Page 21 of Carved Obsession (The Sanctum Syndicate #4)

Carter

One thin crimson line traces the dips and mounds of his abdominals.

In and out. Over and down. From an inch above the navel up until it meets the sternum.

Then I slide the blade to the right—mine, not his—stopping at the point where his ribs curve too much, before I move back down again, toward his hip bone.

The dark-red line is not as thin by the time I reach my destination. It thickens with every tiny blood vessel I sever, with every passing minute. More and more. Faster and faster.

Striking red.

Almost scarlet.

I slide the sharp surgical knife underneath the flap I created in this man’s abdomen, popping out a corner so I can peel it down and fold it into his lap.

“Please, please stop...” he mutters. The scrap of fabric covering his mouth muffles his voice.

It’s not there to shut him up, but to keep his drool away from me.

I look away from the newly exposed muscle and a thin layer of fat attached to the peeled skin now almost completely folded over in his lap. Cocking my head, I meet his teary, bloodshot gaze, which is devoid of the hope his voice still seems to hold.

I have nothing to say to him. Never really do.

Vincent is the one of us with the golden tongue that can make almost everyone talk.

If that doesn’t work, I come in. I’m the one with the scalpel, the knives, the pliers, and many other tools that don’t require questions to be asked.

Pain makes pretty much everyone talk, and I’m here to listen.

I’ve been doing this for years, though not to this particular man. I’ve only been at him for a couple of hours. At a grueling, calm pace that made him spill all his secrets. At least, the ones I’m interested in.

Back when I only had a few victims in my repertoire, I thought the infliction of pain itself pulled me in so fiercely that it made me want to do it slower, longer, and so much more often. I couldn’t understand I didn’t know myself then. It took a few years to see what fascinates me so—emotions.

Because pain brings forth emotions which are deeply visceral and amazingly unique. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. An opera of feelings within that rainbow of expressions and reactions.

It’s not that I can’t feel emotions myself. At a certain level, I do, but states of mind are what I feel the most, like anger, slight joy, contempt, annoyance.

But when I look in my victim’s eyes, I find a deep fascination in the complexity of emotions looking back at me. It took me a long time to attempt pinpointing them through association with body language and physical reactions.

They’re painted in colorful shades, cycling between hope, fear, regret, and maybe a tinge of love for someone he’ll never see again. Probably many more emotions that I can’t yet recognize.

Sometimes I carve for the sole purpose of feeding this need with unfamiliar emotions I cannot seem to experience or understand myself.

I feed it because it’s the only way I can step away from the dominant, inhuman part of me.

The only way I can attempt to understand and perhaps relate to others. It’s necessary in my line of work.

“Please . . . just kill me,” the flayed man begs.

Strips of flesh are missing from his thighs, biceps, and now his abdomen. I cut him. I stabbed him. And yet he looks nothing like Diana, the escort from Katya’s team that his associate dropped at our doorstep.

She was half-dead. Barely able to move or talk. Broken so deeply, we’re not sure she’s going to make it. But she’s in surgery now, with doctors fixing her badly damaged spleen and internal bleeding.

Katya and some of the others are currently in the hospital waiting room. Finnigan and a couple of security guys are lurking in the hospital too. Staying close, just in case.

Somehow, through a blinking consciousness and barely any strength, Diana managed to give us a glimpse into what happened. The man dying before my eyes gave me the rest.

She was assigned to Frank Duval, a politician we’ve known to be dirty for a long time. But even as he’s slowly digging his claws through so many pockets in Queenscove, obtaining proof of his dodgy dealings is almost impossible. He covers his tracks too well.

Our escorts are so much more than their given names.

They’re spies. Skilled ones at that. And even though they’re part of our syndicate, they’re our best kept secret.

We’ve held that business separate from the very start.

We protect them, take care of them, but their official leader is Ekaterina—Katya.

If Queenscove and beyond learned the escort firm is ours, they wouldn’t use our services, and we wouldn’t discover their secrets.

But Diana got caught tonight as she was cloning a phone.

She thought she was safe, but Duval must have suspected something, or maybe it was pure dumb luck.

He then brought in my little friend here, and together they proceeded to torture her for information.

She begged and begged, she fought and resisted, but pain does terrible things to the human psyche.

It twists it and bends it until you can’t distinguish dream from reality.

The man bleeding before me said that she was barely conscious when she muttered our name...The Sanctum. She gave us away on a platter to Duval, and after seeing the state of her, I can’t blame her.

Our escorts are trained in various skills, including combat and manipulation, but we don’t expect them to be soldiers conditioned to torture methods. This should never have happened to her.

This asshole gave me every bit of information he had about an hour ago, but his pleas and pain have coaxed me on. Diana’s agony too. This second hour has been for her and me. I needed to draw more out of him until that wretched, hungry creature within me grew satisfied.

And it finally is.

I, on the other hand, am exhausted.

Standing tall and straightening my back, I look at the man tied to the chair before me in the center of this cold, gray room glowing in nothing but artificial light.

