by Jenika Snow
“The word on the street is that you’re a monster, a black-souled monster who escaped hell.”
Zeke laughed at what Sean said. “I don’t believe in fairy tales. Let’s see if they will believe the rumors when they see what I’ve done to you.”
With three men holding Sean down, he removed his left eye; Sean’s screams of pain filling his head. When he held the eye in his hand, he stuffed it in the man’s mouth. By this time, Sean had passed out from the pain.
The rumors were true. He felt nothing, not even anger as he turned toward the thief. It’s what made others fear him so much. Zeke could cut a person into little pieces while keeping them alive, hearing them scream for mercy, and feel nothing.
There was no pain; there was no guilt. He was just an empty black hole that had been created when he was a young boy. When the beatings started, he’d run into the black part of his mind, to forget everything, to feel nothing. Now, he was simply nothing but a destructive black void.
The therapist supplied by the prison during his incarceration had said he’d be deadly as an enemy. She hadn’t been wrong. During his stint in prison, he’d come up with a plan to cement himself as the deadliest fucker to control the underground. So far, he was on schedule. By the end of the year, he’d have taken out his competition, and be the one facing the rest of the world. The plan was solid, and as he left the warehouse, he smiled. Nothing was ever going to change or stop him.
This city was going to belong to him.
Zeke: Daniella’s birth
STARING DOWN AT his watch, Zeke released a sigh. This was taking too long, and he had places to be that were much better than the hospital. The only reason he was here was because the bitch had claimed to be pregnant with his kid. All he was waiting for was for the baby to be born so a paternity test could be done.
“Surely it doesn’t take this long for a kid to be born,” he said, taking a seat.
“It can take some time. My woman was in labor for several hours.” Billy, his right hand man, spoke up. “These things take time.”
Zeke didn’t have time for a woman to give birth. If the bitch had lied, he was going make sure she paid for it. He knew he should have been safer when he’d fucked her.
Tapping his fingers on his thigh, he had to wait another hour before a nurse finally came out to see him. Without waiting for him, he pushed her out of the way, and walked into the whore’s room.
“We’ve got a girl.”
Walking over to the clear, plastic crib the baby was in; he stared down at the little girl.
“Is she healthy?”
“Yes.”
Picking up the baby, Zeke turned around. “I’m getting a test done to make sure she’s mine. I’ll wait for the results.”
“And if she’s yours?”
“I’ll make sure she’s taken care of.”
Zeke looked at the baby for another moment, set her little body back in the crib, and walked out of the hospital. He climbed into the back of the car, and pulled out his cell phone. He had business to take care of.
“They’ll do the test right away.”
“Good. I need proof that she belongs to me. If she does, I’ll claim her, if not, she can go back to the mother, and both of them can rot for all I care.”
He didn’t care what anyone thought of him. This was what he did.
Either way he looked at it, the baby was an inconvenience.
SEVERAL DAYS PASSED and the baby and her bitch of a mother were back at her place, which was close to one of his temporary homes. He wanted her near when he got the results. He was at the computer in his office when the email came up with a notification. Pressing accept, he read through the data that explained, without doubt, that he was the baby’s father. Getting up from his chair, he found Billy and told him to bring the baby’s mother to his office.
Half an hour later, he heard Billy and the baby’s mother speaking as they walked past his office. He gave them a moment to settle in, and then he made his way upstairs to the room he’d made up for them. He entered the room to find his child’s mother feeding his little girl.
“What do I do?” he asked, moving forward.
“It’s her feeding time. She takes the whole bottle. She’s so beautiful and strong.” She held her finger up, showing him that his little girl held the digits in a strong grip.
“She’s mine,” Zeke said with determination.
“She’s special.”
“Show me what to do,” he said. She removed the bottle from his daughter’s mouth and sat up. The moment her food was gone, his little girl started screaming for more.
“It’s okay, little one. You’re going to be fed in a second.”
Sitting down, and with the baby screaming, Zeke tensed up as the little girl was placed in his hands. He was given the bottle, and the moment he placed it in her mouth, she stopped crying.
Staring into her eyes, Zeke was suddenly caught within her innocence. He’d not been innocent in so long, if ever, and yet, his little girl was innocent.
“I will give you a few moments,” Billy said and pulled the woman out of the room.
The door was closed.
“What the fuck have I done? I was never going to have kids; yet, here you are. It would have been easier if you were a boy. I could handle a boy. This world isn’t good enough for a princess like you. This world will destroy what I see in your eyes.”
She was the first ray of sunshine in his dark soul. The moment he looked at her, simply holding her in his arms, lightened the dark deep within his soul. He was a monster, yet with her in his arms, he didn’t feel like one.
Zeke wanted to protect his little girl.
“Daniella, that’s what I’m going to call you, honey. I’m going to protect you, and love you, and make sure you have everything you ever want,” Zeke vowed.
When she finished her food, a nurse he’d hired just in case the test said the baby was his, entered the room. “You’ve got to burp her now.” Clearly, Billy had told her what he was doing in here, because she instructed him on what to do right away.
