by Tillie Cole
“I need times and locations of where you were. If the Brethren have somehow figured out where we are, we have to be diligent. The last thing we need is to have them back in our lives, coming for our blood.”
“Maybe we should let them,” Diel said. All of the brothers focused on him. He rolled his neck, the bones clicking under the heavy weight of his electric collar. “Maybe it’s time to face them. To show them who we are now.”
“I agree,” Sela said. Sela would always agree with Diel. He and Sela were best friends. Just like Bara and Uriel were, Raphael and Michael the same. It was only Gabriel who sat on the fringes of their group. He was their older brother. But he kept to himself or in the company of John Miller, the lawyer who used to work for Gabriel’s grandfather. The grandfather who was a killer too.
“We’re stronger than them now. We can fight them and win. If they’ve found us or at least are looking again after all this time, maybe it’s a sign we finally need to face them,” Diel argued. His neck tensed under his collar. His head twitched as the collar hummed, reacting to his quickening pulse.
“It could be a sign from your beloved God, Angel,” Bara added, smirking at Gabriel. “Maybe he’s returned to his Old Testament wrathful self and craves a bit of good old-fashioned violence.” Bara gestured around the table. “We’d all be his willing soldiers if it meant bringing down those Brethren cunts.”
Gabriel got to his feet, ignoring Bara. “I’m getting surveillance on that club. I want to know who exactly is looking for us. Once we know that, we’ll make plans.” Gabriel sighed and faced Raphael. He looked tired. He always looked tired. “Raphael, the kill is off. For now, at least.” Gabriel braced himself, body tense, clearly waiting for Raphael’s wrath. But Raphael just nodded. Gabriel’s eyebrows pulled down in confusion. Then, without another word, he left the room.
Uriel was staring at Raphael like he was looking at a stranger. Even Michael had looked up from his black coffee. “Why aren’t you more pissed? He’s taken away your kill,” Uriel asked.
“I’ll get it back.”
“Are you insane?” Sela asked.
“Or, in our case, have you found your sanity?” Bara laughed darkly at his joke and put his hand on his chest. “Raphael . . . have you found God too?”
His brothers smirked at the redhead.
“The whore was rancid. There was nothing exciting about being inside her overused pussy, even if it meant I got to snap her neck at the same time.” Raphael shrugged. “She held no appeal to me. She was a bad target. Nowhere near my type. When I go back, it’ll be a quick and unsatisfying death for the slut.” Raphael stood up. “I’m going to sleep.” He left the room and walked up the stairs. Michael never turned up to hang out until dark fell and dinner was done. He had time with the woman. Hours where he wouldn’t be disturbed.
Back in his suite, he made sure every lock on his door was bolted and headed straight for the closet. When he walked in and switched on the light, it was to find two huge blue eyes fixed on his.
A slow smile broke out on his face. “Hello, again.”
Chapter Five
Maria breathed heavily as she stared into that unnerving golden gaze. His smile was as devastating as she remembered, as seductive and as charming. But her heart fired like a cannon, warning of trouble, when she remembered how quickly the sinner had lost that fake smile and launched at her, wrapping his hands around her throat. Even now she could feel the bruising grip crushing her windpipe. She no doubt had marks on her skin. It hurt her to swallow.
Maria closed her eyes. Last night, or whenever that was, she had thought he would kill her. When she had lost consciousness, she thought she would die. She didn’t know what he wanted with her alive. Father Quinn and Father Murray had told her he was a murderer. But he had kept her. She blanched at what he might do to her next.
Raphael looked different from the previous night. He was in casual clothing, for one. His messy dark locks were unstyled. Like this, he looked young and kind. But Maria had borne witness to the monster lurking underneath his pretty façade. She wouldn’t be fooled again. For some reason, God had spared her once more. She pulled at the binds tying her hands behind her back. Tried to push her tongue against the gag and tape on her mouth. But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t scream. She was mute and immobilized. She tried to stave off the panic that was threatening to disable her. But the lack of freedom was like heavy quicksand that dragged her under. The iron-clad clutch that grabbed her by the ankle and started pulling her down. Down into her past, one she had fought for years to forget . . .
