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His chest heaves as he coughs up blood. It froths at the corners of his mouth with every breath. Then he smiles at me, gums painted bright red. The pretense is off finally. It took him a while—I check the time on my phone—one hour and seven minutes, hardly a record.

“What pain?” His laugh is interrupted by more coughing.

I quickly grab one of Gabe’s throwing knives from the table and pierce his neck on the right side. The squishy sound when it spears the skin gives me goose bumps.

“Don’t struggle,” I tell him as he finds the last of his fighting spirit while uselessly twisting on the chair.

“Your trachea is severed; blood is filling your lungs. You’re drowning in it.

Your brain is being deprived of oxygen and your nervous system’s quickly shutting down.

Your sight has turned blurry, but you can still hear me.

” I study him for a moment as he registers my words.

“I’ll let you go with a pearl of wisdom.

People don’t understand pain. They have no concept beyond their worst experience.

” While I have been to hell and back. There’s no pain I cannot endure.

“I stubbed my toe the other day, does that count?” Raph’s idiotic statement reaches my ears through the intercom on the door. When I turn around, he’s standing behind the glass wall near his husband.

“Your donor is convulsing.”

“It happens when the show is over.” I remove the throwing knife from the donor’s neck, and after a couple of seconds, he stops moving.

“Did you use one of Gabe’s knives? He’s not going to like that,” Michael says.

I shrug, like I’m afraid of that fucker or his barking alter.

“I brought you a treat.” Michael has a plate and a container in each hand holding some kind of food that looks like inedible eggs and DOA pancakes.

I look at Raph, but he’s staring at his phone.

Michael is the worst cook in the universe, and my brother—one of the most gruesome killers in Chicago—can’t stop him from continuing to try.

“What’s that?” I point at the blob-looking thing inside the container.

“It’s bread made from scratch. I shaped it like a heart.” He’s smiling with excitement. A shattered heart?

“It’s green; is that mold?” I frown at it. “Is it a mangled iguana carcass? Or maybe something that once was food. I’m a restaurant owner; I can’t be in the same room with that thing.”

“Why do you all have to insult me like this while I pour all my love into baking?” He drops the plates on the floor, scattering pieces of…food and ceramic everywhere.

“Babe, c’mere.” Raph yanks him against his chest and then glares at me. I glare back. Fucking drama queens.

“I have a three-Michelin-star chef waiting to teach him how to cook, but he refused,” I remind him—actually the rest of the family begged me to do it.

“No, I didn’t. I told you I will if you have lunch with me once a week like we used to,” Michael replies with a glower. He’s asking me a favor in exchange for another favor?

When Raph got together with Michael, I went to see what all the fuss was about.

I discovered we both like detective stories and food, so I started bringing him lunch during his work breaks.

I did it mainly to fuck with Raph, but I kind of found him not so annoying after a while.

But he started bringing those repellant dishes he cooked.

. Plus, Raph doesn’t leave him alone for long.

“I’m busy,” I deadpan. “Tell me about that bird legend.” Michael’s knowledge of torture methods is quite ample.

“You mean the blood eagle?” He turns his head toward me, his cheek still on Raph’s chest. “It comes from Nordic legends of Viking executions. The condemned’s back was slashed to give access to the ribs, which were then broken and twisted upward to look like wings.”

“Not bad,” I comment, imagining doing it to my next donor. I’m going to need a sturdy table to lay the shithead down on and longer chains to restrain them.

“There’s more, salt was poured into the wound. And as a final blow, the lungs were pulled out and draped over the rib-wings for effect. There’s debate about whether or not this practice actually existed, or if it’s just poppycock.”

“Either way someone took the time to think this up.” Raph smirks with wicked pleasure. I can clearly see what’s going on in that lizard brain of his.

“By the way, the way you carve words into donors is subpar at best.” Michael glances at the dead fucker behind me before sticking his tongue out at me.

I grit my teeth at his goading, then spin around and stab the throwing knife into the donor’s lifeless eye. It twitches. Must be an involuntary muscle contraction. I sink the blade further inside the skull. Just to make sure he’s fucking dead.

“Trying to steal the impaler nickname from me?” Raph keeps annoying me.

“Hearing your voice is like dragging my balls across shattered glass,” I mutter.

“That’s an idea. Should take it for a spin in the FUNS room,” Michael states.

“Done that.” Raph kisses his husband’s head.

“Why the fuck are you here? You’re disturbing me,” I bark.

