Shadowed Heart

A Death So Sweet: Book One

Candace Wondrak

© 2020 Candace Wondrak

All Rights Reserved.

Book cover by Melony Paradise at Paradise Cover Design – Premade Book Covers Group

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Chapter One – Lola

Chapter Two – Lola

Chapter Three – Maddox

Chapter Four – Lola

Chapter Five – Sylvester

Chapter Six – Lola

Chapter Seven – Viper

Chapter Eight – Lola

Chapter Nine – Lola

Chapter Ten – Maddox

Chapter Eleven – Lola

Chapter Twelve – Richard

Chapter Thirteen – Lola

Chapter Fourteen – Lola

Chapter Fifteen – Sylvester

Chapter Sixteen – Lola

It was a dark and stormy night when…

Nah, I’m just shitting you. It wasn’t a dark and stormy night. I mean, it was dark, but ain’t all nights dark in the lacking-of-sun way? Anywho, it was just a regular old night for me. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Got all dolled up and went out.

Little did I know that night would be one of the last normal nights of my life.

Now, I like to think I’m a pretty normal girl. At twenty-two years old, I’m a beautiful bombshell that can make any poor sap fall onto his knees for me. It ain’t hard. I learned young that men are all the same, a dime a dozen, and most of the time, they think with their dicks.

Yeah, just a normal gal, you see. I like the color pink, I can rock out to any type of music—though Frankie Sinatra is totally my jam—and I ain’t afraid to get dirty. I like my knives as much as the next girl—which is to say, I know how to use them.

I like using ‘em, actually, perhaps a bit more than the next girl, but that’s because… well, it’s a long story. Let’s just say my childhood wasn’t filled with butterflies and roses and unicorn shit. No, the very opposite. I come from money, you see, and when you have money, you tend to ignore the rules. You make your own, and sometimes the little angels pay the price. I certainly did.

But no more.

I don’t know how long I’ll be alive—some might say I have a death wish—but I plan on taking a few of those motherfucking cunts out before I kick the bucket and push up daisies.

Just a warning: I go hard. I go hard and I go rough, and maybe a little crazy. Oh, and I like to cuss; have to make up for all those years mommy and daddy didn’t let me swear, you know? Really stick it to them, more than I already have, that is.

Still with me? Good, because this thing is wild, trust me. Turn that page if you think you’re ready.

Chapter One – Lola

With a strapless, tiny as hell black dress plastered to my body like spray paint, I was any man’s home run for the night. My blonde hair was neatly tucked into a brown wig, my whole face dolled up like I was some influencer on the newest app. Blended eyeshadow to light up my blue eyes, my full lips covered in a matte red lipstick; I looked like I could kill.

And you know what? Even in these four-inch, thin-as-spaghetti heels, I could.

Some people might scoff at me for wearing a wig, call me a wuss or whatever, but the vain part of me wanted this little game to continue for as long as it could. I liked the chase, the cat and mouse back-and-forth I played with myself every weekend.

They gave me a name, you know. Well, a nickname because they didn’t know who was committing all the crimes, leaving men dead and naked in their own beds. The Night Slayer. Had a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Oh. Uh, yeah. I might be a teeny, tiny killer of men. You know, no biggie or anything there, right? Who didn’t want to kill a few guys now and then? Totally normal. I wasn’t out of my mind in the slightest.

Okay, maybe just a little, but shh. Don’t tell anyone. Personally, I blamed mommy and daddy, along with one other person, but I refused to give that particular douchebag the light of day in my mind.

I sat at the bar in one of my favorite clubs. Bars and clubs in general were the best places to find those guys—you know the ones. The ones who preyed on the girls who were too drunk to walk right, the ones whose friends already left them for their own dick for the night. Me? I came alone, but I did not plan on leaving alone. I was looking for my next target. My next prey who thought with his schlong.

Men like that didn’t deserve to keep living, if you ask me. No one ever did, but still, that’s what I thought, and that’s why I did what I did. The police let them off. They were bought out by money left and right. If a rich white boy raped a poor girl, no one batted an eye. Judges acted like they’re guilty for sentencing boys with a bright future to two years probation after raping a nine-year-old girl.

Personally, I was sick and tired of it. Sick of men thinking they could do whatever the fuck they wanted to whoever the fuck they wanted, consequences or not. I might only be one person, but at least I’d take a few of those fuckers out before I met the electric chair.

I mean, I’d probably be super old before the state executed me—or maybe I’d be beaten up and shanked to death in prison before that day came; that’s what happened to a lot of serial killers who got caught and ended up behind bars, right?

Some people might be scared of their inevitable capture and demise. Me? Eh, I’d faced worse in my life. Grew up in a gilded cage full of shit, so I was ready. The heart in my chest was nothing but a shadow, a black mass of void; I didn’t care how long I lived.

Nursing my drink, I threw a look around the club. Loud music played overhead, a mass of bodies near the DJ dancing, grinding together, practically having sex on the dance floor. Hey, I didn’t care how anyone got their rocks off, as long as it was consensual. That was my biggest thing, clearly.

Some people stood to the sides, near the few tables there were near the bar, huddled with their friends… all except one guy. One guy who currently stared at me as if I was the only gal in this place, the only one who’d caught his attention.

Probably because he’d seen me drinking for the last hour and a half. I bet he thought, with my tiny stature and thin frame, I was nudging myself pretty close to drunk with each sip. When the time was right, he would swoop in and act like he was saving the day. Er, the night? Whatever. With his magic dick, I bet he thought he’d make everything all right.

He didn’t look much older than me. Maybe a year or two. Slicked back black hair that shone almost blue in the strobing light, with dark eyes that almost seemed as soulless as I felt. He wore all black too, as if he was purposefully trying to blend in and not call attention to himself.

Ah, well, I saw him, of course. I wasn’t an idiot. I’d seen him the very first moment he started to hover in the surrounding area, keeping an eye on me.

I finished my current drink, acting like I wanted to get up and go dancing. A pretty girl like me, in such a revealing dress, all alone? The perfect prey to someone like Dickless. I chose to call him Dickless in my mind, because what better name to give to a man who would take advantage of a girl who was too drunk to ever fully give consent?

Since I’d gotten to the club around midnight, it was well after that, now. Traffic would be dead in the city, which meant fewer eyes on us. I’d nursed enough to be believably drunk, and by now I had the routine down pat: the slightly wobbly feet, made worse with my choice of footwear, the slouching posture, loose bones, glazed over eyes… oh, yeah. I could play it like a fiddle.

With my peripherals, I spotted Dickless coming over, finally deciding to approach me once he saw how out of it I was. Some girls in this club were genuinely drunk, but if I could save them from one predator, well, my job was far from done, but it was one less fucktard to walk the streets and act like he made no mistakes.

This… I would be his last mistake.

When he was close enough, I twisted my ankle, falling. Dickless managed to catch me, though I did most of the work for him, and I sheepishly grinned as I glanced up at his face. A bit tall, a bit muscular, but all in all, not the biggest guy I’d taken down.

“Thank you,” I spoke, slurring my words just a bit.

Dickless eyed me up like the piece of meat he thought I was, dragging those black eyes up and down my bare legs. “How do you walk in those things?”

I giggled, still holding onto his arms, his hands still gripping me and holding me upright, as if I needed him for support. “Years of practice.” I bit my lower lip, giving him the most seductive look I could. It had taken down many men in the past, and after tonight was over, it would continue to do so. Dickless wouldn’t be my end. “Dance with me.” Not a question, and I purposefully didn’t ask if he was here with anyone. Obviously he wasn’t, and I knew how to play ‘em by now.

You didn’t ask. You simply told them. It’s the game they played, so why not turn the tables on them?

Dickless gave me another once-over before nodding. His hands fell off my arms, and he gripped a single hand, leading me to the undulating crowd near the giant speakers in the front. Once we merged in with the dancing crowd, he spun me so that I faced him, his hands like iron on my back as we both started swaying to the fast, upbeat music.

The good thing about music like this was they all sounded so similar, so same-y. As long as you picked up on the beat, you could dance to it and never have to hear the song again in your entire life.

Dickless had no qualms about the lack of space between us, and after a little while, I felt something hard pressing against my lower stomach. This was going to be too easy, I thought.

I closed my eyes, losing myself in the music, all the while still playing a mixture of coy and drunk. Every so often I’d lose my balance and have to hold onto him for support. Dancing in heels was a killer workout for your calves, let me tell you.

You know what else was a workout? Stabbing someone twenty times.

I couldn’t say how much time passed before I felt Dickless tug me away from the dance floor, into the shadows and away from the strobing lights. His hands were needy and grasping, even as we stood there, away from everyone else. He seemed totally unaffected at the erection pressing against his pants.

“We should take this party to my place,” Dickless said, the words coming out of his throat in a way I was certain he thought was sexy and appealing. And, maybe if I wasn’t me, maybe if I was someone else with a whole lot less baggage weighing them down, I might think he was cute.

But I was me, and I was a gal on a mission. No cute face would stop me from doing what I set out to do tonight.

Licking my lower lip—and totally catching his gaze watching me do it—all I did was nod, my black heart leaping with excitement. It was always made easier when they were the ones inviting me home. To invite myself was a little harder, though it wasn’t like it couldn’t be done. Anything could be done if you worked hard enough at it.

Look at me, for example. If you passed me on the streets, I bet no one would take one look at me and immediately assume I was a crazed killer, out to slaughter any fool with a dick who acted like he preyed on drunk girls at clubs and bars. I didn’t know if I’d call myself a serial killer, but… if the shoe fit.

The Night Slayer. I still couldn’t get over it. I rather liked it. It had a nice ring to it, and it called to mind the Night Stalker—a serial killer who broke into homes and did unspeakable things to so many people a few decades ago.

I let Dickless lead me out of the club, following him to his fancy black car. Whoever he was, he had money… and that made me pause, but only for a moment. I was confident in my abilities, in my skill. I rotated clubs, so it wasn’t like I went home with guys from the same club. That would make things a little too easy for the police.

But, money meant home security. It meant cameras. It meant all the things I didn’t have to worry about when the typical Joe Schmoe took me home. Dickless was of another breed, based on his car and how clean it was when I stumbled inside it.

“Nice car,” I muttered, giving him a sloppy smile.

Dickless started her up, revving the engine. It was a sleek car, having only two doors and no backseat. He tossed me a smile, saying, “Thanks.” People probably told him that all the time; compliments were something you got used to when you had something everyone else wanted, whether it was a car or a fancy new house.

As he drove us away from the club, I couldn’t help but wonder where he lived, if he lived nearby or a few miles away. The city was… well, I’d settled here because it seemed there was a lot of crime that went unnoticed and uninvestigated. I didn’t have to tell you why something like that would be good for me.

I didn’t have to worry about swinging back to the club for a car or anything. I’d walked, kept my head down as I crossed the streets and walked by any storefront. I would’ve taken the bus to the clubs, but buses tended to have cameras, too.

What would I do when tonight was over, when the dirty deed was done? Let’s just say I always found my way home, so no need to worry about that.

The scenery changed; instead of clubs, bars, and storefronts that made up main street in this shithole of a town, houses and the like sprouted up. Nice, fancy apartment complexes. I didn’t think I’d ever been brought to this area before, but you know what they say: there was a first time for everything.

When Dickless made a left turn, I spotted the fancy watch resting on his wrist, having missed it in the club earlier. If it wasn’t clear before, it definitely was now, with the aid of that shiny Rolex: this guy had money and lots of it.

The possible security at his place aside, that was good. It meant he might have some cash in his wallet. Plus, I’d be snaking that Rolex, too. My rent wasn’t much, mostly because I lived in the second story of a building on top of a bakery, but the old lady I rented from did need something in the form of payment for rent.

I mean, who the hell had a real job around here? When you went around killing, you made your way however you could.

Dickless ended up parking his fancy car in a parking garage attached to a ten-story building that looked newly-built. All black stone and windows. When I noticed the security cameras hanging everywhere, I kept my head low, not making eye contact with any of them.

It really was only a matter of time until my crimes caught up to me, I knew, but still. I was going to have fun while it lasted, goddamn it. Make mommy and daddy’s corpses writhe in their caskets.

Actually, scratch that. I was pretty sure they were cremated, since they didn’t exactly perspire in a way that would lend to being laid to rest in a casket.

I clung to Dickless as he led me into the building. Up an elevator we went, and I stared squarely at his chest, refusing to look up at the tiny black camera in the top corner of the elevator. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d ever been to a building with this much security before, and it was making me nervous.

Just a little. A wee bit. Like, just enough to be an annoying tick trying to bite me, but not enough to make me stop what I was going to do.

He kept his hand on my hip as the elevator doors slid open and we stepped out. I still played the tipsy drunk girl: tripping over my own feet as we walked, giggling when he pulled me closer to him to steady me. Dickless only let me go once we reached his apartment, and that was because he needed to reach into his wallet and pull out the key card to unlock the door.

Yeah, definitely a fancy ass place. It was a place that I might’ve been, had I stuck to my family’s plan, done what they wanted. But I didn’t. I did the one thing they literally never thought I would: I stood up for myself, and look at where I was now. Look at where they were, deader than a doornail.

Whoever came up with that phrase must’ve been out of his mind, because it made no sense, but I digress. I tend to get myself off-track sometimes, as you’ll find out.

Dickless opened the door, and I sauntered in, taking a look around, feigning shock at how nice and fancy it all was. His apartment was huge with tall ceilings, all the good stuff, full of sleek, shiny things. It put the word modern to good use, the kind of apartment you’d see in a movie, almost too clean and slick to be real.

“Wow,” I muttered, doing a twirl and almost causing myself to trip on my own two feet. “This place is something else.” I gave him a dramatic look as I grinned. “You rich or something?” Didn’t matter in the end, really. When the chips fell, when you got down to it… they died just like everybody else. Full of blood and fear.

He gave me a smile that was supposed to sweep me off my feet and said, “Something like that.”

Ooh, cryptic. My favorite kind of answer.

Note the sarcasm there. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

My eyes roamed the expansive space that made up the living room area. A huge television rested on the wall near a stone fireplace—gas, since it wasn’t a real fireplace. The windows in the place were tinted black, privacy windows, and they stretched from the floor to the ceiling. The kitchen sat off to the side, an open concept kind of thing, full of marble countertops and painted cabinets with brass-colored handles. The counter was clean, I noted.

He started down a hall, and I followed him, my heels clicking on the shiny tile floors. We passed the bathroom on the way, and I made a mental note. Every time was different, but each time, I always found a way.

His bedroom, as it turned out, was just as ridiculously fancy as the rest of the place, and I felt my gut harden the moment I followed him inside. Dickless turned to me, instantly getting ten times more handsy than he’d been at the club. Before I had the chance to blink, his gentleman facade crumbled and he became the hungry, horny dog I knew he was, pressing his midsection upon mine. His mouth crashed on mine, and I made sure to kiss him back.

Kissing was… well, I guess I could understand why some people liked it. It could be an intimate thing, but for me? It was almost too much. Like, I could play the game, but not when it came to kissing. Kissing made everything too real, if that made sense.

When his erection was back in full force, when I felt his hands start to yank at my dress, trying to find the zipper—hint, it’s in the back, dumbass—I pulled my mouth off his, panting, and gave him my best flirty, feminine look. “I need to use the little girl’s room first, if that’s okay?” I bit my lower lip, running a hand down his chest. “When I come back, I want every inch of you on that bed, naked and ready for action.” I let out a soft, slightly drunk giggle.

Drunk girls had to use the restroom quite often, it turned out, and since Dickless already had me at his apartment, since he knew he would soon seal the deal with me—or so he thought—he gave me an eager nod.

Out of his grip and away from his greedy hands, I moved to the doorframe, clinging to it as I gave him a wink before going. The man was already in the process of shedding his clothes, for shit’s sake. He literally could not wait to get his dick inside of me.

The poor fool.

Well, I guess poor didn’t really suit this one. The rich fool just didn’t have the same ring to it, you know?

My footsteps were loud until I reached the bathroom door, where I paused, tossing a glance over my shoulder as I worked to undo the heels, slipping them off and pushing them inside the bathroom. My destination was not that room, not yet.

I headed further down the hall, my bare feet as quiet as a mouse as I went to his kitchen. My focus was on finding something that would help me take him down. He was a rather hefty guy, muscle-wise, perhaps the biggest guy I’d gone home with. Definitely not your typical college boy looking to score off some drunk chick. Judging from his apartment and his expensive car, well, I had no idea who this guy was or why he was at the club all by himself, but in the end, it didn’t matter.

In the end, Dickless would meet his end at my hands.

I found what I was looking for after searching the drawers, holding its handle behind my back as I tiptoed down the hall, slipping into the bathroom and closing the door as quietly as I could. I had a few moments, at least. A drunk girl peeing could take a while, especially if I had to fiddle with my dress. Dickless would gladly take it off, I knew, but when I went back in that bedroom, I wanted his eyes on me. My body. It would help distract him from what I held behind me.

A sharp, clean, stainless steel knife. Needless to say, not a butter knife. No, one of the ones that you used to cut meat, with serrated edges and everything.

Setting the knife down in the sink, I worked on my dress, my arms reaching back and finding the zipper without an issue. I needed no help to get in or out of a dress like this; I was a bit more flexible than most, I’d say, my body the perfect kind of crazy. Thin but curvy all the same, not a scar or freckle anywhere on me… well, except for the one I refused to think about or look at, but let’s not dim the awesomeness of tonight with the past.

Tonight was about me, about continuing my reign of terror over the men of this city. Tonight the Night Slayer would claim her next victim.

My dress dropped to the tiled floor, falling in a quiet heap. I wore no bra, since the tiny dress was tight enough and already padded. My thumbs hooked on the sides of my lacy black panties and tugged them down, and I stepped out of them, every part of me free.

I breathed in deeply, leaning on the counter before slowly tilting my head up to meet the gaze of my reflection. My blue eyes stared back at me, my true feelings masked. I didn’t look excited as I stood there, naked, but I was. I would show my excitement once I got in that room, once I took charge of the situation and made Dickless regret ever taking me home.

Some nights I wondered if I was wrong to do this, if, maybe, I was killing the wrong people, but tonight wasn’t one of those nights. A part of me just didn’t care. No one cared about me when…

Ugh. No. I wasn’t going to think about the fucking past right now.

My back straightened, and I picked up the knife, moving the blade so that it rested up against my wrist and my forearm. I left the bathroom, holding that hand slightly behind my back, and when I returned to his bedroom, finding him just as naked as I was, I cocked my hip and gave him a smile. The fool didn’t even realize I held something behind my back, didn’t see anything but my perky tits and my shaved pussy. He didn’t even seem to care about my scar.

Why would he? Dickless had been conditioned by everything to see me as my parts and not my whole. I bet it never crossed his mind that I was playing with him. With my pretty face and my whorish ways, I was just another girl looking to make a mistake, to get used.

Wrong.

Dickless lay on his bed, his hands behind his head, slightly propped up on his pillows. His legs were spread apart, his dick standing at attention, ready to be serviced. That dick would hardly be seeing anything tonight.

I made a big show about sashaying to his bedside, all the while keeping the knife hidden. I crawled up, straddling him as his gaze continued to eat me up. He moved his hands, reaching for me, but I stopped him by leaning over him, my nose brushing against his as I whispered, “Let me suck that big, fat cock of yours first.” I licked my lips as I said it, feeling that dick twitch underneath me.

Wanna know a secret? It wasn’t that big, and it definitely didn’t have much girth.

“Sounds good, babe,” he murmured back, hips practically thrusting up into me. Dickless clearly couldn’t wait for his manhood to be inside my mouth.

But, ew. Let’s take a second to bury the nickname of babe, okay? I was not a babe, no girl was a babe. That was just not a pet name I could ever get behind; call me silly, but I felt what I felt and I wouldn’t apologize for it.

I gave him a kiss, acting like I was moving down to do a little sucky-suck when in reality I was getting ready to stabby-stab. Before I broke the kiss, before I tore my lips off his to watch, the hand holding the hilt of the knife flipped it so the sharp edge now pointed toward him and not flat against my arm. Dickless’s eyes were closed; he was too enthralled in me, too focused on getting laid.

I plunged the knife in his throat, an expert at it by now, pulled my mouth off his to see his eyelids shoot open and the shock coating his face. Dickless’s gaze widened, and he sputtered out a pained, “What the fuck?” Even with a knife in his throat, he managed to push me off him so hard I flew off the bed, rolling onto the floor.

Taking my time in getting to my feet, I gave him a wicked grin as he sat up and shot me an awful look. “What?” I asked. “Did you really think I was going to go down on you? As if, buddy. You ain’t exactly my type.”

What was my type? I’d let you know when I figured that out, but it certainly wasn’t this guy.

Dickless yanked the knife out, tumbling off his bed as he came at me, his intent to stab me, I guess? I didn’t know, but what I did know was that he shouldn’t have pulled it out, because once he did, the blood—oh, the blood was spectacular. It came out in a waterfall, gushing and bursting forth, splattering on me when he got close enough.

I did a little dance to avoid him and the outstretched knife. Dickless tried to put his other hand at his throat, but it was too late. His chest was coated in the red stuff, the juice of life, and he grew more sluggish by the second. I got him good.

“I think we both know that I won this round,” I told him, shrugging as I leaped backward, onto the bed and rolled to the other side, putting it between us. “Maybe next time you won’t think with your dipstick as much? Just a suggestion.”

Dickless stumbled on his feet, losing his balance as he crashed to the floor. He must’ve been woozy from the blood loss. Blood was… it was everywhere, and it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. It was something I would never get enough of. He also lost his grip on the knife, and it slid across the floor.

I walked around, setting a foot on it when I saw he tried reaching for it, coughing up more blood. “Bitch,” he gurgled out, his throat all bloody and nasty from my stab.

One stab. Just one. One was all it took when you went for the kill.

“Yeah, you know what? I totally am, but I ain’t the bitch that’s dying. That would be you, dickweed.” I moved my foot, flinging the knife back. It eventually hit the bottom of the wall, stopping on the other side of the room, way too far for him to reach it.

And then, wonder of all wonders, Dickless breathed his last breath and died with a huge pool of blood around his head and torso. So much blood it was like a crime scene in here. I mean, technically it would be a crime scene soon enough, whenever someone realized he was dead and came looking for him—really, it depended on the person, on what they did during their days, whether they had steady jobs or whatnot. Sometimes it took days; sometimes it took weeks, but they were always found, and when they were, the news always reported on them.

I wondered how long it would be until I saw Dickless’s face flash across my TV in a newscast.

A sigh left my lungs as I glanced down at myself. My naked body was splattered in blood, no thanks to Dickless yanking out that knife. If he would’ve kept it lodged in his throat, the idiot would’ve lived a bit longer. The pool of blood oozing from his neck wasn’t as fast-growing now, but it was big enough to touch my toes, to seep through them and coat the bottoms of my feet as I looked down at him.

I needed to shower, and what would you know, Dickless had a spotless, clean bathroom just waiting for me to dirty up.

Unhurried in dragging my gaze away from Dickless’s corpse, I walked into the hall, trailing a few bloody footprints as I went. Blood might bother some girls, but me? I rather liked it. Blood was literally what kept you alive, so red and gooey and messy. It seriously made the best messes around, trust me. Nothing else was like it. Plus, when it got all coagulated and clumpy? That shit was just cool.

After shutting the door to the bathroom, I hummed as I reached up and took off my wig. I’d gone through a lot of trial and error with keeping the wig secure on my head, but I’d found a way to keep the wig firmly attached to my head so it didn’t get yanked off by any hair-pulling. The wig looked clean, free of blood, so I set it down on the bathroom counter, along with the cap that kept my hair tucked in.

My blonde hair was let free, falling past my shoulders as I moved to start the water in the tub. Within a minute, I had a nice, steamy shower going, and I hummed as I stepped in, instantly setting the water swirling the drain to a pink hue as the blood began to wash away.

With my head underneath the shower, with water pelting me, I stared at the drain, watching as the pink water washed down and disappeared through those tiny, steel holes. Inside my chest, my heart pounded. Not too fast, but fast enough to tell me I’d gotten high off the adrenaline.

It was hard to describe, especially hard to try to explain it to someone who’s never done anything like this before, but it was addicting. To know that I was the reason Dickless and all those other men were dead, to know they would never again prowl the clubs or bars in search of their victim…

Fuck them. Fuck them all.

Being there, watching them take their last breath… it was something I would never get used to. I’d never been a fan of drugs, but I knew what it was like to fly high on the adrenaline, to get off on the way their pupils dilated and they pissed themselves.

Sometimes shit, too. Those weren’t too pretty.

Facedown in his own blood, I didn’t get to see the pool of piss coming from Dickless when he died. I really hoped his bowels weren’t let loose by the time I got out of here; that was just a mess I did not want to have to walk around.

Why couldn’t everyone die with freshly-expelled bladders and bowels? Come on, it wasn’t that hard. Just take your pisses and your shits, you know?

I know, I know. Enough about the pissing and the shitting. It ain’t ladylike.

Well, if you hadn’t noticed by now, I ain’t the most ladylike one around. My parents had tried, trust me, oh they’d tried hard to make me the angel they always wanted me to be. A girl who kept her head down, knew her salad fork from her dessert fork, and did as she was told. A good girl.

But you know what happens to good girls? They get eaten alive by the world, used up and discarded, thrown away until they’re wanted again. I couldn’t take that anymore. I was done being used.

Go me, right? Yeah, go me. It ain’t like it was easy to leave it all. It was hard to walk away, although I didn’t do so much walking as I did running, because when you did what I did, you learned quickly that, if you wanted to keep going, you had to run.

Run, run, as fast as you could, all the while hoping no one caught you.

I didn’t want to be caught, but at the same time, I was waiting for it. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. One day it would come, and the masses would sit back and wonder, what happened to Lola Harding to make her commit such atrocities? Was she mentally unstable? Was something not right in her head?

To all the people who’d be wondering things like that, I had an answer for them, but whether or not they’d like the answer, well, that was anyone’s guess. My guess would be no, because, even today, there were still some harsh realities people didn’t like to face, some hard truths of life. Even in America, the country so many fools proclaimed to be the greatest in the world, had its dark underbelly—and sometimes that underbelly was lined with money and gold.

Since I was already in the shower, I decided to use Dickless’s soap and shampoo to clean off, to really get tonight’s sweat and grime off. I’d be dirty by the time I made it back to my place, but, eh, it wasn’t like I had to hurry and get out of here as soon as possible.

I hummed as I cleaned myself, doing my best to ignore the lone scar down there. Dickless hadn’t even mentioned it, mostly because he’d been too excited at the prospect of sticking himself inside of me and making me forget everything else besides his cock.

That scar, it was a constant, daily reminder of what they did. What they all did. Now, I knew I didn’t come from a good family. Just because the Hardings had money didn’t mean shit; what really got me, though, was what happened after, when they were found. No one even mentioned me—which was fine, of course. It wasn’t like I wanted the press and police to try to find me.

No, that meant he had something to do with it, and I really didn’t want to think about him right now.

I turned the water off, stepping out, onto the mat just outside the tub. I grabbed the towel hanging on the rack—black. Who the hell had black towels? Weird. After drying myself off, I got dressed, doing a little dance to pull up my panties and then the dress. Once my wig was back on—not as easy to put it on over wet hair, but as far as I was concerned, the potential hair-pulling portion of the night was in the past—I slipped on the heels.

Walking back into his room, I avoided his corpse and the blood on the floor, heading straight to the nightstand beside his bed. His body lay in the front of the bedframe, so thankfully I didn’t have to tiptoe around him to keep my heels out of the blood.

His clothes sat in a pile on his nightstand, crumpled in a heap, and I tossed them onto the bed until I found what I was looking for: the wallet in his pants and the shiny Rolex he’d taken off and set on the dark wooden nightstand. I tucked the watch into my dress, right between my tits, before digging into his wallet for cash.

Nowadays, most people used debit cards. Most people didn’t keep a lot of cash on-hand. But the rich? The rich were an exception, just like they always were. Gotta have that bribe money ready to go, you know? Ah, well, Dickless’s bribe money—a few hundred-dollar bills—was mine now. That also got tucked into my tits.

I wasn’t worried about fingerprints. I wasn’t in anyone’s system, nor was my DNA. The Hardings were a well-respected family; their children would never be caught dead committing a crime or anything heinous like that.

Ha-ha. Yeah, that was funny, wasn’t it? Talk about being caught dead…

With my new watch and money in my tits, I sauntered out of the bedroom, about to leave the apartment, but as I walked past the kitchen, I realized I was a tad bit hungry. So, I did what any self-respecting murderer would do: I walked over to the kitchen and checked the fridge.

The food was just going to go bad anyway, so why not see if he had anything I liked?

I ended up finding some meat. Deli meat, go figure. I pulled out the bag and ate a few slices. Some kind of Cajun spiced turkey or something. Whatever the fuck it was, it was delicious, and I instantly decided I could not leave the bag of meat here.

I took it with me, snacking on it all the while as I left the apartment complex. I kept my head down, away from the cameras, stuffing more meat in my mouth.

Bet dead Dickless wished I would’ve stuck his meat in my mouth instead of lodging that knife in his neck. Poor fool didn’t know what hit him, and by the time he did, it was too late, as it always was. Using my body to my advantage… it might be cheating, in a way, but men used their statures and their strength all the time to overpower girls. Sometimes you had to play dirty to win the war, and I knew how to play the game in the filthiest of ways.

I didn’t have a cell phone, so it wasn’t like I could GPS my way home. No, I spent most of the night walking, having memorized the big streets in the city and in all the towns nearby. I wasn’t one of those people who was directionally-challenged, you know, the kind of people who didn’t know how to get anywhere without their phone telling them where to go. There were certain things I was particularly good at, and finding my way home was one of them.

As much as a dingy apartment above a small bakery could be considered home, anyways. I’d left home home a few years ago now, and I never planned on going back. There were just some things you didn’t do to yourself, and going back to that place was one of them.

Let’s call it hell in a mansion, misery hidden with money and power and prestige. I could go on and on about how disgusting and putrid all the rich people I’d known were, but this… let’s just say my family made everyone else look like saints.

By the time I made it back to my place, it was near dawn. I had to be careful heading up the metal stairs on the side of the building to reach my second-story place; heels were not made for walking on metal grates, let me tell you. An obviously cheap and fake rock sat just before my door, and I bent down and grabbed it, pulling the key out and unlocking my door before putting it back on the metal ground.

It wasn’t like I had anything good to steal in there, so if someone really wanted to break in, I figured why not make it easy for them?

I’d finished the Cajun turkey a while back, having tossed the bag in a trash can as I walked. My tummy was nice and full now, and I kicked off my heels, leaving them near the door as I headed to my room. It was a small place, maybe six hundred or so square feet. Big enough for a tiny bathroom, an old and completely outdated kitchen area combined with a living room, and a small bedroom. Most of the place was empty; I didn’t have much furniture, and the furniture I did have I trash picked.

You would be surprised at the shit people threw away. Perfectly fine and useable couches—one of which was a pull-out bed that I kept permanently out in the bedroom.

I left my wig on the floor in my room, and I changed out of my dress, getting into a baggy shirt and some men’s athletic shorts. No underwear on beneath either of them. What could I say? I liked to let the ladies breathe and my coochie get a nice airflow.

Making my way to the living room, I plopped down on the couch and turned the television on. Too early for news yet, and, anyway, I doubted anyone had found Dickless yet. Still, better safe than sorry.

Call me conceited, but I enjoyed watching the city try and figure out just why all these men were dropping like flies, why the Night Slayer was targeting them. You couldn’t blame me for wanting to see the fruit of my work.

Chapter Two – Lola

Days passed, and the more I spent on that couch, eating cereal and pizza rolls, I couldn’t help but wonder when the fuck someone was going to try to contact that fucker and realize he wasn’t answering his phone. By now, his phone was probably dead, so his calls would go straight to voicemail. Like, come on. Find the body, put him on the news; was that too much to ask?

Apparently so, depending on who you asked.

A week went by, and it was time to go out a-hunting again. A part of me didn’t want to go out before they found Dickless, but if there was one thing living in this tiny ass apartment made me, it was stir crazy.

Night fell. I waited until Saturday night to get dolled up again. I showered, washed my hair, dried it and straightened it; it helped it pack under the wig better. I dressed in the same heels, though I did wear a different dress: this one a cherry red with a plunging neckline. Nowhere to put shit in my tits in this one, but that was okay. This one had pockets.

I know, I know. A dress with pockets. What more could a girl ask for?

Once I was ready to go, wig and all, I headed to the door, locking it behind me before heading down the metal staircase. I made it to the sidewalk, spotting a car sitting in the bakery’s parking lot. At first, I thought nothing of it; the bakery closed early and sometimes drug deals would take place there. But then, when I started walking down the sidewalk, I heard the car start up and pull out.

Was it following me? If it was a police vehicle, if they were here to arrest the Night Slayer, they wouldn’t have waited in the parking lot. They would’ve just come up, busted through the door, and dragged me out and taken me in.

I thought about glancing behind me, but then I realized, once the police were out of the picture, who the fuck would be following me, anyway? No, it was probably a coincidence. Maybe I’d walked down right after a deal or something.

I picked up my pace all the same, though—and when I did, I heard footsteps behind me on the concrete, like someone was trailing me. I stopped and turned around, intent to tell this motherfucker off in the worst way, but everything happened so fast after that.

The only thing I saw before being knocked out by a whack to the side of the head was a man wearing all black.

My head pounded something fierce when I came to, jerking awake as my consciousness suddenly came back to me in full-force. My eyelids were like stone, refusing to lift—or maybe they did, and I just had a bag over my head or something.

Shit. Did I get kidnapped? Was I going to be thrown into some sex slave ring or something? Oh, if that was the case, these motherfuckers had another thing coming—

“Awake, fucking finally,” a dark, sinister voice hissed out. A man’s voice, definitely. A voice that could kill on its own.

I squirmed, realizing that, yes, a black sack was around my head, and my wrists were tied behind my back, my ankles to the legs of a chair, my knees spread apart. And that, in itself, meant my red dress must’ve been very bunched up on my upper thighs.

Oh, no. I didn’t like this one bit.

Even though my head hurt like a bitch, I still managed to say, “Can you get this bag off my head? I’d like to see who I’m talking to—” I barely got the words out before a strong, violent hand ripped the sack off me, and my eyes took a few moments to adjust. My blonde hair was in my face, meaning he’d already taken off my wig.

When my eyes finally fixated on the man standing a few feet in front of me, I felt my heart nearly stop in my chest. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a man like him before, not even in my nightmares.

Wearing all black, he must’ve stood well over six feet tall. His hair matched his clothes, a pure, undiluted black. Half his head was shaved, revealing a thick tattoo on it, and that same tattoo traveled down his neck and disappeared beneath his shirt. Black eyes set in a face that could freeze anyone dead with a glare, a freshly-shaven jaw that was so square he looked like he could be chiseled from stone.

Fuck. He was hot.

And he looked like he wanted to rip me apart, limb by limb, which, frankly, only made him hotter.

The room we were in was dimly-lit, made up of darkly painted walls and no furniture at all, save for the wooden chair I was tied to like some animal.

He dropped the sack on the floor, moving closer to me as he growled. Yes, the man actually growled at me, like an animal. What sweet, delicious torture had I stepped into when I wasn’t looking?

“You know why you’re here,” he muttered, frowning at me.

I leaned my head back, fighting the headache threatening to make me hurl, and grinned at him. “I’m afraid I don’t,” I said, eyeing him up and down, “but why don’t you untie me and we can have a little fun?” If I was free, maybe I’d be able to make a run for it. Maybe I’d be able to find something to beat him over the head with.

The man’s arm shot out, and before he said anything, his fingers curled around my throat and started to choke me.

Ah, so it was like that, was it? Fine. If this asshole was going to kill me, let him. Better than spending my life behind bars and waiting for my turn on the electric chair. Why the chair? Well, because I wanted to go out with a bang, not a whimper. Not a stupid injection. I would choose the chair every fucking day.

“You’re nothing but a fucking whore,” he hissed, baring his teeth like the dog he was.

My throat burned in his grip, my lips parting as I tried to gasp for breath. I looked him in the eyes and saw nothing but black voids, darkness eternal. There was no emotion in that stare other than fury and hatred, and all of it was aimed at me, as if I’d wronged him personally—which was impossible, since I’d never met this asshole in my life.

I’d remember a man like him. A man who looked like that you didn’t just forget.

“If I’m a fucking whore, then who are you? Santa?” I asked, coughing the words out. It was a struggle to speak, but well worth it, judging by his pissed off expression. “Am I on your naughty list?”

He was most definitely not Santa, because I highly doubted Santa Claus would shave half his head and tattoo his body like that, not to mention all the black. I mean, he looked like a fucking stone-cold killer, for God’s sake.

Just to prove he wasn’t Santa, he released my neck and backhanded me across the cheek, so hard my vision saw stars and my headache nearly exploded. I was fine, though. The pain was nothing. It might bother some people, but it didn’t bother me one bit.

I laughed. I laughed and sounded like a crazy bitch, but once I started, I just couldn’t stop. The look on his face was priceless. “If you want to kill me,” I advised him, “you’re going to have to go a little harder than that, big boy.”

The man, who mustn’t have been more than a few years older than me, looked like he was ready to explode, ready to wrap those hands around my neck and choke the life out of me. He didn’t, sadly. No, instead he simply heaved a punch to my gut and knocked the wind out of me.

“I’m not going to kill you just yet,” he whispered, kneeling before me as he made a big show about cracking his knuckles. “I’m going to make you wish you were dead, first.”

At that, I could only smile. Such a pretty, handsome face he had, and yet those were such ugly words. I, personally, couldn’t care less about the threats or the intimidation. If he was going to kill me, there was nothing I could do about it, nothing I could do to stop him—not while tied to this chair. I was at his mercy, and he appeared to have none. Zip. Zilch. But that was fine. His venom didn’t sink into my veins.

Like I said, he’d have to try a lot harder.

“Before we get to the good stuff,” I wheezed out, still smiling like a madwoman in the face of my demise, “can you at least tell me why I’m here? Please don’t tell me I’m just some random chick you picked up to fulfill your need to kill or something—”

Honestly, there was nothing worse than a killer who killed just to kill. Ooh, boy. That’s a lot of kills, but you get my point. The great ones always had a reason. Maybe they were mad. Maybe their parents fucked them up as kids. Maybe they needed to feel an ounce of control. Maybe they thought, like me, they were doing society a favor.

The killers that history would remember were not the ones going around and shooting people at gas stations. No, history would choose to remember the ones who had a system, the ones who listened to their calling and did its bidding again and again.

The man got up and began to chuckle, either in disbelief or shock, I didn’t know. He opened his mouth to stay something, but before he could, the door to the room opened. It must’ve been behind me, for I couldn’t see it, nor could I see any windows. As far as I was concerned, I was locked in this room.

Another man walked in, this one wearing a sleek suit. His black hair was slicked back, and he looked to be in his thirties. He didn’t even look at me, simply addressing the other man in the room: “Your father wishes to talk with you.”

The man scoffed. “Tell him to…” It was like he was going to tell the suit-wearing man to tell his dad to fuck off, but then he thought better of it. Saying not another word, he stormed out of the room, leaving me alone with the man in the suit.

I studied him. Another attractive man, but then again, maybe I just liked the danger radiating off them. Who could say for sure? Like many of the infamous killers of the world, my childhood was rightly fucked up. Sometimes it was hard to see the line between right and wrong, while other times I simply didn’t give a shit.

The man in the suit stared at me, unimpressed in every way. He broke the silence of the room, saying, “You do realize you fucked yourself here, don’t you? You might be accustomed to using that body to get out of things in the past, but here it will not work. Not after what you did.”

My eyes narrowed at him. “And who the hell are you supposed to be?”

“My name is Roman, and I work for the family you cut into.”

Roman. What kind of name was Roman? I rolled my eyes at him, making no attempt to hide my annoyance at this whole thing. “What the hell are you even talking about?” As I spoke, I sounded as innocent and naive as I could. Just a girl, caught in the wrong crowd, the wrong situation.

He was having none of it, though. “You were caught on camera in Mario’s apartment, covered in blood. He is now nothing but ash because of you, and because you did what you did, you will now face the consequences, whatever they may be.”

“Ah, so Dickless’s name was Mario, huh? What a stupid name, no offense. I don’t think Roman’s a nice name, either, but maybe I’m picky—”

His dark brows came together. “Do you not realize what shit you’ve stepped into?”

“Do you realize I don’t care about the amount of shit?” I shot back, shrugging as best I could, considering I was still attached to a chair. It was mighty uncomfortable. “I don’t care about fucking Mario, okay? I don’t care about you, or about that guy, or about his fucking father—I literally could not give less of a shit.”

Roman let out a short chuckle. “Alright. It’s your funeral. I do wonder if anyone will cry for you.” He said nothing else, leaving the room, leaving me alone to ponder everything he’d just said. He told me more than the first guy had, that’s for sure.

Dickless’s name was Mario. If I cared enough, I could’ve looked for his name in his wallet, on his I.D., but I didn’t. Why the fuck would I care?

But, wait. He’d said he was nothing but ash now, which meant his body was found. I was caught on camera, but not arrested, and there was nothing on the news about it. This… these people, whoever they were, were keeping this under wraps.

I wasn’t naive enough to wonder how or why, but it did make me wonder just who Mario was to these people.

Was he a son? A friend? Clearly he was important to these people, but the extent of that had yet to be seen. I had no idea what mess I’d gotten myself into, but you know what? I was fine with it. If this was how I was going to die, so be it. Let it happen. Let my death come in the form of a sexy man choking the life out of me. If that tattooed guy was the last thing I’d see before dying, I’d be fine with it.

Everyone died eventually, anyway. Sometimes it was just good to hurry it along.

