ALEXANDER
Five days.
Five days I had been watching this pathetic sack of meat breathe the same air as my husband. Five days of memorizing every detail of Jerome Rivera's worthless existence, his schedule, his drinking habits, the way he slapped his wife's ass when he thought no one was looking, the way he barked at his own biological son like the boy was a dog.
My mind had been made up the second his fist connected with Dashiell's face. But patience was a surgeon's virtue. I studied him the way I studied a failing heart on the table: every vessel, every weakness, every point where I could cut and watch the life drain out.
Tonight, the house was empty except for him. I had made sure of that, anonymous calls, a fabricated urgent errand for the wife and it was a quiet suburban street and no cameras on this stretch.
Perfect.
I sat in the black SUV, fully dressed in matte black, long-sleeved shirt, gloves, tactical pants, boots, balaclava pulled high, nose mask and cap low. Only my eyes were visible. The folding dagger rested comfortably in my lap, razor sharp.
The front door opened. Jerome stepped out carrying a large black trash bag, grumbling under his breath.
He lumbered toward the alley bins.
I slipped out of the car like smoke and moved silently behind him.
The moment he tossed the bag and started to turn, I struck.
My left arm wrapped around his face like a steel band, gloved palm crushing over his mouth and nose. My right hand pressed the dagger firmly against his throat, the point already dimpling skin.
"Shhhhh," I whispered directly into his ear, voice low and calm. "Don't scream."
He panicked instantly and thrashed about, trying to elbow me, but I was bigger, heavier, and far more composed. I dragged him backwards deeper into the shadowed alley, his heels scraping uselessly on the concrete. The moment we were out of sight of the street, I slammed him face-first into the brick wall.
The dagger never left his throat.
"If you keep struggling," I said flatly, "I will drive this blade straight through your carotid artery. You'll bleed out in under ninety seconds but onscious the whole time. Do you understand?"
His eyes bulged with animal terror. He nodded frantically against my hand.
I smiled behind the mask. The rush was exquisite, clean, cold, and almost deeply sexual in its purity.
I spun him around and pinned him against the wall with my forearm across his chest, dagger now pressed under his jaw. Up close, he stank of beer and fear-sweat.
"You hit someone you shouldn't have," I said quietly.
Jerome's eyes widened in confused panic. He tried to speak, muffled against my glove. I pressed the blade harder until a thin line of blood trickled down his neck.
"You don't get to know why. You only get to feel."
I grabbed his right wrist, the same hand he had used to punch Dashiell and slammed it against the wall at shoulder height. Then I drove the dagger straight through the center of his palm.
The blade punched through flesh and bone with a wet crunch, pinning his hand to the brick. Jerome's scream was immediate and guttural. I released his mouth just long enough to slam my fist into his jaw. The impact made something crack again. He choked on the scream, gurgling.
"That hand," I explained clinically, voice ice-cold as I twisted the blade slowly, "contains the flexor tendons, median nerve, and several important vessels. Right now I'm shredding all of them."
I dragged the dagger downward in a brutal line, tearing through palm and fingers. Blood poured hot over my glove and Jerome convulsed, eyes rolling back.
"You'll never make a proper fist again. Never grip anything with strength. Arthritis, chronic pain, permanent nerve damage. Every time you look at this hand, you'll remember."
He tried to scream again. I drove my elbow into his throat, crushing his larynx just enough to silence him without killing him. Only a high-pitched wheezing escaped now.
I pulled the dagger free with a wet sucking sound. Then I looked at his face. Dashiell's bruise had finally faded, but I still saw it every time I closed my eyes. Purple. Swollen and the split lip. The image burned behind my retinas.
I pressed the bloody tip of the dagger against Jerome's left cheekbone, right where he had hit Dash.
"This cheek," I murmured, almost tenderly, "is overlying the zygomatic bone and the maxillary nerve. Pretty important for sensation."
I sliced slowly, deeply, carving a jagged, deliberate line across his cheek and down toward his jaw. Skin parted like butter. Blood sheeted down his face. I dug the tip in harder and twisted, scraping against bone.
Jerome thrashed wildly, tears and blood mixing. The wheezing sound he made was pathetic.
I leaned in closer, eyes dead and calm.
"I could kill you so easily. Right here." I shifted the dagger to the side of his neck, pressing precisely over the carotid. "One firm push and twist. You'd feel your own heartbeat spraying out of you. It's actually quite beautiful to watch. Slow at first… then very fast."
I let the blade hover there, letting him feel the steel kiss his pulse.
"But death is too clean for you."
Instead, I brought the dagger back to his ruined right hand and methodically sliced through the tendons on the back, then crushed two knuckles with the hilt for good measure. The wet popping sounds were satisfying.
I stepped back slightly, watching him slide down the wall, bleeding heavily from hand and face, gasping through his damaged throat.
"You will never touch what belongs to me again. If you even look in his direction, I will come back and take your eyes. Slowly. While you're awake."
I wiped the dagger clean on his shirt, then crouched so we were eye level.
"Tell no one. Not the police. Not your wife. If you do… I will know. And next time I won't stop at your hand and face."
I stood, towering over his broken form. The alley smelled of blood and piss now. He had soiled himself.
Beautiful.
I slipped out of the alley the same way I had entered, silent, untraceable and walked back to the SUV. My pulse was perfectly steady and my hands didn't shake.
Only one thing warmed the dead space in my chest: the knowledge that Dashiell was safe at home, probably rocking gently under his weighted blanket, completely unaware that the man who hurt him had just been taught exactly what happens when someone touches Alexander Astor's property.
I started the engine and drove away into the night, already planning what I would do to my little anomaly when I got home.
He had no idea how deep this hunger ran.
And he never would.