It's barely 9 a.m. and this day is already full of shit that's pissing me off.
Never mind the fact that when Nico and I went to Des Moines to meet our associate, we were only greeted with bad news. I'd nearly forgotten it all, after everything with Nina yesterday. But now, I'm back at work. Now, I'm drowning in this shit again. Chasing down associates and the men who owe them favors.
Luciano Genovese is turning out to be a bigger problem than we signed up for.
Our associate's inside sources suspected that the Genovese Boss was gearing up for a huge shipment of women. Bigger than what he usually brings in. And if that wasn't already enough, on a fucking death wish, Luciano had decided to conduct this business in our city.
There's a reason for this beyond that he's just a reckless fucking idiot. And it's my job to figure that out. Thus, the reason I'm currently in a meeting with the world's lamest criminal.
The man sitting before me is grating on my fucking nerves. And I can't do anything about it, because he brought his mousy wife along with him, and she's already been eyeing me like I'm holding a gun to her firstborn child's head.
I'm used to the look, but come on. I haven't even done anything. Yet. If Alberto doesn't start cooperating, I might have to.
Speaking of the spineless bastard, he's currently spluttering out some weak excuse as to why he can't get me what I was promised.
"You need me to... hack into the city's security system to spy on Luciano? Luciano Genovese?" Alberto trembles in front of me. He trembles so hard that the table of the quaint little French café we're currently seated in shakes and the glass on it rattles. Fucking pathetic.
I fold my fingers patiently in front of me. My foot taps slowly, and I work to keep the tempo that way. Really, I'm aching to throw this table across the room and ask this guy how the fuck he's the best hacker around if he's normally this fucking pussy.
"Yes. That's exactly what I need."
"Why?"
My eye twitches. "So we can figure out where Luciano will be selling a bunch of women and little girls into sex slavery in this very city, and stop him. Is that an acceptable reason for you?"
Fucker.
His wife's eyes blow wide at the deadly calm of my voice. Maybe I should smile, try to appear easygoing, before she pisses herself.
I smile. She grabs onto her husband's bicep in terror.
Never mind.
"Luciano is going to—"
"You know, I wasn't aware you were nestled this far up Luciano's ass," I snap. I would dial it back, but I can't now. This man is just going to go straight to Luciano as soon as this meeting ends. It's already been nearly an hour of excuses. And I'm going to have strong words with my associate for giving me the number of a guy who's made it his number one life goal to breathe in the farts of the Genovese boss.
"I need to know for sure that he's planning on moving women in Chicago, Alberto," I say. He doesn't know it yet, but he won't be leaving my presence without agreeing to do what I need him to do. There's no other option. "Everybody up and down both coasts knows what fucking happens to men who do that. This is my brother's fucking city. We don't tolerate that shit. But I can't operate on a maybe. I need access. I need details."
The man leans back, biting his nails. Still reluctant. My eye twitch feels more like a spasm.
You know what? Fuck my composure.
I'm already pissed I had to miss out on a quiet morning between the sheets with Nina. After the night we had, then seeing her so happy after having made a new friend, nothing sounded better than getting another taste of her. Showing her how good I can make her feel, how much she deserves that. But I had to miss out on that for this shit? I've never met a more reluctant criminal in my life—what's the point?
"What the hell does Luciano have on you? There's no way you're as good as I've heard if you're this reluctant to do a simple fucking job," I hiss, ignoring the way the wife's hands start fluttering in front of her like she's about to pass out.
"Our daughter," she sobs, slapping her hands over her mouth. Alberto stares at her in horror, but the words are already out there. The silence stretches between us as I try to process what the hell this woman has just said to me.
"He has your daughter?" I repeat in a stony monotone.
Alberto runs a nervous hand through his hair, and his wife scrubs meekly at her tears.
"Tell me."
Still, they remain silent.
"I'm somebody you can talk to about this," I try to soften my tone. "I can't tell you I'm not one of the bad guys, but I'm not the worst one. Not in this. I can help you."
To my surprise, his wife opens her mouth. "Our daughter was... taken from her school three days ago by one of Luciano's men. She's only eleven." Tears drip down her face, helplessly wiped away a second later. "Luciano is going to sell her with that shipment, and we'll never see her again."
I hide my clenched fists under the table. "Why is he doing this?" While a man such as Luciano Genovese doesn't need an excuse to do the things he does, he almost always has a reason when he makes it this personal.
"He had a job for me that I couldn't do. It was entirely not feasible what he was asking, but he didn't care. He said I had to choose. My wife... or my daughter," Alberto whispers.
My sardonic laugh cuts through the air. Sounds like Luciano's favorite dilemma to contrive. I'll give it to him; the man is creative.
"I didn't choose. I couldn't," the man cries softly, and disgust fills me. I didn't need another reason to want Luciano's head on a stick, but here we are. Looks like my day is going to continue to get more violent.