As much as I wanted my reign on this city’s male folk to continue, I’d always known it was a matter of time before I was caught. I just always assumed it would be the police or the FBI to get me, not some family of criminals. But maybe this was better. I wouldn’t have to go through jail or a trial or any of that shit.

Kind of a pity, because I did want to hear everyone talking about me. I guess I was as vain as the next serial killer, wanting their crimes to be written in stone and preserved for all of history. This would be a death hidden away from everyone’s eyes, and society would always wonder who the Night Slayer was.

I sat there, letting my eyes wander, now that I had no sack over my head and I was fully conscious. I wasn’t in a cell of any kind; it literally looked like an office, minus the furniture, with maroon walls and dark wood floors. Canned lighting sat in the ceiling above me, dim as a light could be.

Was this where they’d do it? Where they’d kill me? Or would they take me someplace else to do it, someplace that would be easier to clean? I could imagine that these wood floors were a bitch and a half to clean after blood seeped through the panels. It looked like older wood, too. Who would want to risk such a pretty floor?

And then I began to wonder how they’d do it. It wasn’t the first time I’d imagined my own death, but this time, I could taste it. This time, I knew there was no running away from it. Dickless had been my ticket to my demise, and I’d gotten on the train without knowing when it would reach its destination. Well, the joke was on me; I was here now, and there was no going back.

I was going to die here, that much I knew.

Bring it on, motherfuckers.

Chapter Three – Maddox

It’d taken too long to find her. By the time we realized something was wrong, that Mario wasn’t answering his phone, it was too late. He was long dead by the time we arrived at his apartment and found him on the floor, having bled out from a single wound on his neck. The knife sat, stained and dried with blood, against the baseboard in his bedroom.

Mario had been two years younger than me. My baby brother, by all measure. He’d never been into the family business, hated it when our father called him into work, but he was family all the same. When you were a Luciano, you didn’t just walk away. You couldn’t. You were forced to stay, whether you liked it or not.

He didn’t deserve the end he got at the hands of a club slut, and I was more than willing to teach her a lesson or two before torturing the life out of her.

They called me Mad Maddox. Let’s just say I earned the nickname for a reason.

Carter had gone with Viper and Big Mike to grab her and bring her here. I’d thought we were just going to torture and kill her—because why the fuck else would we have brought her to our family home after she’d killed one of us—but then Roman had interrupted us and said my father wished to speak with me.

I liked Roman, I did. We depended on him and Carter to do a lot for us; mainly be our quiet executioners. Being a Luciano, you tended to have enemies, and when you thought you took care of them all, more of them sprouted out from nowhere, as if they’d been waiting in the woodworks for their chance to shine and permanently put an end to our family.

But my family had been doing this for a while, now. We had eyes and ears everywhere. We owned half the police force. No one was going to take us down, not even those fucking DeLucas.

I supposed, I relented to myself as I walked through the halls of our home, it was quite possible father wanted to talk to her himself, maybe be the one to do the torturing. After all, Mario had been his youngest son. Even the DeLucas hadn’t struck a blow that deep before, and they’d been going after us for years.

No, leave it to some nameless girl to kill Mario. What were the fucking odds?

That was exactly why he never should’ve moved out to begin with. The house was more than big enough for all of us. If Mario would’ve just accepted his place in the family, if he would’ve sucked it up, he’d still be alive. He never would’ve gone out on his own, took some whore home, and succumbed to her.

I knew one thing for sure: I was going to rip that bitch’s throat out and bathe in her fucking blood. No one killed my brother and got away with it.

Emerging from the hall, I found my other brother, Sylvester, standing near a window, looking out at the courtyard in front of the house. He wasn’t my biological brother, not like Mario was, but he was my brother all the same. Short blonde hair, blue eyes that could either be as warm as the Caribbean or like ice, he didn’t look like us at all. Father had found him on the streets many years ago and took him in, thereby adopting him into the family as a Luciano.

Sylvester stood with his arms folded over his chest, not as muscular as me but intimidating all the same when he put his killer instincts to good use. Nine times out of ten, he was a nice guy, but when that switch flipped… he was just as ferocious as the rest of us.

Carter stood off to the side, near Viper and Big Mike. Viper and Big Mike weren’t related to us by blood, but their family had always been close to ours. The Milanos would do anything for us; some big debt my great-grandfather refused to collect from theirs. Now, they were one of us, a part of the family, even if they were silent bystanders half the time.

Viper and Big Mike were twins. Thirty years old, they could tear into anyone with so much as a look. Big Mike was even taller than I was, with the muscles to match. He didn’t talk much, but he had the worst scowl you’d ever see in your life. Viper, on the other hand, was more talkative. His real name was Vinny, but Viper fit a lot better, since his body was coated in serpent tattoos. He liked snakes, kept some as pets, too. They both had the same brown hair and hazel eyes, but Big Mike’s hair was longer and often pulled back in a low pony. Viper kept his slicked back, off to the side.

They were… fuck, what’s the word for twins that weren’t identical? Fraternal? Whatever. School was never my best subject. Forgive me. I always had something more on the brain, like making my father proud.

He was not an easy man to please, let’s just say.

There was more to the crew, like Tony, but he wasn’t here. This was a family matter, so just the closest were present for this. This fucking night.

“Where’s father?” I asked, scowling as I looked between everyone here. “Roman said—”

“I was the one who sent him in there to get you out,” Sylvester spoke, glancing at me with those calculating blue eyes. He looked sad and not nearly angry enough. Where was the fire? Where was the burning need to destroy the girl who’d killed our brother? Sylvester was about a year younger than me, so he’d spent most of his life with Mario, too.

I ground my teeth, not bothering to hide my irritation.

Sylvester turned away from the window, dropping his hands and shoving them into his pockets. “He probably knew you wouldn’t leave her if it was just me wanting to talk to you.” His brows furrowed, and he stepped closer to me, lowering his voice, “Father will be here soon. He’s cleaning up. You know how he is.”

Ah, yes. If ever there was a man who needed to be clean before getting covered in blood all over again, it was our father. It made no sense to me. I preferred to be dirty all the time. Why bother taking the time to get dressed in a fancy new suit when that suit would get splattered in blood within mere seconds of being in that room with her?

“I wanted to talk to you, first,” Sylvester went on.

Viper and Big Mike shifted on their feet, and I wondered if they knew what was on my brother’s mind. Carter looked like he didn’t give a shit, but that was his normal appearance. Roman had taken him under his wing years ago; he was another who was not related to the family in a strict sense, but he owed us everything all the same.

I bit out the words, “About what?” I seriously had no fucking idea what it could be, why Sylvester had me pulled out of the room. That girl… that fucking bitch. Oh, I could strangle the breath out of her lungs, stare deep into her eyes as she breathed her final breath. To see those big blue eyes widen and dilate before her face slacked…

I should stop thinking about it, at least while I was here. My body would start to get the wrong ideas. Killing, inflicting pain—it was all so fun. Got my dick hard sometimes, but it wasn’t like I could help it… probably another reason they called me Mad Maddox.

“Have you watched the news lately?”

My blank look should’ve been enough to tell my brother I had not wasted any of my recent time watching the news. Who the fuck watched the news these days? Who cared enough to? The world was going to shit anyway; we were already in hell. There was no point in watching the news and being repeatedly told the same thing every night.

Sylvester let out a sigh. “Mario wasn’t the first one to die like that,” he said, choosing his words carefully, as he always did. “I don’t remember what the exact body count is, but it’s been going on for a while. Every so often, another young man is be found in his house or his apartment, dead, usually from a knife. Sometimes their throats are cut, sometimes they’re stabbed—”

I had no idea where the hell he was going with this, so I cut in, “Get to the point.”

“The Night Slayer,” he said. “That’s the name they gave the killer, after the Night Stalker back in the eighties. I think she’s the one.”

It took only a few moments for his words to sink in, for it to piece together in my mind, and I glanced over my shoulder at the hall that led to the room she was in with Roman, as if he’d brought her out. As if she was there, standing and listening to my brother talk. She wasn’t, of course. “You’re saying we might have caught ourselves a serial killer?”

Frankly, I didn’t know which was worse: the fact that such a pretty, unassuming woman could be a serial killer, or that our brother fell victim to one. Mario, you stupid idiot. Why weren’t you on your guard? Why would you let such a tiny girl get the best of you? Both questions I would never be able to ask him, now that his body was nothing more than ashes sitting on our father’s desk in his office.

Weren’t serial killers usually men? I didn’t have a vast knowledge of them, but I knew enough, enough to stand there, slightly in shock at what Sylvester had said.

He nodded. “I think so.”

I had no idea where he was going with this. “So, what? You’re saying we should hand her over to the FBI or something?” Seemed stupid, considering the FBI were not like the police; they weren’t local. We couldn’t own them in the same way we could own the police force. Dirty cops were a dime a dozen here, and they helped us do business.

Sylvester gave me a look that told me I was stupid, which further irritated me. I was not the brains of the family; I never claimed to be, but I did not like people acting as if I was the stupidest person they’d ever met.

My strengths lied in brute force and the sheer lengths I was willing to go to get the job done. I wasn’t afraid of blood or guts. In fact, any job that was finished without either of those things was a job that was not well done in my eyes.

“No,” he said. “But perhaps we could use her instead of just killing her.”

When he said that, I snapped, stepping toward him as I practically shouted, “The fuck we will! She killed Mario, our fucking brother, if you already forgot! There’s no coming back from that. She handed us the shovel after digging her own fucking grave. That bitch is going to die, whether she’s the Night Stalker or what—”

“Slayer,” Sylvester corrected me, hardly blinking at my outburst. “Night Slayer. The Night Stalker is the one from the—”

“I don’t fucking care,” I growled out, my chest rumbling as I flexed my hands at my sides. Sometimes I wanted to strangle Sylvester, not going to lie. Sometimes I wanted to strangle everyone. My body held so much rage all the time, it was a miracle I didn’t explode. “I’m going to kill her. Or father is.”

“But we could use her against the DeLucas, or anyone who would cross us—”

“We already have a hitman,” I said. “His name is Roman, in case you forgot.” My words dripped venom, pure hatred. No matter what Sylvester said, no matter what points he brought up, I would never see his side of the suggestion. Using her against anyone, just because she’s a fucking insane serial killer, would not happen. She killed Mario. You didn’t kill a Luciano and get away with it. There were rules.

Well, I guess they might be more like guidelines, but still. They were as good as rules, and I’d be damned if we let that bitch walk out of here as if nothing happened.

Sylvester wouldn’t drop it. His blue gaze held mine, unaffected by the rage seeping from me as he said, “Roman is a killer. He does what he does best, and no one ever sees him do it. Her… she’s not one of us. She doesn’t have to stick to the shadows. We could parade her around as much as we want, send her off to do whatever—and if something happens to her, we wouldn’t lose anything.”

Another voice entered the conversation, “You want the woman who killed your brother to be the Lucianos’ public dog?”

My back straightened, and Sylvester knew better than to say anything. We both turned to look at our father, who’d just entered the room, fixing his cufflinks as he moved his dark eyes between us. Our father, Richard Luciano, was not the kind of man you argued with. His dark hair was cut short, pieces of it beginning to grey. He was only in his forties, so he wasn’t an old man. He’d had me and Mario when he was young…

But that was a story for another time, one no one around here liked to think about, for obvious reasons.

Our father moved to our sides, his face stern. A small cleft sat in his chin, his cheekbones gaunt and shaven just recently, if their smoothness said anything. A man of cleanliness, he always took good care of his appearance; probably why he didn’t look as old as he was, why he was still so fit beneath that suit.

When you did what we did, when you were involved in shady shit more often than not, you never knew when quick reflexes and muscles would come in handy.

Father stared at Sylvester, holding back a frown. The intensity of his stare caused my brother to cough and start, “I… yes. I mean, it’s the least she could do for us, after killing Mario. Pay back his life in the form of servitude to our family.”

“And when we no longer have use for her?” Father spoke, hardly moving his lips as he did so. “When a debt is involved, typically the debtor lets the debtee walk away after it’s paid.” His gaze narrowed at Sylvester.

“Then we kill her,” he said, glancing at me, knowing her eventual death would make me happy. Of course, torturing her right now and making her scream for forgiveness would make me the happiest, but I could tell just by looking at father that he was considering it.

I could not believe it, so I stepped in, “Surely you’re not thinking it’s a good idea?”

I watched him heave a sigh. Father drew his dark gaze to me, saying, “I want to end her pathetic life as much as you do, Maddox—” That I highly doubted, because I didn’t think anyone else reveled in the bloodlust as much as I did. “—and while killing her now would bring me great pleasure, it might behoove us to put her to use before making her regret laying a hand on your brother.” To Sylvester, he said, “You mentioned the Night Slayer. You truly think that woman is the one?”

Sylvester nodded. “I do. It all fits with the Night Slayer’s other victims.”

Talking about our brother as if he was just another victim of a deranged serial killer. How mad could you get? This was insane. To not kill her tonight, to not pull out her teeth one by one until she was a blubbering mess begging for us to stop was pure madness. Why couldn’t anyone else here see that?

“This is stupid,” I said, unable to bite my tongue any longer. “She deserves to die for what she’s done!” If something would’ve been near me, I would’ve broken it. Or thrown it. Done something besides stand there and pout like a petulant child not getting his way.

“She will,” Father spoke, glancing at me. “She will not live until old age takes her.” He looked to Sylvester, pondering for a while. I could tell, just by watching him, he was debating on it, on letting that bitch walk free. “If she becomes the pet of our family, she will do as we say when we say it, or she’ll die right there.”

I couldn’t help but smirk at his words. Father didn’t say things needlessly; he meant every word of it. And with how defiant that bitch had been, even though she knew she could never escape this, I didn’t doubt she’d try to fight us sooner or later… and when she did, I would take great pleasure in ending her.

Sylvester could not argue with that. “Of course.”

Father tore his gaze away from us, staring off to the side. No one knew what was in his head, what he was thinking; he masked his emotions well, most of the time, but when he snapped, it was spectacular. I got my proclivity for violence from him, I’d say. “Very well. She will stay here, under guard.” He looked to Viper and Big Mike. “One of you will be with her at all times, regardless of what she’s doing. Understand?”

Viper and Big Mike nodded, silent.

“I don’t want to see her,” Father went on. “If I do… I’ll kill her. When I have a job for her, I’ll come to you.” That was directed at Sylvester. “Since you’re the one who suggested this, you’ll be her handler. I don’t doubt that if she tries something, Viper and Big Mike will handle her, but should they somehow fail, should she cause this family any more havoc, you will be responsible.”

A smug satisfaction crept over me as I looked at Sylvester to see his reaction. Good. That’s what he deserved for suggesting such a stupid, idiotic thing. We should just kill her now, but knowing he’d be on the hook if she fucked up again made it a little better.

Sylvester was as close to me as Mario had been, as close as a biological brother would be even though he wasn’t, and that meant I treated him as such. Meaning, I wanted to see him fail. I couldn’t help it. That’s what brothers did, especially when it was something stupid like this.

Now, when the chips were down? Then I would always be on his side, but this wasn’t one of those times.

“Understood,” Sylvester spoke.

Father looked between us, glancing to Viper and Big Mike and Carter for only a split-second before muttering, “I need a fucking drink.” And then he walked away, leaving us to our own devices.

So the bitch would be staying here, and Viper and Big Mike would take turns watching her. I didn’t want her here, of fucking course I didn’t want the girl who murdered my brother to live under the same roof as me, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much this could be a blessing in disguise.

I could make her life hell. I could make her life, as short or as long as it was while she was caught in our grip, miserable as fuck. I would make her regret laying a finger on Mario. Father said we would kill her should she not do as we asked, and that gave us a lot of wiggle room for other things that didn’t necessarily cross the line.

“Well,” I spoke after a little while, knowing my brother was lost in his head, probably wondering if he made the right call, pushing to use the girl currently tied up down the hall, “shall we tell her the news? I bet she’ll be thrilled to be our pet.” Hell, maybe she’d fight us right then and there, and we’d have no choice but to either end her or beat it into her skull. Either way, it would be fun.

Sylvester said nothing, pushing past me as he headed down the hall. The others followed us, though they hung back. It would be up to us to relay the news of her fate to her. When he tried going into the room first, I stopped him, pushed my way in front of him, and barged in, finding that Roman was silent, leaning against the wall, staring at her all the while.

“Leave us,” I hissed. “Carter will tell you everything.”

Roman said nothing, pushing off the wall and heading out. He glanced at the girl tied to the chair only once on his way out, and once the door was closed, Sylvester and I took our time in standing before her.

She was a beautiful girl, truthfully, even as tied up as she was. With that horrid wig off, her blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders and down her back, a natural hue on her. Her eyes were big and blue, and their depths held a wildness that I couldn’t deny. Her full lips parted as she saw us, and I bet they felt amazing wrapped around a cock. Her thin form wore a short red dress with a low cut between her tits, the fabric bunched up to her thighs. I could see her lacy black panties underneath, and I could definitely see why Mario had wanted to bring her home.

She was gorgeous, and I bet she looked even better without that dress on.

Her feet were bare; flat on the wooden floor. Along with the wig she’d been wearing, we’d taken off her heels as well. The girl looked completely out of sorts with her arms tied behind her back around the chair and her ankles on the legs of it.

“Oh, good,” she spoke, eyeing me up. “It’s you. I was wondering when you’d come back.” She then made a big show about studying Sylvester, a wide, toothy grin plastered on her face. She looked like she’d escaped from the insane asylum or something, completely crazy and out of her mind. “And you brought a friend. Honestly, I’ve always wanted a three-way—this just isn’t how I imagined it happening—”

I started to lunge for her, but Sylvester grabbed me by the shoulder and yanked me back. The girl watched the interaction between us with interest, her gaze narrowing somewhat.

Sylvester only released me when I muttered that I was fine, that I wasn’t going to attack her and strangle her. Heaven fucking forbid that. He spoke, causing her blue eyes to snap to him immediately, “What’s your name, Night Slayer?”

The grin she wore widened. A true crazy smile if I ever saw one. How badly I wanted to wipe it off her face with my fist. I doubted that urge would ever go away, should she make herself useful to us and prolong her inevitable death at our hands. “Ah, so you’ve heard of me?” she asked, giggling. “It’s kind of funny, you know. I didn’t start out with the intent to gain some fame, but I guess when you kill a few people, it tends to happen.”

“Last I heard, it was more than a few,” Sylvester spoke, folding his arms over his chest. So calm compared to me, so stable as he stood before the girl who’d killed our little brother.

That quieted her down a bit. She leaned her head back, breathing in deeply before saying, “My name is Lola. And, yes, before you ask, that is my real name. My parents were fucking idiots.” Were. I noted her use of the past tense, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they were dead by her hands, too.

“I’m Sylvester,” he said.

“Sylvester,” she purred out his name, doing her best to sound enticing and sensual, given that she was still attached to the chair. “What an odd name, but I kind of like it. It suits you.” A heartbeat before she added, “Has anyone ever said you have the prettiest eyes, Sylvester?”

I prickled as I stood there, wishing he would step aside and let me have at her. This was ridiculous. This was all just fucking stupid. Why couldn’t anyone see how much of a bad idea this was?

Sylvester didn’t let her compliment get to him, continuing: “I assume Maddox told you why you were here.”

Lola glanced at me, giving me that sultry look. “No, all Maddox did was attack me, though he did mention something about his brother.”

“Last weekend, at the club,” Sylvester spoke. We knew enough of the story to piece it together, and it wasn’t a pretty story. All Mario had wanted was a girl to fuck, but Lola went into it with other plans. Dark, devious, killer plans. “You went home with our brother, Mario. You killed him. You took a shower and then you left. And you… took some of his meat out of the fridge.”

She shrugged. The movement caused her tits to jiggle a bit, and my eyes dipped low to them. How in the world were they even held back by that dress? Women’s fashion didn’t fucking make sense. “The meat was going to go bad, so I figured why not? Look, if you want me to apologize for stealing the meat, I’m sorry. I really am. It was good shit, some kind of special Cajun turkey or whatever—I’ve never had anything like it before, but I will die a happy woman now that I have.”

Sylvester and I exchanged glances, and we were both probably wondering what the hell she was going on about. I knew I was.

“If, on the other hand, you’re expecting an apology for the other thing I did—the stabby-stab portion of the night last weekend, well, let me invite you to walk around this chair and see the two middle fingers I’m currently holding up for you,” she finished, still grinning like a madwoman.

Fuck. She really was crazy, wasn’t she?

“I’m going to fucking kill her,” I muttered, my skin itching with the need to hurt her. To wipe that smirk off her face and make her regret saying that, to make her feel some kind of guilt over killing Mario. How could we let her live and breathe beneath this roof when she’d killed one of us?

Sylvester held up a hand, though I did notice how he swallowed hard. He was fighting his inner monster with every passing second, too. I bet he wanted to hurt her as well; he was just better at hiding the beast than I was. “I have a proposition for you,” he said, “unless you’d rather we kill you now, in which case, my brother here will gladly.”

Lola tilted her head, her lips puckering as she thought on it. A proposition was the last thing she expected, clearly, for it took her a while to say, “Lay it on me, Blondie. Let’s see what you got. Don’t know what could beat being choked at the hands of your brother, but we’ll see.”

Oh, I’d do more than choke her, at this point. How could I hear her scream if she was choking? No, I would do so much more than wrap my hands around her neck and choke the life out of her.

“Do you know who we are?” Sylvester asked.

“Not the missing pieces to the threesome of my dreams, clearly,” she deadpanned.

Sylvester ignored that comment, saying, “We’re the Lucianos, the biggest crime family around. Everyone who’s anyone around here knows who we are. That said, we do have a lot of enemies, and beyond them, those who always think they can slither around us and take a bite at our ankles to try to weaken us.”

Lola kept quiet, but I could see the gears turning in her head, could see the seriousness spread across her features as she took in what Sylvester was saying.

“You’re the Night Slayer. You killed our brother. You owe us a life, and you’re going to give us yours or die here, tonight,” he finished.

“You’re saying you want me to be your Night Slayer?” Lola questioned, her blonde brows furrowing just a bit as she stared up at my brother, completely disregarding me for the moment.

Since I did not appreciate those crazy blue eyes ignoring me, I spoke up, growling out the words, “You’ll be whatever the fuck we want you to be, do what we tell you to with no hesitation.” My heart hammered in my chest. I wanted blood, her blood, but I had the feeling tonight would be free of it, sadly.

She did not jump at the offer. “And why would I want to be at your beck and call?”

Sylvester answered her, “To live longer.”

Lola laughed. “Surely you don’t think I go around killing the guys I go home with because you think I want to live a long and healthy life?” Her laughter was light and airy, as feminine as a laugh could get. She had a way about her, that was for sure. A black widow through and through, ready to devour whatever male fell under her spell and got caught in her web. “Why would I want to be basically a slave to you guys? Why wouldn’t I choose death?”

It was obvious Sylvester hadn’t been expecting her to say that, and he looked at me, wordlessly asking for my help, which he would not receive. At this point, I didn’t know whether I wanted to kill her now or make her life miserable, then kill her. Either way, the destination was the same. But, I guess it was true, what they said: the journey was what mattered most.

“Um,” Sylvester stuttered, “it’ll be more fun?” The way he spoke it, he almost sounded awkward, having been completely caught off-guard with what Lola had said. I couldn’t help but smirk at his reply, although my smirk died the moment Lola said what she said next.

“Fun? Okay, count me in.”

My jaw nearly dropped, but I stopped myself, my blood running hot as I glared at her. She was fucking kidding, right? Fun was going to get her to agree to be our pet until we bored of her or she became obstinate and we killed her? What the ever-loving fuck was this chick’s problem?

“I love fun,” Lola went on, sighing the words out. “Just can’t get enough, you know? Maybe it was because my childhood was shit…” She caught herself, making a whoops face. “Sorry, that’s getting too deep. We’re still strangers.”

Sylvester was at a loss for words, and I was, too. This… this was either going to be really entertaining, or absolute hell for all of us.

Chapter Four – Lola

They wouldn’t let me go home to pick up my stuff. Not even my clothes, which meant I was stuck in this red dress until they got me some new things. I didn’t shed a tear for my belongings, but it was weird to know I would be living in this big, fancy house with them.

Oh, they wanted to kill me. I knew it. I wasn’t stupid. I could see it in their eyes, the way they all watched me. Maddox especially. That one… I’d have to keep an eye on him. Sylvester didn’t seem too bad; he also didn’t look like the rest of them, and I wondered if he was even related to them. Maybe he had a different mother. Who knew?

I had a room down a long hall, and honestly the furniture, the size of the room… it all reminded me of the home I’d left so long ago. So much so that I nearly took it all back and begged for them to end it now.

Living here… it wasn’t going to be pretty. At this point in time, I was seriously doubting how much fun it would actually be. A gal couldn’t constantly live in her past pain, you know? You gotta give a girl a break every now and then.

Did I mention I had guards? Two of them. One’s name was Vinny, although everyone called him Viper—probably because of the snake tattoos on his skin. The other was Mike, or Big Mike, as his nickname was. Needless to say, he was kind of huge. Not in the fat way, but more like the super tall, super muscular way. I wasn’t so much a fan of the long hair he had, but still. A part of me was tempted to try climbing that tree, if you know what I mean.

Their family was big, I guess. That, or everyone who had loyalty to them was considered family. I was kind of jealous, because really, I never had a family like that. Never had someone else’s devotion.

One thing I was not allowed to do was see the big man himself. Richard Luciano wanted nothing to do with me since I killed his youngest child. Which, yeah, I totally understood. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what the big man was like. After seeing Maddox and Sylvester, after meeting and killing Dickless, they seemed to have a wide variety of personalities.

Was it wrong to be excited to be able to peel them back, layer by layer, like an onion? Or a cake. Or one of those big jawbreakers with the separate colors for layers…

Mmm. I could go for some candy right now.

Vinny or Mike always had to be with me, no matter what I was doing in the house. I kind of had free rein, which was a little weird to me, but I wasn’t going to complain. Maybe they thought I wouldn’t try anything with scary-looking bodyguards keeping watch. Both Mike and Vinny looked like they could handle themselves, a lot better than Dickless did.

Er, Mario, I meant. I really should stop calling him Dickless. I’d only incite them further—which might be fun, but right now I wanted to see what they had in store for me.

It wasn’t like I had a life to get back to. No job that would miss me come Monday morning, no nine-to-five cubicle calling my name. I didn’t have a family anymore, and I didn’t have friends, either. I was literally as alone as I could be, which was why I would’ve accepted either outcome: death, or becoming their bitch.

I chose their bitch, because Sylvester had said it would be fun. Gosh, I hoped I got my hands dirty for them. That would be fun.

You know what else would be fun? Getting the fuck out of this dress.

Once I was introduced to my room—and where the bathroom was, because that was also some necessary information if I was going to be living here—I sat on the edge of my bed, wondering when the last time someone had slept in it was. I didn’t have the main light on, but I did turn on the small lamp near the bedside; it was too late to have anything super bright on, past three in the morning. I think Maddox and Sylvester had gone to bed. Tomorrow would be a new day, although, I supposed you could argue it was already tomorrow.

Whatever.

Vinny stood at the door with his arms folded in front of him, the door closed behind him. He stared straight ahead, not looking at me. He wore all black, and with the quiet maturity in his face, I’d put him quite a few years older than me. Maybe late twenties or early thirties. His brown hair was cut short, very much unlike Mike’s, and I noticed he had the same hazel eyes as the other bodyguard, who was currently not here. Also probably catching up on his Zs.

You know what? Their eyes weren’t the only thing that was the same. Their jaws were similar, their hair color, too. Were they brothers, like Maddox, Sylvester, and Dickless had been?

I decided to ask.

“You and Mike related?” I asked.

The nicknames they had for each other… they didn’t feel like mine. I liked to call people pet names, but Viper and Big Mike were two nicknames that felt like they didn’t belong to me. I wasn’t one of them, so why would I call them that?

My feet were bare as they hung off the side of the bed. They’d taken my heels, and I doubted I’d be getting them back.

A pity. I liked them a lot, a lot more than I liked people.

Vinny said nothing, but his hazel stare was on me. His jaw remained firmly shut, which instantly annoyed me. When I asked a question, I expected to be answered and not ignored like some child who spoke out of turn.

I slid off the bed, moving toward him slowly, making sure to put a little extra sway in my hips—he noticed that, I saw, as his eyes fell to my lower half. “I asked you a question,” I said, stopping when I stood less than a foot away from him.

He reminded me of those palace guards you see, you know, the ones with the tall hats and the muskets or whatever they held—the ones who were paid to stand there and protect and pretend the civilians walking the streets didn’t exist. Only, you know, this fella was tattooed and kind of sexy, no uniform in sight.

“Really?” I said, when he kept to his silence, “You’re going to ignore me, hmm? Pretend I don’t exist? Well, let’s see how much you can pretend while I have your crown jewels in my hand—” I went to reach between his legs, my plan to cup him firmly and possibly feel him up to see what I was dealing with—a man with an anaconda for a dick you always had to handle a bit differently, their egos and such—but his reflexes were lightning fast, stunning me into silence.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Vinny spoke, his stare taking on a darkness that was not there mere moments before, a warning to me for pushing against a territory that was not mine. The hand curling around my wrist gripped it hard, so hard he probably expected me to wince or something, but I didn’t. I only held his stare.

“I don’t like being ignored,” I told him. “Now, I realize you might hate me, along with everyone else in this house, but there’s no reason we can’t be civil.”

He let out a loud breath, practically tossing my hand away with a push as he released me, back to his quietness.

Pursing my lips, I tried to think up something worse than me asking him to tell me about himself. It only took me a minute, but I came up with something I thought might just get him to be a little chatty: “I won’t go to bed until you talk to me. I will stand right here and literally talk all night. You might not know me, but let me just say, I’m very capable of chatting constantly.”

That did the trick, and I heard him groan, watching him roll his eyes before muttering, “Yes. We’re twins.”

“You are?” I was shocked, but then I remembered that twins didn’t always have to look alike. “I can see it. How are you related to this family of criminals?” I didn’t know what they did, but the way Sylvester had talked, the Lucianos were something of a big deal around here. Honestly, I wouldn’t know, because until recently, I’d had blinders on when it came to what I did.

And by that, I meant the murders. Becoming the Night Slayer. You know, the usual shit pretty girls got up to when left alone.

“We’re not, but we owe them a debt.”

“Like me?”

Vinny glared at me. “Not like you.”

Ah, well, I supposed that made sense, since he was my bodyguard. Whatever debt he and his brother owed this family was nothing like the blood debt I owed.

I let my gaze drop, studying the tattoos peeking out on his forearms and the top of his hands. The dark sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to the elbows, the kind of thing that made every gal go nuts. Something about a man wearing fancy clothes, neatly pressed and clean of all dirt, just knowing those sleeves were rolled up made you think he was about to get down and nasty. Maybe do a little spanking.

Or was that just me?

“What’s with all the snake tattoos? Is that why they call you Viper?” Now that I had him talking, I kind of didn’t want to stop. It was nice to talk to someone else. Lately, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, my life had been pretty lonely.

There was a time when living in a house with a bunch of strange men who could kill me with their pinkies would’ve given me pause, but I was not that girl anymore. I’d grown up these past few years, being on my own.

“I like snakes,” he muttered, frowning slightly at me. The expression made me giggle, because, even though he was seeking to be dour and stern, trying to scare me, I bet, that was the last thing I got from him.

I wasn’t scared. I didn’t get scared. I looked danger and death in the face every day and laughed my ass off, and I wouldn’t stop just because a group of hardcore and deadly—albeit super hot—men had kidnapped me and basically given me no choice but to become theirs. I was Lola fucking Harding, the Night Slayer, and I’d never stop being her.

“Snakes are cool,” I agreed, turning and taking my time in walking back to the bed. “Misunderstood by a lot of people.” With a glance over my shoulder, I found he was staring at me, that he’d watched me walk away. Maybe it was my comment about snakes that got to him, but suddenly, in that moment, he didn’t look like he wanted to kill me.

But then the moment was gone.

I didn’t sit on the bed, but I did lean on it. “How long do you think I have before they tire of me and decide to kill me anyway?” I was more curious than anything else; it wasn’t like I was going to try to run. This was my fate. I’d dug myself in this hole and leaped in willingly. Whatever happened here… well, it would be better than ending up on the electric chair, I supposed.

Though I would miss the infamy and the notoriety that would’ve come with it, if I was being honest.

When Vinny didn’t answer, I smiled to myself. “I’m not stupid. I know they want me dead. It’s only a matter of time until they get revenge for their brother. Really, I ain’t hatin’, I’m just asking. Professional courtesy and all that.”

“The same professional courtesy you gave Mario when you stabbed him?” Vinny said, taking a single step away from the door, scowling. The viper tattoos on his arms and hands looked almost as if they moved in the shadows, like even they wanted to see me hang for my crimes. He did not rush me, did not move any closer besides that one step.

I said nothing for a while, moving to turn off the lamp. The light flicked off, shrouding the room in nothing but darkness. There were two tall windows on the other side of the room, but the curtains were pulled over them, allowing not even the moonlight to seep through. The room was nothing more than a silent space of blackness, and I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.

Would I change what I did last weekend if I knew where it would lead me? A big, fat, resounding no.

“I know it doesn’t matter to anyone here, least of all to you, since you’re only doing what this family asked of you, but I didn’t go home with just anyone. The Night Slayer chose her victims based on how they acted while they were out in the bars or the clubs.”

How many men had taken women home before, or gone to their places, and used them up? Sorry not sorry, but to me, there was no place in the world for men like that.

Hah, listen to me. You’d think I hated men based on my thought processes and my actions, I bet. I kind of did, don’t tell anyone, but that was due to my own baggage and past, both of which were just too awful to get into.

“Mario might’ve been a member of this family, but he was not a good guy,” I went on. “Now, I’m well aware no one under this roof is a good guy, but there’s something different between a killer and someone who would take advantage of a drunk girl.”

“What Mario did should’ve been between him and God, not you and your knife.”

Hmm. I guess I could respect that answer, though a part of me did want to argue that I could be God’s instrument of vengeance.

I turned around, giving him my back. Reaching behind me, I found the zipper on the dress and tugged it down, loosening the fabric as it went. The dress fell to my feet, nothing but a pile of clothing as I stepped out of it. I had no idea if Vinny was eyeing my mostly-naked body up in the blackness of the room or not; it didn’t matter.

My parents had always said I was their angel, that I was beautiful, and the more I grew up, the more consequences that came with a face like mine, the more I believed them. Now, I held it as a truth close to my heart. My face, my eyes, my body… I was made to be consumed. To be looked at. To be used.

That’s all life was about, wasn’t it?

My heart ached at that thought. Even though I’d come to view it all as true, it still hurt sometimes to think about it. Some days I wondered what it would be like to have been born into a normal family. Minus the wealth and the power, what my parents would’ve been like, what my family would’ve been like. Everything would be so different, the whole nature-versus-nurture thing.

But I was born a Harding, molded how they wanted, and then I broke that fucking mold and made them regret putting me there in the first place.

No, tonight was not the night to get wistful.

I crawled into bed, the sheets cool on my bare skin. I lay on my back, feeling the satiny sheet brush my nipples with every breath I took. My eyes were on the ceiling above me, and I was slow to close them.

Come whatever may, I’d be ready. The Lucianos might think they had caught some wild thing, someone who’d push against the bars they set up, but I wouldn’t. Might as well try to have a little fun before they killed me, right?

Suffocating. Stifling. Silent screams all around. Heavy weight pressing down on me, stopping me from running, from getting the fuck out. I couldn’t move, couldn’t shout, couldn’t even cry out to beg for it to stop.

And, even if I could, it never did. No one ever stopped it. On and on it went like some sick, perverse joke—wasn’t that what it was? A fucking joke? A joke that killed souls and twisted little girls into the monsters they were afraid of.

But in the beginning, all the little girls were afraid. They didn’t have the power to stop it, didn’t have the voices to shatter the glass surrounding them. How could they when everything in the world tried to keep them silenced?

Hands all over me, touching me, holding me, a face I wanted nothing more than to forget. How long had it been since I cried? I couldn’t remember. I didn’t want to. Crying was for the weak, and I wasn’t weak, was I? I felt like I was, now.

This… this wasn’t me. The hands on me were too warm, too hot. They didn’t feel good in any way, didn’t make me sigh out my relief as I gave in. This was not right, but they both turned their heads and let it happen.

I was their angel, wasn’t I? I was the bright spot in their lives, the girl whose honey-colored hair and Caribbean blue eyes could light up a room. But, no. That wasn’t real. They didn’t want an angel; they only wanted a good girl. A girl who would sit down and shut the fuck up, not raise her voice or try to stop what was inevitable.

I was not the same weak girl I used to be. I was not the frightened child I once was, and something inside of me snapped. I fought back, fought against the assailing hands and the face looming over me. My body jerked and resisted, nails raking down flesh until…

Until I heard a swearword that brought me right out of that horrible dream.

My eyes flew open, seeing nothing but a dark room at first, but then when I sat up, I saw someone leaning over the side of my bed, clutching his cheek. Vinny still stood near the door, which hung open, scowling but not moving closer to help.

I’d just been a girl in a nightmare, freaking the fuck out.

Right.

I wasn’t back in that house, wasn’t trapped and drowning with each passing moment. I was free of those chains, but right now I found myself with another set tight around my ankles—metaphorically, I mean, because currently, there was nothing around my ankles except the smooth sheets above them.

Sylvester clutched his cheek, his blonde hair a little bit ruffled. His face was too rough, too mature, to belong to the person I’d thought I was fighting against in my dream, and a part of me felt bad that I’d lashed out at him, but then I remembered that this was supposed to be my room, and why the hell would he have thought it was okay to sneak up on me while I was asleep?

I glared at him. “What the hell?” My tits might’ve been visible to him, but maybe not. The comforter on top of me was one of those super fluffy ones. Either way, he had to know I was next to naked under here, since my dress lay on the floor near his feet. I would’ve come up with something better to say, but my heart raced too much in my chest, an itchy feeling around my neck.

It honestly didn’t even occur to me that this might be what gets me dead. Oopsie-daisy.

“I was walking by and heard you,” Sylvester spoke, releasing his cheek to glare at me. For the first time, he looked like that Maddox fellow, his teeth bared, his eyes glazed over in hate. Maybe the good cop, bad cop routine they’d played last night had been more of a bad cop, slightly-less bad cop one.

The light in the hallway was on, allowing me to see the scratches forming on his cheek. From me. Judging from the light streaming in through the curtains on the window, dawn had arrived.

“Yes, well, whether I’m crying out like I’m dying or sounding like I’m petting my kitty, I don’t need you to barge in,” I told him, flashing a smile that felt fake, even to me. In the corner of the room, Vinny’s brows creased, as if he was wondering what the hell I’d meant by petting my kitty.

Think about it. It’ll come to you.

Sylvester raised his hand, and for a moment, I could’ve sworn he was going to hit me, but then, in the most anticlimactic gesture ever, he simply ran that hand through his hair as he straightened his back. “Yes, well, I’ll keep that in mind next time,” he said, no longer looking as if he wanted to kill me.

Pity.

From where he now stood, it was blatantly obvious he could see my upper half above the comforter, and he made no moves to hide how he checked me out, nor did I scoot further under the covers.

Me and the word modest didn’t go together. I’d been born not knowing the word, so I let him stare, waiting for him to either leave or say whatever else was on his mind. What he asked next stunned me into silence for a little while.

“What size are you?”

When I got over how random that was, I said, “What?”

“What size clothes do you wear? What size, um…” He pointed to my tits, unabashed at staring but somehow unable to say the word bra. Sylvester was a bit of an oddball, apparently. “My father wants to put you to work immediately, to see what you’re capable of, and you won’t walk the streets with us wearing that,” he spoke of my dress as if it was something a prostitute would wear.

There was nothing wrong with that dress. I rather liked it.

“Too trashy for the Lucianos?” I asked, mocking only a little. Didn’t know why it would be trashy to them; I bet they liked their girls wearing next to nothing as often as possible and constantly on their knees.

Like, don’t play with this gal, boys. She’s too smart for that shit.

Still, I couldn’t wear that dress day in and day out. I did need new clothes, along with new underwear and, yes, bras. My tits were too big to let them dangle around constantly. And if I was put to work? Say I got in a fight? They’d be swinging around all over the place. Although, maybe that would make for a good distraction… But, regardless, I figured I’d draw too much attention to myself here walking around naked, anyway.

I told him, and he said nothing else, walking out, leaving my door open as he went.

Meeting gazes with Vinny, I gave him a smile. “So, what is there to do for fun in this house?”

Turned out, not much. It was basically a huge ass house with tons of rooms that seemed quite pointless to me. I did find a room with a flat-screen TV that was probably a good eighty or so inches, and since I was tired of walking around aimlessly with Mike as my shadow—Vinny and him had traded off after I showered in my designated bathroom—I plopped down on one of the dark sectionals facing it and took a load off my feet.

I could go for some food, but I hated cooking, honestly. I’d rather just not, you know? I highly doubted they had pizza rolls here, anyway. Those delicious, tiny things… I never had them growing up, which was probably why I was so obsessed with them now.

It was too late to watch the morning news, closer to midday now than morning, so I flipped until I found some celebrity daytime talk show. They were talking about the latest Bachelor and Bachelorette drama, and, not gonna lie, I was a sucker for that shit.

Like, to have a girl dating over twenty men at the same time? Just think of all the dicks she had at her disposal. The variety, too. Black, white, Asian, every color of the rainbow. Short, tall, nerds and jocks. Seriously, a sprinkling of everything. If I was the Bachelorette, I’d say, fuck it, who wants to leave this mansion and come home with me for an orgy or two?

