Chapter 25

Darius watched Alex go inside Marks’ office. After he disappeared inside, he turned his attention back to the man struggling to move.

“Get up!” he roared. All his focus was on Williams who was trying, and failing, to pick himself up off the floor now. A dark bruise was already coloring the side of his face that had been brutishly smashed into the hard floor.

It took him a long while, but finally, Williams was able to get to his feet. He was incredibly shaky though, his knees visibly wobbling, but he didn’t fall back down.

“You think I’m scared of you?” he laughed. Blood dribbled down the corner of his mouth and somewhere along the way he had pulled out his gun, holding it in his right hand. His broken wrist was swollen already and his clothes were rumpled. The flaps of his pale, gray shirt now hung loosely over his pants. He stared at Darius, a crazed smile on his face. “I’ll kill you nice and slow.”

“I’m gonna make sure you won’t hurt anyone again.” Darius bent into a crouched fighter’s stance. “Let’s see how tough you really are when you face off against someone like me instead of defenseless, vulnerable girls. You pick fights you know you’ll win because you’re a coward. Now I’m picking one with you, so get up!”

Darius watched in amusement as Williams’s own anger started to boil over, his eyes blazing with fury. He pointed the gun and unloaded it. When that proved useless, he sped forward with impressive speed considering how much pain he was clearly in. He closed the distance between himself and Darius, cocked back an arm, and punched as hard as he could right into Darius’s lower jaw. Unfortunately, he forgot that the same tactic had already failed before. If Darius had been an ordinary person and not genetically altered into an indestructible superhuman, the blow might have been lethal.

Darius’s head and face didn’t even move.

Again.

Williams screamed in pain and anger. He pulled back his hand. His knuckles were bleeding and a finger or two looked oddly crooked. Blinded by anger, Williams tried punching Darius again with his uninjured hand, despite how futile the gesture had been the first two times.

Darius wasn’t content to just take the blow this time. He wanted to cause Williams unimaginable pain, but more than that, he wanted to absolutely humiliate him as well. So he caught the fist in one hand and, with no trouble at all, he simply crushed it. He heard bones crunch and blood patter to the floor in steady, oddly satisfying, drips.

Williams stared at the bloody mess his hand had become and roared in pain. He looked up at Darius with wide, shocked eyes and tried to back away. His movements were jerky because with two bad hands and an injured knee, all he had left was one good leg.

“That one,” Darius said, strolling forward as Williams continued to back up with both his hands cradled in his stomach. “Was for Anna.”

There was a subtle shift in not only Williams’ eyes but in his stance as well. The fear was dissipating and something more sinister was taking its place. Something cold and calculating. He understood everything now.

“Anna? Anna Cook? I know that dirty bitch.” He laughed, the sound harsh and just flat out evil. He smiled as he saw Darius’s expression change from anger to a red hot, blazing rage. “You’re her guy right? Derrick? Demetrius?”

Darius’s eyes widened in shock.

“No. Wait. I remember. It was Darius wasn’t it?” Williams' laugh turned into a cruel smirk. “Yeah. I know about you. I know everything about my working girls. Helps me keep my hold on them.”

“Shut the hell up!” Darius screamed.

“You’d be proud of your girl. She was my top earner. Everyone wanted her. And wanted her. And wanted her. The guys that bought her said she was a real good screw. Oh. Wait a minute. How sexist of me. There were two or three women that wanted Anna’s sweet pu...”

“Shut the fuck up!” Darius bolted at the bastard in a blind rush.

Williams’ smile broadened. He’d been waiting for the moment the idiot let his anger take full control. In fact it was the reason for provoking him in the first place. When Darius got close enough, Williams abruptly dropped down and to one side. At the same time, he stuck out one leg and before Darius realized what happened, he tripped over the bastard’s outstretched leg and tumbled across the floor. Williams used the opportunity to try and get away. He took off at a dead sprint, his injured leg clearly not actually injured. It had all been a ruse to throw Darius off his guard. He was headed for the stairs, cradling his injured hands against his stomach still.

