Page 4 of The Ecstasy of Sin (Brutal Brotherhood #1)

Dominic

“Please,” Sebastian begs, his voice trembling as blood sputters and drips from his bruised lips. “You don’t have to do this, man, I haven’t even seen your face.”

His voice is thick from the blood pooling in his mouth, and the sound strokes my nervous system like a lover, calming the beast inside of me.

A sick grin spreads across my face from behind the black mask I’m wearing, and with a twinge of excitement, I reach up and pull the balaclava up over my head, tucking it into the front pocket of my sweatshirt in one swift motion.

Sebastian flinches, and I lower myself until my eyes are mere inches from his own, allowing the grin on my face to reflect the elated madness within.

The hefty man kneeling before me cries out like a frightened child, his eyes fluttering closed as he realizes I just ruined his chances of walking away from this alive.

“Please,” he begs again, and a shiver runs through me.

Fucking delightful.

Every time they beg, my entire body responds whether I want it to or not.

I may not want to fuck him, but that doesn’t stop my dick from hardening at the sound of his desperate pleas.

At the dread and despair rattling through him as he shivers and shakes for me, his body weak and running on fumes after our cat and mouse game out here in the woods.

The blood in my body rushes south, and a hot tingle races up my spine.

Fuck . I love this part.

He thought he was safe. He thought he was invincible. Who knew taking a cigarette break in the middle of his night shift—on this massive industrial property out in the middle of nowhere—would end with him on his knees for a complete fucking psychopath.

I knew. This was premeditated. A week of careful planning coming to sweet fruition.

Although this large piece of land is on the outskirts of a trail system I know almost by heart, it's two in the morning and not a single soul is out here but us.

I chased him, dragged him, and forced him deeper and deeper into the woods until I was certain no one from the factory he worked in would hear him scream.

No one can hear him as I torment him, and end his pathetic existence.

“I’m begging you, man…” Sebastian whimpers, lifting his shaking hands as if to placate an agitated predator.

Fresh tears spill in glassy rivulets down his cheeks, illuminated by the light of the full moon overhead as it pierces the canopy of trees.

The sight of those tears makes the maniacal grin on my face beam in the darkness of night.

Men like Sebastian, who get off on hurting those who are smaller and more vulnerable than him, are my favourite kind of prey .

Nothing brings me more pleasure than watching men like him crumble and fall apart for me, and nothing brings me more peace than watching someone that truly deserves it suffer and die under my blade.

“Do you know why you’re here, Sebastian?” I ask as I lift a hand to grip his jaw, angling his face toward mine so that our gazes remain locked together. “Do you remember my face?”

“N-no,” he stutters in response as desperation fills his eyes. Right now, he reminds me of a dying animal reaching for salvation one last time. “I swear I don’t know who you are.”

My fingers grip his jaw tighter, my nails biting into his skin so hard that blood blossoms in the crescents I’ve imprinted into his flesh. “Don’t you fucking lie to me, Sebastian. That’s only going to piss me the fuck off.”

Blood sputters from his lips as another pitiful cry tumbles from the big man’s mouth, and he nods dejectedly.

“You’re that guy,” he begins, his sentence interrupted by the blood pouring from the holes where several of his teeth used to be, the wounds agitated from the force I exert on his face.

“The guy from the trail with that German Shepherd.”

I smile.

He flinches.

“You punched your dog in the head four fucking times, just because she barked at us as we jogged by,” I seethe, baring my teeth as fresh rage follows in the wake of the memories of that cool summer evening just a week ago .

“It’s just a fucking dog, man,” he bellows like a wounded beast, as though he cannot believe he is here on his knees, suffering for his sins.

The memory of his black Labrador Retriever pancaked in the dirt, trying to be as small as possible as to not encourage further assault, has me clenching my jaw so tightly my teeth ache. “We don’t deserve dogs,” I tell him through clenched teeth, “and you don’t deserve to fucking breathe.”

I reach behind my back to the holster hidden beneath my hoodie, and pull my dagger free, lifting it high over Sebastian’s head. His mouth falls open as his eyes track the movement of my blade.

