Page 71 of Craving Venom (The Venomous Beauty Trilogy #1)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

THE MONSTER

Davis Adams plays college boy by day and bartender by night, but he’s a pimp in disguise, his suit too pristine for what he really does. He feeds dancer jobs to desperate girls, takes his cut with a smile, masking spinelessness in polished floors and skyline views.

I slide the lock pick into the keycard slot and feel the mechanism give with a quiet click. The door creaks open, already aware I didn’t come to announce myself.

First thing I hear is the wet slap of skin and breathless grunts.

I step inside slow, let the door click shut behind me.

The curtains are half-drawn and the TV blares soft moans with pixelated tits across the screen.

Room stinks of sweat, lube, and that fake cherry scent they spray to cover up what never really goes away.

And there he is, Davis with his legs sprawled and his cock in his fist, jerking like the world is ending. On screen, some girl’s bent over with a glass dildo up her ass, screaming for more. He doesn’t hear me at first. Not until I’m two feet from the bed.

“Who the fuck—”

I lunge and he scrambles back, tripping over tangled sheets, his bare ass flashing in a pathetic parody of escape. I grab his ankle mid-turn. I slam him face-first into the headboard, and the sound his nose makes is wet and satisfying.

“You think this is a safe house?” I shove his face down harder.

He tries to twist free. His elbow jabs into my ribs weakly. I drive my knee into his spine and pin him.

“You hiding her here?” I spit beside his ear, dragging him upright by the hair. Blood’s already trickling from his nostrils. His breath comes in fast little sobs.

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You think I came here to quiz you?” I slam his back into the wall, let him slide down it like the pathetic worm he is. “You got paid to smuggle an innocent girl. So where the fuck is Nina Flores?”

He wheezes, doubled over on the floor with his cock shriveled between shaking thighs. Blood drips from his nose onto the carpet in lazy splatters and his mouth gapes in a desperate search for oxygen between sobs.

Then I see that look of recognition as his jaw tightens and his pupils shrink to pinpricks as if I’m a goddamn ghost walking in carrying his death sentence.

“You know who I am.”

“Y-yeah… fuck, man, yeah. You’re him. You did this same thing to Cash. To Cody. Malik. They all fucking disappeared.”

“Not disappeared.” I crouch in front of him and drag my fingers through the blood running from his nose. I smear it across his cheek. “They’re fertilizer now.”

“You, fuck, I didn’t, I didn’t sign up for this shit.”

“You signed up the second you looked at a scared girl and thought about your commission before her name.”

He tries to crawl. I let him get two feet before stomping his ankle hard enough to snap something. His scream peels through the walls.

“You think I’ve got time to waste on some limp-dick college dropout with cum stains on his sheets and a spreadsheet full of pussy quotas?

” I crouch beside him, grab his hair and jerk his head up so he’s looking at me.

His eyes are drowning in blood and panic.

“I don’t have time to waste on bottom-feeders who call themselves recruiters.

That’s not a job title. You’re not even a middleman, Davis.

You’re a fucking usher at the gates of hell. ”

I let go.

His face hits the carpet again with a wet thud.

I take the broken desk lamp and slam it into his ribs, again and again, until the resistance fades and he coughs up dark, heavy blood.

“They sent instructions,” he gasps, spit and blood bubbling at his lips. “I don’t know who—I swear—messages came on a dead drop... money wired through three crypto shells and some offshore bank in Malta—I didn’t ask questions, I just—”

I crack my open palm across his ear. Blood sprays from the side of his head and he whimpers. I dig into the flesh above his collarbone with a hunting knife I brought just for this. A red line wells up beneath the steel.

“I’m not asking about how, Davis. I want where,” I snarl. “Where the fuck is Nina, and who owns her now?”

“I don’t—fuck—I don’t know!” he sobs. “I got a ping! Okay? I got a ping this morning—they moved her. Said my part was done. I don’t know where.

It’s always one step at a time, man, I get an address, I get paid, and then someone else takes over.

I don’t see faces. Just usernames and phone numbers that disappear after twenty-four hours!

I don’t know what happened after she said yes! ”

I backhand him so hard he hits the floor with a spin. His body’s a twitching mess of blood, spit, and broken skin. I’ve seen this dance before. The fake stuttering. The useless tears. The same excuses on rinse and repeat from assholes who think being on the bottom rung makes them innocent.

It doesn’t.

I sigh and reach into my jacket and pull out my phone. My thumb unlocks it with muscle memory. I scroll, then open the news.

I hold it to his face. “Recognize him?”

His head jerks weakly. “Wh-what?”

I shove the screen closer showing a man’s photo, bloated and dead-eyed with waxy skin from the morgue shot they used. His throat’s been torn wide, sliced too deep for a scream. They put “businessman” in quotes like it softens what he did.

“Recognize. Him.”

Davis squints. “No… no, I never met him.”

“You should’ve.” I step over him, drag the screen slowly across his bloody cheek. “He was one of your douchebag ‘masters.’ That’s what I did to him.”

