I Am the Devil of This Hell

Chapter 042

Kane Adler moved through the cacophony of agony like a conductor strolling through an orchestra pit, deaf to the discordant notes of the dying. His focus was entirely on the man crucified against the dark mahogany of the Nightjar’s VIP section.

Johnny Malone, once the arrogant lord of the South District, was now merely a twitching slab of meat. Kane stepped closer, a cruel smile playing on his lips as he twirled a small blade under the flashing strobe lights.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Kane whispered, his voice an intimate caress. He traced the cold edge of his knife along Johnny's jaw, drawing a thin line of crimson.

Johnny couldn't answer. His world had narrowed to the agonizing fire in his wrists. The Bowie knives pinned him deep into the wood, but his one-hundred-and-eighty-pound frame fought a losing battle against gravity. The steel sawed against shattered bone, tearing the skin millimeter by millimeter. It felt as though his hands were slowly being severed by a rusty saw.

The pain was absolute, bypassing the brain to strike directly at the soul. With a throat stripped raw from screaming, all Johnny could manage was a high-pitched hiss through clenched teeth.

"You're thrashing too much," Kane mused. "That’s bad for the wounds. Let's stabilize you. Dante, give our friend a hand. Or rather, a leg."

Dante Romero, the 'Sky Dancer', stepped forward with a malicious grin. In his right hand, he juggled two heavy combat knives with the dexterity of a circus performer.

"My pleasure, Kane," Dante chuckled.

He walked up to Johnny, looking at the man's kicking legs. Johnny was instinctively trying to find purchase on the wall, trying to push himself up to relieve the pressure on his hands.

"Stop squirming," Dante said softly.

THWACK! THWACK!

The motion was a blur. Dante drove the knives through Johnny’s shins, pinning them directly into the wooden studs behind the drywall.

The sound of steel shattering the tibia was distinct—a dry c***k like a gunshot.

"AAAAGGGHHHHHH!"

Johnny threw his head back, his mouth opening so wide the corners of his lips tore. The scream was primal, a sound that made the glass on the tables vibrate. His body went rigid, locked in place by six points of steel. He could no longer kick. He could no longer squirm. He was a specimen pinned for display.

"Who... who are you..." Johnny sobbed, his voice breaking into hysterical hiccups. "When... when did Iron Crest ever... ever offend you? Why? Why are you doing this?!"

Kane leaned in close, his nose almost touching Johnny’s. The smile vanished from his face, replaced by a look of cold, righteous judgment.

"Why?" Kane repeated. "You ask me why? You sit on a throne of filth and ask why the cleaners have arrived?"

Kane gestured around the room. "Since Iron Crest took over this district, what has been your primary revenue stream? You think I don't know? k********g. Trafficking. Forcing innocent college girls into debt traps and then selling their bodies in this very club to pay it off. How many girls, Johnny? How many lives have you ruined? How many families have you destroyed just to buy that gold chain around your neck?"

Kane’s eyes burned with a terrifying intensity. "You are a cancer. And tonight, we are the surgery. Iron Crest is erased from the map."

He stepped back and nodded to Elias Thorne.

Elias, the man with the face of a corpse, stepped out of the shadows. He held a sleek, surgical scalpel in his hand. He didn't look angry; he looked bored, which was infinitely more terrifying.

Elias grabbed Johnny’s face, his fingers digging into the jaw to force it still. With a swift motion, he drove the scalpel into Johnny’s right cheek.

"Mmmph!" Johnny gurgled.

Elias didn't pull it out. He left it there, the blade piercing the flesh, while he used his free hand to rifle through Johnny’s b****y pockets. He pulled out a sleek, expensive smartphone.

He unlocked it using Johnny’s face—forcing the sobbing man to look at the screen—and scrolled through the contacts.

"Found it," Elias said, his voice dry as dust. "Leo Vaughn."

Elias held the screen up for Johnny to see. "Leo Vaughn, the leader of The Syndicate. Your sworn brother."

Elias pressed the phone against Johnny’s left ear. "Listen to me very carefully. I am going to give you one chance. One chance to die quickly. One chance to end this pain."

He twisted the scalpel in Johnny’s cheek. Johnny whined, his eyes rolling back in his head.

"I’m going to dial this number," Elias whispered. "You are going to scream for help. You are going to tell Leo Vaughn that you are under attack by a massive rival force. You need him to bring everyone. Every single man he has. You need him here now."

