King of Envy: Chapter 38

Dexter, also known as Bone Man. Age: forty-one. Kill count: fifty-plus, making him one of the Brotherhood’s most prolific killers.

He hadn’t changed much over the years. Same eyes, same glasses, same shitty attitude as he smirked at me.

“Markovic.” His soft, almost high-pitched voice was deceptively gentle. “Still alive, I see. What a shame.”

I ignored the bait and walked over to the table. A range of instruments glinted atop the wooden surface. I selected the pliers—something easy to start us off.

When I turned, Dexter’s face was placid, but I caught the split-second flick of his eyes to the table.

He knew exactly what each and every instrument was for. He hadn’t earned the nickname Bone Man for nothing.

Most hitmen liked clean kills. He was the one clients called for…messier jobs.

“Attacking during the wedding was a mistake,” I said softly. I untied one of his hands from the chair and, without ceremony, ripped his thumbnail off with the pliers.

A lesser man would’ve screamed; Dexter simply gritted his teeth, his muscles tensing. Blood splashed onto the tarp.

“I thought I made myself clear years ago.” I took a second nail and earned a flinch. It was a boring start to our session, but warmups were important. “If you’re going to come for me…” I leaned down to look him straight in the eye as I removed the third nail with cruel, agonizing slowness. “Don’t fucking miss.”

His first scream came at nail number five.

Here was the thing about hitmen: they weren’t used to being prey. Sure, some of them came from Special Ops backgrounds, and some were tougher than others, but in the end, everyone broke. It was just a matter of time.

Unfortunately, our time together was limited. I had a handful of hours to get the information I needed out of him, which meant I needed to speed things up. I couldn’t toy with him forever.

Luckily, I’d always hated Dexter. I resorted to extreme violence when it was necessary, but he relished brutality for brutality’s sake. A little psychopath dressed up as a professor. If he didn’t have the Brotherhood to control his urges, he’d be an indiscriminate serial killer.

He wasn’t part of the old leadership or the group that broke into my house, which was the only reason he’d survived my purge all those years ago. But he shot Jordan, and he almost hit Ayana. He’d signed his long-overdue death warrant a week ago.

After I rid him of all ten nails, I tossed the pliers aside and got to work. I had plenty of tools at my disposal, and if I was put off by his screams or the amount of blood soaking the tarp, I only had to picture Jordan lying on the ground, his eyes wide open. I heard Ayana’s scream and felt her tremble as she went into shock. I tasted the cold, metallic fear that inundated me whenever I thought about how close she’d come to getting a bullet in her heart.

I remembered, and I felt, and I raged.

Every ounce of guilt, fury, shame, and helplessness I’d felt over the past week—hell, the past year—funneled through my veins and into my bloodthirstiness.

The world didn’t exist outside this room. D.C. was a distant memory; Ayana a pinprick of light above the surface, too far for me to reach here in the depths of my depravity.

My veins pulsed. The dormant monster inside me clawed its way out, shredding recollections of smiles and perfumes and late-afternoon walks in the sun.

This was it. Beneath the suits and guise of respectability, this was who I am. I took my pounds of flesh from my enemies, and I didn’t feel a speck of remorse about it.

“When’s the next hit, Dex?”

We were hours into our session. He was unrecognizable, his face a crimson pulp of bruises and flesh. Several teeth littered the floor next to his nails.

“Fuck you,” he slurred.

So there was still a bit of fight left in him.

He’d given up what he knew about the current state of the Brotherhood’s finances, safe houses, and internal workings, but he hadn’t budged on their immediate future plans—yet.

“Tell me or don’t. You’ll die either way. But we can make this relatively quick…” I tossed the drill aside and picked up a handsaw. “Or we can do this the hard way.”

Dexter’s breath bubbled with panic. The handsaw was his favorite toy. He knew exactly how creative its users could get.

He watched me approach, his eyes losing their spark of defiance. He hadn’t pledged undying loyalty to the Brotherhood. They were merely an employer, and his refusal to give me what I wanted was rooted in pride and spite, nothing else.

Luckily, pride and spite didn’t compare to the merciless teeth of pain.

It took less than fifteen minutes for the saw to achieve its objective.

Dexter gave up Shepherd, and I gave him the (relatively) quick death I’d promised.

I pressed my gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Crimson mist spattered my skin. His body slumped, and it was over.