I’d never had an orgy—never had the opportunity, since my younger years were spent doing other things I didn’t want to think about—but they sure sounded fun, didn’t they?

All those dicks, flying around, maybe even doing a little bit of crossing. All of those mouths and hands all over the place… oh, yeah, I was getting a little hot and bothered thinking about it.

Right when I was debating whether to go back to my room and, as they say, flick the bean, someone else walked into the lounge, someone I didn’t recognize from last night. At least five years older than me, wearing dark pants and a dark grey shirt, the man didn’t remind me of Maddox or Sylvester. His hair was a dusty brown, his eyes a vivid green. Handsome, but a little thin.

I could probably take him down, although, if given the right tools and the element of surprise, I could take just about anyone down.

Was I conceited? Eh, maybe a wee bit, but a gal had to know what she was good at in this world. If you didn’t know what you were good at, what your strengths were, the world just might walk all over you. No fucking thanks.

He froze when he saw me, blinking half a dozen times as if that would suddenly make me disappear. He turned those green eyes to Mike, who said nothing in return. The newcomer opened his mouth and asked in a hushed voice, “Is that her?” Everybody must’ve heard about me by now, what I did, how this family planned on using me.

It’s all good. You know what they say—whatever floats your boat.

“She’s right here,” I chimed in, causing both Mike and the newcomer to look at me, “and she can answer your questions herself.” I reclined back on the couch, lifting my legs and laying them on the cushion beside me. My low-cut, red dress clung to my body, leaving next to nothing to the imagination.

The newcomer gave a lingering look to Mike, who just shrugged, his way of saying to go ahead. After all, it wasn’t like I was doing anything. Why not chat with this stranger? He wasn’t nearly as handsome as Sylvester, nor was he as dangerously sexy as Maddox. I’d say even Vinny and Mike had it better than him when it came to the department of looks, but who was I to judge based on looks alone?

Oh, wait. That’s right. The world judged me every single fucking day because of my looks, so I made damned sure I did the same as often as I could.

Cynical, me? Yeah, you might say that.

He moved to sit on the same couch as me, though he did leave some space between us, or, rather, between my bare feet and him. I couldn’t help but wonder how close he would’ve gotten if I wasn’t sprawled out like a spider in red. He studied me, his lips drawn in a thin line. “You’re not what I expected,” he said, leaning back and stretching both arms on the couch cushions behind him.

“And what did you expect I’d be?” I cocked my head as I asked, curious in spite of myself.

His green eyes dipped low to my chest, and then even lower to my thighs, where my dress ended. “You look like one of Roman’s favorites at the Dollhouse, not a killer.” I wasn’t sure what the Dollhouse was, whether it was meant to be a compliment or not, but I chose to take it as one.

“If I looked like a killer, I doubt I’d actually be one,” I said, shrugging once. “You know, it’s a lot easier for a girl like me to get the upper hand when the guys are only thinking with their dicks.” Crass but totally true. “Speaking of…” I swung my legs off the couch, sitting up, inching closer to him. “How’s yours?”

What could I say? I guess those thoughts of orgies still hung in the back of my mind.

“You don’t even know who I am,” he said, as if that mattered. As if I gave a shit about who he was or what his name was. Here’s a hint: I didn’t. And, anyway, it was better when names weren’t involved. Names tended to come with other things, like memories and feelings and all that shit, and I couldn’t handle that kind of seriousness.

Want another tip? No one could take it from you if you gave it out freely.

“Does it matter?” I asked, now sitting beside him, running a hand along his chest. Thin, but he was firm beneath his shirt. Lean. I knew better by now than to judge a man’s dick before seeing it. Sometimes the short guys could whip out monster cocks, thick and long enough to choke you out better than their hands ever could.

He chuckled. “Tony,” he said, and he did not pull away from me.

“Lola,” I told him. “There, now that we’re acquainted, maybe those pants should come off.” Coming onto a man I’d literally met a few moments ago? Desperate, but then again, sometimes you got an itch only a hard cock could scratch, and I was not a picky gal. I’d learned years ago that just because you didn’t want something didn’t mean you wouldn’t get it.

You got it anyway, and you were miserable the entire time, so why not win the race before it began and want it all?

He flashed a grin at me, and it was the most charming and disarming smile I think I’d ever seen. Okay, so he was cute. Fine. “Is this how you normally work? Is this how you got Mario?”

Ugh. Why the hell was everyone so content with bringing Dickless up over and over? Like, yeah, sure, he was a part of their family, but come on. Maybe it was because I grew up in literally the shittiest family ever, but I didn’t understand the obsession. Like, the bitch was dead, so get over it, mmkay?

I responded by swinging myself over him, straddling his lap. My dress bunched up to my hips, revealing the black lacy panties underneath. Setting my hands on his shoulders, I gave him a smile. “Does it matter?” I murmured, biting my bottom lip. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t have killing on the brain right now—just fucking.” If ever there was a more brutally honest chick, I hadn’t met her.

Not sure I would want to, honestly.

He grinned again, his hands snaking up my sides, parts of him holding onto the dress and parts of him touching my bare skin. “You’re a wild one, aren’t you?” Tony whispered, his eyelids falling just a bit.

And that’s when I knew I had him.

Really, it wasn’t hard to play a man. When you looked like me, it came easily. Don’t feel bad for this one, though, because unlike Dickless, I wasn’t going to stab him in the throat and watch him bleed out. I really did just want the D.

I never broke eye contact with him, gazing into his eyes as one of my hands dipped lower on his chest, dragging down along him until I reached his belt, which I undid in a hurry. I paid no attention to the giant standing in the corner; he could watch. As far as I was concerned right now, he didn’t exist. It was just me and Tony, whoever the fuck he was.

Within a moment, I had a hand down his pants, gripping his dick. It was getting harder by the moment, and after a few strokes, it was more than an acceptable length. Not a monster, but enough to satisfy me.

I was about to yank my hand off him and tug my panties to the side and ride him hard and fast right there, but the expression Tony wore changed. A new hand gripped the back of my neck, squeezing hard as he heaved me off him, throwing me on the other side of the couch. I looked up at the scowling Maddox.

But he paid me no attention, his glare on Tony. “Get the fuck out of here,” he commanded, and like a good dog, Tony got up and hurried away as he adjusted his dick in his pants and fixed his belt.

Hmm. Whoever Tony was to this family, he was a good worker bee, apparently.

When Tony was long gone, Maddox turned to me, furious. His eyes were so dark they neared black. The half of his head that wasn’t shaved to the scalp was combed back, slick and greasy. I bet he’d look even better covered in blood… then again, I might just like blood a little too much. Sue me.

He said nothing, rushing over to me to pin me down on the couch, that same tattooed hand curling around my neck, as if I’d been a bad, bad girl by trying to fuck that Tony fella. He squeezed hard, and while someone else might’ve fought him, tried to struggle to escape his hold or even coughed out to breathe, all I did was smile.

“You think you can do whatever the fuck you want here?” Maddox hissed, his voice oozing acid, and I loved it. He was a mad thing, a beast wearing the skin of a handsome, sexy human. “You belong to us, not the other way around—”

My airways burned, but still I laughed. I laughed because this was great. Really, it was great. Laying there beneath him, his body all tattooed and covered in black clothing, his expression deadly, with nowhere to go… I was oddly comfortable, strangely at ease. Forget the pain his hand on my neck caused me, it didn’t matter.

Maddox was death incarnate, so much sexier than an electric chair could ever be. Was it wrong to want him to kill me? I would rather die staring into those soulless black pits than at a window to a room full of strangers.

I might’ve just met him, but Maddox was no stranger to me. How could he be, when he was just as insane as I was? Take one look at him and anyone would know it, and anyone who would try to deny it was an idiot of epic proportions. We were two lost creatures, trying to find our way in this world, and if he could end my ongoing search for finality, then more power to him.

His grip tightened even more on my neck, his body leaning down on mine. He still stood beside the couch, but he was practically crawling on it to loom over me, to assert his power and his dominance over me. “Why the fuck are you laughing?” he questioned, shaking my whole body with a jerk of the arm connected to my neck.

He only lessened the pressure to allow me to speak, and I wheezed out, “I don’t think anything I say right now will be what you want to hear, so why don’t you either take Tony’s place or kill me now?” Fuck me or kill me, quite the choice. I wondered which one he’d pick?

Maddox leaned down, hissing out the words, “You don’t ever fucking tell me what to do.”

I laughed again. What was he going to do? Drop me and walk away just to prove a point, that there was an option C? Come on. I didn’t have to feel his midsection pressing down on mine to know he was hard. I could see it on his face: he got off on this, on holding all of the power. Who could blame him? It was an intoxicating feeling.

The hand on my neck moved to my jaw, cupping it hard, so hard my teeth hurt, and he turned my head to the side, pressing his nose against my cheek, whispering, “You don’t mean shit here. You’re just a body, and the moment you stop being useful to us, I’m going to take great pleasure in ending your fucking life.”

My body shivered; I couldn’t help it. I’d never faced down a monster like him, and if I was honest, I kind of liked it. I wanted to see him work, to see him kill, but I would also be okay with him snapping my neck here and now. What a conundrum, huh?

“I can’t wait,” I whispered back, fighting against the hand to turn my head towards his. He didn’t want to let me, but maybe he was curious about what I’d do… or maybe he sensed the same thing inside me that I did in him.

Maybe me killing his brother had brought me right where I was meant to be.

Our noses grazed, his breath hot on my face. I breathed him in, the pure, righteous fury in his eyes, the hatred he had for me and what I’d done. An angel of death had me in his grip, and I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, no matter how this thing ended, it would be biblical. I didn’t reach for him, even though my hands were free. This could go either way, and I was here for it all.

His lips danced across mine, brushing against my mouth with every word, “I’m going to make you regret ever laying a fucking finger on my brother. I’m going to make every single day of your life hell.” A whispered promise, not a threat. I had the feeling this man—and what a man he was—never wasted time with threats; only promises.

Whatever I would’ve said in response didn’t matter. His mouth crashed down on mine, kissing me hard, taking whatever pathetic amount of breath that was still left in my lungs and leaving me with nothing. Hand still holding onto my jaw, I could not turn away—not that I would—and heat flooded me in a matter of seconds, filling me up to the core every way possible.

I didn’t like kissing, but this… I’d hardly call it that. This was a tug of war between mouths, a battle for dominance that he would obviously come out the victor. This wasn’t sweet or tender in any way. This was hate and hunger rolled up into one.

His teeth found my lower lip, biting down so hard he drew blood, and it was only when he tasted that blood that he pulled his mouth off mine, giving me the harshest, most devilish look I’d ever been on the receiving end of.

My blood tasted coppery, but I said nothing, only running my tongue along my bottom lip and catching more of it. If he wanted me to cry out in pain, he’d have to do a lot more than that. If ever there was a crazy psycho bitch, it was me, just ask all of the men who’d died at my hands.

Maddox rolled me to the side, stopping me when I was on my stomach on the couch. He grabbed my legs and swung them off, spreading them apart. My dress was still bunched up from before with Tony, so all he had to do was pull my panties aside to get at me. With one hand tangled in my blonde hair, keeping my head down, pressed against the cushion, I heard him fiddling with his belt. Though he was a monster, he was a well-dressed one.

It was difficult for me to breathe while being pressed down onto the couch, but I didn’t care. I smiled to myself, grinned harder when the hand on the back of my head squeezed the hair it held. It felt like my hair was being pulled by the roots, but I was fine with it. There were a lot of things I didn’t care about, clearly.

Lola Harding was no angel, not anymore. She’d shed her wings the moment she left that house all those years ago.

“Is this what you want?” Maddox growled out, and in the next moment, a hard, thick cock pushed inside of me, almost violent in its entrance.

I gasped, tasting more blood from the bite mark on my lip, but I said nothing. How could I when his cock felt like a fucking ram, pile-driving me from behind? I couldn’t remember ever feeling so full, so speechless, all by a damned dick.

He began thrusting hard, paying no mind to how uncomfortable my position was. Maddox didn’t care, I knew, and that made it all the sweeter. Guess I was a glutton for punishment, because I wanted more.

The hand in my hair dropped to the back of my neck, fingers curling around me tightly, as if he owned me utterly and completely. In a way, he did. He and his family would decide what to do with me and when to get rid of me, and until that day came, it would be a wild, bumpy ride and I would be so here for it.

“I said,” he hissed, pumping that thick cock into me like it was his only job in the world, “is this what you want, you fucking bitch?”

Now, he best be careful, otherwise that might start to be a little pet name between us.

I tightened my inner walls on his cock as an answer, and he felt it. Oh, he felt it, because the next moment he let out a moan that was more of a growl than anything else. So fucking hot.

The couch under me scraped against the wooden floor as he fucked me hard, an animal, taking what he wanted. Hell, I didn’t even know if he wanted it, or if this was some misguided way of punishing me for coming on to Tony, but it didn’t matter, because either way, it felt amazing.

His thrusting became more brutal, savage in every way, and I could’ve sworn I felt his cock deep within my stomach. It felt that big, like my body was stretching to accommodate it. What a weapon he had packing between his legs, huh?

Maddox came with a vengeance, his wide, muscular body bearing down on mine as his chest rumbled with a series of groans. The hand on the back of my neck tightened, and I allowed myself a single verbal cry, in sync with his. A part of me never wanted this moment to end, just because I didn’t know what would come next, but end it did.

He pulled out of me, shoving me as he released his hold on my neck, staggering back on his own two feet. I turned my head, watching as he put himself away, still tasting a bit of blood from his bite. Maddox glared at me with a hatred I could feel, and it made me smile.

He hated seeing me smile, I could tell, which was why this particular smile was so wide.

“Next time,” I suggested, sitting up and adjusting my panties before pulling down my dress to my thighs, “you should bring a knife.”

I must’ve caught him completely off-guard by that, for it was a few moments before he was able to say anything, and when he got ahold of himself, he just shook his head, said “Fuck you” under his breath, and walked out.

My heart raced in my chest, a byproduct of a wild session of sex, and I shifted my gaze to Mike, who still stood in the corner of the lounge, his arms folded across his chest. “Enjoy the show, big guy?” I asked, grinning as I noted the bulge in his pants.

This might just be fun after all.

Chapter Five – Sylvester

I realized I could’ve sent someone else to fetch her clothes, but for whatever reason, I felt like I had to do it, that I had to choose everything for her. Clothes for every occasion, because you never knew when we’d need to take over a club or meet under the darkness of the night for some illegal activity.

Most of what my family did, you see, was of the illegal sort, but in a city like this, it didn’t really matter. Half the police force was in our pocket, and the half that wasn’t was owned by the DeLucas. There were scant good cops here. Hardly any good people in general, really, and what good people there were tended to get swallowed up by the city and its people.

I was under no false pretenses. I knew I was not a good man, but when you compared me to Maddox, well, it was like comparing the devil himself to a demon that liked to hide beneath your bed and wait until you were defenseless before leaping out to attack. The devil didn’t care; he simply did what he wanted when he wanted. Maddox was bullheaded and rash, and his nickname, Mad Maddox, was earned when we were still children.

Me? Father always said I was lost in my own head too often, that some might mistake that for weakness. I didn’t know whether I agreed with him there; I liked to think I was more intelligent than Maddox and Mario in that respect. I didn’t charge in and demolish everything in sight. Why destroy things when they might be of some use later on?

Take the girl, for example.

Lola was her name, but she’d made a better name for herself around here and in the neighboring cities as the Night Slayer. She was a serial killer with over a dozen men under her belt. I didn’t know what her actual kill count was, because I was sure some of her victims weren’t popularized by the news or handled by our local police, but I didn’t doubt it was higher.

She wore a pretty face, with the biggest, most innocent blue eyes I’d ever seen, but deep inside she was nothing but a monster. Why throw her potential away when we could use her? The DeLucas were becoming more and more aggressive lately, pushing against our territory, trying to turn our own people against us.

I was sure once we made it clear we had a new secret weapon, they’d start to think twice about it.

The Night Slayer. A serial killer, by all means, and a killer of men especially. There hadn’t been any reports that I’d heard that said the Night Slayer had gone after women; she had it out against men, for whatever reason.

Who could blame her on that, though? Look at us. Each and every man in this city was a monster of their own choice, or of their family’s making. None of us were good people. Good people, in fact, were impossible to find here.

As long as she kept her head down and didn’t start shit, Lola would fit in well. The true test would be taking her out for a night on the town, so to speak, and then we would see whether we could use her in any future endeavors or if it was best to get rid of her here and now.

Lola had killed Mario. Little Mario, the youngest Luciano, the Luciano that tried to turn his back on the family, but who always wound up coming back eventually. Now, there would be no return, for he was dead, his body burned to ashes and now resting on my father’s desk. Truth be told, I was shocked that he’d agreed to give her a chance to repay her debt. Richard Luciano was not a man who forwent vengeance; sooner or later, he would make Lola pay for what she’d done, I knew. And I knew I couldn’t stop him. A part of me didn’t want to, because Mario had been my brother, too.

The blood of the covenant was stronger than the waters of the womb. The Lucianos might not be my biological family, but they were so much more than that. They had given me everything, treated me as one of their own. Hell, I couldn’t even remember my biological family. All I knew was I’d been homeless at the age of seven, wide-eyed and scared of the world. Richard had taken me in, finding me in an alley after some job.

I remembered the bright red blood splattered on the white collar of the shirt beneath his suit, the look in his eyes when he asked me why I was digging through the dumpster behind some club. Moments before, I’d heard what must’ve been gunshots, but the young me didn’t care. Young me was too hungry, too starving. I told him I was looking for food, and then he asked about my family. When I said I didn’t have any, not anymore, he took me in.

From that night henceforth, Richard Luciano became my father, and Mario and Maddox became my brothers. Though I didn’t look as they did, I became a part of the family, a cherished member, groomed to be what I was today.

Returning to the house, I left the bags in the car. I hesitated before going inside, recalling what had happened earlier, before I’d gone out shopping for clothes for her. I was walking down the hall, minding my own business, when I’d heard what sounded like muffled screaming coming from Lola’s room.

Now, I knew we were murderers and a bit psycho, but I did draw the line there. Though her life meant nothing to me, I would not see her used quite like that. Maddox probably would, but me? No. So, I’d gone in, expecting to see Viper on top of her, claiming her or something.

But he wasn’t. Viper had been standing in the corner, looking perplexed as he watched her writhe in her bed, all alone—and still very much asleep.

I’d gone to her side, shook her gently to wake her up, to bring her out of the nightmare that plagued her, and it struck me as so impossibly odd right then: how could a serial killer have nightmares? How could a girl who looked maybe a few years out of high school, a girl who had so much blood on her hands, succumb to night terrors? I didn’t get it.

Lola had woken up, but not before she fought me, as if I was the terror in her dreams. She managed to rake her nails down my cheek before opening those eyes and realizing it was me and not whoever, whatever she’d been dreaming of. I’d gotten angry, of course, because who was she to attack me? She was nothing. She wasn’t anything to me, to us, to our family, nothing but Mario’s murderer.

And then… and then I saw it. The change.

It was odd, but for just a split-second there, for just a moment, when I gazed down at her with claw marks burning on my cheek and rage building in my heart, Lola hadn’t looked like the crazed serial killer she’d been before. She didn’t have the fiery glimmer of defiance in her gaze nor the smug smirk she seemed to always wear.

She’d looked, for lack of a better word, young. Innocent. Lola had looked the very opposite of the person I knew she was, and it caught me so off-guard, all I could do was stare at her. My rage had faded instantly then. How could she seem so broken?

Coming up with buying her clothes, well, that had been pulled from my ass, but still. She did need clothes if we were going to take her out on jobs; she couldn’t wear that red dress forever.

And, I’d noticed mere moments after she’d regained her usual demeanor, she hadn’t worn the dress to bed. I got a nice view of her tits, not that I should’ve looked—although, I would argue it was impossible not to, with how round and perky they were.

Standing before the door, I traced my cheek, where the scratch marks had been before. They’d faded into nothing by now, no more than a memory vivid in my mind; that was good, because if any of the others had seen them, they would’ve thrown a fit. Viper knew better than to tattle. He knew if I wanted the others to know, I would tell them. I trusted him.

It was hard to blame Lola for that when there was something so clearly haunting her. Whatever it was, I wondered if it was what had made her this way, what had shaped her into the serial killer she was today. The Night Slayer.

Perhaps, if she lasted that long, I would be able to find out what made her tick, but I honestly wasn’t certain whether or not she would. Maddox was not the only one who wanted nothing more than to see her dead. Nearly everyone in this family did. If Lola happened to come across our father in the house, well…

She’d be toast right then and there, and nothing I could say would save her from his wrath.

There was no point in prolonging this; I pushed into the house, unsure of what I’d find. Of course, it had occurred to me that leaving Lola in the house with everyone else while I was away was a bad idea. I was the reason she was still alive, the only reason she hadn’t met her death last night.

A part of me didn’t know what to expect as I walked through the house. I eventually emerged in the kitchen, a wide-open space with plenty of cabinets and a big, marble-top island. The Lucianos would never let their house go out of date; only the best for the biggest crime family in the city.

Tony stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the refrigerator. His light brown hair was a little ruffled, his green eyes dancing as they stared at Maddox, who stood on the other side of the island, looking angry. That was his normal expression, granted, but Mad Maddox seemed angrier than that, if it was possible.

And, let me clarify, yes, it was possible. It was always possible for Maddox to get even more furious. The word mad was in his name, for fuck’s sake.

If I had to guess, Viper was somewhere catching up on his sleep after watching her all night. Big Mike was currently with her, wherever she was. Carter and Roman had left early this morning after the deal was struck with her, and our father was tucked away somewhere, probably reminiscing about his youngest son, wishing he would’ve tried harder to keep him at the mansion, where he could’ve watched him better.

When Tony saw me, he grinned, but that grin was then focused on Maddox, who only deepened his scowling. “How was she? I assume you fucked her, after kicking me out of there.”

“What?” I questioned, glancing between them. My mouth thinned into a frown, and though my expression could never get as severe as Maddox’s, it didn’t stop me from glaring at him. “What the fuck did you do, Maddox?”

He bared his teeth, refusing to look either Tony or me in the eye, as if he was too ashamed, too upset with himself for what he’d done.

“Tell me you didn’t,” I said, moving to the island and leaning both hands on it. He was my brother, granted, but that didn’t mean he was off-limits. Fighting with family was something of a tradition as a Luciano; as long as you didn’t kill each other, it was all good. And this… this was just wrong.

Maddox bit the words out, “She fucking deserved it. I found her crawling on top of Tony—”

I turned my glare to Tony, who shrugged, trying to get the attention off him, “What? I didn’t do anything! She just threw herself on me. What was I supposed to do?”

“Push her off?” I suggested. “Tell her no?”

Tony chuckled, “You don’t tell a girl like that no.”

I rolled my eyes, wanting to shout at the both of them. You didn’t tell a girl like that no. That’s exactly what got us all into this situation to begin with. Mario didn’t tell her no, and now he was dead. Obviously she relied on her looks to get the better of her victims; that much was clear… and both Maddox and Tony had fallen for it.

“She’s not here to be your personal fuck toy,” I told Maddox. “She’s not here to be anyone’s fuck toy.” That I said just to make sure we were all on the same page. She wasn’t Maddox’s, she wasn’t Tony’s, and she wasn’t mine.

Maddox shook his head. “I don’t fucking think so, Sylvester. She’s whatever we want her to be, and if I want to wet my cock in that pussy, I’m going to, whether you approve of it or not.” He pushed off the counter, cocking his head as he approached me, towering over me with his six-foot tall frame. “Don’t act like you’re better than us. You’re not. You get just as dirty as the rest of us.” He paused, smirking. “She will get whatever she gets from any of us, and whether or not you approve doesn’t matter. She’s not yours. She belongs to every Luciano.”

I never said she was mine, never said no one could lay a hand on her; I knew her time would come, her clock was eternally ticking, ever since she’d killed Mario. I guess I’d been a fool for thinking she would simply be our Night Slayer, our crazy angel, and not the whore that was passed around from dick to dick.

“You’re aware you’re falling into the same trap Mario did, aren’t you?” I asked, hoping my question struck a nerve in him.

And it did.

Maddox growled out, “Don’t you ever compare me to Mario, brother. I’m not the one who’s nothing more than ashes on father’s desk. And, no matter what you fucking say, I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want to that bitch. She deserves every ounce of hate I give her for what she did, and when it comes time, no matter how many times I’ve had that cunt or that mouth wrapped around my cock, I’ll throw a goddamned party when I kill her.”

I said nothing, knowing whatever I said next would only further aggravate him. Maddox was not a man you could argue with and ever come out on top; in his mind, he was always right. Maddox was a his-way-or-the-highway kind of guy, and he was unapologetic about it.

Eventually, Maddox grew tired of the staring contest, swearing under his breath before storming away, out of the kitchen, leaving me alone with Tony. I turned my stare to the one leaning on the fridge, holding back any comments I had about what just happened, instead saying, “There are bags in the car. Will you get them for me?”

Tony sighed once, but he nodded and went off without a word.

That left me to wander the house until I found her. She was in one of the lounges of the house, Big Mike watching over her stoically. Wearing the red dress that left nothing to the imagination, she was a thing of beauty laying there on the couch, her blonde hair a mess. It looked like she hadn’t combed it, but the unkemptness of her hair only lent to her beauty.

She was a stunner. A looker in every way. Thin and short, yet that tiny body had curves and a nice set of tits. Tits that I’d seen earlier, not that I should be remembering that.

I wasn’t like Maddox. I wanted the family to use her, but I didn’t want to use her like that. I didn’t need a fucked-up power dynamic to bed a woman, and even so—why would I ever want to sleep with the person who’d killed my younger brother? Maddox might have his wires crossed, but mine were not.

Lola may be gorgeous in a way most girls weren’t nowadays, but that didn’t mean I would forget and forgive what she did. Killing Mario… that wasn’t something that I, or anyone in this family, could ever look past.

When she spotted me, she sat up, giving me her best smile. It was a perfect smile with equally perfect white teeth, and yet there was something off about it. “Sylvester,” she purred out my name. “Good. I was wondering when the other brother would try taking a crack at it. I have to say, Maddox set the bar pretty high—”

The more she spoke, the quicker it led me to realize what it was I found off about her was her smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. The smile was there, and it seemed genuine, but when I imagined all of the small intricacies that were put into a sincere smile, I found she lacked something. A hollowness sat in her gaze, a charade, a presentation of a deep-seated craziness she put out for the world to see.

“I’m not here for that,” I spoke while wondering what it was in her past that made her like this. You didn’t get a look like that in your eyes unless you experienced something that put it there. Or, rather, something that took the life out.

“Then pray tell,” she droned on, “why are you here?”

“I hope you fit everything,” I said. “I’m having Tony bring in the bags. They should be in your room. Tonight we’re discussing your first assignment as the Luciano’s…” Trailing off, I realized we hadn’t discussed what to call her, yet. I knew what Maddox would say: pet and dog among the top two.

Lola didn’t shy away from saying, “Bitch?” And then she started to laugh, as if being our bitch was the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard.

And maybe it was. Something was clearly wrong with her; she might pretend to be normal, to be all there in her head, but she wasn’t. No one else might care, but I did—only in that it might affect her performance. We would have no use for her if she went off the rails, crazy. We needed her at her best.

We needed the Night Slayer.

“Am I going to be in this meeting?” Lola asked, cocking her head. The look I gave her told her the answer, and she let out a sigh. “Of course not. Silly me.” In the next moment, she was on her feet, swaying those hips a bit too much as she walked toward me. She reached out, running a hand down my chest as if I was not a stranger to her, as if… as if I belonged to her, and not the other way around.

She was forward, I’d give her that. I supposed she had to be, to be the hunter she was. Ah, well. Eventually she’d learn she was not the apex predator while she was in this house; we were.

“I guess I’ll go wait for my things in my room,” she said, dropping her hand from my chest. “Unless you want to join me?”

My jaw remained firmly shut.

Lola shrugged and walked off, and I said nothing, standing there, listening to the television and pretending to not see the look Big Mike gave me before he went after her. She was everything I hated, everything I knew I should loathe entirely based on what she’d done to Mario.

But… if I was honest, I felt something else when she touched me, when those big blue eyes were on me. Hollow as they were, they ignited something deep within me, something I didn’t want to pay any attention to.

I liked her. I liked her despite everything she did to this family, destroying us from our weakest link. I liked her attitude, how she looked… I liked it all, even though I knew I shouldn’t.

And I hated myself for it.

Our father sat behind his desk, a glass of whiskey before him and nothing else. A black suit hugged his frame, a dark blue undershirt with a matching black tie around his neck. His black hair was slicked back, his face neat and free of all stubble. He traced a finger around the rim of the glass, staring at it with his black eyes.

Maddox and I were the only ones in his office; everyone else was either out on the town or keeping watch of Lola. Big Mike had traded off with Viper; they’d worked out a system where they both had some time away from her, along with time to sleep.

I stared at father, wondering if he would be okay with what Maddox had done to her earlier. I had the feeling he would be; why would he give a single shit about Lola when she’d killed his youngest son? I knew father would love to take a knife to her flawless skin, or a gun to her skull. I knew he would be just like Maddox in that respect; my older brother had gotten his anger from somewhere.

“Well, old man?” Maddox spoke, his arms folded over his chest. His sleeves were down, tugged tightly over his muscles. He was bigger than I was, but not by much. He also had a shit ton more tattoos than I did, from his skull to his fingertips; the only parts of him that were free of tats was his face, the front of his neck, and his legs.

I cringed at my brother’s words. One surefire way to piss off our father was to call him an old man. In reality, he was anything but old—a mere forty-six, but when you dealt in shady business and often had friends betray you left and right, you tended to not live as long.

Our father scowled at us, and he said nothing for a while. I shifted my weight, glancing between them. Father and Maddox could go at it for hours, days, even. When one riled the other up, you had to be cautious. They were both incredibly bull-headed, though father did have years of experience on us both.

“I’ve heard the DeLucas have been sniffing around the house for sale a few blocks over,” our father finally spoke, breaking his silence. His words always carried a weight, and these were no different. When he talked, you shut up and listened.

“That’s our territory,” Maddox said, his expression turning to steel.

I kept quiet, for just because it was our territory didn’t mean the DeLucas wouldn’t try to push in. They’d been quiet in the past, but when they came at you, they came at you hard. They were the only other big family around here that posed us any real threat; the only other family who might have those loyal enough to die for them.

Our father nodded once, grim as he said, “I know, which is precisely why we need to make sure they don’t purchase it. I’ve already placed a bid on the house to try to keep them out, but apparently the current owners are already in talks with the DeLuca realtor. Needless to say, we will use any means necessary to make sure that realtor knows to drop his clients.”

“Do we have an address?” I asked. It wasn’t often we made house calls, but when the situation called for it, we did whatever was asked. Showing off a bit of brute strength was actually an easy job, but where Lola was concerned, I didn’t know how she’d handle it. It truly would be a test for her. If she failed… if she failed, she would die.

I didn’t know why I wasn’t too thrilled at the thought.

“We do,” our father said, nodding once. “Tomorrow, once night falls, you’ll go, and you’ll take that girl and see what she’s made of. If she performs less than competently, kill her right there and leave her body with his. I would prefer the realtor to be left alive, but barely, so he can take the message to the DeLucas to know we are aware of their sniffing around, but if it must be done, it must be done.”

Talking of life and death in such a manner, with such indifference, it was truly a skill of our family. Oftentimes, we dealt in life and death more often than we dealt with anything else; it’s why we made such use of Roman and Carter. When we needed someone dead and it didn’t matter whether or not the city knew we had a hand in it, we sent them to take care of it. Assassins, hitmen, enforcers; they were whatever we needed them to be.

Tomorrow night, however, Lola would be our newest enforcer, our newest acquisition. Our Night Slayer. Our, to use her own words, bitch.

Maddox ground his teeth, and it was but a moment later when he said, “I still don’t understand why we’re keeping her alive. We have enough enforcers as it is. Send Roman and Carter—they’re more than capable of handling something like this—”

“Your brother thought we could use her, and so we will attempt,” our father cut in, frowning. Those black eyes flicked to me as he added, “Should she fail, I won’t ever forget that you stuck your neck out for your brother’s murderer.” His words were thrown like daggers, but I didn’t flinch.

“She is a wild card, but she’s more expendable,” I said. I knew she’d killed Mario, and I knew Lola would never be able to repay her blood debt—not until we ended her—but the more I found myself thinking about her, the more I was curious about her potential and the more I wanted to see her in action.

I had the feeling I’d very much like to see her in action.

Maddox scowled. “So what?”

Our father reached for the glass on his desk, taking a sip and grimacing as the liquid fell down his throat. “The matter is settled, Maddox. Tomorrow you will see how she handles herself, and regardless of what happens, you will report the results to me.”

Maddox and I gave him a bow of our heads before walking out of his office, after getting the realtor’s address. I had the feeling that realtor would not appreciate an after-hours visit to his home, but then again, he should’ve known better, whoever he was, to get mixed up with the DeLucas.

Once in the hall, Maddox looked at me, wearing his typical murderous expression. “She better be fucking spectacular, otherwise I look forward to putting a bullet in her head tomorrow night.” Pure abhorrence, plain and simple.

I hated her too, didn’t I? Of course I did. She might be pretty, she might’ve given me a strange look earlier this morning after scratching me, but that would never make up for what she did to Mario.

Never.

Chapter Six – Lola

I was picking an outfit for tonight. My hair was wet, draping down my back. Right now I wore a t-shirt with some band on it, along with shorts. No shoes or socks. Sylvester had gone a little crazy buying me clothes, but for the most part, the man had taste.

There was a bit of everything, too. Athletic clothes, dressy clothes, clothes that I’d only wear if I had to look emo or like a hipster wannabe; some for every occasion, really. Same with the shoes. It all seemed like a lot to spend if they just planned on killing me after tonight.

Oh, give me some credit. I was under no impression that I’d make it out of tonight alive, so I planned to make the most of it. Go full, bat-shit crazy and have fun while doing it. If it was my last hurrah before biting the dust, I had to make it count.

Vinny stood in the corner. He would be the one accompanying Maddox, Sylvester, and me to the realtor’s house. They hadn’t told me everything, but as far as I knew, all I had to do was scare the bejesus out of this random dude and convince him to let go of his current client or something. Didn’t seem too hard, but maybe I wasn’t understanding the weight of it.

But then again, why would they give me, the gal who’d slain their itty, bitty brother, an important job? This was my test run, my try-it-before-you-buy-it night. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind they wouldn’t like whatever I did, and they’d get rid of me soon after that. Hell, maybe even right then and there.

All I could say was, I hoped Maddox did it. While Sylvester was a fine cat himself, there was something to be said about how cruel and evil Maddox could look; it didn’t take any stretch of the imagination to picture him going to town on me—in the killing me sense, of course. We already knew how easily he could go to town on me in other ways, thank you very much.

Yeah, as if I’d forget that particular dick anytime soon. I’d probably go to hell remembering that time on the couch, laughing all the while, a small tear in the corner of my eye because I’d know I would never get it again.

Until he died and joined me in hell, that was.

And he would. They all would.

The bags and boxes in which my new clothes had arrived in were scattered amongst the floor of my room. I didn’t care to clean up; they would stay there until someone else moved into this room or someone got tired of my mess and cleaned it.

I grabbed a studded leather jacket—real leather by the look of it—and spun, holding it up against my chest as I asked Vinny, “What about this one, eh? Does it scream take no shit to you, or is it trying too hard?” I wanted to rock everyone’s socks off, blow everyone out of the water. In other words, I wanted to be the most well-dressed one there.

I mean, if I was going to die tonight, might as well do it in style, right?

Vinny still hated me, that I was sure, but he wasn’t as cold or off-putting as he’d been the two days prior. Today he wore a dark black shirt with short sleeves, revealing the multiple snake tattoos trailing up and down his arms. He was a handsome guy too, frankly. His hazel eyes were exceptionally pretty—which I’d told him countless of times already, mostly because I was sure the man didn’t get enough compliments.

In a family like this, compliments were probably the last thing on everyone’s minds, but you know what? Compliments were a necessary part of life.

“Here, you know what? Let me try it on, then you can get the full effect.” I slipped my arms through the sleeves on the leather jacket, rolling my shoulders once it was on. Grinning at Vinny, I asked, “How about now?”

His eyes dropped, studying a lot more than just the jacket. I think he liked my legs. “It looks good.” The words were whispered so quietly I almost didn’t hear them. He was a bit more talkative than his brother, at least. Mike was as silent as someone could possibly be. I’d wondered if he was mute, but then I overheard him talking to Sylvester in the hall one time after Vinny took over the bodyguarding.

“Great,” I said, feeling like a regular old biker gal. All I needed was fishnets. Sylvester did get fishnets, didn’t he? I could put them on beneath these shorts, throw on some combat boots, and be ready to rock. “Zipped, or unzipped?” I demonstrated both, watching his expression light up a bit when I unzipped it again. “Unzipped. Right.”

Turning my back to him, I dug through all the bags again, searching for the one that held the tights. A bag filled with practically all the colors, it took me a while to dig through them to find that, indeed, Sylvester had bought me fishnets.

Awe, yeah. This bitch was about to rock.

I got to my feet, tearing at the wrapping and tossing the clear plastic on the floor. After dropping the opened fishnets onto the bed, I went for the button on my shorts. As I undid them, I met Vinny’s eyes, catching him staring at me. A smirk grew on my lips, and I was slow in tugging them down my legs and stepping out of them, wearing nothing but the t-shirt, leather jacket, and my panties.

With a wiggle of my hips, I asked, “See anything you like?”

He shook his head, though I knew he wasn’t shaking it because he didn’t see anything he liked. I bet he saw a whole lot he liked, but I was the one who killed Dickless, their precious Mario. As if the little bitch didn’t deserve it. I bet I wasn’t the first girl he’d taken home; I did all those girls in the past and any future girls a favor.

Besides, Dickless had been cute, but he had nothing on any of these sexy beasts.

I shrugged and began yanking on the fishnets, tugging them up my legs. Once they were on, I gave them a few tears in random places, and after my shorts were back on, I looked like a badass.

Giving a little twirl amongst the bags on the floor, I said, “Can’t you see me going for a ride on the town?” Vinny didn’t answer, not like I expected him to, so I wandered to the window and peered out.

This house was more like a mansion, three stories high and built with rooms to spare. It was probably one of the biggest houses in the city, on a block with sprawling green grass and acres of privacy. My room was on the second floor, high enough that I could see the road a few hundred feet away from the house, its long, paved driveway winding. The city where I’d spent my time these last few years sat in the distance, a few skyscrapers miles away. This wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough for me to make myself a name.

“Why?”

Vinny’s voice, suddenly so close to me, jerked me back into reality, and though the world outside was getting darker by the minute, I could see Vinny’s reflection on the glass just behind mine. He must’ve moved silently to get closer to me, without a single noise even though the floor was a landmine of plastic bags and tissue paper.

“Why what?” I asked once I regained my composure. Vinny was quiet like a snake; I literally didn’t hear a single footstep. How the hell did he navigate the room so noiselessly? Maybe that was why they called him Viper: not only did he like snakes and have a bunch tattooed all over him, but he also took after them in how he moved.

His hazel eyes were on me, his brows furrowed. He stood less than two feet away, the closest he’d ever gotten to me on his own. Me? Personal space was for losers, or people who cared. I’d long since stopped caring, and I’d never been a loser.

Vinny looked as if he couldn’t get a read on me, and I took great satisfaction in that. “Why did you do it?” he clarified, gazing intently at me, as if I was the only other person in the world, the only thing that could currently hold his attention.

Vinny didn’t need to clarify beyond that, but still… I couldn’t fight the strange feeling rising inside of me under his gaze. Almost like—well, almost like I felt a bit guilty, like I did something bad that I wasn’t supposed to—which was ridiculous in and of itself, because I never felt guilty. I killed because I was saving others, because I had no remorse, because I didn’t care.

Even if I got things wrong, even if some of my victims were not the douche-canoe players I assumed they were, I didn’t care. Why should I? The world didn’t care about the girls who were raped by the rich guys, by the football players or the school athletes.

Why should I give a shit when the world didn’t care about me?

“I don’t think any answer I can give will make you feel better,” I whispered, turning away from the window to meet those pretty hazel eyes. Some hazel eyes, the colors kind of blended in, but his? I could pick out the brown flecks around his irises, the green base beneath, and the blue rims holding it all in. Truly, they were such pretty eyes, multicolored in the best way.

“I don’t care,” he said, grabbing my arms suddenly, too quickly for me to dodge him, to avoid those grasping hands. His fingers curled around the sleeves of my new jacket, the leather squeaking beneath his grip. “Why did you do it?” Vinny held onto me hard enough to leave bruises on both arms, but I didn’t care. My lip still hurt a bit from where Maddox had bitten me. I’d probably be nothing more than a collection of bruises by the time this family finally decided to kill me.

When I didn’t answer immediately, Vinny shook me, as if shaking me would put some urgency into me, but it didn’t. It didn’t, because as I gazed at him, I knew he was trying to find the answers that would make it all better.

Those answers, you see, didn’t exist. There was never a perfect reason, never one thing that would make everyone suddenly understand why you did what you did. When a white boy shot up a school, people had a chorus of things they usually said.

He was a quiet kid. A bit of a loner.

He had friends.

He’d been pulling away from everyone lately.

Maybe his brain is messed up, maybe he didn’t know right from wrong. He’s sick.

But the harsh truth of it all was, there was no perfect, unifying reason why people did what they did. Each and every person in this world was different; you could not judge them all the same. Sometimes we did what we did simply because we could, but that wasn’t what society wanted to hear.

I shook his hands off me, giving him a look I hoped was deadly. When I was sure he wouldn’t grab me again, I reached for the bottom of my shirt, pulling it up to reveal my stomach and the long scar trailing down my belly button.

