[ARTEMY]
One second. Two. Three. Four.
With each passing second, her panic grew.
Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
She cried silently. I just smiled, or was it a half sadistic smile? Probably.
Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
I heard the door behind us open. It closed with a bang. I heard the sound of high heels clicking against the hard floor.
“Did someone call me?” the intruder said to my back. I felt the smile in the intruder’s voice.
I didn’t answer. My gaze stayed on Casey, unflinching. Although she was looking behind me now. Her already wide eyes widened more.
“I said I wasn’t going to hurt you. But that doesn’t mean someone else can’t,” I murmured so only she could hear.
“No, no, no,” she whispered in alarm as I pulled back, my back straightening as I stood to my full height. “Who are you?” Her voice trembled, but the words were spoken clear enough for everyone to hear.
“My name is not important.”
The words were softly spoken, but the voice held such dark promises. I took a step back and watched Casey shake in fear. Dread filled her expression, and her lips quivered with the effort to keep her tears at bay.
I turned around and faced the intruder. The side of my lips tilted up in a small smile.
Only she would dress up for a job like this. Black leather jacket. Tight black leather pants. Red heels. The hood of the jacket was over her head, covering half of her face. It was used to camouflage her appearance.
One second passed. Another.
She lifted her hands up and pulled the hood down, showing her face. Her face was as flawless as ever, with her lips painted red. Only this time, she looked different. Her expression showed no emotion.
Blonde hair fell down her back as she looked straight at the tied-up woman behind me.
A smile spread across her lips, although it was nothing close to welcoming or gentle. No, it was a sadistic smile. A predator ready to hunt its prey.
The woman standing in front of me looked very much like the killer she was.
Bernadette.
She worked undercover for me, but she was also a killer. A trained assassin. Someone who did my dirty work.
And by dirty work I meant torturing the answers out of women who refused to cooperate.
She took a step forward. Another. A few more steps until she walked past me and stood in front of Casey.
“What you need to know is that by the time I’m done, you won’t remember your name. Or the difference between living and dead,” she started, her voice low and deadly.
Leaning forward until their faces were close, noses almost touching, Bernadette’s lips curled up. “I am your worst nightmare, baby. I am what you call…Death.”
Those were the same lines she fed her captives. They would tremble in fear and sometimes piss their pants. The reaction she got from Casey was no different.
Bernadette was good at her job. Better than most. She did her job with a passion.
Bernadette had the same darkness that my men and I had in us. She craved blood. She had the need to kill.
“Your tools and everything you need are in the bag next to your feet,” Brayden announced, finally speaking up.
“Thank you,” she replied, not glancing away from her captive.
Shaking my head, I rolled my shoulders, trying to relieve the tension there. “She’s all yours,” I muttered before turning around and striding away.
I walked out of the house with my men following closely behind me.
Bernadette worked alone, not that she needed help.
Avim closed the door as I leaned against the wall. “So?” Brayden asked.
My reply was simple. “We wait.”
That was exactly what we did. We waited.
It was mostly quiet, but if I listened carefully, the muffled screams could be heard. They filled our ears as we stayed by the door. It shouldn’t have taken her hours to break Casey-but knowing Bernadette, she was just taking her time and enjoying this.
I could imagine what was going on in there, but I stopped thinking after a few minutes. Bernadette liked to get creative. She always surprised us, but whatever she did was always effective. At the end of the day, we got the answers we needed, and that was all that mattered.
How we got it didn’t matter.
After three hours, although I was surprised Casey lasted this long, the door finally opened. Bernadette walked out, looking fresh and surprisingly decent from what just occurred inside.
But then again, Bernadette was a clean assassin. As clean as a killer could get.
She stopped beside me, her face impassive as she stared straight ahead. Her sadistic smile was gone and now replaced with a more contented, relaxed one.
Bernadette removed her black leather gloves. They were most definitely stained with blood, but the thing with black was that the blood we spilled never showed on it.
She passed the gloves to Leon, who was standing beside her, her eyes on her hands as she inspected her nails.
