Possessed by the Killer

by Hamel, B. B.

  “I’m not interested,” she said, but stared at me and didn’t move.

  I leaned over the bar, staring into her eyes.

  “If you marry me, I’ll pay you one million dollars for every year we stay together, for a maximum of ten years.” I tilted my head, smirking slightly, as her mouth fell open. I loved that look on her face. Delicious and almost sexy. Maybe this girl would be a treat to marry after all. “Ten million if you can stick it out.”

  “You’re insane,” she said. “You don’t have that kind of money.”

  “Ask your uncle if you’re not sure,” I said and turned my back on her. I wondered if she’d try to throw the bottle at me. I figured I’d find out as I walked toward the door.

  “This is crazy, you know that, right?” she asked. “You’re a total stranger.”

  “I’m aware,” I said, pausing with my hand on the knob. “But I need your father’s help and I like the way you kiss. Besides, it might be fun.”

  I left the room and caught one final lingering image of her glaring murder at me, like a panther unleashed in a hen house.

  Roy sat on the stairs at the end of the hallway. He struggled to his feet, smiling and dabbing at his forehead. “What’d you think?” he asked.

  “That girl hates my fucking guts,” I said.

  His face fell slightly. “I told her to be good.”

  “She was,” I said. “But she still hates me. What were you thinking?”

  “She’ll come around,” he said, his face going dark, and I grimaced. I didn’t like the way he glared down the hall, and I could only imagine what Roy’s idea of making her come around was.

  “Whatever you’re thinking right now, stop it,” I said angrily. “I made her an offer. If she wants to accept it, then we can make this deal happen. Otherwise, I won’t force her.”

  “She’s got no say,” Roy said. “She’s nobody.”

  “She’s your fucking niece,” I said, walking past him. “Tell her the offer stands. Tell her I’m good for it. She’ll decide on her own.”

  I left him alone there. I hoped he wouldn’t do something drastic to the girl.

  She fascinated me. I never met someone with so much anger before and so willing to tell me straight to my face how she felt. That, combined with the kiss, made me want to tear her clothes off right then and there.

  Fuck, she was gorgeous. I knew Roy would try to force her, but I figured my offer would sweeten the deal enough for her to come around on her own regardless. I didn’t know her at all, and our marriage would be for political reasons, but maybe I could learn to like being with her.

  At the very least, I could make her learn to like it, nice and slow, starting with our wedding night.

  I returned to my father’s office—now my office—and sat down behind the desk to plan.

  2

  Mags

  Uncle Roy ripped clothes from my closet and threw them on my bed. “Pack, you ungrateful bitch,” he snapped. “Do you have any idea what you’ve been offered? Dean Valentino’s going to pay you to be his wife. There are women in this city that would die for a chance like that, and you’re going to take it.”

  I stood on the other side of the room and clenched and unclenched my hands into fists, trying to keep myself calm. I breathed in deep and slowly let it out, focusing on the way my lungs slowly deflated.

  Otherwise, I’d jump across the room and rip Uncle Roy’s face off. Having him in here was a violation.

  I didn’t have a lot in my life, less than a lot of people my age, but at least I had my own bed in my own room. My father and I had an agreement: nothing else in this world was mine, but this space was my safe space.

  Now Uncle Roy trampled all over that hard-won safety, and I wanted to kill him with my bare hands.

  “I’m not a whore,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice level. “You do understand that, right?”

  “Nobody said you have to fuck him,” Uncle Roy grunted. “Just marry him.”

  “How is that different? He’s going to want things from me.”

  They always wanted things from me.

  “And you’ll give him whatever you can to keep him happy,” Uncle Roy said. “Ten years and you’ll walk with ten million. Get him to put it in writing, you stupid girl. Make sure he can’t screw you, or else you’ll be thirty-five and alone with no skills and that young body of yours will be soft and flabby, and nobody’s going to want to have you then.”

  “Jesus,” I said, throwing my hands up. My breathing techniques were not cutting it right now. “I’m your niece. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  He showed his teeth. “Pack your bags,” he said, and left the room.

