Page 99 of A Madness of Crows

“It seems as though I can’t take quite as long with this as I wanted to.” I pause beside the table, picking up the glass shard and moving toward him. The steak knife sits in my other hand. “I have places to be.”

The only sound is his harsh breathing beneath the gag as I slide back onto his lap. “Where were we?”

I scan him, my brows knotting. “Ah. Yes.”

His eyes flicker as my hands drop to the row of buttons on his shirt. I flick open the top one. The next. Slowly revealing his chest.

My fingers walk across his skin. “It’s quite poetic, really.”

His eyes narrow. Below me, his body shifts. Not by much, but enough to tell me that he’s regaining feeling in his lower half.

I lean in, making sure he hears every word. “If you hadn’t touched Frankie Costa, she would never have made sure I had what I needed to do this.”

My nails scrape against his chest. “Kind of wish she was here to see it in action.”

Slowly, I lift the steak knife and trace it against his skin. “And if you hadn’t forced Stefano to brand me, I would never have had the idea to dothis.”

I stab the knife directly into his right pec. A grunting sound comes from around the gag, and I grin at him. “I’m afraid I’m not quite the artist that Domenico is, but I’ll try my best. Knife’s a little blunt, just to warn you.”

His moans turn to roars as the last of the sedative wears off. He pulls at the bindings, but they only pull tighter as he struggles.

Sighing, I sit back to admire my handiwork. “That’s rather good, actually.”

The crude outline of a crow stands out against his skin, jagged and bloody.

I tap the knife handle against my lips. When he bucks, I stab the knife into his other side. “Now then, husband. Be quiet and let methink.”

He is not quiet. He screams beneath that gag as I drag the jagged edge of the knife over every piece of skin that I can see.

The room around us silences.

I glance down. Cecile’s eyes are open, her mouth twisted as if she’s seen something horrific in her final moments.

I click my tongue. “Cecile is dead. I wonder if you’ll last longer?”

His eyes bulge in fury. Not a hint of care for the woman on the floor next to him. At the sounds that come from beneath the gag, I shake my head. Shrug.

“I would offer you the opportunity to say your last words, but I just don’t want to hear them.”

Another rumble sounds from under my feet.

I slide off his lap, admiring my handiwork. “Our time is coming to an end, Salvatore. But you’ve been sogenerousto me,that it feels only fair to leave you with one, final taste of your own medicine.”

His eyes, pain filled and glazing over, widen in panic as I drop down.

My words are guttural. “You thought you had won. That you’dbrokenme.”

Stripped away everything that made me Caterina Corvo.

“But you were wrong.” I wrench his trousers open. “I warned you what would happen if you ever touched another woman. I believe it was your hand, no?”

He screams beneath that gag. Screams and rocks in the chair.

There is nothing left in my chest but revenge. For everything he has taken from me, for what he has done.

“This feelsmuchmore appropriate.”

I’m breathing heavily when it’s over. I yank out the gag, and he moans. “Open wide.”