Chapter 16 Cameron
CAMERON
Emery’s eyes are wary, but determined. “Yeah, I don’t want to sit here and wait until it’s all over. I have some assholes on my list.” Cute little Em has a fucking list? I smile as I catch the floral scent of her skin as she shoulders past me. It’s sweet like her lips are.
“Oh? And how will you do that? Don’t you feel bad for killing people you don’t even know?
” I pry, hoping to get into her head more.
She’s been good at keeping her past a secret from me.
Only giving me a few scraps here and there.
It just makes me more curious, starved to know what it is she’s done that’s so awful she won’t tell someone like me.
Haven’t I shared more than enough to get at least a fragment of her?
That earns me a dirty look over her shoulder. She’s quiet for a moment before she murmurs, “That’s never stopped me before.” The ire in her tone is tangible. I want to bask in it, to consume her darkest pieces.
“You’re telling me you don’t feel bad for what you did in the past? I don’t believe you,” I pry, slowing my stride as she does. She fully turns, eyes narrowed and searching me. I wish I could see her mouth twisted with anger and all the rage she holds close to her heart beneath that mask.
“Believe what you want, Mori.”
I don’t like when she calls me that.
“Surely the tale about my darling mother earned me something of your past?” I tap her helmet, and it tilts her head to the side as I pass her. She exhales loudly, and it draws a grin to my lips.
“Will you stop pestering me if I tell you something?”
I turn to face her, walking backward casually as I cross a finger over my heart.
Emery studies me briefly before glancing to the side so she doesn’t have to look at me.
“Mavestelli is a deadly name to carry. A burden, most say. But if you ask me, I’d tell you it’s just a name. It’s the blood of men and the ashes of other families that gave the Mavestellis the power we now hold.”
Her pace slows, her gaze finding something nostalgic in the distance perhaps.
“Maves is short for…Mavestelli?” I ask, bewildered.
She looks at me, eyes so cold her gaze alone burns me.
“I was Greg Mavestelli’s little executioner.
I’ve killed for him since I was sixteen years old, and I didn’t stop until we were caught.
Well, more like until he sold me out to save his own ass.
” A breath of shock escapes me. She continues on: “I left many of the bodies the way I did to mock him. To get the attention of the authorities on our family. I wanted it to end, but I thought we’d both be in prison for it. Not just me.”
My eyes widen as I take her in. She doesn’t seem capable of being an executioner, and for the Mavestelli Family, no less.
I’d first heard about the Mavestelli executioner from Malum Squad.
They’d been sent out on a mission to interfere with the trade of an illegal product, or so I was told.
The details were never leaked, but we all knew it was a dangerous mission.
After I learned about the Mavestelli’s executioner, I fell into a pit of obsession with the way they killed and what they did to the bodies.
I studied the executioner for years, collected newspaper clippings where I could, and learned some of their methods myself. Did she see the ones on my desk and in my book? The thought makes my cheeks warm.
Only, I didn’t know the executioner was her—sweet, timid Emery. She seems more familiar to me now, though I know her by another name.
“The Severance Executioner. I believe I’ve heard of you.” I twist the truth a bit.
“My infamy is alive in the black market and underworld, so I’m not surprised you’ve heard of that name.” Her tone is careless, but I wonder if that’s how she truly feels.
Heard of her is an understatement. After I became aware of the executioner, I started to follow the trail of blood left behind.
Many bodies were left out of the official sentencing, if ten is all she received.
I tracked at least thirty to her. I was infatuated with her grim depictions of death. They were artistic, lovely.
Lonely.
Her trademark was leaving pink X’s over the eyes with gel pen.
“You liked to leave your victims in odd poses with pink X’s.
A Lunatic with a Marker the papers criticized, but I knew the culprit was an artist at heart.
I grew quite fond of your craft. Your last victims were a story of their own, a moth escaping a cocoon.
Shedding husks of themselves. It was…brilliant.
It was morbidly enthralling,” I say with a genuine grin, but her eyes only narrow at the sound of it.
“Don’t pretend like you understood what I was trying to convey. I wanted to make beautiful things in my life, not kill people, so I settled for the middle ground,” she snaps at me. Her words from the train come back to me. My family’s business. I didn’t think this was what she meant by that.
I guess the darkest minds are packaged in cute boxes sometimes. I can’t stop the grin that spreads over my lips as I take her in.
I open my mouth to retort something snide back to her, but snow crunches a few yards away to our left. Both our heads snap in that direction. It’s a dark night with only a half moon lighting the world beneath it, but the snow is bright and betrays the four men dressed head to toe in tactical gear.
My hand instinctively goes for my combat knife, but I freeze, reminding myself that if I start killing them, I might not be able to stop. My fist clenches an inch away from the handle, and I grind my teeth together. Her wide eyes flash my way, considering what I’ll do in this moment.
“You can’t take them all on your own. You need to run. I’ll guide some away and kill them where I won’t be close enough to kill you too,” I whisper, then I take off the way we just came, hoping most of them will follow me. Nolan is really testing my restraint with her.
I slip down into the ditch we passed earlier and wait for them. My jaw clenches at the sound of only one of them coming after me. He’s clunky in the way he runs, letting his back leg drag a bit in the snow and causing unnecessary noise.
God, you wouldn’t last a minute in the Dark Forces. Sometimes I think they grab criminals to be here just for the slaughter. This one would definitely fit that bill.
He passes me without a second thought.