For the next twenty minutes, Zeke was shown how to handle his little girl. She threw up some milk down his thousand-dollar suit, but he didn’t care. Daniella was his life, the one person he’d die for. When she was finished, he wiped away the mess on his leg and sat back in the chair.
Daniella curled up on his chest. Her head tilted a little to the side. She didn’t cry as she stared up at him. He couldn’t look away.
“You’re going to cause me trouble, aren’t you?”
His carefully ordered world needed to be changed. No matter what happened, he needed to keep Daniella safe. There had never been a person that he’d cared about. Daniella was his own flesh and blood, and he would protect her.
Placing his hands on her head, he stroked the fine hairs. The minutes passed, and Zeke suddenly scented something rotten.
“Something is wrong with her.”
As if on cue, the nurse came back into the room.
“Something is wrong with her,” Zeke said again, standing up, and holding her toward the nurse.
The nurse laughed. “She just needs her diaper changed.”
He was in for one hell of a ride with Daniella.
Chapter Three
The rise of an empire
THIS WAS HIS, all of it. Zeke had worked for everything in his life; he’d bled for it, sweated for it. Broken bones and bodies littered the path as he made his way to the top. If it all crumbled around him, he’d still rein above everyone, still have the power he’d created. The world would still be his.
“They’re arriving, boss.”
Zeke nodded, walked away from the window that showed the club below… his club Dominion. This was his first rise to the top, the first business that he’d controlled. Now he owned this whole town, this whole fucking state.
He made his way out of his office and down the back stairs. They made their way out the back doors, to wait for the van with the
new shipment to arrive. He grabbed a cigarette, put it between his lips, and lit the end.
The lights from the streetlamps provided a dirty, muted glow of color that washed the back alley. The dark van that came toward them held Zeke’s newest purchases, his newest merchandise.
In the van was a group of pretty sluts that liked cock and wanted to make a living out of sucking and fucking it. It was not an easy job for them, not when they had to learn to be safe and know how to take orders and commands like good little sluts. They had to be smart and know when to take it to the next level and when to make it stop by letting him know.
He inhaled from his cigarette again, snubbed the butt out, and tossed it aside.
The van stopped a few feet from where he and a few of his men stood. Once the headlights were turned off and the engine was cut, a scuzzy as fuck looking guy climbed out of the front seat. Another guy, just as greasy, got out of the passenger seat, and the two of them, with their slicked back hair and pencil thin mustaches, came over to Zeke. They reeked of stale reefer and sweat, and gauging by the sight of their stained and hole-ridden shirts, it was clear they hadn’t stopped on their trip to see him.
Zeke didn’t care what they looked like, as long as the merchandise he’d bought was in perfect condition. If the women wanted protection for what they’d chosen to do with their life, Zeke could provide that. Therefore, he’d bought them off their low-life pimps, would make them part of his club, and he’d give them a better life than they’d had.
“You have the cash?” One of the sleazy guys asked.
Zeke didn’t answer right away, just stared at both of them. These fuckers were new, apparently, or they were the dumbest motherfuckers he’d ever come across. No one spoke to him like that, and no one questioned him about money. He might be a dirty and dark sonofabitch, but he made sure he took care of business professionally.
“Let me see my merchandise.” Zeke stared at them harder; he let them see he wasn’t to be fucked around with in just that one look. The guys looked at each other, started shifting on their feet, and it was clear that they finally realized who was in charge.
One of them walked toward the back of the van. The vehicle was parked at an angle, so Zeke could clearly see the side of the van. He opened the double doors, started saying something in a low voice to presumably the women in the back of the vehicle, and then one by one, they started climbing out.
“Line up over here,” one of Zeke’s men said and moved to the side, pointing to the spot where he wanted the girls. The light overhead would let him see each one perfectly and make sure they hadn’t been beaten. The women might be willing, might like dick in all forms, but that didn’t mean a john hadn’t fucked with them when they were too high or too drunk not to know that you didn’t lay a hand on an innocent or unwilling woman.
Zeke looked at each woman, starting from the left and moving down. There were twelve total, all dressed scantily, all looking at him with their lips puckered, their tits pushed out, and their smiles wide. Yeah, they were Pros, working girls that probably had lives they were running from, lives they probably wanted to forget. Was it the most honorable thing to be a large scale pimp? Fuck no, but it made him a shit ton of money, and because of that, he’d keep doing the low down dirty work.
The girls ranged in weight, height, and ethnicity. They had big tits, small ones, had lush assess, and barely there ones. But men liked women in all shapes and sizes, all skin colors. They didn’t give a fuck as long as her pussy could squeeze their dick off, and she knew what the hell she was doing.
They looked good, clean, but he’d have his back alley doctor check them out real good, make sure they weren’t carrying anything that could get passed to his clientele and give him a bad reputation. He was known for having the cleanest fucking girls around.
