Deadly Deceit (New York City Syndicate #1)

1. Delancy

Delancy

T he kills become easier.

Every death by my hands adds a layer of numbness, sending me deeper into a pit where humanity can’t survive.

I was twelve years old when I took my first life. I was ordered to kill or be killed. It was a lie. I was going to die no matter what.

When I woke up from a coma a week later, hooked up to machines and pain ricocheting throughout my body from being stabbed and left for dead, I shut down.

No words. No emotions. Nothing.

I was asked about what happened. About the men responsible. Paper was shoved in my face trying to get me to write it down since I refused to speak. My father tried to beat the answers out of me, leaving me with bruises and a busted lip that never healed properly.

Still, I did nothing.

Specialists were brought in, one after another, until I was finally diagnosed with traumatic mutism. My father sent me away to a youth psychiatric hospital because he didn’t want to deal with a useless child ; something he said to my face before backhanding me across the cheek.

The ring he wore on his middle finger cut my skin deep, resulting in another scar to remember him by.

I spent the first year in that hospital wishing I were dead.

I’d lay in bed for hours—the nightmares keeping me awake—thinking about all the ways I could kill myself.

Not that I would have been able to follow through in that fucking place where cameras watched your every move and nurses checked in on you every fifteen minutes.

With no options to leave this world, I turned my dark thoughts on the men who forced me to kill. On my father who blamed me for my mother’s death. On what he did to my brother who tried to protect me from his abuse but got similar bruises and scars.

Suddenly I had something to live for: Vengeance.

I took my medications and went to my therapy sessions. After a few years, I started speaking again. I was the perfect patient up until my eighteenth birthday when I was released.

My brother picked me up. On the drive home, he told me our father had fallen ill and went to die in some hospice in Upstate New York.

Not even a goodbye.

Good riddance.

It’s not like he would have asked me about that night again. He eventually found out after beating it out of my brother—the only person I told before shutting down.

What happened to me twenty years ago was the catalyst to who I am today.

A hitman.

I kill to feed my demons. I kill to rid the world of monsters like me.

I’m one of the best in the industry aside from the one called Colpa Sicario.

A person I’ve been trying to track down since they suddenly entered the game five years ago.

I don’t even know if they’re a man or woman or nonbinary.

But one thing is clear: I need to find them.

I want to kill them. Or maybe we’ll hate fuck each other before fighting to the death.

I’m known as the Marionette because I pull my strings and control the murder scene. I frame the dead as if they’re dolls... my puppets... staging them to make the death appear accidental. If I’m lucky, I can pin the kill on another person.

The Marionette.

I hate that fucking name.

I hate the label because I was never meant to play God.

When I was ten, I wanted to be a musician because my mother taught me how to play the piano. I was good at it too.

At age eleven, I wanted to be a firefighter because the house across the street went up in flames and the firefighters let me climb on their truck.

On my twelfth birthday, I wanted a baseball themed party. My mother hung decorations around the house: streamers with baseball gloves on them, cut-out paper baseball bats, and banners with baseballs. We had concession inspired snacks like Cracker Jacks, nachos, and hot dogs.

When I was twelve, I wanted to be a professional baseball player.

By the end of the night, whatever dreams I had of a normal future had turned into nightmares. I suppose I never would have had a normal life because of the family I was born into.

Instead, I became a monster. The darkness followed me, haunted me, and begged me to seek vengeance.

It’s been twenty years, and my body count has reached triple digits. I’m not quitting until I kill the man responsible for the day I nearly died.

The day my mother was murdered.

I’m not picky when it comes to the type of hit jobs I take. I couldn’t care less why someone wants another person dead. But my favorite kills are the liars, cheaters, abusers, and rapists.

The man on the bed who I’m currently straddling is many of those things.

The knife sinks into his chest and his hazel eyes widen. He frantically scratches at my gloved hands as blood pours from the wound and out of his mouth. I watch the life drain from his panicked face, his hands weakening and dropping to his sides.

