Heart of My Monster (Monster Trilogy, #3)(14)

I look at her carefree expression through a red haze. Literally. My glasses are splashed with blood, and I can’t be bothered to clean them.

“Who ordered the hit on this person?” I ask calmly, apathetically even.

Roel stares at the picture, and there’s no change in his expression. I’ll give him that. But there is a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

He knows exactly why the fuck I’m here.

“I’ve never seen her in my life.”

“I didn’t say she was a she.” I thrust the phone in his face. “Why was she killed?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbles against the screen.

“Very well.” I pocket my phone. “Viktor. Bring me some motherfuckers.”

I remove my jacket, throw it aside, and slowly roll my shirt sleeves to my elbows. The wound in my bicep has stopped bleeding, but not before it soaked my white shirt red.

Viktor and a few of my other guards push five Albanians in front of me beside Roel. They look at their leader with both fear and pleading.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he repeats from behind clenched teeth. “If you want something, torture me!”

“Where’s the fun in that?” I fetch my knife. “Besides, you’ll probably never talk, even if you’re tortured to within an inch of your life, and I’d rather not waste any effort.”

“You’re supposed to be the fucking Pakhan! This is madness.”

I grab one of his men, position him on his knees facing Roel, and hold the blade to his throat. “Who ordered the hit?”

“I don’t fucking know!”

I slice his throat in one motion. Blood splashes from his neck, bathing Roel and me. I don’t blink as I throw the sorry fuck aside while he gurgles and chokes on his own blood.

Roel curses while his other men look like they’re going to be sick.

I clean my glasses with my shirt, then clutch the second one and jam my knife at his throat. “Who ordered it?”

“I said I don’t fucking know!!” He’s screaming now, so close to losing control as the one in my hold trembles.

I stab him in the back of the neck, then in his throat and heart and chest, over and over, and fucking over. I do it long after he’s dead and mutilated, until someone actually throws up.

This time, I don’t bother cleaning my glasses and throw them on the corpse.

“You’re fucking crazy,” Roel whispers, his whole body shaking.

I haul the third man to his feet, then kick him in the shin as he screams and fruitlessly tries to fight my grip. “Who ordered it?”

Roel shakes his head, hesitantly this time.

I snap the third’s neck then shove him aside. “I can do this all night long. I’ll bring your wife and children, too. I’ll slaughter each and every one of them in front of your eyes. I’ll stab them so many times that you won’t recognize their fucking corpses. Just like I didn’t recognize her corpse.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!”

“Not the answer I need.” I clutch the fourth by the hair. He smells of vomit, and he’s pissed himself at watching his comrades being slaughtered.

He doesn’t even fight me and mumbles what sounds like a prayer in Albanian.

No God answers him as I slice his throat open.

“Viktor.” I wipe the blood from my face with the back of my hand. “Bring me Roel’s family.”

“Wait! Wait!” Roel breathes heavily, and the man beside him nearly faints with relief.

“After you murdered my cousin, I wanted to kill you with my bare hands, but that was impossible with my manpower.” He pants as if he’s coming down from running a marathon. “A few weeks ago, we met a man who said if I wanted to really hurt you, I should kill your girly guard. He told us to wait until he gives us the okay and an opening. That opening came a week ago when that guard was alone. He sent us the place’s coordinates and told us to wipe it and everyone inside of it out.”

My jaw tightens. “What does he look like?”

“When we met, he was on the other side of a wall and spoke using a voice altering device. Our subsequent communication was done through emails.”

“Where are those emails?”

“In the car.”

Viktor heads there and fetches a briefcase from the trunk. He opens it and retrieves a laptop, then brings it to Roel, who opens it with a thumbprint.

Viktor goes through it for a few minutes, then nods.

I lean down and stare at Roel’s beady eyes. “You messed with the wrong fucking person. I’ll make sure none of you roam the streets ever again.”

While looking at him, I throw the knife straight at his last man’s throat. “I’m going to torture you until you wish for fucking death, Roel, and even then, I won’t give it to you. I’ll make your life as bleak as you made mine.”

But I know—I just know—that nothing will ever fill the hole that’s been growing bigger and deeper in my chest.

The only person who knew how is now gone.





4





KIRILL





It’s not enough.

Not the killing spree.

Not the torture.

Not the lead that I’m following to lure out the person who gave that information to the Albanians.