Page 39 of Scarred in Silence (The Twisted Trilogy #2)

Lucien

We left before dawn.

Dante drove. I needed my hands free. My mind is sharper than any blade tucked under the floorboards. The world is still dark, the dark that lets monsters slip unnoticed through motel lots and rest stops. Good. We are the monsters today.

“I tapped a burner signal near Moab,” Dante muttered.

“He’s running scared.”

I light a cigarette and watch the smoke snake around in the windshield’s reflection.

“He should be.”

The Utah safe house belonged to a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-dead-man. We’d burned three contacts already to confirm it. Miles wasn’t hiding. He was surviving. But survival is nonexistent when I’m the one hunting you.

Dante eyes me sideways. “What happens when we get him?”

I exhale smoke. “He begs.”

He didn’t ask what for.

* * *

We hit the Colorado-Utah border by noon. The sun blazes overhead like a spotlight. Perfect for bloodstains.

Red rock cliffs framed the path like tombstones, and the house lay buried in the canyon. Three guards patrol the outer perimeter. Tactical gear, radios, headsets. Professional. I smile.

“They’ll try to reason first,” Dante said.

“Good.”

We park a half-mile out and approach on foot. My boots kick up dust from the earth. Dante loads his silencer. I don’t bother.

The first guard steps out from behind a Joshua tree. “You don’t want to do this.”

“I do,” I say, and shoot him in the throat. His body spasms, gurgling, dropping to the ground.

The second comes running, tall, ex-military looking prick. He raises his rifle.

Dante puts one in his shoulder and one in his knee. I reach him first. I grab his gun, cracking his jaw with the butt, and kick his leg out. He drops. I stomp his hand until bones snap like twigs.

“Where’s Miles?” I ask.

He spits blood. “Fuck you.”

Wrong answer.

I crouch, reaching into my jacket, and pull out Astra’s necklace—the little silver one she had buried in her belongings at her parents’ house. I needed something that looked valuable. I hold it in front of his face.

“You see this?” I whisper. “It belonged to a girl Miles hurt. A girl who trusted him.”

He blinks. “I don’t— ”

I shove the charm into his eye socket, carving out the useless orb.

He screams until his voice cracks. Dante turns away. I don’t.

“You’re going to tell me where he is,” I say calmly. “Or I’ll dig out the other one.”

He breaks. They always do.

* * *

We move on foot to the cliffside entrance. A rusted steel door. Unlocked. Miles was confident or desperate. Probably both.

The inside smells of copper and bleach. Death and cleanup. Miles has been busy. Four more men wait in the hall.

Dante whispers, “We’re outnumbered.”

“Not outmatched.”

We move like wraiths. I slit the first man’s throat before he can raise his weapon. Blood spraying onto the drywall. Dante takes out two with controlled shots to the chest. The last starts running. I chase.

I run down a spiral staircase into a locked room. A lab—vials, ledgers, cash, and a steel chair bolted to the floor.

He turns, pistol raised. “Lucien.”

“Miles.”

He looks older than he did a month ago. Weak. Eyes wild.

“I was trying to protect her.”

Wrong move.

I cross the room and slam him against the wall before he can fire. I disarm him. Slamming his face again into the cracked concrete. He spits out a tooth.

“She came to me,” he wheezed.

“She was eighteen.”

“She wanted it.”

I see red.

I punch. Again. Again. Again. The wall is red. My fists are wet. His nose is folded inward. Teeth are scattered like dice across the tile.

“You put your hands on her,” I say, keeping my voice low.

“You drugged her. Lied to her. Bragged about fucking her in front of your friends like she was a joke.”

He tries to laugh through broken lips. “She’ll never be clean. You’re wasting your time.”

I grab his throat, lifting him from the ground. “You think this is about clean?”

He struggles. Kicking his pathetic legs. I drop him, and he gasps for air.

