Page 3 of Vicious Behaviors (The Next Vicious Generation #3)

Killing Father McDonagh earlier today wasn’t enough.

He wants more. More carnage. More screams. More souls to devour with his black heart and razor-sharp teeth.

And the worst part of all of this is that I’m more than willing to feed him.

I do it freely and without reservation. Because if I don’t…

he feeds on me. Feeds on my bruised and tormented soul until I’m nothing but a shell.

Until there’s nothing left of me at all. Just him. Only him.

So as he hums in the back of my mind, sharpening his fangs and nails, I whisper my consent. “Kill whoever you have to, as long as our family stays whole.”

‘I always do.’

Half an hour later, we speed onto the abandoned airfield and find a private jet beginning to taxi down the cracked runway in the distance.

“There!” I shout, the devil seething with glee in my ear when he sees his target.

Dom cuts the wheel hard and floors it, aiming straight for the private jet. But it’s too late. The plane lifts, its wheels dangerously close to grazing the hood of our car with a metallic screech before it rises into the night sky.

We sit in agonizing silence, watching the plane disappear into the dark of night, praying that Stella, Frankie, and Lucky aren’t inside.

A fool’s prayer. We all know they’re on that plane. The question is, where is that plane taking them?

“Drive to the hangar,” my father says, his voice cold as a blade. “We need to know where that plane is going.”

Dom nods and turns us toward the building. Other cars start to arrive, their headlights slicing through the darkness, filled with my father’s lieutenants, all too eager to join in on the action.

The first thing we notice as we reach the hangar is that its doors are wide open. The second is the two men lying on the ground. One is already dead, his eyes open and glassy, while the other is bleeding badly from a gunshot wound to his leg, writhing in pain, trying to crawl away.

My father doesn’t hesitate as he steps out of the car. “Marcello.” That’s all he says. Just my name. No command to follow. No uttered order to obey. He doesn’t need one. I already know what he wants me to do. It’s the same thing the monster inside me has been salivating for.

I immediately jump into action and walk toward the man, still dragging his bleeding leg behind him like dead weight.

‘Let him try to run, ’ the voice purrs. ‘ You know I love a good chase.’

However, I’m not in the mood for his games. Not tonight.

I grab a fistful of the man’s hair and yank him back, crouching low to whisper in his ear, “Where are my sister and brother?” The cold hiss of my voice sounds foreign to my own ears. “Who took them?”

The bastard has the audacity to spit on me. “Fuck you.”

‘Oh, goodie, ’ the demon inside me hums. ‘ He wants us to break him.’

I shove down the bile clawing up my throat and tighten my grip on his hair.

“We can do this the easy way,” I say calmly, “or the hard way.”

‘And you don’t want us to do it the hard way,’ the devil laughs.

I press my foot into the bullet wound in his thigh. His shrill scream is louder than any other sound in the hangar, but he still bares his teeth at me.

“Fuck you,” he retorts in mangled English.

I shake my head.

‘You heard the man, ’ the voice grins. ‘ Let me try.’

I take a deep breath and lean down, eyes locked on his as I let the monster peek at them. Not all the way. Not yet. Just enough for him to see through my eyes and witness to the unholy thing living inside me. The thing that craves its pound of flesh by any means.

The man pales instantly, bearing witness to his own death marred in my eyes.

“Tell me who took my brother and sister? Tell me who and I’ll let you live.”

It’s a lie. I know it, and he knows it.

“Idi na huy!”

I don’t need a translator to know he just told me to fuck myself.

‘My turn,’ the voice demands, no longer happy sitting on the sidelines . And I obey him. Like I always do. Knowing he is my siblings’ best chance right now.

The minute I let go… something shifts in the air around me.

The temperature drops instantly, creating a prickling sensation to creep up my spine.

And then, in a flash, I’m no longer in control.

Like an outsider looking in, I feel my arms move, but I don’t give the command.

I see my hand pull the knife from Dom’s belt beside me, but I don’t remember reaching for it.

The man starts begging on cue, but I never hear a word spill from his lips.

The blade slices across his palm first, then deeper—tendons, nerves, blood spilling out like ink across concrete.

I flip him over, press my knee into his back, and carve lines up the length of his arms.

‘He’ll talk now,’ the demon boasts. But still, the man grits his teeth. Defiant even in his fear and pain. ‘Hmm. Maybe we have to be more convincing,’ the voice cackles in pleasure.

His words have barely taken root in my mind when I see myself move the dagger in my hand onto his shoulder and start cutting.

Cutting… cutting… cutting until the blade meets bone.

But I don’t stop. I never stop. And somewhere in the haze, I hear my own voice, loud and clear, speaking to him—except it’s not my voice at all.

It’s something darker, deeper… almost ancient.

“Do you feel that?” I whisper to him, pressing the blade against his throat. “That’s your soul begging to leave your body. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll make sure not to give it what it wants.”

The man just curses at me in his native tongue, forcing me to break one of his fingers to get my point across.

Followed by a second. Then a third. A fourth.

Once all his digits have been rendered useless, I take the tip of my dagger and push it slowly under one of his fingernails.

One by one, they pop off like buttons off a worn-out winter coat.

His deafening screams echo in the night like a choir of the damned wailing in hell. Then… nothing. Black. Just black. My mind goes completely blank. Like a curtain falling, calling intermission. It only rises again when I feel Dominic’s hands on my shoulders, shaking me awake from my stupor.

“Marcello!” he barks. “Marcello!”

I blink once. Then twice. It takes me a third blink for my vision to fully clear and realize I’m covered in blood. In his blood.

The man at my feet isn’t screaming anymore. He isn’t moving. He’s not even a man anymore. Just body parts.

“Stop,” Dom says, his voice patient but firm.

“We have a name, son. It was Mikhail Petrov. The Pakhan is the one who has Stella and Lucky.” Before I can take another look, he steps in front of me, shielding my view of the mutilated corpse, trying to insulate me from myself and what I’m capable of. “We have a name. That’s enough.”

I stumble back, panting, the blade still wet in my hand. And that’s when I realize the fearful glances of all my father’s men toward me. No one speaks. Not even the monster inside me, now quiet, content, and full.

Despite all the eyes on me, it’s his that land hardest—my father’s.

Vincent Romano doesn’t utter a word. He doesn’t have to.

His silence cuts deeper than any scream this hangar has witnessed tonight.

And his stare? That’s what truly guts me.

Disappointment—plain and wordless—carved into every fine line of his face, his eyes portraying that I, once again, have fallen short. That I, once again, let the devil win.