago.” I took a second nail and earned a flinch. It was a boring start to our session, but warmups were important. “If you’re going to come for me…” I leaned down to look him straight in the eye as I removed the third nail with cruel, agonizing slowness. “Don’t fucking miss.”

His first scream came at nail number five.

Here was the thing about hitmen: they weren’t used to being prey. Sure, some of them came from Special Ops backgrounds, and some were tougher than others, but in the end, everyone broke. It was just a matter of time.

Unfortunately, our time together was limited. I had a handful of hours to get the information I needed out of him, which meant I needed to speed things up. I couldn’t toy with him forever.

Luckily, I’d always hated Dexter. I resorted to extreme violence when it was necessary, but he relished brutality for brutality’s sake. A little psychopath dressed up as a professor. If he didn’t have the Brotherhood to control his urges, he’d be an indiscriminate serial killer.

He wasn’t part of the old leadership or the group that broke into my house, which was the only reason he’d survived my purge all those years ago. But he shot Jordan, and he almost hit Ayana. He’d signed his long-overdue death warrant a week ago.

After I rid him of all ten nails, I tossed the pliers aside and got to work. I had plenty of tools at my disposal, and if I was put off by his screams or the amount of blood soaking the tarp, I only had to picture Jordan lying on the ground, his eyes wide open. I heard Ayana’s scream and felt her tremble as she went into shock. I tasted the cold, metallic fear that inundated me whenever I thought about how close she’d come to getting a bullet in her heart.

I remembered, and I felt, and Iraged.

Every ounce of guilt, fury, shame, and helplessness I’d felt over the past week—hell, the pastyear—funneled through my veins and into my bloodthirstiness.

The world didn’t exist outside this room. D.C. was a distant memory; Ayana a pinprick of light above the surface, too far for me to reach here in the depths of my depravity.

My veins pulsed. The dormant monster inside me clawed its way out, shredding recollections of smiles and perfumes and late-afternoon walks in the sun.

This was it. Beneath the suits and guise of respectability, this was who I am. I took my pounds of flesh from my enemies, and I didn’t feel a speck of remorse about it.

“When’s the next hit, Dex?”