Page 823 of The Tempted
Charlie squeals like a pig, drawing my attention away from Smoke and his attempt to put out the fire. With my gun still poised I make my way toward him and stand over him as he slithers across the floor like a snake.
I arch my shoulders and pull the trigger again. His body stills and I bend over to stare into his eyes and watch as the life spills out them. He hangs on by a thread, suffering through his death. I sling the gun over my shoulder and turn around. My eyes struggle to search through the smoke for my brother that deserves to take this man’s life and fade him to black.
“Pipe,” I shout, pulling the utility knife from my belt. I hear his boots creep up behind me and I straighten my back and hand him the knife as he stares at Charlie.
“He’s going to die, make it be from your hand,” I tell him. Pipe diverts his eyes to the knife I’m offering and then he looks back at me as his hand takes the weapon.
After Christine died I struggled for years, let my temptations become my demons all because I was desperate for retribution. I got mine and now it’s time for Pipe to get his.
I watch as he kneels beside Charlie and presses the blade against his cheek, the sharpened point touches the outline of one of the teardrops inked beneath his eye.
“Your tears belong to me now,” he seethes, as he traces the drops of ink, carving the tattoo from his cheek. Charlie’s body jerks but he can’t fight. He can’t scream. He can only lay there and be at the mercy of the knife.
Like Oksana.
Pipe flicks the pieces of bloody skin off his fingers before he drags the knife across Charlie’s neck and slices it wide open.
Retribution.
It has a color.
Its color isblack.