“I need another manicure,” she muttered and tsked.
Shaking my head, I glanced at the door.
She noticed where my attention was and sighed. “Dalton is hiding at the Black Club.”
My eyebrows furrowed in question. “The MC?”
“The one and only. They work for Raffaele. Undercover. No wonder they’re helping hide Dalton,” Bernadette replied with an exaggerated huff.
“Casey finally admitted it?” I asked quietly.
Bernadette nodded. “It took me a little longer to break her.” She shrugged before continuing. “But no matter how long it takes, by the time I’m done with someone, they are always left broken.”
That was true. Bernadette was good at what she did. She liked to call herself Death. She earned that name, though.
“She is pretty loyal,” Bernadette added. Unfortunately, when it came to life and death, her loyalty flew out of the window.
“Is she alive?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.
“Well, she was when I left…I thought it would be nice to let her think about her life. I was in a generous mood, lucky her. But she stopped breathing about two minutes ago,” Bernadette replied dryly, looking down at her watch.
Brayden scoffed. “Generous mood,” he muttered under his breath.
Bernadette heard and sent him glare. “All of a sudden, I’m not in a generous mood anymore. Don’t test me, Brayden.”
She turned back to me and lost her glare in the process. Her face was still cold, but there was a hint of sympathy in her eyes, if it even was possible for her to feel anything.
“About Rebecca, I’m sorry,” she said regretfully. “I know what type of man Raffaele is. I saw how he treats the women in the clubs, and I can’t imagine what Rebecca is going through right now.”
My chest tightened at her words, and my body grew cold. Shaking her head, Bernadette glanced down before continuing. “I also owe her an apology. For what I said. Although I didn’t really mean what I said. I was testing her. To see if she was strong enough.”
Brayden shook his head and huffed. The others rolled their eyes. Bernadette glared, her eyes shooting venom.
“Oh please, all of you know that I could have broken her body in half before she even had a chance to lay a finger on me,” she hissed, her anger evident. “That’s enough to prove I didn’t mean it.”
I closed my eyes with a tired sigh. “You can apologize to her when she’s found.”
When I opened my eyes, I saw Bernadette nodding. When we fell into silence, she stepped off the porch. “If you need any other help-for anything-just call,” she said, her back straight, a look of determination and true loyalty on her face.
“I hope you find her soon,” Bernadette mumbled before walking away. “She deserves more than the life she got.”
I struggled to breathe, my chest heaving with the effort to be in control. I stared at Bernadette’s retreating back, and after a few minutes, I finally found myself calming down.
Although my blood still roared with the need to kill, I kept the rage underneath the layers on my skin.
I glanced back at the door. I should have just walked away and let Leon take care of the cleaning, but curiosity got the best of me.
I stepped back into the house and was assaulted with the smell of blood. I stared at the woman tied to the chair. Or what was left of the woman.
I felt no pain. No remorse. No emotions at all.
I approached her slowly and stopped a few feet away.
Brayden swore behind me. “Fuck yeah. Now that’s what I call art.”
“Creativity at its best,” Avim added quietly. Leon and Milandro chuckled.
I just stared. Her head fell limply against the back of the chair, her body sagging as her blood poured around her.
She was missing all the fingers on her right hand. All her nails from her left hand. Her missing fingers were on the floor in a pool of blood. She was missing an eye.
It looked like it had been carved out in the most painful and horrifying way. Not that I was surprised. Her other eye stared straight ahead, lifeless. The light had left her. Her face was covered in blood; her clothes were soaked with it.
The smell of death hung in the air. An unfortunate death for an unfortunate situation.
Warring emotions raced violently through my mind, but I quickly tamped them down. Now was not the time to get weak over a death.
“Leon. Milandro. Clean up,” I ordered, turning away from the lifeless woman.
I walked out of the house and took a deep breath as soon as I hit the fresh air.
I felt Avim and Brayden beside me. “What’s next?” Brayden asked.
“The Black Club,” was my only answer.