“You left him hanging,” she whispers. “For thirty-six hours.”
“Do you have any idea what he has been through?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, well, that needs to be your first step,” I suggest. “You need to get to know your husband. Really. Truly. Know him. His name is Salvatore Raniero, and he is an awesome fucking guy.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “He’s mine…”
“If you asked him today if that was even in his top ten bad things, I guarantee he would say no. He runs hot on emotion and sometimes those get all twisted up in his head. He needed to be grounded. I was never going to kill him. I was giving him exactly what I knew he needed to snap out of it.”
“He turns pain into fuel…”
“Yes!” I praise. “Fuel to deal with the emotions…and when he doesn’t have the pain, he finds pain. I fucked up after we killed Atticus. I should have given him a session, and I didn’t do that. That is on me. Have you ever killed someone with your bare hands?”
“… Is this important?”
“Yeah.”
“Yes,” she says. “I have. During my time at the palace, I was forced to practice.”
“How did you feel afterward?”
“Out of control,” she whispers. “So lost.”
“And what did you do about it?”
“Do we have to talk about this?” Her eyes blink with tears. “Because it wasn’t easy, and it’s not a place I want to return to. I am the Lotus and I was trained in accordance of the past. They didn’t make the aftercare easy. They wanted it to challenge everything I was taught to believe through various torture tactics. They broke me, Deacon.”
“Does Sal know?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“You two need to start talking in complete sentences with transparent emotions,” I scold, hoping like hell it sticks. “You would be utterly amazed at how much you have in common.”
“He’s scared of what CAE did to me because he cannot fix it.”
“Then he needs to stop being afraid,” I reassuringly say. I’m not picking a side. I’m on both of their teams. I want their love to succeed. “Because you are fascinating. I know you, and I know him, but you two don’t truly know each other.”
“We’re really good at one thing.”
“Yeah, you are!” I boast. “But you could be so much better.”
“I need to be better.”
“Then we work on it,” I say, knowing I may have to crack their skulls together and play mediator. “I will play coach if I gotta.”
“You may have to.”
“He’s incredible, aside from what all you know.” I brag, “But you need to get inside of his head and get comfortable because he is as amazing as you are.”
“Are you going to help me?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” I wink, holding her hands. “I will.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because you deserve a chance at love with him. And I am so smitten with you both; it’s silly.”
“He’s going to be upset about the things we did.”
“I don’t know that,” I adjust, squeezing her fingers. “He may be fucking mad, but he’s evolving. We all are.”
“Maybe we all just needed time to bloom.”
79
In the Garden of Eden
His Butterfly
“When are you going to call him?” Deacon asks as I pull my new baby into the garage and close the door.
“Why?”
“Because he loves you, Iris.”
A shadow appears on my side, catching my attention before the car door opens. “Get out of the car, whore!”
“Deacon!” I scream, and he reaches for his gun as the man pushes the barrel against my head. “Don’t!”
“Pull out the gun, put it on the dash, or I blow her fucking brains all over you!”
Fear floods my eyes as I take a deep calming breath and peer over at him. “Do it, Cruz.”
“We’re going to go into the house and have a party.”
The white skull masked man grabs my arm, forcing my body up and out of the vehicle as the one on the other side does the same to Deacon. Thinking a casual home invasion, he bargains, “What do you guys want? I have cash, weapons, drugs, name it.”
The one holding my arm laughs. “Your souls.”
We’re escorted inside, where another man sits in the living room. I don’t notice a visible gun.
Rap music is blaring as the party on the table comes into view—booze, multicolored pills, lines of blow, syringes, rocks, spoons, tourniquet, and lighter. They’re all set up for a good night in hell.
We’re moved to stand by the sofa as the three block any possible exit. “Here is what we’re going to do. You two are going to enjoy yourselves with our goods, enjoy a fuck, and then we’re going to take care of the rest.”
This is premeditated, planned down to minute details—a mob hit. I consider the things Deacon and I have done, and there is only one very predominant marker of our association. With the symbolism clear, I wage a guess, “We didn’t kill Krystal Campanelli!”
“Oh, you fucking did, whore!” red mask yells, backhanding me. “And you’re going to pay for that right fucking now!” All of Deacon’s muscles tighten as he flinches. “If you do one thing, it’s over, and you won’t get to fuck the flower, but we damn sure will!”
The discreetly hidden cameras are on in the living room because of Sal.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he brought in the ladder.
“Adjusting the angle of this camera,” he said with the tiny screwdriver in between his lips. “Everywhere I stay has cameras.”
“… Even the bedrooms?”
“Ya,” he said. “This is what happens when they take a mafia kid and train him.”
“All of your life is on film?”
“Most of it gets erased,” he replied, jumping off the highest step. “But one day, it may come in useful.”
“Every house?”
“The Dollhouse and the one in Sugargrove,” he informed, kissing my lips. “If I ever have another house, it’ll have cameras too.”
The house in Colorado belonged to him.
He watched…everything.