I grip my knife and slink back up the slope, catching up to the noisy bastard.
He’s completely oblivious to my presence.
This is the part when excitement usually fuels my high, but I don’t feel it as I wrap my hand around his chin and force it up, so he’s staring at the sky.
I don’t feel it when I stuff my knife into his throat and slice him open from his neck down to his sternum.
I don’t even feel it when his gasping gurgles drown him in his own blood.
I drop his body, steam rising as blood meets snow.
What the fuck?
I stare down at my hands. I always love this part. It’s been so long since I last killed someone, so why isn’t it—
A shrill shout breaks through the trees, and I remember that three of these men are taking on Emery.
They should’ve all followed me, but I’m not surprised they went for the smaller of us.
Now that I know she’s the executioner I’ve idolized, I’m relieved that I spent time training her in knife fighting.
The executioner only ever used bullets to kill their victims. She would’ve been a little taken aback by this.
Silently, I move through the snow and underbrush. They aren’t hard to locate with all the scuffling and curses.
I take a knee beside a nearby tree, watching three black forms fight viciously in the snow. Red already stains the area around them. One cadet is dead. I know it’s not Emery because she’s much smaller than all of them. Her right foot has a nasty habit of hooking behind legs to ensnare her prey.
I taught her that.
She also holds her blade closer to her center of gravity than anyone else. I studied her for hours in the weapons room, admiring her more than I should’ve been, but I’d know her even if she were among an army of men.
A grin spreads over my lips as I watch her take the two bigger men like they’re nothing.
She gets knocked off the guy beneath her, rolling to her feet and jumping with her blade out.
She cuts the Achilles heel of the cadet standing without even blinking, crumpling him to the ground with ease.
He screams as blood squirts out from the back of his boot.
Something warms in my throat. The excitement I was anticipating earlier but which never came floods through the cavities in my chest and sinks into the thickness of my cock. I’ve never been aroused by someone else killing. Only ever by my own.
But this? This is something entirely different. Chills spread across my skin.
I ignore my boner the best I can as I watch her crawl on top of the soldier, cut his vest straps, and saw at his center.
He screams and flails as she pierces his aorta.
The pressure of blood is so high there that it literally gushes from his chest and spurts into the air rapidly.
He stills beneath her within seconds and gurgles a few times before going limp.
A moan escapes my lips as my dick throbs. I shove my hand down my pants and fist my needy cock. Precum is already beading and wetting my underwear. Fuck. This is so hot. I knew she was holding back a little in the Under, but this? I never could’ve anticipated this.
The last remaining recruit stares at her with revulsion dancing across their eyes before turning to flee.
I almost shout to tell her not to let them get away, that I’m so close to climaxing because she’s fucking perfect in every imaginable way and I want to see more.
But she beats me to it, standing gracefully and in one smooth motion throwing her KA-BAR straight into the fleeing recruit’s spine.
They let out a broken scream and fall to the snow like a downed bird.
I swallow dryly as I watch Emery slowly walk to them, lift their head, and smash their own knife into their eye socket.
To say I’m mystified would be an understatement. I’m absolutely entranced with her ability to kill with absolutely no regard. To kill so savagely as I do.
I unzip my pants and pull my dick out to finish myself off, shutting my eyes for a second as the pleasure builds and is about to explode out of me. My groans are soft, and I picture her beneath me again. Her supple breasts and the way I had my dick buried inside her earlier today. Fuck.
“Look at you,” Emery says with her bewitching voice.
My eyes open enough to look up at her, hooded with lust and adrenaline.
The black fabric portion of her mask is pulled down, revealing her blood-smeared face.
I swallow hard, not able to stop fisting my cock as I stare at her.
“So weak for a wicked thing like me, aren’t you, Cameron? ”
I hesitate. No one’s ever spoken to me like this before, but I fucking love it. I want more. I want to watch her kill everyone. Forever. It’s like a high I’ve never known.
My lust-drunk nod brings a grin to her lips, and she lowers to her knees, placing her hand over mine, over my raging boner. My heart dashes over a beat.
“Fuck my mouth, Mori,” she whispers, eyes tracing mine.
She’s as crazy as I am. Or she’s pretending to be. I don’t think I care either way.
My jaw slacks and I rise to my feet, staring down at this wonder of a being as she takes my tip into her mouth. I moan at how wet and hot her lips are as they wrap around me.
“Fuck, Emery, what are you doing to me?” I choke out as she takes me all the way down her throat. She clamps down hard enough to make my balls rise and my hips involuntarily buck against her head.
She lets out a loud moan at the motion. I chuckle. Of course she likes it hard and ruthless. I wouldn’t expect her to want it any other way.
I unclasp her helmet and throw it to the snow, grabbing a fistful of her pink hair and wrapping it around my hand.
I want to tell her how much I love this color on her.
How much it makes me want to pull it. She whimpers, knowing what I’m about to do.
I hold her firmly and start thrusting into her throat.
The wet sounds coming from her lips make my stomach warm.
My orgasm is already shooting down her throat before I can truly have my way with her.
My legs seize as she swallows a few times down on my throbbing cock.
I moan shamelessly. “Fucking milk me dry, baby.” She moans as she slowly pulls my dick from her mouth and licks the tip of it like she’s starving for more.
Emery turns those big honey eyes up to me, and for a second we just stare at each other. My head thrums with a thousand different thoughts at once. But one is louder than the rest.
This one is fucking dangerous.