I shoved open the front doors of the church, stepping into the open space. No longer were the floors littered with the bodies of my enemies. No longer were they tainted by the gore of my massacre, but the scent of death and decay clung to the walls, filling the air with the macabre of what waited for all of us. Our spirits may or may not move on to an afterlife—it could be paradise or the underworld—but our bodies would always be left behind to rot.
Rafael and Ryker spun from their places next to the altar where the priest had married Thalia and me. He’d had very little hesitation or concern for the innocent woman he must have believed himself to be assigning to a life with an evil, twisted murderer, given what he’d seen of me.
He’d known me when I’d been a child. He’d watched me grow in the pews of the church, listening to his sermons about the importance of repenting our sins. I would die long before I repented what I’d done in his church the day before.
There was nothing sinful about ridding the earth of the cockroaches that had stained it and had abused my wife. If that got me sent to Hell, I would walk willingly into the flames.
“I wasn’t expecting you so early,” Rafael said, furrowing his brow. He looked over my body, over the taut lines of my face, and a knowing grin spread across his. “I do believe the newlywed phase is supposed to last longer than the wedding night.”
I grunted, walking up the aisle at the center of the church. The floor was stained with blood, with the carnage of having bodies dragged from the space one by one, but I was certain I recognized the blemish specifically left by Thalia’s brother where I’d left him to bleed out.
He should have protected her from the violence of their father, and if he had, we could have moved forward into a new era as allies. Instead, he’d died with the rest of them.
Rafael and Ryker, Matteo Bellandi’s executioner from Chicago, exchanged a look as I approached. Something sinister lingered behind the amusement of their attention as I closed the distance between us. There was only a hint of it, as if they were truly more interested in my first night with my wife by my side.
I supposed it hadn’t been all that long since the hatchet-wielding, muscular Ryker had snatched his wife and children and moved them into his converted warehouse in Chicago, and Rafael still waited for his Isa to be ready for him to claim.
“If I didn’t know better, I would think you were almost disappointed there were no bodies left for you to kick,” Ryker said, crossing his arms over his chest as he smiled.
“I was thinking more along the lines of stabbing, actually,” I said, piercing Bellandi’s executioner with a withering glare and sardonic smile.
“You know Calix gets irritable when he doesn’t get to look at dead people for a few hours,” Rafael said, running his fingers over the Bible the priest had left on the altar the evening before.
“Listen, I like it when they scream as much as the next guy, but your fixation on them after they’re dead is just a little disturbing,” Ryker said, shaking his head and moving to the cleaners waiting to scrub the floors now that the bodies had all been dealt with. He spoke to them in hushed tones, pretending to ignore the response he would receive.
“What good is any form of art if you don’t take time to appreciate the masterpiece at the end?” I asked, making him scoff and pinch the bridge of his nose between two fingers.
The splashes and smears of blood were our paint, the wood and stained glass of the church our canvas. There was beauty in everything.
Even in death.
“What’s with the concerned face?” I asked, turning my attention to Rafael, where the man furrowed his brow and steepled his hands on the altar in front of him. He leaned onto the Bible, and for a moment I wondered how the devil himself didn’t burst into flames touching the supposedly holy document—in a church, no less.
“We’re missing two bodies,” he said, making my fists clench at my side. The thought of any of the Hasapis family making it out alive was enough to make me murderous.
“Who wasn’t here?” I asked, running through the memory of the faces staring back at me the day before. Admittedly, I’d been distracted by thoughts of Thalia, and trying to get to her before she could be caught up in the bloodbath that followed. My flower had gone above and beyond though, abandoning all but Malva and trying to escape.
The sight of it had filled me with both pride and rage.
“Damianos’s younger brother Tobias was evidently conducting family business outside of Philadelphia at the time of the wedding. It’s only a matter of time before he hears of what you’ve done and demands the blood debt be paid in ο λάκκος. You’ll need to work quickly to form alliances with the other families to see that does not happen,” he said.
I ground my teeth together, turning my head away to stare at the spot where I’d shot Damianos for daring to try to marry my woman. His worm of a brother was even worse than the original Hasapis heir, a power-hungry prick, and it amazed me he hadn’t slaughtered his older sibling years before. “That was one. You said there were two.”
“We cannot find Jeno Karras’s body,” Rafael said, raising his brow at me.
“That’s impossible. I stabbed him myself,” I said, shaking my head as I looked back at the place where his blood had coated my hand, the hot pump of it thick against my skin with the final beats of his heart.
“And yet he is undoubtedly missing. Unless someone managed to steal his body, it would appear that you didn’t finish the job properly,” Rafael said, a smile making his lips tip up at the corners. The fucker knew how much it would both irritate and entertain me to know Jeno had escaped alive.
Surely no one would have any use for a dead Karras.
“You shouldn’t look so pleased when your enemy escapes with his life,” Rafael said, crossing his arms over his chest as his look turned scolding.
“Maybe, but do you honestly mean to tell me you wouldn’t relish the opportunity to take your time with someone who’d hurt Isa?”
“Did Jeno ever hurt her?” Rafael asked, his lips pursing in thought.
It was a fine line to walk between standing back and watching it happen and actively participating. I believed Jeno was just as responsible for Thalia’s suffering. I’d have preferred to slowly murder her father.
But the son would have to do.