I kneel and snort a rail. “Let’s party, boys!” I crack open the whiskey and pour Deacon a glass. He looks at me like I’ve lost my fucking mind. “Can I have the vodka in the freezer, please?” Biting my lip, I bat my lashes and play tension relief specialist like it was fucking yesterday.
“Get it,” the black skull masked man orders. “Now!”
“Thanks, babe!” I wink.
Black mask is the leader, the instigator, the one getting paid for the hit. Deacon fumes, clenching his fists. “Don’t even think it, biker boy.”
The one in the red skull mask nods. “Do another line, slut. You know you can do more than one.”
I grin. “Why ever would you think that?”
“Because you’re Raniero’s bitch!”
Deacon shifts his stance and tightens his jaw as I snort through another and don’t miss a beat. I’m not dying tonight, but if they for one split second think that I am weak, they will only use it to their advantage. I know how these guys think despite the odd methodology. They’re hellbent on chaos, not really wanting our death.
Their goal is to disturb the equilibrium.
And the only way to balance that out is to be as insane as they are.
“I’m taking off my jacket,” Deacon says as I note his flushed cheeks as white mask returns with my booze.
“Do it,” black mask encourages as Deacon eyes the syringes. “You know you want to.”
“I’m partying with the babe tonight,” he says. “You can keep your fucking junk.”
Sitting in the chair directly across from us, black mask shrugs. “To each their own. Take off her dress.”
I gracefully roll up as Deacon unzips the back of the gown, and it falls around my ankles. He pi
cks it up and throws it far, saving the virgin white silk from our sins.
In a white corset, garter belt, and stockings, I groove to the beat, taunting the boys. “No panties makes this a lot easier!” red mask rallies. “Get in and get it done! We’re going to have fun with that one.”
I listen for an accent, but there isn’t a noticeable one. If I had to guess, I would say from somewhere up north. They’re Campanelli’s men…Oh, God, Dom’s nephew…Enzo Gennaro.
The black sheep.
The bad seed.
The misfit.
The killer of Diamond Downs.
Deacon says, “You got another vial?”
“Catch, pretty boy!”
The words set me off as Deacon quickly swipes the vial from the air. I fill the fucking glass full of the cold vodka and take a tiny sip. “Bend over, Rie.”
Shit.
“We’ll show them how we did it on Daddy’s dollar…”
Fuck.
His words are the ultimate power move, and I know it. He’s playing with his proverbial big dick swinging in the wind as I roll my ass. He pops my ass cheek hard, but I merely react with a moan, which is precisely what these fuckers want. “You boys ever gone skiing on an ass like this?”
God, Deacon.
I may kill you after this.
Because we’re going to have some explaining to do to a very pissed off Master.
I get into the rhythm of the beat, close my eyes, and feel Deacon doing what he does so well. “Give me that ass.”
Within minutes, he’s got these three chumps flying off the dust on my ass. Black mask grabs a low handful, and I feel his finger way too close to my boys’ kitten.
“You should try a powdered donut,” Deacon charms, licking his lips. “They’re delicious!”
Oh. Goddammit.
How much are you going to tell Sal on camera?
Worst case? These guys kill us.
Best case? Sal does.
I do my best not to react to anything. I show no emotion but the one they want to see—hot fucking slut ready to party and play.
“Fuck her,” black mask says. I swivel around to face Deacon, looking like a deer in the headlights. He isn’t a showman—that’s Sal—and he needs help. I gyrate down his muscled body and bounce around his frame like he’s the pole for my stripper. I arch my curves out as I dance to the beat.
“She’s gonna suck him!”
No shit, fuckface.
My fingers quickly undo his trousers as I spot his flaccid cock. I glance up, begging him to trust me. Just close your eyes, baby. I got this. Let me take care of you. I prohibit their viewing of him like this. Easing my lips over the head, I feel his hands grip my hair, and we work the problem together. A few good strokes of my mouth and he’s bulging out of the edges of his zipper.
“Fuck the bitch!”
With my fingers never leaving his shaft, I crawl up onto the sofa and spread my legs. Deacon is dying inside. This whole night is destroying him, one piece at a time, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.
Stroking slowly, I encourage, “Come here and fuck me with that hard cock!”
Odds are he goes flatter than a pancake.
And give up any hope of coming under duress.
If they’re looking for a money shot, they’re going to be waiting until I am eighty or dead. Deacon cannot do this. He has issues—massive ones—that no one knows about. No one but Sal and me. He kneels on the sofa, taking his dick from my hand as his sad blue eyes peer at me. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop,” I command, doing my best Dominant. “Fuck me.”
I get excited at the feel of the tip but am quickly disheartened by the soft skin grinding against me. “Fuck her, man!”
God, the humiliation.
We may recover from the affair, but we aren’t getting out of this one.
“Pretty pansy boy got a problem with his peenie?”
My Deacon. My Master. My Monster.
He will never be able to do this.
His eyes glaze at mine as he tries. His jaw tightens, and his lips purse. “If you can’t fuck her, let me show you how it’s done!”
“No!” Deacon roars, shielding me.
