Chapter Thirty-Six #2
"Look at what you've done to her! You grab her throat, leave marks on her skin. She used to be a lady, and you turned her into?—"
“Shhh,” I mocked. “We’re just getting started, Noah. Save your voice for the finale.”
The pliers closed around his pinky finger with a satisfying crunch.
His scream cut through his righteous indignation beautifully.
"One!" I sang, holding up the severed digit. “This was for calling my angel a whore."
Noah's chest heaved as he tried to process the pain, but that stubborn, superior expression was already creeping back.
"You think... You think this changes anything?" he panted. "She'll realize what she's lost. What she threw away for a circus act like you."
I laughed, genuinely delighted by his delusion.
"A circus act? Noah, buddy, you're hanging from my ceiling with nine fingers left, and you're still trying to mansplain my girlfriend to me?"
"She was mine first," he insisted, that familiar possessive whine creeping into his voice.
"I knew her when she was still... still clean. Before you corrupted her with your violence and your?—"
His eyes traveled over my tattoos with obvious revulsion. "Your gang markings."
"Gang markings?" Jax snorted from across the room. “Shit, this guy really is from another planet."
Connor remained silent, but I caught the way his lips twitched at Noah's outdated worldview.
“That's your problem, Noah," I said, selecting the next finger with deliberate care. "You think in binary—clean or dirty, proper or improper, yours or not yours. "
The pliers closed around his middle finger. "But Isla isn't black and white. She's a colorful fucking masterpiece to be worshipped."
The snap of bone was music to my ears.
These were going to be such delicious little treats for my piranhas.
Noah's scream tore through the warehouse, but underneath the agony, he still had that stubborn set to his jaw.
The bastard somehow still thought he was right.
"You corrupted her,” he gasped between pained breaths. "She was pure before you?—"
"Pure?" I laughed, the sound echoing off the steel walls.
"You mean repressed. Scared to explore her own desires because some uptight prick in khakis convinced her they were shameful."
I moved to the tool table, running my fingers over the tool options like a chef selecting ingredients.
"You know what's really funny, Noah? All those years you spent trying to mold her, and you never once figured out who she truly is."
His face flushed with rage and humiliation. "That's not?—"
"Oh, but it is," I interrupted, picking up the soldering iron and testing its heat against my thumb.
My own skin hissed, proving its readiness. “This is gonna hurt.”
The iron seared against his ribs, and his howl of pain drowned out whatever pathetic defense he'd been preparing.
The smell of burning flesh mixed with the metallic tang of blood, creating an aromatic symphony of justice.
"Meanwhile," I continued, moving the iron to a fresh patch of skin, "I've had that ass of hers wrapped around my cock, squeezing me like she was born for it."
I leaned in close, my breath hot against his ear. “Scandalous, huh?”
Noah's face went white, then red, then a mottled purple that suggested his blood pressure was reaching dangerous levels.
"You're lying," he snarled, but the tremor in his voice betrayed his certainty.
"Am I ?
"She was mine first!" he screamed, the words torn from his throat with desperate fury. "Her first time was with me! I took her virginity!"
And there it was. The words hit me like a freight train.
My fist shot out before conscious thought could intervene, connecting with Noah's jaw with a sickening crunch that echoed through the warehouse.
His head whipped back, blood spraying from his mouth as his body swung from the impact.
"Adrian!" Jax's voice cut through the red haze as strong hands grabbed my arms from both sides.
"Easy, psycho," Connor growled, his grip like iron around my left arm while Jax locked down my right. "We need him breathing for what's coming."
I was heaving, chest rising and falling like a bellows, my vision tunneled on Noah's bleeding face.
The rage was a living thing inside me, clawing to get out, demanding I tear him apart with my bare hands.
"He fucking touched her," I snarled, straining against their hold. "Before me. Before she knew what she deserved.”
"We know," Jax said, his voice carrying a grim understanding.
"But if you kill him now, you can't make him suffer properly. And this piece of shit deserves to suffer."
Connor's grip tightened as I tried to lunge forward again.
“Breathe,” he rumbled, his voice dropping to that register that meant business. "Make him regret every second he spent inside what's yours."
The words hit their mark, and slowly, so fucking slowly, the killing rage crystallized into something colder, more methodical. More creative.
I stopped fighting their hold, my breathing still ragged, but my focus sharpened like a blade. "Let me go."
They exchanged a look over my head before releasing me, ready to grab me again if I lost control .
But I was back in the zone now, the predator fully awake and hungry.
I walked to the tool table, my fingers trailing over the options before settling on the cordless drill. The motor purred to life with a mechanical growl that made Noah whimper.
"You know what, Noah?" I said conversationally, "You're right. You were her first."
His eyes widened with something that might have been hope.
"And that," I continued, approaching his suspended form with predatory grace, "is exactly why you need to pay."
I revved it inches from his ear, the bit spinning fast enough to blur.