"You said your daughter is going to be in that shipment, the one I'm asking you about. Does that mean you know when and where it will be?"
Their faces tell me everything.
I lean forward, making sure they can see the conviction on my face. The promise. I understand the extents one will go to in order to protect their family, and I want them to see that. "I want to save those girls. You can trust me. If you tell me, you'll be helping me and my brothers bring those girls home. And I promise, I'll save your daughter. I'll have her at your doorstep safe and sound. I promise you that."
Whatever Luciano does, I can do better. Crueler. More twisted. He'd do best to remember that.
I leave the meeting having gained the knowledge I needed and with a storm brewing in the darkest part of me. It's just as well, because it's the sixth of the month.
Which means Serpentine. Nina will have to wait several more hours.
I push down the disappointment, trying to shake a weird feeling I'm not familiar with. I need to push her from my mind now; she can't be there for what I'm about to do.
This month, it crept up on me. Usually I'm counting down the days, down to the very minute.
I straighten my black tie as I walk around to the back of the club, breathing in deeply as the stupid thing seems to cut off my air supply. It's not, but today has left a weight on my chest that makes me feel as if drawing in a full breath is nearly impossible. Hearing more details from Alberto and his wife filled me with an aching sense of foreboding, despite it undoubtedly helping the situation.
I just can't stop thinking about their daughter. Knowing her name, her parents, snippets of her life—it tips the scale. I don't typically familiarize myself with the personal details of the people I work with. Even those I'm killing. All I need to know is what they've done. Nothing else matters.
But knowing the way Luciano treated Nina, the way he sent her to live with the man who ended up raping her... it makes it more personal than it's ever been. And sitting there while Alberto and his wife cried to me about their daughter... again, too personal.
It all gives me the feeling like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff. Stepping off the ledge and free-falling would be murdering Luciano. Way too fucking easy. I'm too goddamn close to banging on the fucker's front door and shoving a Glock down his throat.
Realistically, I wouldn't make his death so easy. But it's a nice thing to think about regardless.
Sleazy music drips from the speakers inside the club, and the lively chatter of the Tuesday evening crowd reaches my ears. I can practically smell the expensive perfume of the women, hear their jewelry tinkling softly as they slink around in their expensive gowns.
I approach the large man waiting in the shadows, and his face remains impassive. Flashing him a smirk, I peel back my sleeve and hold out my arm. He reaches into his pocket, withdrawing a small razor and holding it to my skin.
We both watch as it glides across my skin, tracing over the 'S'. Blood drips down my wrist, the new 'S' painted in crimson now. I squeeze my hand into a fist, letting six drops trickle to the concrete. Blood, some dried and some new, already stains the ground.
My breath escapes in smoky tendrils into the night as I murmur, "Thirsty ad sanguinem, et terra fatiscit, et Filius Serpentine."
He nods once, and the door opens.
Fuck, it's been a long fucking day. I groan, loosening my tie the second I step into the dark hallway. The familiar distant hum of people and the smell of the club slithers through my senses, evoking all those same feelings. Expectation. Excitement. Something else that's darker, something I can't quite name, or maybe I just don't want to.
It's all there, just like normal. And yet, right now, all I'd like is to go home and bury myself in my woman.
That gives me pause. My woman?
A growl vibrates my chest. Yeah, my fucking woman. The thought of her being anyone else's makes my clothes feel too small, my skin feel too hot. The taste of her is still on my tongue, the feel of her hips beneath my fingers and the brush of her lips over mine. And I'd kill to keep those reminders of her there, to keep them off the tongue and hands and lips of another man.
I don't know how, but in the process of getting under my skin and uprooting things I didn't even know were there, she nestled right where she was and made a home. And I'm not going to be able to get rid of her no matter what I do. She's there for good.
Or at least as long as she wants to stay.
I walk through the narrow corridor, my all-black suit becoming a part of the darkness. If I were to look down, all I'd see is blackness swallowing my body. Like I'm a floating head, void of everything except the night, not existing except to be surrounded by obscurity. I'm not sure why they insist on not even one bulb lighting the way. My feet are well used to the journey by now, but the first time I walked down this corridor, I almost busted my ass seven times.
Unwittingly, thoughts of Alberto's daughter pass through my mind again. I don't know why I can't seem to get unstuck from it. I don't even know the girl, but I keep picturing her. The abuse she'll endure no matter how quickly we save her. And I know the drill by now; she'll have been kept in an undisclosed location, probably some abandoned house miles off the map, until the day she's moved to a new location to meet her new owners. Where she is now, it's not the worst it's going to get for her—but it's still worse than most of us will ever experience.
When I start picturing the things she's going through, probably right at this moment, I start picturing Nina in her place. And then I get really fucking angry.
My thoughts are fogging my awareness tonight, I'm getting antsy and have half convinced myself to turn around and just go home to her. That's why I don't realize someone's coming until a hand is gripping my shoulder. I'm pulled into a room, the lights still dim but bright enough I can see the outline of the man before me.
