Page 121 of Beautiful Ruins
The basement wasn’t a storage room.It was infrastructure.
Banks of monitors lined one wall, screens cracked but still flickering with frozen footage.Metal tables were bolted to the floor.Drains in the centre of the concrete.Chains embedded into support beams.
Archie stepped in, whistling low.“Ah.Basement torture suite.Excellent drainage.”He nodded toward the centre grate.“Practical.You’ve got to appreciate good plumbing.”
Nathan went rigid between us.
He knew.
He hadn’t come back to Tuscany to sip vodka and reminisce.He’d come to align himself with whatever power still lingered and to carve out his own territory with the Russians.
He’d thought proximity to monsters would keep him protected.
I dragged him toward the centre drain and shoved him down.His knees hit concrete hard enough to split skin.He didn’t react to the pain.His eyes were fixed on the chains.
“This isn’t necessary,” he whispered.
I crouched in front of him, close enough that he could see the ash dusting my sleeves, the blood drying across my knuckles.
“Oh, it’s very necessary.”
Above us, the club proceeded to burn.
Down here, it was cold.
And this — this was where the Russians had stripped people of their leverage.
It felt fitting that Nathan would understand exactly what that meant before the night was over.
We stopped beside the steel worktable where the Russians had been assembling weapons.
Explosives.
How poetic.
I shoved him against it.
“You liked power, didn’t you?”I rumbled.“Liked making her feel small and useless.”
“I didn’t?—”
I slammed his hand flat onto the table and drew my knife.
Nathan went very, very still.
“Don’t lie to me.”
The blade hovered over his fingers.
“I’m not going to kill you quickly.Quick is for the deserving.”
Archie rested a boot on the crate.“I’ll grab a chair.This looks like it’ll take a minute.”
I pressed the knife down — not enough to sever.Just enough to bite into his skin.
Nathan screamed.The sound echoed through the hollow warehouse.
“You made her feel powerless.”I leaned over him.“So tonight, you learn what that feels like.”
