A Thousand Cuts (Underworld Kings)

“We had a deal!” he cried, spittle flying from his mouth, mixing with the snot streaming out of his nose as he sobbed.

He was crying because he knew what was happening, he was face to face with fate.

Felix had dragged him out of bed from the apartment he used to share with Sienna. The place apparently had been a mess, coke scattered on the coffee table, empty liquor bottles lying around and takeout boxes littering the floor. He’d been living in filth, partying, gorging himself while the woman he was supposed to protect was in the hands of a monster.

He hadn’t attempted to do shit, to find out whether she was okay, alive at least. He’d saved his own skin and that was all that mattered to him. That deserved punishment. He also knew what Sienna’s cunt tasted like. Felt like. I couldn’t have him breathing.

“You can’t do this,” he hissed, trying to sound tough but coming off as the coward he was.

I fingered the knives laid out in front of me.

We were in the basement. Behind a hidden panel that led to this room with soundproof walls, every weapon known to man. The floor was gleaming marble, the walls painted black, adorned with paintings, mirrors. On the back wall was a full wet bar. Speakers were mounted high on the walls for when we wanted to keep our guests awake.

Two leather armchairs faced the metal chair bolted to the floor. This room was too well utilized to have nothing but a concrete floor and a folding table full of rusted knives.

That’s not the way we did it in this family.

We tortured in style.

I’d killed many people in this room throughout the years. Not before they wished they’d died a thousand times. I’d tortured many suspects to Isabella’s murder in this room. No one gave me any information. In my darkest moments, I’d stared at Lorenzo, full of resentment and fury, itching to take him down here and force him to remember that day.

He’d seen various therapists throughout the years, all of them saying his lack of memory was his brain protecting him from the trauma of the memory. At first, I’d wanted to protect him too. But as time went on, as I became less and less human, I hadn’t given a fuck about the trauma he’d go through. I was willing to tear him apart just for a fucking thread of information. A survival instinct stopped me. Vincentius was frustrated too. But never frustrated enough to hurt his one remaining child. And if I did that, he’d kill me at best. He’d excommunicate me at worst. Being cast out from this family was worse than death for me. So I’d kept my hands off his son. Eventually, I learned to control my baser instincts. I never stopped searching for the person who killed Isabella, but as I moved up in the family, my focus moved. I shut off that part of myself. Stopped myself from thinking of her.

“Did you hear me, asshole?” Pete yelled. “You cannot do this!”

I sighed, turning around, staring at the piece of shit who gave me a gift and a curse when he tried to sell Sienna to me.

My steps echoed off the marble floor and his eyes widened in fear as I approached, his bravado melting off him by the time I was close enough to smell he’d pissed himself.

“I am a Catalano,” I said, my voice even. “I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

I held his eyes for a long moment, daring him to argue more, to show a fucking pair of balls.

He kept quiet, his lower lip quivering.

I walked back over to the table, considering what I was going to do to him. The day ahead was busy, I didn’t have the time I wanted to spend. If I had it my way, I’d make his death last weeks. I’d bring Sienna down here and fuck her in front of him as he took his last breath.

My fingers landed on the hilt of my favorite knife, sharpened after every kill. It was polished to a mirror finish, the handle oiled weekly.

“Though I don’t consider you to be an intelligent man, since you let go of the best thing that has happened to you in your miserable life, I’m sure you’ve heard of the term ‘death by a thousand cuts,’” I said, holding onto the knife and turning around.

Pete thrashed when I spoke, when he saw the knife glinting against the light. His chair didn’t move. The handcuffs at his wrists clattered against the metal. He didn’t go anywhere.

He wasn’t going anywhere ever again.

“It was a form of torture and execution used by the second emperor of the Qin Dynasty and many more that came after him,” I continued, ignoring his whimpers and pleas. “It’s known as lingchi.” I smiled as he sobbed, lifting the knife toward his face. “Many cultures have different interpretations of this method, of course.”