He probably didn’t know what it was. Maybe he thought someone tried to harvest some organs or something. Who could say what went on in Vinny’s head when his stare dropped to look at it. He’d gotten flashes of it before, while I changed, but never had he been so close, never had he studied it so intently.

Doctors didn’t have to do it this way anymore. There were much less invasive ways to do what they did, but, alas, this was meant for me. To punish me, as if I was the bad one. As if I’d asked for all of it.

I didn’t. Who the hell would ask for something like this? Who the hell would want something like this? What happened to me… I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, even my worst enemy. There were other, much more creative things to do to my enemies.

“I learned a long time ago there’s no such thing as a good man. Everyone tells lies, everyone wears a mask. You think your Mario was some angel? He wasn’t.” I dropped my shirt, watching as his eyes sluggishly rose to meet mine, no longer staring at my scar, at the one imperfection on my body, the one part of me that constantly reminded me of my past—the thing I continually tried so hard to forget.

Vinny shook his head once. “Mario wasn’t like us. He didn’t want anything to do with his family or his legacy. It’s why he had his own place, why he went off on his own. You killed a good man.”

I wanted to laugh; I guess a part of me inside did, but in the face of this man, this man who was demanding answers from me, I could only sigh. “Good men don’t take home drunk girls hoping to score.”

He gave me a look that told me I was crazy. “That’s why you chose him? Who doesn’t want to take a drunk girl home—”

Before I was able to think better of it, I shoved him. I shoved him hard, his words instantly causing me to reach my breaking point. Wrong move, I knew it the moment I did it, but I didn’t care.

Vinny sneered, and the next moment one of his tattooed hands wrapped around my neck. He slammed me against the window, knocking my head hard. No doubt he planned on lecturing me, on telling me I shouldn’t have done that—to which I’d just roll my eyes and say obviously—but even with his hand around my throat, I was able to speak first, unable to let his previous statement go.

“No man has a right to make that choice for a girl,” I hissed out, baring my teeth, being, in general, very unladylike. What had happened before, when Maddox had caught me coming onto Tony, that wasn’t what I was talking about. As I’d mentioned before, no one could steal something that was freely given, but those other girls in the clubs and bars? The other women who’d had one too many and weren’t able to think with clear heads?

The hand around my throat loosened but didn’t let go. Finally, I saw, I was getting through to him. Vinny was finally realizing what it was I meant, why I chose my victims as they were. Turn the tables and play a little game where the hunter was the prey, the odds were reversed, and the black widow always won.

“So,” I finished, “forgive me if I don’t think your precious Mario was a good guy.”

He pulled his hand off my neck, though he did not withdraw himself from me. My back still leaned on the window, his tattooed body blocking my escape. Not that I would run; me and fleeing never went together in the same sentence. “Are you really ready to die for what you believe in?”

I stared at him for a few moments, my heart starting to race, for whatever stupid reason. It couldn’t have been because he was an attractive guy; I’d killed pretty guys just as easily as I’d killed the not-so-pretty ones. A handsome face never caused me to waver, nor did a tattooed body, or muscles…

Maybe it was because he was so close, because I knew my time was ticking. Tick, tick, tick, ever the bothersome bitch, my clock winding down to the point where it would no longer wind at all. Maybe it was because I knew tonight would be it for me; hell, for all I knew, there might not even be a job. This might all be a ruse.

“Aren’t you?” My question was whispered, an answer in and of itself. Was I ready to die for what I believed in? Of course I was; what fool would take a stand for a cause and not be ready to give their all to it?

Vinny’s expression softened—not by a lot, but by enough. Enough that I saw him relax, saw the confusion, then acceptance in his hazel gaze. He turned his head, eyebrows creasing, the man lost in his own head by my reply.

Because this was a side of Vinny I’d never seen before, I decided to press the subject. “Surely there must be something you believe in so much you’re willing to die for it. Don’t tell me you’re a man without a cause. You know what they say about those? If you stand for nothin’—”

“You’ll fall for anything,” he finished, turning his face back to me. I would give anything to be inside his head, to know what he was thinking as he stared at me right then. Had he just peeled back a layer or two of mine? Did he get to see a hint of the real me and not the front I put on for the world?

I guess we’d never know.

He moved his body closer to mine, pinning me against the window hard. My breath caught in the back of my throat, and for a split-second, I wondered if he’d take a page out of Maddox’s book and take me here and now. Surely Mike had told him what Maddox had done to me; I doubted our little violent session on the couch was a secret.

He was certainly well-built beneath his dark clothes, wasn’t he? A square jaw so sharp it could kill, a nose that was slightly crooked, as if it’d been broken in the past. All those viper tats, covering almost every part of him… I wondered how many more he had on beneath that shirt, under those pants. And then, since I was wondering what he looked like naked, I couldn’t help but think about that one-eyed snake between his legs, if it was anywhere near as impressive as Maddox’s.

They weren’t related, but you never knew. A guy with a quiet intensity like Vinny? I wouldn’t doubt he was packing some heat that would make any pussy explode with orgasms.

God, I could go for some orgasms, myself. Sadly, in the past, I’d found it was easier to depend on myself for those. Cocks were easy things; if you knew how to stroke it, you could lead any guy to erupt. But a pussy? A clit? It was a puzzle very few guys had put together, an enigma wrapped in a conundrum they just couldn’t seem to understand.

I partly blamed the shitty American health classes you had to take in high school and junior high; you pretty much learned everything there was to know about dicks, but learning anything about what a girl had between her legs was asking too much of the system. Besides, girls never masturbated.

Heaven fucking forbid we females took control of our sexuality and fuck whoever we want, whenever we want, including ourselves.

“You could’ve made a name for yourself,” Vinny whispered, his breath warm on my face, furthering the heat that had begun to creep along my body when he leaned into me. “You could’ve been anything.” He paused, holding his breath as he reached a hand between us.

My eyelids fluttered shut when I felt his hand graze the bottom of my shirt, fingers dancing along the waistband of my shorts. Those fingers flattened upward, curving along my stomach, tracing the scar resting there. My instinct said to push him away right then, that he was suddenly too close and I didn’t like it, but shoving him was what got me this close to him in the first place.

“You could’ve gone to school, gotten out of this town,” Vinny whispered, his hand still touching the most tender, intimate part of me—surprisingly not my cunt. “You could’ve been anyone, Lola.”

His words were almost too nice, too sincere, and beyond that, they were incredibly wrong. So wrong, I wanted to laugh in his face. He thought I could’ve gotten out? Coming to this town was me getting out. He saw the scar on me, but he had no idea what it was for, how it got there, and why it made me want to rip off my own skin and become someone else.

Fuck being a Harding.

“But instead you fucked with the wrong family.” Vinny let his hand fall away, finally giving my stomach room to breathe.

And, yes, my stomach needed room to breathe.

I gave him a smile, although I was sure he didn’t see it since his face was so close to mine.

I did, that much was true. The Night Slayer was the name I’d made for myself; I didn’t need any other name, but I allowed myself to daydream. “Maybe I’ve been looking for a way out,” I murmured. Oh, yes. Maybe this was all a happy accident where me choosing Dickless as prey was concerned.

“You got some kind of death wish?” Vinny tilted his head, as if studying me in a new light. “Do you want to die?”

The smile I wore fell, breaking into dozens of tiny pieces as a pained expression crossed my face. I breathed in, lifting a hand and setting my palm on his cheek. Such soft skin on such a burly, ripped, tattooed man. “I want a lot of things, Vinny.” A lot of things I’d never get, but such was the misery of life.

As the great Rolling Stones said it, you can’t always get what you want.

I should take my hand off his face, but I let it linger. It was nice to not be at odds with someone here, for once. To be close to someone and not feel the hatred rippling out of their pores like a storm surge of animosity. It was nice to simply exist, for a little while, here with Vinny, to know those hazel eyes were on me and not glaring as they rested on me.

A bizarre thought came to my head then, a thought that came out of nowhere and startled me to my core: I could kiss him right now.

More than that, though… I could kiss him right now and not be bothered by it.

That was a strange thought if I ever had one, certainly, because kissing was too intimate. Kissing was raw. I’d had Maddox’s lips on mine, but that wasn’t what I’d call a kiss. That had been him fighting to display his dominance over me, the mad Luciano cementing the fact that his family owned me utterly and completely.

But if I kissed Vinny right now, if I closed the distance between our mouths, it would be a real kiss, so unlike the angry heat Maddox had given me.

And then, of course, reality came crashing down. Vinny didn’t want to kiss me. Why would he, when I’d killed someone important to him? These guys were all something else, something out of a dream and a nightmare all at once, and I had done the one thing that meant I could never truly be theirs, not in the way I wanted, in that split-second.

Vinny’s head turned toward my hand, and I felt his lips on them—softer than I’d imagined, too—but only for a few seconds before he pulled himself away, returning to the doorway of my bedroom, once again my bodyguard and nothing else.

I smiled to myself, even though I felt like screaming, like breaking something. I hated that I was like this, hated my past and how it made me who I was today. If I was normal… well, if I was a normal gal, I supposed I never would’ve gotten these guys’ attention to begin with. I was only here because I was the Night Slayer. Couldn’t let myself forget that tiny tidbit.

I was the Night Slayer, and tonight I’d be walking into my own grave.

Chapter Seven – Viper

We drove in separate cars. I took Lola, our Night Slayer, the Luciano’s pet, for the time being, while Sylvester and Maddox took another vehicle. She sat next to me, in the passenger’s seat, her mouth clamped shut, her lips not smirking or making any sort of rude comment, unlike how she was normally.

She was… well, I didn’t quite know how to describe her. To say she was unlike anyone I’d ever met sounded almost like a compliment, but that was the last thing I wanted to do: give her any sort of praise. She might be gorgeous, she might have a way with that body and not care who she showed it to, but I had to remember who she was.

The one who killed Mario. It was as unforgivable as a crime could be.

Right now, she was silent. As I drove, following the car in front of me, the streetlights passed over us, illuminating her profile for a few seconds before becoming dim again. The night air was thick, so the windows were rolled up and the air conditioning in the car was on low. I wouldn’t say she was nervous about tonight; she’d made it clear to me earlier she didn’t fear death.

Still, something was off about her, and I couldn’t put my finger on what that was.

I didn’t have the radio on; I was used to silence, having spent a lot of my time with my brother, Mike. Mike hardly ever talked; I didn’t know why, but he always preferred to stick to his silence. It made for a boring childhood, let me tell you.

Although, how boring could a childhood be when Mike and I were learning the ins and outs of being part of the Luciano family? My family had owed theirs a great debt for generations, and ever since we’ve been trying to pay it back. Richie said it was fine, of course, but it was easy to shrug off what Richie said and keep doing what we did best.

And what was that?

Protecting them. Dying for them. Doing whatever we could to make their lives easier. Right now, that involved taking shifts watching Lola; not something I ever thought I’d be doing—babysitting a girl who was definitely too old for it—but I did it without question, as did my brother.

I was more than surprised by how it all turned out. I never thought someone who’d lay a hand on a Luciano would live under the same roof, let alone breathe afterward, but here she was. And she had a job to do tonight. If she performed less than well, we’d have to take care of her.

And if she was outstanding in her performance? I honestly didn’t know. I didn’t know whether or not anyone was expecting her to pass this so-called test. I’d looked up what the Night Slayer did, knew roughly how many victims she had, and I had to say—anyone who doubted what she could do clearly did not know anything about her.

Lola was wild, she was rough around the edges in every single way. She knew how to use what God gave her, how to flaunt it. I’d heard all about what she’d done to Tony, how she’d tried to seduce him and Maddox interrupted…

…I also heard how much she liked it rough, and if that continued to prove true, she’d enjoy belonging to the family. No one liked it soft and gentle here.

The realtor who was stepping onto Luciano turf with his client, the DeLucas, lived a good fifteen minutes away, in another part of town. It was truly something else, how you could drive and watch the scenery change, morphing from high-class mansions to streets with alleys you would never want to be caught dead in after dark. This town had country clubs and gambling rings, clubs for the teenagers wanting to live life on the edge and clubs for the more discerning type. Really, there was a bit of everything here, and the best part was, you could do almost anything and not have the police knocking down your door.

Why? Because they were in the Lucianos’ pocket.

Well, either Richie’s pocket or in league with the DeLucas, but we weren’t going there right now.

The realtor lived on a quiet-looking street. A road that had no street lamps, I immediately saw as we pulled up and parked on the side of the road. Maddox and Sylvester got out of their car, quietly shutting their doors before fixing their clothes. Sylvester wore a suit, taking after their father, while Maddox preferred wearing a tight black shirt with matching pants, the sleeves rolled up to show off his countless tattoos.

I had a lot of ink, but Maddox had me beat, definitely. How could he not, with half his head shaved and tattooed?

I turned the car off, glancing over at Lola. She had her hands on her legs, running her palms across her torn fishnets. Honestly, when she’d modeled the outfit for me earlier, I might’ve stared a little too hard. With her blonde hair and blue eyes, she was a beauty, through and through, and tonight she looked like she belonged with a gang of motorcycles.

She looked fucking hot, and a part of me hated the fact I had to take her into that house and probably kill her.

A selfish part of me wondered how she was, what she felt like underneath all those clothes. She had a scar on her belly, but beyond that, not another blemish I could see—and I’d seen her change. Her ass was perfect for grabbing, but I’d held back.

Kind of wished I didn’t, now, since I’d probably have to kill her tonight. Or watch Maddox do it. Such a waste of a perfect body.

“Ready?” I asked, watching as she turned that wide-eyed gaze to me. Mike had been a little jealous that I’d gotten to go with them; it was still my turn to watch her, so I would see her in action. Mike would never, not if she died tonight.

She was in the process of nodding when Maddox stormed over to her side of the car and flung the door open. I could only glare at him, for he’d practically torn the door off its hinges, for fuck’s sake. I knew he was on-edge, eager to both see her in action and put her down like a rabid dog, but was damaging the car really necessary?

“Time to play, little mouse,” Maddox spoke, grabbing her shoulder and pulling her out. He had a Glock tucked in the back of his pants, and I knew Sylvester had one, too. Neither left the house without a weapon; to do so would be unhealthy.

I could only roll my eyes at him; sometimes he was a little much. Don’t get me wrong, I loved him as I loved my own blood brother, but that wasn’t to say I couldn’t find him over-the-top. As I got out of the car, I glanced at the house. All the lights were off; that would change soon enough.

Saying nothing, I went into the backseat of the car and pulled out a duffel bag. It wasn’t too heavy, but it was full of things Lola could use. Couldn’t have a Night Slayer without a weapon of her own, could we?

I threw the bag’s strap around my shoulders, moving to the sidewalk. Maddox had finally let her go, and to Lola’s credit, she said nothing. She’d been so bold, so defiant earlier, so eager to tell me she was ready to die for what she believed in, but now, as I stared at her through the darkness, I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d lied.

Maybe she really was scared of it all, of the unknown.

The world around us was quiet as we headed to the house’s front door. Whether or not it had an alarm system wouldn’t matter. Maddox ended up breaking a window to get inside, crawling in to unlock the front door. Tony was our pickpocket and lockpicker, and he wasn’t here right now. Just like Mike, he’d miss out on watching Lola work.

I admit, I was curious. She was used to going off and doing her own thing, choosing her own victims and how she killed them, but here, she’d play by our rules.

It was as we stepped into the house, turning on the lights downstairs, that a groggy man stumbled out of his bedroom upstairs, clamoring, “What the fuck—” And then, even though he’d just been woken up by the sound of glass shattering, his eyes spotted us as he stood at the top of the stairs.

He recognized us, he did. Of course he did. And he also saw the duffel bag wrapped around my shoulders. Lola was hidden from his view behind me, but that was okay. Right now, the focus wasn’t on our serial killer.

It was on the big, shiny Glock Maddox held, pointing it directly up the stairs at him. “Why don’t you come downstairs and have a conversation with us?” The way he spoke it, like a suggestion and not an order, made Sylvester chuckle. Sylvester did not pull out his gun, but he was poised to, ready should the man upstairs make any sudden moves.

The man, wearing nothing but a robe haphazardly tied around his body, gulped. He knew enough to realize running would never work, nor would trying to find a weapon to use against us. We outnumbered him; even if he took one of us down, another would make him regret it.

Within a few minutes, we had him tied to a chair in his own kitchen. He didn’t struggle, because he knew if we wanted him dead, he’d already have met his maker.

Pity for him, he was about to meet the Night Slayer, and I had the feeling that would be so much worse.

I’d deposited the duffel bag in the living room around the corner. Sylvester was with the realtor, ignoring any question the realtor threw at him—like what we were doing here, and that he didn’t do anything to us—while Maddox was with me, watching as Lola perused the black bag.

“Fuck that,” he said, pushing her aside, as if she weighed nothing. He dug in the bag, pulling out one of the simpler weapons stashed inside; a classic, if a little overused. “Use this. If you can’t do the job with this, you’re worthless to us.” He shoved it at her chest, and Lola snatched it out of his hand, glaring.

Finally, back to herself, attitude and all.

What did Maddox give her? A wooden baseball bat, a weapon that was almost too stereotypical, but it would do, provided she used it correctly. You could do a lot of damage with a bat, with enough blunt force; I didn’t doubt she’d be able to do it.

Did I want her to do it? Did I want her to impress us with her threatening skills? The answer to that was too murky, too grey of an area to say a simple yes or no.

Maddox was the first to storm back to the kitchen, practically growling out the words to the realtor, who was tied to one of his own kitchen chairs, “You know why we’re here, don’t you?”

Sylvester hadn’t pulled out his gun, but his suit jacket was unbuttoned, so the man was able to see its black metal glinting in his waistband. He was silent, though he fiddled with the cufflinks on his sleeves; a habit he’d picked up from Richie. Like father, like son. Truly, it was a pity Mario had never taken after him as much.

The realtor made the mistake of shaking his head no, which made Maddox grunt. “Well,” he said, “let’s just say we don’t take kindly to DeLucas sniffing around our territory.”

The man’s eyes widened when he saw me and Lola, or rather, when he saw the baseball bat in her hands, something which hadn’t been there before. It was just a simple bat: wooden, its length lacquered and shiny. No spikes or nails sticking out of it, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t pack one hell of a punch.

“Boys,” Lola spoke, breaking her silence. Every single pair of eyes fell on her then, even the realtor’s. Especially his. “I got this.” She rolled her shoulders, swinging the bat behind her back as she sauntered to the front of our group, now standing between the realtor and us.

Maddox looked like he wanted to say something, but he shut up and let her take the lead.

Lola turned all of her attention onto the man in the chair, and he responded by squirming, though he couldn’t exactly go anywhere. A great, big smile plastered on her face as she walked up to him, acting far too girly and innocent, but I supposed it was all a part of her act. With the baseball bat in one hand, she went to sit on his lap.

Yes, she actually sat on the man’s lap, draping her other arm over his shoulder and her legs off his. The only thing still on the ground where Lola was concerned was her baseball bat.

“Hi, handsome,” Lola purred out, the hand around his shoulder moving to touch the base of his neck, toy with the bottom tufts of hair at the top of his spine. “I’m sorry about barging in and interrupting your quiet night, but business is business, right?” She paused, letting out a girly sigh as she leaned her head on his shoulder. “What’s your name, hmm?”

The man gulped, swallowing hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing before he muttered, “Jimmy.”

“Jimmy,” Lola repeated, speaking his name as if it was a foreign word, something she’d never heard before. As if his name truly mattered to her, so she wanted to get it right. “My friends here say you’ve put yourself in a bit of a… well, let’s just call it a bad situation. Getting involved with the wrong people—what were you thinking, Jimmy?” The way she talked, like she knew him, made me smirk.

She was good, but I reserved judgment until I saw her swing that bat.

Sylvester and Maddox watched in silence; they would not step in. This was her time to prove she could indeed be the Luciano’s newest addition, that she could hold her own and instill fear in her enemies simply by being who she was.

Jimmy said nothing, probably because he knew it was too late to make any excuses. He’d fucked up, and now he had to pay the price. When we were in the picture… let’s just say the price was never pretty. It was always an ugly, hideous thing, but it was why the Lucianos had endured in this city even as the decades wore on and society changed.

“It doesn’t matter though, huh?” She scrunched up her lips and wrinkled her nose, giving him a wry look. “But, because you’re so cute, I’m going to give you a choice. Left or right.” Spoken simply, so easily, and maybe it was the timbre of her smooth, velvety voice, but Jimmy could only stare at her.

He wasn’t the only one that stared, though. Lola had an entire audience right now, a life’s amount of pressure on those thin shoulders.

She giggled, lifting her head off his shoulder and taking her free hand and trailing it along his cheek. The man flinched, but she wasn’t hurting him. Yet. “Don’t do me like this, Jimmy. You need to make a choice.” Lola lowered her voice, whispering, “You see, I did tell a bit of a lie, just now. These guys ain’t really my friends. Tonight I have to impress them, and sadly for you, handsome, that means hurting you.”

Again with the gulping, and Lola slid off his lap, swinging the bat around so effortlessly, the air around it swooshing with the movement.

“Right,” Lola said again, pointing the bat to his right kneecap, “or left?” She moved the bat to point at his left, and Jimmy paled even more so than he already had. All color drained from his face, his eyes widening.

“No,” he started, “please—”

“You’re right,” Lola spoke with a feminine chuckle, waving her free hand in the air as if she’d been silly to even give him the choice. “Better be safe and do both, huh? Tsk, Jimmy, you’re smart.” And then, without saying another word, without any warning other than hoisting the bat in the air, she hit him.

She hit him right in the left kneecap, and she did it so hard there was an instant crack of bone. Jimmy cried out, his cheeks turning a deep red as he shouted, “Fuck!” His eyes teared up and everything, and though he tried to jerk away, he was still very much tied up and unable to go anywhere.

Lola gave him a sympathetic expression, though I knew it was fake. “Oh, handsome. You think that’s bad? Wait till I give it another hit—and then, if you think that’s bad, wait until I go Rambo on that other knee of yours.” She cocked her blonde head then, suddenly curious. “Tell me, Jimmy, do you think you’ll ever walk again after this?”

Wow. What a cruel question, spoken so innocently, too. She was good at taunting, that’s for sure.

She was also good at following up her words, because in the next five minutes, we all watched her go to literal town on his knees. His cries of pain rose in the air like a symphony, and the more he screamed and begged her to stop, the more he swore up and down he would never have another DeLuca client ever again, the harder she went at him.

Lola was an angel of death and destruction right then. She was completely at home, swinging that bat, giggling and smiling all the while as she destroyed the man’s legs. Not just his knees, but also his shins. His robe fell open after a while, revealing to us all how disfigured he already was, his knee sockets completely obliterated by that bat and Lola’s hard hits, bruised and bleeding.

Jimmy eventually stopped crying out, his eyes glazed over in what must’ve been acceptance. That, or he was close to passing out. Either one, really. I couldn’t blame him for shutting down at her assault; she was…

There were truly no words to describe how Lola looked right then. Her shoulders rose and fell with big, deep breaths, her hips cocked and the bat resting over her shoulder, temporarily still. Her other hand was placed on her hip as she admired her work, and then she glanced over her shoulder at us, grinning wickedly, not an ounce of remorse anywhere on her face.

God, she was either batshit crazy or perfect for us. Maybe both.

Right then, it didn’t matter that she was Mario’s killer. Right then, she was nothing but beautiful, an angel ready to wreak havoc and chaos wherever the Lucianos told her to.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I wanted to go to her, tear that bat out of her hand, and throw her over my shoulder, take her upstairs, even though this wasn’t my place, and deposit her on the nearest bed. I’d take off that leather jacket, give her fishnets a few more tears. I would ravish her until the sun came up and forced us to remember our responsibilities.

Jimmy’s head lobbed forward, the man passing out and losing consciousness due to the pain coursing through his system. Lola turned away from him, lowering the bat’s tip to the floor and leaning on it as if it was a cane.

“Well?” she asked, looking between Maddox and Sylvester. She did throw a quick glimpse in my direction, but she remained mainly focused on the brothers. They were the ones who would make her case to Richie; my opinion of her didn’t matter. “Are you sure I can’t kill him? Bats are kind of fun.” She giggled. “Who knew?”

Maddox shook his head, letting out a swearword under his breath before storming out of the kitchen. And out of the house, apparently, for in the next moment, the front door slammed shut. Whatever he was thinking was up to anyone’s guess; he was not as stable as Sylvester was, or even Mario. On the spectrum of crazy, he was pretty far gone.

Sylvester shrugged his exit off, saying, “Let him go.” To Lola, he said, “No. My father’s orders were clear. We were to remind him who we are, and why he should not involve himself with the enemy of our family.”

“The DeLucas, right?” Lola asked. “Why don’t you just send me after them? I could probably take a few of them out. It ain’t like you care for me at all, so—”

“That,” Sylvester spoke, stepping towards her, his voice low and deadly, “would be an act of war if they knew we sent you.”

“How would they find out?” she shot back, cocking her head. Her hands were speckled in blood from her bludgeoning, and she didn’t seem to care one bit. “I won’t tell. I can keep a secret better than anyone around, just ask my parents.”

Sylvester’s blue eyes dropped to her feet, slowly trailing upward, taking in her stance and, lastly, her expression. Eager to march off to her death and kill a few DeLucas while she was at it. Admirable, I supposed, but that wasn’t why they’d kept her alive, not to start a war. I doubted that’s what they’d use her for; instead of tossing a grenade and hoping it blew apart a few of our enemies, why not keep her, hone her into a laser-focused point?

“Take her to the car,” Sylvester spoke, his voice darker, huskier than it was mere moments ago, telling me the thoughts that had popped into his head while he checked her out had toed the line. It was a line only Maddox had crossed so far, but after tonight’s performance, I knew it was only a matter of time.

One by one, mark my words, they’d fall to her. Including me.

That was, of course, provided Richie didn’t kill her before then, which he just might, especially when he realized how affected his sons were by her. How we all were.

I locked eyes with her, and though Lola wanted to pout and stay, see what Sylvester was going to do to Jimmy, she followed me into the living room, giving me a wide smile as she handed me the bloodied bat. Once it was tucked back into the duffel bag, I swung it around my shoulders and we headed out.

Inside the car, we sat in silence for a while. Maddox had taken the other vehicle in his brooding session, so Sylvester would have to ride with us.

Ah, well. It wasn’t the first time Maddox had run off. He was probably running to avoid the truth of tonight: Lola would be staying. Her nickname as the Night Slayer was well-earned, apparently, but he didn’t like that. If I had to place a bet as to where he’d run off to, it was probably wherever his favorite girl was. He had a few, but Mina was his favorite, always willing to bend over backward to make him and his dick happy.

Some girls were eager, and then there was Mina. When you were a part of the biggest crime family in the city, you couldn’t just date anyone you wanted. Fucking, on the other hand? Fucking was something that could be done in the back room of a club, or in a bathroom; he didn’t need to take her home to fuck her. Richie didn’t like strangers in his house, anyway.

Another reason why his acceptance of Sylvester’s suggestion to keep Lola around had come as a surprise.

Lola sat in the front seat beside me, eyes on the house we’d just left. The neighborhood was still quiet, even after everything we’d done. Go figure. “How’d I do?” she asked, slow to drag those eyes to me, no longer grinning like a madwoman.

And she was mad. She was totally, irrefutably mad, and that made her perfect for us in every way.

One hand sat on my lap, the other lightly ran down the steering wheel. I hadn’t started the car; made the conscious decision not to when I’d seen that Maddox had left. I had to touch something, otherwise I was liable to reach over the center console and touch her.

But I couldn’t. I was to watch her, to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid. Earlier, when I’d gotten close to her… I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have touched her or let her touch me. It had been a mistake—a mistake I would not repeat any time soon.

“You’re at home with a weapon in your hands,” I remarked, my throat suddenly dry as I looked at her. Lola was affecting me a bit too much, I think, but I couldn’t help it. Especially after witnessing her go to town on that guy… it was fucking hot, and I would argue with anyone who would dare claim otherwise.

She leaned her head back on the headrest, sighing out, “Would you believe it was my first time?” Lola let out a soft giggle. “Using a bat, I mean. When I would go home with guys, I’d just use whatever I could find. Usually a knife from their kitchen. Strange how most people don’t keep baseball bats at their bedside, huh?”

That was how she got Mario. I didn’t need to picture it, but I did. I knew, based on what she’d said earlier, that she had a thing against guys taking advantage of drunk girls, but was that really enough reason to kill them?

And then that scar on her abdomen, the long, thick line of white, risen skin between her belly button and her pelvis… what did it mean? What was it from? I shouldn’t be so curious, but I was, because, the more time I spent with this girl, the more I realized there was so much more to her than what met the eye. So much more to Lola than the Night Slayer, the girl who happened to kill Mario Luciano.

I was quiet, and I was thankful for the darkness of the night around us. I hoped she couldn’t see the concern, the way I gazed at her so intently. Her hands, I noticed, still had blood on them. “I don’t know what to make of you,” I told her, honest. I hated her for what she’d done to Mario, but I also didn’t.

Death was a part of life. Death came with being close to the Lucianos. They were not strangers to it, and to think just because someone had the Luciano last name meant they were above the rules of life and death, well, that was fucking stupid. Mario would’ve died sooner or later, so why not die and bring in someone new to the fold?

“That’s the beauty of me, I guess,” Lola whispered. “No one knows what to make of me, so usually, you know what they end up doing?” She waited a moment before adding, “They just don’t. They don’t make anything of me. They write me off.”

Every now and then, Lola was vulnerable; now was one of those times, and I couldn’t think of anything to say in response. Suddenly words felt so inadequate. Who were we to judge this girl and what she’d done? None of us knew her past, what she’d been through to get here. It almost felt ridiculous to judge her based on a single act.

Granted, that act had been killing the youngest Luciano—that was certainly as huge as something could get—but still.

“My parents definitely did,” Lola muttered, frowning slightly. “Oh, don’t me wrong, you know, they acted like they cared. They put on a really good show, but in the end, they had their favorite child, and I was not it.”

Did Lola have some mommy and daddy issues? Fuck, didn’t we all, in some way? Still, there was a weight behind her words I couldn’t deny, and I didn’t like thinking about her parents choosing anyone over her, even a sibling.

“But that’s all water under the bridge now,” she said, lifting a hand and studying the blood splatter on it. In the darkness, the blood looked black, not red. Red, though, was a good color on her. I wouldn’t mind seeing her in more of it. “I’m here and they’re not.”

“Did you kill them?” I questioned, somehow already knowing the answer before I finished asking. Looking at her, after seeing how batshit crazy she’d gone at the realtor inside… of course she’d killed them. She had to have. If, by some miracle, her parents were still alive out there, I would be shocked to hell.

Lola stared at me, darkness passing over her features as the glib smile she wore fell away completely. A serious Lola was not one I was used to, and every time she made a rare appearance, I was caught off-guard and drawn in all the same. What could I say? I guess I was a glutton for punishment, and even though I knew I couldn’t start to like this girl, I was, anyway.

“I don’t remember when I signed up to tell you my whole life’s story, Vinny,” she said, making it clear she did not wish to discuss her parents or her childhood, did not want to talk about what made her the crazy, unpredictable Lola she was today.

That was fine, I’d drop it. You didn’t need to know someone’s entire past to understand who they were today, and I was starting to learn just how much of a conundrum this girl was. I did know one thing, though.

I was utterly, completely, totally fucked when it came to her.

In the house, Sylvester must’ve done what he had to, for the lights in the house turned off, and he appeared shortly, closing the front door behind him. If I had to guess, I’d say he left our realtor laying in his own pain and misery. He’d have to crawl to a phone or hope to God someone found him. When we made house calls, we weren’t exactly too friendly.

A part of me didn’t want Sylvester to come into the car, because it meant Lola and mine’s alone time would be over.

Before he reached the sidewalk, I told her, “Call me Viper.” Viper, not Vinny. I was Viper to the Lucianos, and by God, I would be Viper to her, too.

Chapter Eight – Lola

Viper. I didn’t know why, but him telling me to call him Viper, like, going out of his way to specifically tell me that, made me feel good. It made me feel like I was weaseling my way into their family, somehow.

Granted, I was only here because of a little murder, but eh. Semantics.

My heart raced, even now. Even after sitting in the car with Vinny—Viper, whatever the fuck I’d decide to call him from here on out—it still pounded in my chest, reminding me of the adrenaline that had pumped throughout my system inside the house.

Poor Jimmy. Poor Jimmy indeed. I highly doubted he’d ever walk again, but honestly, that wasn’t my problem. My only problem was whether or not my performance had been good enough to let me continue my eternal servitude to this family.

Which, ironically, might not be too bad. It might just be the time of my life. I might belong here with them, amongst their psychotic family and crime sprees, but that was assuming I’d proved myself tonight. That I could be more use to them alive than dead. Hey, I thought suggesting sending me after the DeLucas was a fine compromise. I’d end up dead, and a few of their enemies would bite the dust with me.

It hadn’t gone over well with Sylvester, though.

And Maddox, well, he was gone, off to who knew where, all because… I wasn’t sure why. I would never pretend to know what any of these guys thought.

I was too busy thinking over whether or not I should start calling Vinny Viper from now on to see that Sylvester had made it to the car and now stood beside my door. He grabbed the handle, yanking the door open, and it was then I realized he probably would rather have the front seat and relegate me to the back.

It was a good thing I didn’t put on my seatbelt, for he grabbed my arm and pulled me out—a bit rough, but who was I to talk? Violent as his movements were now, he was still an angel compared to Maddox.

I thought he was going to shove me in the back and take over my seat, but then, with his fingers still curled around my arm, he used his other hand to shut the front door and open the back. Words escaped me as he pushed me in, following me and sitting next to me in the back.

“Oh,” I murmured, knowing that eyes were on us in the rearview mirror, “I wasn’t aware it was going to be that kind of ride—” A joke, because I never knew when to quit it, when to keep my mouth shut and accept whatever was to come.

I mean, I would’ve expected this from Maddox, but Sylvester? Color me stunned.

And curious as to what he had in store.

Sylvester held a finger to my lips, finally releasing my arm as he reached back and pulled the door shut. “Drive,” he told Viper. Guess I was just going to call him that, then, since he’d told me to. How could I deny a guy with a dozen snake tattoos all over his body?

“Where to?” Viper questioned.

“Anywhere” was what Sylvester said, which piqued my curiosity, frankly.

Anywhere did not mean home, so I did wonder what he planned on doing. I’d thought I’d done okay. Maybe not as well as I could’ve, but come on. It was my first time beating a guy up and trying to be all threatening. I liked to think I would only get better at it; you know what they say with how practice makes perfect and all that. I’d like to think that applied here as well.

But maybe not.

Maybe Sylvester had decided to have Viper drive us somewhere more private, somewhere away from the residential district of town and silence me for good.

It was all well and dandy, of course. I wasn’t stupid; I prided myself on being very down to earth when it came to certain things, and matters of life and death were just that. Kind of important, and though I’d never cared about anyone in my family, I could imagine how much it had hurt all of these guys to hear Mario was killed, that it pained them every time they looked upon me and saw nothing more than the face of his killer.

Viper started the car and drove us away, heading to a destination neither I nor Sylvester knew. Did it matter? Any place made a good grave, as long as you had the right shovel.

When Sylvester’s finger fell off my lips, I whispered, “Well, I guess it was fun while it lasted.” Perhaps fun wasn’t the right word; I hadn’t had true fun in… well, maybe ever, but that was through no fault of anyone here. I blamed my parents for that, one hundred percent.

Sylvester turned those blue eyes back onto me, his teeth grinding as he looked at me. We turned onto a road with streetlights, and as we passed under them, I was able to see the shadows dancing across his face, along his smooth jaw and the curve of his chest beneath his suit. He was a devastatingly handsome man. He might not wear his crazy face as often as Maddox, but he had it in him all the same.

And it was hot, not going to lie.

Was it wrong of me to be turned on that he was going to kill me? I would die with a wet va-jay-jay. Not many girls could say that, I bet. I would tell my pretty kitty to settle the fuck down, but we all knew by now she played by her own rules.

Sylvester took his time in saying, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

I blinked. If anything, I would’ve expected him to be unapologetic when it came to what he was about to do to me, but this? Acting like he wasn’t going to put a bullet in my head and dump my body somewhere? Come on. We were both adults here—psychotic and out of our minds, but adults all the same.

“You,” I started, putting somewhat of an awkward pause in my explanation as I stared at him, “you’re going to kill me, right? You’re having Viper drive us somewhere private where you can dump my body.”

“My father said if you did less than well, to kill you at the house and leave you there with the realtor,” he said, eyebrows creasing.

Oh. So… he wasn’t going to kill me? Why did my heart feel a little let down at that? Like, if anything, I should be happy to have more life ahead of me. Still, the crazy part of me was disappointed nonetheless.

“Then where are we going?” I couldn’t stop a lump from forming in the back of my throat; I was as spontaneous as the next gal, but being stuck in the backseat with Sylvester while Viper drove us wherever, it just wasn’t where I’d expected the night to go at all.

“I don’t know,” he answered, honest. “And I don’t care. I need…” Sylvester stopped himself from saying anything more, but the same finger that had graced my lips earlier now trailed along my hands, on my knuckles, smearing the blood there.

What did he need? I didn’t know. I wasn’t good at reading people or caring enough to try. Here and now, however, I wanted so desperately to know what he was thinking, why he touched me so softly; the very opposite of how violently he’d pulled me out of the front seat and shoved me back here with him.

He was hot and cold. Both sides would burn if left too long on your skin.

But that was the thing about me: I didn’t care about the pain. Not anymore.

Because I needed to know, because I couldn’t just let the silence overtake the car—since fucking Viper refused to put on the radio—I asked, “What do you need?” It was like Sylvester and I were alone in the car, like Viper wasn’t a few feet away, driving.

“I need,” he leaned in closer to me, his words hardly audible, nothing more than a whisper. He brought a hand up to my face, the same one that had smeared the blood on my knuckles, and he tangled that hand in my hair. Not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to tell me he meant business. Some of the blood might’ve smeared on my face, but I didn’t care. Anything that was fun had a bit of blood involved. “I need to hate you.”

His answer was sincere, and it made sense. Of course he needed to hate me; I’d killed his brother, but by telling me this, he was also telling me the opposite. Sylvester didn’t hate me, or he was starting not to, and that posed a problem for him and his loyalty to his family.

I understood. I wasn’t that foolish. None of these guys would ever choose me over their family, but you know what? I would never ask them to. I didn’t care about having their loyalty or anything like that.

What did I care about right now? I… I didn’t know, and that was odd for me. So many confusing feelings lately, I hated it. I wanted to die, I wanted to live; I wanted to choose who I was with, yet I wanted Maddox to fuck me like he owned me? Come on, pick a side, already. Some things you could not be wishy-washy about; you had to choose one or the other. Not both.

“Then hate me,” I whispered, tasting his breath as I spoke, resisting my urge to run my hands all over that body and tug on his suit to pull him closer. I wouldn’t mind feeling those lips on mine, hearing his ragged breathing while we got down to business as Viper drove us wherever. “I never asked for anything more.” And that was the truth, wasn’t it? I’d never ask for anything more than their hatred.

Besides, hatred was so much more fun to deal with than love. Love was nothing more than a game fools played at. Hatred? You didn’t get purer than that, you couldn’t find a more real emotion than that.

The hand in my hair tightened, causing me to breathe in sharply. “I know,” Sylvester whispered back, the tip of his nose grazing mine. He held my head steady; even though I kind of wanted to kiss him, I couldn’t. My head was held hostage by that hand. “You were amazing tonight.”

My eyelids fluttered closed; he was too close. Staring at him, all I could see was his blurry face, and what good was that? If I was going to stare at Sylvester Luciano, I’d rather see him in his entirety, out of that suit and everything.

“We can’t get rid of you,” he went on, his hand tugging my head to the side to allow his face to dip toward my neck. With each word he murmured, those lips brushed against the most tender skin on my body, and I shivered into him without meaning to. “You will do great things for us, Lola. Great things.”

Being used, being theirs… it was probably something that should turn me the fuck off, but there I was, the complete opposite: turned the fuck on. The violence of tonight, the way Sylvester’s mood changed so rapidly, it was all just too much. What the fuck was a girl to do when she was surrounded by men with handsome faces who wanted to both kill her and fuck her at the same time? I mean, was I crazy for enjoying this?

Eh, yeah, you know what? I definitely was, but I never claimed to be the sanest tool in the shed.

Those lips pressed against my neck, the fingers in my hair curling to pull the strands they held. One side of my head hurt a bit, while the other was being caressed with a set of lips that were a lot softer than I imagined they’d be. Hot and cold, just like Sylvester.

I didn’t know what to make of him, what to make of this, whatever this was supposed to be, but I wasn’t going to stop him. How far would we go tonight, in the back of the car, with Viper a few feet away, nothing but the low hum of the road beneath us? I supposed only time would tell.

Even though it would only tempt the devil beside me further, I fisted his suit jacket, not wanting him to stop. Let the devil take me, devour me, and spit me out. I didn’t care how much it would hurt during or after; I only cared about right now.

And right now, Sylvester acted so hungry.

A small moan escaped my throat when he started sucking a tender spot just below my jaw near my ear, and he responded to that moan by letting go of my hair and dragging that hand down my chest. Beneath the leather jacket, over my shirt, he pawed at my right tit, gripping it hard.

The way he leaned over to me, how we were currently sitting in the back seat, oh, it wouldn’t do, so I decided to swing myself over him and straddle his lap. We must’ve hit a bump in the road, for the top of my head hit the roof above me, but all I could do was sigh out my breaths and invite him to keep nuzzling my neck.

