Page 39 of Twisted Violet (Lovesick Villains #4)

THIRTY-EIGHT

DALLAS

I hate silence.

I used to find comfort in it.

But right now, it just reminds me of everything we lost.

Her voice. Her laughter. Her joy.

He took all that from her. Tortured her for months right under our fucking noses.

So no, I don’t want silence.

I want chaos.

I want noise.

I want his screams to drown out my memory of ever hearing hers.

Ezra’s basement isn’t like the rest of their bar. It’s colder. Quieter. Like even the air down here knows something wicked’s about to happen.

It’s just the six of us down here.

Me, Rome, Niko, Ezra, Cyrus, and Tristan.

All of us gathered for one reason.

To break the monster who broke her .

The one who bought her, branded her, and raped her like the vile bastard he is.

He’s escaped justice for long enough.

But tonight?

He’s ours.

The second I see him, stripped down and chained up in the center of the basement like some mangy animal, something feral shifts in my chest. He’s not as smug as he was when we dragged him in earlier.

His blonde hair is matted to his forehead, his lips are split from Cyrus’ earlier introduction, and there’s a wild, darting panic in his eyes now.

Good.

He should be scared.

He should be terrified.

Because what’s coming for him?

Is made of fucking nightmares.

Ezra grabs a pair of gloves off the tray and tosses them to me. “You ready?”

I pull them on without hesitation.

“No music?” Tristan quips from the corner, checking the calibration on one of the tools like we’re tuning an instrument and not preparing for a bloodbath.

“I want to hear every second,” I mutter, grabbing a wrench off the wall.

The motherfucker starts to shake.

“You don’t understand,” he rasps, voice fraying. “Whatever she told you. She’s confused. She-”

I drive the wrench into his left kneecap .

He screams.

Loud. Messy. Pathetic.

“I understand enough,” I say calmly, rotating my wrist like I’m checking the follow-through on a golf swing. “I understand you kept her locked up like an animal. I understand you made her bleed. And I understand you made her think she deserved it.”

Another hit.

Crack.

His leg folds wrong, and Cyrus lets out a low whistle.

“Dallas is usually the sweet one,” he says to no one in particular, “but damn if he doesn’t turn savage when you fuck with someone he loves.”

That word-

Love.

I don’t flinch when he says it, because I know it’s true.

She’s not ours yet.

Not completely.

But she will be.

And until that day comes, we’ll bleed for her.

We’ll burn the world for her.

And we’ll vanquish all of her ghosts.

Niko steps forward next, quiet as always. No theatrics. No speeches. He just grabs a branding iron and steps towards him with that cold, surgical calm that makes him the scariest one in the room.

The asshole lifts his head, face bloodied, lips trembling. “Please…”

“No.” Niko says simply and slams the red hot iron into his chest.

The smell of seared flesh and charred hair fills the room as the mark hisses against his skin. He thrashes, convulses, but there’s nowhere for him to go.

There’s no hesitation in Niko’s movements. No mercy. Just clean, efficient cruelty.

Rome steps forward with a pair of medical gloves and a tray Ezra left out earlier filled with scalpels, clamps, and bone spreaders. The kind of shit you'd find in a trauma ward.

Rome selects a scalpel with a narrow tip, then crouches beside the bastard’s right leg.

“Hold him,” he says quietly.

Tristan obliges, and the asshole shakes again.

“Wha- what are you doing?” the man stammers, words slurring through pain and blood.

Rome doesn’t answer.

He makes a small incision just below the kneecap.

Then another.

And another.

He’s flaying skin now. Slow, controlled, and clinical. Peeling it back like layers of something rotten. There’s no anger in his expression, just focus.

“This is what it feels like,” he says, voice low. “To be exposed. To have someone strip you down and decide what parts of you are worth keeping.”

The man sobs.

Rome doesn’t flinch.

He just continues. Steady. Detached. A surgeon dismantling something he never considered human.

When the tendon twitches beneath the steel, he finally sets the scalpel down.

“You made her feel powerless,” he says. “So now you don’t get to feel human.”

Then he peels off the gloves and backs away without a word.

Ezra watches from the corner, arms folded, eyes sharp. He’s the conductor of this fucked-up symphony. Every tool here has a story. Every scream, a purpose.

Cyrus paces like a caged beast, tension vibrating off of him. And when he finally steps forward, he doesn’t waste time. Just grabs the bolt cutters and stalks toward his fingers.

“S… start with the thumbs,” Tristan offers, smirking from across the room. “Since the fucker likes to text so much.”

The pop is sickening. The scream? Worse.

But it’s nothing compared to what she lived through.

So we take turns.

Each of us pushing harder than the last.

Because pain like this shouldn’t be clean.

It should stain.

And it should come from all of us.

A shared reckoning for the bastard who shattered her.