Davis goes quiet. The kind of quiet where you realize you were a joke to the people you worked for. That they sent you out to fetch meat without ever inviting you to the real table.

“I tend to give easier deaths to recruits like you. Not outta mercy. Just boredom. I don’t like expending my energy on parasites.”

His mouth opens, but I raise my hand before he speaks.

“Give me a name,” I say coldly. “One name. And I’ll walk out of here. Maybe I’ll even let you OD yourself in this jerk-off cave with your dignity half-intact. Or…” I crouch again and drag the hunting knife across the inside of his thigh. “Or I will skin you alive. And I’ve got time for that.”

I pull the blade tighter against his skin.

“I’m not walking out that door without a name.”

“John Bailey. I never met him, just a name that came through on a burner once. ‘She belongs to Bailey now.’ That’s what the message said.”

“Where will I find him?”

“He was supposed to take her to The Aether Club. After the initiation. It’s, fuck, it’s downtown, behind the old theatre on Blackmoor. It’s an invitation only event. Password at the door changes every event.”

“When?”

“T-Tomorrow night,” he gasps.

I pull the hunting knife, turn it in my fingers, then toss it beside him.

“You’ve got fifteen minutes to make it look like suicide.”

He looks up, eyes wide enough to drink in the whole room and still miss the point.

“Or I’ll come back,” I mutter. “And I won’t stop at the skin.”

I leave the door open when I walk out.

Let the silence in the hallway swallow the screams still echoing behind me. My boots carry the blood out with me, marking the pristine hotel carpet. Fifteen minutes. If he’s smart, he’ll do it in five.

But fuck, I want to go back.

My hands shiver at my sides. I clench them into fists. My knuckles itch, starved for release. I need a reason. A trigger. Anything.

Last time I snapped this hard, Mark was still in prison. Leaving Frank alive lit something in me that hasn’t burned out. I’ve been craving blood ever since.

Faith’s the only thing that grounds me now.

And I can’t even see her tonight.

I’m late. The clock’s ticking. My time out of the cell is up, and every extra breath out here is a gift I’m wasting. But I can’t bring myself to go back.

I scan every fucking face on the monitor that covers this entire building as I walk down the hallway.

Old man with a limp, no. A mom and her kid, no.

Drunk couple arguing by the elevator, close.

The guy’s already grabbing her wrist too hard.

One more step, I could justify it. Break his hand, shove a key through his eye.

But she slaps him and he stumbles away. No fun if she’s already won.

I head for the stairwell, taking the steps three at a time. A woman screams in the distance. Sirens wail somewhere below. The city’s already feeding off the bloodlust coming off me.

I push through the stairwell door and take a hard right, slipping past the ice machine and the vending alcove, into the part of the hotel that’s not meant for guests.

I shove the hood down, rip off the mask, and let the air hit my face. My pupils are blown wide. The man I keep chained is leaking through my pores.

And maybe... maybe that’s what I want.

Someone to see me.

I walk slowly with the mask in my hand and my eyes hunting for a target. Come on, give me a fucking excuse. Wrong place, wrong time, look at me the wrong way or smell like sin and I’ll carve a reason into your flesh if I have to.

I don’t just want to hurt someone.

I want to peel someone.

Bounce… bounce… bounce…

Basketball?

I tuck the mask back on fast, drag the hood up just as the sound gets closer.

And then turning the corner is a little boy, wide-eyed and small, holding a deflated rubber ball against his chest. He can’t be older than seven, with messy hair and torn sneakers. He blinks at me, as if he’s wandered into a monster movie by mistake.

He stops mid-step and clutches the ball tighter but doesn’t run, and neither do I.

We just stare at each other.

“Are you… a superhero?”

I don’t answer.

Because if I open my mouth right now, I might growl.

Or laugh.

Or confess to things no child should ever hear.

So I settle for shaking my head.

The boy blinks and parts his lips like he doesn’t understand why a superhero would be silent. Then he lets go of the ball, it rolls away slowly, thudding against the far wall, and lifts his arm, motioning for me to come down to his level.

I don’t know why I do it.

Maybe it’s the steadiness in his eyes. The complete absence of fear.

Or maybe I just want to see what kind of child walks straight up to me without pissing himself.

I lower myself until we’re eye to eye. And it’s then that he notices the blood.

His small fingers reach for my hand. He frowns when he sees the split across my knuckles. Without a word, he pulls a wrinkled handkerchief from his pocket—white with little blue rocket ships on it—and ties it tight around my hand. Not skillfully. Not perfectly. But with intention.

“There,” he says softly. “My mommy says when my daddy gets hurt, it’s because he’s protecting someone. That’s what superheroes do.”

I stare at him, the cloth warm against my skin. It’s the only clean thing left on me, and it doesn’t belong here.

“Were you protecting someone?”

I look at the knot on my hand. I don’t feel the blood anymore. Just heat. A different kind.

I nod once. “I’d like to think that.”

“What’s your name?”

I should lie.

I should say nothing.

But a dark, cracked, rusted piece stirs inside me.

“People like to call me…” I pause, let the mask tip down just enough to see his reflection in the shine. “ The Nighthawk .”