Chapter 1
Alessandro
6 months ago
Here we fucking go.
Blood and adrenaline hum through my veins. The heavy, strong beat of my heart thumps in my chest like a war drum. The rage–layers and layers of it built up inside me over the twenty-eight years I’ve been alive—is a fiery beast, uncaged, rearing its head and roaring.
The Beast was born when I was sixteen and my mother forced me to take a life for the first time. Knowledge is power, they say. But this kind of knowledge is like when Eve bit into that juicy fucking apple. It’s a sword slash to the throat of innocence, an awakening to the battle of good and evil in your own soul, and a brutal lesson in the permanence of death.
My victim was one of our own soldiers who’d been caught selling the locations of our warehouses. Slitting someone’s throat is harder than you think. Both mentally and physically.
While I went numb and disconnected, the Beast rose, first in my imagination and then solidified with every kill after that, its claws and teeth shaped by madness and turmoil.
It has the reins now and will do what is necessary. Good for me, but not so good for thestupratore—stripped naked and bound to the round wooden target in the basement of The Showroom, a mafia-owned strip club in downtown New York City. It’s cold and damp down here, but my body is on fire from the inside. I can tell by the way my armed soldiers by the door keep watching me—they see the wild inferno rising inside me, the bloodlust creeping into my expression.
My vision blurs with a red mist. My muscles quiver with anticipation as I pick up my favorite throwing knife from the table. It’s heavy steel and as long as my forearm. Good for deep penetration. I wrap my fist around it in a hammer grip, the dark script of my hand tattoo flexing:Memento Mori. Remember that you will die.
It reminds me to live.
I turn to face the predator, roll my wide shoulders as he begs for his life.
“Please, Alessandro,” he whines through a swollen, busted nose. “I got some bad coke. I was out of my mind... I’m s-sorry.”
My forearms flex. A ferocious rage pulls my lips back, and I grit my teeth. “You tried to force your tiny prick into one of our dancers without her consent. There is no forgiveness for that. And no mercy.” With a smooth sweep of my arm, the knife sails through the air and sinks next to his liver with a thunk and a scream. The scream turns into a sob.
Pussy.
“Please…”
A tiny bit of the rage is satiated as I watch his blood drip onto the plastic sheet spread out below his body. I am no avenger of wrongs, no white knight. I don’t feel anything for the woman he tried to rape. Unfortunately, my soul is too empty for such emotions as empathy or compassion.
Fury is the only flavor of emotion that runs through me. The fury is rooted deep, a seed buried in my psyche long ago that was fed over the years by many things. The ideas my psychotic mother planted, the sense of helplessness I’ve had to live with knowing my life is not my own. When free will is suppressed, that energy mutates, transforms into a monster that will always choose war. It’s fascinating alchemy.
I’ll admit, I like the power that comes with taking a life. Not because I feel like I’m playing God, but because it brings the universe closer to balance. It’s simple math, really. There’s so much evil, so much darkness, greed, and violence in the world. Subtractingsome of that darkness is giving the light more room to shine. Then maybe one day I’ll be able to see it again.
That light I once felt…
I shake my head, bringing myself out of my thoughts. “Are you pleading for your lifecodardo? You should be pleading for a quick death. Don’t worry.” I pick up a second throwing knife, balance it in my palm. “I know how to avoid your organs and blood vessels while we play. You won’t bleed out until I’m ready for you to die.”
I chuck the second knife, watching it slam into him, hitting my mark an inch from the first knife, still not striking anything vital to life. The dual thin rivers of blood running down his pale flesh are like a work of art.
His sputtering cries become moans and his head drops.
I stride over to him and grip him by his greasy hair, lifting his head. “Don’t you fucking dare pass out on me.” With a snarl, I return to the table and find the smelling salts and a Ka-Bar knife.
“Wake the fuck up, Leon,” I whisper roughly, waving the smelling salts beneath his nose.
He stirs. His bloodshot eyes blink open and then fill with terror. Despite knowing he can’t get away, he struggles in the leather binds. “Plea—”
“Fuck!” I bark, unable to hear one more goddamnpleasefrom this waste of human flesh. Keeping our eyes locked, I reach up and slash the carotid artery open on his neck. A spray of warm bloodhits my chest and face. His pupils blow out with fear. “It’s quicker than you deserve.”
It only takes a few moments for his eyes to empty of life, his struggle to cease.
Well, that was unsatisfying. But then again, each rotten life I take, each soul I liberate from a body that didn’t deserve to walk this earth, is like shoving a demon back into hell where it belongs. I should get a medal. The Beast is a fucking demon slayer, cleansing the earth for the pure of heart.
Like her…