Finally.

This assignment was bloodier than I’d like. I prefer poisons. They’re effective and can sometimes be blamed on an undiagnosed medical condition. But I do what the job entails, and the client wanted this man to die a humiliating death.

It took me months to plan it all out.

Howard Marks, fifty-five years old, accused fraudster who swindled millions out of the rich and famous.

The person who hired me was desperate. He tripled his offer, more than I’d ever been paid to kill, because no one would take the job.

Howard is a powerful man. He’s famous. His face is always on some news program talking about who the fuck cares.

No one wanted the job because high-profile killings are the hardest to do discreetly.

His death will be plastered across the media.

Not only did Howard Marks scam my client out of five million dollars, but the creep also fucked my client’s twenty-year-old daughter… who’s now pregnant.

Which is why I have Howard’s dick in a jar.

It’s not the first time a client wanted a souvenir. It’s also not the first time I’ve cut off a dick. Howard’s cock is a bonus that I’m getting paid extra to retrieve.

The dick was the first to go. All three inches of it. How this twenty-year-old woman was wooed by this schmuck, I’ll never know. It wasn’t about the money. Her father has enough of it. Maybe she fucked Howard to spite dear old daddy.

While Howard slowly bled out from the cut off appendage, I played a video message from my client.

I didn’t pay much attention. I never do.

It’s usually the same. “You wronged me. You must die.” My client also managed to get Howard’s will amended to leave part of his fortune to the young woman he got pregnant and her unborn child.

I can’t even think about the legal shit storm this presents. Surely this will be contested by his two adult children. Instead of wondering about this asshole’s family drama, I begin the setup.

The Marionette at work.

I grab Howard’s passed out wife from the closet and set her on the floor, leaning her against the wall across from the bed.

Next, I place the gun—which I found in Howard’s safe—in her hand and raise the barrel to her head.

I squeeze the trigger and blood splatters on the wall and across a copy of the will I put on the bedside table.

When police arrive, they’ll find the wife’s fingerprints on the knife in his chest, a cut off dick in her hand—one from a John Doe, given to me by my contact at the morgue since the client wants Howard’s dick—and text messages on Howard’s phone from his wife, accusing him of cheating and writing her out of the will.

They’ll assume she took her own life after killing Howard for having an affair.

The wife is just as vile. She knew what her husband was doing. She spent the money he stole. The couple also owns dozens of nightclubs across the country that are hubs for sex trafficking. Something the police will uncover while investigating this murder/suicide.

Once the scene is set, I triple check to make sure I don’t leave any evidence behind.

I change out of my blood splattered clothes, stuffing the soiled ones in my backpack before slipping out of the penthouse.

I take the stairwell down to a back entrance to stay out of sight.

I’d hate to get caught after all that work.

Not to mention I have a dick in a jar inside my backpack. That one would be hard to explain.

Surveillance cameras are installed on every floor, including the stairwell.

I don’t know shit about technology. I hate texting and using the Internet.

Social media confuses the fuck out of me, and I only use burner phones to communicate with my brother and to accept hit jobs.

Which is why I hired my hacker buddy to take care of the camera situation.

He accessed the building’s security system and looped the camera feeds for a few hours while I completed the assignment.

I pause just outside the building to scan the area.

During the day, the sidewalks would be crowded with people rushing to their jobs, cars would be bumper to bumper on the street, and horns would be honking for no fucking reason.

But it’s four in the morning and the night is quiet.

Only the drumming of my heart, racing with adrenaline and paranoia, can be heard.

Killing? That’s easy. Avoiding getting caught during the getaway is what racks my nerves.

I walk down the block, turn right, then left and right again before coming up on the street where I parked my motorcycle. Retrieving my helmet from the case, I put it on and start up the roaring engine to get the fuck out of here.