He stopped at the last girl in line. Her head was down, her hands behind her back, and he could tell there was something wrong. Not only did she tremble slightly, but when he reached out with a finger under her chin to lift her head, she flinched. He lifted her head anyway, saw her eyes widen, the tears streak down her face, and he saw red when he noticed the way her lip was all fucked up. She was bruised all the way up her cheek; busted and swollen, dried blood dotted her mouth and chin.
He turned her head to the left, and then to the right, taking in the bruising on the other side of her face as well. She whimpered when he gently touched her cheek. She had the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, and they were currently staring at him with tears filling them. He turned her body, saw she had her hands bound, and everything in him tightened. He could see the red, raw marks from where the rope dug into her skin. Clearly, she’d struggled to get out of them.
Looking at her face again, he didn’t do anything but stare at her for several seconds. “What’s your name?”
She looked around, only her eyes moving. She didn’t answer right away, but when he saw her throat work as she swallowed, and he saw her lick her lips, he knew she’d answer.
“Alessandria,” she said on a whisper and winced as she spoke. He knew that had to be painful for her.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked softly, so only she heard. She looked over his shoulder at the men, looked back at Zeke, and finally shook her head.
“Not them. Others did.”
He nodded once, let go of her chin, and turned to face the two motherfuckers. “Why is she beat up?” Zeke asked, keeping his voice neutral.
The guys looked at each other, and finally, the one that had been driving answered. “We picked her up with the other girls. She was already beaten when we got her, but she started struggling.”
“And you didn’t think making sure she was okay to travel was a priority?” Zeke asked, still keeping his cool as he took a step toward them. “You took an unwilling woman that was already hurt and hurt her more?” Zeke was in control, but he was enraged.
“We had to get the job down. She was making a scene.”
Zeke reached in his suit jacket, grabbed his Glock, and without even blinking, put a bullet in each of those pricks skulls, right between their eyes. Blood splattered across the concrete, and he stared at their lifeless bodies on the dirty ground. Taking a deep breath, he tucked his gun back in his suit, turned to face the women, and saw they all had wide eyes, but otherwise didn’t move. They weren’t screaming, weren’t looking like they were afraid he was going to shoot them next.
He stepped close to them again.
“No one will lay their hands on any of you. When you say no, it means no, and if a motherfucker thinks to take from you that which you are not willing to give, know that working for me means you’ll be protected.”
The girls visibly relaxed.
“And I only want women that are here because they want to be here. I don’t deal in sex-trafficking, nor do I let my girls get raped, and I sure as fuck don’t allow them to get beaten.”
The girls looked over at Alessandria, but he was already looking at her.
“I’ll have my doctor check you all out. After that, you can clean up, get something to eat, and rest for the remainder of the night. Then I’ll have things explained to you. I work things here my way, and I want them done a certain way.” Zeke gestured for one of the guys to show the girls inside. The other two guys started loading up the dead bodies in the back of the van, and soon they were driving it away from Dominion.
When Alessandria started making her way toward the club, he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She was tense, her head still downcast.
“Look at me,” he said, his voice deep. There was something about her, something that had his body coiled tight. It wasn’t because she’d been hurt, but there was something, when he looked at her, that tugged at his protective side. He wanted to kill anyone who had touched her and put that fear in her eyes.
“Who touched you? Tell me their names.”
She didn’t answer right away, but he saw how her throat worked as she swallowed, could practically smell her fear, hear he
r heart racing.
“You’re safe now.” He reached behind her, undid her hands, and without thinking, he had her wrists in his hands, rubbing her skin. She winced, and he gentled his touch.
But the longer she stared at him, the more he felt that protective instinct in him to make sure she was never hurt again. He also realized she wouldn’t tell him anything. But Zeke would get it out of her. He’d find out who hurt her, who had made her feel like this.
“Get checked out and cleaned up, Alessandria. And don’t worry, I’ll find out who the fuck did this to you.”
One of his men came back out and helped her inside, but before she disappeared into Dominion, she looked over her shoulder at him. His chest tightened at the look of vulnerability in her eyes.
He reached for his cell, turned his back on the now closed door, and called the people he knew that would find out what he wanted. He might have men under his thumb that would die to get the job done, but the truth was that he trusted the Soldiers.
“Zeke,” Demon said in a bland voice.
“I need the Soldiers to find out some information for me, and I need it to be a priority.”
Zeke was going to make sure he found out how Alessandria had ended up in his establishment, because whoever did this to her would pay with their life. There was something vulnerable, innocent about her. Something about her reminded him of the sweetness he saw when he looked in Daniella’s face. He could be a heartless killer, a bastard, but that didn’t mean he would let someone beat a woman and make her feel fear.
No, Zeke would hunt them down and tear them apart.
ALESSANDRIA HAD BEEN given the privacy to take a shower, a set of clean, modest clothes, and was now stepping into the room she’d share with the rest of the girls. She saw they were dressed in scantily clad clothing, clean, but still revealing, whereas she’d been given the only outfit that didn’t show her tits and ass.