His teeth could tear me apart right now, and I wouldn’t care at all. Sylvester could literally rip me apart, piece by piece, and afterward, I would thank him like the good little bitch I was. Who wouldn’t? I mean, look at the guy. He dripped sex and danger, and he made me squirm in all the right ways.

He then pulled out something I knew, deep down, he must have on him, but until now, it’d gone unseen: a gun. That gun had been tucked beneath his suit jacket, in the waistband of his pants, and he set the black, shiny thing on the seat next to us. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind its safety was on, and if I made a single move toward it, he’d be faster. He’d be faster and he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me with it.

But I wasn’t going to go for it. Why would I, when there was something I wanted so much more in this backseat? Namely, the man himself.

Sylvester tore off my jacket, tossing it to the floor of the backseat before returning his mouth to my neck. This time, he nipped, sucked, and licked with equal measure, mixing pain and pleasure and molding them into one. My knees were spread far enough apart around his lap that I could rock against him, grind against his midsection, and that’s exactly what I did; I humped him like the Energizer Bunny kept hitting his drum.

And, what would you know? A mere five seconds later, he was rock hard under me, a steel rod poking me, trying to frantically slither out of his pants.

My hands rested on his shoulders, and such wide, strong shoulders they were. He wasn’t as thick as Maddox, but he was a close second, molded by the Lucianos to be one of them. I was at home on the lap of a devil, eager to have him inside of me, to feel him filling me up. Call it wrong, call it sick, call it twisted or whatever have you, but it was clear, neither of us in that moment gave a shit.

Sylvester should hate me. I shouldn’t care about him. Was that going to stop us from doing what we were about to do?

Fuck no.

We would spin around and around on this merry-go-round until the ride itself broke.

His hands cupped my ass, squeezing my cheeks roughly, his fingers digging into my shorts. Lips on my jaw broke away to whisper, “I want to fuck you so bad, Lola. You look good with blood on you.” A sentence that might be an insult, if someone else had said it, but any of these guys? I knew they’d mean it.

What devil wouldn’t like his angel to be painted in bright red?

I was seconds from whispering my reply, from telling Sylvester to do it, to fuck me already, but one of his hands curled around my side, moving to the front of my shorts. Seemed he wasn’t going to wait, after all, which I was more than okay with. And then, when I realized what exactly he was doing, I threw my head back and relished in the feeling.

Sylvester unbuttoned my shorts, undid the zipper, and curled that hand down along my body, fingers dipping low. Past my swollen, aching clit, they dipped all the way to my entrance, sliding easily because I was so turned on. I had to kneel over him a bit to allow his hand down there—no more grinding against the rock-hard cock beneath me—but that was more than fine. He could have me however he wanted me.

“Fuck,” he breathed out the word. “You’re so wet. Did you like hurting that man?” As he asked the question, two of his fingers slid inside of me, filling me up and making me moan. His other hand still cupped my ass, holding onto me, forcing me to remain still, as if I’d dare try to pull away from him now. “Did you like taking a bat to his legs and destroying them?”

When he asked that second question, I rocked my hips along his fingers, my inner walls tightening around them. All I could do was nod, because what was the use in denying it? When you didn’t care what the world thought about you, the truth never seemed so bad.

“You might look like an angel,” he murmured, lips back to the crook of my neck, “but an angel you are not. That’s all right, though… any angel in this town would get her wings plucked. You belong here, you belong with us, whether you killed my brother or not.”

The more he spoke, the more I rocked myself on his fingers, giving my pussy a good finger-fucking. His palm put pressure on my clit, and I could feel myself losing it. His words, the feeling of his fingers filling me up, how his palm rubbed against my clit with each rock of my hips—and not to mention the fact that Viper was less than two feet away, hearing this and probably watching through the rearview mirror as he drove—well, it was definitely enough to push me to a brutal, unforgiving orgasm.

And it did. It so did, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The orgasm ripped through me like a savage, lighting every single nerve in my body on fire, burning me up and causing me to cry out. Sweat lined my skin, everything so fucking hot all of a sudden, but I didn’t stop riding those fingers, didn’t stop until the orgasm settled itself deep within my belly.

Sylvester watched me come with a dark look in his eyes, and after my orgasm washed away, he was slow in pulling his fingers out of me, leaning back on the leather seat behind him. I could see my wetness on his fingers in the darkness, could see the desire burning in his blue gaze, and I knew right then his fingers wouldn’t be the only thing inside of me tonight, on this endless car ride to nowhere.

I took his hand, aware that he watched me, and brought those fingers to my mouth. I tasted myself on him, licking my juices off, and then I leaned toward him, pressing my lips to his in an open-mouthed kiss. My tongue pushed its way into his mouth, giving him a taste of me.

I didn’t know what it was, but Sylvester turned me on like no other.

Maybe he was right, what he’d said before. Maybe I’d started to get wet while I was beating the shit out of poor Jimmy’s legs. Did it matter?

Sylvester didn’t bite me like his brother had; he only kissed me back, swallowing anything I fed him with my tongue as I moaned into his mouth and wrapped my arms around his neck. He worked on freeing himself, his belt and his pants in the way for only a few more moments. Our kiss broke when he went to pull down my shorts and my fishnets; everything that impeded the way for his cock.

God, I couldn’t wait to be impaled by that thing.

My shorts, my panties, my fishnets; it all had to come off. It was a bit of a hassle, doing it while trying to balance in a moving vehicle while also attempting to do it as quickly as humanly possible because we were both beyond desperate for each other. There was nothing better than some physical relief; I would know, as I was still riding the high from my recent orgasm.

Once I lowered my body down onto that rod, when I felt his cock fill me up in a way his fingers could not, my whole body shuddered in ecstasy. Sylvester let out a moan, his hands grasping my waist with a passion mirrored in his gaze. I rocked along him, dragging his length in and out of me in a steady rhythm that slowly picked up the pace. Within a minute, I was fucking him wildly, like an animal would.

Like a greedy, eager animal who’d do anything for the D.

I leaned my forehead against his. His skin was on fire, and anywhere he touched me, he practically burned me. I had no idea how he was still in his suit, how he wasn’t exploding from the constricting, stifling fabric. Hell, I only had my shirt and bra on, and that was too much for me; if we would’ve been anywhere else but this car, I would’ve just taken it all off.

Sylvester leaned his head back, and I let him, figuring he needed to watch me, needed to see the dark glimmer in my eyes. One of the hands on my sides moved to hold my neck, not too tightly, but tight enough to let me know he was there. He was there, he was watching… and he could end me at any given moment. With the gun so close, it was impossible to push those thoughts from my head. Besides that, I didn’t want to.

Guess I liked living life a quarter-mile at a time.

With his hand around my neck, I rode him harder, hearing a moan rise from his chest and escape those lips. His cock slid into me easily now, my body having adjusted to his thickness, and I could practically feel that dick in my stomach when it filled me up to the brink.

“You can hate me,” I whispered, feeling the fingers on my throat tighten just a bit, as if warning me against what I was about to say. I didn’t let it stop me, though. “And still fuck me.”

His hand tensed more, his eyelids slamming shut as his hips rocked beneath me, spearing me with that dick as he came. If ever there was a more angry, conflicted orgasm, I didn’t think I’d ever see one. Sylvester grunted when he came, his cock filling me up with his cum, his seed.

I felt, for just a split-second, so incredibly full and content, sitting on his lap, with his dick still inside of me, my arms wrapped around his neck as if we were dating and just getting a little handsy in the back of our car.

But the feeling was gone almost as soon as it arrived, and I pulled myself off him and got dressed as fast as I could, not meeting his eyes again. I wasn’t scared of what I’d see there, because I knew how he felt, and yet… and yet I didn’t want to face the fact that I’d stumbled upon people I could easily see myself with, people I could go around wreaking havoc with and having wild, kinky sex with day in and day out, all because I’d killed Dickless.

This wasn’t a reward for what I’d done; this was a punishment. I couldn’t let myself start to feel real, genuine things for any of these fucked up guys, even if they did call out to my inner freak.

I sat near the window, my shorts pulled up and everything else, shrugging on my leather jacket with my back to Sylvester. In the time it took me to get dressed, he’d taken his time in putting himself away and fixing his belt. I could feel his cum leaking out of me, staining my panties. Not gonna lie, I got a thrill out of it, but at the same time, it made me feel stupid.

I didn’t like feeling stupid.

Sylvester didn’t reach for me, didn’t speak other than to tell Viper, “Go home.”

No one said anything else during the drive, which let me lose myself in my thoughts. My head was not a good place to be, you know? Full of darkness and rage, even regret, nestled deep inside of me. I wasn’t remorseful for what I did, no; the regret wasn’t for that. My only shame in this life was not doing it sooner, not finding him and hurting him the same way.

If there was one thing in this world I wished I could do, it was change it so no other girls would have to live through what I did. I hated knowing, somewhere out there, other poor, defenseless girls were being used and abused, hated that I couldn’t save them all. Dickless, and all of the other men who’d lost their lives at my hands; they were my way of trying to even the odds, just a little bit.

But what good did I really do? I was twenty-two years old, and yet I felt so much older than that.

The scar on my stomach burned, and I set a hand there, wishing I could tear off my skin.

We got back to the house a while later; Viper had driven us all over town while Sylvester and I were getting down and dirty in the back. As we got out of the car, Sylvester looked to Viper and said, “She’s to shower, then go to bed. I don’t want her wandering the house, not until I speak to my father.”

It was late, and I had no idea whether Daddy Luciano would be awake right now, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, really.

Sylvester said nothing of his brother, but I assumed he went off and did his own thing all the time. He was the first to disappear in the house, and I stood there for a bit as Viper moved to my side. You know what sucked? Having someone tell you what to do, that same someone talking about you like you weren’t there.

Just because his cock had been inside of me didn’t mean anything, I knew this, and yet it didn’t stop me from wishing that things were different. That I wasn’t me. That I was not Lola Harding and instead some other nameless girl in this city. Oh, to be innocent and ignorant again. I couldn’t remember a time when I was.

I craned my neck upward, glancing to the window where light shone. Everywhere else in the house looked dark, except for a room on the third floor. A man stood in the window, one of his arms hanging at his side; his other held a small glass of something. Though he was far from me, though I couldn’t see the details, he looked to be wearing a suit—all black, even the undershirt. He watched me; I knew he did.

Daddy Luciano?

It had to be him. I didn’t know who else it would be, standing in the house, drinking what was probably some kind of alcohol, this late at night.

He didn’t watch me for long; he turned his back to the window and walked away, leaving nothing but an open space where he’d been standing. He didn’t want to see me at all, not after I’d murdered his youngest son. I understood completely, and yet, standing there, having finally seen him—even if only for a split-second—I wanted to know more.

He didn’t look that old. When I imagined Daddy Luciano, I pictured something of a silver fox, maybe in his fifties or even sixties. But that guy? I hadn’t gotten close enough to inspect his scalp to see if he had any grey hair, but he looked a lot younger than I’d thought.

Viper must’ve seen the whole thing, for he let me stand there and stare at the empty window for a few moments more. Eventually, though, he gestured to the house and said, “Come on. There’s no use dragging this out.”

I looked at him. Right. Of course. Time to hop in the shower, rinse off this blood, and go to bed as if nothing out of the ordinary happened tonight. I could do that. Pretending was something of a specialty of mine, anyway.

I lived to pretend.

Or did I pretend to live?

Chapter Nine – Lola

Grand pianos were a staple in wealthy homes. Good to see sometimes things never changed. The Lucianos had one, and I sat on its wooden bench, my fingers moving across the ivory keys effortlessly. It’d been years since I’d played—I hadn’t touched a piano since leaving my parents’ house—but the skill came back to me instantly.

Some things, you’ll find out as you get older, never really leave you. They’re ingrained in your memory, your muscles knowing how to move. You might be a little rusty at first, but soon enough you could fall back into the groove as if you never stopped doing it in the first place.

I was my parents’ angel. I could play many instruments, but the piano was one of my better ones. That, and my voice, but I would argue that singing wasn’t the same. It wasn’t an instrument anyone could learn if they sat down and practiced until their fingers bled.

A voice? You were either born with it, or you weren’t. Sure, some people could take vocal classes and learn how to properly sing, but some people, even with classes like that under their belts, still sounded like dying cats being thrown into a meat grinder. Who wanted to sound like that? And, more than that, who wanted to hear those people sing?

No, not everyone was born with the innate talent to sing. My parents liked to showcase me, especially around the holidays. I knew all the Christmas jingles, all of the popular songs, even now, after having not practiced for years. I used to enjoy singing, too, but even that had been tainted a long time ago.

Nothing my parents touched was pure, you see, not even me.

I looked up, grinning as I met Mike’s gaze. Today the gruff, no-nonsense, stoic man wore a dark blue shirt with paint splatters on it, matching his jeans. With his thick brown hair pulled back into a low bun, he looked like he was ready to go for a motorcycle ride or something.

I finished what I was playing—No. 9 by the great man himself, Beethoven—breaking my silence to ask, “Can you play anything?”

Mike didn’t like to talk to me. That much I knew by now. He only shook his head, his answer to my question, but I wasn’t going to let it be. I scooted to the side of the bench, trying to get him to come over and sit beside me. Anyone could play the piano if they had a good teacher; so unlike singing in every way.

He wouldn’t come over, preferring to stand creepily near the archway to the hall.

Heaving a sigh, I got up, moving around the piano. “Come on, big guy,” I said, smiling as I walked up to him, “you know I won’t let this go until you come on over.” I slipped an arm through his, his body immediately tensing at my nearness, and I held in a chuckle as I started to drag him to the piano. Of course, I couldn’t drag a man who was more like a tree if he didn’t want to come, but still. He was well over six feet tall and built like a mountain, literally. I kind of felt like a child standing next to him.

I sat him down on the bench, squeezing in beside him. The sides of our legs touched, but it couldn’t be helped. The bench was not really big enough for two people to sit on comfortably. I reached for his hands, but he jerked them away from me, as if I had the plague.

Giving him a wry look, I said, “I’m just telling you where to put your fingers.” It wasn’t like I was taking those hands and running them all over my body; he might like that, but he’d never admit to it out loud, I don’t think. Mike kept his feelings close to his chest.

You know who didn’t keep his feelings close to his chest? Sylvester. The looks he gave me now… I didn’t know what to make of them. Lingering, longing, lustful; a bit of everything rolled into one. He’d spoken to his father; I’d been right in assuming the guy on the third floor, wearing a suit and glaring down at me that night had been Daddy Luciano.

I didn’t think he was thrilled with hearing how well I did, but at the same time, what the fuck did he expect? I was the fucking Night Slayer, you know? Basically a serial killer, I think, so give me some credit, please.

Maddox was still MIA, and it’d been a few days. I’d asked Sylvester about it, but he told me not to worry about his brother, that Maddox could take care of himself. I was well aware that he was a big boy, but still, with how upset everyone had gotten by me killing Dickless, you’d think they’d be more worried about their missing chosen one.

But who was I to worry about any of them? I was only Lola.

I set Mike’s pointer finger on the correct key, then leaned over him and took his right hand. His hands were rough, like he did a lot more dirty work, and that was something I could honestly believe. Once two fingers on his other hand were on the correct keys, I said, “You hit this one twice—” I tapped his left hand. “—then these two at the same time twice.” I pointed to his other. “Then you move down two with each hand—”

It was not easy to explain how to play Heart and Soul on the piano to a newbie, but after a few mess-ups, Mike actually got it right. His melody was the background music, while my fingers played the rest.

“When you reach the end, just go back to the beginning,” I told him, slowing my speed to watch him fumble a bit.

Mike was cute. A big lumberjack of a guy, but cute nonetheless. And, surprisingly, he caught on fast.

As we played, I chuckled. “You know, if I’m still around near Christmas, you have your Christmas party entertainment. I know all of the songs. I could sing, too.” I saw Mike look at me, his playing faltering as he did so, and I wondered if that came as a shock to him. If he thought I was just some pretty face with a killer instinct whose body was only capable of taking dick. The expression on his face was too much, and I found myself saying, “What? Is it that shocking to you that I know how to do this stuff?”

Someone else walked into the room, his hands shoved in his pockets. Tony waltzed in, his face brightening when he saw us. He meandered to the piano’s front, leaning on it as he said, “Big Mike, I didn’t know you could play the piano.” He was teasing him, and it was enough to make Mike scowl and tear his hands off the ivory keys and get up.

I let him go, knowing it would be pointless to try to get him back. Instead, as Mike walked away to the corner of the room, back to being my stoic bodyguard, I turned my icy blue eyes to Tony. I liked Tony well enough; that day I’d nearly hopped on his dick was still bright in my mind, but I didn’t know him that well, not like I knew the others.

Tony, for all intents and purposes, was a bit of an enigma to me, and I was not happy with how he’d made fun of Mike just now.

“Why’d you have to go and poke fun?” I whined. “Now I have no one to play with.” It wasn’t as if I needed someone to play with; it was just more fun that way.

He pushed off the piano, moving to take Mike’s place beside me. He fit a lot better on the bench next to me; I didn’t feel like his body was pushing me off like I did with Mike’s. His green eyes turned to me, his light brown hair combed back. A sly smile grew on his face as he checked me out from his new vantage point inches away.

“How else was I supposed to get his ass out of here so I could sit next to you?” he asked, his voice nothing but a whisper. His flirty tone was more than a little obvious, and the way he checked me out, as if I was the finest drink of water he’d ever seen, like he was a man dying of thirst, gave me certain ideas.

I didn’t know whether he was serious or not, and I supposed it didn’t matter much. I was not going to let any real feelings get in the way of living it up while I was here, while I was still alive. Whatever happened, I would be ready for it, but until then I would be whatever, whoever they needed me to be.

“Can you play at all?” I asked, leaning my shoulder into his. My nose picked up the scent of his cologne, and I breathed it in. I couldn’t say what it was, but it smelled good. Tony was probably a good eight or so years older than me, and though he wasn’t as tall or as muscular as the others, there was still something about him I found alluring.

Eh, maybe it was just the fact he was associated with the Lucianos, part of their crime family, or whatever the fuck it was called.

Or maybe I was just a fucking slut like Maddox had said. Who cared?

“Would it surprise you to know I can?” Tony asked, arching a single brow as he grinned at me, his smile so much sweeter than Maddox’s or even Sylvester’s. He reminded me of the quiet, nice boys in high school, the ones girls never paid enough attention to because they were always chasing after the bad boys.

Me? I was past chasing a certain type. I was way past chasing anyone at all. Now, I liked to sample a bit of everything, just to make sure I wasn’t missing a great flavor, if you know what I mean. Like, take me to a fucking man buffet, and I’d savior some of it all.

“Honestly,” I started, “nothing surprises me anymore.” When you realized you couldn’t count on the people you were supposed to be able to depend on for your whole life, when you stared darkness itself in the eyes, why would a strange skill surprise me?

“I guess I’ll just have to play you a song,” Tony spoke with a shrug of his shoulders. “Any requests?”

I shook my head. “You choose.”

And so he did. Within the next moment, his fingers got to work, and I watched him with a smile on my face. The melody was familiar, but it still took me a while to recognize it. When I did, when my mind finally came upon the song Tony was playing, I began to hum along. After all, who didn’t know Billy Joel’s Piano Man?

Not what I would’ve chosen to play, but then again, I did tell him it was up to him to decide.

I have been told in the past I have an eclectic taste in music though, so maybe it was me. Tony seemed shocked that I was humming along, and the dimpled grin that spread across his face gave me butterflies I’d rather not feel.

Tony’s fingers trailed off, and I stopped my humming to meet his stare. “You told Big Mike you could sing,” he whispered, suddenly serious. So very serious it hurt. “Would you?” I said nothing, which caused him to say, “Would you sing for me?”

Joking about singing at the Luciano’s Christmas party and actually singing were two totally different things, and frankly I didn’t think I could. I didn’t want to. Singing was… it was raw and it was real, so much more real than the girl I’d been playing at lately. Singing called to a time when things should’ve been simpler, but they weren’t. It reminded me of times long past, times I didn’t want to remember.

There were so many things in this world I wished I could forget. Maybe if I did, I’d be normal and not crazy Lola, the Night Slayer. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.

Tony must’ve noticed my unwillingness to do it, for he took his hands off the keys and set them on his lap, saying, “It’s okay. Never mind. I just wanted to know if your singing voice sounded as good as your humming.” He’d meant the last part as a compliment, I knew. It looked as if he wanted to say more, but right then Sylvester strolled in, cutting him off by what he said next.

“Maddox still isn’t back,” Sylvester said, cracking his neck as he glanced between Mike and Tony—and me, as much as I hated to admit it. He stared at me the longest. His torso was covered in a white button-down shirt, no tie for once, though he still wore nice slacks on his legs. I didn’t think he was ever the type to wear jeans.

Tony shrugged. “So? He’s off doing whatever it is he does when he disappears. This isn’t the first time he’s gone off on his own.” He did not get up off the bench we sat on, but I could feel his body tense beside mine.

“I know, but after what happened to Mario…” Sylvester paused, and I felt all of the eyes in the room turn toward me, as if I—no, wait a moment, I was the reason he was dead. Right. Carry on. “My father wants him home.”

“We know his stomping grounds,” Tony said. “Surely we can find him.”

Nodding once, Sylvester said, “I hope you’re right.”

“Well,” Tony spoke as he got up, grinning, “we have the Night Slayer here, so at least we know it isn’t her.” His remark earned him a scowl from the other two men in the room, and he quickly added, “Right, still way too soon. Sorry.” He moved around the piano, disappearing into the hall.

Sylvester turned those blue eyes to me, expectant, and I could only blink and ask, “What?”

“Get up,” he told me. “Get dressed. We don’t have all day.” He said nothing more, giving me his back as he vanished.

I said nothing, shocked. I didn’t know why I was shocked to be going, but I was. I guess this was my second job with the family? Finding Maddox, the older brother who made himself scarce when he was brooding and not getting his way—meaning, not killing me or torturing me. I get why he was so upset, but disappearing for days was a bit much, wasn’t it?

Slow to get up, I headed around the piano, meeting Mike’s stern gaze. “I guess we’re going hunting,” I said, grinning.

Was it just me, or did I see a twitch of a smile on Mike’s face at that?

Hours passed, and our hunt had, so far, been unsuccessful. We’d gone to the bars where Maddox supposedly frequented; since it had been early afternoon when we’d begun, it wasn’t quite time for the clubs to be open yet. Had to wait for nightfall for those, but once night graced this filthy, miserable city, we started checking them out, too.

I’d changed into tight pants that showed off my ass and a low-cut shirt that put my tits on display. Going into bars and clubs, I had to look the part, like I belonged there. My outfit caused both Tony and Sylvester to stare at me a bit more than they should’ve; there was a time, not too long ago, when I would’ve enjoyed having such power over them.

Tonight? Tonight, for whatever reason, I didn’t. I just… I just didn’t. I didn’t feel quite right, but I put on a brave face and powered on, doing my best to help the guys search for their missing Maddox.

Apparently there were bars and clubs in this city that were known Luciano hubs, just as there were ones that the Lucianos steered clear from, because of their patrons. The DeLucas had their places, and the Lucianos had theirs. I had no idea why the families hated each other so much, and I did wonder if I would ever meet an infamous DeLuca.

The club we’d just walked into had multiple floors. It was big and mostly dark, save for the dance floor, which took up most of the first floor. Strobe lights and the DJ’s stage were nearby, along with huge speakers that pumped out music. The bar was also on the first floor, a long, almost free-standing thing, its countertops made of mirrors.

Upstairs, from what I could see, there were tables and more private areas.

We’d just walked in, and Sylvester had told us to split up to search for Maddox, heading off to check the upstairs. The music pumped through my body, my lungs and heart shaking with the beat due to its loudness, and I turned my head toward the mass of dancing bodies.

Tony was beside me then, saying, “Let’s dance.”

I whipped my head around, shooting him a look. Beside us, Mike was silent, though he did glare at Tony. After all, we hadn’t come here to dance; we’d come here to look for Maddox, the Luciano who’d pulled a disappearing act.

Still, Maddox was a big boy. Surely he could wait for one song, wherever he was?

A grin spread across my face as I reached out to take Tony’s hand, leading him to the grinding horde of bodies on the dance floor. Most of the girls wore a lot less than I did, their hair done, their makeup looking fine. The men paid no attention to anyone else, only their dancing partner, only the girls who were currently grinding on their dicks through their clothes. Everyone was sweaty; everyone glistened under the strobing lights.

Mike didn’t stop us, so I assumed it would be fine for Tony and me to dance a bit. I pulled him past the people standing on the outside of the crowd; those people were the ones who danced to the beat of their own drum and not the music thrumming through the speakers. You had to get in the crowd, feel the heat and lust in the air.

Clubs had been a primary hunting ground for me lately, but I’d never been to this one. This city, apparently, had a lot of them. Go figure.

Once we were in the middle of the dancers, I turned around to Tony, starting to sway my body with the fast-paced beat. This was no high school dance; there were no slow songs played here. Only remixes, the songs that had beats you could rock your hips to. His hands found my sides, holding my front tightly against his.

We swayed with the music, with the quick beat, and it didn’t take long for me to start to feel something moving around in his pants. His cock, I meant. Getting hard just dancing with me, though I couldn’t blame him. His hands had snaked around to my ass, and he had a nice view of my chest from where he was.

It was a minute before Tony leaned his head down, his lips near my ear as he said, “Is this how you seduced Mario?”

Ugh, why the fuck did everyone keep bringing him up? Way to ruin a nice dance, thank you very much. It wasn’t like I took great pleasure in reliving that particular night over and over again. Yes, I’d killed him. Yes, I understood they were upset about it because he was the youngest Luciano son. But, like, you know… get the fuck over it or just kill me. It wasn’t a hard concept to grasp.

My jaw ground, and I set my hands on his shoulders, holding onto him tightly, not saying anything at first. Tony was probably the shortest guy in the group I’d met, though he was still a few inches taller than me. He also didn’t have any tattoos, none that I’d seen—although I hadn’t seen him naked, so I supposed I couldn’t be totally sure of that.

“You got him hard,” Tony went on, “and then you went home with him?”

Everyone was so interested in how the Night Slayer worked; maybe one of these days I’d give them a demonstration. It really wasn’t difficult to understand. I didn’t stalk my prey. I let them come to me. I let them show their true colors. I would never have gone home with a proverbial nice guy, because a true nice guy never would’ve taken me home to begin with. They would’ve seen how inebriated I was pretending to be and maybe taken the chance to make sure I got home safely.

But there weren’t many nice guys left these days, society having bred a generation of assholes and entitled pricks, just like…

Just like him.

And because my mind liked to play tricks on me, because I could not trust even myself, the next time I looked at Tony’s face, I didn’t see Tony’s clean jaw or his pretty green eyes. I didn’t see his brown hair. I saw the one person I never wanted to see again, the person who’d helped make me into the monster I was today.

I saw the face that haunted my nightmares, the face that seemed to follow me anywhere I went. The face I wished so desperately to forget, but the one face I never could. There were certain things you never forgot in this life, and what happened to me… it was one of them.

My lungs burned, and I turned away from Tony, releasing my hold on him as I spun around and gave him my back, hoping he’d shut up about it all. He might not have my tits to stare at, but he’d have my ass to grind on, to rub that erection against. Better than nothing, right?

But the feeling that had started as nothing but a kernel inside my stomach spiraled, growing and expanding until it was all I could feel, all I could think about. My mind was not my friend; it was an enemy, and I was in a state of constant war with it. My skin turned cold and clammy, even though I was surrounded by people dancing, even though the air around us was hot and thick with sweat and sex.

A lump formed in my throat, and as I felt Tony’s hands hold onto my sides, I knew I wouldn’t be able to speak. The power of voice had been lost to me, just like that, and I was no better than the girl I used to be.

Who was I? Who was Lola Harding?

She was an angel born to a rich family, a girl who should’ve had the world at her fingertips. She was innocent and naive, trusting. She thought she could depend on the ones around her, on her family to protect her, to keep her safe from the world and its ugly horrors. But they didn’t. They didn’t keep her safe; oh, no. They did the opposite.

They let it happen.

They let it happen again and again and again until she wanted to die.

I wanted to die.

All the people around, the strangers dancing, blissfully unaware of how suffocated I felt. How much I wanted to give the world a middle finger or two and just give up. Surely things would be easier if I ceased to be? After all, Lola Harding, the quiet little angel who never spoke up, she was dead.

If she was dead, why couldn’t I be dead, too?

Tony’s hands moved up my sides, and I fought the uneasy feeling rising in my gut, the bile that threatened to come out when I closed my eyes, my mind playing tricks on me. My mind telling me that those hands were not Tony’s, that I wasn’t in the club on a mission to find the missing Luciano; it told me I was back in that house, back where I’d started.

I could never escape it, could never leave it behind, because it was a part of me.

The club around me faded away. The sounds, the thick air, everything. I was no longer the Night Slayer, the girl who took no shit, who gave no shit about herself. It was like hitting rewind, and my heart beat in my chest so fast it might just pop out and run for the hills. It didn’t take me too long to realize what that nagging, suffocating feeling was inside of me.

Fear.

It was fear.

But I didn’t feel fear, did I? I didn’t care enough to.

It’s not how my mind currently worked, though, for the fear spread through me, the notion that the hands on me weren’t Tony’s exploded, and I wanted nothing more than to get out of them, get away, be by myself where I could breathe and calm the fuck down because none of this was making any sense.

My eyes opened, and what would you fucking know—through the horde of people around me, I saw the man we’d come here to get. Maddox. Maddox and… a girl? A pretty girl. He and the pretty girl with short, curly black hair were dancing as if they were having sex, having eyes for no one but each other.

I didn’t hear the music playing. I didn’t hear anything. I just wondered, as I fought to breathe and calm myself down, if anyone would ever look at me like that? If I’d ever feel comfortable enough to look at someone else like that? Like I wanted to be with them all the time, like there was no one else in the entire world, that no one could tear me from their side.

No. No, that would never happen. My life was forfeit, and even if it wasn’t, I was too broken to ever make a man feel like that toward me and to feel like that in return toward him.

I didn’t know what it was, but maybe he heard my thoughts, for through the undulating crowd, Maddox’s dark eyes scanned the area, spotting me and Tony. His expression darkened, a frown lining his lips, and the girl rubbing herself all over him was oblivious, too into him and his wide, tattooed body to realize he was currently glaring at me.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Not a single thing fucking mattered. Why didn’t anyone else realize that?

Fuck. I needed to get out of there. I needed to breathe. I needed… well, I needed a whole lot of things that I’d never get because life was unfair in the worst way, but that was beside the point. I wasn’t asking for the world. I didn’t want it.

The only thing I wanted was something I could never get, and that was a fresh start. To hit the rewind button and be born to a different family. Impossible.

I broke away from Tony’s hands, turning away from the hateful stare I was receiving from Maddox. He was alive, he was fine. He was probably busy getting his dick wet these last few days, trying to pretend I, his brother’s killer, didn’t exist.

It all happened fast. A little surprising, since I currently felt like I couldn’t breathe. I raced away from the dance floor, ignoring the fact that Tony was calling out to me, so confused as to why I’d run away. I pushed through the bodies, heading to the side of the dance floor to avoid Mike in the back, sticking to the edge of the club as I ran out.

My breaths were short, the opposite of deep, and no matter how many times I inhaled, it was like I couldn’t get enough. My lungs refused to fill deeply, for whatever fucking reason. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe, and my skin felt so fucking itchy. I wanted to cut it off. To cut it all off and shed this pretty, angelic face.

The night air was so much cooler than the air inside the club, but I didn’t stop once I exited the establishment. I kept running, straight into the road it was located off of. My heeled boot must’ve caught a pothole, and I brought myself to the ground, slamming my knees down as I went. I didn’t look for cars, too busy trying to get a hold of myself.

I sounded like I was losing it, like I was having a panic attack or something. Maybe I was. Or maybe I was just too fucked up.

Getting to my feet, I stood in the middle of the road, the street empty. My eyes turned toward the sky, and I recalled the trick my mind had played on me in there, how I’d seen someone else when I gazed at Tony’s face.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck. No. No, I didn’t want to ever see his face, even if it was imagined. Never again.

My body trembled, my nerves shaking as I struggled to breathe. My thoughts came erratically, and I couldn’t calm myself down. I couldn’t stop myself. I reached up to my neck, as if I could crack open my windpipe and funnel some air straight into my lungs.

This was bad. I’d never felt like this before, had I? It was so hard to tell, my life these past few years nothing but a blur. Maybe I’d had nights like this before, maybe I’d felt like I wanted to take a knife and stab myself in the heart just to end it all and I’d merely forgotten. Who knew? Me and my brain were not on talking terms, apparently.

I wished a car would come. I wished a car would come with either a drunk driver or someone who wasn’t paying attention, that they’d hit me, kill me, end this fucked-up existence I had. This—stalking the nights for my next prey—it wasn’t a life, and anyone who said it was didn’t know what it was like to try to live while desperately seeking to forget about the past.

Some people had it easy, and I was jealous.

A strong hand grabbed my arm, snapping me back to reality as he dragged me off the road, back to the sidewalk and then the parking lot in front of the club. Mike’s grip was inescapable, so I didn’t even try.

Tony stood near the doors to the club, the line long gone by now. His arms hung loosely at his side, his erection still there but fading. Mike practically threw me towards Tony, growling out, “You shouldn’t have danced with her.”

As I righted myself, Tony shrugged. “What? She didn’t go far. You got her. It’s all good, ain’t it?”

No, it wasn’t all good. I still felt like I couldn’t breathe, but I was very good at pretending, so I acted as if nothing was wrong at all, though it was one of the hardest things I’d had to do in my life. I squared my shoulders, looked between Mike and Tony, and said, “He was in there, dancing with some girl.” I didn’t have to elaborate who the he was for them to get it.

Mike could only scowl, while Tony asked quietly, “Is that why you ran?”

Was that… was that why I ran? Was Maddox with another pretty girl the reason I hightailed it out of that club like a bat out of hell? Hah. As if. No, I was well aware I was not the only girl beneath that beast of a man.

“No,” I said, aghast that he thought I was jealous. Me, jealous. I didn’t get jealous. I got furious, vindictive, and murderous, but not jealous. Never jealous. Me and jealousy shouldn’t even go in the same sentence. “It was just too hot.”

Okay, I was well aware of how lame that sounded, but I did not have the mental energy to come up with something better. It was rough enough pretending I wasn’t in the middle of a freak-out session.

Mike reached into his pocket, saying nothing until he dialed a number. “He’s dancing with a girl,” he muttered, not daring to take his eyes off me, for good reason, I supposed. He hung up, still glaring.

“What?” I asked, not bothering to hide the fact that I was insulted. Did these two really think I ran out of there because I saw Maddox with a girl? Please. His dick was good, but it wasn’t good enough to get me hooked after one fuck. “I wasn’t running away.”

A single brown brow lifted on Tony’s face, and his expression told me all I needed to know.

“I wasn’t,” I repeated. “Look, I live in a shitty apartment above a bakery. I have no job. No friends. I have nothing but my Night Slayer business, and you guys kind of put the brakes on that after I went home with the wrong guy. There’s not really anything I’m in a rush to get back to.”

Tony and Mike exchanged glances, and frankly I didn’t give a shit what either of them thought. I needed tonight to be over. Was that too much to ask?

Chapter Ten – Maddox

My family wasn’t happy with me, but they could go fuck themselves in the ass for all I cared. I had no idea why the fuck Sylvester was so adamant about keeping that bitch around, and I never would. She killed Mario. She killed him, and she didn’t regret it at all. And then… then our father gave her a job to do, and what’s worse, she did it well.

Lola was fucking magnificent when she was beating the shit out of someone.

I didn’t like that thought, didn’t like knowing it meant we’d be keeping her around more, so I took off, and I went to a few of the places I usually frequented when I was trying to get out of the house and away from everyone else. Luciano-approved places, but still.

Basically, I spent the time away from them drinking, hating everything, and fucking. Mina was always good for that. She’d been one of my girls for a few years now. I had a few of them; the ones who would do anything to be close to our family, to try to get an in with the Lucianos. Maybe even land one of us as a husband.

I’d never marry any of them, of course, but I didn’t tell them that. I broke a lot of things, but hearts were something I had no interest in playing with. Not in the sense you’re thinking.

Now, I wouldn’t mind taking out Lola’s heart and giving it a good squeeze, feel her blood course down my fingertips and hear it drip to the floor. That was some heartbreak I could definitely get behind.

But my stupid family couldn’t let things be. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised after what happened with Mario, but really, bringing Lola while looking for me? Really? And fucking Tony dancing with her… oh, I could strangle the life out of him and not feel bad about it at all.

I saw her run, I saw her run and I fought the rage building inside my soul, the low ache I had to chase her, my predatory instincts rearing their ugly head. My hands hardened on Mina’s sides, and she looked up at me, blinking those eyes.

Ugh. Blue eyes. I’d done my best to not pay attention to them, but after seeing Lola… Mina’s blue eyes reminded me of hers. Fuck it all to hell. How was I supposed to pay attention to the girl I was with when every little thing reminded me of the bitch who’d killed my brother?

“Something wrong?” I didn’t hear Mina ask, the music too loud and the speakers too close, but I could make out the words by reading her lips. Such full, pink things they were. And as she asked the question, those lips forming the words in a tempting display, I knew I needed them wrapped around my cock, sucking me off, making me forget the blonde I’d just seen.

I took her by the hand, tugging her out of the dancing crowd, away from the music. Tony had gone off to find Lola. I wished they could’ve just continued to leave me alone. Eventually I’d find my way home, just not right now. Right now I needed to be wild, needed to be free… I needed to be away from that murderous bitch.

I pushed into the nearest bathroom. The men’s, and Mina followed me in like a good little girl. After growling at the lone man at the urinal, he knew what was good for him and left the space, clearing it of any other living being other than us.

Mina was pretty, probably the prettiest of them, with her porcelain skin and her pitch-black hair, cut short to frame her face with its wild kinks. Her lips were ruby red, cheeks always caught in a blush. She had curves for days, a great rack with perky tits and a cunt that was always kept smooth for me.

The only issue I took with her now were her eyes. Those fucking eyes were only a shade darker than Lola’s, and with seeing her here, that blonde bitch was alive in my head, and she wouldn’t get out of it.

Why couldn’t I get that bitch out of my mind? Why couldn’t I just turn my obsessive thoughts off? I hated it. Really, I did.

Mina smiled up at me, flashing me her perfect teeth. “Aren’t you just ravenous lately? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind, but what’s gotten into you?” We hadn’t told anyone about what happened to Mario yet; soon enough the city would know that the Lucianos lost their youngest, but that day had not yet come.

I said nothing as I grabbed her shoulder and pushed her down to her knees in front of me. Someone could walk into the bathroom at any given moment, but I didn’t care. There were more private rooms upstairs, but going to one of them might mean I’d run into my brother. Fuck that. Sylvester had to be here, searching, because I doubted my father would’ve let Tony and Lola out of the house together, alone.

My teeth ground. The way she’d looked at me before darting off, I didn’t know what to make of it, but I didn’t care. I didn’t fucking care.

Once Mina was on her knees before me, licking those lips, she knew what to do. She reached for my belt, eyes wide and intent on the bulge of my cock, and she got it out within a moment, her hand stroking me a few times and causing my length to twitch in response. She definitely had a way with those hands. And that mouth. And that cunt.

Those lips parted, and my head turned low to stare at her, to watch as my thick, veiny cock was slow to disappear in her mouth. She knew how to deep-throat, so she could take nearly the whole thing in, my length long enough to curve down her throat when I was all the way in. It felt fucking unreal.

I stood there for a few moments, stifling whatever groan might’ve escaped me the moment she took me in. I watched her head bob along my cock for a few moments, her mouth dutifully sucking the tip hard anytime she withdrew her head. My balls were tight.

I didn’t know what Mina thought this was, and I didn’t rightly give a shit. If she thought this was her way to my family, to the money we had, to the power we had over this town, she was wrong. Still, I wasn’t above using her however the fuck I wanted whenever the fuck I wanted, and I knew she’d love every minute of it.

For whatever reason, my mind flashed back to when I’d caught Lola straddling Tony on the couch. When I’d yanked her off him and filled her core up, bit her lip and made her bleed. God, she’d felt more than great, as much as I didn’t want to admit it—especially now, with another girl’s mouth wrapped around my cock.

Felt like forever ago, when in reality, it wasn’t. Time seemed to move fucking slow as molasses since we’d discovered Mario dead in his place. I shouldn’t let Lola’s presence in the house or her face here affect me. I shouldn’t feel anything when I stared into those dead, azure eyes.

Heat built up in my abdomen, and I knew my orgasm was coming. I didn’t want to be thinking about Lola while coming in Mina’s mouth, but it wasn’t like it would be the first time. All these days away from the house hadn’t helped a single fucking bit, and I hated it. I hated it more than anything.

No, scratch that. I hated it more than interruptions—because that’s exactly what happened mere moments before I was about to erupt.

The door to the bathroom opened, and my fucking brother walked in. He’d peeked to see if it was indeed me before he strolled in, and when he walked around and saw Mina on her knees before me, he rolled his eyes.

Mina went to pull her mouth off me, knowing Sylvester was here, but I grabbed the back of her head and growled out, “Don’t fucking stop.” She picked up her pace, my cock wet in her mouth as I glared at my brother. “What the fuck do you want? I’m a little busy at the moment.”

“Father wants you home,” Sylvester said, reaching in his pocket for his phone, hardly giving Mina and her bobbing head a second glance. “You know now isn’t the best time to run off and do your own thing for days on end.” He started texting, probably our father and the others, to tell them he’d found me.

Father could go fuck himself, just like Lola could.

Ugh, fucking Lola.

