Page 35 of The Beast’s Broken Angel

BEAUTIFUL VENGEANCE

ADRIAN

T he next evening, Dr. Jonathan Hayes looked like a man trying to keep his bollocks attached when Marcus dragged him through Ravenswood's front door.

The blindfold came off with a rough yank, and I watched him blink against the chandelier light like some posh vampire caught in sunbeams. His composure was decent, I'd give him that much.

Most blokes would be pissing themselves by now.

“Dr. Hayes.” I kept my voice smooth as aged whisky, letting him catalogue the armed men positioned around my entrance hall like decorative gargoyles. “Thank you for accepting my invitation.”

The fucker had the nerve to straighten his expensive suit jacket, playing at dignity while blood crusted under his fingernails from where he'd fought Marcus's extraction team.

My eyes tracked every detail with predatory focus.

The Omega Seamaster on his wrist cost more than an NHS surgeon earned in six months.

The calluses on his trigger finger had fuck all to do with holding scalpels.

His shoulders carried muscle built through combat training, not medical school stress .

“You've taken Noah.” It wasn't a question, which scored him points for awareness. Hayes met my gaze without flinching, admirable given the circumstances. “Whatever you believe he's done, you're mistaken. He's just a nurse with unfortunate taste in employment opportunities.”

I smiled at that, the expression cold enough to frost glass. “Your concern is touching, Doctor. Let's discuss your relationship privately, shall we?”

The slight hesitation before he followed me toward my study told me everything I needed to know. The way his eyes swept exit routes, assessed threats, calculated odds of survival. Military training wrapped in civilian clothing, intelligence operative masquerading as a healer.

My study felt smaller with Hayes in it, his presence radiating controlled menace despite being outnumbered and outgunned. I settled behind my desk like a judge preparing to pass sentence, spreading photographs across the mahogany surface with deliberate care.

“Your cover is excellent, Doctor.” I turned the first image to face him. Hayes with known MI5 operatives outside a Vauxhall safe house. “General medicine provides perfect explanation for irregular hours. Convenient access to trauma victims without raising suspicion.”

His face revealed nothing, but the tension in his jaw spoke volumes. Professional training warring with human instinct, the same struggle I'd seen in countless interrogations over the years.

“Recognise these gentlemen?” I continued, sliding another photograph forward.

Hayes meeting with government contacts in a Camden pub, heads bent close over pints that never got drunk.

“Section Chief Matthews from Intelligence. Deputy Director Hawkins from Counter-Intelligence. Fascinating dinner companions for a trauma surgeon. ”

“I don't know what game you're playing, Calloway,” Hayes said finally, voice steady despite the sweat beading his upper lip. “But dragging innocent civilians into your paranoid fantasies won't end well for anyone.”

I laughed at that, the sound echoing off book-lined walls like a gunshot. “Innocent? You identified Noah as a potential asset, researched his vulnerabilities, then positioned yourself to exploit his situation once you recruited him. Textbook psychological manipulation.”

The accusation hit home. I caught the micro-expression that flickered across his features before professional control reasserted itself. Guilt mixed with calculation, a man realising his careful operation was unravelling thread by bloody thread.

“Noah knows nothing,” Hayes said, trying to regain narrative control. His eyes shifted to Noah standing in the corner. “Noah, you have to understand?—”

“Don't speak to him,” I cut him off sharply.

But Hayes persisted, desperation making him stupid. “Noah, whatever they've told you about me?—”

I stood up, voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “Look at him again and I'll remove your eyes.”

Hayes finally got the message, turning back to me with visible effort. Smart man.

“Your intelligence gathering is secondary to your real target,” I continued, circling the desk like a shark scenting blood. “You weren't just monitoring the Calloway organisation. You were investigating someone specific. Someone with access to our financial infrastructure.”

Hayes' stillness was answer enough. The doctor understood he was fucked seven ways from Sunday, but he was professional enough to maintain operational security even facing torture and probable death.

Time to remedy that situation.

The descent to Ravenswood's basement was a journey into hell itself, each step echoing off stone walls that had witnessed decades of violence.

