Chapter 14 - Luca
My hand turns her doorknob at exactly thirty minutes. Not twenty-nine, not thirty-one. Control is what separates me from the men I’ve killed for her. The door opens to reveal Faith still in the clothes she fled in earlier, her pupils dilating wide at my presence despite the bright hallway lighting.
She's been waiting. I can tell from the way she stands perfectly still, like she's been frozen by the door since texting me, afraid to move deeper into her apartment knowing I'm coming. Her breathing is shallow, controlled. She's been practicing what to say.
"You didn't use the window." Her voice wavers between accusation and relief.
"Tonight I'm a guest, not a ghost." I step inside, noting how she moves back exactly three feet. Close enough to seem welcoming, far enough to maintain the illusion of safety. There is no safety from me, but I let her have the comfort of distance. For now.
This is different. Being here with her knowledge, with her permission.
The apartment smells the same: jasmine, vanilla, that underlying scent that's purely Faith.
But the air carries a new charge. Fear mixed with anticipation.
Anger laced with arousal. Her body's chemical signature practically screams contradictions.
I take in everything with the same precision I use when planning a kill.
The evidence board she hasn't bothered to hide anymore.
The empty wine glass on the coffee table, lipstick smudge at the rim telling me she needed courage before texting me.
The way her hands shake as she closes the door behind me, turning the lock like it matters, like I couldn't break it with one strike if needed.
"You're on time," she says, wrapping her arms around herself. Defensive posture, but her nipples are hard beneath the cardigan. Body betraying what her mind won't admit.
"You were expecting me to make you wait?" I move deeper into her space, noting how she tracks my movement. "That's for punishment, little faith. Tonight is negotiation."
Her laugh is bitter, sharp. "Negotiation. Is that what we're calling it?"
"You're ruining my plans," she says, chin lifting in defiance that makes my cock twitch. Even terrified, even furious, she faces me directly. No cowering. No begging. Just that steel spine I've been watching for weeks.
"You're ruining my control," I counter, letting her hear the truth of it.
Twenty-eight years of perfect discipline, and this librarian with her soft cardigans and hidden violence has me acting like an amateur.
Following her to premieres. Texting her like some lovesick fool.
Letting Neumann live when every instinct screams to end him.
The admission hangs between us, heavy as blood in water. She's trembling now, but not from cold. This apartment runs warm. I know because I've checked the thermostat during my visits. This is pure response to me, to what we're becoming together.
"Tell me about Neumann. Everything."
She turns away, moving to the window where she's left me so many folded paper messages. "You already know."
"I know facts." I follow her, maintaining exactly eighteen inches between us. Close enough for her to feel my presence, far enough that she can't claim I'm crowding her. "His name. His company. That he killed your mother. I want YOUR truth."
"Why does it matter?" She doesn't face me, but I can see her reflection in the window. Those hazel eyes are bright with unshed tears.
"Because you matter." The words escape before I can stop them. A weakness she doesn't even recognize.
Her laugh is hollow, broken. "You want to add him to your body count?"
"Those were necessity. Business." I step closer, finally breaking that eighteen-inch barrier. "Neumann will be pleasure."
She spins to face me, fury replacing fear. "No! I need him to confess. Publicly. Legally. In a courtroom where everyone can hear what he did."
"The law won't give you justice."
"I have to try! Twelve years…"
"Twelve years wasted on a system that failed your mother." I move closer still, watching her pulse jump in her throat. One hundred fifty beats per minute. "The same system that lets him walk free. That lets him target other women like that volunteer…"
"Don't." Her voice cracks.
"Tell me everything or he dies tomorrow." Not a threat. A promise. "Dawn, specifically. I already have the tools selected."
"You can't just…"
"I can. I will. Unless you give me a reason not to." Another step. She's backed against the window now, nowhere to run. "Talk, Faith. Or I handle this my way."
"That's not fair!"
"Fair?" The word hurtles out of my mouth. "FAIR? Like him walking free is fair? Like your mother dying was fair?"
Something shatters in her expression. The mask she's worn for over a decade cracks, and what pours out is pure, raw truth.
"I watched him kill her!"
The words explode from her like arterial spray. First time she's said it aloud. I can tell from the way her whole body convulses with the admission.
"I was there, hiding behind the couch." She's sliding down the wall now, legs giving out. "She told me to hide when he knocked. Told me to be quiet no matter what."
I watch her collapse, fighting every instinct to touch, to claim, to comfort. But she needs this. Needs to bleed out this poison she's been carrying.
"I could see through the gap underneath." Her voice is small now, a tween again. "Her face turning purple. Her hands clawing at his. And his smile. He was SMILING."
The tears come then, violent sobs that shake her entire frame. She's on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees, making herself small. Trying to hide like she did that night.
I drop to my knees beside her. Don't touch. Touching would break her completely. But I'm here. Present. A witness to her truth.
My rage is a living thing, wanting to hunt Neumann now, to make him suffer for every tear she's crying. But more than that, something shifts in my chest. Recognition. She's been carrying this alone, this weight that would break most people.
"How old?" My voice comes out deadly soft, the tone I use before I make someone scream.
"Twelve. I was twelve."
Twelve. Not much younger than I was during the massacre. When I killed Mikhail. When I became what I am. We're both frozen as teenagers, both carrying bodies in our memories.