“This is about her not flinching when she hears your name. This is about her feeling safe to sleep at night without seeing your face. This is about her knowing you’re dead.”

“You’re not going to kill me,” he coughed.

Fuck. Astra does want to be the one to do it.

I look back.

Dante stands in the doorway, gun loose in his hand. Watching.

“Alive,” I repeat, tasting the word like a bitter pill. “That’s negotiable.”

Dante walks forward. “He needs to see her. She deserves to decide how this ends.”

I grab Miles by the shirt and yank him up. “You’re coming with us.”

* * *

We bound him, gagged him, and stuffed him in the trunk.

The ride back is silent.

Every mile closer to the compound, I think about Astra—how she hasn’t spoken much since Evelyn’s visit, how she walks like her bones carry secrets now. How she asked for revenge…

And I’ll give it to her.

* * *

We arrive just after dark.

Dante helps me drag Miles inside. We toss him in the basement holding room—a concrete floor, no windows, metal restraints.

He whimpers through the gag. I remove it.

“Why her?” I ask.

He laughs, choking on blood. “She was easy.”

I break two of his fingers.

“You’re going to see her tomorrow,” I say, turning calm once more.

“You’re going to tell her the truth.”

He spits blood at me. “She’s not yours to save.”

I lean close. “She is now. She is my fucking wife.”

* * *

I shower in scalding water. I watch the blood spiral down the drain. My reflection stares back at me—cuts, bruises, smeared mascar a from Astra’s trembling hands last night.

I think about her mouth on the barrel. The way I shook when I saw her like that. The blank I’d loaded wasn’t enough protection. I need more. I need Miles to be erased from her world. I need silence to return, but on her terms.

* * *

I find her in my bed. Curled into the pillows. Still, quiet, but awake.

“I heard you come in,” she whispers.

I sit on the edge of the mattress. “It’s done. He’s here.”

Her body stiffens. “Alive?”

“For now.”

She turns to face me, her eyes unreadable. “Can I see him?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Will you stay?”

I lay beside her and drew her close. Her fingers brush the fresh scabs on my knuckles.

“You always come back bleeding,” she murmurs.

“I only bleed for you.”

She doesn’t smile. She doesn’t cry. She just clings tighter.

And I let her.

* * *

The basement smells like blood and mildew. It always has.

The holding room’s concrete walls are stained with secrets—most of them mine. Fluorescent lights hum overhead, flickering just enough to make Miles flinch. He’s chained to the floor in the center of the room, wrists shackled behind his back, shirt soaked in sweat and piss.

Good.

I take slow, deliberate steps toward him, letting my boots echo in the tight space.

Astra trails behind me, barefoot. Her steps are silent, like death itself.

She says nothing, just stands with her arms folded, wearing one of my black shirts that hangs off her like a veil.

The collar’s ripped. She did that herself.

Said it made her feel like she could breathe.

Miles lifts his head. He can’t see her yet, but he knows. His body goes rigid. His lip’s split.

I crouch in front of him, close enough that he can smell the gun oil on my jacket.

“Long way from California, huh?”

His tongue pokes out, blood-slicked. “Lucien, I—”

“Don’t say my name.”

He nods quickly, eyes darting like bugs in the light. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know she was yours—”

Wrong answer. He did fucking know. That’s why he left. Fucking asshole.

I grab a fistful of his hair and slam his face into the concrete. His bone cracks. And blood spatters across my boot.

Astra doesn’t flinch.

“You knew exactly what she was,” I growl. “You filmed her while you raped her, told everyone she was begging for it, then sold her out to Nicolette like she was nothing but cargo.”

“She was cargo,” he chokes, face pressed into the floor. “That’s what Nicolette said. I was just…transport.”

Wrong again.

I pull him up by the collar and turn him to face her.

“Say her name.”

His eyes go wide. His lips tremble.

“A-Astra.”

Her jaw tightens.

