Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
IGOR
PRESENT DAY
The man at my feet lies in a puddle of blood spreading underneath his head like a slow tide. His vacant eyes fix a point on the ceiling, unseeing.
I stare at the hole on his forehead. This was so easy. He’s my fifth this month. And my conscience isn’t clearer for it. Maybe Gisele was on to something when she said that vengeance doesn’t allow souls to feel any better, and that a wrong cannot undo more wrongs.
At least, another child molester takes his last breath as I watch, apathetic and blasé about death.
I gave him something much cleaner and softer than anything he’s ever inflicted on his victim.
This was a kindness compared to what he did.
After years of inflicting and witnessing torture, I have no desire for more violence.
I swipe a hand over my face and pick my phone from my pocket before dialing the number I have for clean up.
The number Gisele gave me is an underground organisation that takes on specific contracts.
Rapists, child molesters and modern slavers end up on a list, ripe for the picking.
I don’t know who anyone of the contract killers are nor anyone in the organisation.
When I called the number a few weeks ago, it led me to an automated message and then, to an encrypted server with names and addresses.
Beside each of them was an icon. Red if the target has been dealt with, orange if a contract is under way and green for open for work.
I hang up after yet another automated message informing me that clean up will be at location in ten minutes, and that I need to be underway by then, and open the server. I have one more name on my list for tonight.
I thought the more people I took care of, the better and freer I’d feel.
Last week, when I planned my kills, I got carried away, certain this vendetta would help with my mental health.
I sigh, a little defeated. The next victim will be my last. I’m not cut out to be an assassin. I just long for peace.
Maybe helping at the women’s shelter on Kalliste will be closer to what my soul craves. I’m strong enough to face what they’ve been through now, and staying idle is what is really messing with my head.
My second victim of the evening is a friend of the first and lives close by, in a Parisian suburb with fancy houses and a low crime rate. They were both hidden in wealth, as they often are.
Pierre Dubois is speaking at a wine conference tonight. I enter his home easily, and make quick work of sweeping the place for weapons. He has none. I sit on one of the uncomfortable modern chairs in the opulent living room, and wait.
We barely know much about the contracts beside a name and an address, but they do have one key piece of information that was Pierre Dubois’s downfall. Their last known employer.
When I read the Bartoli name one very early morning, in nothing but boxers on Julian’s couch, I saw red. I stormed into the bedroom where he slept and bellowed at him to explain why he had hired a fucking child molester to do a job he was supposed to hold.
Julian sat up and rubbed his eyes, blinking up at me, no ounce of fear in them or his body. That calmed me, along with his explanation.
“Why did you stop working there?” I asked.
“I was drowning in sorrow and I just… self-destructed, I guess.”
My nostrils flared. The idea of Julian in misery, hurting and turning to drugs and alcohol, made me so angry. “How dare you hurt yourself? I was protecting you and you pissed all over it?”
Deep down, I knew it wasn’t so simple, but rational thoughts didn’t matter in the face of my husband’s potential death.
At his own hands. I was a hypocrite, but maybe it was the push I needed.
If I flipped with anger and fear and the irrational need to lock him down so he’d never be hurt again, Julian definitely felt the same or worse.
I crawled over him onto the bed and seized his jaw. “You’re never doing that again, pup. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, baby.”
Urgency pulled at the last strings of my restraints, my reservations and fears about sullying the man I loved flying off the window.
He was naked under the sheets and my skin grew feverish at his proximity.
His lips were inches from mine, his body primed for me.
Tension simmered as we regarded each other with anticipation and lust. I only had to jump off that proverbial cliff.
His voice, thick with sleep and desire, broke me.
“Igor?”
Just my name and I flew. I slammed my mouth to his, taking his body down to the mattress with the force of my need.
I forgot the past and even my own name. Our chests moulded together, his lean frame against my bulky one.
My whole body trembled at the touch. I shivered when Julian held the back of my head with force, like he never wanted us to part.
