Chapter 30 #2
“Oh God, no …” Anderson sobs uncontrollably. Guess he’s heard of me, then. “It’s not my fault!”
“Say it again till the walls do the same.”
“Bane …?” Wes gasps.
The blade glides up to my throat, tracing a slow line across it as I grin at him, wide-eyed.
“No god will stop what I will do.”
I lean in, my voice barely a whisper.
“… I am Bane, and I’m coming for you.”
Wes stares at me silently. No matter how much he’s pretending to be cool, I see that tightness in his jaw. He’s trying to stomach it, maybe even make sense of me.
“Why are you doing this?” Leo wails like a little bitch.
“Because your insides are mine now. Your panic, your piss, your prayers,” I hiss, dragging the blade across my tongue. “Mine to play with, all of it.”
“You’re sick.”
“You dared to touch what’s mine, and I’m ready to collect the price.”
I raise the blade and bring it down hard, slicing through his fingers. He howls as I watch the stumps pulse, fascinated.
Two down.
“One, two, guess who’s coming for you.” I sneer.
“You fucking cockroach!” he roars, voice cracking.
There it is. Finally, something worth playing with.
The knife’s up, then down, and two more hit the floor with a dull, wet thud.
“Three, four, don’t run anymore.”
“Ple-ease …” he sobs. “Please!”
Funny thing about pain. It’s louder when it’s earned. It sounds orchestral when they deserve it.
And he … Oh, he’s got a symphony coming.
“Why did you want to meet her?” I ask.
“M-Meet who?”
I drive my fist through his face, feeling some of his teeth breaking. “Focus on my lips,” I hiss, dragging the end of the words a little more. “Isabella Calvano.”
Dazed, his vision wavers before he forces a deeper breath, trying to gather what’s left of his composure.
“She’s …” he breathes weakly, his eyes drifting without control. “She’s just an item up for bidding.”
What did he just say?
In an instant, everything in me goes still. I’m barely holding it together.
He says it like she’s property.
Like she’s fucking his.
“Say that again.”
My voice comes out low and sharp. I’m already slipping. My heart is pounding, yet my breath is steady.
He coughs, blood gurgling up his throat, and then the bastard smirks.
So fucking proud of it. Cocky little shit.
“She’s just—”
I move before he finishes the word.
My fist hits bone, and it gives a sickening crunch, making his head snap to the side. I don’t wait. I grab him by the collar and slam him back.
“You fucking shit-face!” I roar, losing my grip on patience.
I drive my fist into his mouth.
“She’s not a fucking item.”
And again.
“Not yours.”
My knuckles are wet, and I don’t care whose blood it is.
“She’s mine.”
And then it breaks.
Whatever leash I was holding is now gone.
The violence swallows me whole. It’s just rabid, volcanic fury tearing through me. I don’t care if he screams. I don’t care if he begs. I’m past hearing or stopping. I just hit, again and again, until he’s nothing but broken pieces under my hands, and even then, I don’t fucking stop.
“I’ll make you wish you were strangled in the womb, you worthless fucking parasite.”
I hit him so hard the chair splinters beneath him, and he crumples to the floor.
“Mitch, calm down.” Wes, grabs my arm, but that infuriates me even more.
Snapping with explosive anger, I whirl on him and shove him back so hard he stumbles.
“Get your hands off me before I break every bone they’re attached to.”
“You’re losing your mind,” he growls, eyes narrowing.
“Then stay the fuck out of my way before I lose it with you, too.”
Leo coughs, choking on blood, half-dead on the floor.
“Calvano …” Air rattles in his chest.
“What?”
“C-Calvano wants to sell her v-virginity.”
“What?” Wes whispers in disbelief.
My jaw clamps so hard that my teeth grind almost to the point of breaking.
“What the hell did you just say?”
His breath shivers out of him, this sad little noise, and it makes something savage snap in me.
“V-Virgins cost a lot in our circle. Your g-girl drove the bidding higher than expected,” he gasps. “Her f-father set the price.”
Son of a bitch …
“I’m j-just the highest b-bidder interested in a p-pig for slaughter s-since day on-ne … s-since she was b-born.”
My mind fractures.
There’s a crawling static under my skull, a dozen voices murmuring a single note of disgust, as though something holy has just been desecrated.
My jaw twitches, and my vision trembles at the edges; the world seems to strain against its frame, trying to slip away, but it can’t. It’s trapped here with me, with him, with the buzzing, buzzing, buzzing …
I love this manic, broken beat pounding behind my eyes.
And the axe …
Oh, the axe …
It looms on the wall, humming a perfect, wicked harmony as chaos tears through my nerves.
I walk up to it, fingers twitching with anticipation, and seize it.
I look at that piece of shit again and stroll closer, his face still twisted in that scared, stupid expression, waiting for his demise.
So I remind him.
I swing my foot into his face hard. Bone cracks—finally—and there’s blood, so much blood, all over my boots.
“You thought you could put a price on her? Treat her like something you could own?” I spit on him. “I will tear your soul apart just for thinking her name.”
“Please, no …” he wails like a gutless coward.
I lift the axe.
“Bane’s coming for you, you bitch.”
And I bring it down on his fucking neck.
Again.
And again.
And again.
‘Cause once won’t cut it for a rat bastard who tried to buy her. Blood hits my face like rain.
I don’t stop. I want him gone. I want him obliterated. Every fucking cell that ever formed the thought of her.
I want nothing left that ever looked at her. Let Hell sort through the chunks. I’m not done.
He dies screaming, and still, it’s not fucking enough.
I toss the axe aside, hook my fingers by his upper teeth, and slam my boot into his shoulder to hold him down.
I yank with everything in me, rage burning so hot I can’t see straight.
“You should’ve kept your filthy hands and your filthy money away from her.”
I drag and wrench at him until his body finally gives the fuck in, until the sorry sack of shit is nothing but a headless corpse. I stand up covered in blood and fury.
“Bane comes, Bane takes.”
“Enough, Mitch.”
I give Wes a slow, satisfied sidelong glance.
“Now it’s his turn.”