“I want his eyes,” she says quietly, stepping beside me. “He doesn’t get to see anymore.”

I nod once.

Miles thrashes. “Please. Lucien. Please—don’t let her—”

I draw the scalpel from my boot sheath and press the blade under his left eyelid. His screams bounce off the concrete walls as the first orb comes free in a sick, wet pop. Astra watches without blinking. No tears. No fear.

Just justice.

“Other one,” she whispers.

I oblige.

The second eye comes out harder. He bucks like a dying horse, screaming into the stale basement air. I toss the eyeballs in a metal bucket and kick it toward the corner. They land with a dull clink.

Blood pools fast, thick, and dark. He sobs, shuddering.

“Make it stop,” he begs.

“Oh, it’s only just started,” I whisper.

She steps in closer. Her voice is calm. Serene.

“Skin him.”

I glance at her. “You sure?”

“I want him raw,” she says, eyes locked on the ruin of a man at my feet. “I want him to feel every second before the end.”

My spine straightens. There’s something sacred about that kind of command. It’s usually Dante’s go-to torture method.

I slice down his side, careful and methodical. He’s choking, muffling his screams. Blood slicks my gloves, sticky and hot. The scent of copper floods the room. Strip by strip, I take him apart. Shoulders, arms, chest. Peeling him down like rotting wallpa per until he’s a trembling sack of meat.

Astra kneels beside me, watching. Her hand finds mine and squeezes it. She doesn’t look away.

“This is for the party,” she whispers. “For the video. For the silence you forced on me.”

His voice is nothing but gargled moans now.

A dumpster fire shackled to the floor.

I finish the last strip from his thigh, then grab the blowtorch from the bench behind me. It hisses when I ignite it.

He hears that.

He sobs harder, barely living anymore.

“I want him to know this pain before he dies,” Astra says softly.

I nod and press the flame close. It never touches him, but the heat makes him scream anyway. Skinless nerves are fickle. They scream before the fire even gets started.

He passes out once. I bring him back with smelling salts and a punch to the ribs.

“You don’t get to die easy,” I snarl.

Finally, I offer her the gun.

She looks down at it, then at him. There’s something unreadable in her face. Not mercy. Not quite vengeance, either. Something deeper. Ancient.

She hands the pistol back to me.

“No,” she says. “You do it.”

“You sure?”

She nods.

“I already killed him,” she whispers. “I just want to watch him disappear.”

I raise the gun and press it to what’s left of his chest.

“I hope Hell makes you watch it on repeat.”

I pull the trigger.

Blood splatters on the floor. His body slumps. Dead.

The silence that follows is the loudest thing in the room.

Astra moves first. She steps over the body and walks to me, wraps her arms around my waist. I cradle the back of her head.

“You’re free,” I murmur into her hair. “He can’t touch you anymore.”

She nods, face pressed into my chest.

Behind us, Dante enters the room without a word. He doesn’t ask questions. Just drags what’s left of Miles into the corner and drops the body like trash.

“Incinerator?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“No evidence,” Astra adds, her voice cold.

Dante nods once and disappears with the corpse.

I lead her out of the room, trailing footprints through the blood. We walk hand in hand.

She doesn’t look back. Neither do I. He doesn’t deserve our memory.

Down here, in the basement, the dead don’t scream. They confess.

And we are the ones who listen.

* * *

“It feels good to have him gone. Evelyn is happy that everyone who burned down her mother’s house is dead,” Dante says over the phone.

“It does… I’m still worried about Astra. She has been quiet since we left yesterday…”

“She will come around. Give her time.”

I let out a breath.

“Just think, now you only have one enemy left, and you already killed him once,” Dante jokes. I don’t laugh. It’s not fucking funny.

“Yeah. Just one left.”

I end the call and stare at my beautiful wife sleeping next to me. I would burn the world down for her, and I don’t think she would do the same for me…

But that’s okay. I don’t need her love. I need her loyalty.