Chapter Four
Zane
Punch. Punch. Punch.
The man was kneeling, hands tied behind his back, his face a ruin of blood and bruises.
I stood with my arms crossed, watching as four of my men held and punched him in turns.
The blood was starting to dry on the floor and although we’d been here for hours, my gaze remained fixed, feeding off the violence.
Each time he flinched, a dark satisfaction thrilled through me.
When his body swayed, finally wanting to give in and lose consciousness, I raised my hand.
I didn’t have to say a word for my men to instantly stop and step back. All of them except for Ivar, my second in command, who kept a tight grip on the bastard’s head, forcing him upright. I crouched, leveling my face with his. The man’s swollen eyes cracked open, filled with fear.
“Dino, Dino. Are you fucking stupid or just stupid?” I slapped him in a mocking affection. He shuddered but didn’t answer. Instead, he turned his face away, spitting blood on the floor.
“Show some fucking respect,” Ivar barked, driving a fist into his ribs.
The man groaned in pain, folding forward, until Ivar grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked him upright again, forcing him to look at me.
I exhaled slowly as I stood, already unbuttoning my sleeves and rolling them up. I really wasn’t in the mood for this tonight, I really didn’t want to get my hands dirty this time, but clearly, I was forced to.
From time to time, I had to remind people who the fuck I was and how brutal I could be. My men needed to stay in line and that message needed to run the streets.
Right on cue, Andy dragged in a second person, shoving her forward without care. Her bare feet scraping the concrete until she dropped to her knees beside Dino, the motherfucker who thought robbing me and selling under my name would get him anything other than an early grave.
Andy ripped the sack off her head, and the woman whimpered when she saw her husband beaten half to hell.
“Beth, isn’t it?” I asked lightly, the same way I’d if greeting a dinner guest. “Lovely wife, if it wasn’t for all the scamming… and the screaming.”
“Not her—Please! She had nothing to do with this!” The bastard was finally speaking, fighting to get words out, choking on his own blood.
I only gave him a blank stare in return. I didn’t care how much he begged, what he promised me. Because the second he even considered betraying me, he was already a dead man.
If you lie to me, you die.
If you cross me, your whole lineage follows.
I aimed the gun and Dino squeezed his eyes shut, while Beth screamed and threw herself over him, trying to shield him with her body. Impressive.
“See, Dino?” I said, twirling the gun lazily in my hand. “That right there… is real loyalty. The kind you never gave me.”
“But the funny thing about loyalty…” I continued, crouching in front of Dino, gripping his face in one hand, pressing my nails hard into his exposed wounds, savoring his pathetic flinch once more as my other hand slid to the gun at my back.
“...Is that it’s always paid in blood. One way or another. ” I pressed the barrel under his chin.
Beth sobbed beside him, her hands shaking violently as she tried to crawl forward to reach me.
“Please, please—he only did it for me,” she cried, her voice heavy with desperation. “I had debts—he was trying to help, please, I’m begging you, have mercy.”
I smiled, then I rose to my feet, brushing off the phantom touch of her desperation from my sleeve.
“Dino, did you hear that?” I mused. “She thinks I have mercy.”
Ivar stepped back, giving me space. Everyone went quiet.
They knew that tone.
They knew what came next.
Maybe she was telling the truth, maybe it started with a foolish excuse of a man stealing to help his wife.
But that only made me burn more. Because I would’ve helped him if he had come to me.
He wasn’t one of my top men, but he was part of the family, trusted enough to be allowed inside my house once or twice.
But what about those trips to Paris? The constant expensive gifts and designer bags his wife loved to flaunt on social media?
No, he chose the easy way, the coward’s way and he would’ve kept stealing from me if I hadn’t caught him, because greedy parasites always get blind and stupid when money starts piling into their pockets.
“Please—” Dino started, already crawling forward, lowering his head until his forehead pressed against the tip of my shoe. “Let her live. I’ll make it right, I swear it. I’ll compensate you—yes, I’ll compensate you with more. I’ll do anything, anything you want.”
Beth sobbed behind him, clutching at his back as if she could save him.
“Anything?” I echoed.
I crouched again, lowering myself enough to look him directly in the eye. “Anything?” I echoed, tilting my head, pretending to consider it.
“Well, I believe you.”
Relief crashed over both of them at once—
—and I pulled the trigger.
Beth’s body jerked backward, blood misting the air as she collapsed with a thud that echoed all around the containers and the scream that tore from him didn’t sound real.
“You killed her,” he choked. “You killed her!”
His voice broke. “You said—”
“I said I believed you,” I corrected. “Didn’t say it mattered.”
Ivar shoved Dino back upright as he tried to lunge forward at me in blind agony. The action of a desperate, hurting man with nothing else to lose. I grabbed Dino’s chin, forcing him to look at me before Ivar could take him.
“You should be fucking thankful,” I snarled. “She died faster than you will.”
His eyes went wide—
“Il tuo tempo è scaduto,” I said, meaning his time was over and I shot him too, right beneath the rib with a perfect angle, knowing the bullet would tear through his lung and leave him choking slowly, drowning on his own blood as it pooled around him, before letting him die.
I probably should’ve taken my time, cut out his tongue, shot him in the knees and hands just for the fun of it, or maybe even broken each finger individually before finishing him off. But mercy? Never.
Mercy was for people who needed redemption.
And I didn’t need a damn thing.
I cleaned my gun, then turned. I didn’t have to give the order, my men already knew what to do.
While my men were busy making the necessary arrangements to make it look as though nothing had happened, I walked off the edgy energy, letting my feet carry me until I ended up in the city’s park.
