Chapter b158 /b

bChapter 158 /b

ADRIAN’S POV

After a few more strikes, I finally lowered the hammer and stepped back, breathing calmly.

I looked down at Mrs Grayson’s fingers, now a mangled mess of twisted bone and broken nails. The skin around her knuckles had turned a dark, angry red, swollen beyond recognition. Some of her nails had torn clean off, others dangled loosely, barely hanging on. Her hands shook uncontrobly, but that didn’t stop the tears from pouring down her face like a waterfall.

She tried to scream, her mouth opening behind the duct tape, but only muffled sobs escaped. His whole body trembled violently. She’d finally reached that point–the threshold where pain morphs into trauma, where the body continues to suffer long after the mind has shut down.

I tilted my head slightly, watching her. She looked pitiful. Broken. But unfortunately for her, we weren’t done.

I turned my attention toward the other side of the table.

“Now it’s time for your turn,” I said, my voice steady, almost casual–as if we were switching yers in a card game.

Mr. Grayson began shaking his head wildly, panic fully taking over now. His mouth moved behind the tape, trying to plead for mercy, but no sound came out. His eyes–once calm and calcting–were now filled with raw, unfiltered terror.

I didn’t care.

Just like I did with his wife, I raised the hammer and brought it down hard–again and again. The same sickening crunch of bones echoed through the room. His fingers, one after the other, twisted under the force, splitting open in ces, turning his hands into something unrecognizable.

Sweat dripped down my brow, but I wasn’t tired. I was alive.

Blood pooled on the table beneath him, thick and dark. He shook violently, his body convulsing in shock, his face wet with tears.

But we weren’t stopping there. Not yet.

It was time to take things up a notch.

I grabbed the knife I had used earlier–the same de that had burned into Mrs. Grayson’s skin–and ced it beside his ruined hand. I pressed his wrist down, using my forearm to keep him from pulling away. Dan stepped in to help, pinning his arm in ce. Mr. Grayson’s eyes locked onto mine as I raised

the knife.

“Let this serve as ba /breminder,” I said. “For every hand you reached into someone else’s life and ruined… this is for them.”

Without a second thought, I began slicing.

One finger at a time.

The de wasn’t surgical–it was ragged and already a little dull from the earlier torture. It made the process slower. Messier. More painful.

Mr. Grayson’s body writhed; and a blood–curdling scream rang out–muffled but still piercing through the room. His veins popped out of his neckb, /bhis eyes rolling back. Blood sprayed across the table, staining the wood and my gloves.

By the time I dropped the knife, only a stump remained where fingers once lived. I exhaled slowly as Dan handed me a cloth to wipe my face, which had small stters of his blood on it.

I stood there, quietly observing him.

bHe /bwas slumped, his breathing shallow, his head lolling to the side. Tears still leaked from his eyes, but they were losing bfocus/b. He was on bthe /bbverge /bof passing out, possibly dying from blood loss.

b1/3 /b

09:07 Mon, b23 /bbJun /b

And that wasn’t the n.

I didn’t want him dying like this. Not from shock. Not from bleeding out. That was too slow–and far too merciful.

90%

Dan reached under his shirt and pulled out the handgun he always kept tucked into his waistband. He handed it to me without saying a word. He knew

what came next.

b20/b)

“I told you I wasn’t going to let either of you leave here alive,” I said coldly, lifting the gun and aiming it at Mr. Grayson’s head. “As much as I’d love to keep this going, I’ve got better things to do. So when you get to hell–tell the devil Adrian says hello.”

I pulled the trigger.

The loud crack of the gunshot shattered the silence, echoing off the basement walls.

Mr. Grayson’s head slumped forward instantly. A clean hole pierced his temple, blood and brain matter sttering across the cement floor behind him. His body wentpletely still, the life drained from it in a blink.

Mrs. Grayson, still taped and bound, turned her head slowly–her eyes wide with horror as she stared at her dead husband. Her chest heaved as she tried to scream, the tape muffling the sound into a broken cry.

“That felt good,” I said coldly, rolling the gun on my fingers, the warm metal still vibrating from the recoil.

But it was more than that–it was final. There was no turning back now. Blood had been spilled. Justice–at least my version of it–had been delivered.

Across from me, Mrs. Grayson finally grasped the weight of the moment. Her eyes went wide, her chest rising and falling rapidly as the realization dawned on her. Her entire body trembled–not from the pain alone, but from fear. Crippling, consuming fear

She knew what wasing.

“What?” I asked, staring at her with a hollow expression. “Did you think I was joking? That I’d stop after him?”

I held the gun up again, slowly, deliberately, and aimed it at her forehead.

“At least I fulfilled his wish and gave him a quick death. A bullet to the head. Now it’s your

turn.”

Her entire body shook. The bloodied remnants iof /iher hands were trembling against the ropes. She tried to scream, to plead for her life, but her mouth was sealed tight. Still, the wet muffled cries echoed around the basement, mixing with her panicked breathing. Her eyes, red with tears, darted around the room–searching for someone, anyone, to save her.

But no one wasing.

And I wasn’t going to fall for those tears. I had seen real sorrow before. This–this was desperation from someone who never thought consequences would catch up with her.

“This… is for my mother.”

I said the words slowly, with meaning. And then I pulled the trigger.

The loud bang echoed through the basement ilike /ia final verdict from a vengeful god. Her head jerked violently to the side, and then she went still, slumping against the ropes with blood slowly dripping from the fresh hole in her temple.

Silence.

I closed my eyes and let the silence wrap around me like a suffocating nket. I had done it. They were gone. The people who destroyed my mother, who tore my family apart–they were finally gone.

I should’ve felt relief. Or triumph. Or peace. Something.

But all I felt… was emptiness.

JU

bA /bcold, bitter emptiness that curled in my gut like a stone.

“You okay, boss?” Dan’s voice came softly from behind me, careful, hesitant.

I nced over my shoulder at him. He was standing still, unreadable. Behind him, the others waited, saying nothing, watching.

With a flick of my fingers, I dismissed them all.

Dan gave a small nod and turned. Within seconds, the sound of their retreating footsteps faded, leaving mepletely alone in the dim, blood–smeared basement with two corpses strapped to chairs.

The gun slipped from my hand and ttered to the ground.

I moved slowly to the table, where I had ced the picture of my mother earlier. I picked it up gently, brushing off a speck of dust from the frame with my thumb. My eyes burned as I stared at her face, those kind eyes frozen in time.

My legs gave out, and I let myself slide down to the floor, not caring that I was still in my suit. I sat in the corner of the room, the smell of blood thick in the air, my back against the cold wall.

“I did it, Mom,” I whispered. “I did everything I said I would.”

My throat tightened. The tears I’d been holding back for years finally pushed forward, threatening to break through.

“Then why…” I swallowed hard. “Why do I still feel this way?”

I looked down at the photo in my hand, my grip trembling. My voice cracked as I whispered again.

“Why do I still feel… empty?”

There was no answer.

Only silence—and two dead bodies that would never make things right.