Raph looks to my left at a chair where a piece of paper lies. I must have been so taken by the torture, I didn’t hear him come inside the room. I clean the blood off my hands as best as I can using a wet cloth and then grab the folded paper.

It looks like a threatening note…a ridiculous one.

ONE WEEK LEFT.

OWNERSHIP OF YOUR MOCCASINS WILL PASS ON TO ME.

BE SOLD ON ETSY FOR FIVE CENTS.

There’s a little doodle of a middle finger at the end.

Those are my genuine Italian ostrich leather moccasins, which he stole from me.

It’s a battle that has been going on since we were kids.

We take something from one another and hide it, calling each other names while we go crazy looking for it.

The truth is, it keeps our relentless personalities busy so we don’t fall into darker patterns.

Lately though, I’ve been too taken by all the rest to play the game.

“There’s no time limit, you fucker. And why use cut-out letters if there’s nothing anonymous about it?” I deadpan, sending a you moron look at Raph as I turn the note to show it to him. “You brought it to me.”

Michael gasps. “Oh my God. You mauled my Scientific American for that? How dare you, you-you psycho!”

“Piglet, I was bored. You’re working all the time.”

And here is the restless side I was talking about before. I get bored too, but a threatening note? Really?

“Like you don’t. Use your own damn magazines!” Michael punches his husband’s chest too weakly for my liking.

“I don’t read paperbacks.” Raph sounds unbothered by it all, but his arms tighten around Michael.

“I’m going to kill you!” Michael growls like an annoyed little kitty.

“How are you going to do it?” I’m the one goading this time.

“Not sure.” He huffs flailing his arms.

“He’ll suffocate me…with kisses. He loves me to death,” Raph states with a smirk.

Michael sniffs at him. “You can’t use the love card every time you drive me mad!”

“I’ll do it then.” I grab Leslie, my gun, from the table and release the safety. Am I teasing? I’m not sure. I’ve thought about ending him many times, in multiple different ways. It’s kind of a hobby.

Michael turns to me. “Can’t you see that he did this for you, Uri?”

“No, I didn’t!” Raph frowns at him.

“He even used a lame TV drama stunt to draw you away from your messy thoughts.”

“No, he didn’t!” I look at Raph’s unfazed expression, empty eyes, and mouth in a straight line.

“Moccasins bye bye ,” he mouths with a wave of his hand. Motherfucker! I point Leslie’s muzzle at his face through the glass wall. He smirks smugly. A round between his eyes will erase that stupid expression off his mug.

“The code, Uri,” Michael exclaims.

Fuuuck! How can Raph be with such a goodie-two-shoes? Yes, we follow the code Linda put down for us, to remind us where the morally gray line we shouldn’t step over, stands. Which means I can’t kill Raph only because he’s a shithead. He needs to turn into an evil shithead for me to do so.

“You’ve become so tedious, professor,” I taunt Michael with a tsk as I lower my gun.

Raph flips me off, and I’m about to repay him in kind when Lori appears, followed by Gabe and Rague, who has a donor hanging from his massive shoulder.

“You know what’s really tedious?” Lori asks; he must have eavesdropped on our conversation. “Your controlling attitude toward Sari. Make up your mind, you stuck-up socio!”

“Go back to hell, Satan’s pet!” I rub a hand over my tired eyes.

“Why would I do that when I can fuck with you lot?” Lori intones in a snarky voice.

Rague enters the FUNS room and lets the donor fall unceremoniously on the floor. It’s the dirty cop who helped cover up my donor’s hunting hobby. “Is he dead?”

Rague replies by pushing his shoe into the donor’s face until I hear a crack.

I set Leslie on the table again and crouch down to check the corpse. It’s still warm, but his chest is curved inward, the black fabric on the torso wet with blood.

“The lawyer? Dead too?”

“Yes,” Lori replies for him, since all Rague is doing is growling and glaring. “What’s left of him is in the kidnapping van.”

Fucking hell.

Another growl. Rague’s face is flushed, veins almost popping on his forehead and arms. He keeps gritting his teeth, his body trembling with uncontrollable anger.

Is he having a light red haze episode? It’s happened in the past when he lost his marbles and destroyed everything in his path.

Almost killed Rami one time, tried with me as well.

Those scientists experimented on his brain when he was imprisoned, fucking him up.

These days he can control it…mostly. Better if his husband is near him.

“Where’s Ollie?” I ask, turning toward the glass wall. If he isn’t coming, maybe I can have some more fun.

“Coming,” Michael replies.