Maria blinked. Her eyes were sore. She tried to move, but something held her hands in place, her legs. Her mind was fogged. She tried to remember where she was, what was happening. Like the first signs of rain, drop after sporadic drop began to seep into her consciousness. Memories of a man walking into their home. Memories of the man shooting her father in the head, his body dropping to the ground, eyes wide open and watching Maria as she screamed on the floor, staring at her father, who had only minutes before brought them popcorn, as the movie they had chosen to watch still played.
Maria’s brother ran for their mother, who was trying to fend off the heavy fists of the man. But just as Mark tried to reach for the attacker’s gun, the man fired, and Mark dropped to his knees. Maria screamed as her brother held his stomach and collapsed to the side. His hand reached out for her. Maria scrambled to where he lay and managed to hold his hand just as her brother’s eyes frosted over and he exhaled a stuttered final breath. Maria didn’t see the attacker kill her mother, but she heard the single gunshot.
Maria was rolled onto her back and, in her state of numbness and shock, was bound and gagged and shoved into a car . . .
Raphael reached for Maria, ripping her from the darkness of the past. She flinched as he cradled her in his arms. He looked down at her. “I won’t hurt you, little rose.”
Maria didn’t know what to think as the softly spoken loving words fell from his lips. She had never been on the receiving end of an endearment from a man before. Maria remembered the savage expression that had torn apart his face as he held her up by her throat in the private room of the club. Her nerves were frayed by the two very different sides of this man. Lord, give me strength to endure this test, whatever it may be.
Raphael took her into a large ornate room. It was bigger than most apartments she had seen. Perhaps some houses. The bright winter sun peeked in through the floor-to-ceiling period windows that peppered the far wall. Raphael, with the gentleness of a saint, brought her to a padded red velvet chair. He placed her on the seat and sat on the end of the bed. He pulled her closer and smiled.
“I want to untie you, talk to you. But you can’t scream.” He nodded, trying to make his point. “Do you understand? I need you to be silent.” Raphael’s attention fell to Maria’s neck. His nose flared and he gritted his teeth, as if he were angry. Reaching out, he ran his finger over her skin. She flinched when it hurt. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said as he pulled away. “Your neck is too perfect to mark.” He shook his head and ran his hands over his beautiful face. “You were there and you were perfect and . . . you were lying.” Agony morphed his beautiful face again, only for her to see him fight it—deep breaths and clenched jaw—and adopt a visage full of guilt. Maria didn’t know if this was a ruse or whether he seriously regretted hurting her. A flicker of hope burst in her chest. He felt guilt. Guilt and shame. Maybe he wasn’t so far gone that Maria couldn’t be of help.
“You were holding that rosary.” His eyes lost some of their kindness, taking Maria from her thoughts. His mood changes were a turbulent twister, shifting an unpredictable path in a second, giving one no time to prepare for the destruction. “How are you connected to them?” Fathers Quinn and Murray. He must have been talking about Fathers Quinn and Murray. They had told her this killer knew them. She didn’t know how or why; she hadn’t asked. Maria had no idea how Raphael killed, his preferences or his motives. She h
ad entered into this church-ordered task blindly. As a novitiate it hadn’t been her business to question anything. Nuns never doubted a priest. “You’re a woman. How did they get you on their side?”
Raphael didn’t know she was about to become a nun, pledge herself to the church. He saw a woman, not a bride of Christ. Father Quinn was her superior; it was her duty to obey him. And she trusted him. She wouldn’t tell Raphael anything of the priests who were only trying to do God’s work.
Raphael came further forward. Maria could see the outline of tattoos under his white shirt. The material was thin and betrayed the many artful black lines. She couldn’t make out what the design was. He placed his hands on the arms of the chair. She smelled his scent—fresh water and salt. It shouldn’t have been attractive to her. It was. She shouldn’t have found him attractive, period, but she did. Humans were imperfect, and often did and felt things that they shouldn’t. But this man was evil wrapped up in a beautiful package. Every exquisite feature he boasted was a mask for the wretchedness that prowled underneath. Maria prayed there was a hint of good that remained hidden deep. She prayed that she could appeal to that good.
