Lake's Reign

by A. E. D

  LAKE’S REIGN

  By

  A.E.D

  Contents

  LAKE’S REIGN

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Announcements

  Copyright © 2019 A.E.D

  All rights reserved.

  Dear family,

  Please skip the sex scenes.

  Prologue

  *Beep*

  *Beep*

  *Beep*

  “Ugh..”

  The incessant sound of my phone going off woke me from my slumber. The place where my demons and I go to rest. The one place that we can truly be ourselves. With no laws to hold us back, no judgement on the way we conduct our business, no nothing. Just the darkness that feeds my soul.

  “Yes.” I speak sternly through the phone.

  “Number?” My patience is wearing thin. A regular client finds it amusing to test my patience. Something he should know that I have little of.

  “When?” I calmly say. The calmer I am, the deadlier I become. I hear his breath hitch as he notices the change of tone.

  I end the call.

  My next job has been delivered. The man whose call I just took has hired me many times before. Our first dealings together did not go well. Working amongst mobsters, gangsters and kingpins will always have their struggle. But worse if you’re a woman. The moment Joe Morelli met me, he made his first mistake. Which was doubting me, the second mistake he made was touching me. Even a simple touch of my waist, gently leading me into a room is more than enough contact. Men like that think they have the power to do what they please with anyone, especially women. But he learnt that day not to ever treat me as such. For I am not the same, I am something else. I do not love like they do, I do not cry like they do, I do not need men the way they do.

  I set off in collecting my supplies.

  Knives... check.

  Hooks... check.

  Gloves and suit... check.

  This was the job that started me on the path of no return. The one that sealed my fate before it even began.

  The one that led me straight to him.

  Mason King.

  Chapter One

  Days like today are ones I despise the most.

  Birthdays.

  A day of celebration for a life that was born. New beginnings for some or eternal damnation for others. I’m the latter. Born into the Stepanov family. My mother, Evelina Stepanov, a woman too stupid in love to see the truth and my father, Drakon Stepanov, a mobster, henchman, sadist and maybe even Satan himself. Birthdays were never a happy time for me. They were one of the many darkest days of my childhood. I was gifted a scar each birthday as a reminder of how I came to be. I was born for one reason only.

  To be his.

  To follow his every command.

  I’ve never known true happiness, I think I was born without it. It’s never been there. I never had friends, I never had loving parents and I never had a life of my own. Up until seventeen, my father owned me. He molded me into what I am today. From the moment I could walk he taught me how to torture, kill, be the monster he wanted me to become and become I did. I learned to stop being afraid of the dark and embrace it. I never got to be a child like everyone else.

  Sometimes he looked at me curiously. Sometimes I saw flickers of pride cross through his piercing blue eyes when I made grown men scream from my torturous acts. I would look at my father with blood splattered all over my face and I’d smile. I lived for those moments. They were the only times I ever truly saw pride and happiness in my father's eyes. At ten years old, standing void of all emotion, covered in blood and staring at the man who created me, only then would I smile because I made him proud of me. The little monster he created grew to become his personal weapon. If he had enemies, he would invite them over to our house for me to kill. But even then there was always something, a feeling, nagging in the back of my mind. I just never knew what it was until many years later.

  It wasn’t until my seventeenth birthday that I finally broke free of his hold. The literal cage that housed me for all my years of growing up broke beneath my bare feet. I wanted out of this life. Out of his clasp, his control. That nagging feeling I had developed when I was ten was freedom. I realized I wanted my freedom when I understood more of who my father was. It wasn’t until later that I learned of the devastating effects he had done to me. Never again would I be normal. I wasn’t born to be normal. I was born to become a weapon. Even when I was free, I was never truly free, not by a long shot.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a light knocking on my door. I look to my right at the alarm clock on the modern styled nightstand.

  7 am.

  Like clockwork my fifteen-year-old neighbor knocks on my front door. Every birthday, Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, he spends with me. No matter how hard I try, I can never shake him. He won’t leave me alone. He wormed his way into my black, nonexistent heart. If I did have a heart, I would probably love him.

  But I don’t.

  Because I don’t have a heart. I don’t like what he makes me feel. He makes me laugh, sometimes, smile, sometimes. But I don’t do laughing and I definitely don’t do smiles. They make me feel murderous afterwards.