The assignment was on Billionaires’ Row on the southern end of Central Park in Manhattan. That’s another thing. Assignments on the island are always riskier. Manhattan has too many people. Too many eyes. Too many chances to get caught, which is why I plan my kills late at night.

I weave in and out of traffic and cross the Queensboro Bridge into Astoria.

Despite having millions of dollars to my name—saved in an offshore, untraceable account—I rent cheap apartments in all five boroughs that I use as safe houses where I can hide in plain sight. Living a flashy lifestyle would make it easier for my enemies to find me.

The apartment I leased in Astoria is small, which is fine because I’m rarely there. Or, at least, that was the plan. Up until two months ago, I only used it for sleep, showers, and occasionally to fuck. I don’t have sex often. Only when my hand is no longer enough to satiate my needs.

I take out my keys to unlock my door and pause at my neighbor’s muffled giggles.

Fuck me.

Noah is entertaining again.

Noah McAllister. Thirty-one years old. Five foot ten. Brown eyes. Hair color unknown because it’s always dyed various shades of the rainbow.

This month, it’s purple.

She’s insufferable. She’s a bartender at some bar on the east side of Manhattan, which means she comes home at five in the morning after her shift, making noise in her kitchen, or fucking whoever she picked up at work.

The walls between our apartments are paper thin. I hear everything. Every cough, every laugh, every godforsaken moan.

She’s a faker. I know they can’t please her because the moment they leave, the sound of her vibrator pierces through the wall and overtakes the quiet of my apartment. Her toys make her come and a part of me wants to barge into her place and show her what good sex can be like.

I shake the thought from my head. I cannot get involved with my neighbor.

Besides, we can’t stand each other. In fact, I’ve considered killing her.

I’ve broken into her apartment a few times and held a knife to her neck while she slept.

Then my eyes would wander over her full body—she sleeps naked quite often—and my dick would convince me to keep her alive.

I’ve been suffering since the day she moved in.

She stays up late, and I wake up early. She bangs on her wall, yelling at me to turn down the music I blast while cleaning or working out or fucking my hand because I can’t stop thinking about Noah’s plump ass and plentiful curves.

Her pouty lips, soft stomach, and melon sized tits that she pushes out every time she sees me.

I remember the first time we met not long after she moved in two months ago.

I’d woken her up hours after she returned home from what must have been a busy shift.

She beat on my door, and I opened it to find Noah with her pink hair piled in a messy bun on the top of her head.

She wore short shorts, a tight tank, and a sleep mask pushed up onto her forehead.

She was so pissed with the way her chest heaved with heavy, frustrated breaths.

I wasn’t sure if it was because of her anger or her attraction to me.

The way her pupils dilated as her eyes raked over my bare chest, down my abs, and to my gray sweats.

Her nipples hardened in the thin tank the moment she saw the outline of my cock.

I almost grabbed her right then and shoved my tongue into her mouth.

She might have let me.

I’m too exhausted tonight to mess with Noah and her latest conquest, so I hop in the shower and wash the blood and sweat off me. I put my soiled clothes in a trash bag to take to the incinerator at the funeral home down the block when I wake up.

It’s nearly six in the morning when I finally lie down. Before falling asleep, I hear Noah moan and call out another man’s name.

Jealousy burns in my chest. The only name she should be screaming is mine.

The thought haunts my waking hours because I’ve never had such a visceral reaction to anyone.

I don’t let myself feel any emotion other than anger to fuel the kills.

Noah gets under my skin because she’s one of the few people who stands up to me and looks me in the eye.

Most people sense the evil woven within my DNA. Noah is oblivious to the dangerous man she constantly taunts. It’s as if she feeds off my reactions like a vampire draining their victim of blood.

I’ve become obsessed with her. There’s something about her that draws me in.

It’s why I’ve been staying at the Astoria safe house more often.

My heavy eyelids fail to stay open, and the last thought before slipping into my nightmares is how beautiful Noah McAllister must look on the cusp of orgasm.