  I stood there seething, staring at the pile of clothes on my bed, and tried to picture what my life would be like if I actually went through with this.

  The wife of the mafia Don. I’d be in danger every waking hour—but that wouldn’t be so different from the way things were now. My mother married a mafia bastard and she paid the ultimate price one day when I was ten years old. Caught in the crossfire, took bullets meant for my father, and died bleeding on the sidewalk in front of our house.

  I never forgot the look on her face, pale and terrified and in so much pain.

  After my mother’s murder, my dad turned to drinking. He wasn’t so bad before, but the alcohol turned him into a fucking asshole. I used to look forward to school just to get out of the house. As soon as I graduated, he put me to work in one of his strip clubs—his own fucking daughter, working at a strip club—but fortunately I was tending bar and not taking off my clothes. I learned a lot about life in that place though, and spent a lot of time talking to the girls that came and went, some of them strung out, some of them world-weary and dealing with so many issues they’d lost count.

  I never wanted to be like that. Used up and broken.

  Though some of those strippers had their shit together and were just smart enough to use whatever they had to get by in this unjust, fucked-up world.

  Maybe I could be like them. Like Monique—she was going to school during the day and taking off her clothes at night. Stripping her way through school. She used to joke about how she was such a cliché.

  She was a dental assistant now out in the suburbs. Made good money. Had a hot dentist boyfriend.

  Maybe I had to use whatever I could to get ahead.

  I began to pack. I hadn’t made up my mind, but I knew it would be easier. Uncle Roy wasn’t taking no for an answer, and Dad wasn’t going to stand up to his older brother. Dad was a Valentino man, loyal to the family until the end, though he wasn’t even a Capo. He was a midlevel soldier running a single strip club, and maybe he could’ve been more if he hadn’t been broken by the family and fallen deep into a bottle.

  I heard a noise outside my door. Dad leaned against the doorframe and looked at me, not coming into my room. That was one of our rules—my room was off limits to him, so no matter how bad things got, at least I knew I was safe in here.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I shrugged and folded a pair of jeans. “About as okay as anyone can be when they’re getting sold to a stranger.”

  He grimaced slightly. “It’s not like that. Roy’s doing what he’s got to do for the family. I’m doing it too.”

  “You marry Dean then,” I snapped, glaring at him.

  He frowned a little and looked away. I guessed he wasn’t too drunk yet—otherwise he would’ve met my gaze and called me a mouthy slut or something like that.

  “I know you don’t want this,” he said. “But think about how much money you can make if you stick around. Stay with him for five years and walk away at thirty. You’ll be rich and young enough to start over.”

  I dropped my clothes and leaned forward. I hated the way they kept talking about this, like I wasn’t whoring myself to a mafia Don, like it was rational to marry a man for a million dollars per year. It was easy for them to make me do it, since they wouldn’t be the ones waking up in
a stranger’s bed each morning and going to sleep with him each night.

  It wasn’t their world getting flipped on its head.

  I never should’ve told them about the deal. It came out after, when Uncle Roy was going to beat the shit out of me for not living up to his unreasonable expectations, as if I’d throw myself at some stranger just because my uncle told me I should. I told him to keep him from hitting me, and it worked—but as soon as his eyes lit up, I knew I was completely screwed.

  I wanted to scream and run away, but Uncle Roy would catch me and drag me back.

  It’s happened before. Not to me, I kept my distance from Uncle Roy, but to his daughters.

  I didn’t want to become like them. Quiet, obedient. Terrified.

  “I don’t want to be rich,” I said, which sounded stupid. “I just want to make my own choices.”

  “Too bad,” Dad said and sounded almost sorry. “You’re doing this. For the family.”

  Those words, for the family. They justified a lot in my father’s mind.

  He left me then and I finished packing.

