A Thousand Cuts (Underworld Kings)

The girl who haunted this house, haunted Cristian.

She’d died here. In Cristian’s home. She’d died violently, that much was clear.

I understood now the look on Sofia’s face, how she was able to stand here and witness this happening to her son.

At least Lorenzo had enough decency left to be ashamed. Like that was enough.

He lifted his hand of his own accord, laying it flat on the table. It trembled ever so slightly as he did that. Felix moved to hold it taut.

My gaze flickered to my left, to Sofia standing beside me, statuesque, expression blank, unfeeling. I wondered where Vincentius was. Whether he had refused to attend out of love for his son, or out of shame.

“So be it,” Cristian murmured.

Then he lifted the machete.

Chapter Thirteen

After Cristian took a man’s hand, he cooked me dinner.

He. Cooked. Me. Dinner.

With the same hands he’d used to inflict the most gruesome kind of violence I’d ever seen in real life.

The blade he’d used was sharp, sharp enough to slice through bone in one strike.

Lorenzo hadn’t screamed.

I’d expected him to scream.

Most people would scream when they got a limb cut off without any anesthetic.

But somehow, Lorenzo hadn’t. He’d let out a guttural groan from the back of his throat, his eyes bulging and face contorting in agony. But he hadn’t screamed.

Sofia barely blinked beside me.

I stared at the blood spilling over the table. Lorenzo’s outstretched hand laying limp atop the table, dead. Someone rushed forward with a tourniquet, tending to Lorenzo’s wound.

That surprised me. But then again, he would’ve bled to death without medical attention, and this wasn’t a death sentence.

I watched the entire gruesome event without any reaction. Though I wasn’t particularly squeamish, I’d figured I’d have some kind of physical response to seeing someone get their hand cut off in front of me. But my eyes had stayed on Cristian’s every movement, watching rapt, aware that my reaction would sculpt everyone’s opinion of me. I was not going to be the victim. Nor was I going to be some trophy. Some moron. If Cristian wanted a queen, then he’d have one.

A true fucking queen.

I didn’t know why I did it.

Why I walked forward, the crowd parting for me, grasped onto Cristian’s neck and kissed him. He hungrily kissed me back while someone tended to Lorenzo mere feet from us. When we were done, I had blood on my face.

And I didn’t care.

The crowd didn’t last for long. Lorenzo was taken somewhere to be properly treated. His ‘uncle’ heavily supporting him, face like thunder. Sofia melted away. There were people to do the cleanup, apparently.

Then we went straight into the kitchen. And Cristian started cooking.

Fucking cooking.

I shouldn’t have had any appetite. It should’ve made me sick as I sat on a barstool, sipping vodka, watching him chop vegetables with a large knife.

But I was ravenous.

I ate every morsel of the dinner he’d cooked. And it was fucking delicious.

There wasn’t conversation as he cooked, as we ate. The silence should’ve been thick and overbearing. Uncomfortable. But it wasn’t. I relished it. The sound of Cristian in the kitchen, the sizzling of the pan, the clang of our silverware against the plates.

Today had been overwhelming, to say the very least. But I didn’t feel overwhelmed. Traumatized. I felt remarkably calm.

Until Cristian spoke, of course. He didn’t like me calm. Comfortable.

“Today brought back memories for you,” Cristian said as we sat at the dining room table sipping the last of our wine.

My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

Instead of answering, he stood from his chair and walked toward me, pulling my chair back, hand on my thighs, moving upward.

My breathing shallowed. I shouldn’t have wanted to be touched like this after what happened this evening. Shouldn’t have wanted Cristian to touch me after I’d seen what he was capable of.

Yet I was already wet for him.

Fucking soaking.

“The first time you were fucked, it may not have been rape, but it also wasn’t consensual.” His hand ran up the inside of my thigh.

I narrowed my gaze at him but did not fight against his hands. “I knew what I wanted.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he replied, his fingertips reaching the outside of my panties.

Though I should’ve—I definitely should’ve—been fighting him, my thighs parted in invitation.

“But there was a power imbalance that you may not have fully recognized. One that he unequivocally understood,” he murmured, his fingers slipping inside, coating themselves with me.

I gripped the sides of the chair.

“You may not have been a child, but you weren’t fully a woman. You were confused, damaged and vulnerable.” His voice was feather light, his fingers moving fluidly inside me. “He liked all of that. He capitalized off that. And I think that you know that, Sienna.”

His gaze was unyielding, his fingers torturing me with pleasure while his words cut at my soul. “If you didn’t know then, which I doubt, then you do now.”