Johnny stared at Elias, terror overriding the pain for a split second.

"You have thirty seconds," Elias said emotionlessly. "If you fail to convince him... I will start peeling. I will start with your eyelids, and I will work my way down."

He pressed the call button.

Ring... Ring...

The sound of the ringtone was deafening in the silence of the slaughterhouse. Elias began to slowly rotate the scalpel handle. The blade sliced through the inside of Johnny’s cheek, moving toward his ear.

Ring...

"Hello?" A booming, rough voice answered. "Haha! Johnny! My brother! What’s going on this late?"

The sound of Leo Vaughn’s voice broke the dam of Johnny’s sanity. He didn't need to act. He didn't need to pretend. The terror was pure and unadulterated.

"Leo! Big Brother Leo! Help me!" Johnny shrieked, his voice cracking with hysteria. "Help me! They’re killing everyone! Oh God, they’re killing everyone!"

On the other end of the line, the laughter stopped instantly. "What? Johnny, slow down. Who is attacking you?"

"I don't know! It’s a raid! There are hundreds of them!" Johnny sobbed, tears and blood mixing on his face. "They hit the Nightjar! I can't hold them off! Brother, please! Save me! They’re going to skin me alive! Come now! Bring everyone! I’ll give you the club! I’ll give you the territory! I’ll give you everything! Just save me! PLeeeease!"

Elias smiled. It was a gruesome expression. He snapped the phone shut, cutting off the connection.

Johnny was hyperventilating, his chest heaving against the wall. He looked at Kane with eyes that were no longer human—they were the eyes of a beaten dog waiting for the final blow.

"I... I did it..." Johnny whispered, choking on his own blood. "Please... please... kill me. End it. Please."

Kane looked at him with zero sympathy. He adjusted his cuff.

"In your next life," Kane said softly, "try being a human being."

He nodded to Marcus Grady.

Marcus stepped forward, his Tang Dao gleaming. He didn't hesitate. He thrust the blade forward with a single, clean motion.

SHINNK.

The sword pierced Johnny’s chest, puncturing the heart instantly.

Johnny Malone stiffened one last time. His eyes widened, then slowly glazed over, the light fading into a dull grey. His head dropped forward, chin resting on his chest. The agonizing tension in his body finally released in death.

Kane turned away, already bored.

Across the room, the Talons were helping themselves to the top-shelf liquor behind the bar. They drank straight from the bottles—bourbon, scotch, vodka—washing away the taste of adrenaline. The smell of death didn't seem to bother them; if anything, it was seasoning.

Harvey Shaw, known as Number Two, wiped a splash of blood from his cheek and sheathed his sword. He walked over to a dark corner near the emergency exit. He kicked a pile of trash bags.

"Oof!"

A muffled grunt came from the pile. Harvey reached down and grabbed a trembling ankle. He dragged a man out into the light.

It was a fat man in a torn suit—the owner of the Nightjar. He had been hiding under a table, praying to every god he knew that the demons wouldn't find him.

"Playing dead?" Harvey sneered. "Let's see if cutting off a leg wakes you up."

The fat man shrieked, scrambling backward and hugging Harvey’s boot. "No! No! Don't kill me! Please! I’m just the owner! I’m not a gangster! I didn't see anything! I swear! I’m blind! I’m deaf!"

Harvey laughed, squatting down to eye level. He slapped the man’s sweaty, quivering cheek.

"Blind? That won't do. I need you to have 20/20 vision, fatty."

He grabbed the man’s face and forcibly turned it toward the wall where Johnny Malone hung like a broken marionette.

"Look at that," Harvey commanded. "Now, listen closely. If you get even one word of this wrong... the next time I come back, you’ll be hanging right next to him. Do you understand?"

The fat man nodded so hard his jowls shook. "Yes! Yes! I understand!"

"Good," Harvey whispered. "Here is the story. The people who came here tonight... the people who slaughtered Iron Crest... they were from The Syndicate. The man leading them was Leo Vaughn."

The fat man’s eyes widened. Blaming The Syndicate? That would start a war. But looking into Harvey’s dead eyes, he knew the truth didn't matter.

"Do you need me to repeat it?" Harvey asked, tapping his knife against the man’s nose.

"No! No!" the fat man stammered. "The Syndicate! It was Leo Vaughn! I saw him! I saw him kill Johnny!"

"Excellent," Harvey patted his cheek again. "Make sure your surviving staff—if there are any—tell the same story to the police. Or else."

