Gilded Cage

1.

The Torture cell underbelly reeked of iron and regret. Stone walls, slick with condensation, swallowed the flickering torchlight as Dante Valencourt descended the spiral staircase, his polished Oxfords clicking like a deathwatch beetle.

His silhouette broad-shouldered, towering cast a shadow that devoured the corridor.

Dante's beauty is a weapon-sharp, glacial, and lethally symmetrical.

His jawline is carved like marble, shadowed by stubble that hints at nights spent ruling empires instead of sleeping.

High, razor-edged cheekbones frame a face that belongs on Renaissance paintings... if the artist had a fetish for villains.

His lips are a sin-full, cruelly sculpted, with a faint scar slicing through the lower one, a relic from a knife fight he enjoyed.

They curve into smiles that never reach his eyes, promises of pleasure or pain depending on his mood.

Twin voids of pale gold, like whiskey held to firelight, but colder.

They pierce, dissect, and paralyze, framed by lashes so thick and black they could be ink strokes.

When he's angry, they darken to burnt amber, pupils contracting like a predator's locking onto prey.

At 6'5", he's body of muscle and menace. Broad shoulders strain against tailored suits, his chest a wall of sculpted power earned through combat, not gym selfies. His arms are corded with strength, veins snaking under olive skin, and his hands-large,

Every movement is lethally controlled, a panther disguised in Armani.

Dante doesn't speak he commands. His voice is a French-laced purr that vibrates with violence, dropping to a growl when provoked.

He thrives on fear, savoring the way hearts stutter under his gaze. His humor is dark, his patience nonexistent.

Cross him, and he'll ruin you with a smile-slow, deliberate, and hungry. He's not cruel for power he's cruel because it amuses him.

Imagine a storm wearing a suit. Unapologetic. Unhinged. Beautiful enough to make you forget he's venomous... until he strikes.

The air grew colder, heavier, as he approached the steel door at the end of the hall. He didn't hurry. Time bent to him here.

Inside the chamber, étienne Leclerc hung suspended by chains, wrists raw and weeping.

His once-arrogant smirk had rotted into a grimace. Blood crusted his temple, his tailored suit now shredded, a mockery of the loyalty he'd sworn.

Dante paused in the doorway, ice-blue eyes narrowing. The silence thickened, suffocating, until étienne dared to lift his head.

The man hanging couldn't speak. His jaw hung slack, swollen and dislocated.

One eye was sealed shut with swelling, the other flickered with delirium.

Dante crouched in front of him, perfect posture,

"Mon frère," Dante purred. He stepped into the room, rolling back the cuffs of his charcoal shirt, exposing forearms corded with muscle and scars. "You stole from me. Worse you lied."

étienne's laugh was a wet rasp. "You'd have done the same. The cartel offered triple-"

Dante's hand shot out, gripping étienne's jaw with enough force to crack bone. "Non."

His thumb pressed into the traitor's windpipe, relishing the choke. "You mistake me for a man who bargains."

He whispered, "You were with me for eight years. I fed your children. I paid for your father's heart surgery. I trusted you with my schedule, my weapons, my life."

He stood, the blade in his hand catching the light like a grin.

"And still," he murmured, "you sold me for scraps. You didn't even hold out for something worthy of betrayal. You sold me like trash to the Corsican pigs."

He stepped closer. Each movement was slow, precise, as if every motion was chosen to inflict dread. He unbuttoned his cuffs, rolled his sleeves, revealing forearms veined and scarred, forged by war.

He made a wet noise, something like a plea.

Dante slapped him, hard and fast like flicking dust from his cuff. Jules's head snapped to the side, blood and spit slinging against the stone wall.

"You don't get to make noise now," Dante said, voice quiet. "You already sang like a whore when you told them where my shipments would be. Do you know how many of my men died on that dock?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He didn't need one.

Instead, Dante stepped behind him and pressed the blade's tip to the flesh just below Jules's shoulder blade.

A pause. A breath.

Then he pushed.

étienne's scream tore into the air like fabric being shredded.

Dante didn't flinch. He watched the blade sink, an inch, then two, as blood welled around the steel like a flower blooming in slow motion.

