He’d gotten used to the silence. He could read it, and he knew what that stillness represented.

The calm before the storm.

Huddled in the middle of the cold cell, blood from the last time drying underneath his naked body, Stavros didn’t bother to lift his head. His body hurt, but pain had become such a constant companion he’d managed to place it somewhere in the back of his consciousness. If he could move his fingers he’d curl them into fists, but for the moment they hung limply.

Breath, that pesky necessity, also hurt. Taking air into his lungs was a task, one Stavros tried to master as he sat there.

Only one thing could cut a silence so thick, and Stavros waited for it.

Waiting was something he was good at. And killing. Nowadays the waiting held more weight, because he was biding his time, waiting to kill.

Or to be killed.

The other half of the coin.

He was good with either option.

He’d been taught the family business of killing at an early age. Way earlier than a boy should have. But his father believed in perfection and readiness, and he ensured his son was exposed to the violence. Making it so Stavros was numbed to it before his eighteenth birthday. He’d also taken his fair share of lives by then, too.

The pride in his father’s eyes kept the blood flowing.

Growing up without a mother, and a father who traveled frequently under the guise of diplomat, there wasn’t much opportunity to make anyone proud. The teachers at his boarding schools didn’t count, and his theíos—uncle—Christophe definitely cared.

But Christophe wasn’t Stavros’ father.

So any chance he got to make his father proud, he took it.

He opened his eyes and peered into the darkness. Time didn’t have much of a meaning inside his cage. He didn’t have a clock, or sunlight, only freezing darkness. No way to tell how long he’d been held here, caged captive, tortured and tormented by Daniel Nieto.

As if Stavros’ thoughts had conjured him, a single scrape of shoe against the dusty floor reached his ears. He made himself look up then, though it felt as if a concrete block sat on his neck. He had to blink repeatedly to get his burning eyes to focus.

The darkness shifted, parted, and the lightbulb overheard came on, revealing his captor.

“Mr. Konstantinou.” Daniel’s voice made Stavros shudder.

“Call me—” It was strange to hear himself nowadays. “Call me Stavros.” His lips cracked, and fresh drops of blood ran down onto his chin when Stavros smiled. “We are, after all, intimate now. No?”

He didn’t expect a reaction from the man watching him so carefully, and Stavros didn’t get one. Daniel’s gaze on him was almost casual, dismissive. He expected Stavros to break. He expected Stavros to crack under the force of his torture.

Daniel Nieto should have inquired as to how Stavros reacted to expectations.

Defied them. He defied them.

“Are you ha-happy to see me?” Talking and breathing hurt so he had to pause, force the words out. “Because I—” He lifted his chin and a severe shock of pain sliced through his skull, graying his vision for a moment. “I missed you, Nieto.” He licked the blood off his bottom lip. “It is so m-much fun wh-when you are here.”

It was. When Daniel was around, they played the game, the one where Daniel got to be God. He killed Stavros then brought him back. He had never been scared of death. Now, thanks to Daniel, he knew what awaited him on the other side.

The entrance to the cage swung open and Daniel walked inside. Tall and skinny, clad in head to toe black, foreboding eyes gleaming as they remained focus on Stavros. The closer he got, the more Stavros prepared himself mentally.

The only thing predictable about Daniel Nieto was his unpredictability.

Stavros found it…fascinating.

“Mr. Konstantinou.” Daniel knelt next to him, a knee in the small puddle of blood congealing on the floor. He touched Stavros, a hand with no glove, on the back of his neck.

Fingers sinking in and gripping tight as he yanked Stavros’ head back.

He gritted his teeth, eyes watering at the pain.

“I am glad you’re alert,” Daniel murmured. “What comes next, you must witness it.”

Stavros made himself smile, weakness would never be something he’d willingly show. Inside his chest, though, he was a frozen block of ice. The unpredictability of Daniel Nieto, the thing that fascinated him?

It scared him once, when Stavros came awake and found a very alive likeness of his dead stepsister, Annika, naked on top of him. Writhing, begging him to touch her.

To take her.

For a moment he’d been happy to be dead. To be with her. To finally have what he’d pined for since her mother married his father when they were both teenagers.

So yes, he’d given in to her lips and her touch. Something he hadn’t dared do when she’d been alive. Because she’d never allowed it. Oh yeah, she’d tease him with it. She’d make him think he had a shot at getting it, but at the last second she always snatched herself away from him.

This time was no different. Save for her soft hands around his throat, squeezing hard.

Just the way he liked it.

Annika knew all of him, all his kinks. But her caress had been a lie. Her face, too. She’d been an imposter, conjured up by Daniel, who it appeared knew more than Stavros had credited him.

Underestimating the enemy was a deadly mistake.

“I am ready,” he told Daniel in halting words. “Whatever you have, throw it at me. Along with a steak.” That bread and water shit was not cutting it. The beatings, delivered on an almost daily basis by the sour-faced Henan, coupled with the cold and hunger had him in a state of physical weakness he couldn’t properly describe.

Daniel’s mouth curved. It was a cruel mouth, set in a harsh face. Stavros always admired cruelty. That didn’t change, not even in this moment, and out of all the things that should have had him despairing of his tenuous grasp on sanity, his admiration of Daniel Nieto’s mouth was nowhere on that list.