“I want to know your name. I want to help you. I don’t want to hurt you.” His golden eyes narrowed, half threat, half plea. “Don’t force me to hurt you. Things won’t go well for you if you do.” Maria’s stomach flipped at the casually spoken warning. Raphael reached for the tape over her mouth. “Do you promise not to make a sound?” Maria nodded, knowing she had no other choice. She knew how quickly he could turn and didn’t want to risk it. She needed to keep this amiable Raphael on side. She didn’t want to meet the evil Raphael again—that moral-less man terrified her. Fear would keep her silent, if that was what he required, until she could work out a way to escape.
“Good girl.” Raphael smiled proudly and began to peel back the tape. Maria never took her eyes off him the entire time. The tape pulled at her skin, it hurt, but she didn’t even flinch. She didn’t want him to know what caused her pain in case he used it against her. When the tape was off, Maria inhaled a long breath. Raphael tensed, as if waiting for her to scream. She didn’t.
After a few seconds of observing her closely, Raphael sat back on the edge of the bed. “Are you thirsty?” She nodded. Raphael walked to a small fridge on a nearby cherry wood desk, took out a bottle of water, and unscrewed the lid. He carefully brought it to her mouth. Maria parted her lips, never taking her eyes off the killer as she drank down the refreshing mouthfuls. His pupils dilated as he watched her swallow, his gaze fixed on the subtle movement of her throat. She licked her lips after she was done. She didn’t understand her appeal to this man. Maria never paid much attention to looks; she had met beautiful people that were ugly on the inside. She knew she wasn’t overly pretty. In truth she was very plain. She didn’t rival Raphael in terms of beauty, but the way he watched her made her feel like a Florentine Renaissance masterpiece at which people flocked to galleries to marvel.
Raphael pulled the bottle away and took a seat. He leaned back on his hands, the action making the lean muscles in his arms flex. “What’s your name?”
She saw no sense in lying. “Maria,” she said quietly. Her voice was weak and hoarse from the bruising on her throat. “My name is Maria.” At least, that was the name she had chosen and been referred to by for years. It was too painful to remember the girl she was before.
“Maria,” Raphael echoed, her name rolling around his lush mouth. He smiled, revealing dimples that cut into his stubbled cheeks. Raphael leaned forward, elbows on his thighs. “And why were you in the club last night? Do you expect me to believe it was because you went to play?”
“I was there to play,” she said, more confidently than she felt. She had vowed her silence to Father Murray and Father Quinn. She would not falter in that regard. She would not break the vow. She would die before she did. Maria had forgone her possessions when she entered the monastery. Her word was all she had in the world.
“Mmm . . .” Raphael pondered, crossing one leg over the other and running his hands over his face in wonderment. “Then it was your first time?”
Maria refused to allow her nerves to best her. She had a role to play. And play it she would. Father Quinn needed this man off the streets and locked away so he couldn’t hurt anyone again. Maria was confident Father Quinn would help Raphael, help him see the error of his ways. She prayed that if they were found by the priests, they could set Raphael on the path to redemption.
Everyone deserved the darkness to be lifted from their souls. Raphael was no different. Maria didn’t know what her future was now. But as she studied Raphael’s beautiful face, she wondered if she could help him. Be some semblance of light in his overcast world.
“It was my first time. I applied for the club. They thought a virgin might appeal to some of its more experienced members,” Maria said, sticking to the script she and Father Quinn had planned.
Raphael’s eyes flared and his lips parted. The movement was subtle, but Maria caught it. She had grown adept at seeing the smaller gestures people made. The little tells that indicated if someone would hurt her or not. She’d had no choice.
“You’re a virgin?” His voice was deep.
“Yes.” Maria hung her head. She wasn’t acting in her timidity. This was real.