From the black bag on the floor, red mask removes the thick chain, one used for towing vehicles. “Oh, God…Deacon…”
“Don’t tell me,” he hisses. “I can take it easier than raping you.”
I am going to kill them.
Every single last one of them.
“Still not going to do it, huh?” black mask asks from the chair as red mask swings the chain, and Deacon hovers over me.
“Just close your eyes, Dandy.”
My fingers undo his tie as I prepare for the full weight of him to come barreling down on me. He won’t be able to stop it. This is going to hurt—both of us.
“Go!”
The chain rattles in the air as the first strike hits with a sudden impact. I don’t know where this is going. They aren’t going to get Deacon hard by beating him with a chain.
Hello, wrong guy, assholes.
Sal would’ve come twice by now and been revving up for three.
Red mask thrashes again and again against Deacon’s backside. I cannot tell where they are landing because I am curled entirely under his broad frame.
“Get up!” black mask commands. “Show him how it’s done!”
Deacon’s eyes flare open full of a storm. “You aren’t raping her!”
“Then we’ll take you!” white mask booms. Red mask rips Deacon’s pants down. “Well, well…you belong to Raniero too…”
“No, Deacon! No!”
“Yes!”
“Get off of me!” I roar, fighting against Deacon. My knee nails him in the balls as the two goons pull him from me. My right hand quickly pulls the blade from the left side of my bra, popping it open and nailing black mask near the crotch in the chair.
“Bitch fucking stabbed me!” he shouts, pulling out the blade as Deacon fistfights with the two thugs. I hear the guns being kicked over the slick wooden floor. “Fucking whore!”
I grab the lighter, setting the vodka in the glass on fire before taking a swig and spitting the flames all over black mask. He extinguishes the flames by pulling his jacket and mask off before getting up and running away.
“There is a Glock in every room.”
I grab the gun from the kitchen drawer and take off after him. I guess he didn’t finish his sentence either…of every house, he stays in.
He darts past the pool to the fence and climbs to the top when I fire the shot, and he falls over to the other side. “Fuck!”
With my heels getting stuck in the dirt, I sprint toward the fence on the balls of my feet as he swings open the gate, and I spot the van speeding off in the distance.
Rushing back inside, I spot Deacon with the chain around his neck and bent over the edge of the sofa. Red mask’s cock is out. “You do what you are about to do, and I will blow your fucking dick off.”
“Bitch, please!” white mask yells, high as a kite and waving his gun all around.
“Point. Shoot. Don’t hesitate.”
I don’t think; I shoot. Hitting his thigh, he falls to the ground as Deacon backs up with all his force into the wall. Pictures fall, and glass shatters to the ground. “What the hell! Fucking cunt shot me!”
I slip my fingers under Deacon’s tie, pulling it off his neck, and kick the bastard over before tying his wrists together. I might get a zip tie from the drawer, but I’m kind of relishing in my brand of Lotus symbolism. “Move again, and you will get a bullet to the brain, fucker!”
Spinning back to Deacon, I know he’s going to kill these two with his bare hands. The wall buckles with every punch of his fist. He’s in a grave, violent trance—a killing seizure—and I shouldn’t disturb him, but his pants are down, and that’s not my Dark Saint.
“Know a mother’s wrath.”
Mama protects her boys.
And she’ll pull your pan
ts up, son.
With his ring-laden fingers around the guy’s neck, Deacon chokes red mask as I cautiously approach, sliding my delicate hands around his thighs, and hoisting up his pants. I fasten them at the waist as he twitches erratically. I don’t bother with the zipper.
This ain’t about the dick; we’re all about that ass in the trinity.
“Thanks.”
Nodding once, I slip away without a sound. I grab my cigarette holder from my purse and the glass of whiskey as I sit in the chair and bop my head to the beat. Crossing my legs, I stare at the exquisite silver and crystal shoes, as I enjoy this evening’s entertainment.
And I flick the fire.
80
B3
His Butterfly
With red mask dead on the floor, Deacon strips off his shirt and swaggers away. “This house will need to be exorcised from the demon spirits and resurrected with no preset spending limit credit card.”
“You’re damn, right!” Deacon hisses, returning with his crowbar. “You should leave.”
“No,” I maintain, flicking my eyes up to him. “I am your Queen. Kill for me.”
The first half an hour with red mask was brutal, and blood is everywhere. I cannot imagine he’ll be easy on white mask.
He’s warmed up.
And he’s just getting started.
He rolls him over and pulls off the mask. “Who hired Enzo? Was it Campanelli?”
The guy moans from the pressure of Deacon straddling on the gunshot wound. “No…”
“Who was it?” Deacon bellows as I light another smoke—not on the holder—uncurl my legs, and walk over to offer him a drag. “Answer me!”
Just like your son.
Better watch Merritt.
“Bitch’s man.”
I furrow my brow as Deacon slams his head to the ground. I pull my phone from my purse and hit record. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“His old man,” the guy mumbles, drifting on the high.
Diary of a Submissive (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 4) Page 66