“I think I would have liked you,” Daniel said. “If you weren’t reckless, faithless.” The hand on Stavros’ neck gentled then fell away. “If you hadn’t taken away the most important thing in my life.”

It was conversational, Daniel’s tone, but goosebumps burst across Stavros’ naked skin. Crying out a warning, putting him on guard, and not a moment too soon. The pain in his left side made him gasp and he tore his focus from Daniel’s face to look down. A knife was there, Daniel’s hand curved in a loving caress around the handle, knuckles grazing Stavros’ skin as blood ran down to join the already drying puddle on the cold floor.

Nieto wanted Stavros to beg for death. To beg for the torture to stop.

His vision wavered, and a traitorous sound fell from his lips as he lifted a hand. Slowly. He touched the arm of the man holding the blade inside him. A new wound to add to the countless others he’d acquired since coming awake inside Daniel’s cage for the first time.

Wounds upon wounds.

This one, like the others before, would bleed and hurt and scar. But it wouldn’t endanger his life, not yet. Daniel wanted him to suffer. Stavros had to be alive for that.

He didn’t have strength to do more than cling to Daniel’s wet and slippery grasp as his captor pulled the knife out. The suctioning sound it made, Stavros wasn’t unfamiliar with it. The warmth of his blood chased some of the chill away, and he held up his hand in front of his face, staring at the dripping red on his fingers.

“You like it when I bleed.” Even to his ears, his words were shakier than normal. Faint.

“You do it so well.” Daniel’s sounded weirdly proud, like he approved of the rivulets soaking Stavros’ hip and the tiny puddle congealing next to them. “Also it brings me such pleasure, watching you suffer.”

Stavros was fading, but he brought his bloodied fingers to his mouth, licking the red away one by one—was it all his, or maybe some of Daniel’s blood was mixed up in there, too?—as he held Daniel’s gaze. “It brings me pleasure…” His voice got softer and softer, slurring, vision narrowing down to the man next to him who wore Stavros’ death mark tattooed around his neck. The man with impenetrable eyes and that beautifully cruel mouth. “Watching you try.”

* * *

“How is our mutual friend?” Syren Rua sat back, legs stretched out and ankles crossed as he regarded Daniel with a mildly curious expression. “Still alive, I hope?”

His non-affected tone didn’t fool Daniel for a minute. Syren didn’t do or say anything that didn’t have a deeper reason. Daniel liked that about him.

Made him tolerable.

“You can hope.”

“You know you can’t kill him.”

Syren didn’t look away or back down when Daniel stared at him. He’d learned a long time ago that he didn’t scare the diminutive man with shocked-white hair and eyes the same shade as the lavender plants Petra used to grow in her garden.

“Do I?” He issued the challenge, but Syren simply rolled his eyes.

“Yes, you know.” Syren stood and strode past him to stare out the window of his condo, ten floors up in a building located downtown Atlanta. “Do whatever you want with Stavros,” Syren said when he turned back to Daniel. “But you keep him alive. You need him.”

That was a laughable notion. “He must die,” he said it without anger, because it took a lot to anger him nowadays. “It is inevitable.”

“Oh?” Syren held up a finger, the nail painted a vibrant purple. “Why did you wait so long to make your move?”

That had to be a rhetorical question, because Syren knew why the delay. Close friends with the leader of the task force formed to take down Daniel’s business, Syren had been the one to keep Daniel in the loop about the Feds’ moves against the Nietos. He knew Daniel’s commitment had been to the confused woman he’d left behind, the one losing her mind with every tick of the clock.

Syren had been a part of that five man group who sent Stavros after Daniel. His vote the only nay. In the aftermath, Syren had reached out to Daniel with an offer to help get back what had been taken away.

They could restore his freedom.

But what happened to Petra could never be undone. In her place, Daniel opted for revenge. To which Syren never batted an eye.

As someone who’d gone undercover inside a criminal organization to avenge the slaughter of his family, Syren had to know that things like this…they took planning. They took time. And above all they took patience.

Daniel didn’t say all that to Syren now, but the small man, clad in a form-fitting dark gray suit, the jacket buttoned over a black shirt and dark-brown leather shoes, watched him as though he’d read everything direct from Daniel’s brain.

“Tell me something…” Syren retook his seat, flicking an invisible something off the lapel of his jacket. “And feel free to answer honestly, m’kay? When you take your blade to Stavros’ flesh, is it the sight of blood that excites you and keeps you going?” He held Daniel’s gaze, eyes speaking louder than his voice, saying he already knew the answer. “Or is it the sight of Stavros Konstantinou’s blood that does the trick?”

Daniel narrowed his gaze.

“Is it the thought of making him pay for what he did to Petra that gets your blood racing and your control fraying? Or is it simply the thought of him? The sight of him that undoes you?” Syren held up a hand. “Because I have to tell you, no matter how much you try to hide it…you are coming undone, my friend.”

They weren’t friends. Barely could they be considered acquaintances.

“You mistake me for someone who ever loses control, amigo,” he growled, and Syren’s lips quirked. “Do not speak of what you do not know.”

“If you say so.” Hands lifted in surrender, gaze mocking, Syren asked, “What’s your next move?”

“Already in motion.” Daniel stood. “I must go.” He couldn’t listen to Syren anymore. He had to deal with the Brazilian in business, but he refused to let it drift over to personal.