Her knees gave out, and she barely caught herself on the railing, eyes wide and unblinking, her heart pounding so loudly she could hear nothing else.
She had never seen anything like this.
She had never seen him like this.
And the dreadful realization that Leo, her Leo, the man who kissed her cheeks and adjusted her blanket and held her so carefully… was capable of this shook her soul to its core.
"Your hands," Leo whispered near her uncle's ear, his voice low and chilling, "hurt so many people."
His fingers slid down the man's trembling arm, tracing each bone with slow, unhurried intimacy. "So it is fitting that they suffer first."
He pressed the tool down again, not with brute force but with steady, merciless pressure that made the man's breath break into choked, broken gasps. Bella could not see the exact damage. She could only see the way Leo's wrist twisted, the tension in his forearm, the way her uncle's fingers spasmed uncontrollably as agony tore through him.