I pause for a moment to savor the look in his glistening eyes, as every last shred of hope he was holding onto dies right there in front of me.

My hand slams down, driving the brutally sharp blade down at just the right angle to slip through the intercostal muscles between his ribs. The dagger slides into the rapidly beating heart hidden below, finding its perfect home.

I lean in closer, still gripping his jaw tightly with my other hand, forcing his eyes to hold my burning stare. A violent cough surges through him, hot blood splattering across my face, neck, and chest.

A tidal wave of raw, primal pleasure crashes into me and takes my breath away as I push with the blade to open the wound a little more.

I sigh deeply as the blood pulses and gushes from around the black and silver steel lodged in his chest, his dying heart malfunctioning as the natural rhythms are disrupted and ruined .

I groan as his eyes roll back, the light of life disappearing as he goes slack. Releasing his jaw, I pull my knife free, and watch as his body slumps and collapses into the dirt at my feet.

Standing, I wipe the dagger on the front of my shirt and sheathe it behind me once again.

I stare down at the now lifeless man at my feet, taking in every detail of his death and committing it to memory. His eyes are empty, but the right lid twitches sporadically as the nerves die. His muscles have relaxed, the putrid scent of urine filling my senses as his bladder releases.

Death is beautiful in its ugliness, a contradiction I find fascinating. What remains after my work is done isn’t what I’m addicted to though. It’s the process a person goes through prior. Pain, fear, struggle, and desperation… until you see the precious light of life slip away from their eyes.

And there’s a moment right before they’re gone—just a split second—of relaxation and resignation that sets my teeth on edge.

That moment must last a century for the dying, but it’s frustratingly brief and fleeting for me to witness.

The stage where they willingly let go, and sink into blissful oblivion.

It’s sacred. Most people fight death, but no matter how hard they fight, they can’t avoid that final fall. The release. The disconnection from life.

A scowl takes over where a wicked grin once took up residence, remembering why we’re even here in the first place. After I bury this worthless wretch, I’ll have to get back to his house, pick up his dog, and drop it off anonymously at a rescue in the next city over .

I may be a murderer, but I happen to love animals. Their suffering never fails to bring out the worst in me.

I pull my phone from my back pocket and check the time. With about four hours until sunrise, I need to start digging. I abandon the corpse of Sebastian Jones and head back towards the factory where I left my shovel hidden.

Once I have it in hand, I jog back and start digging. By the time I hit ten feet down, my upper body is burning and aching. Six feet is enough for a cemetery, but I’m a man that loves to delve deep.

It takes some real effort to climb back out of the deep pit, but once I do, I don’t hesitate to kick and roll Sebastian into his unmarked grave.

With his body dumped, I scrape up as much blood-soaked dirt as I can and cover him with it, before beginning the difficult task of filling the grave. By the time I’m done, I’m exhausted.

I grab a small tree and transplant it over the spot, before scattering some rocks, moss and leaves from the surrounding forest floor.

Within moments, Sebastian’s unmarked grave disappears. He has become food for the Earth and all of its superior inhabitants.

I press the head of the shovel into the ground at my feet and lean against it as I wait for my breathing to even out, staring at the place my victim now lies for the rest of eternity.

Sebastian doesn’t have much in the way of family, but he has a surprising amount of friends.

In a few days, someone will notice he’s not around, and then they will call the police for a wellness check.

Then he’ll be a missing person, a face in the news that will eventually fade into oblivion where he belongs.

Now that he’s dead and my violent itch has been scratched, I find myself turning my focus inward.

The pleasure of the kill begins to dim in the aftermath. Without release, the tension doesn’t fade—it lingers, simmering beneath my skin.

I never come when I kill someone. No matter how high I get in the moment, the orgasm never hits. The euphoria just builds and builds, but stays trapped inside of me with nowhere to go.

It took a long time to understand why I get so fucking turned on when I take someone’s life.

In the early days, I experimented; I’ve tried to jerk off before, during, and after a kill. For whatever reason, it felt mechanical and forced. Doing it only turned my stomach and ruined the rush. So I stopped trying.