With my fingers in Mina’s black hair, I constricted my grip, holding onto her head roughly as my hips started to jerk. I came, but the orgasm was not accompanied by feelings of relief. The only thing that came with this particular orgasm was the wish that it was someone else on her knees in front of me, someone else’s soft, full lips puckered around my cock.

I came in Mina’s mouth, my cum coating her throat and forcing her to swallow every last drop I gave her. My eyelids had slammed shut when the orgasm came, a rumble leaving my chest, making me sound like an animal. I didn’t mind sounding like one, because I knew I was one.

But this? Picturing that bitch sucking me off instead of Mina? What the absolute fuck was wrong with me?

The orgasm over, I pulled her head back and shoved her off, breathing hard as I glared down at her. She’d fallen back on her hands, looking up at me with those blue eyes. Blue eyes that were all wrong, because they weren’t Lola’s empty yet defiant ones. I didn’t care that my cock still hung out, that Sylvester had watched the whole thing.

My brother was smart, smart enough to know why I was acting like this. I bet he was getting a kick out of it.

“Go,” I muttered to Mina, and though she looked a little hurt, she got up, wiped the corners of her mouth, and hurried out of the restroom, leaving me alone with my brother.

Sylvester was unimpressed. “Are you going to put your dick away, or do you plan on flashing everyone when you leave? Because you are coming home with me, Maddox. You can’t worry our father like that, not after…” He couldn’t say it, the pain of losing Mario still too fresh.

Too fresh, and yet look at fucking Lola, getting all close to Tony out there.

As I shoved my cock back in my pants and zipped up, working on my belt next, I had the urge to give that blonde a piece of my mind. Or my cock.

Ugh, fuck. That’s the whole issue here; I shouldn’t want to fuck her. Just because she was pretty didn’t mean shit. There were a million pretty girls around, and those million girls didn’t kill my little brother.

What did it say about me that I wanted to fuck the girl who killed my brother?

Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t care about what other people thought. I liked blood and violence, liked pain with my pleasure, and earned myself the nickname Mad Maddox. But wanting to constantly ram into Lola… that was a different type of madness, I think.

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, frowning. There was no point in arguing with my brother right now; especially if our father was the one who sent them all out in search of me, they wouldn’t stop until they brought me back. It was best to just go back to the house, tell my father I was fine and dandy. Fucking peachy, really.

Fucking peachy. If that didn’t describe the state of my life, I didn’t know what did.

My father might’ve yelled at me a bit. Yeah, he fucking yelled, like I was some child, like I didn’t know right from wrong and went against his wishes or something. I was twenty-six years old; I didn’t need to be confined to this house. I knew how to take care of myself. I wasn’t like Mario. He needed to realize he wasn’t going to lose me, too.

Although, I was sure he used to think that about Mario, too.

He had a glare that could cut like a knife, my father. When the gang brought me back to the house, he’d been waiting for me in his office, sipping whiskey from a small glass, literally waiting to pounce on me.

My father never dressed down; every single meeting was always like a business meeting. He wore a suit that definitely cost over four digits, his black hair trimmed short and slicked back. His eyes were even darker than mine, so dark you couldn’t tell where his pupils ended and the color began. A deep cleft sat in his square chin.

Richard Luciano was not a man you wanted to fuck with, but even though I knew how the rest of the world saw him, how the others saw him, he was my father. It was near impossible to not sound like a petulant child trying to explain myself to him.

Again, I was fucking twenty-six years old. I could do whatever the fuck I wanted.

“You can’t keep me locked up in this house like a child,” I stated, feeling my blood pressure rising the longer I stayed in this office.

“I am well aware you are an adult, and you are free to do whatever it is you want to do, but you must be smart about things now,” my father told me, his hands clenched as he leaned on his desk, glaring at me. He hadn’t touched the whiskey glass for a few minutes, all his focus on me.

I laughed, though it was laced with bitterness. “You’re not seriously lecturing me on this when you’ve allowed Mario’s killer to live here, are you?”

His jaw clenched. “I’m not happy about that either, but Sylvester is handling her well enough. She’s proven she can be relied on for certain jobs, and she is worlds more expendable to me than you or your brother. It’s always good to have bullet fodder, Maddox. That’s something you should know by now.”

He planned on feeding her to the wolves eventually. Of course the logical part of me knew that, but still, why not kill her now? Why not end all of this now? Surely there could be other bullet fodder we could find.

“Now is not the time to be reckless,” my father hissed out the words, baring his teeth at me. “Now is the time to be smart.” He pushed off his desk, giving me his back. “But I suppose I should expect this from you; you were never the smartest. Sylvester always had you beat there.”

His words felt like a knife cutting against my skin, the rage inside of me building. If there was one thing I hated being compared to, it was Sylvester. Oh, Sylvester was so fucking smart, he could never do anything wrong. Sylvester was the star child of the Lucianos, even though he was technically nothing more than a street rat my father had decided to pick up and groom.

Was I bitter? Yes, but most of the time I didn’t let it bother me. Now, though, after what he’d just said, it nagged at me like an annoying fly that wouldn’t go away.

“Is that all?” I growled out the words, knowing if I said anything more, it’d only be taken as a challenge, and challenging my father to anything was not something you did if you wanted to live to see tomorrow.

With his back to me, he muttered, “Yes. Go.”

I didn’t wait a moment longer; I left the room, fuming at his words. As I walked down the hall, I wondered how the fuck he could compare me to Sylvester. After all these years, didn’t he realize we brought different things to the table? I was the one who went off, while Sylvester sat and calculated everything in his head before making a move. Sometimes, though, you didn’t have time to sit and think. Sometimes you had no choice but to act.

My destination was my room, and I paced it. Back and forth, riling myself up further. No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake my father’s words, and I felt like it was all pointless. Fucking pointless. How could I ever compare to the amazingness of my brother?

Anger blinded me. I started tearing the room up, yanking drawers out of dressers and kicking the doors to the closet. I tore off the stupid pictures hanging on the walls and destroyed them. This house… it was nothing but a pretty cage, that much I knew. It’s why Mario never wanted this life, why he stuck to his guns and went off on his own.

Could I go off on my own, as he did? Could I live a life separate from this fucking family and my last name?

Not in this city. Everyone knew my face too well by now.

I didn’t know what I was doing or why I was doing it, but the moment I pulled out one of the smaller drawers in my dresser, I spotted my collection of knives. Switchblades, daggers, hunting knives with serrated edges… I had a bit of everything, because you never knew when something would come in handy.

The metal on the knives shone in my bedroom light. I reached for one, pulling out a switchblade, popping out the three-inch blade effortlessly. God, I could go for some cutting. Some killing. Something. Something violent and freeing.

Maybe it was because I, to use my father’s words, wasn’t as smart as Sylvester, but I took that switchblade and left my room. Luckily for me, we had a houseguest who was not family nor a friend, so the rules didn’t apply to her.

It was late. Sylvester had hopefully gone to sleep. Tony was sent home, while Viper had taken Big Mike’s place at Lola’s side before she was pushed off to bed. At least, I assumed she’d gone to bed, but I guess she was a bit of a night owl, being the Night Slayer and all.

Hah. The fucking Night Slayer. What a joke. She was nothing but a pretty face, and I was going to cut that face up until she was as ugly as the bottom of my shoe, and then… then I wouldn’t waste a single second more thinking about her or imagining her body beneath mine.

It didn’t make sense, but I didn’t care. My father’s words had put me on a warpath, and Lola was the only thing within reach that I could hurt. And, fuck, I wanted to hurt someone so bad.

The hallway near her room was dark, and I paused as I reached her door. It was shut, but I knew Viper was just inside, as was Lola. I heard nothing inside the room, no sounds at all, which led me to think she was in bed, trying to sleep away her pain.

That girl knew nothing about pain, but I would help open her eyes tonight.

Breathing out, I reached for the knob and pushed, opening it just enough to slip in. The room was dark, but my eyes were already adjusted, and immediately Viper turned toward me, opening his mouth to probably ask what the hell I was doing here. I didn’t give him the chance, though. I grabbed his shoulder and hauled him from the room, throwing him in the hall and holding the switchblade to my lips, a gesture for him to be quiet.

When Viper saw the blade in the darkness, he shook his head, reaching for me, but I pushed it out towards him, unafraid to cut him up a bit. He stopped then, sensing I was on a warpath. Anyone who knew me well knew to steer clear of me when I got like this.

Which was probably too often, but whatever.

Slipping back into her room, I closed the door and flipped the lock, just in case Viper got any ideas about being her hero. He’d spent more time with her than I had, so I could only imagine how much of his skin she was under, how much he thought about her, obsessed over her. How could he stand and watch her half the day and not let his mind wander to places it shouldn’t?

Really, I was about to do us all a favor, here. Everyone should thank me after this.

Everything had happened so quietly, the girl was still in bed. The curtains remained open, silver moonlight streaming through the windowpane and giving me enough light to see her back was to me. Lola lay on her side, blissfully unaware of the attack that was about to happen.

Sylvester would kill me once he found out what I did, but I didn’t care. If she was going to live under this roof, if we were going to feed her, use her, I had every right to do with her as I wanted. Her life meant nothing to me, so hurting her would mean nothing, too. It would simply be one of the greatest stress-relievers around.

I stalked toward her bed, gripping the switchblade hard as I went, taking my time in moving to her bedside. Her blonde hair splayed on the pillow around her head like a messy halo, but she was anything but an angel. She was a temptress, a devil in her own way, and I didn’t like the power she somehow held over me, hated that my thoughts went to her too much, too often. She was my brother’s murderer, but my body and mind were swayed by that pretty face and that tight cunt.

Nothing I could do about the cunt, but the face? That could be marred up, sliced and cut and scarred. I could make her unrecognizable, so hideous and ugly she would never be able to use her looks to lure any man in again.

I debated on how to do it. Should I wake her up by cutting her? Should I wake her before doing it so I could see the pain flash in those blue eyes as I ran the switchblade across her pale skin? Decisions, decisions. I hated them, I did.

You know what? I wanted to see her face when I hurt her. I got off on the pain, so why not enjoy myself to the fullest here?

I reached for the sheets covering her body, tearing them off her, revealing her figure beneath them. She wore satin pajamas, a dark greyish black color in the night, some ridiculous matching set Sylvester had bought her when he got her all those clothes. Shorts that showed off her legs and gave just the barest hints of her ass. When I yanked the sheets back and exposed her, she didn’t move, which I wasn’t expecting.

Normally, wouldn’t you freak out if you were woken up by someone violently pulling all the blankets off you? Unless…

Unless she wasn’t asleep. Unless she’d been pretending to be asleep this whole time.

“I was wondering how long you were going to stand there,” Lola whispered, still giving me her back. Her voice came out low and sultry, smoothing over me but only fueling my rage.

Grabbing her arm, I turned her toward me, lugging her off the bed. She got to her feet before me, my fingers curled around her arm tightly, not having a choice in the matter. Her big, blue eyes looked dark, shadows dancing across her face as she leveled an emotionless look at me.

“You think you’re so great,” I hissed out, nails digging into her skin beneath the satin sleeve of her pajama top. “You think you’re the talk of the fucking town. The Night Slayer.” My other hand held onto the switchblade’s metal handle so hard my knuckles were white, and I brought the sharp edge of it to her face, laying it on her cheek, just below her left eye.

The bitch didn’t even blink, didn’t react at all when the cool steel of the knife touched her skin, and that angered me even more. Right when I thought I’d had enough of this, that I couldn’t possibly get more enraged by anything she did, Lola went and proved me wrong. So very, very wrong.

She said nothing, though she did tilt her head upwards to watch me. She didn’t glare or do anything like that; she simply stared, acting too emotionless, too calm, considering I’d kicked Viper out of the room and held a switchblade just beneath her eye.

What the fuck was wrong with this girl?

A lot of things, clearly.

My hand on her arm tightened even more. She felt so fragile, so thin, so fucking breakable. How the hell did this girl kill my brother? She looked unremarkable, if more pretty than the average girl. She didn’t have extra muscles, nor did she currently wear the annoying smirk she usually did.

“Say something,” I hissed out. What fun would this be if I cut her and she didn’t even scream? Didn’t even struggle to fight to break free? Seriously, there’d be no fun in it; Lola would drain this experience of anything good, and I hated it. I hated it so fucking much.

I hated her. Everything about her. Her looks, the way her body felt beneath mine, how she currently stared at me with dead eyes. I hated how she wormed her way into my head, refusing to leave it. Literally, I hated everything about her, and I wanted to see her burn for her crimes against this family.

She didn’t belong here, not with us. What did it matter if she looked fucking sexy as hell hitting a man with a baseball bat? The answer: it didn’t.

Or it shouldn’t.

“Why?” Lola asked, hardly moving her lips as she spoke. “I have the feeling you’re not going to like anything I’ll say.”

Growling, I withdrew the switchblade from her face, using my other arm to throw her away from the bed. She stumbled a bit, catching herself, but I was on her the next moment, tackling her to the floor. We lay on the carpet in the silver moonlight, and as I pinned down her legs with mine and held the switchblade against her throat, right where that special, messy artery was, something flashed in the blue of her eyes.

Amusement? Contentedness? I still couldn’t read her, and it drove me nuts.

Didn’t she realize what this was? Didn’t she know I was going to fuck her up so badly she’d be unrecognizable after tonight? Never again would she gaze in the mirror and see a pretty, flawless face. Never again would she be able to tempt any man with it. She should be writhing in fear, breathing hard, her heart pounding in her chest like it was going to pop out.

But she wasn’t. She wasn’t fearful of her life right now, and that ticked me off even more.

“Tell me,” she whispered, unbothered by the pressure of the blade against her neck or my body laying atop hers. “Do you plan on killing me tonight, or just cutting me up a little?” Lola felt so small beneath me, and she looked so helpless, contrary to the expression she wore. The last thing she was worried about was what would happen, why I was here, and I didn’t understand it at all.

I leaned my face down to hers, baring my teeth as I replied, “I haven’t decided yet.” The more she gave me that look, the more I wanted to hurt her, the more I felt the beast inside and his hunger for senseless violence.

This, though, wouldn’t be senseless. This was payback, revenge for what Lola had done to my little brother. This was comeuppance in the worst way.

I sneered down at her, hissing out, “What? Nothing to say to that?”

She swallowed, her throat bobbing beneath the blade. Such tender skin, so easy to cut with sharp steel; Lola was at my mercy here and now, but it didn’t seem to bother her in the least. She seemed to accept whatever it was I planned on doing to her, and that… that irked me to no end.

Why wasn’t she fighting? Why wasn’t she trying to save herself the pain? Why not make this more of a challenge, more fun?

“Is this why they call you Mad Maddox?” Lola asked. “Because you hurt everything? Because you want to see others bleed? That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You didn’t come here to kill me, not tonight. You came to hurt me, to cut me up and see the blood oozing from the wounds you create.”

The more she spoke, the more I wanted to stab her—but, at the same time, the more she spoke, the more I realized she was right. And I fucking hated it.

“Well,” she went on, her voice a bare whisper, so faint I could hardly hear it, and I was mere inches away, “you have me at your disposal. Now, what’ll you do with me, Mad Maddox?”

I said nothing, though I did suddenly feel how very hard I was. How could I not get hard, having her body pinned under mine, her chest rising and falling, tits pressing against me every time she breathed? How could I not get rock hard when I imagined cutting that little body up and hearing her screams, picturing the stark contrast between her maroon blood and the paleness of her skin?

Fuck. I came here to hurt her, not to have sex with her, but I might just need to.

I hesitated. I didn’t know why, but I did. Maybe because this entire thing wasn’t going how I thought it would, how I expected. Maybe because this girl was unlike anyone else I’d ever met. Maybe because a teeny, tiny part of me wished she hadn’t killed my brother, that we could’ve met under different circumstances. She was wild and carefree, sexy no matter what it was she was doing, the perfect girl for me.

The perfect girl… and yet she’d killed Mario. How fucked up was I that I still wanted to feel that cunt wrapped around my dick, to have that mouth on my cock? How fucked up was I that I couldn’t stop thinking about her, no matter what I did—including trying to drown myself in another girl? I had plenty; Mina wasn’t my only one, and yet, now, for whatever fucking reason, Mina didn’t cut it. None of them did.

The only one who could fill the desire in my body was the girl currently under me, the one I held a switchblade to, the one who was waiting for me to make a move.

“Here’s a tip,” she muttered. Lola then did something I wasn’t expecting. She leaned her head up, pushing against the blade at her throat, causing its sharp edge to dig into her skin just a bit, to break through her soft flesh easily. “Don’t bring a knife to my room unless you plan on using it.” She spoke with the blade cutting her throat, and when she lay her head back down, a thin line of red formed where the switchblade had cut into her.

Lola acted totally cool with the small injury on her neck, and I did the only thing I could think of to do: I used my other hand to grip that same neck after moving the switchblade aside, starting to choke her. My cock twitched, needing its release, but I was too busy dealing with Lola.

Her lips parted, and as I choked her, she smiled.

Ah, there that fucking smirk was, that expression that told me nothing I could do to her right now would affect her in any way. The smile that said, try your best, boy. A mad smile, a crazy one, one no normal girl would ever wear.

But we all knew by now this girl wasn’t normal. She was a killer, crazy in her own way… just like I was.

Fuck.

I leaned my head down, my lips brushing against her cheek as I whispered, “You like the pain.” I knew it for a fact; I could feel her back arching beneath me, could feel her body squirming, not trying to get away, but trying to get more. More from me.

My grip on her neck loosened, allowing her to breathe in a lungful of air. The blood from the small cut on her neck had rubbed onto my fingers; it wasn’t deep enough to bleed like a waterfall, like the carotid artery usually did if you sliced deep. She looked at me then, those eyes begging me for more as she said, “Sometimes pain is the only thing reminding me I’m still alive.”

Her words struck a chord with me, and I found I could not speak right away. Pain was the only thing reminding her she was still alive. I… it was wrong, but I felt the same sometimes. Life was so dull, so dreary and monotone without it. Without pain, how could you truly revel in the pleasure? How could you come to appreciate everything life had to offer if you were unaware of how much hurt could come with it?

“You want to hurt me, Maddox?” Lola purred out my name, causing even more heat to gather in my midsection. My balls ached for a release, my cock full of a desperate need to be inside of her. “Then hurt me. Hurt me like I hurt your brother.” A challenge in no uncertain terms. She must’ve known bringing up Mario would make me rage even more, and it did, for my fingers curled around her throat once more and began to squeeze.

All those days of trying to rid my mind of this one, seeking to stop myself from thinking about her constantly… it was all for nothing. Lola was in my brain, nestled deep, and she would not come out unless I tore her out of it myself.

I’d never been caught up in my own head before, not about a girl. Not like this. There was nothing else to compare it to, nothing in my past that gave me experience when it came to wanting to both kill and fuck someone so badly. Usually, it was one or the other. Not both.

I took the switchblade, leaning off her enough to drag it between us. Her satin shirt was held together by buttons, and I caught the sharp end on the topmost button near her collarbone, my eyes locking with hers as I dragged it down, cutting through the buttons one by one until that shirt hung open for me.

Her chest rose and fell, her tits held back by a black bra—I cut through that, too. The switchblade was remarkably good at cutting through clothes, just as it was at cutting through skin. Soon enough, her top half lay beneath me, naked, her nipples nothing more than hardened points on her tits.

I only released my hold on her neck so I could get a better view of her. It was then I saw it: a big, thick scar traveling downward from her belly button, disappearing beneath the waistband of her shorts. A scar like that… I knew my way well enough around knives to know something like that wasn’t from a cut. No knife could make something that huge, a scar that thick.

No, a scar like that only came from one thing.

Surgery.

It would seem little miss murderously perfect wasn’t so perfect after all. I didn’t know why, but I knew I should feel relieved at that; however, I didn’t. It wasn’t relief that flooded through me when I gazed at that huge scar in the moonlight… I didn’t know what I felt.

Confused? Angry? Curious? All of the above, maybe. I wanted to know what it was from, what it was for, if that scar was the reason Lola was on her own. A girl with her looks, I doubted she was alone on purpose. Someone with a face like that was always surrounded by friends or family or men who hoped to get in her pants.

I said nothing about the scar as I sat up, bringing the switchblade to it. Lola watched me, though she said nothing. Her chest rose and fell with even breaths, and I trailed the flat edge of the switchblade down her stomach. The moment the steel touched that scar, her eyes shut and she turned her face away.

“Where’d you get this?” I asked, unable to stop the husky tone from taking over my voice. I wanted to cut open her shorts and tear into her body in more ways than one. If that made me a maniac, a psycho, then so be it; I didn’t care.

“You are truly mad if you think I’m going to spill my whole life story to you right now,” Lola muttered, her eyes still closed, though a frown did grace her lips. “If you’re going to kill me, kill me. If you just want to hurt me, hurt me. Use that knife or don’t—” Finally, those eyes opened again, and she was slow to sit up, her bottom half trapped beneath mine. “—I don’t care.”

I said nothing, letting her words sink in, wondering just how damaged this girl was to stare a thing like me in the eyes and hardly blink. What made others fearful she didn’t seem to mind one bit.

Lola reached for my face, saying nothing more as she leaned in. Her fingers found the half of my head that had a few inches of hair on it, weaving in its strands, tugging not so gently. Her breath was hot on my face for only a moment before those lips found mine, before she kissed me and only further confused me.

What the fuck was I doing here? This was nothing but asking for trouble, and what’s worse, I tended to love trouble a bit too much.

Right when I lost myself in the kiss, in its tempting slowness, Lola’s teeth found my lip, and before I realized what she was doing, she bit down, pierced the skin of my lower lip with her teeth. Like a vampire, she made me bleed, made me taste my own metal twang, just as I’d done to her before. Not going to lie, my dick throbbed at that, as the pain shot outward from her bite.

Lola withdrew herself, laying back down, breathing a little harder now, her mouth stained with my blood. The wound on her neck trickled slowly, looking like nothing more than a peculiarly-placed papercut.

With her tits exposed, with her stomach bared to me, the blood dotting her lip and lining her throat… she was fucking beautiful. I didn’t think, not once in my life, I had ever seen a sight that made me ache with this type of longing before. I never knew I could find a woman this attractive.

Bloodied, wild, and dangerous. She watched me expectantly, waiting for me to make my next move, to back up my words with action. To hurt her, to kill her, to do something that made those eyes less emotionless. I wanted her so fucking bad, and I hated it. I hated how much I wanted her.

But, that said, I was so fucking horny I might just explode.

Instincts took over me, and I took the switchblade to her side, digging it between the satin pajama shorts and her skin, yanking it down to tear the fabric. One side and then the other in the same way; the action caused the knife to dig into her hips a bit, making her bleed, but she didn’t even flinch.

In fact, I caught her grinning with my blood still dotting her mouth.

I licked my lip, swallowing down the metal taste as I leaned over her, watching her reaction when the switchblade danced across the small triangle of shaved skin just above her pussy. I heard her breathing hitch, and I couldn’t help but smile as I kept pushing the flat edge lower. When it grazed the lips of her cunt, Lola let out the softest moan I’d ever heard.

She liked to play dirty. Oh, I could give her fucking dirty.

Scooting my head down, I stopped when I was between her open legs, staring at her folds through the darkness. I lightly ran the switchblade closer to her entrance, knowing just the wrong amount of pressure could cut her; she knew it, too. And, hell, maybe that’s what she wanted, for me to tear her up.

Right now, though, all I could think about was how she tasted, so I was going to find out.

I removed the switchblade from her apex, bringing my face to it with no trace of hesitation. My tongue flicked out, and I drew a slow line from her entrance to her clit, hearing her stifle a moan. I wouldn’t be opposed to hearing her beg.

My mouth latched onto her clit, and I flicked it with my tongue, sucking and licking. Her body started to spasm beneath me, her thighs twitching with my assault, but that only made me work harder, eager to hear her cry out. How could you possibly be emotionless when your body was racked with pleasure?

Because she was a kinky freak, because I held onto the switchblade still, I decided to put it to good use. I switched the way I was holding it; instead of gripping the handle, I held onto the blade. The steel cut into my fingers a bit, but I didn’t care. With my mouth still locked firmly on her clit, I pushed the handle of the switchblade into her cunt.

The sound she made right then almost made me explode in my pants. Good fucking thing it didn’t; I wanted to be inside her when I came.

Sucking her clit, I fucked her with the switchblade’s handle, using my free hand to grip one of her thighs and pry her legs as open as they could go. Her whole body trembled, shuddering and tensing as I picked up speed with the knife. She was wet enough to take it, though with how rough the handle was, she might have a sore pussy in the morning. Did I care? No. She’d take whatever the fuck I gave her, and she’d like it.

And, judging from the sounds that came out of her lungs, she liked it a whole lot.

Suddenly Lola’s back arched, her clit swollen with my mouth’s attention, the sounds of her slick coating the knife’s handle rising in the air. I knew she was about to come, knew the orgasm I’d built deep within her was seconds from crashing down and spreading through her like a tsunami. I could pull back, I could stop, refuse her body its release and make her yearn for it, but the damnedest thing happened: I didn’t.

I didn’t pull back, I didn’t stop. When I felt her body shaking, when I heard her lungs cry out for breath, I kept going, fucking her harder with the knife, swirling my tongue around that mound of sensitive flesh with nothing but eagerness. Fuck it all to hell, I wanted to hear her, to feel her come.

So that’s what I did.

Lola’s voice was nothing but a strangled cry of bliss when the orgasm swept over her, her thighs clenching around my head, her cunt tightening around the knife handle, as if not wanting me to pull it out.

Sadly, I had to—but only so I could shove my dick in there instead.

Licking my lips, I still tasted a bit of my own blood as I pulled out the switchblade from her pussy and lifted my mouth off her clit. Lola appeared to be completely unraveled, breathing hard, her skin on fire against mine. She might be my brother’s murderer, but she was fucking hot, and I couldn’t help myself, apparently.

I worked on my belt, yanking it off. I dropped the switchblade, only to bring my belt to her neck, wrapping it around that slender thing but keeping it loose, for now. Next were my pants. I didn’t take them off completely, but I got them far enough down my legs for them to be out of the way. My thick cock sprung free, precum dripping off its tip. I was sure cum stained my pants, having been so hard for so long already. During the process, I got blood on almost everything.

This girl. What the fuck was she doing to me? A question I didn’t know whether or not I’d ever get the answer to. Then again, did it matter? Right now, she was mine. Mine in every fucking way, her cunt dripping wet for me and whatever I deemed necessary to give to her. Pleasure, pain; it didn’t matter. She’d take it all like the greedy bitch she was.

And I loved it.

As I positioned my cock at her entrance, drips of blood dotting its length from the cuts on my hand, I felt her wetness help ease me in. I grabbed the belt I’d fastened to her neck and pulled on it, snapping the leather tight around her. I filled her up, nearly losing myself immediately.

Lola’s eyes were open and on me, her lips parted. Her hands found my sides, nails digging into my flesh, as if wordlessly asking me what the hell I was waiting for.

This time… this particular fuck was different than our other time on the couch. That time, I’d merely wanted to prove to her that she meant nothing, that we owned her in every way and that she was not the one in control here. But this time? Tonight, things were different. Tonight, I’d come to hurt her, maybe to kill her and apologize to my family later, but things hadn’t turned out like that.

Her brand of crazy was sexy as all hell, her body tempting as fuck, and I needed it all. I needed her, no matter how wrong it was.

As my hips thrust, pushing my length into her roughly, I pulled on the belt, choking her a bit as I hissed, “I hate you.” It was true. I hated this girl with all my heart. I hated her, and yet I wanted her at the same time, and I didn’t know what to make of it.

Ugh, these fucking confusing as fuck feelings. Why couldn’t they take a hike and get the fuck out of here?

“I know” was all Lola was able to say in between my choking and my thrusting. She said no more, her soft moans disappearing beneath my loud, primal grunting. Her pussy milked my cock like it was made for it, sweet and tight and wet and everything I wanted. Everything I shouldn’t want.

When I felt myself start to lose it, when I felt the pleasure building inside, my balls tightening, I pulled on the belt again, causing her to shut her eyes and part her lips. She looked like she was in ecstasy, even if she couldn’t breathe. I pumped into her hard, in quick, rapid thrusts, my rage and hate fueling my orgasm to a finish.

It came over me with unmatched power, the orgasm so strong and so violent I nearly collapsed on top of her as it surged through me. Not at all like the orgasms I’d gotten from Mina lately, or anyone else. This felt so much better, so much stronger.

I leaned my forehead against hers, losing my grip on the belt, loosening its hold on her neck as I let go of it, too lost in my own bliss, the high that came just after. I felt… I felt like I could either own the world or destroy it. I felt like I could do almost anything.

My dick still inside her, Lola leaned her face up, licking my lips and causing a shot of pain to spread from where she bit me. I glared down at her, my initial instinct to strangle her, but when she lay her head back down, her blonde hair nothing but a wild halo around her head, I knew. I knew it right then and there.

I might hate her, I might want her dead, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill her, because I wanted her too much, and that—that made me hate myself even more.

Saying nothing, I pulled away from her, getting to my feet as I stuffed my cock away and zipped up my pants. I didn’t take my belt back, figuring I’d leave it. If I went back down there, if I touched her more, I’d be liable to spend all night in here, fucking her, and that would only lead to more complications.

I took one long, last look at her naked, exposed body, my belt tied around her neck. I’d picked up the switchblade, feeling its handle wet with her slick. Blood still dripped from my hand, a bit of it having fallen on Lola’s tits during the fucking, dark maroon splattered on her pale skin. I hadn’t hurt her nearly as much as I’d wanted to, and now… now I couldn’t think about anything other than fucking that tight cunt some more.

Saying nothing, I turned to leave the room. After fumbling with the lock in the darkness, I threw open the door and stormed out, past Viper, who stood there glaring. I went to my room, locked myself inside even though I should really wash my hand off to clean the blood and the wound from holding the switchblade, but I didn’t. Instead, I lifted that switchblade and inhaled.

God, she even smelled good.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

A lot, as it turned out, because after sniffing the knife, I had a hard cock again. This time, I had to take care of it with a bloody hand.

Fuck Lola. Fuck her in so many ways.

Chapter Eleven – Lola

Viper came in, flipping on the light with no regard to how much it would blind me. I scowled as I sat up, lifting both eyebrows at him as I asked, “Really? It’s, like, way too late to have a light on, for fuck’s sake.”

Relief flooded Viper’s features before he turned the big light off, shutting the door before moving to the lamp at my bedside and turning that little, smaller fucker on instead. His tattooed body was beside mine the next instant, studying me as I sought to get the belt off from around my neck.

He was concerned for me, I knew, but soon enough the concern morphed into something else when he realized I was naked, that my clothes were literally hanging off my body because Maddox had cut into them, tearing them to shreds with that knife.

Which he then fucked me with. That was definitely a new one, though I couldn’t say it was awful…

My neck prickled when I pulled the belt off it, where I’d pushed myself into his switchblade. I was fairly certain I had some cuts on my sides too, from when he cut off my shorts, but I didn’t bother to look down, too busy staring into Viper’s hazel eyes. His brown hair was slicked back, as it always was, his serpent tattoos seeming to slither along his arms in the dim light. His gaze, I noticed, was not lingering anywhere it would be appropriate to.

Meaning he was staring at my tits. Since I was sitting up, there wasn’t much to look at in the downstairs department, but my tits? Oh, they were out, they were free, and my nips were pointy pebbles right now. Obviously, I was still turned on after that whole thing, even if I did have blood on me.

Yeah, I was a kinky gal, so what?

“See something you like?” I asked, sitting there with my body bared. My hands were on the carpet, though one of them held onto the belt still. Now that it wasn’t around my neck, I could feel the prickle of pain where I’d gotten cut. It wasn’t bad, not by any means. I figured Maddox would utterly destroy me—and he did, just not in the way I anticipated.

“I…” Viper trailed off, realizing what he was doing. He averted his gaze, trying to play the shining knight. What a fool he was though, for in this house, there was no such thing as a knight in shining armor. The armor any of these guys wore was black and sullied, stained with blood and gore, maybe even some brain bits. You never knew. Killing got messy, and I bet these guys had done in a lot more people than I had in my short stint as the Night Slayer.

While he was busy looking away, I shrugged off my cut shirt and bra, exposing my entire top half. The way Maddox had cut my shorts, I didn’t need to worry about those; I currently sat on their silky fabric. It was a good thing I didn’t wear panties beneath them, otherwise he would’ve just cut those up, too. Poor clothes. They didn’t deserve to meet an end like this. What’s worse was they were actually quite comfortable.

“What?” I asked, causing Viper’s gaze to return to me—and that gaze to eat me up yet again when he saw I no longer had anything on my shoulders. No sleeves hanging off me, no nothing. “Don’t tell me you don’t like what you see.” He’d already seen the scar on my stomach, so I wasn’t concerned about that.

Maddox… I did wonder what he thought about it, for he had stared at it for a while. But no one knew what Maddox thought. You could only guess. He’d asked about it, but that wasn’t really a story I wanted to tell. Not to him, not to anybody. That was a story I would take to my own grave, and I’d do it gladly.

“I do,” Viper admitted, frowning at me somewhat. “That’s the problem.”

My core burned. I hadn’t had my fill yet, and maybe that’s why I leaned closer to him as I whispered, “Why is that a problem?” The night air was cool on my body, but it wasn’t cool enough to bring me down, knock me off the high horse Maddox had placed me on when he’d threatened me, fucked me, and told me he hated me.

A man out for my own heart, that one.

“You belong to the Lucianos, not me.”

“Are you not a Luciano?”

His brown eyebrows came together as he said, “My last name is Milano.”

I resisted my urge to roll my eyes at his literalness. I knew he wasn’t a Luciano, but that wasn’t what I meant. Giving him a slow, seductive smile, I murmured, “Yes, but are you not one of them?” I phrased it a bit differently this time. “You’re loyal to them. You’re a part of their family.” I leaned in more, as close as I could be to him without actually touching him, mere inches between us now. “I can belong to you, too.”

Some girls might take an issue with belonging to someone, let alone an entire family, but I think we all knew by now how fucked up I was. At this rate, I might as well go out with a bang. And by bang, I meant I better bang as many of these sexy fuckers as I could before they got tired of me and decided to get rid of me.

His gaze moved to my neck, where I bled a little. “You didn’t get your fill from Maddox?”

“What can I say?” I paused, licking my lips. “I guess I’m ravenous.” His hazel eyes glazed over in lust, and I knew I had him. These guys played a big game, but in the end, they were hardly any better than the fools I’d go home with… and kill.

I guess I could thank Dickless, in a way. If it wasn’t for him, I never would’ve run across this family of psychopaths and D.O.M.S.—and for all you cool cats wondering what I meant by that: dicks of massive size.

Yeah, I meant that both literally and figuratively, because their dicks were nice, but they were also kind of dick-ish in their behavior. I deserved it, of course, having killed their precious brother, but still. D.O.M.S. was a good acronym for them, I think. Also kind of a pun, considering how dom-like Maddox could get.

“I don’t want to anger them—”

I grinned. “We don’t have to tell anyone, silly goose. Now, why don’t you take off those clothes and show me how many other tattoos you have?” I’d yet to see any of them naked; it really wasn’t fair, with how attractive they were. All I wanted was some muscles and tattoos. Was it too much to ask?

Would we really get in trouble for bumping uglies? Come on. It wasn’t like I was some precious thing they were protecting; I was here to be used, I wanted to scream to Viper, so come on already, use me.

I was in my own head enough to realize that this was my feeble attempt at getting back to the me I’d been for the last few years, to know that this was me trying to make up for my little mental breakdown earlier. Viper didn’t need to know that, though.

“Lola…” Viper’s voice came out ragged and husky, so low and deep I felt it in my body. A whispered warning, one last-ditch attempt at playing the knight.

Maybe I needed to take charge here, then. Maybe I needed to show Viper that I wasn’t afraid of getting down and dirty. I reached for his shirt, running my hand down flat against his chest, feeling his muscles tighten under me.

That did the trick, for suddenly he grabbed my hand and pushed me off, gripping his shirt and pulling it up and over his head in one smooth movement. Tits tended to get in the way of taking off t-shirts like that; not going to lie, I was kind of jealous guys could do that—and look so cool while doing it.

He had… so many snake tattoos. Curling up his arms, winding down his chest, even over his abdomen, where six tiny squares sat, all muscle and delicious. I could lick every single one of those abs and not feel weird about it.

I spotted a rather large tattoo disappearing beneath his pants, slow to bring my gaze up to his. “How many more snakes you got under the hood, Viper?” He’d been so adamant for me to call him Viper and not Vinny; using the nickname would surely help in getting those pants off quicker.

I hoped.

When he gave me a look, I took my opportunity by the balls. And by that, I meant I finally let go of the belt I held onto and pushed Viper back, laying him down on the floor. I worked on his pants, tugging them down, well aware of the budding hardness beneath his boxers.

Maddox had tattoos, more of them than Viper did, but his were a mishmash of everything. Viper’s were literally only snakes.

Within a moment, I had Viper one hundred percent naked beneath me, his cock growing harder by the second. I drew my hands up along his legs. Beneath the hair sat more tattoos, more snakes. Most of them were snarling, baring their teeth. Some had venom dripping from their fangs while others only looked menacing. The biggest one traveling down his abdomen and had been covered by his pants ended just above his cock, its tail looking almost like it wrapped around the base.

You had to adore snakes in every way to adorn your body with this many of them, all over. Seriously, the only places that didn’t hold any tattoos on his body were his lower legs and feet, his hands, and his neck and face.

Me? I didn’t hate snakes, but I didn’t particularly like them, either. I supposed I could learn to like them more, especially as I gazed down at Viper’s naked, sexy as hell body. I didn’t know anyone who could gaze upon a tatted-up body like his and claim to hate snakes.

I crawled over him, straddling him as I sat on his lower stomach. I bet he could feel the wetness between my legs, could feel Maddox’s cum dribbling out of me. Was it wrong to want more? Was it wrong to never feel like you had enough? Maybe I was more fucked in the head than I realized, but I didn’t care.

With my hands on his chest, I leaned down over his face, my blonde hair draping around him. Viper stared up at me, his hands finding my sides, holding onto me with a firmness that told me he wasn’t going to pull himself away this time. No, tonight we were going to cross the point of no return. No looking back.

“You,” I murmured, my nose grazing his as I grinned at him, “are one sexy beast, Viper. Has anyone ever told you that before?” I bet they had. I bet the girls flocked to him. Whether or not he paid those girls any attention was up in the air; he didn’t seem like Maddox, always hungry and ready to wet his cock. Viper was definitely different, though even he had a wild side to him.

They all did, really. They were all wild in their own way: Maddox, Sylvester, Viper. Even Tony and Mike had given me glimpses of the animals lying in wait within. To be a part of this family, to do what they did, I supposed they had to be.

A tiny smile graced his lips, and the hands on my sides moved to my head, swiping through my yellow hair to hold onto the sides of my face. “And you,” Viper whispered back, “are a temptress in every way.”

The hands holding my head forced me to look away, tilting my neck toward him. He leaned up, kissing the crook of my neck, running his tongue along where the small cut was. I wondered if he tasted any of my blood. Was it wrong to want him to? To want a part of me to be inside of him, at least for a little bit?

Probably. Like I’d mentioned before, I was kind of fucked up.

“Beautiful, wicked, and wild,” Viper whispered against my neck, his hushed words and the attention he currently showed my neck causing me to shiver and close my eyes, lose myself to the feeling of tenderness. Something like that in this house was rare, I knew. “If only…” He trailed off, stopping himself from kissing my neck any more, which made my eyelids lift.

I looked at him, deep down already knowing what he’d stopped himself from saying, but needing to hear it anyways. “If only what?” I could feel Viper’s hard cock near my ass, and even though it twitched every now and then, I wasn’t focused on it. All I wanted to do right now was hear him say it.

“You fit here,” he said, tucking some of my blonde hair behind my ears, still holding onto the sides of my face, his thumbs rubbing against my cheeks. “You fit with us, Lola. You’re just the right amount of crazy to be perfect for this family, but you… you killed one of us, and that’s not something that can be forgiven. This doesn’t end happily for you.” The way Viper spoke, it was as if he was sorrowful, having to relay this news to me, as if I hadn’t an idea.

But I did. I knew all of that already. I knew I’d found myself a place where I could’ve belonged, knew I’d fucked it up by killing Dickless. I was the Night Slayer, and I’d chosen the wrong victim, go figure.

“It’s okay. I wasn’t born for a happy ending,” I whispered, a strange heaviness in my chest—not the same heaviness that had overtaken me in the club, not the flashbacks to my old life, to the old me. It wasn’t the same feeling; it was different, a weight that told me something utterly peculiar.

I wanted to belong here. I wanted to have a family that loved me and took pride in the things I could do. I wanted to belong, to be supported and trusted. To have fun and smile and laugh and have it not all be a show.

Those were things a normal person got to have, not me. I meant what I told Viper, and I didn’t say it to get pity or sympathy or any shit like that. I said it because it was true. I was not born for a happy ending. I wouldn’t get one. It wasn’t in the cards for me; I’d faced that fact a long time ago, but being here, surrounded by my brand of crazy, it was like taking a kid with a sweet tooth into a confectionary store and not letting her get anything.

I had the worst fucking sweet tooth of them all, and yet I’d leave the store empty.

It sucked. It sucked a lot more than I wanted to admit, but that’s why I was here, with Viper, the both of us naked. Just because I wasn’t allowed to buy anything from the candy shop didn’t mean I wouldn’t try to steal a bit while I had time.

Call me a thief, because I was about to steal me some D.

“Let’s not think about the future,” I said, lifting my midsection up and off his abdomen. His hands released my head, allowing me to scoot down on his body. No futures; the only thing I wanted to pay attention to was the present.