It was dark and foggy, but that didn’t bother me. It was in darkness that I felt most at home.
I brought the cigar to my lips and took a slow drag, the smoke settling low in my chest before I exhaled it back into the frozen air.
Feeling the way the icy breeze brushed against the skin of my face as my head tilted.
I didn’t smoke often but I liked a couple of drags right before or right after a killing, those sacred minutes when I knew no one would dare disturb me.
But then, hurried footsteps snapped my senses to attention. I immediately reached for my gun, but before I could pull it, something unexpected, to say the least, collided with my chest.
Cazzo!
Instinctively, I caught the woman before she hit the ground, one arm fastening around her small waist to steady her. She was light, delicate—too delicate. Our bodies glued together from the impact, leaving our faces just a few inches apart, her panting breath warm against my mouth.
Her mouth opened to scream but I was faster. I dropped the gun in my other hand, quickly covering her lips before a single sound escaped. This was not a place to draw attention and the last thing I needed was cops sniffing around so close to my murder scene.
Her brown eyes widened at my touch, and I couldn’t help but stare.
The woman in my arms held me captive in a way that I couldn’t bring myself to move. What the fuck?
Black hair, fair skin, and pink-flushed cheeks, she looked like a doll, too delicate for hands like mine to touch. The kind of beauty that should only belong to a collector.
I blinked several times to bring myself back, slowly inching my hand away from her mouth, revealing her full, pinky lips to me. When I was sure she wasn’t going to scream, I gently set her back on her feet, not once breaking eye contact.
As soon she straightened, dark silhouettes approached from behind her, forcing me to finally move my eyes from hers.
She looked over her shoulder to the silhouettes, and her eyes filled with horror.
She was terrified, pleading without words, and it took me only two seconds to connect the dots.
Those silhouettes, probably men, were hunting her down.
The slightest thought of someone trying to hurt something so delicate and pure sent me straight into fuckery mode all over again.
Why the fuck I cared was beyond me, but the beast was out again, and it was starving for blood.
I moved before thinking, gripping her shoulders, shifting her behind me. If they wanted her, they’d have to pass through me—and good luck with that.
“Oi, mate. That bitch is ours.”
One of them said once they reached us. He was taller and older than his friend, clearly the one in charge, but it was his bloody nose that caught my attention. I couldn’t hold back a smirk. Seemed she wasn’t that delicate after all.
“Well, come and get her then.”
When I spoke, her body tensed against my back and it did something to me.
But before I could make sense of it, a metallic sound caught my attention, bringing my focus back to the pocket knife in the motherfucker’s hand.
Of course. He’d need a little toy to help him take me down.
But it was the other one who charged first. I’d give him points for bravery, but he was on the ground in seconds, screaming in pain after I broke his nose and probably his jaw with my knee.
It didn’t even warm me up.
The older guy lunged next, trying to take advantage of my distraction, his knife almost slicing me.
I ducked, grabbing and twisting his wrist until the metallic clatter of the blade hit the ground and his screams of pain pierced my ears.
Adrenaline spiked in my veins. The beast was stirring, restless. Hungry.
Then, everything went black.
“Stop!”
A sweet, velvet voice came from nowhere, distant, but powerful enough to take over me, making my fist stop midway. Why the fuck did I stop?
Suddenly the rage of a second ago vanished in a single breath. I no longer wanted to punch the man, no longer wanted to kill him. I just wanted to follow the heavenly voice like a fucking puppy.
Taking a tissue from my pocket, I tried to clean the blood from my face and hands.
When I was done, I threw the bloody damn thing away, turning to face her and she was already holding herself in a protective stance, her eyes avoiding mine.
Something burned in my chest, knowing her fear was no longer toward her attackers. Now, it was for me.
“You alright?” I asked, my voice grating, and she still didn’t look at me.
I rubbed my jaw in frustration. As much as I wanted to get this over with, I wasn’t physically capable of leaving her alone, not just yet.
The moment we reached the bus stop, she sighed in relief, quickly moving away from me.
Even after saving her life, she still didn’t trust me, and somehow, that made me respect her even more.
I should’ve left right then. Instead, I stayed because now, under the streetlights, I could finally take a good look at her.
Her winter coat was cheap, made of thin rainproof fabric, at least two sizes too big.
It swallowed her small frame, falling to her knees and leaving plenty to the imagination.
Her fair skin contrasted naturally with the long, black layers of her hair.
But what drew me in more were her round eyes, the way they’d looked plain brown in the dark, but now under the lights, there was nothing plain about them.
They were hazel, threaded with gold, a color I’d never seen before, making her even more one of a kind.
“Can’t you at least stop staring?” Her sweet voice snapped me out of it, and it was only then I realized I was staring.
Moments later, a distant rumble broke the quiet.
She walked to the end of the sidewalk to wait for the bus. When it pulled up and the doors hissed open, an unfamiliar urge almost pulled me forward. I wanted to grab her, keep her, just so I wouldn’t have to watch her leave.
Instead, I clenched my fists, forcing myself to stay still.
“Tell me your name.” The words slipped out before I could stop them. Fuck me.
She hesitated. Then, to my surprise, she actually looked back.
“Chloe, my name is Chloe,”
“Go home, Chloe.” I watched her bus disappear down the street, and not too long after, a black SUV pulled over. I got in, slammed the door shut, and stared out the window.
“Boss?” Andy spoke from behind the wheel, waiting for instructions. His voice was rough with exhaustion. Not surprising, considering the night we’d had.
And I’d still do it all over again, just for the chance to meet her again.
Chloe.
I caught Andy’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “I need you to find someone for me.”