Chapter 20 Rafe #2
“Because that's where he found it,” I hiss. “And now it holds the silence he was left with.”
He jerks once. like he can't handle the truth, but I want it to hurt more.
“You made him a joke. A cautionary tale. A fucking target. And the worst part?” I rise to my full height, looking down on him.
“He still defends you. In his head. Like maybe you didn’t mean to.
Like maybe it was his fault.” I drag the tape off his mouth with one fast rip.
He cries out, his head jerking. “Tell me,” I say quietly. “Did you mean to destroy him?”
Nathan’s breath stutters through the torn-open space where the tape used to be, mouth trembling, jaw shaking like he’s trying to swallow the fear before it spills.
Pathetic. He thinks if he looks broken enough, I’ll hesitate.
If he cries at the right angle, I’ll feel something like pity.
Julian cried, and I didn’t pity him—I wanted to kill the world for touching him.
Nathan’s tears? They’re just lubricant for the lie he’s about to choke on.
“I—no—no, I didn’t—” he gasps, voice cracking hard. “I was blackmailed.”
I laugh—a low, humorless sound that tells him exactly how stupid I think he is. Even Misha snorts from the bed like he can’t believe the audacity. “Blackmailed?” I echo, leaning in, fingers sliding under his jaw to force his head up. “Try again.”
“I swear—I swear on my kids—I didn’t want him to lose the game—”
I squeeze, nails digging into his skin just enough to shut him up. “You’re not listening. I don’t give a shit about your kids. I’m asking you what you did.”
He starts sobbing harder. I see the moment he believes this might save him. He thinks if he looks pathetic enough, I’ll ease up. He thinks his tears have weight. Julian cries like thunder. Nathan cries like a wet paper towel.
“Who blackmailed you?” I ask, letting go of his jaw only so I can slap the tape roll against my palm, rhythm slow, promising. “Give me a name or I’ll carve it out of your ribs.”
“I—it wasn’t blackmail,” he finally stammers, his voice crumbling like rotten plaster. “I—fuck—I didn’t want to lose my contract, my endorsements. They… they came to me—”
Of course they did. I hear it crack open in his voice, the truth he never wanted to admit spilling through the seams, the rot at the center finally showing. “Who,” I repeat, the word slow and deliberate, each letter its own commandment.
He chokes and tries to look anywhere but at me. Beside us, Misha casually cocks his gun like he’s stretching his fingers, and the sharp metallic sound snaps Nathan back into reality. “Belladonna Syndicate,” he whispers, his voice barely holding together. “It was the Belladonna Syndicate.”
My vision goes hot and narrow.
Of course it was them. Leonardo’s rivals. The ones trying to sink their claws deeper into the hockey rings, the ones who recruit ex-pros like livestock and pay for sabotage when they can’t win fairly.
But the only part that matters right now is this: Nathan wasn’t blackmailed. He wasn’t threatened. He wasn’t forced. He was paid. Paid to make Julian throw the game. Paid to smile for the camera while Julian ruined himself. Paid to stand back and let a kid take the fall for both of them.
I lean down until our foreheads nearly touch, my voice dropping. “So they offered you money to make sure Julian fucked up?”
He sobs once, short and sharp. “Y-yes.”
“And you took it.”
“I—I didn’t know it would get that bad—”
I slam my fist into the wall beside his head, hard enough to make the drywall crack.
Nathan screams into the space between us.
“You didn’t know?” I roar quietly. “You didn’t know they’d destroy him?
You didn’t know the league would use him as a scapegoat?
You didn’t know you’d let him take the fall while you went home to your warm bed and your perfect life? ”
He’s shaking like he’s sitting in ice water, sweat beading at his temples while his eyes dart to Misha—mistake—because Misha immediately grins at him, slow and feral, like he’s already imagining what Nathan’s bones will sound like when they break.
“Please,” Nathan whispers, his voice cracking as the words start tumbling over each other in a panicked rush. “Please—I’m sorry—I didn’t think—they said he’d get a fine, just a suspension—”
I smile, not kindly and not human, the kind of smile a butcher gives right before the blade comes down. “And you were willing to take their money and gamble his life on it.”
He breaks then—visibly and completely—sobs ripping out of him in panicked bursts as whatever fragile composure he had left finally shatters.
“That wasn’t blackmail,” I say, leaning in until he has no choice but to look at me, until there’s nowhere else for his gaze to run. “That was a transaction.”
He whimpers.
“You didn’t lose anything when Julian fell.” I let my thumb drag across his cheek, slow and cruel. “But he lost everything because of you.” I stand slowly and deliberately, the chair creaking under him as I rise while the room suddenly feels too small for what’s about to happen.
Behind me, Misha cracks his knuckles. “Boss?” he asks, his voice low. “You ready?”
I look down at Nathan—the man who sold Julian for pocket change—and feel something settle in my chest like the first inhale after drowning. “Yeah,” I say quietly. “I’m ready.”
I reach into the inner pocket of my jacket and pull out one of my knives—the slim one, the one with the black handle and the edge honed thin enough to whisper.
Nathan sees the glint of steel and loses whatever pathetic self-control he had left.
His whole body starts shaking, legs rattling against the chair, breath coming out in these sharp, squeaking bursts like he’s trying to inhale himself into a different dimension.
I’ve seen men beg before, I’ve seen them piss themselves and I’ve seen them cry, but there’s something particularly pathetic about watching a man who destroyed someone else’s life suddenly realize his own isn’t worth much in comparison.
He tries to talk—tries to plead—his mouth opening wide with that wet, choking sound, and I slap the tape back over his lips before he can form a single syllable, pressing it down hard and sealing him shut.
