The Ex-Wife's Burning Elegance

Harry's eyes fluttered open.

The first thing he saw was the darkness-he was in some kind of warehouse, dim and shadowy, the air thick and stale.

He rubbed his aching head, voice low and hoarse as he muttered to himself, "Where am I? How did I end up here?"

The last few days had been a blur-drinking himself numb, stumbling from one hangover to the next, every waking moment haunted by pain. Stella's betrayal had gutted him, left him raw and seething. The humiliation she'd rained down on him replayed over and over in his mind, each time stoking his anger and regret until he thought he'd choke on it.

He couldn't get over it. The wound ran too deep.

Desperate, Harry had even started contacting hitmen, hoping that if Stella were gone, maybe just maybe-his agony would go with her.

Yesterday, finally, someone had taken the job. The plan was simple: they'd meet him in Novaris and work out the rest.

He'd celebrated by drinking himself senseless again, clinging to the idea that once Stella was dead, everything would go back to the way it was.

Now, he snapped upright, a jolt of hope running through him. "You're the guys I hired, right?" he called out.

slowly turned to face him. Harry blinked—he was startled to see that the man was young, strikingly handsome, barely in his twenties and nothing like the cold-blooded killers he'd imagined. With his boyish good looks, he looked more like someone

was a cold glint in Harry's eyes, something poisonous and serpentine. "I want you to ruin that woman," he hissed. "Make her suffer-hurt her, disfigure her, break her hands. And when you're done, make sure she never leaves that place alive. I don't care what

man smiled, just a hint of amusement on

images of revenge. For days, he'd obsessed over a thousand

trembling with excitement. "After she's dead, I

them online. I'll handle

to forget her talent with the violin and remember only the

her name

imagining it made

you have any other

worse,

young man looked down at

know, I

think I'd

seen cruelty," he mused.

you put the rest of us to