Darius got back up quickly and his head snapped around to track Williams. He saw pretty quickly where he was headed and used every bit of speed he had to get to the stairs first. Once there, he stuck out an arm and Williams crumpled around it like a crushed pop can. The breath was knocked out of him and he coughed out a bit of blood. He gasped for air and tried to backtrack away from Darius, but he was too slow.

Too slow by a lot.

Before he could get away, Darius lashed out and gripped Williams’ hand, the one not already crushed to an unrecognizable pulp. The minute he grabbed it, Williams howled in pain.

Darius smiled cruelly and started squeezing. He did it slower this time, the pressure building steadily. Williams started bucking in wild terror and pain, his eyes huge. The whites showed all the way around his irises. After a minute or two of constant pressure, a sound like creaking stairs came from the bones in Williams’s hand. More pressure was added and then even more pressure. He fell to his knees, his eyes clenched shut and more howls of pain coming from him.

Those howls were like music to Darius’ ears.

“S-st-stop,” Williams gasped out.

“Not fucking likely,” Darius hissed and then closed his hand the rest of the way, feeling the way shards of bone pushed at the palm of his hand and blood oozed between his fingers. When he let go, Williams’ eyes leaked tears in steady rivers and his nose was pouring out snot like a faucet. It mixed with the blood still trickling from the corner of his mouth and created a slightly pinkish mixture that plopped off the end of his chin every few seconds. He looked at his ruined hands and wailed, the sound filling Darius with overwhelming satisfaction.

“Y-you…miserable…sonnuva…” Williams stammered, his eyes clenched tight against the burning, throbbing pain in his pulverized hands.

That buzzing anger roaring inside Darius was at its strongest and he continued to let it carry him along until he lost all control. The only thing he saw in his mind was Anna’s face, bruised and devoid of vitality. Of life. Without further thought, Darius cocked his clenched fist back.

“P-please…,” Williams tried to beg. All of his bravado was gone and nothing was left but a man pleading for his life.

Darius leaned in.

“Fuck you,” he whispered harshly.

Then he plowed his fist into William’s face with every bit of strength his enhanced body had. It connected squarely on the side of the bastard’s jaw, shattering it almost at once. William’s head was thrown to the side in a horribly sickening whiplash, so fast that the bones in his neck snapped in half, severing his spinal column near the base of his skull. The rest of his lifeless corpse dropped to the floor, the blood from his hands spreading into a scarlet pool.

Darius breathed deeply, feeling a certain amount of relief.

It’s over, he thought to himself.

He was breathing heavily, his eyes staring intently at Williams’ dead body. Seeing him there, his neck twisted grotesquely around on his shoulders, Darius started getting a sickening feeling deep in his stomach. He refused to let himself feel any remorse about killing them though and forced that sensation in his gut away.

“D?”

Darius didn’t hear his name being called.

“Darius!”

Darius turned toward Alex’s voice and saw his friend standing there with a shocked, horrified look on his face. He was looking down at Williams’ dead body.

“We..uhh..we need to go. Now,” Alex said, forcing himself to look away from what Darius had done.

Darius wouldn’t move. He seemed transfixed by the body on the floor. Alex was getting nervous.

“Come on. Snap out of it,” he said again, more insistently this time.

Darius still didn’t acknowledge him. Instead, he turned away from the corpse and left without any comment. Alex, after another glance at the dead man on the ground, followed him. The thugs they’d thrown around were starting to move around again, all of them groaning in pain, but no one stopped them from leaving. All they did was cower, hoping not to get noticed.

Alex and Darius walked out of Exclusive with an awkward, uncomfortable tension between them. Darius refused to look at Alex, afraid his friend would see a truth in his eyes he didn’t want him to see.

The truth that, deep down, he enjoyed killing those scumbags.