“Save it,” I tell him evenly. “I don’t need to hear you scream to know you’re sorry.”
His scream still leaks through the tape, high and useless.
I grab his left hand, and he jerks it away on instinct, but he’s tied tight with nowhere to go, so I force his wrist flat against the armrest and spread his fingers wide while his wedding ring glints under the shitty motel light.
Ah. Perfect. “That one,” I murmur, almost to myself. “The one you use to touch your wife. And the one you used to touch him.”
His eyes explode wide as horror ripples through him in a visible wave, and he tries to wrench away again, his body twisting and feet kicking, but Misha stands from the bed at the exact same moment, walks over, and drops one heavy palm on Nathan’s shoulder, the sheer weight of it stopping him cold.
“Hold still,” Misha says, almost bored. “Makes less mess.”
Nathan shrieks behind the tape while I place the blade right under the wedding band, letting him feel the cold kiss of steel so he understands exactly what’s about to happen.
“This isn’t punishment,” I tell him quietly.
“This is symbolism.” Then I cut, the knife sharp enough to glide through skin and tendon before meeting bone with a satisfying, crunchy resistance.
Nathan’s whole body convulses, his spine arching violently off the chair as a scream rips out of him so hard the tape strains against his mouth, the sound wet, primal, almost inhuman while blood spurts hot across my knuckles—bright red, stupid, pointless life leaking out of a hand that ruined someone better.
The severed finger drops to the motel carpet with a soft thud while the wedding ring rolls once, then twice, before finally stopping in the cheap light, which feels oddly fitting.
Nathan shakes so hard the chair rattles beneath him, his eyes rolling back like he’s about to pass out, but Misha simply reaches over and taps his cheek lightly to keep him upright.
“Nuh-uh,” Misha murmurs calmly. “You don’t get to quit yet.”
Nathan sobs behind the tape, this horrible keening noise—broken and soundless—while his chest heaves and sweat mixes with blood across his skin.
I crouch again with the knife still warm in my hand and tilt my head at him, calm. “That hurt?” I ask quietly. “Good. He hurts too.”
Nathan whimpers.
The finger on the carpet is still twitching when I straighten.
He's shaking so violently the chair legs scrape against the laminate floor, a pathetic symphony of panic and cheap motel furniture.
His breath is wet and fast, muffled behind the tape, eyes blown wide like a cornered deer that finally sees the car coming.
I wipe the blade on my thigh slowly and deliberately, like I’m preparing for a ceremony instead of a kill, which in a way I am, because this isn’t business and it isn’t a hit—it’s an exorcism, a cleansing, a correction.
Misha steps back and leans against the wall with his arms folded, watching the whole thing like he’s sitting comfortably at the opera.
“You done screaming?” I ask lightly, tilting my head. “Good. Because now I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen.”
Nathan is trying not to cry, trying so hard it looks painful, his chest shuddering while his throat bobs uselessly beneath the tape as if he thinks tears might somehow save him.
They won’t.
“Four days,” I say, pacing slowly in front of him. “Four days away from him, and every hour felt like a punishment. You know why?”
His eyes flick up, suddenly sharp with fear.
“Because he’s in my head,” I continue calmly. “Because even while I’m hunting you, I’m thinking about how he looks when he falls apart, how he says my name, how he begs for pain because you taught him to confuse suffering with being wanted.”
Nathan’s whole face collapses inward at that—shame, horror, the dawning realization that it’s all far too late.
“You didn’t just break him,” I say, stopping in front of him again.
“You rewired him, twisted him so badly he thinks he deserves ruin, that he’s only worth the hands that hurt him.
” I lean down slowly until I’m close enough to feel his breath shaking against my cheek.
“You made him believe love is violence,” I whisper. “Now I’m here to return the favor.”
His eyes slam shut, so I slap him once enough to force them open again.
“No,” I murmur softly. “You look at me.” I place my hand on his chest and feel the frantic stutter of his heartbeat through his shirt, the terror and despair and dawning realization thrumming beneath my palm.
“This is how I save him,” I murmur quietly.
“This is how I wipe you off him.” I press my forehead to his.
“You hurt what’s mine,” I breathe against his skin, my voice low and steady.
“So I’m going to kill you slow enough for him to feel the moment you stop existing. ”
Nathan whimpers helplessly behind the tape while Misha mutters, “Holy shit,” under his breath somewhere behind me.
I drag my hand up to Nathan’s face and cradle his jaw almost gently, the gesture an obscene parody of intimacy. “Julian deserves closure,” I say calmly. “He deserves to sleep without your shadow on his chest, so I’m going to take that shadow away.”
I tip his head back and look straight into his eyes, letting him see the devotion burning beneath the fury.
“This is for him,” I whisper. “For every night he cried your name, for every time he begged for pain because he didn’t know what tenderness was supposed to feel like, for every time he opened that fucking locker with your ghost in his hands, and for every breath you stole from him. ”
He’s sobbing now, silent and shaking, his body trembling against the chair.
“And when he sleeps tonight,” I continue softly, “he won’t know why his chest feels lighter, and he won’t know why he breathes easier, but I’ll know.” I lower my voice. “Because I killed the man who made him believe he was unlovable.”
Then, calmly, I end it, driving the knife into his neck so deep it comes out the other side—clean, almost pretty—a mercy he never gave Julian.
Nathan goes still, but I hold him upright until the last twitch fades, until the final breath leaves him and the shadow that clung to Julian like tar dissolves into nothing, and only then do I let the chair tilt back and step away.
Misha exhales slowly behind me. “Boss… damn.”
I put the knife away, my hands steady, my pulse steady, everything inside me quiet. “I’m going home,” I say. And for the first time in four days, I feel like I can breathe.