His other hand was quick to grab my ass and keep me where he wanted me.
I ground against him before we both pulled the sheets and my boxers down with urgent hands.
Our mouths fused and never let go. Pleasure made my body tingle and after so long in pain, the sensations were shocking.
I gasped as our cocks lined up and glided against each other.
Muscle memory took over but my mind was frazzled, confused that I could experience something so pure.
That niggling self-hate tried to drag my attention back but Julian was all I could focus on.
He was real and solid underneath me, warm against my fingers as I pawed at his body.
I ached to be inside him. But not before he got what he deserved.
I lifted myself up slightly and turned him onto his hands and knees, positioning myself behind him and slamming my hand on his ass.
He yelped but I didn’t let up. I spanked his ass again, and again. He moaned my name and I wish I could swallow the sound.
“Hold it,” I said through clenched teeth, both to him and myself. “Only good boys get to come. Have you been a good boy for me?”
“No.”
The whines and whimpers escaping his mouth were driving me wild with lust. “That’s what I thought.”
My hand burned as I slapped his ass and the back of his thighs. I switched sides often, but it was turning a beautiful pink, the imprint of my hand lightly white over the heat skin.
“Fuck malysh, look at you, taking your punishment so well.”
“Please, baby, let me come. I’ll be a good boy. I’ll be good. Please.”
My eyes shut at his sweet begging, and my cock leaked at the tip. I gathered a drop of my precum on my thumb.
“Open,” I commanded.
Julian obeyed and licked my thumb clean, making me twitch with the need to be inside him.
“Lube?”
“Night stand.”
Reduced to single words questions and answers, I lathered my cock and fingers with lube, keeping Julian on his knees, massaging his hole and fingering him with barely contained hunger.
“Please, baby. I’ve been waiting years for you. Just fuck me.”
I chuckled. Some things never changed.
“You want your husband to fuck that tight little ass, malysh?”
His ‘yes’ turned mangled as I entered him slowly. His back bowed and he pushed his ass against my pelvis but I stopped him, gripping his hips. “You said you’d be a good boy, love. So be a good boy and take what I give you. Don’t be greedy.”
“I’ll always be greedy when it comes to you, Igor Bartoli. Now fuck me before I lose my mind.”
That bratty mouth pushed me over the edge and I thrusted into him, fucked him into the mattress like he begged me to.
My head swam with pleasure rushing through me, overcome with all that I had missed over the past few years.
Nothing had weight while I was inside him.
It was just Julian and I, like it was always meant to be.
“You make me feel so good, baby.”
I don’t know if he knew I needed the praise more than my next breath. The soft caress of his voice washed over me and my skin tightened. The noises he made had my body taunt and ready to blow. I bowed over him, plastering my front to his back and continued to chase our releases.
With one hand by his side to support my weight, I snaked the other around his throat, simply letting it live there where I could feel the vibrations of his cries for me against my fingers.
“Please, can I come, now? I can’t hold it anymore,” he whined.
I kissed his neck, licked the sweat off the back of it, tasting salt and something undeniably him. I left a trail of wetness everywhere I could reach and dragged my teeth where my lips had been.
“Yes, my love. Come for me.”
Without touching his cock, Julian came all over the bed and I followed right behind, barely moving inside him. I held him close. Buried inside his skin wouldn’t be enough. I contemplated invading his mind, his waking hours as much as his dreams.
Him.
Him.
Him.
My body and mind screamed in tandem, for once.
Julian’s chest collapsed underneath him, and it got me deeper into him, drawing out a low growl from my chest. I withdrew and collected his spent form to fit against me, not questioning the needs of my body.
My mind was peacefully blank, euphoria and deep satiation clouding anything that wasn’t him.
Julian kissed my throat. A contented sigh escaped him.
Trailing my fingers on his arms, I watched his eyelids flutter, fighting sleep.
I kissed his nose, his cheek, peppering his skin with my lips as though to remember the shape of him with another part of me.
