Raphael (Deadly Virtues #1)(52)

He wanted to understand. The fact that he couldn’t, didn’t have the ability to, no matter how hard he tried, only made his anger worse.

The red mist’s talons spread, devouring his face and neck, arms and legs. It rushed through his torso until it smothered his heart in black and made it thirst for death. Hearing another sob slip from Maria’s mouth, Raphael fled the room.

He slammed the door and locked it, trapping Maria inside with her tears and her safe words. He didn’t even register fleeing down the stairs and out into the frigid cold air until he was behind the wheel of his car and driving toward downtown Boston.

The car was silent but for Raphael’s heavy breathing. He gripped the steering wheel tighter with every mile he drove. His gaze dropped to his hands, hands that now knew every inch of Maria, how her skin felt, how her nipples beaded under his touch. How her fingers felt wrapped in his. He gritted his teeth thinking of her in the corner of the closet. Shifting his grip, he squeezed until all he saw under his fingers was not a wheel but a neck.

He squeezed it so tight that if it were a neck he would have snapped it, crushed the trachea and distorted the bones. This he knew. This he understood.

This he craved.

He had to have it. Had to sate his hunger for death.

The countryside was a blur of dark greens as Raphael raced to the sex club. He parked his car in the alleyway outside the club, deep in the shadows. Raphael let his feet and his dark need lead him through the entrance. He flashed his card and rushed up the stairs. He didn’t even care if the Brethren would be watching. In fact, he hoped they were. He would welcome the fight. Raphael needed the rush only death could bring—the more necks snapped under his desperate hands the better.

The smell of sex and cum hit Raphael’s nose first. Smoke was heavy in the air, smoke that disguised people’s identities. People who paid a small fortune to be whipped and spanked and eaten out while tied up with ropes and chains. Raphael wasn’t playing his usual role tonight. He wasn’t calm and suave, casting seductive looks and luring willing pussy into his trap. Tonight he was savage. He was untamed and ready to fuck and kill and erase Maria from his head. Maria with her pouring tears, perfect long hair, and whispered pleas. Saying no to him and his mouth, his tongue, his hands on her body.

Raphael didn’t have to wait long to get what he wanted. The blond he was scheduled to kill weeks ago cut through the crowd, her eyes fixed on his. She was dressed in a leather bra and panties, her fake tits bursting through the straps that did nothing to conceal her figure. Her panties were made of two leather straps that wrapped around her inner thighs and hips. Her pussy was free and bare, her ass too. Raphael couldn’t even remember this bitch’s name. As she stood before him, her arrogant chin tilting up, she smiled. “Pollyanna not giving you what you want anymore?”

Raphael ignored her stupid words, reached out and cupped her naked pussy. It was already soaking wet. Good. Less work for him. With his other hand, Raphael gripped her stringy, peroxide-ruined hair. The strands were straw under his fingers. They were nothing like Maria’s. Hers were silky and thick and smelled of vanilla and rose. Bitterness and rage boiled in Raphael’s gut at the offensive smell of lavender. He yanked the bitch’s head back, relishing the surprise in her eyes. The trafficking slut moaned; she liked it rough. Perfect. So did he. Raphael waited for his cock to become strangled in its cage, coveted the sting and the burn the cage would push onto him. But it didn’t even stir. Not even a flicker.

In that moment he gave himself over to the rage threatening to consume him.

Even through his red lust, Raphael saw they were pulling in a curious crowd. Members waiting to watch him bring this bitch to heel. To make her scream, wound her leathery skin, before fucking her so hard she wouldn’t be able to walk for a week. He knew he had to get her to a back room. Gabriel’s teachings about stealth and privacy were too ingrained for him to forget.

With his hand still in her hair, Raphael pulled the bitch, mewling and moaning at his aggressive dominance, through the disappointed crowd and into a private room. Raphael slammed the door and dragged the bitch over to the wooden horse that sat in the center. The triangular device was perfect for what he wanted. He lifted her onto it, her legs straddling either side, and chained her hands to its attached shackle. He tied weights to her ankles to keep her in place. Pushing a ball gag into her mouth, he stepped away and stared at her back. The skin was still red from where someone else had flogged her.

Raphael walked to the wall of flogs and whips and picked out the thin leather strap. He cracked it in his hand, the deafening snap echoing off the walls. The bitch moaned at the sound and her hips rolled, pushing her clit against the pointed wood between her legs.

“Red rose,” Raphael bit out. “‘Red rose’ to stop.” Just hearing those words slip from his lips drove his need to kill harder and harder, until death was all he could think and see and breathe. Though he had no intention of stopping; the safe words, this time, were useless. This bitch wouldn’t be leaving the room alive. Raphael smirked. She trafficked little kids to men for sex. His hand tightened on the strap. Raphael was a killer, a fucked-up heathen with an endless black hole as a heart and a Satan-tainted soul. But even he, evil made flesh, knew this cunt deserved to die for messing with kids. He knew all too well what that life felt like. She need to die.

Painfully.

Brutally.

Perish under his sadistic hands.