With enough introspection, I eventually recognized that the connection between this intense euphoria I experience and the act of taking someone’s life has everything to do with me feeling like a fucking deity.

It was never about sex, it was always about godhood.

Death and sex have yet to collide in the middle for me, but they come from the same deranged place. On the very rare occasion that I want to fuck someone, I always bring domination, control, and a little bit of mental and physical agony to the bedroom.

It turns out that I'm not just a deranged killer, I’m a sexual deviant, too .

I guess that’s par for the course for men like me; monsters masquerading as men.

Once upon a time, I’d have blamed childhood trauma for the way I turned out, but even severe neglect and abuse in the foster system couldn’t account for all of the depravity I’ve lusted after since puberty.

Reality is, I’m just not fucking wired right.

My phone rings, the tone jolting me out of my thoughts and pulling me back into the moment. I answer the call, seeing the familiar name on the screen.

“We need you, Dom. Torin is losing it again,” Ghost snaps before I can even greet him, his deep voice tight with what I recognize as anxious dread.

Tension winds its way through my entire body, and I tilt my head towards the night sky to stare up at the bright moon above.

My three foster brothers—Ghost, Ryker, and Torin—aren’t wired right, either.

It’s outside of my skill set to figure out whether or not who we’ve become is born of trauma, or if it’s just hard-wired into our coding.

Torin got the worst of it all. He didn’t escape the hell that was our childhood unscathed. Out of the four of us, he is undoubtedly the most traumatized. He took the brunt of our foster father’s abuse, which left him with PTSD—not that he would ever acknowledge it.

Torin may be a big, bad motherfucker now… but when we were kids, he was slow to develop and that meant he was the smallest and the easiest to physically manipulate.

He was the perfect victim for our sick, depraved foster parents. And he was the only victim of our foster mother, who took a particularly fucked up liking to him.

My skin crawls as a memory floods in of Mrs. Barton taking him from our bedroom in the middle of the night to “play a game” with him.

I swallow the surge of rage and agony and force the memory away. It won’t help me now, not when I need to be present for my younger brothers.

“Get him to my place,” I tell Ghost, my feet already moving to carry me back towards my car, the shovel resting over my shoulder.

“He won’t let me get him in my car. I already texted Ryker, and he’s on the way, but Dom… he’s fucking gone. He’s trapped in some fucking memory, and I…”

Ghost’s words are cut off as an agonized scream pierces through the phone, the horrific sound like the knell of a dying animal. Goosebumps erupt all over my skin, and I break out into a run towards my vehicle, the phone clutched tightly in my other hand.

“Dom…” Ghost starts, and I'm only a little bit relieved when I hear Ryker’s voice on the other end of the line. At least Ghost has back up now.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I shout, frustration wrapping a fist around my pitch black heart as I haul ass through the woods. “ Do whatever the fuck you have to do to get him to my place. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I make it back to the nondescript black sedan with fake license plates that I use for my extracurricular activities, throwing my gear into the trunk and sliding into the driver side seat.

I'm back on the road, and heading towards the city while defying every speed limit.

Torin has these episodes occasionally, but he usually shows up at my place asking to spar when he needs to work his shit out. I don’t know what triggered him today, but I’m grateful Ghost was there with him.

All four of us spend a lot of time in the home gym that I built in my basement, which includes a modified boxing ring that we spar in regularly.

It’s the place Torin always comes when he needs his own unique brand of therapy.

The fact that he didn’t even try to text me, or come over, or reach out to me at all… that shit fucking scares me. It’s clear he has spiraled way past the point where he can think clearly and do something to manage the horrific memories he battles every day.

I can’t lose my brother. I can’t lose any of them.

We may not be related by blood, but something darker binds us. We chose each other when we were preteen boys, huddled together on filthy mattresses on a dirty floor—and our loyalty to each other borders on lunacy.

I’m exhausted, my body aching from tonight’s fun, but there is no rest waiting for me when I get home.

The devil doesn’t sleep, so why should I?