  I didn’t have any options. Not here, anyway, not with Uncle Roy downstairs talking to my father, making him think that this was for the best for everyone, including me. It didn’t matter if I hated this, if I hated the mafia, if I blamed them for my mother’s death and didn’t want to end up just like her. It didn’t matter that the family drove my father to drink and turned him into a wreck and a shell of a man.

  None of it mattered, except for the family.

  I finished packing and went downstairs. Dad didn’t look at me as I walked out the door with Uncle Roy. I wanted to say, not even going to come with me while I get sold to your boss? But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  “You’re making the right choice,” Uncle Roy said as I shoved my suitcase in the back.

  I said nothing as I sat down next to it. He hesitated, but shrugged and got behind the wheel.

  I stared out the window as we left the city and drove out to the Main Line.

  My whole life was spent in Philadelphia. I was a nobody girl from a messed-up family, the daughter of a minor soldier. I had no future, not really. I had no money, no prospects, and so much baggage, guilt, and anger that I didn’t know what to do with that I spent most of my time wandering the streets at night trying to decide what the hell I wanted from life.

  Sometimes, I thought about traveling. I thought about leaving Philly for the first time in my life and going somewhere else. Maybe I’d visit Ireland, or Italy, or Germany, or anywhere but here. I could go to school like Monique and get a degree.

  Or I could tend bar in some tiny Alaskan town as far away from my family, from the mafia, from my mother’s ghost as I possibly could. That wouldn’t be so bad. I liked the cold.

  Instead, my uncle drove me to a massive mansion hidden out in the woods on the outskirts of the Philly suburbs and parked out front.

  He turned and looked at me. His eyes narrowed as he took me in, eyes flitting down the front of me and back up.

  “Dean’s important,” he said. “So you will be respectful, not your normal self.”

  “And what am I normally?” I asked.

  “Mouthy,” he said.

  I showed him my teeth. “And you’re a fat asshole,” I said.

  He grimaced. Good, I wanted to piss him off. He wouldn’t hit me right in front of Dean’s place. He wouldn’t risk injuring the goods before the sale was made.

  “Get out,” he said, and opened his door. He slammed it behind him as he stormed up the front steps.

  I reluctantly followed, dragging my suitcase behind me. An older woman answered the door, pink cheeks, white hair, big smile. She looked like the kind of lady that sold gingerbread on TV or something like that. Warm and kind and welcome. “Come on in,” she said, gesturing.

  “Thank you, Bea,” Uncle Roy said, politer than I would’ve expected.

  Bea winked at me as I passed her. “Welcome to the Valentino house,” she said. “I know, it’s a little stuffy. Dean says he wants to make changes. What’s your name again?”

  “Mags,” I said.

  “I’m Bea.” I shook her hand briefly and she smiled huge. “I hope you stick around for a while, but of course there’s no pressure. Dean’s eager to see you again.”

  I smiled back despite myself and swallowed my sarcastic reply. For some reason, Bea soothed me a little bit, or at least made me want to break someone’s face a little bit less.

  We headed down a side hallway and ended up in a large study packed with books lining massive shelves. A huge desk stood in the center of the room and a small table next to it was covered in expensive-looking bottles and cut crystal glasses. Dean sat behind the desk with a tumbler of something brown at his elbow.

  “You came,” he said, sounding surprised.

  “Told you she would,” Uncle Roy said. “I make good on my promises.”

  Dean didn’t even glance in his direction. I felt a blush rise to my cheeks as he stared at me like I was some butterfly on display. That kiss lingered on my lips like a ghost, his taste on my tongue all over again—whiskey and cherry stems—and my back shivered at the intense desire for his touch.

  He was young and handsome, so unlike all the other old mafia guys I knew. My father hung around with the other old-timers, and in my mind, the mafia was made up of overweight middle-aged men that hung around strip clubs like in The Sopranos.

  Dean wasn’t like that at all. He wore a slick, expensive suit, and his dark hair was perfectly styled. He smiled at me with straight white teeth, and his cut jaw made me feel dizzy. His arms were muscular, his chest broad, his shoulders wide and powerful.

  “Why don’t you leave me and Mags alone for a bit?” Dean asked.