"You've been carrying this alone."
"Dad doesn't know I saw. No one knows. If he knew, he'd…" She looks up at me, eyes red and swollen. "He'd break. He barely survived losing her. If he knew I witnessed it…"
"So you've been planning revenge while playing the perfect daughter."
She nods, wiping her face with her cardigan sleeve. "Getting close to Neumann's family. His wife trusts me. Thinks I'm sweet. His kids actually like me. They request me for story time."
The calculation of it, the patience, makes my cock hard despite the circumstances. This isn't just revenge. It's art.
"I have evidence of everything," she continues, voice getting stronger. "Affairs with subordinates. Bribes to city officials. Three sexual assaults he's paid to silence. Financial crimes that would get him twenty years minimum."
"You've built a case."
"I was going to destroy him publicly. Make him confess to Mom's murder in exchange for a deal on the other charges.
Force him to admit it in open court where Dad would have to see justice done.
" She looks up at me, and there's something cold in her eyes now.
Something that matches what I see in the mirror. "Legal destruction first. Then…"
"Then?"
"Then I was going to watch him die in prison. Slowly. Alone. Forgotten."
I study her face, seeing myself reflected back. "Brilliant. Cold. Patient." A pause. "You're like me."
"No." But the denial is weak.
"Yes. You just dress it in cardigans and library cards instead of blood and bullets."
She doesn't deny it this time.
"Evidence won't bring her back," I point out, needing to understand her fixation on legal channels.
"But it will destroy him legally. Publicly. His children will know what he is. His wife. Everyone."
"I can destroy him better. Make him feel what your mother felt. Make him beg…"
"Not legally. That matters."
"Why?" Genuine curiosity. In my world, justice comes from strength, not courts.
"My father…" She looks away. "The law is all he believes in. All he has left of her is his faith in justice. If I go outside it, I lose him too."
"But you're already lying to him."
She looks up sharply. "For justice. Not revenge."
"They're the same."
"No. They're not." She pulls herself to standing, and I rise with her. "Justice is systematic. Revenge is personal."
"And which do you really want?"
The question hangs between us like a blade.
"Both," she finally admits. "I want both."
I reach out slowly, telegraphing the movement so she can pull away. She doesn't. My thumb brushes away a tear from her cheek, and her breath catches. First gentle touch between us. Her skin is silk-soft, warm, alive.
"You're magnificent in your patience," I tell her, meaning it.
"I'm tired of being patient." The admission costs her something. I can see it in the way her shoulders drop.
"Then let me be impatient for you."
"I can't let you kill him. Not yet."
"Then give me an alternative."
She looks up at me, something shifting in those hazel eyes. A recognition. A decision. "Help me destroy him legally first?"
"And then?"
"Then he's yours."
The words land hard. She's offering me Neumann. Offering to let me have him after she's had her legal victory. To combine our methods.
"You'd let me…"
"I want to watch." The words come out in a rush, like she's afraid she'll take them back. "After. After I've gathered all the evidence for the public destruction. I want to watch what you do to him."
Something dark recognizes itself between us. She sees me truly now. Not a monster to fear but a match to her own darkness. The patience she's shown, the careful planning, it's the same as my methodical kills. We're both artists in destruction, just using different mediums.
She reaches up, her hand finding the back of my neck. Her fingers are cold against my skin, but they burn like brands.
"You've already ruined me anyway," she whispers, and there's something like wonder in her voice. "A lifetime of being good, and you destroyed it in weeks."
"Faith…"
She pulls me down.
The kiss explodes between us like violence. Her mouth crashes against mine, desperate and claiming and nothing like I expected. I thought she'd be tentative, careful. Instead, she kisses like she's drowning and I'm air. Like she's been starving and I'm sustenance.
Her lips are soft but her kiss is brutal. Teeth and tongue and suppressed rage pouring into me through her mouth. She tastes like tears and wine and something darker: that violence she's been hiding under cardigans and kind smiles.
My control shatters. My hands find her waist, yanking her against me hard enough that she gasps into my mouth. I swallow the sound, deepening the kiss until it's not a kiss anymore but a claiming. Mutual destruction. She's devouring me as much as I'm devouring her.
Her tongue slides against mine and my cock goes painfully hard. She must feel it pressed against her stomach but she doesn't pull away. Instead, she presses closer, her soft body molding against me like she was designed for this. For me.
I taste her fury. Her patience. The little girl who watched her mother die. The woman who spent half her life planning revenge. The librarian who reads to children while dreaming of blood. All of it, all of her, pouring into me through this kiss.
My hand tangles in her hair, pulling her head back to change the angle, to go deeper. She moans into my mouth, a sound that goes straight to my cock. Her nails dig into my neck, not scratching but anchoring. Holding me to her like she's afraid I'll disappear.
I won't. Can't. She's in my bloodstream now, more addictive than any drug I've used on victims. The taste of her, the feel of her, the knowledge that she's as dark as me beneath the surface. It's everything.
When we finally break apart, we're both panting. Her lips are swollen, red from my assault. Her pupils are blown wide, only a thin ring of hazel remaining. She looks thoroughly kissed, thoroughly claimed, thoroughly ruined.
"That was a mistake," she breathes, but her hands haven't left my neck.
"Everything about us is a mistake." I lean down, pressing my forehead to hers. "Doesn't mean we can stop."