“I love you,” I breathed agains his skin. “Ty svet moyey zhizni.”
He tried to say it back with a horrible excuse of a Russian accent and we devolved into laughter.
The click of a door brings me back to the present moment, and I straighten into the chair.
Dubois doesn’t stop in the living room like I expected but stumbles towards the back of his house, mumbling to himself. It’s in French and I don’t know the first thing about the language but I don’t like the air of malevolence he exudes.
On silent feet, I follow after him as he meanders through corridors and towards a hidden door I didn’t notice on my first sweep of the room. I want to swear but hold my tongue. A sound similar to hiccups rise from behind the door, reinforced with multiple locks.
Dubois fidgets with multiple keys he took from the pocket of his fancy trousers.
My heart rate doesn’t want to settle. My hands get sweaty and my eyes sharpen as in preparation. For what I’m not sure. Though my body knows. That’s the thing about muscle memory. It works without having to do anything but follow. When the door clicks open and I hear the rattle of chains, I jump.
Dubois is inebriated and doesn’t expect anyone to attack him in his home. I slam a hand to his mouth and press my thumb at the back of his neck. His body sags as he faints and I drop him like a sack of potatoes. I’m not touching him more than necessary.
Inside the cell, the air is thick with the scent of urine but a quick look around shows what looks like a traditional children’s room with a one person bed, a chest with toys and a closet.
The chains, though, send icy rage into my veins, burning faster and stronger than any fire.
I pick up the keys from the floor and step into the room, moistening my lips to stave off the dryness in my throat.
A child stands in front of me, scared out of his mind, backing himself into the wall, knees against his chest. He whines and sobs.
“You’re okay. I’m going to get you out of here.”
I get onto my haunches and dangle the keys in front of him, approaching slowly so he can see what I’m doing. The child has short hair and the comforter has dinosaurs on it so I’m assuming he’s a boy. He’s already traumatised, but I don’t want to add to it.
Almost suddenly, his cries stop. He lifts his head from his knees. My heart shatters.
“Santi?”
His face falls and he cries again. I rush to him and try so many keys with trembling hand before finding the one I need. The chains fall from around his ankles and he throws himself into my arms. He’s so frail, so much worse than when I last saw him at Misha’s compound.
He smells like he hasn’t had a shower in days, pushing me into action. I lift him up and carry him into the living room. I drop him in the middle. Pierre needs to pay before I can focus on Santi.
“Quedáte aquí.” Stay here.
“No, no, no.”
“Por favor, Santi. Escúchame. Quédate. Volvio en dos minutes.” I tell him that I’ll be back in two minutes and to listen to me.
He nods, frantic and eyes bulging out of his head. His pants, already darkened, get wetter before a small puddle spreads underneath him. He glances down and cries harder. I squeeze his hand and go back to where Pierre still lies on the floor.
I refuse to give him the dignity to face death head on. I pull my gun from underneath my jacket and screw the silencer on before shooting him in the back of his head. Five times for good measures.
As fast as I can, I march back to the living room where Santi hasn’t moved an iota. I remove my jacket and lay it on his shoulders, then scoop him up. The car I drove here is parked a few streets away. I almost run to it, then rush to the airport and carry the boy with me.
When we’re safe in the air, I take him at the back of the jet and show him the shower. I’m stepping out when his little hand pulls back on mine. His eyes plead for me to understand.
“Quedáte?” He asks, hesitant and still scared.
I nod but turn my body to the side. He might not be used to privacy anymore, and I’m not sure if a child of six years-old should be unsupervised in a shower—he could fall and break a bone—but I refuse to make him feel like I’m one more abuser, one more person divesting him of innocence.
Once showered and dressed in a teeshirt that swallows him, Santi yawns. He sits next to me but before long, his head falls on my lap and soft snores fill the cavernous space of the jet. My shoulders fall as the boy sleeps soundly.
The universe just dropped my new purpose right on my lap when I least expected it.