Harvey stood up and joined the others. The Talons grabbed a few more bottles of expensive wine, laughing as they stepped over the corpses, and exited through the back door.

Fifteen minutes later.

On the rooftop of a twenty-story office building, one block away from the Nightjar. The wind whipped at Kane Adler’s coat as he stood on the ledge, looking down at the chaos unfolding below.

The neon lights of the Nightjar flickered below, a beacon of sin in the darkness. From this vantage point, Kane could see the chessboard clearly.

He took the phone Marcus handed him and dialed a number.

"Chief Rocco," Kane said, his voice smooth and professional. "The stage is set. You can move in now. Oh, and a piece of advice? Bring your most loyal men. Don't bring the faint of heart. And leave the female officers at the station. It’s... messy."

Down on the streets, hidden in the alleyways and side streets, seventeen police cruisers suddenly roared to life. Lights flashed, sirens wailed, and the convoy split into three prongs, surrounding the block containing the Nightjar and the Iron Crest territory.

Inside the Nightjar, the silence was broken again. But this time, it was the sound of confused shouting.

Leo Vaughn burst through the front doors, leading a massive wave of fifty armed men. They were panting, sweat dripping from their foreheads, machetes in hand. They had run all the way, expecting a battle.

Instead, they found a graveyard.

The smell hit them first—a wall of copper and excrement so thick it tasted like a penny in the mouth.

"What the..." Leo Vaughn skidded to a halt. His eyes widened, trying to comprehend the scene.

The dance floor was painted red. Bodies were piled in heaps, limbs twisted at unnatural angles. It wasn't a fight; it was an extermination.

Some of his younger thugs couldn't handle it. They doubled over, vomiting violently onto the floor, the sound echoing in the eerie quiet.

Leo stumbled forward, his boots squelching in the drying blood. He looked around frantically. " Johnny? Johnny!"

His gaze fell on the far wall.

He froze.

There, crucified like a grotesque religious icon, was Johnny Malone. His body was limp, his head hanging low, surrounded by a halo of dried blood.

"Johnny..."

Leo let out a strangled cry. He ran to the wall, his hands hovering over the body, afraid to touch it. "Brother... Brother, I’m late. I’m so late."

The brutality of the scene shook him to his core. He had been a gangster for twenty years. He had seen death. But he had never seen this. This was the work of demons.

One of his lieutenants, a scarred man who usually feared nothing, was shaking like a leaf. "Boss... Boss, who did this? This is... this is insane."

Leo Vaughn clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. Tears of rage streamed down his face.

"I don't care who did it!" Leo roared, his voice shaking the walls. "I will find them! I swear on my life, I will find them and I will cut them into a thousand pieces! I will avenge you, Johnny!"

Wooooo-Wooooo!

The sound of sirens cut through his vow of vengeance.

Leo stiffened. He spun around.

Police? Why were they here so fast? Usually, the police waited an hour after a g**g fight to come and clean up the bodies. They never came during the chaos.

Something was wrong.

CRASH!

The glass windows of the club entrance shattered inward.

Pop-Hiss! Pop-Hiss!

canisters of tear gas rolled across the floor, spewing thick white smoke.

"LCPD! FREEZE!"

"THIS IS THE POLICE! YOU ARE SURROUNDED!"

"DROP YOUR WEAPONS! GET ON THE GROUND! NOW!"

Voices amplified by megaphones boomed from every entrance. Through the smoke, Leo could see the silhouettes of heavily armored SWAT teams moving in, shields raised, rifles trained on them.

Leo Vaughn stood in the center of the c*****e, the tear gas stinging his eyes. He looked at the dead body of his sworn brother, then at the police storming the building.

The realization hit him like a physical blow.

It was a trap. A perfect, lethal trap.

He had been lured here to take the fall for a m******e he didn't commit.

"Bastards!" Leo screamed, raising his machete in futile rage as the first wave of riot police breached the door. "You set me up! YOU SET ME UP!"

But his voice was drowned out by the roar of the raid. The Shadow Eagle Clan watched from the rooftops, ghosts in the night, as the old lords of the city were dragged away in chains.

The King of the South was dead. The King of the Syndicate was framed.

The board was cleared.

Kane Adler pocketed his phone and turned to his men. The wind caught his hair, and for a moment, he looked less like a gangster and more like a conqueror surveying his new empire.

"Let's go," Kane said calmly. "We have a city to take."