  Sitting up in my king-sized bed, the black Egyptian cotton bed sheets mimic my soul. The plush cream carpet calls my feet as I walk to the lounge chair that sits at the end of my bed. There lay my black silk pyjama pants and black singlet. I made the mistake once before answering the front door in what I wear to bed. Which consists of a thong and nothing else. I think his breathing stopped that day as his face heated up, becoming beat red. He ran straight back to his apartment and I didn’t see him for a couple of weeks after that, but I had a feeling he was hiding from me on purpose. When we’d see each other in the hallway he would blush real hard and run back inside.

  So now I put on my pants and top every time I get out of bed. Walking out of my large bedroom suite, I enter my open lounge area. I live on the twenty sixth floor, which is the top floor of this building with only two penthouses on this floor. I own this one and Keenan, my fifteen-year-old neighbor lives in the other. Our apartments are only accessible by a p
rivate elevator where an access key is required to be taken to our floor. Every floor below us gradually gains more apartments each level, as well as more open security. I wouldn’t have paid three million for this apartment if it wasn’t secured. In my line of work I take my security very seriously. They don’t know who I am, they don’t even know what I look like and they don’t know where I come from or where I go. All my clients know is how to hire me. That’s all they need to know.

  The knocking grows louder as I reach the door.

  “Keenan! What did I say about knocking excessively?” I say pulling the door wide open, keeping my manicured nails closed around the edge with my annoyance showing through with a raised eyebrow. I almost feel a foot stomp coming on but I keep it in. That’s too immature for me.

  “Naw come on, Lake. You know I only do it to annoy you. Plus it makes you open the door quicker. One can hope that I will get lucky… again.” He says with a wink and a boyish smirk that would make any girl his age melt. When the time comes, he will be a player. Well, if last night is anything to go from then that time has already come. I smile at him on the inside. I can’t let him know he amuses me. That will go straight to his head and I can’t have that.

  “I see you had fun last night.” I say eyeing the matching set of hickeys on either side of his neck while stepping aside to let him in.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” His hand reaches up to rub his neck nervously. The hickeys stick out like a red wine stain on a white shirt. His golden tan skin seems to make the shine even more. He’s definitely a good-looking kid and will only become more handsome as he matures and grows older. But I’m not sure if he will ever actually mature. Time will tell.

  “Mmm.” I watch him saunter inside my apartment like he owns the place. Typical.

  I met Keenan five years ago when he first moved into the apartment across from mine. He was only ten at the time and was already living on his own. His parents were there for the first night, then they were gone the next. I haven’t seen them since. He used to have a chauffeur come to the door in the mornings to take him to and from school but he hasn’t used one for a few years now. He doesn’t know this but a few days after his parents left and when I realized they weren’t coming back, I installed security cameras in his apartment when he was at school. I don’t know what it was but I just had to look out for the kid. No one should be left alone in this city, let alone someone his age.

  New York.

  One of the most dangerous cities in the country. But you wouldn’t know it unless you lived in that world.

  My world.

  The poor kid didn’t even know how to cook. The first few days he lived off frozen boxed meals and anything packaged. His parents couldn’t even be bothered to make sure their child was fed right. So I took the liberty of signing him up to a meal plan. Once a week he gets seven day's worth of fresh cooked meals; breakfast, lunch and dinner. I think the first delivery he went through three day's worth of meals in one sitting. Poor kid was so starved. I had to refrain from going out and hunting his parents down. That darkness that always lurks in me wanted to punish his parents for leaving him. I had struggled for the first week to even step out of my apartment incase I ran into him. There was something in me that hated the way his eyes were tinged with red and unshed tears. He reminded me of the past I try to forget.

  “Where’s Congo?”

  “He’s around somewhere.” My two and a half meter Boelen’s Python or Congo, as he’s called is my favourite amongst my babies. In my line of work my tactics are a bit different. I’m known as The Handler. Not a bad name considering I handle a lot of snakes or just business in general. The snakes come in handy when extracting information out of those who don’t want to be cooperative.

  “Happy birthday by the way!” I cringe as I shut the door behind me. The little shit knows I hate birthdays yet he continues to torture me every year. I turn around, seeing him smirking as he places a small box, gift wrapped in that tacky birthday paper that’s covered in balloons on the kitchen counter.

  I huff and make my way towards him. No matter how many times I tell him, he always brings me something. Last year it was a three-layered double chocolate mud cake. But I’m pretty sure that was for him though since he ate most of it. But it was the horrid ‘Happy Birthday Lake’ written on top of the cake that made me hate it. The cake wasn’t too bad. I think we ate one and a half layers of cake that day.