Viper’s lips parted, and I locked gazes with him as I sank myself down on his erect length, taking him in inch after inch. His cock wasn’t as thick as Maddox’s, but it was long, long enough to make me feel like, when he was all the way in, I could feel him in my gut, poking around and touching everything in there.

I knew that wasn’t possible, but still. The feeling of being full with a long cock was just something that made my body go haywire.

Once he was fully in, I tightened my inner walls, hearing him let out a low groan. Whether or not he’d come to regret this moment didn’t matter. Viper’s cock was inside me, and I planned on riding it for a good long while.

Starting to sway my hips, I did wonder if he could feel how wet I was, if he knew my pussy was slick with both my own arousal and Maddox’s. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe sharing girls was something the men around here did a lot.

With my hands on his stomach, I moved my hips in a way that brought pleasure to us both, riding him slowly at first, dragging his length in and out of me in a rhythm that built pressure in my core. Seeing Viper under me, knowing he was letting me take charge, letting me do the fucking here—it surely helped. That tattooed body… I wanted to lick it all over, no joke.

I picked up my pace, and Viper let out a groan. I chased my own orgasm, knowing whatever felt good to me would also feel good for him; he looked like he was ready to explode already, so I wasn’t worried about him too much. Oh, yeah, Viper had wanted to fuck me too; it was a good thing I didn’t let him push me away.

“Were you watching?” I asked, my voice nothing but air as I rode him.

It took Viper far too long to say, “What?” Too blinded by watching my tits bounce as I rocked my hips, too mesmerized by the feeling of his cock inside me, probably. Who could blame him? Right now I felt like I had a magic coochie.

“When you were driving,” I whispered, full to the brink with his cock, “when Sylvester was inside of me.” As I spoke, I saw his eyes glaze over in lust, and I knew he had watched as much as he could’ve, given the fact he’d been driving. For some reason, it filled me with satisfaction, knowing he wanted to watch someone else take me.

Kind of hot, having an audience, not gonna lie.

“Did you like it?” I barely got the question out before Viper sat up, snaked an arm around my lower back, and flipped us so that I lay on the floor, his body now the one in charge, pounding away between my legs with wild abandon, with not another care in the world.

“Of course I fucking liked it,” Viper spoke, his voice rough in my ear as he leaned his tattooed body down, his hips never stopping. His cheek brushed against mine, his lips hot as he added, “I’ve thought about it every night since.” He pushed into me deep, eliciting a sharp moan from my lungs. “Except I imagine it was me making you cry out like that.”

I shut my eyes, unable to keep myself grounded. The way he spoke, how he fucked me… it all sent me over the edge, tumbling down into the rabbit hole of carnal bliss and bodily pleasure you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else in the world. Every single part of me caught fire, my belly burning with desire, and I cried out loudly.

This was it. This was it for me, I knew. I would never escape this family, now that they’d caught me. I was in their web, but unlike all the other insects caught on the web, I wasn’t struggling. I was perfectly fine where I was, waiting to be drained of all life from whichever spider got to me first.

Viper’s hips thrust a few more times, but it wasn’t too long before his body followed suit, the pleasure becoming too much for him to handle. His top half tensed when he came, and the lips that had been grazing my cheek lowered to my shoulder, where he bared his teeth and bit me. Not hard, but hard enough to leave a mark, hard enough to stop himself from doing anything other than grunting when he shot his cum inside of me.

A biter. Viper was a biter. Who knew?

By the time he pulled his cock out of me, we both breathed hard. I could feel his heart racing through the muscles on his chest, and I knew mine did, too. Viper lay beside me, staring at the ceiling, and I did the same, wondering why I always needed to push myself to feel alive.

Normal people didn’t need to feel pain or pleasure to know they were alive. Normal people didn’t seek to destroy themselves from the inside out like I did. Being normal… I’d never be that, but you know what? That was more than okay. Sometimes life was just too fucking boring when you were normal. Give me a bat and a psychotic criminal family any day, and I’d be happy.

Happy.

Me.

That didn’t sound quite right, but I couldn’t fight the feeling of contentment rising inside of me. Even though it was a fleeting feeling—it disappeared in less than a few minutes, once my heart rate calmed down and I no longer rode the high of fucking Viper—at least I knew I was capable of it.

Lola Harding could be a happy girl again. Go fucking figure.

Days passed. You’d be surprised what you could get used to. Being stuck in a house, constantly under guard, surrounded by men who either wanted to fuck you or kill you—or both—it was actually kind of fun. To think, this all started out with a little murder.

A little murder, a little kidnapping… the usual, you know. The meet-cutes in the movies were usually a lot tamer than my meet-cute with this family and its wild sons, but who could complain when it led me here?

I sat with Mike in the piano lounge. Once again, I was at that piano, fiddling with the keys. Mike made no moves to come sit by me, no matter how many times I whined for him to. I think Tony making fun of him that day had embarrassed him, so he refused to do it. A pity.

Sylvester stood at the foot of the piano, his hands in his pockets. He wore a dark grey shirt, its sleeves down to his wrists, tucked neatly into his pants. The way he watched me… I knew where his mind was. He wanted to bury that clean-shaven face between my legs.

That, or his cock.

He made no moves to even try to hide his desire for me, but I supposed that was also because Daddy Luciano kept himself away from me, refusing to see me still, since I’d killed one of his boys.

Maddox? Still hated me. Still hate-fucked me every chance he got, too. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t going to complain. No one else could hold a torch to Maddox when it came to the hate-fucking. Or, you know, a knife. He liked those.

Tony and Viper weren’t here; Viper because it wasn’t his time to watch me, and Tony because he was off doing some job or something. It’d been quiet on my front, but I hoped to get another job soon enough, flex my skillset a bit. Get out of this house and make someone bleed. The usual.

The two men who seemed to handle the grittier jobs—jobs I’d tried unsuccessfully to join in—Roman and Carter, stopped by every now and then. I talked to them a bit; apparently Roman had his own girl that he liked watching. He and Carter shared her.

I would be the first to admit I was curious about the long-term arrangement of that whole thing, because frankly it was something I wouldn’t mind doing. I was pretty much sleeping with these guys anyway; why not make it official? I could be their bitch they sent to attack their enemies and their slut in bed. The only one who’d have a problem with that was Maddox.

I was silly for wanting that, though. Eventually this game of house would come to an end, and I’d be buried six feet under. That, or incinerated at the same place they’d taken Dickless. Or tossed off a pier somewhere with weights tied to my ankles. Ooh, or—

Okay, clearly I could go on and on with the ways this family could possibly get rid of me.

My fingers currently played one of my favorites, and I wondered if Mike or Sylvester knew what it was or who it was by originally. Ever since I was young, I had an unhealthy obsession with the oldies; the music was cleaner back then, simpler and sweeter, the voices made of honey. I loved it, I did. That wasn’t to say the music of today didn’t hit me, but nothing gave me the chills like good ole Frankie.

“You play really well,” Sylvester noted, watching me. “I don’t think this piano has seen this much use in years.” A pause before he added, “It’s nice, hearing someone play on it.”

Mike leaned on a wall nearby, his arms crossed, but I spotted him nodding, as if in agreement.

“I had piano lessons for years,” I said. “The ability has always stuck with me, I guess.” My fingers moved upon the ivory keys in a flourish, at one with the melody they played. “I haven’t touched one since I left home.”

Sylvester drew his hands out of his pockets, leaning on the backside of the big, black piano as he leveled his blue stare at me. His blonde hair looked a bit long, like it needed a cut, but all in all, he was still as handsome as ever. “Why did you leave home? Why didn’t you go to school or something?”

I could’ve made a joke about how I realized I had the sudden urge to kill, but that wouldn’t be the truth, anyways. Plus, it would only remind him about his brother who I’d murdered, so I figured it was best to avoid saying anything like that.

“I had no choice,” I said. Technically, I supposed I could’ve stayed, but I bet I knew where that would’ve led me: in a mental institution, with only one person as my visitor. He would’ve kept me out of jail, because then he’d have no access to me.

No, he would’ve blamed it on some mental issue I had—which was true, I had a lot of them—but it wasn’t a disorder. It wasn’t something I was born with. It was from the trauma of all those years of—

My fingers messed up on the keys, not hitting the next right notes. Fuck. I always fucked up when I thought about him.

“Where did you come from, Lola?” Sylvester’s question was eager, and I could tell just by looking at his face he was genuinely curious about me, my past, what made me into the person I was today.

I spoke the truth without actually telling the truth: “Hell.”

Sylvester turned to glance at Mike, and I resumed playing. He would get no more out of me today. That was enough sharing. Clearly, I never did well in kindergarten, never learned how to share properly, how to let anyone in.

It was right then Maddox waltzed in, looking like he wanted to strangle me. So, the usual expression for Maddox. He wore a shirt whose top two buttons were undone, showing off his collar bone and the tattoos on his chest. He never wore any undershirts, and I couldn’t help but let my mind wander off and imagine how sexy he’d be fully nude.

Maybe one of these days I’d get lucky and see him stark naked.

He must’ve heard what I said, for as he sauntered to his brother’s side, he muttered, “Oh, I don’t believe that. Look at you. I bet you came from money.” Maddox sent a smirk to his brother before rounding the piano and leaning over me, whispering, “The way you hold yourself, the way you look at everyone—you didn’t come from hell. Hell doesn’t make them like you.”

I was slow to turn my face and meet his eyes. His top half was bent over, less than half a foot away from me, so close I could feel his breath when he exhaled. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to bite his lip again—except this time, I wanted to fucking tear it off.

So, because I didn’t know when to leave things be, I hissed out, “If I came from heaven, I don’t think I would’ve killed your baby brother—” A hand shot out, curling around my neck, and I laughed.

His grip tightened, and he was seconds from slamming my head down on the keys when Sylvester reached him and tore him off me. “Maddox,” he said, pushing him away.

“What?” he hissed, pointing at me. “The bitch said—”

“You made an assumption about me that was wrong,” I cut in, earning a concerned glance from Sylvester and a furious one from Maddox. Mike, to his credit, only appeared semi-interested in the conversation. “You think you’re the baddest shit to ever walk this town? You think keeping me here, making me do whatever you want, is hell? You could tie me up and peel my skin off inch by inch, and you know what? It still wouldn’t be as bad as the place I grew up in.”

My fingers were tense now, hovering over the keys. I wanted to play, I wanted to release the pent-up anger inside of me, but I didn’t know how. A piano wouldn’t fix it. I’d tried for years to become someone new, and right now I wondered if it was just too much, if I could never truly let it go.

“Mommy and daddy had an angel,” I whispered, my eyes falling to my hands. Seconds ticked by, and for a moment, my hands were coated in blood, covered in bright red goo, wet and warm and drippy. And then, in the next moment, the vision of bloodied hands was gone. “But it wasn’t me.”

Because I didn’t want to answer any of the questions Sylvester would surely ask at that, because I couldn’t bring myself to meet Maddox’s furious stare, I closed my eyes after setting my fingers on the correct keys, restarting the same song I’d been playing before.

Only this time… this time I did something I hadn’t done in years.

This time I sang.

I didn’t do the song as much justice as old Frankie did, but I liked to think I did it well. My voice was smooth, effortless, the kind of voice everyone who sang alone in the car thought they had, the kind of voice you could feel in your soul.

What song? It was quite apropos, considering.

Frank Sinatra’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin.

In a perfect world, in a world where helpless girls were not hurt again and again by those who were closest to them, I’d love singing. I would sing every day, whenever I could. I would share my musical gift with the world, swallow everyone in my melody, but this was far from a perfect world, which was why I never sang anymore.

Why sing when the honeyed voice only brought devils to your door?

I might’ve run through every single Frankie song I knew, and that was a lot, let me tell you. I kept my eyes closed, fighting the emotions threatening to rise inside of me, my past trying to push out and take hold of me. I ignored Sylvester’s questions and anything else Maddox said. I tuned out the world and tried to get a hold of myself as I sat there on that piano bench.

Why did everything feel like too much now? Why did my past and my memories keep coming back with a vengeance I couldn’t turn away from? Why could I still feel those hands, picture those eyes… why did I still feel like that little girl, used and abused?

By the time I opened my eyes, my voice was sore. My voice was sore, Maddox and Sylvester were gone, and Viper had taken Mike’s place. The outside world had darkened, and though my stomach was hungry for dinner, I still didn’t feel quite right.

I dropped my hands off the piano, letting them fall to my lap as my shoulders drooped. Viper was by my side the next moment, offering me a glass of water. I was measured in taking it, flicking my eyes up at him in thanks as our fingers touched.

“For what it’s worth,” he told me, “you do have a beautiful voice.” Once my hand safely gripped the cup, his arm dropped to his side and he moved to stand a few feet away, giving me distance.

Maybe I should’ve thanked him, but I didn’t. I couldn’t really say anything, instead sticking to my silence as I took a sip from the cup.

Little did I know that someone had heard me sing, and that someone would want me to sing again.

Chapter Twelve – Richard

Some might find it difficult to keep an eye on the city, on the comings and goings of its people, on the dealings we had with so many others. The bribes, the threats, the favors, the killings—the list could go on and on, and even then, the work was never done. There was always something more that could be done, another foolish idiot who thought he could stand against us.

Usually I sent Roman and Carter to deal with the people who we could not threaten to back down, the ones who needed a more permanent solution. The girl—Lola, her name was—would be good for operations that didn’t require such finality.

Sylvester had told me how she’d performed. She’d done well instilling fear into her mark, and she’d taken a bat to him to remind him of his place with no hesitation. He’d told me she looked as if she’d had fun while doing it.

She probably did. She was the Night Slayer, supposedly, the killer of men in the night. She’d killed a good number of men in this city, my youngest son included, and for that, I hated her more than I’d ever hated anyone else.

It wasn’t that she’d killed other people, but Mario? Mario was a good boy. He wasn’t a fan of what this family did, so he tried to go off on his own. Every now and then I’d bring him back, try to make him realize that without us, he was nothing, just another face in the crowd, but he never seemed to care.

And now he was dead, a pile of ashes in the gilded urn sitting on the edge of my desk in my office.

That was why I hadn’t given her another job. Why would I want to give her something she would enjoy doing? Sylvester had clearly been blinded by her looks, or something of the sort, because every time I brought her up, he jumped to her defense, as if he was her personal savior.

Don’t make me laugh. Or shout. It was ridiculous in every way.

The more I thought about it, the more I agreed with Maddox. Now, Maddox often did things without thinking, it was true. He was the bull instead of the calculating man I’d tried to teach him to be. Usually I did not agree with his way of doing things—and I’d so much as said so the last time we spoke, after he’d been gone for days and worried me to no end—but as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I wanted that girl dead.

I was smart about it, knowing we could use her for something, but I wanted her dead all the same. I wanted to hear her screams rise through the night air, to make her personally regret ever laying a finger on my son. I wanted to hurt her in all the ways she’d hurt me by making me lose my youngest.

I hated her. I truly did. I didn’t think I’d ever hated someone so much before—other than Bianca, but that was a whole different can of worms, there. Bianca, the boys’ mother, was long gone out of this house. It’d been years since then, and yet some days it still felt like yesterday.

Time itself seemed to drag on slowly, crawling along, probably because that girl was living under my roof, eating my food, breathing my air, among other things. I wasn’t stupid. I knew both Maddox and Sylvester had been with her, and I knew they’d continue their dalliance with her until she was dead. It was pointless of me to try to stop them from wetting their cocks in her, so I simply turned away from it.

Let them make their own mistakes, right? Only… that was the reason I let Mario go, why he had his own place. Why he was now dead.

Fuck it all. This wishy-washy mentality I’d had ever since allowing that girl into my house was annoying.

I stalked through the house, quietly furious, my normal mood since Lola had made herself at home here. My suit felt tight, snug on my body, almost suffocating, although I supposed that could be the pressure I constantly felt—the pressure to keep the balance, to keep the Lucianos above the DeLucas and remind everyone in this town who they owed their allegiance to. Us, not them. It was enough pressure to crack any lesser man, but I was no lesser man.

I was Richard Luciano, the head of the family, and I was the be-all, end-all where Lola was concerned. I truly wanted her dead, but logically, I knew killing her would be a waste. There were always instances when having someone expendable came in handy, and I would much rather throw her to the wolves than Carter or Tony or Viper.

Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was the whole reason she was here, but as I stalked through the hall, I heard the faintest sound. My feet stopped, and I tilted my head, trying to hear it better. Too soft; I needed to get closer.

I came upon the room where I kept the grand piano, though I stopped myself from barging in. From what it sounded like, both my sons were in the room, as was her guard and, of course, Lola herself.

Because that was her, making that sound. She was singing and playing the piano.

And, more surprisingly, she was doing them both quite well, almost like she was made to perform.

I stood near the archway, moving to lean my back upon the wall as I listened, my eyes rising to the ceiling. Her voice was soft but strong, the kind of voice that knew when to bellow out the melody and when to whisper it, smooth and sweet like velvet. It flowed over me, forced me to close my eyes in spite of myself.

A voice like that… it was heaven sent. Heaven sent and attached to a demon who wore a pretty face. A voice like that could whisper lies and truths in the same sentence and you’d be none the wiser. It was a tone, a timbre I could listen to for hours on end, even if it came from the girl who’d killed Mario.

And then it hit me, what I could use Lola for.

Pushing off the wall, I walked away from her, listening to her voice become fainter and fainter as more distance grew between us. I waited until I got to my office, shut the door and sat down at my desk before pulling out my phone and giving Roman a call.

The man answered within two rings; he was always at my disposal, ready to leap into action. This time… if things went how I wanted them to, he wouldn’t be the one who’d need to leap. “Richie,” he spoke. “Got another job?”

“Maybe,” I said, leaning back in my chair. Its leather was worn, but it was comfortable. My office was nothing but dark wood and equally dark walls, the lighting dim. “Didn’t you mention a new club was opening up on the other side of town?”

“Yeah,” his low voice grunted. “Word on the street is it’s a front for the DeLucas.”

The DeLucas would never deal in the type of club the younger sect of the city loved going to, the ones where they drank and danced the night away—the type of club where Lola marked my son as her next target. No, this type of club was something more elegant, the kind where its patrons smoked cigars and diamonds studded the ears of every woman there.

“The job I have is for Carter, not you,” I said, and I knew right then and there I had his full attention. Everyone knew Roman; he’d been with me for years now. Carter was less well-known; if he shaved his face, cut his hair and dressed nice, he’d be unrecognizable… and perfect for what I’d need him for.

“Don’t tell me you want to send him over there. If they even suspect he’s one of us, they’ll kill him.”

“Then he best be careful,” I warned. I was not one to send off someone to die, but I had faith in Carter. He’d been under Roman’s guidance for years, though not as many years as Roman had been under mine. He was the best enforcer I had; I didn’t do this lightly, but after hearing Lola sing and play, it was perfect.

Roman never asked unless it was important. This time, it was, for he said, “Why? Why send Carter to the club?”

Silence overtook me, for I didn’t want to tell him the reason. Alas, beating around the bush wasn’t my forte. “I heard the girl singing,” I spoke after a while. “She sounds like an angel. If we can get her in the club as entertainment, we’ll have our way in.”

“You trust her to do this?”

My jaw ground, and I bit out, “No, but if I have to sacrifice someone, it’ll be her. Besides, Carter will be with her anytime she performs. Her talent agent or something like that. He can watch her to make sure she doesn’t turn.”

Roman let out a sigh. It was a sigh of defeat, for he knew nothing he said would change my mind. This was the plan, and no matter what happened, this was what we would do. “All right. I’ll tell him. When do you want him to go down there?”

“As soon as he can. I want Lola singing on opening night.” That might not be possible, but I didn’t care. I’d have Lola there every night, keeping watch on those fuckers. All dolled up, she’d be unrecognizable. Only that realtor had seen her, and I doubted he’d be in the mood to talk to any of his DeLuca clientele about what happened to him.

If he knew what was good for him, that was. If he did decide to talk, well, I’d send Roman to rid the world of him.

I hung up without saying anything more. Roman would call back to update me once there was more to it.

Sending Lola to the other side of town, to where our power was the weakest, it was better than killing her in cold blood. At least she would be used. That’s all she was here for, anyway; to be used until we could no longer use her.

I almost smiled to myself at how perfectly it had all fallen into place.

Chapter Thirteen – Lola

My mood was foul, and I didn’t keep it to myself. I glared at Sylvester, feeling the need to destroy something, to hurt someone, maybe even myself. Hell, nothing was off the table right now, because I was fucking pissed.

He’d come to me right before bed—I’d thought for some hanky-panky-spanky, but no, it had to be for work. My next job for this stupid fucking family.

Daddy Luciano had sent Carter to some new club, I guess, and I had an audition to try out to be one of the club’s singers. Yes, you heard that right: a singer. Daddy Luciano wanted me to sing for the enemy, and frankly I didn’t know what was worse—the fact that he thought he could just use my voice however the fuck he wanted, or the fact that Sylvester didn’t understand why it made me so upset.

“All you’re doing is singing,” he said. “That’s it. It’s really not as big of a deal as you’re making it.”

Oh, that face. That cute, ridiculously handsome face—I could wipe the floor with it right now and not feel bad about it. To say I glared at him was an under-exaggeration; I tore him apart with my stare, piece by piece until he was nothing but torn, bloodied limbs in my head. I killed him a thousand times in my brain, and then I put him back together and killed him a thousand more.

“I’m not a monkey,” I hissed, my fingers curled into fists, nails digging into my palms hard. I stood near my bed, though I really felt like pacing. Pacing, throwing myself out of that window, whatever. “I don’t perform on command.”

Sylvester took a step closer to me, his brows creasing as he studied me. I knew what he was going to say before he said it, and yet when he opened his mouth and said it aloud, it still hurt: “You do for us.”

I looked away, fighting the uneasy feeling rising inside my body, the feeling that I needed to tear out my vocal cords and toss them on the floor, light a match and burn them. I should’ve known singing in front of these guys would only lead to something awful.

Like, fuck, I’d rather torture someone or be tortured myself than stand in front of a crowd of strangers and sing for all to hear.

“I know things have been… different lately,” his voice was softer now, gentler, but that didn’t change the fact that I’d have to be someone else, the girl my parents wanted me to be, the girl who was always on display, always judged and appreciated based on physical aspects and the traits they’d tried to drill into me. My body. My face. My voice. My meekness.

That girl had died, and I didn’t know if I could pretend to be her again. I’d tried for so long and so hard to move past her, to get over it. Well, clearly, the fucking joke was on me, because life kept coming at me, making me think of the past, making me have nightmares and relive that terrible time. This, performing in a club, would be more of the same.

“But this is why you’re here,” Sylvester finished, “to do what my family wants of you.”

Grinding my jaw, I looked at him with fury in my eyes, causing him to stop his approach of me, to halt in his tracks and keep some space between us. Oh, there would be no hanky-panky-er4rspanky tonight; fuck that. “Right,” I said, “I’m here to hurt people for you, to sing for you, and to wet your cocks whenever the fuck you’re feeling horny.”

As far as I was concerned, it was true. I was simply stating facts, and yet at my words, Sylvester gave me a strange look, as if I’d said something wrong. “That’s not—”

I let out a laugh. What was he going to say? Try to tell me that wasn’t how it was, that I wasn’t at their every beck and call for any possible reason, including their dicks? Oh, please. We were both adults here, neither of us wearing the rose-colored glasses of children who thought fairytales were real. We’d seen the grittiness of life, had blood splattered on us, been hurt and used.

Well, one of us had, anyway. Me.

Me, me, me. It was always me and never anyone else, and I hated it with my entire being, because it wasn’t fucking fair. None of this was fair.

“Go away,” I told him. “Go away and let me get some sleep—unless you want me to bend over this bed and give my ass to you—” I sounded like a bitch, but I didn’t care. No one could understand the way I felt. No one.

I must’ve pissed him off, for he only gave me a glare before storming out, slamming my door so hard I nearly leaped out of my skin.

Viper stood near the door, his hands folded across his stomach, watching me with those hazel eyes. He said nothing, but I was too ticked off to wonder what was on his mind. He would side with Sylvester any day; they all would. I was the odd one out here, and I always would be.

“Turn off the fucking light, will you?” I harrumphed, turning my back to him and crawling into bed. My eyes remained open, and it was but a few seconds later when Viper hit the switch and turned the big light off.

Darkness surrounded me, but it felt different tonight. Usually, when I lay down and try to sleep, I could shut everything off, push everything away. Lately, things had been creeping up on me in the darkness—in my dreams, in the club, even in my thoughts when I was alone.

Why couldn’t I fight it anymore? Why did I feel myself unraveling, bit by bit? Eventually there would be nothing left of me, nothing but a pretty shell. For the longest time, that’s what I thought I was, but coming here, spending time with these Lucianos and their crazy selves… I realized I’d been wrong.

I wasn’t empty, just waiting for the right people to bring me out.

Unfortunately for me, the right people were a bunch of assholes who knew nothing about the real Lola Harding.

Tomorrow they’d see her, and I had the feeling she wasn’t going to be too compliant.

The style of the club where I would be auditioning was that of an older gentleman’s club, the kind of place where the fancy and rich in this town came to relax and have a drink and a cigar after a long day. I bet it was also where business deals would be had, which I bet was the only reason Daddy Luciano wanted me in there: to keep an eye on things, on possible DeLuca dealings.

Anytime my family went somewhere that required a bit of dressing up like this, we usually went to the hairdresser, but I’d stared at my vacant face for hours in the mirrors, enough to know how to get my blonde hair to do what I wanted, to look like a bombshell from the twenties.

No fly-aways, my yellow hair slightly curled and pinned to my head.

Makeup, too. Black mascara, black matte eyeshadow, a bit of blush on my cheeks, and a dark red matte lipstick.

The makeup made me look pale, but I supposed that was the point. Being tan wasn’t really important one hundred years ago.

Now, where the outfit was concerned… I had to wear heels, of course. Shiny, four-inch heels that would be hidden beneath my long dress, but still. They made me look taller, got me in the mindset I’d have to be in while I was there.

What mindset was that? Kicking ass and taking names.

And singing. Yeah, couldn’t forget about that part, could we?

The dress I went for was a blue knockout. Its fabric was satin, sheer and free of lace or any diamonds or designs. It hugged my body tightly, tied behind my neck, no sleeves. I wore no bra under it, because the back was plunging. At the bottom, below my knees, it flared out a little, but not enough to be too much. A mermaid cut, I think, though it was hard to tell because I tried desperately to forget certain things.

Alas, some things stuck with you no matter what.

When I was ready, I met everyone downstairs, in the front vestibule. Mike hadn’t given me any compliments, but the man hardly spoke at all, so I was hoping that was why. He trailed me down the stairs, and I found the others were already waiting.

Sylvester and Maddox stood together, talking to Tony. Roman and Carter stood off to the side, discussing something else. Viper was there too, though he had some kind of energy drink in his hand, since he’d been watching over me all night the night before. For whatever reason, he wanted to see me off.

Or maybe he wanted to see me all dolled up and pretty.

I made not a sound as I came down, though when I reached the bottom of the stairs, I made sure to have the heels on my shoes click loudly on the wooden floor, causing every single pair of eyes to dart to me.

Maddox scowled, though I noticed he couldn’t stop himself from checking me out. Sylvester might’ve still been upset about what I’d said last night, for he didn’t compliment me or anything like that. Viper’s mouth dropped open, though I didn’t know why; he’d seen me naked, so I didn’t know why me in a dress would cause him to be speechless.

Believe it or not, Tony was the one who said, “Holy fuck.” I guess I’d take that as a compliment? I wasn’t really sure.

Roman was more like Sylvester in that he wore a suit. He was older than anyone else currently here, and he didn’t look too happy about any of this. Beside him, Carter looked more cleaned up than I’d ever seen him: shaven face, neatly-trimmed brown hair, slicked back with some kind of greasy-looking hair gel, his wide, strong body wearing a suit as well.

He appeared uncomfortable as all hell, of course, so you could tell he wasn’t used to all the weight that came with wearing a suit.

Tony glanced at everyone else, saying, “Really? No one else has anything to say? What the hell, guys? Look at her. She’s… just… fuck.” He said that last part while looking straight at me, and I gave him a demure smile.

Really, I was trying to keep it in, keep all of my feelings bottled down until this day was over. Who knew? Maybe I’d audition and not be good enough to perform at their club. That, a girl could only wish for.

Finally, Viper gathered his thoughts enough to say, “Who knew you could clean up so well?” A weird as fuck compliment, but a compliment all the same, so I turned and gave him a smile.

Maddox wouldn’t say anything; telling me I looked good would add insult to injury. I was the girl who killed his brother, after all. So hung up on that fact, much more so than anyone else here.

Daddy Luciano, obviously, was nowhere to be seen, refusing to see me still.

“Yes, yes,” Roman spoke with a glower of his dark eyes, the intensity radiating off him in waves. “She is stunning. Now—” He turned to Carter. “—you are both aware of what the goal is for today?”

Carter looked like he wanted to swear and say he wasn’t going to do this, but all he ended up saying was, “I bring her to the club, she auditions, we do whatever we can to make sure she gets in.”

He nodded. “Yes, whatever you can.” Those black eyes turned to me, and I sensed a hidden weight behind Roman’s words: do whatever we had to do to get myself a permanent singing gig there.

Whatever I had to could mean sleeping with someone, sucking their dick or becoming their sidepiece, their whore. Great. That was great. I knew I liked to say no one could take it if I was giving it away for free, but lately I’d felt a little differently.

But what could I do besides nod and say nothing? So that’s what I did, and soon enough Carter and I were leaving the house, getting into his sleek, shiny black car.

Carter said nothing for the longest while, getting us on the road. I watched as the scenery passed us by, my reflection in the window angled back at me. I tried not to look at myself, because I currently looked like a doll, like the girl my parents always wanted me to be, the one who kept her head down and did as she was told. A good girl.

“You are aware we could very well be walking into our own graves here,” Carter eventually muttered, his hands tight on the wheel.

“Don’t worry,” I said, turning my head to stare at him instead of the houses we passed by, equally as large and as impressive as the Luciano house. “I’m not afraid to die.”

He scoffed. “Of course you aren’t. I bet you’ve been chasing death for years now.”

His words made me speechless, if only for a moment. “What do you mean?”

“You’re the fucking Night Slayer, a goddamned serial killer. I heard all about how much you enjoyed your first job. You like hurting other people, but I also think a part of it is because you’re searching for something.” He turned his stare away from the road for just a split-second, eyeing me up as if he had me all figured out. “I can see it in your eyes. There’s no life there. You’re waiting to die.”

As much as I wanted to argue with him the moment he said it, he was right. Of course he was. If anyone in this town had a death wish, it was me.

I forced out a smile. “Don’t you worry that pretty head of yours. I won’t fuck this up.”

He practically growled out, “I hope not.”

The club was on the other side of town, a good drive away. Carter was supposed to be my talent agent or manager or whatever, the man in charge of me and my apparently angelic voice. I had to act like a good girl, which would be tough, but I spent the morning trying to shut off all of my emotions after spending the entire night fuming.

When we pulled up to it, we parked on the side of the street. Since it was in broad daylight, the roads weren’t too busy. It was located in the business district of town, surrounded by tall buildings and skyscrapers and four-lane roads. Its outer walls were made of black glass, thick black pillars of marble holding up a golden sign: The Gilded Rose.

A rather large bouncer stood just outside the front doors, wearing all black, his head shaved and thick, dark sunglasses on his head. He saw us approach and shifted his weight, as if he was ready for a fight.

Carter took the lead, talking to him before we reached him, “I spoke with Newton the other day. He’s expecting us.”

The man reached to his ear, where a Bluetooth piece sat, and he said something in a whisper. It was but a moment more before he stepped aside and gestured for us to go in, and as we walked by him, I couldn’t help but wonder if his eyes were on me beneath those glasses.

I stuck closer to Carter as we entered the club. Since it hadn’t officially opened yet, it was mostly empty. The chairs and tables around the area had been set up, but they were still working on the bar area, it looked like. It was a single-floor place, with a stage front and center, all black except for the red curtains draped behind it. Everything that could be lined in gold was, and I had to admit, this place looked nice. A lot nicer than any of the so-called clubs I’d been to, lately.

But that’s because this wasn’t a dancing club. This wasn’t where the Night Slayer could find a new victim.

A man came walking up, meeting us halfway. He held his arms out, grinning as he greeted Carter, “Aaron, I was wondering when you’d bring your girl here. You talked so highly of her, and I admit, I’ve been curious ever since.” Newton. He had to be.

A man in his forties, Newton had blonde hair and dark eyes, the lengths on top of his head a few inches too long, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He wore a sleek vest over a white button-down shirt, along with fancy trousers without a single crease in them. Well-put together, definitely.

I did toss a glance at Carter, wondering why on earth he’d chosen the name Aaron. Surely there could’ve been a cooler name, something that, you know, didn’t start with an A. The name reminded me of another I was trying to forget.

Hard to shut off my feelings when everything in the fucking world was a reminder of that place. Of my parents. Of my fucking family.

Newton turned to study me, and I gave him a smile. Hopefully it wasn’t a crazy smile—my grins usually were. Right now, I had to give off the vibe of a hopeful wannabe singer who would do anything to land this particular gig.

Newton was handsome enough for an older man, I supposed. There were worse men to get on my knees for, if I had to.

“She is gorgeous, isn’t she?” Newton spoke to Carter, talking about me as if I wasn’t there. “Everyone will love her, assuming she sings well.” He reached out, setting a hand on Carter’s shoulder and squeezing; it looked like a gesture between friends, even if I could tell Carter wanted to shrug off that hand instantly. “Now, I already have a few pretty singers lined up, but the way you talked about her, I just had to see what she was about, especially since I’ve never heard of her before.”

“You won’t regret giving her a chance,” Carter spoke, doing his best to not sound pissed off.

Newton dropped his hand, motioning for us to follow him deeper into the club. “Come on. Get her on the stage. I want to hear her.” He led us toward the stage in the far back, and I kept my head low as I headed to the stairs on the side of the stage, taking them one at a time, being sure to keep my posture rod-straight.

The sooner I got this over with…

Well, the sooner I got this over with, the sooner I’d be singing here on the reg, which was so not what I wanted to do. I had no idea if Newton was a DeLuca or if he was just a businessman dealing with them; it didn’t matter. Either way, singing for him in his club was the last thing I wanted.

But here I was. Here I was, unable to do anything but.

“Now,” Newton spoke once I stood before the golden microphone stand, “on our big nights, there will be a live band. On the smaller nights, we’ll have the sound playing through the speakers. Right now, I just want to hear you, dear girl.”

Carter stood beside him, shooting me a look with those green eyes, as if I could read his mind and know what he was thinking.

Leaning my lips against the microphone, I whispered, “Give me a moment, please.” My voice came through the speakers in the ceiling, allowing me to gauge how far I had to be away from it when I actually started singing. There should be a sound booth to adjust the volume, but seeing as how this place was currently only full of people setting up the bar and a few big, scary-looking bouncer guys, I doubted their sound guy was here.

I’d been so furious that I hadn’t spent any time last night thinking about what song to sing, too pissed off that they were making me do this.

It took me a few moments, but after running through some of my favorite songs in my head, I decided on a classic, a song everyone knew. L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole. It would allow me to show off my range, the smoothness of my voice, and the power I could put behind it.

Holding onto the microphone, I began to sing, showering this empty club with my voice and the smooth melody of an oldie but a goodie. They just didn’t make music like they used to. I could feel the words in my soul, the honeyed tone falling from my lips as I put my heart and soul into it.

Singing on the piano… my back had been a little hunched, I was focused on also playing the melody with my fingers, but here? Here there was nothing but the microphone and me, my body straight and my lungs able to breathe in as deeply as they could.

Mommy and Daddy loved making me stand in front of their friends and sing for them during the holidays. At birthdays, at parties… they always acted so proud of my voice, as if they were the ones to thank for it. Maybe they were, in a way. Mother had given birth to me, so I supposed I did owe everything to them.

Everything.

My looks, my voice, the scar on my belly…

On the second refrain, I closed my eyes and put my all into the song, fighting the waves of nausea threatening to rise up inside. Didn’t I want to live? Didn’t I want to prove Carter wrong and show that I could do whatever the Lucianos wanted me to? Didn’t I want to get as much out of life as I could?

I… I didn’t know. At one point in time, I would’ve gladly taken death, but now?

I didn’t know, but I liked to think I rocked the fucking song, anyway, because when I finished, when I opened my eyes and saw Newton and Carter standing there, they watched me with expressions that said it all. They were rapt. Even grumpy Carter.

Neither man said anything, so I leaned in closer to the mic, whispering, “Do you want me to sing another, or…” I let my voice trail off on purpose.

Newton shook his head. “No, my dear, no. Why don’t you have a drink from the bar while I speak with Aaron in the back?”

What could I do besides nod my head in agreement? Both men waited until I walked off the stage to head into a side door together, where I assumed an office sat, where they would sit down and hammer out the details—which, for whatever reason, I would not be privy to, even though it was my voice and my face they’d be using.

Carter didn’t want to go back there with him, to leave me alone out here, but what could he do? It wasn’t like he could tell Newton that I was the very opposite of a free woman, that I belonged to the Lucianos and leaving me out here alone would give me the opportunity to run away…

Again, he had no choice but to go, but to leave me in the club, all alone.

They disappeared, though Carter did toss a look back at me, wordlessly telling me if I hightailed it out of here, he would make sure I regretted it. I stood there for a while, knowing I should be a good girl and do as Newton had said: get myself a drink and down it all.

Something in my throat caught.

I wasn’t a good girl. If I was, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have left that fancy house in such a mess, wouldn’t have stalked the nights and made men regret taking my not-so-drunk ass home. I wouldn’t get as much pleasure as I did from feeling pain or giving it to someone else.

No, I was not a good girl, and I very rarely made good choices, so I did the only thing I could.

I turned on my heels and left the club, telling the bouncers I needed some air.

They didn’t stop me, because who was I to them? Just a girl. Just some talent with a pretty face. They had no idea I belonged to the family Carter worked for, that I was not allowed to go anywhere by myself anymore—not even the fucking toilet or shower, though, thank fuck, Viper and Mike knew better than to stare at me while I was shitting.

When I made it outside, the sun shining on my blonde head, I didn’t stand there and wait. I kept walking, my heels taking me down the sidewalk. I couldn’t fight the nagging feeling in my head, like I was three seconds from losing what little I had left of my mind, so I had to get out of there. I had to get as far away from it all as I could.

I crossed the street, heading to the opposite sidewalk, my pace quick. I didn’t know how long I walked, but eventually the buildings grew smaller, less big-time business and more mom-and-pop. The sidewalks grew busier, too.

I heard a whistle, but I kept going, not daring to stop. If I did, things wouldn’t be pretty.

The whistle grew louder, as if the man, whoever the fuck he was, had decided to trail after me, to follow me. “Where are you going, hmm?” The man whispered, purring out the words as if I wouldn’t be able to resist him.

I ignored him, but he didn’t like that. The man grabbed my arm, stopping me, as if I owed him something. As if I owed him my time, to look at him, to give him anything. I was slow to look at him, at the hand curled around my lower arm.

Just a man. Fifty or so, maybe. Greying hair, wrinkly face. I could smell the tobacco off him. He’d been hanging around the front of one of the local storefronts and took it upon himself to chase me, as if my appearance was too much of a lure to him.

“I said, where are you going?” he repeated.

Again, I said nothing, my mind racing, that nausea deep inside only growing.

“Need an escort?” The man chuckled after saying it, loosening his grip on me but not entirely letting go. The other people walking on the sidewalk steered clear of us, not a single person meeting either of our eyes or lifting a finger to help.

People were fucking assholes. I hated them all.

When I continued to say nothing, he added, “A pretty thing like you shouldn’t be walking the streets alone… unless you’re a corner girl—in which case, I got fifty bucks in my pocket and a car a block away—”

The man didn’t get a chance to say anything more, because I curled my other hand into a fist and punched his throat.

He wheezed, finally releasing his grip on me, my skin all sweaty and tingly where he’d touched me. The man took a step back, coughing, glaring at me. “You fucking bitch.” And since he clearly didn’t know what was good for him, he came at me.

I might be in heels, I might be in a skintight dress and look like a woman who needed a man to protect her, but I could take care of myself just fine.

He lunged for me, and I sidestepped him. My movement was stifled a bit in the dress, but I managed. Before he was able to turn, I swept a heeled foot out, kicking his ankle and causing him to lose his balance.

My blood ran hot in my body, my anger blinding me. I tackled him to the concrete below, resting a knee on his precious dick and punching him hard in the stomach. We had a crowd around us now, but I didn’t care.

There was nothing worse than a man who thought I owed him shit because I walked by looking pretty. Nothing at all.

Everything happened in a blur after that. I might’ve gone a little Rambo on the guy, snapped a finger or two when he tried to grab the back of my head and pull me off him, might’ve made him a little bloody by punching his face so much. The fucker was lucky I didn’t have a knife on me, otherwise I would’ve carved out his guts and strangled him with them.

Think I was joking? I wasn’t. I’d always wondered whether intestines felt like wet sausage links, because they sure as shit looked like it in the movies.

I didn’t know how long I was attacking him, but it was a while, long enough for flashing lights to arrive, long enough for a man in a uniform to haul me off him and shove me in the back of his car. I was pretty sure I was being arrested, but since it had never happened before, I wasn’t quite certain.

That little stunt might’ve fucked everything up, but you know what? I didn’t care. I didn’t care at all.

Breathing out quite evenly, I leaned towards the policeman driving us to the station and said, “Hey, when you get a chance, can you give the Lucianos a call?” Dropping their name would tell me whether or not this particular man was loyal to them.

His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, and I knew right then and there: he was. He was one of the dirty cops the Lucianos had under their thumb, just as they had me. I wasn’t going to be processed. If I had to bet, I’d say I’d be waiting at the station for someone to pick me up.