“Pick a hole,” I whispered. “Eye? Nose? Or…” The drill dipped lower, poking his groin. “There?”
Noah shrieked, legs kicking uselessly.
Jax looked up from his phone. “Hundred bucks says he pisses himself again.”
“Double if he passes out,” Connor countered.
Noah's bloodshot eyes darted frantically between the spinning drill bit and my face, searching for mercy he'd never find.
"P-please—" he gasped, the word barely coherent through his terror.
"Please?" I revved the drill again, savoring the way his whole body flinched at the sound.
“She begged you too, didn’t she? When you tried to force my angel into your car?"
I moved the drill to his inner thigh first, letting the bit kiss his skin just hard enough to draw a bright bead of blood.
He screamed before I'd even applied real pressure, the anticipation worse than the actual pain.
Dark amusement coursed through me—watching him scream before the torture was fucking fun.
"This is for putting your hands on what's mine.”
I drove the bit into the meat of his thigh .
The drill burrowed through muscle and sinew with wet efficiency, blood spraying and painting the concrete floor.
His scream climbed octaves, becoming something inhuman.
I twisted the drill deeper, feeling the give of flesh parting around the spinning metal.
"Beautiful," I murmured, pulling back to admire the neat hole I'd created. "But we're not done yet."
The second thigh got the same treatment, this time closer to his groin.
I could smell his fear—acrid and sharp, mixing with the metallic tang of blood and the scent of drill friction.
He was sobbing, snot and tears streaming down his face in an ugly mix.
"Now," I said, positioning the drill directly over his limp, pathetic dick, "let's talk about this useless thing."
The drill bit hovered inches from his dick, and Noah's eyes went wide with pure, animalistic terror.
His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, no words coming out, just the wet, desperate gasps of a man facing his worst nightmare.
“Did you think this would work on her again?" I asked, letting the drill kiss the fabric of his jeans. "Thought you could force her to want something so disappointing?"
The bit punched through denim and into flesh with a sickening squelch. Blood sprayed my face, warm and metallic, as Noah's body convulsed against the ropes.
I laughed, the sound bright and cheerful in contrast to the horror unfolding.
The drill churned through delicate muscle, turning his manhood into nothing more than mangled flesh and tissue.
"There we go!" I crowed, twisting the bit deeper. "Can't disappoint anyone ever again!"
"Fuck's sake, Adrian," Jax gagged theatrically, covering his eyes with one manicured hand. "Warn a guy before you make scrambled eggs. "
Jax’s commentary made me grin.
Noah’s eyes bulged as he watched his own destruction, and the drill bit emerged slick and red.
I held it up to the light like a trophy. "Look at that. Art!"
Noah's sobs were wet and broken now, blood bubbling from his nose as shock set in. "K-kill me..." he whispered, the plea barely audible.
"Kill you?" I dropped the drill with a metallic clang, the sound echoing through the warehouse.
My jade knife slid from its sheath with a whisper of steel on leather.
“See this beauty here?" I held the blade up to the light, letting him see the way it caught the fluorescents. "You want to know a secret, Noah?"
His glazed eyes struggled to focus on the knife.
I leaned in close, my breath hot against his skin. "This blade has been in places you could never imagine. So deep in my angel’s tight pussy and ass. And she came so hard, Noah.”
Fresh horror bloomed across his face as the words registered.
"And now," I continued, pressing the flat of the blade against his throat, "it's going to taste your blood. The blood of the man who thought he could take what's mine."
Noah wheezed, a wet rattling sound. "M-mercy..."
I turned back to him slowly, my grin splitting my face like a wound. "Mercy?"
The knife flashed, burying itself in his throat to the hilt. His body jerked once, a final wet gasp escaping as I twisted the blade.
“No fucking mercy.”
He slumped forward, his life pooling around my boots in dark, spreading puddles.
The warehouse buzzed with silence, broken only by the steady drip of blood hitting concrete and Jax's muttered sigh of relief.
Wiping the knife clean on Noah's ruined shirt, I turned to Connor. “Done. ”
He was already moving, untying the corpse and dragging it toward the industrial acid vat in the corner.
Jax tossed me a wet wipe. "You good, psycho?"
I stared at the smear of Noah's blood on my leather gloves, then at the security feed showing Isla sleeping peacefully on my couch, safe and protected and mine.
"Better than good," I murmured, sliding the jade knife back into its sheath. "Perfect."
I swiped a baggy and crouched down in the pool of blood, picking up Noah’s severed digits and sliding the bloody pieces into my takeaway bag.
Each one would be devoured by my pets, and I’d watch gleefully as these fingertips that had tried to hurt my girl were ripped apart.
The oil diffuser hummed to life as we prepared to leave, masking the stench of death and retribution with something sweeter.
Noah Brown was nothing now—just a memory and a cautionary tale about what happened when someone tried to take what belonged to me.
Justice delivered. Threat eliminated. Angel protected.
The night was complete.