"Birsha," I greet him, a wooden smirk shaping my lips.
"Arioch," he says back, and my lip curls at the name. I'd rather he didn't call me that right now. "I hear that Luciano Genovese is causing trouble for your family?"
Annoyance curdles my blood. He knows I need to handle this without any involvement from Serpentine. Luciano is mine and mine only to deal with. The men in this building could end him in a thousand ways that would shock even him with their brutality, but they won't.
"My family and I are handling him. You know this is the way it's supposed to be done."
"Sure," Birsha shrugs in the darkness. "But I have my own problems with that weasel. Half of the Sons do. And the vengeance of a hundred men is surely more effective than two," he challenges.
My eyes narrow. "Not if I am one of the two."
"I'm sure you'll have your way, Arioch. I just hope it doesn't take too much longer."
Discomfort strikes me again, and it's so unexpected that I blurt, "let's stick to our Christian names for right now, Alessandro."
He chuckles, no doubt at the irony. "Not feeling as vengeful as your demonic namesake tonight?"
"Quite the opposite," I sneer.
"Excuse me if I don't fucking have faith in that," Alessandro hisses, and I can feel him get closer. "Because I also hear that you have a little guest living with you."
Wrath has me reaching for his throat before I can realize what I'm doing, but I pull back at the last second. His chuckles push me to the edge of my temper and I step back, reaching into the recesses of my mind.
"You don't think I can carry out the appropriate vengeance?" I say, ignoring his mention of Nina. He's lucky I can't kill him right now for just fucking mentioning her.
"I'll believe it when I see it."
"I have my methods of justice. You'd be smart not to incur the wrath of my brother—or worse, Serpentine—by doubting that."
I turn and head to the door, his footsteps following me.
"You know, out of all of us, I've always thought you were the most cut out for this. What we do here—the rest of us don't take it home with us. But you do. You do, and you like it."
And with that, he's gone.
I head to the bar, the scantily clad woman behind it drawling out, "what can I get ya?"
Minutes later, sipping my whiskey, I take in the room, my heart beginning to pound in anticipation. Nobody talks to each other; each black-clad individual sits in their designated spot sipping their drink, waiting. The lights are dim, thankfully. None of us want to look at each other while we do this. It doesn't serve us to be reminded of each other's humanity in this room.
The stage that sits in the center of the room is lit up brighter than the rest of the space. The sound of shuffling soon reaches my ears, and my blood thrums in anticipation. The room is cloaked in an excited murmur, the rustle of perfectly tailored suits and the clink of glasses on the table as we lean forward.
There's not much longer to wait.
The men come in with the weight of their miserable, pathetic lives dragging behind them, making them stumble and stagger to the stage. The chains around their ankles do little to imprison these men. They are trapped by their own decisions, by the desires that light up their screens late at night, by the tastes they chose to indulge in. It is not us or Serpentine that has done this to them.
But it is us who will get to make them pay.
Once they're lined up, the voices of the men around me begin to escalate in excitement. We have a special bunch this month. The men before us are the worst of the worst. Cannibals, pedophiles, rapists; they have sold and devoured the bodies of women. Now they have been sold to the devil's lair and are about to be devoured by Lucifer himself.
I stand, walking slowly to the stage. All around me, others do the same.
"Thirsty ad sanguinem, et terra fatiscit, et Filius Serpentine." Our haunt fills the air, murmured quietly by each man about to exact punishment. Drawing frightened cries and even tears from the ones damned.
I reach my mark, a middle-aged man with wiry glasses, fragile looking shoulders, and a greasy face. My lip curls. He's openly crying, and bile threatens the back of my throat. I crouch, unlocking his chains before I grab him by the bony shoulder to lead him from the room.
His cries increase in intensity, and I tighten my hand until I can feel his bones creak beneath my grip. "Be quiet," I snarl.
One by one, the marks are taken to their respective rooms. Each room is the equivalent of a small concrete cell with soundproof walls lined with every tool of torture imaginable.
My mark takes one look at the walls and begins bawling, begging for mercy in unintelligible, ugly gasps. I shove him hard and he lands on his wrist as he sprawls to the floor. A crack splits the air and he wails, clutching the broken limb to his chest.
I grin, my cheeks almost hurting with the unnatural stretching of my face. I roll my neck and crack my knuckles, staring for a few precious moments at the tattoo on my hand.
"Just what you always wanted, Mamma."
In a split second, Nina's face flashes through my mind, and it almost brings me to my knees right there. But I push her away, this time for good.
The man on the floor looks at me like I'm a psychopath. Like that's news to him.
This one is going to be fun.
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Didn't have time to proofread this but I hope it's okay! Finally the Serpentine reveal (kinda). Any predictions for wtf Serpentine is?
Thank you for reading. It truly means so much to me!
- G