Chapter Fourteen – Lola

Sylvester was the one who picked me up from the police station, and he wasn’t happy. He kept throwing glares at me, which I ignored dutifully as I stared at my reflection in the window. You’d think, after going ballistic on that guy, my makeup would’ve smeared or something, but it didn’t. A bit of blood splattered on my cheeks was the worse there was, along with the red on my hands.

That policeman had told me to go wash it off, but I refused.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Sylvester growled, his knuckles white as he drove. “You could’ve ruined everything, Lola. Everything. Is that what you want?” He sounded as if he was scolding me, yelling at me, like I should care what he said.

The answer to his question was, of course: I didn’t know, but I didn’t say it aloud. I kept quiet.

“You’re lucky as hell Carter called and said Newton wants you.” He shot a glare my way. “You’re lucky that policeman called me and not my father, otherwise you’d be dead.”

At that, I turned to stare at him, breaking away from my reflection. “You’re not going to tell him?”

He made a sharp right turn, pulling us into an alleyway and parking the car, turning his entire body toward me before answering, “If I tell him, he’ll kill you.” A short response, as if that told me all I needed to know.

But it didn’t, because that didn’t tell me why it mattered, why me living past today meant anything.

“I thought that was the whole point of this?” I asked, my voice quiet. “I thought you killing me was the whole point, Sylvester. Why protect me? Why lie to your father for me?” I didn’t ask him to, nor would I ever.

“You…” He trailed off, reaching for me. He ended up grabbing my shoulder, snaking his fingers toward my neck and pulling me closer to him, across the center console of the vehicle. “A part of me hates you. A part of me wants to see you burn in hell for what you did to Mario.” The fingers around the back of my neck tightened, and I bit my lower lip, anything but afraid.

No, a hand around my neck didn’t scare me, but his words… his words just might.

“But another part of me feels the opposite,” Sylvester went on, his face inches from mine. “Do you think I wanted to send you out with Carter? Do you think I want you to go anywhere where I can’t keep an eye on you? Do you think that I want to see you on your knees for anyone but me?”

This… this was too real. This was halfway between a confession of love and a confession of obsession, of domination, of absolute and total control.

And, what was worse? My gut felt all hot and warm, my thighs squeezing together beneath my dress.

“I’m not telling my father,” he whispered, “because I can’t let you go, Lola.” He pulled me closer, slamming his mouth on mine and sucking the breath out of my lungs, suffocating any moans that might’ve slipped from my mouth and devouring them in his heat and desire.

The hand left the back of my neck, undoing my seatbelt so he could pull my body over to his lap. Hard to do, since I was in a dress, but he didn’t let that stop him. With a growl, he grabbed the bottom of my dress and tore it, ripping the seam right up the side and allowing me to spread my legs and straddle him.

“I need you,” he murmured against my lips, nibbling the bottom one. “I need you so much more than I should.” His cock was already hard, eager to dip inside me, and I felt him working at his belt and his pants to let it out.

I didn’t stop him, because I didn’t want to. Sylvester—and by extension his family—drove me batshit crazy, and I was already crazy to begin with.

Reaching down between us, I pulled my panties to the side once I felt his dick free and lowered myself onto it, letting out a low groan as he filled me. He grabbed my face, holding me still, forcing me to look at him while his cock was in me, while we fucked in this dingy alleyway.

He couldn’t really move much, so it was up to me to grind along that dick. I had no idea why he was so intent as gazing into my eyes, why he had to look at me. Maybe he was hoping to see something in their blue depths; maybe he wanted to see that his feelings were reciprocated. A man like him might be able to love, but me?

I… I didn’t know what I felt, if I was even capable of feelings like those. My ability to love another, to truly love and not just lust after someone else, might’ve been shot to hell thanks to mommy and daddy dearest.

And, of course, that other person who I refused to think about.

Sylvester brought my head closer to his, leaning our foreheads together as we fucked like animals in the car. My skin was on fire, and the majority of me wore nothing; I had no idea how he could fuck in a suit. Just seemed too stifling and oppressive.

My breath was short, the fire inside me burning brightly, hotly. I felt like exploding. He dropped his hands, finding my hips, guiding my pace, helping me to quicken it. Up and down I went, over and over until I edged us both to an orgasm. A dirty, sweaty, confused orgasm.

Don’t get me wrong, it felt great—my body was on cloud nine—but I was so fucking confused, I hated it.

We were both out of breath as I pulled my body off his, adjusted my panties, and climbed back into my own seat. Sylvester stuffed himself away, glancing at me. “I… I picked you up something. It’s in the glove compartment.”

I ignored the fact that his cum would be seeping out and staining my panties, leaning forward and opening the compartment to see just what the hell he was talking about while he put the car in reverse and backed out onto the road.

My eyes landed on it, and I knew what it was immediately. Just because I’d never been on it before didn’t mean shit; it was something every girl knew. As I gazed down at it, my throat closed up, and I knew I would not be able to speak, even if I tried to.

Pills. A packet of pills sat in front of me. Birth control, one of the most common methods, besides a good, old-fashioned condom. Girls who could get pregnant had to worry about all that shit.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. I was one of those sad women who couldn’t ever feel fulfilled in their life because they couldn’t get pregnant, because they were barren or whatever. A woman who spent her nights wondering what it would be like to feel kicking in her belly and push a watermelon out of her vagina.

No. No, no, and—I could not stress this enough—no. Fuck no. That ain’t me. I wasn’t one of those women. I didn’t want a kid, nor did I feel like my life would be useless if I never had one. To each her own, you know? If you wanted a kid, great, go have one or two, and if you didn’t, just fucking use protection. Do whatever the fuck you want with your own life, you know?

And, anyway, I knew I was not mother material. I didn’t want to spend hours pushing out a wailing, bloody baby while pissing and shitting myself, all to be forced to take care of it for the next eighteen to twenty-five years—probably the latter, being realistic in this economy.

It wasn’t like I had a good mother to look up to, either. I didn’t have a good role model for what a good mother would be. She had been, quite literally, the worst mother in the world. If there was a shitty mother award, she’d been the receiver of it annually since I was born.

Until she died, I meant.

“I know it’s late, but… my father will absolutely flip his shit if we end up getting you pregnant,” Sylvester spoke. “I hope to God you’re not already, but with how often you’ve been with us… we’ll handle it, either way.”

I supposed I could’ve said something then, told him he didn’t have to worry about any of that, that I didn’t need the pills he’d picked up for me, nor would I ever need to go to a doctor to get it taken care of.

Did I, though? No, I couldn’t open my mouth, too busy gazing down at the pack of pills on my lap.

They were just pills. Only pills. Twenty-eight little round things, twenty-one of them white, and seven of them brown. Teeny, tiny things that shouldn’t make me feel like I was losing it, but they did.

They made my skin itch and the blood in my veins freeze, a change from how I’d felt mere moments ago when I’d been on top of Sylvester, fucking him like an animal who couldn’t get enough.

Why the fuck couldn’t things just stay the way they were? Why get me the pills, why care about lying to his father for me? Why try to keep me around for longer? I wasn’t worth it. I’d tell Sylvester that, I’d fucking shout it into his face, but my voice wouldn’t come. That lump in my throat only grew as the car ride wore on, as I continued to stare at the pills.

He might’ve kept talking, I didn’t know. I couldn’t hear him. My ears had shut off, my brain going wild. Fucking wild. I zoned out; he could’ve been spilling his deepest, darkest secrets to me, and I wouldn’t have heard any of them because I was too lost in my own head.

A dangerous place to be, you see. The most dangerous, broken place there was.

I liked to think I had everything together, that I was the person I fought so hard to be, the Night Slayer, the girl who didn’t give a real shit about anything or anybody, not even herself. The girl who laughed in the face of pain and danger, muah-ah-ah, but in the end, it was all a lie.

A big, fat, stupid fucking lie, because I was probably the most damaged person alive.

The world passed me by, and Sylvester drove us back to the house. He was the first to get out of the car, heading around it to open my door for me since I was stuck inside, lost in my own head. He pulled on the door and held out a hand for me, which I was slow to take, still clutching the pills in my other hand.

With my dress torn, it was a lot easier to walk in it now, though none of it mattered. My blonde hair had fallen out of its pretty, hairspray-heavy curls, though my makeup remained flawless. As Sylvester led me into the house, everything passed me by in a blur. I hardly felt real, like I was some ghost trying to live a life that I knew wasn’t mine, a body that didn’t belong to me.

Truthfully, it hadn’t belonged to me in a long time.

Once we were in the house, Sylvester finally let me go, and I headed to the bathroom near my room, shutting myself inside after flicking on the light. My eyes landed on the pills I clutched, and without hesitating, I locked the door. I’d made it here before Viper could find me, before anyone else could get to me and watch me.

Before they could yell at me for fucking up and going nuts on that random guy.

Yes, I locked that door, shutting myself inside the room, alone. Alone for the first time in what felt like ever. Nothing but fancy marble tile and countertop surrounded me, all white and light grey, the lights on the wall bright and almost blinding.

I dropped the pills on the countertop, slow to lift my gaze to the giant mirror hanging above it, meeting the stare of my reflection. This time, I stared at myself not in a window, but a mirror, and this mirror showed me everything I didn’t want to see.

The pretty face I wore. The bright blue eyes that seemed to draw everyone in. The tiny button nose that was more cute than anything. The full, red lips colored with matte lipstick. A perfect jawline, high cheekbones, smooth, pale skin… every single part of my face was flawless, beautiful, like I was an angel sent to earth.

I was measured in slipping out of my heels, my height lowering four inches, mimicked in the mirror. After that, I reached for my dress, untying it behind my neck and letting the fabric fall to the floor. My breasts hung free, my nipples hardening into points at the swift change of temperature. Or, hell, maybe they were still a little hard after that quickie with Sylvester.

My hands reached for my hair, for the pins sticking in its length, holding the curled length up and pinning its tresses to the back of my head. Once the pins were out, I dropped them on the counter, letting my hair fall down, cascading over my shoulders in gentle waves.

I stood there in only my panties, nothing else. The air was cool on my skin, and yet I hardly felt it. I hardly felt anything anymore. Staring at myself in the mirror, I barely blinked, unable to tear my gaze away, lest the reflection change, lest she morph into something else. The twenty-two-year-old staring back at me was an angel.

But she wasn’t. She was no more an angel than the devil was a man who fed and clothed and housed the homeless. She was not sent from God, for surely, if she was, he wouldn’t have sent her to the Hardings. Why would God ever send one of his angels into hell when that poor angel could never fight back?

No, the girl staring back at me was nothing more than a fucking liar. A whore. A demon with a pretty face. She was nothing but a bloodthirsty killer whose appetite would never be sated.

My heart beat too fast in my chest, my head feeling light. The room almost seemed to spin around me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I stumbled back, away from the counter, backing myself up to the wall behind me a few feet away. The girl in the mirror did the same thing, and with the added distance between us, I could see the scar lining her stomach.

My stomach. From my belly button to my panty line. Thick and ugly, a type of scar you only got when someone peeled you open without caring what you’d look like after they sewed you back up.

They didn’t have to do it like that. There were other ways to do what they did, and yet they did it this way to remind me—me, as if I was the one doing it, as if I was the one who’d asked for it time and time again. Like I was the sinner.

It wasn’t me. None of it was for me. My parents only wanted a body, they didn’t want me. They wanted my face, my voice… and as for my body, well, someone else had decided he’d wanted that.

My eyes closed, and my head lifted, turning toward the sky. Every single part of me felt wrong, like I was in the wrong body, like this wasn’t really me. I wanted to get a knife and cut myself out of this prison of flesh, give myself the sweet release only death could bring. I wasn’t suicidal—but fuck it all to hell and back, I just wanted it to end.

Though I stood there, alone in the bathroom, though I knew I was by myself, it didn’t matter. The memories were too real, too thick and stifling in the worst of ways. My lungs felt heavy, an invisible weight pressed on my chest, and there was nothing I could do other than let myself be swallowed by it all.

The feelings. The memories. The touch of those hands on my body, the words whispered into my ear. Anything and everything, it all came back to me, clawing to the surface like a zombie rising from the grave.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t do anything.

Stumbling forward, I nearly fell, but I managed to grip the edge of the counter before falling. My eyes were hazy, strange things gathering in their corners: tears. Involuntary in every way. I lifted my gaze to the girl in the mirror, to her pretty, soft, beautiful face. If she wasn’t so beautiful, maybe things would’ve been different.

My breath came out short and erratic, the world swaying around me, but I pushed myself to stand, glaring at the girl in the mirror. She was a fucking joke, and I hated her. I hated her with the intensity of a thousand suns, hated her more than anything else in this world. It was all her fault. If it wasn’t for her, he never would’ve done what he did.

Nothing in my mind made sense, but I knew one thing: I hated that girl in the mirror. I wanted her dead. I didn’t want to see those blue eyes anymore, didn’t want to look upon her heart-shaped face any longer. Fuck that girl. Fuck me.

My fingers curled into fists, rage pumping through my body, and though I still couldn’t breathe, though I couldn’t see straight, I didn’t care. I did the one thing I had to: I punched the mirror, cracking it. I hit it with my fists against and again, tearing at the shards on the wall, causing the glass to break off and fall into the sink and onto the countertop.

I screamed at my broken reflection through the cracks and missing pieces, a single tear falling down my face. There might’ve been a commotion in the hall, shouting for me, for me to open the door, for me to stop doing whatever it was I was doing, but I couldn’t.

I couldn’t stop, because that girl was me, and I hated myself for it.

My face. My body. My scar. My weakness. How I’d let it go on for so long, thinking it would stop, hoping someone would save me. Not my family, not my doctors, not any of my teachers. No one had stopped it, no one had swooped in to save me from my misery. I’d been left in the dark, in the mud and the shit, my angel wings torn from me just as my innocence was.

Blood smeared on what still hung of the mirror, cuts on my knuckles and my hands, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. How could I stop when it was all too much? Why bother stopping now, when it was too late? It was all too late… and this was where I ended up; a serial killer, caught by some mafia family, fucking the brothers of one of the men I killed, desperately hoping they could make me feel alive in a way I’d never felt before.

Too much pressure to put on anyone, especially someone connected to one of my victims. These guys, no matter what they said or did, only wanted me dead.

I grabbed one of the mirror shards in the sink, lifting it up to my face. If they wanted me dead, why not give it to them? Why not do their job for them and save us all the trouble and the time? It’d be the one good thing I could do right now.

My hand curled around the mirror shard, blood oozing from new cuts as I gripped it hard. Someone kicked down the door at that second, and I whirled on them, pointing the tip of the shard at them.

Maddox had kicked it down, his angry frame rising and falling with heavy breaths. Sylvester stood just behind him, his eyes widening when he saw the state of the bathroom and me, the blood dripping from my hands and onto the floor. Pretty sure Tony and Mike were there, too. Maybe even Viper. It was a whole fucking party, but I didn’t feel like playing right now.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Maddox growled out, his dark eyes full of rage.

No one could match the rage I felt inside, though, not even Mad Maddox.

I thought about threatening them, but it would be pointless. There were a whole lot more of them than there were of me, so instead of saying anything, I simply took the mirror shard to my own neck.

Everything happened fast after that. The guys piled in the bathroom, grabbing me. So many hands grabbing me. Maddox held onto the wrist that gripped the shard, bending my wrist backward enough and forcing me to drop it, getting my blood all over his hand in the process. Sylvester took my other hand, but that didn’t stop me from struggling, from fighting, from kicking and screaming and trying to get out.

I wasn’t thinking straight. That much I knew, but I couldn’t calm myself down, either. It was like I was stuck in limbo, in this halfway state, unable to do anything but fight.

The last thing I wanted to do was have them calm me down, to let them overpower me; it was just another reason why this body was useless. When it came to sheer, brute force, a man would always win. Always. To get the better of them, especially when multiple enemies were involved, I had to have surprise on my side.

Right now, I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t fight back, couldn’t get them off me. They all crowded inside the bathroom, funneling toward me, and even though I fought as wildly as I could, it was all for naught.

Tony and Mike took Maddox’s place on my right arm, holding me steady, while Maddox moved behind me, wrapping my neck in his arm and pulling, flexing the muscles under me and making it so I literally couldn’t breathe. My struggling ceased almost instantly, my body growing woozy. The world stopped spinning, sure, but that was only because everything turned black as I was welcomed into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.

Well.

Fuck.

Chapter Fifteen – Sylvester

I’d taken off my suit jacket and draped it around her shoulders to cover Lola’s nakedness before she was tied to one of the chairs we’d brought in from the kitchen. Her head hung low, still passed out, Mike working on tying the rope around her midsection. We were in the same room we’d brought her in all that time ago, only this felt different.

Because it was different.

Lola was still my brother’s murderer, but I’d come to appreciate her other qualities lately, along with accepting how perfectly she fit here. A pretty face with a crazy attitude; she was more like Maddox than anything, but I still couldn’t help the way she made my mind and body react. Even my heart, I’d go so far to say.

Her hands were bleeding, blood oozing from the numerous cuts and wounds on her knuckles, fingers and palms. She’d destroyed the mirror in the bathroom, and when we’d come in, she’d turned a shard onto herself, as if she was about to end her own life.

That, or she wordlessly begged us to stop her, which was what we did. Even Maddox had worked to keep her from hurting herself.

Viper and Tony had left to get some bandages, a bowl of water to clean her wounds with, and the first aid kit. Some of the wounds on her hands might need stitches; we wouldn’t know until we got them clean and really looked at them.

I stood near Maddox, my arms folded over my chest as I watched Mike tie her up. My suit jacket covered her upper body, but her legs were bare, dotted with blood that had fallen from her hands during her freak-out. My heart had hurt when I’d seen her like that, frantic and almost scared. It was not the Lola I knew, but with how she’d been acting lately… I knew we couldn’t let this continue. We had to get to the bottom of it, otherwise our father would force us to get rid of her.

Couldn’t have someone who freaked out and did their own thing all the time. When you had a job to do, you had to do it.

“She’s fucking lucky father isn’t home,” Maddox hissed, frowning at her, as if Lola was awake to see it. “This would be the last straw for him.”

Technically, the one and only straw for our father would’ve been Lola killing Mario, but that was beside the point. As I gazed down at her, as Mike finished with the rope and stood off to the side, I nodded with my brother.

“You’re right,” I said. “Something’s going on with her. This isn’t normal.”

Maddox scoffed. “How the fuck do you know what’s normal for her? You don’t know her. As much as you’d like to know her, you don’t.” I glared at him, and all he did was shrug. “What? I’m just telling you the truth. She’s a fucking timebomb ready to explode, clearly. We can’t send her to do anything for us when she might go nuts again.”

I refused to make any decisions until I spoke with her. I would not sentence her to die right now without letting her explain what the hell was up with her lately. Was it the birth control? I’d thought it was a smart thing to do, considering how often one of us was with her, but maybe not.

Then again, she had gone a little crazy when I’d told her about the singing. Lola hadn’t liked that, either.

“I want to talk to her,” I muttered.

Maddox let out an annoyed growl, but he said nothing, knowing he could not sway me from what I wanted. He was just as stubborn as I was, but I’d bet, with no uncertainty, he was as torn as me when it came to her, too. Going off and disappearing for days… he wouldn’t do that unless he was wrestling with something in his head. I’d bet any money that something was Lola and the budding feelings he had for her.

Tony and Viper returned shortly, everything they’d need to clean her up in their hands. I kept away from her slouched figure, letting them clean her up. Her knuckles were torn to shreds, her hands all cut up, everywhere. The cut in her palm was especially deep, where she’d gripped the mirror shard tightly, the one she’d turned upon herself.

It took them a while, but they cleaned her up, bandaged her hands, and stitched up the deeper ones. The bowl of water Tony had brought in was now red, a stained pink towel hanging into it.

Lola started to come to while they fixed her up, but it took her a while to fully awaken and be aware of where she was: tied to a chair, a callback to our first encounter. Although, instead of being dressed up to go clubbing and claim her next victim, she wore my suit top and panties, nothing else.

She leaned her blonde head back, groaning as her eyes fought to open. Viper went to stand near Big Mike, while Tony folded his arms over his chest and moved to stand behind me. They knew this, whatever would come of this, would be up to Maddox and me. We were the Lucianos here, not them. She was ours.

Her hands flexed, and she frowned, though she did not wince. It was almost like Lola didn’t feel the pain in her hands, and when those blue eyes focused on us, I figured that was the case. Tied to the chair, wearing my suit jacket, she was still a stunner like no other, a gorgeous girl who wasn’t quite right in the head.

But were any of us?

“I like being tied up as much as the next kinky bitch,” Lola spoke, her voice a bit raspy, “but why?” She chuckled, mostly to herself as she shook her head and asked again, “Why? Why all of this? Come on. I killed your baby bro, if you’ve forgotten. Don’t you want to see me bleeding out?”

That egged Maddox on sufficiently, for he pushed past me, leaning down over her as he growled out, “If you’re dying, I want to be the one to do it to you.”

“Understood, boss,” she muttered, sarcasm laced in her reply.

I pulled Maddox back before he could say or do anything else that would rile her up again. The last thing we needed was to send her spiraling. I remembered how she’d looked in the bathroom, bleeding and broken, wearing nothing but her black panties, clutching that bloodied mirror shard as if it was her lifeline. I also remembered the thick scar lining her abdomen, the only part of her that wasn’t perfect.

“I think,” I spoke slowly, cautiously, not wanting to overstep but at the same time knowing I had to, “there’s something bothering you, Lola.” That was probably the year’s biggest understatement, but I didn’t know how else to say it.

This girl… just looking at her, you’d never know she was a serial killer, never know the crimes she was capable of. Lola was not as innocent as her face might suggest, but that might be the point. You didn’t become a serial killer overnight. A serial killer and a mass murderer were two different types of people. She didn’t kill just to kill; she had a preferred target.

Lola smiled at me, but I could tell it was a fake smile, the kind of smile you wore when you really felt like screaming. “Do you want to hear a story?” she asked in a whisper, tilting her head back, her blonde hair a mess. “Well, buckle up, buttercups, because I’ll tell you a story. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t have a happy ending, so don’t go telling this to any kiddies, okay?”

I glanced at my brother, but Maddox’s black stare was too focused on Lola. A quick glimpse around the room told me every single pair of eyes was on her, that Tony, Viper, and Big Mike all waited with bated breath to hear this story.

Me? I didn’t know whether or not I wanted to hear this story, but at this point, what choice did I have? What choice did any of us have?

“Once upon a time, in a land far away, where the houses are just as big as this one, if not bigger, there lived a mommy and a daddy,” Lola began, her voice taking on an overly sugary tone, venom just behind it. “They had everything they wanted—the money, the house, the friends—but one day they realized their lives were empty. This mommy and daddy wanted nothing more than to have their own angel, someone they could put all of their hopes and dreams onto, push out into the world, and tell everyone with a proud smile, that one’s mine.”

So far the story didn’t sound bad, but I knew it was only the beginning.

She continued, “They had one, and she was everything. A beautiful girl who they taught manners to, who, as it turned out, could sing like an angel. They hired a piano instructor to come to the house every week and teach her all she’d need to know. They dressed her up and paraded her around, their own personal doll.”

I ground my teeth, knowing the angel she spoke of was her.

“But she could not be everything to them, for she was a girl. Their name would die out once she got married, so they tried for another. They had another angel, and this time, it was a boy. A boy who was more than everything, a boy who had mommy and daddy’s heart from day one, while the girl tried desperately to impress them. She never did, and she watched her brother grow up, wondering what he had that she didn’t.”

Beside me, Maddox shifted his weight. I could practically feel him seething, though I did not know if he seethed at her story, or at her still, for what she’d said before. With Maddox, you never knew.

Lola went on, “The two angels grew up, but things turned black for her. Her brother, he could do no wrong, decided he wanted something one night, and he came into her room to get it. Told her that everything would be okay, if she would just hush and close her eyes, it would be over soon.” Her voice had started to shake there, but then she pushed the emotion down, whispering, “He lied to her, because, even when he was gone, he was there, in her head, invading her space and her mind just as he’d done to her body. He’d taken away something she didn’t even know she’d had, torn her innocence to shreds.”

Rage boiled inside of me. Her brother had… it was almost too much to think about. No wonder Lola had issues; who could fucking blame her? But, as much as I wanted that to be the end of the story, it wasn’t.

“He made it out like it was her fault, that she was too perfect, shamed her into silence. But then the girl started to get sick, and her parents took her to a doctor, who told them she was pregnant.” Lola flashed us her teeth, grinning as she said, “But don’t worry, because her parents took care of it all. Well, her parents and the doctor. They didn’t ask her where the baby came from, and she was too embarrassed to tell them.

“But then it happened again, and it kept happening, and they kept taking that poor little girl to the doctor, paying him to keep his mouth shut and do what they asked of him. Eventually, the girl spoke up to her mommy, but her mommy shushed her and didn’t want to listen. It was then the girl knew: her parents knew all about what had been happening, and they allowed it. For years, they let it happen, knowing their youngest angel had torn the wings off their oldest, but they didn’t care.”

My hands curled into fists, my jaw grinding. If she’d give me a name, or an address, I’d take care of them. I would take care of those fuckers with no hesitation whatsoever, rid the world of their putrid filth.

“Eventually, the parents decided it was too much of a hassle to keep taking her to the doctor, and putting her on any kind of birth control was never discussed. Mommy and daddy decided to go big or go home, and unfortunately for the girl, they went big. The doctor made it so she could never get pregnant, and listening to her parents’ wishes, he made it so there would always be a scar there to remind her of it, as if this was all because of her. Because she was too pretty, too perfect. How could anyone look upon her and not want to have her?”

Fuck. So the pills were a part of this, only in that she didn’t need them. Now I felt like a grade-A douchebag, but it wasn’t like I’d known. If I would’ve known all of this, I never would’ve brought it up, never would’ve gotten those for her… I never would’ve touched her without getting her explicit consent.

“One day, when the other angel was out of the house, she sat in her room, thinking about it. All of the memories, all of the nights that were stolen, innocence lost…” Lola paused, frowning, no longer grinning like a madwoman. “It became too much. Something inside the girl snapped, and she went down to the kitchen, found the sharpest knife she could, and cut her mother’s throat while she was having a drink after dinner. And then the girl found her father in his study and stabbed him in the heart, again and again until he was all red, until daddy didn’t open his eyes again.

“The girl knew she should wait for her brother to come back, so she could give him his just desserts, but her nerves got the best of her,” Lola said. “She ran. She packed up a single bag and ran away, never wanting to go back to that house, never wanting to relive the horrors she’d gone through. She swore to herself that day she would do whatever she could to make sure no other girl was hurt like she was. Long story short: she was trying for the electric chair until the night she happened to kill a mob boss’s son.”

Her last sentence was spoken flippantly, but no one in the room laughed. Even Maddox’s expression had changed the deeper into the story Lola had gotten. Not a single one of us said anything, though I was sure that was mostly because no one knew what to say.

This girl… she was so much more shattered than any of us could’ve ever known. After hearing that story, how could any of us truly hate her for what she did to Mario? After going through what she did, none of us could judge her, because none of us knew what that was like.

My childhood had been spent learning and becoming a part of this family, but hers had been spent being abused by her brother and being lugged to the doctor, given abortions and, finally, being sterilized.

“I told you,” Lola spoke, straining against the rope holding her back, “I wasn’t made for happy endings. I went from the electric chair to the mob—or mafia, or whatever the fuck you guys are—but you know what?” She chuckled to herself, shaking her head once. “I’m fine with it. Mostly. Lately, I just… it’s like everything decided to remind me of that time, and I’d done my best to push it all away, you know? Pretend it doesn’t exist. You can’t feel bad about something that never happened.”

I understood what she meant, but at the same time, ignoring her past would only lead to more outbursts like the ones she’d had today, and if she wanted to stay, if she wanted to live, that couldn’t happen. It needed to stop.

Out of everyone, Tony was the one who spoke up first, “The police never found you?”

She rolled her eyes, as if that was the stupidest question ever. “Obviously not. I don’t think I’d be here if they did.” Her smartass retort made Maddox smirk, but the moment I saw it, Maddox forced it to turn into a scowl. “Money probably swept it all under the rug, anyway.”

Breathing out evenly, trying to calm myself down, I spoke, “So that means…” I couldn’t say it; I couldn’t say it, because Maddox beat me to it.

“Your brother is still out there,” Maddox growled out. “Still alive and walking around on two feet.” His eyes clouded over, his half-shaven and tattooed head tilting down as he added, “We should change that.”

Everyone in the room nodded along with him, agreeing whole-heartedly.

Lola laughed. “I didn’t tell you that story so you could be my knights in shining armor—” Clearly, because knights would never tie up their maiden or claim to own her like a pet, which my family had. “I didn’t tell you this to get your pity. I… I don’t know why I told you.”

I knew why. Because I’d all but forced her to, and after her recent freak-outs, it had become more than obvious something was indeed bothering her. Little did I know what it was. Her past… it was a horrible thing, not something I’d wish upon anyone. It was impossible not to gaze at Lola in a new light, and whether it was sympathy or pity in my heart, I couldn’t say.

It didn’t matter. Before Lola could say anything else, I grabbed my brother’s sleeve and tugged him out of the room, lifting up a hand to the others, telling them to stay there. Stay there and watch her.

Out in the hall, with the door firmly shut, I met my brother’s dark stare. Maddox didn’t appear too thrilled, which meant, for all his talk and bravado, for all his anger toward Lola, a part of him cared about her.

“I swear to fucking God,” he hissed out, his expression darkening, “I’m literally going to behead that motherfucker.”

His words were akin to how I felt and what I wanted to do, but at the same time, we had to be smart about this. “We don’t even know who he is, and after her story, I doubt she’ll want to tell us.”

“So we look into it,” he said, baring his teeth at me. “I don’t care if it takes a week, or a month, or a fucking year—I want to rip that fucker apart limb by limb.” His hands were clenched at his sides, telling me just how serious he was.

And he was, definitely. It wouldn’t be the first person my brother had torn apart.

I was slow to nod and say, “I agree. I don’t want him alive, no matter where he is or what he’s doing.” Lifting a hand to my face, I absentmindedly rubbed my chin. Lola was clearly still affected by the memory of her brother and her parents and what they did; might as well sweep the gameboard clean and make it so no one from her past could ever hurt her again.

Maybe even that doctor should be found… doing what he did, that wasn’t right, either.

“I know she’s on thin ice when it comes to our family,” I said, to which Maddox lifted a black brow, as if asking, you don’t fucking say? “But I think… I think she deserves something, something to show her she’s not just—”

“Expendable?” Maddox offered. “Bullet-fodder, as our father called her? Our bitch to use whenever and however we like?”

Again, I glared at him. “Yes, all that. I don’t want her to think of us as she would her parents.”

My brother rolled his eyes. “What, then?”

I pulled out my phone, checking the time. It was just early enough, I might be able to put in the order today. “I have something in mind,” I said, and then I walked away to make the call, leaving Maddox near the door. We would not untie Lola until we were sure she was calmed down, until we were certain she wouldn’t flip out again.

The man answered after a few rings, “Hello?” His voice was low, dangerous. I didn’t often like dealing with Fang, mostly because he was a brand of crazy a few notches above Maddox—and yes, it was possible—but you had to do what you had to do.

“It’s Sylvester,” I said, leaning against the wall a good ways down the hallway.

He waited a moment before muttering, “What do you want?”

“I need you to make me something.”

“What?” When I told him what I wanted, what I wanted it to look like, and for him to make it as soon as possible, Fang said, “Give me a week. It’ll take me a while to make the mold.” Before I could say anything more, he hung up.

Hopefully Lola would like what I was getting her, hopefully this little present would help her realize that we were not like her family. As long as she gave her all to us, we could give our all to her.

Chapter Sixteen – Lola

The days passed. I’d like to say they passed in a blur, but they didn’t. They most certainly passed in the slowest possible way, which, frankly, was irritating to little ole me. Ever since that day I had my little freak-out, it was like everyone was tiptoeing around me.

Tiptoeing. Like they thought Lola Harding was fucking fragile, or some other kind of nonsense.

I would be the first to admit how surprised I was that they didn’t kill me, though. I mean, I did raise that mirror shard at them before turning it on myself—and then there was the random dude I’d beaten up before being picked up by the police.

Oh, and then there was me running out of that club while Carter and Newton were in the back talking about me.

Shit, and me having a little freak-out in the club while we were looking for Maddox, too.

Okay, okay, so, yeah… I’d been losing it, a bit. Didn’t know why all of a sudden I felt like I was regressing, but I needed to cut the shit out. Pull myself up by my bootstraps and dust myself off.

You know, I didn’t even know what the fuck a bootstrap was, but I was pretty sure people said that.

They all knew the truth now, after I’d told them that story. The Lucianos knew the truth about me, about what made me the deliciously depraved and semi-crazy girl I was today. Some might be relieved for them to know the truth—but me? Eh, I wasn’t like that. I would rather keep everything tucked away inside than confess my horrible past to them.

I didn’t want sympathy. I didn’t want their fucking pity or anything like that. I just… I didn’t know what I wanted, and that was something annoying in and of itself, you know? Like, come on, Lola, how hard was it to know how you felt deep down?

Hard, apparently.

I liked this crazy family more than I should, which was why I wasn’t going to ask them about why they didn’t kill me, why they’d taken the time to restrain me when I’d lost it and fix up my hands.

I bet, just like my little stint beating that guy up, they weren’t going to tell Daddy Luciano about it. Of course, don’t ask me how they were going to explain what happened in that bathroom.

That had been what I’d thought, but after a few days, the bathroom had been miraculously fixed. New mirror, no shards anywhere to be seen, the blood that had dropped from my injured hands cleaned up, the whole thing generally spotless.

My hands took longer to heal up, which made me pretty useless. I didn’t know what they told Daddy Luciano, but I had no jobs during that time. I’d gotten that gig at the club, just like he wanted, and the club didn’t officially open until next month—although there was some pre-opening thing that I’d have to sing at, but that wasn’t for two weeks yet. Until then, I literally couldn’t do anything other than rest up and wait for my hands to heal.

It was almost unbearable, how slow time crawled.

And the guys? Oh, the guys spent time with me, but I did notice a marked difference in them. They were more careful around me, as if they’d thought I’d shatter if they pushed too hard. Even Maddox wasn’t as grumpy or as angry as he usually was. Dicks didn’t find their way inside me at the rate they did in the past. Viper and Mike still took turns watching me, and Tony made it a habit to stop over every so often, just to see me.

All in all, I wanted to roll my eyes at it. At them. At how they were acting. Some girls might be thankful for a switch in demeanor, but me? Come the fuck on. I didn’t want them to be kind, didn’t ask them to be my saviors. I wanted to revel in their chaos until the day I died; was that too much to ask?

I guess so.

With my hands fucked up, I couldn’t play the piano. I couldn’t really do anything besides watch TV and wish things could go back to normal, so that’s what I did.

At least, that’s what I did until eight days passed from my freak-out session. My hands were scabbed up, no longer needing bandages on them to keep the wounds from bleeding all over the place. Out of all of them, my palm hurt the most, but I supposed that was because it was the deepest cut. I’d held onto that mirror shard like it was my lifeline.

Or… my deathline? Yeah, I didn’t think that was a word, but it fit better than lifeline did.

I currently sat on the couch, my legs tucked under me, watching whatever stupid show was on TV. The news had gotten boring since the Night Slayer hadn’t claimed any recent victims—a result of me being stuck inside this house—and I’d grown tired of hearing the celebrity gossip.

I wanted to go out and make someone bleed. I wanted to… I wanted to let everything go, but this family would never let me, because now I was one of them. At least until they decided I’d made enough use of myself.

It was early afternoon, so Mike was with me. His large frame slouched near me on the couch. Things had gotten a bit more relaxed when it came to Viper and Mike, at least. They didn’t hover on the outskirts of whatever room I was in, watching me like a hawk. They still watched, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t so creepy.

“What’s your favorite TV show, Mike?” I asked, leaning back as I shot him a look.

His long brown hair was pulled into a low and loose ponytail, a few of the shorter strands having escaped and now framed his face. His hazel eyes were on the TV until I’d spoken, and then those pretty orbs darted to me. He didn’t answer, sticking to his silence, as usual.

He was cute, I supposed, even though I wasn’t usually a fan of long hair on a man. I thought about scooting closer to him and taking that ponytail out, running my hands through that hair and giving him a wild look—he’d totally look like a sexy lumberjack—but with the scabs on my hands, I knew it was best to save a move like that for later.

Just when I was going to make a comment about Mike’s silence, for I did enjoy teasing him about it, his phone went off, and he picked it up, saying nothing as he listened to whoever was on the other line.

I’d admit, I was curious. Mostly because how the hell could you have a phone call when one of the people taking part in the phone call didn’t talk?

Mike hung up shortly, stuffing his phone back into his pocket as he got to his feet, towering over me on the couch. Wide and strong, a few inches over six feet tall; he was literally like a giant. Climbing him might be fun.

“Dude,” I whispered, trying to lean to see the TV around him, “has anyone ever told you that you make a better door than a window?” I chuckled. “I bet, because you’re so big, you probably always get in the way—”

For the first time in a while, Mike opened his mouth and said, “Come on.” He said nothing else, however, as he turned away from me and headed out of the room, clearly wanting me to follow him.

That was odd. So odd I had to get up and trail after him. I found him walking in the hall, skipping to his side within moments, giving him a smile as I nudged him in the elbow. “What’s going on? There a party in the house I don’t know about?” Hah, as if. I didn’t think the Lucianos ever partied. Maddox? Sure, it was obvious he knew how to party. But Sylvester and Big Daddy? I didn’t think so.

Mike only grunted at me, and I laughed.

We ended up going to the room where the piano was, and my heart sank a little when I saw its big, black frame, but then I realized the room was anything but vacant. Sylvester and Maddox were there, as was Viper and Tony. The whole gang, so to speak. The whole gang, minus Daddy Luciano and that Roman and Carter guy. I was sure there were more of them, but those had been the only people I’d met while here, so far.

Sylvester wore a suit, as he usually did, its fabric a dark grey while his undershirt was a sheer black. No tie today, and I saw the top button near his throat was undone. His blonde hair wasn’t slicked back for once, its tresses falling over his forehead and his blue eyes.

Beside him, Maddox stood, his arms crossed. He didn’t appear too happy, but that was just Maddox. He wore a black shirt with its sleeves rolled up, showing off the tattoos on his arms. The side of his head had recently been shaved, the thick tattoos there for all to see. The other half of his head, with hair black as night, had been trimmed. Though he’d been on better behavior lately, those black eyes still looked as if they wanted to kill me.

Viper stood near the window, holding his tattooed hands before his stomach. Those hazel eyes darted to me the moment Mike and I walked into the room, telling me something, but I couldn’t tell what that something was.

Tony was the only one smiling at me, dimples on his cheeks. Compared to the gods of darkness around him, Tony looked a little geeky, but he was still somehow able to hold his own amongst them, his green eyes alive with emotion as he grinned at me.

It was only after studying each of them that I saw a box resting on the back of the piano. Not even a foot wide, a few inches tall, all white, all around. Was that… was that for me? My heart did something funny then; the last time Sylvester had gotten me something, it’d sent me off the edge. Those fucking birth control pills.

But this… this was obviously something else.

“Uh,” I spoke, glancing between everyone. “What’s this?”

“I wanted to get you something,” Sylvester spoke as he watched me inch toward the box. Whatever it was, it was for me, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. “You never were your parents’ angel, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be ours.”

Maddox shifted at that, as if he wanted to bring up the fact that I’d killed their brother, but he didn’t, to his credit.

With everyone watching me, I slowly lifted my hands to the box, pulling off the lid. When I saw what sat inside, my breath caught in the back of my throat, and my legs actually felt a little weak. This… this was probably the most beautiful, sweetest thing anyone had ever given me.

My hands trembled only a little as I reached for it, lifting it up and out of the box. Made of shiny silver, all metal, even the small chain that was meant to go around my head to keep it on. I gazed down at a metal mask.

The main frame of it was pure steel, if I had to guess, shiny and molded to look like a skull. The jawbone and nose holes, up to the cheekbones. Smaller, more intricate and delicate metal wire and other designs were welded onto it, giving it an eerie, ethereal, yet still spooky as fuck look. Judging from its size, once it was on me, it’d cover the lower half of my face, along with my nose and nose bridge.

“For you to wear, when we have jobs,” Sylvester explained, even though he didn’t have to. “Since you’ll be one of the performers at the Gilded Rose, I figured it would be good for you to hide your face when you’re out wreaking havoc on the town. Speaking of which—” He paused as he glanced to the others. “—whenever you’re feeling up to it, we do have another job for you, and this one doesn’t involve singing.”

I let his words sink in, my gaze still on the metal mask. It felt strong, the kind of mask someone who took great care in their craft would make, not something you could just order off eBay or Amazon. It took me a while, but I felt a smile creeping along my face, and then I said the only thing I could, because it was true: “I love it.”

I absolutely fucking loved it, and I couldn’t wait to wear it while watching someone bleed.

These guys… they knew me too well.

Hi, guys! Shadowed Heart was fun, huh? A bit wild, a bit bloody, but fun and full of psychos. My favorite!

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Want more of Roman and Carter? Check out Voyeur!

Table of Contents

Chapter One – Lola

Chapter Two – Lola

Chapter Three – Maddox

Chapter Four – Lola

Chapter Five – Sylvester

Chapter Six – Lola

Chapter Seven – Viper

Chapter Eight – Lola

Chapter Nine – Lola

Chapter Ten – Maddox

Chapter Eleven – Lola

Chapter Twelve – Richard

Chapter Thirteen – Lola

Chapter Fourteen – Lola

Chapter Fifteen – Sylvester

Chapter Sixteen – Lola