Hayes proved more resilient than most once we'd secured him in the restraints.

I could feel Noah's horror radiating from the corner where he stood watching, his medical training recognising the anatomical expertise I was applying to the doctor's nervous system.

Hayes hung suspended from chains bolted to the ceiling, feet barely touching the floor, wrists already raw from the metal.

“Your operation targeted my organisation specifically,” I stated conversationally, applying calculated pressure with my thumb to the nerve cluster below Hayes' left ear.

His scream bounced off soundproofed walls before cutting to a strangled gasp.

“The Turner brothers were merely convenient instruments. Expendable.”

I increased the pressure fractionally, watching tendons stand out in Hayes' neck like bridge cables under stress.

His body convulsed involuntarily, muscles firing in patterns designed by evolution to escape predators.

Unfortunately for him, I was the apex fucking predator in this particular ecosystem.

“Intelligence gathering only,” Hayes finally managed through gritted teeth, blood foaming at the corners of his mouth where he'd bitten his tongue. “Standard monitoring of organised crime entities. We planned to use Noah's position once you recruited him, but he never cooperated.”

“You exploited his sister's illness.” My voice stayed conversational while I shifted to a different pressure point, one that sent fire racing down Hayes' spine without causing permanent damage.

Yet. “Created financial pressure through insurance denials.

Positioned him perfectly for my acquisition.

Elegant methodology, I'll grant you that.”

Hayes' professional composure was cracking like ice under a blowtorch. Sweat poured down his face, mixing with tears he probably didn't realise he was crying. The human nervous system could only maintain control for so long under systematic assault.

“Noah was never the primary target,” he gasped, words tumbling out between ragged breaths. “You were valuable, but secondary. We needed access to?—”

Hayes’s jaw clenched as he cut himself off, refusing to speak the last word.

I shifted techniques abruptly, my thumb finding the bundle of nerves where the neck met the shoulder.

Pressure. Hayes convulsed, his scream cut off as unconsciousness claimed him, his body going limp in the chains like a marionette with severed strings.

The silence that followed was thick as treacle, broken only by Hayes' laboured breathing. I cleaned my hands methodically with antiseptic wipes, erasing evidence of interrogation techniques learned through years of extracting truth from unwilling mouths.

“Satisfied?” Noah's voice cut through the quiet like a blade, raw with disgust and something darker. Betrayal, maybe. Or recognition of what I truly was beneath the expensive suits and cultured facade.

I turned to study him properly, cataloguing the pale complexion, the clenched fists, the way he couldn't quite look at Hayes' suspended form.

The healer confronting the monster's true nature, forced to witness what lay beneath civilised veneer.

But there was something else in his expression, something that made my pulse quicken despite the circumstances.

The way his chest rose and fell with controlled breaths, the slight parting of his lips, the flush creeping up his neck despite his obvious horror.

“He confirmed your innocence,” I replied, voice deliberately neutral as I stepped closer, close enough to smell the faint scent of his skin beneath the antiseptic.

“That's your fucking apology?” Noah exploded, taking a step toward me that brought us within touching distance. The heat radiating from his body sent electric jolts through my nervous system. “For suspecting me? For assuming I betrayed you based on obviously manufactured evidence?”

His anger was magnificent, transforming the composed healer into something altogether more dangerous.

The moral outrage mixing with personal fury, creating a combustible combination that sent heat pooling low in my gut despite the circumstances.

I wanted to grab him, pin him against the bloodstained walls, show him exactly what his defiance did to me.

“I don't apologise, Noah.” I met his gaze directly, refusing to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that my judgement had been compromised by emotional investment. The way he said my name, even in anger, made my skin burn. “I correct errors and adjust strategy accordingly.”

“Then correct this error,” Noah challenged, gesturing toward Hayes' unconscious form. “He's just a pawn like I was. The puppet, not the puppeteer. Killing him solves nothing.”

The space between us had shrunk to mere inches, close enough that I could see the rapid pulse at his throat, count the individual breaths that lifted his chest in uneven rhythm. Close enough to reach out and touch, to claim what my body was screaming it wanted.