Bruises have developed, swollen cheeks and eye.

Around the flayed skin and sliced muscles, the man is covered in blood on almost every inch of his body.

Only the adrenaline I administered keeps him alert.

He’s positively demonic.

Nothing like the arrogance he regarded me with when I found him smoking by the back entrance of a busy downtown bar. The guy who delivered Diana to us gave him away. He’s currently lying dead on the floor a few feet to my left.

But I’m done. I got what I needed. I know who truly needs to pay.

Now, I need to sleep.

“I gave you . . . everything . . . you needed . . .” he begs me, fear radiating from his eyes, exhaustion from his voice. “Please, hel—”

In one swift motion, I swipe the surgical knife against his throat, turning on my heels just as the spray reaches me. I walk to the table and chairs sat by the entrance, stripping off the plastic overalls as he faintly heaves and gurgles.

I open the door to let the security guys in. Very few of them watch me when I work. S ome can’t fully stomach it and others don’t care one bit, but I prefer the solitude. The quiet.

“You know what to do,” I tell them.

They nod and get to work. A cleanup crew will be called, and our interrogation room will be clean in hours, the bodies disposed of.

I walk through the bright, long corridor leading up to the stairs and eventually out the main door of our underground facility. Climbing into my car, I crack my neck to relieve the tension, ignoring how faint the moonlight is and how close the sun is to the horizon.

It’s been a long fucking night. So different from what I envisioned it would be.

I sigh, long and lazy, as I start the engine and pull onto the small road, following it until I reach the main one a couple of miles away.

I’m supposed to turn right to head home, yet my arms seem to have a mind of their own, because they turn the steering wheel left instead.

And I keep driving.

And driving.

Passing mansions, then houses, then palms, birches, and tall hedges.

Until Scarlet’s stone garden wall comes into view.

I’m too tired to argue with my brain or whatever made this decision to come here. I open her bedroom feed on my phone, noticing once again how she sleeps like she wants to conquer the entire surface of her bed, before I scale the wall and jump into her garden.

Mindlessly, I walk through the trees on the expansive estate, toward her cottage by the pond, and straight to the first cracked window I see. It’s not the only one. I have to thank the pleasant nighttime Queenscove breeze for this. Just like me, she seems to enjoy sleeping with it licking her skin.

I climb inside her house, walking through the hallway that takes me straight to her bedroom, and enter through the open doorway.

There she is—the reckless kitten I’m still convinced broke into my house—sleeping peacefully.

A white sheet covers her sprawled body, clinging to every enticing curve like she was made to be sculpted and displayed in a museum. Her dark hair is a starburst over the white pillowcase, her long, slender arms spread above her head, begging to be tied right there.

I’m fucked. Truly and utterly fucked.

I want to make her scream in pleasure, then torture her to pain.

I want her mouth around my cock and her beating heart bleeding in my hand.

I want to kill her and fuck her. Destroy her and own her.

I want it all.

But most of all, I want her.

She has to be mine. I don’t fucking understand why, but I have to make her mine. She’s a mystery I haven’t solved, and goddamn it if I’m gonna let anyone else figure her out.

With slow, careful steps, I near her bed, bending over her sleeping form. She smells divine...sweet with a bitter note that pulls me in further. I imagine oleander as I draw in another breath of her, crimson petals falling over her form. That’s how she smells—beautiful, but deadly.

I really shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself...so I reach over and ever so slowly brush the backs of my fingers against her cheek, humming low in my chest when the velvet feel of her sizzles against my skin.

I drag that feathery touch lower, against her neck, tracing the slope of her clavicle and down her chest, until I reach the seam of the sheet.

I suck in a breath, an electric burst sizzling low in my abdomen when goosebumps bloom over her flesh beneath my touch.

She doesn’t stir, though. Not even a little bit.

Yet her lips seem to have parted slightly. Pale-berry, full, divine lips.

I’ve done many terrible, cruel things in my life, but denying a woman the opportunity to consent has never been one of them. Yet here I am, tracing the edge of the sheet covering Scarlet’s breasts, pretending it’s not moving lower with every stroke.

This right here is what will turn me into a true monster.

I stop, the back of my pointer finger lightly brushing just above her sternum, and drag my gaze back up to her lips, soft cheeks, and thick lashes.

Then, at a grueling pace, I slide that digit down her sternum, dragging the sheet with it. This tortured movement draws down her abdomen, over her soft skin.

Goosebumps nettle over my skin like an omen designed for me alone. The moment I reach her belly button, my gaze still fixed on her face to observe her unconscious reactions, I stop. Nostrils flaring as I inhale a slow, strained breath, I splay my palm over her soft belly in a gentle touch.

She still doesn’t stir. But I revel one more moment, then reluctantly move away.

I don’t just step back. I turn altogether, walking out the door and back the way I came. I know that only a few more seconds in that room will break my resolve.

There are many things I want to take from her, but consent is not one of them. Which is surprising, since her life is on that list too.

What has Scarlet done to me?