  Uncle Roy shifted from foot to foot. “You sure?” he asked. “I can help. I know there are details—”

  “Go,” Dean said, glaring at him.

  I didn’t bother to hide my smile.

  Uncle Roy glared at me. I knew what he wanted to say. Don’t be a mouthy bitch. We need this. I resisted the urge to flip him off before he turned and stormed out.

  Dean let out a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t think you’d come back,” he said.

  “I didn’t think I would either,” I said and hovered behind a chair. I didn’t want to sit. Sitting meant I was staying, and I didn’t want to stay. “But my uncle got a little too excited when he heard your offer.”

  Dean nodded a little. “I was afraid of that. Did he tell you that I’m good for it?”

  “He did,” I said. “He also told me that you’re impotent and you like to beat your girlfriends.”

  He smiled at that. I was trying to goad him, to piss him off, to give me some pretext to get the hell out of here. But he only shook his head.

  “I doubt that,” he said and tilted his head. “I meant it when I said I wasn’t going to force you into this.”

  “Right, since buying me is so much better.”

  He laughed. “Good point, but at least you’re getting something out of this that way.”

  “What do you want from me?” I asked, suddenly angry.

  “I want your uncle’s support,” Dean said. “You’re a symbol. But now I’m starting to think you’d be fun to have around.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m very unpleasant.”

  “You’re nice to look at.” He leaned forward. “And a good kisser.”

  “Oh, god,” I said, looking away, feeling the heat in my cheeks. “You surprised me, okay? I didn’t want anything to do with—kissing you.”

  “Right,” he said, “of course you didn’t, that’s why you’re blushing like a little girl right now.”

  “Shut up,” I said, and took a deep breath in, slowly letting it out. Got to keep myself together. “I don’t want to marry you, okay? Not for a million per year.”

  “Two million per year,” he said. “Up to ten million. So five years all in.”

  I stared at hi
m and my jaw fell open.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked, head spinning. Five years for ten million dollars was insane. I’d be thirty, still young, and very, very rich. I could do anything, go anywhere.

  I’d be free. My father couldn’t touch me and my uncle couldn’t tell me what to do.

  Ten million dollars for five years of my life.

  “There’s a lot wrong with me,” he said softly, leaning back in his chair looking almost pensive. “I’m short-tempered. I drink too much. I like to fight and I love to fuck.” He tilted his head. “We’ll probably do both, although I hope we fuck more than we fight.”

  “Jesus,” I whispered.

  “I don’t go to church,” he said. “I’m a shitty Catholic. I’m violent when I need to be. I use money when I can. I’m not afraid to hurt people to get what I want.”

  “You’re really selling yourself,” I said.

  “I’m loyal,” he said. “And I like to fuck. I mentioned that already, but it’s also a good thing, so I’m mentioning it again.”

  I felt myself blush again. “Good for you,” I said.

  “Thanks.” He sipped his drink. “I’m smart and ambitious. I’m driven and protective. I’ll give you whatever you want without hesitation. I’ll listen to you when you’re having a bad day and I’ll probably be too eager to try to help, so I apologize in advance. I’ll go for walks with you. I’ll make you laugh. But most of all, I won’t force you into anything, and we’ll be partners if you want it.”

  I sucked in a breath and stared at him, trying to make sense of this all. That was the strangest speech I’d ever heard, and I wasn’t sure if his description of himself was at all endearing. He sounded like a monster, to be totally frank, and I was terrified of what it meant to be with him, if I was sacrificing myself for money, and if I’d ever get myself back again afterward.

  “What are you getting out of this?” I whispered.

  “A politically expedient wife,” he said. “Sorry, I know that isn’t romantic, but it’s the truth. I’ll take care of you, Mags. I’ll make you feel good when you’re down, and I’ll fuck you whenever you want. I’ll pay you, and maybe we build a real relationship, or maybe we don’t, but either way, we both walk away from this with something we need. So come on, let’s do this together. You get rich and I hold my family together.”