Page 119 of Corrupted By You

No one threatened my wife and walked this earth unscathed.

I relished every second of ruining his face and pillaging his soul. I’d created many masterpieces in my life but this—thiswould be my finest one yet.

His anguished whimpers were music to my ears.

I could hear Ben approaching and saying something in an alarmed voice.

Heaving, I drew my fists back and finally heard Geoffrey’s croaked words.

“T-They use an a-alias…call t-themselves…Pierrot.”

I froze, my body hardening like a statue.

Pierrot.

The joker cards.

Tension rose like steam in the room and the puzzle pieces clicked into place as I recalled an old memory, confirming my suspicions all along.

“The next time youshow up to a meeting drunk or high as akite, it’ll be the last meeting you ever attend.” I shoved Antoine against the wall outside of Yves’sstudy, where he and Gabriel were still discussing. “Get yourshit together, you fucking clown.”

Antoine laughed deliriously, his eyesglazed with his substance abuse. I slapped his cheek, wishingI could do more bodily harm. He said he handledthe Rossi soldiers last week, yet those same soldiers interceptedone of our deliveries at the port. Antoine couldn’tdo anything right and I was sick and tired ofputting up with this idiot enforcer for the sake ofour families.

“You’re good for nothing, Toussaint,” I snarled, squeezing his neck. “Absolutely nothing. You’re a little bitchass boy who only knows how to blow daddy’smoney on drugs and pussy. You’ve never amounted toanything and you never will. That’s why no onerespects you. You’re not even worthy of the dirtat the bottom of my shoes.”

The reminder that Iwas above him was like a trigger. He snapped outof his daze and hurled a missed fist at mychest, his lanky frame trembling against me. “Fuck you, Zed! That’s all you think I am, eh? A clown?”

“I don’t think it. I know it, Antoine.” Ispat and released my hold on him. He fell tothe ground, coughing. “Stay out of my business,Pierrot,” Itaunted him with his new nickname. It was quite fitting. Antoine was a miserable, suffering, jester of a human being. “The next time you fuck up my shit, I’llfuck up something valuable of yours.”

I did fuck something valuable of his.

I fucked his sister.

And I called him Pierrot on three more occasions until Violette died and the Toussaints packed their bags and left Montardor.

I was right when I said this grudge was always personal, and I was right when I theorized that Antoine Toussaint orchestrated this entire thing.

I insulted him many times in the past but the final straw must have been when I got involved with Violette and discarded her. She promised to keep our arrangement a secret, but she definitely snitched to her brother after we broke up.

Violette was the apple of Antoine’s eye. He’d do anything for his half-sister.

Naturally, he wanted revenge now and he was slowly getting it by hitting me where it would hurt the most.

My wife.

I clenched my jaw, fury scaling the walls of my mind with an inexplicable need to destroy everything in my wake.

Geoffrey Smith would be the recipient of it.

“You took pictures of my wife because of Pierrot?” I punched him so hard, the chair almost toppled backward. I grabbed his collar and shook his sagging body, growling, “Because of somefuckingclown?”

The life was draining out of Geoffrey. His eyes held a faraway glaze.

I flung off my knuckle rings and took deep breaths to calm myself.

It didn’t work.

“Donne-moi un couteau,”I barked at Ben, without looking away from Geoffrey. My brother shot me a knife. I caught it and brought it to the half-dead photographer’s face. “You look like a sad, sad man, mon ami, so I’m going to do you a favour.” I fisted his hair and dug the tip of the knife into the corner of his mouth. “I’m going to give you a new smile.” I started carving his clown-like grin. “Say cheese, Geoffrey.”