Page 86 of Always A Villain

I step out, my decision already made.

Time to pay the bitch chained in my basement a very painful visit.

Glass crunches under my boots as I stalk through the mansion. Every step echoes the fury boiling inside me, each movement fueled by contempt, venom, and a hatred so black it rots.

This isn’t anger. Anger fades. This is something worse. Something that festers.

I’m going to get answers. And if I have to rip them out of her, piece by piece—I fucking hope so.

The basement door looms in front of me. My fingers twitch as I punch in the code, the lock clicking open.

Time to play.

I step into the cold, dim room, my gaze locking onto her bound, naked body in the center.

“Hello, Alicia.”

Her head jerks up, eyes blown wide, fear twisting her face.

“Axel! What the fuck?! Get me out of here!” she screams, her voice cracking. She yanks against the chains, wrists ripped and bleeding. Pathetic.

I let a slow, cruel smile curl my lips. “Not happening. We’ve got unfinished business.”

She thrashes against the restraints. “You can’t fucking do this! You can’t keep me here! You’re fucking insane!”

“So I’ve been told.”

I push off the wall and move, closing the space between us in a single, controlled stride. She tries to shrink back, but there’s nowhere to go.

“Where. The.Fuck. Is. Conrad?”

Her breath hitches. Lips tremble. “I don’t know!”

I drag a chair across the floor, the metal legs screeching before I drop into it.

“Don’t lie to me, Alicia.”

She’s shaking now.

“I don’t know!” Her voice pitches higher. “You have to believe me! I don’t know where he is!”

I tilt my head, studying her. “Oh, Alicia. Stupid, stupid Alicia.” I drag the words out deliberately, savoring the way she flinches. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”

Her ragged breathing fills the silence, her pulse a frantic rhythm in her throat. And then, her fear snaps into something else.

“I know you killed Travis!” she spits, hysteria creeping in. “You’re insane! He would never have left me like that!” She’s crying now, struggling against the restraints. “You’re a fucking monster! You’re not even human!”

I go still.

For a long, tense moment.

Travis Anderson.

We bled together. Dragged each other out of hell. Laughed in the face of death as we tore down cartels and gutted mafias. He was one of the few people I trusted.

Cold as death itself, my eyes narrow on hers. “Yeah, I killed him. And I enjoyed every fucking second of it.” My icy confession hangs in the air. “Found out about his little hobby, how he got off torturing and raping little boys. But you already knew that.”

Her face goes deathly pale. She shrinks back, horrified, words trailing off weakly. “He…he said he stopped…”