I stood in the resulting silence, my skin sticky with blood. Carnage and gore piled around me in a scene that would make the strongest stomachs heave, but I felt detached from the whole thing.

This. This was why the Brotherhood had left me alone for all these years. They were professional killers, but when I locked onto a target, I was vicious. Pitiless.

Adrenaline continued to pump, and the stench of death choked my lungs. I should leave and let my men clean this mess up, but I didn’t.

My body was here, but my mind was hundreds of miles and years away. Thirteen years ago, to be exact, when I’d systematically hunted and destroyed those responsible for my brother’s death.

The arrogance of the Brotherhood’s old leadership proved to be their downfall. They didn’t think one man could possibly pose a threat, but vengeance had a way of turning ordinary people into monsters. I’d quietly studied their kill methods during my years with them, and when the time came, I adapted them for my own use.

I went into hiding after the fire. I used my knowledge of their tricks and capabilities to evade them while I formulated my plan. Once I was fully healed, I tracked the leaders down over the course of a year. The ones who broke into my house were mere foot soldiers; it was the people at the top who really needed to pay.

I found them in their homes, in their cars, and at the day jobs they worked to keep up pretenses. When they sent their best after me, I killed them too, and I made sure their deaths were so gruesome it dissuaded others from hunting me.

Eventually, the leadership’s ranks dwindled to the point that they offered a truce. They would forget about the ledger, and I would end my revenge campaign. I’d gotten my pound of flesh and more. As long as we stayed out of each other’s way, we could coexist in uneasy peace.

I’d agreed. I’d made my point, and decimating the Brotherhood wouldn’t bring Lazar back. It was either let them go or spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.

Now here we were, back to square one. Them hunting me; me exacting my vengeance. The circle of life and death went on.

Spots flickered in front of my vision. I blinked, and the world slowly came back in bits and pieces.

Dexter. The warehouse. New York.

Clarity set in at the same time my murderous haze dissipated.

Twelve hours ago, I’d held Ayana in my arms. Touched her with the same hands that’d tortured and ended a man’s life. Kissed her with the same mouth that’d pressed for more—more intel, more screams—while I broke another human into a shell of who they used to be.

What would she say if she knew what I was truly capable of?

The coppery scent of blood thickened. Bile rose in my throat, and I turned abruptly, eager to cast Dexter behind me.

When I exited the basement, Sean was waiting for me. He must’ve sent Bruce and Mav upstairs to man the exits.

“I assume it went well,” he said. He didn’t flinch at my splattered clothing. He had his fair share of skeletons in the closet; my actions wouldn’t faze him in the slightest.

I gave a terse nod. I shared the info I’d gleaned and tasked Sean with confirming its veracity. There was a slim chance Dexter had fed me bad intel, though most of it matched Roman’s. The details that didn’t were the ones Roman didn’t know.

We had to move fast. According to Dexter, Shepherd’s faction was planning another hit before the end of the month. No witnesses or public events this time—it would be targeted directly at me. That was all he knew.

I believed him; Shepherd wouldn’t share his entire strategy with underlings. Luckily, Dexter had given me the location of his primary war room and weapons stash. If we preemptively destroyed those or, better yet, killed Shepherd, we could end the Brotherhood’s civil war and get them off my fucking ass.

“I’ll double-check the intel and have someone recon their war room,” Sean said. “But we’re already stretched thin, and this is going to take all our resources. Do you want us to pull back on Emmanuelle until we hit Shepherd?”

I’d kept my tail on the Beaumont agency head, but months of reconnaissance had turned up nothing. My gut told me I shouldn’t dismiss her—there was something there—but I couldn’t make the pieces fit yet. Given the circumstances, I had to prioritize.

I nodded again, giving Sean the go-ahead to consolidate our resources.

I left him, Mav, and Bruce to dispose of Dexter while I cleaned up, changed in the bathroom, and tossed my old clothes into an incinerator. It wasn’t much, but at least I didn’t look like I’d walked off a horror movie set anymore.

I waited until I was half an hour out from the warehouse before I turned on my phone. Missed calls and text messages flooded my screen.

My heart stopped. At first, I thought something had happened to Ayana, or Jordan had died, but a quick scan of the messages proved otherwise.

A cool shock of air burned my lungs.

He was awake.

He hadn’t died because of me.

He was awake.