"Pain is honest," he said, his voice a gravel-laced purr. "It doesn't lie. It doesn't bargain. It doesn't betray."

He twisted the knife.

étienne shrieked a raw, gurgled sob and Lucien stepped away, letting the blade slide from flesh with a sickening wet sound.

Blood welled, droplets sliding over ribs. "La famille is blood. Betrayal is..." He tilted his head, feigning contemplation. "Ah, oui. A cancer."

The blade dipped lower, hovering above étienne's belt.

Dante's expression remained impassive, but his eyes glacial, fever-bright betrayed the pleasure coiling in his veins.

"Please," étienne croaked, thrashing against the chains. "I'll return the money-the product-"

"Tais-toi." Lucien's voice cracked like a whip. He gripped étienne's hair, wrenching his head back. "You think this is about money?" The knife pricked the hollow of his throat. "You sold my secrets. My trust."

He stepped back, admiring his work.

Blood streaked the traitor's torso, a macabre canvas.

He set the blade aside and reached for the iron poker heating in the brazier. Orange embers clung to its tip, hissing as he lifted it.

étienne's breath hitched. "Dante-non, je t'en supplie-"

"You beg now?" Dante tilted the glowing rod, studying the way light danced across its surface. "But you were so bold in Barcelona. Selling my routes. My men."

His voice dropped, velvet and venom. "Did you watch when they slit Arnaud's throat? Did you smile?"

The poker seared into étienne's left pectoral, sizzling through skin.

The stench of burning flesh clogged the air. étienne's scream tore raw, animalistic, his body convulsing.

Dante held the iron steady, his own breath even, until the brand cooled to black.

"There." He dropped the poker, its clang final. "Now you wear my mark. A reminder of what you are."

He gripped étienne's chin, forcing him to meet his gaze. "Property."

The traitor sobbed, spit and blood dribbling down his chin. Dante straightened.

He surveyed the ruin before him-the trembling limbs, the mutilated flesh and felt nothing. No rage. No pity. Only the quiet satisfaction of a debt paid.

The world owed him nothing.

And he'd carve his pound of flesh until it bled dry.

"You think this is about punishment?" he asked, walking to the long table against the wall.

A collection of tools gleamed there some surgical, others meant for more... medieval intentions. "No, Amigo. This is art. You taught me that loyalty has a price. I'm going to teach you what it costs when it breaks."

Dante selected a length of piano wire.

Thin, elegant. Deadly. He turned it in his hands like a violinist preparing to play.

He walked back, looped the wire around étienne's right wrist and began to tighten.

Not fast. Slowly. Rhythmically.

The wire bit into skin. Then muscle. Then tendon.

étienne screamed again but it was hoarser now. Thinner.

Like something in him was breaking that had nothing to do with bone.

Dante's expression didn't change. He simply watched clinical, curious.

When the hand finally came loose, dangling by a single thread of meat, Dante stepped back.

"This is what betrayal feels like," he said, voice low. "Not fire. Not rage. Just quiet, methodical correction."

The scent of blood filled the chamber, metallic and hot, like iron left to boil.

Dante moved to the other wrist.

"No sedative," he whispered. "No mercy. That would imply you were still a man. But you're not, Jules. You're an example."

Time lost meaning in the silence that followed.

The only sounds were étienne's labored breathing, the soft dripping of blood, and the occasional wet snap of tissue tearing.

Dante was patient. Always had been.

His father had taught him that a good death teaches more than a thousand warnings. And Dante had learned well.

When he was done when there was more red than skin and étienne hung like something half-eaten-Dante stepped back.

He unrolled his sleeves. Adjusted his cuffs. Slid the blade back into its leather sheath.

He turned to his lieutenant, who stood silently in the shadows of the doorway.

"Dump him in front of the Corsicans' compound," Lucien said. "Alive. Barely. Let them see what I do to traitors. Let them wonder what I'll do to them."

The man nodded. No words were needed.

Dante walked up the stone steps, unhurried, as if he hadn't just destroyed a man with the same care he might devote to choosing a watch.