Toxic Love: A Dark Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance
Toxic Love: Chapter 23

What the fuck is wrong with me?

It’s close to four-thirty in the morning, and I’m sitting on the edge of Tempest’s bed, in her room, watching her sleep.

It gets worse.

After fucking each other’s brains out at Venom, Tempest crashed hard in the private room. I took her home, and I’ve just tucked her in. Now I’m just watching her sleep, and I can’t seem to stop.

I push a lock of hair out of her face, and my jaw sets.

This wasn’t supposed to get this deep. This big.

This…real.

It can’t. Not just because our worlds are not compatible, but also, and worse…

…she comes with an expiration date.

I don’t get to keep her, no matter how much I want to. And all the rage and fury at the injustice of that isn’t something I’m prepared to deal with.

So instead, I stand, and go deal with something else. Something that I have been prepared for, for a long, long time…

“Thanks for this.”

Carmine shrugs casually as we descend into the sub-basement of a restaurant in the Meatpacking District that he owns. Beneath the basement prep-kitchen, the walk-in, and the kegs of beer, this last staircase takes us deeper and darker into the bowels of the building, to a place from which most of its visitors don’t return.

I’ve been down here with Carmy before. Mostly only as an observer. But one of the trophy rings I have in the box in my office came from a night down here much like tonight.

“Hey, no worries, brother,” Carmine grins when we reach the bottom of the metal stairs. “I mean, I haven’t gotten you a wedding gift yet, so…” He chuckles darkly. “You’re welcome.”

“I’ll take this over matching china or a toaster oven any day.”

He grins. “What we do for the women we care about, huh?” Then he turns to arch a brow at me as he hands me the key to the padlock. “You want a hand?”

“No,” I shake my head. “No, this is mine.”

“Well, restaurant’s closed today, so no prep crew coming in. Take your time.”

I nod.

“I plan on it.”

When Carmine disappears back up the staircase, I insert the key into the padlock. The heavy door of the refrigerated room that was probably once used to butcher and cure meat swings open noisily on old, rusty hinges.

My eyes land on the blindfolded man inside as he lifts his chin from his blood and sweat-soaked shirt, moaning pitifully.

“Hello, Mr. Mouret.”

The man screams through the gag in his mouth, thrashing at the chains and ropes binding him to the metal chair bolted to the floor.

Good. Let him try to get free. Let him taste hope and think even for a second that maybe—maybe—he’ll be spared. Let him get one tiny inkling of the horrors the girls he’s hurt felt, wondering if perhaps they’d be let go.

I step into the room and close the door behind me. Then I yank the filthy gag out of his mouth.

“PLEASE!” he blurts, abject fear lacing his tone.

It’s always like this with predators like him. They prey on the weak and helpless. They use money, power, alcohol, and drugs to reel in their victims and render them incapable of fighting back before they dig their fangs in.

Put those same fuckers face-to-face with someone who actually can fight back, and they crumble like the pathetic pieces of shit they are.

Every. Single. Time.

There was a time, back when I first started this dark crusade, that I worried what it said about myself. Before that first taste of vengeance, I was afraid that maybe this was a symptom of something far worse, far darker. That maybe I was insane, or psychotic, or a killer my whole life, and was just now realizing it.

But then I slit that first throat, the one belonging to the man who killed my sister with a nine-iron golf club to her head after drugging and raping her.

And after that, it became clear. I’m not psychotic. I don’t seek out murder and I don’t rejoice at ending a life.

But I will put animals like this piece of shit down all day every day if it means stopping them from doing to someone else what they did to Claudia.

Reaching out, I yank off the blindfold.

I want him to see it all.

He blinks under the glare of the single overhead bulb, and when his bleary eyes focus on me, they go wide.

“Mr. Sartorre?!”

I don’t say a word as I reach into my jacket and pull out the twelve-inch blade of folded Japanese steel.

“Non! NON!” Robert screeches, squirming and yanking again his binds. “Please! Whatever you want, it’s yours, oui?! Money?! I have lots of⁠—”

‘That.”

He goes quiet at my response. I use the tip of the knife to point at his finger.

“I don’t want your money, Mr. Mouret. I have plenty of my own, thanks. But I’ll take that ring.”

He blinks, panting as sweat drips down his face. His eyes drop to his hand, then yank back up to me.

“Yes!” he screams, nodding frantically. “Yes! Yes, of course! Please! It’s yours!”

I smile widely.

“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Mouret.”

The wet CHUNK sound fills the room. Robert blinks, staring at his hand for a full two seconds before his brain realizes that I’ve just lopped off his fucking finger.

Then he starts to scream, and bawl, and plead for mercy. I ignore him as I pluck the finger off the floor, slip the ring off, and drop the digit back to the ground.

“How many more are there, Mr. Mouret.”

He’s still sobbing and shrieking, staring at his bloody hand.

So, naturally, I punch him in the face.

I mean, I’m trying have a conversation here. The shrieking is just plain rude.

“Stay with me, Mr. Mouret,” I say flatly. “We’re just getting started. How many more fuck-faces with these fuck-face rings are there.”

“W-w-wha⁠—!”

He hyperventilating, so I punch him again to center him.

“How. Fucking. Many.”

“I—I don’t know what you’re t-talking about!”

I roll my eyes. “I know all about your little club, fucker. Apex. The lion rings. Your penchant for drugging and raping young women.”

Whatever color was left in his face drains as he realizes A, I’m not fucking around, B, I’m not here to rob him, and C, we’re barely scratching the surface of what I’m capable of doing to him.

“Surely you’ve noticed a few of your rapey pals missing from recent nights out?”

His eyes widen. “You—” He chokes and flinches, a scream gurgling in his throat as I bring the point of my knife against his cheek, just beneath his eye.

“I’m going to hunt you all down, Mr. Mouret,” I say in a bored tone. “Every single one of you. I’d just like to know how many more times I’ll be coming down here to cut one of you into pieces. I’m a busy man. I’m sure you understand.”

This time, when he starts to sob and beg and piss himself and lose his shit, there’s no bringing him back. I punch him a few more times just to try, but it’s useless.

I push the tip of the knife against his side, between the costal cartilage of his eighth and ninth ribs. Robert stiffens as he goes white.

“Well?”

He’s crying as he shakes his head. “It’s just a few friends, j-just…having fun.”

I push the tip into him, sinking the blade into his blubbery side. He screams bloody murder, coughing and sputtering like he’s going to puke.

“You were saying?”

“Seven!” He chokes. “There are—were—seven of us! We were in the same fraternity and then business school. It was⁠—”

He screams when I twist the knife again.

Seven. I’ve taken five. He’s six.

Only one more.

Robert drags in a ragged breath as I slip the knife out of his side. Blood soaks his shirt.

“You like to penetrate people who don’t want to be penetrated, Mr. Mouret.”

This time, I press the lethal, razor-sharp tip of the knife against his belly.

“Allow me to demonstrate what that feels like.”

Two hours later, he’s short five more fingers, two toes, his tongue, and obviously, his dick and his balls.

Eventually, his life.

I know his screams of misery won’t bring Claudia back. But somewhere up there, I hope she enjoys the show.