Raphael leaned closer. “And what did you want from the club?” His head tipped to the side. He looked breathtakingly beautiful in this position, his long lashes framing his alluring eyes. Raphael’s beauty was sin personified. Maria almost revealed the truth of what he had asked her. She chastised herself for her weakness. For being drawn in by his pretty face and sensual voice. “You wanted to be tied down, strapped up . . . your pussy deflowered by a man in leather with a penchant for pain?” His words were crass, but his voice was silk. Sailing into her ears like an expensive black sheet caught in a cool breeze.
This is how he does it, Maria realized. How he lures his victims in. His voice, his smiles . . . his addictive scent.
“I . . .” Maria searched for an answer that he would believe. “I wanted to be . . . awakened in a non-conventional way.”
Raphael exhaled a long breath as if her answer pleased him, but his eyes narrowed in suspicion. She kept eye contact.
“How old are you?”
Again, Maria saw no reason to lie. The fewer lies she gave, the less she would have to remember. Her mother always warned her that to lie one must have a perfect memory. “Twenty-one. Almost twenty-two.” She tried to guess Raphael’s age. He was young too. Too young, in her opinion, to live the deviant life he did. Maria couldn’t understand how someone so young could want to kill, to rob someone of the rest of their life.
She wondered whose home they were in. It was grand and screamed of money and status. It couldn’t have been Raphael’s. Not unless he inherited such a place. But what would Maria know? For all her guesses and musings, Raphael could have been a filthy-rich businessman who liked to kill on the side. It would explain how he paid off the authorities as Father Quinn had said. Before she thought better of it, she asked, “And how old are you?”
Raphael smirked at her moment of boldness. She wondered if it was because she was tied to a chair, playing a dangerous game with a predator, was bound and imprisoned, yet had the courage to ask such a thing. “How old do you think I am, little rose?”
Maria didn’t know why he kept calling her that. From the way his tongue wrapped around the word “rose,” she knew it must have had some kind of significance, but she couldn’t even begin to guess what. She shook off the question of the endearment and said, “Twenty-four.”
“Close.” Raphael shrugged. “I’m twenty-five.”
Maria thought back to the blond woman at the club. She must have been fifty or more, her true age disguised by the surgery she’d had done to her face. They hadn’t looked right together at the time. He could have been her son. Or maybe that was part of his alternative lifestyle. Maybe he liked older women.
Or maybe he had no preference over whom he killed, as long as he could.
The way Raphael was looking at her right now, Maria knew that couldn’t be true. He was transfixed. Could barely take his attention away from her for a second.
“What’s your pleasure, Maria?” He stood, pressing his hands onto the chair arms beside her. “Tell me, how do you like to play?” He was breathless, and had been hanging on her every word since he had brought her back to his rooms.
“However you want.”
“Careful, little rose.” Raphael tutted and shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re asking for. You know nothing of my particular desires.”
Maria was glad her hands were tied behind her back. They were trembling so hard as she tried to decipher what he meant by that. She couldn’t even imagine what a killer would like sexually. Nothing she could ever envision, she was sure.
Raphael was staring at her, fire in his eyes, as he waited for her response. This was it. The point of no return. She was balancing on a deadly precipice. But she knew there was only one choice. She had to see this through. Maria thought of the martyrs she admired. Her namesakes. They died for their faith, for what they believed was right in the eyes of the Lord. She could do the same. If she did this, giving herself over to Raphael for the sake of the innocent, then she could face God knowing she served Him well. She would never face Him as a coward with regret suffocating her heart. Like Father Quinn had said, giving yourself to the church required love and sacrifice. One cannot love without sacrifice.
This would be hers.
And maybe . . . just maybe, she could appeal to the good left inside him. Like Jesus walked with the sinners and the damned, she could do the same. Maria had never believed that mankind was born evil. As she looked at Raphael, she wondered what had happened in his life to cause him to travel such a brutal and cruel path. Her stomach tightened with hope . . . hope that maybe she could offer him comfort in some way that could release some of the evil that consumed his soul.