  But grudgingly, spending my birthdays with him wasn’t so bad anymore. I use to flinch at the quick movements he’d do or loud sounds he’d make, courtesy of my loving father. But now he’s very meticulous. He caught on pretty quick and became cautious around me on this dark day. The one thing I thought he would do was ask me why I flinch. I could easily say it was just a muscle spasm or any other excuse I could come up with but he never asked. Just like I never asked about his parents. They were both sore subjects.

  “Here we go again.” I rolled my eyes and gave his shoulder a quick nudge with mine. His goofy grin in return was enough to make me almost smile.

  Almost!

  But he did catch the slight lift of the corner of my lips.

  Chapter Two

  “Keenan.”

  I look down at the opened black velvet box in my hands. There lay a thin gold chain with a half crescent moon pendant attached to it. The pendant itself was solid gold with no other markings. Just a simple silhouette of the moon. I look up at Keenan fidgeting with his hands. Why is he so nervous? My back straightens as my guard goes up. What has him so nervous? This makes me on edge, my eyes dart around the room for danger. Scanning every window and exits, I continuously watch for a threat, even though my apartment is too high up to be climbed. Unless you have the gear.

  “I know, I know. I know you don’t like gifts but I just saw that the other day and thought you’d like it.” He shrugs and looks down. I see a blush creep up his neck to rest on his cheeks. So he was nervous of his gift? My guard slowly goes down. I can never be too careful and as much as I don’t want to, I feel an obligation to him. To look out for him. I don’t want to come home one day and find him dead because of me. That’s another reason why I make my personal life completely hidden from my work life. He’s an innocent bystander. No one in my world would hesitate to kill him to get to me.

  But I won’t let that happen.

  “What do you want to do today?” I sigh. There’s no shaking the kid. No matter how hard I’ve tried before, he never leaves me alone on this day.

  “I was thinking paintball.” He grins.

  “No. You’ll get hurt.” Why must he choose something so rough.

  “Um...I’m fifteen turning sixteen. I can handle it, Lake. What, are you scared you’ll lose?” He says wiggling his eyebrows.

  The demon inside me stirs. He has unknowingly challenged the darkness in me, the one that always wins, the one that strives to win. Because if I don’t, bad things happen. I become unhinged, deadly.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I make my way back to my bedroom. Grabbing a pair of long dark camo pants and a matching top, I’m ready. Ready to knock this kid down a few pegs. After today, he’ll learn to think twice before he speaks, especially to me.

  Oh how my demon is happy.

  We take my black matte Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. One of my many, many treasures. I’m a lover of fast cars and along with a few bikes. There’s nothing more sexier than a powerful machine at the mercy of my grip. The rumbling feeling of power beneath my fingertips gets my adrenaline pumping.

  Just what I need to start my day off right.

  ✧✧✧

  After an hour's drive we make it to the paintball range. One of the best paintball places around, or so the sign says. With acres of land to run, hide and seek out the prey of competition, we choose the Free For All option. I need to teach this little shit a lesson. I pull my long black, dead straight hair into a high ponytail before slipping on my eye protection. I don’t need a whole face mask because I do
n’t plan on getting hit. Buying three extra sets of ammo for each of us, I plan on making this an extra-long game.

  I look over at my cocky competitor running his hand through his shaggy mid neck length sandy blonde hair as he hits on the girl at the service desk. She looks nineteen and already blushing at the kid. But whatever he’s saying, it’s clearly working because she is putty in his hands. Just before we leave to head to the starting area, she writes something down on a post-it note and hands it to him with a blush. Her number no doubt. With a final scandalous wink, he sets off towards me.

  “What are you doing? You’re not even legal.” I reply with a raised brow.

  “Ask me that again next week.” He grins cheekily and walks off. With his sixteenth birthday coming sooner than I’d like, I can’t handle the attitude that boy throws off sometimes. But I’d be lying if I said he didn’t amuse me. Not much does in this world. With Keenan hitting puberty early, his voice gets deeper and manlier every day and a physique of a future bodybuilder in the making, I can see how the girl thought he was older, or at least legal age.

  Our group consists of twenty-five people with seven of those being men from a bachelor party. With the groom to be wearing a bright orange vest with a target painted on both the front and back, he’s sure to be one of my many kills, figuratively speaking of course. The game is an hour and a half long, with only one rule. No headshots.

  Damn.

  We’re given five minutes of preparation time before we go to the start line. I make sure my extra ammo is secured to my outer thigh straps before turning to Keenan to make sure his are correctly attached. Next I check my shoes to make sure everything is perfect.

  “Hey sexy!” A wolf whistle pricks my ears as I double check that my laces are tied tight. From my bent over position I can see them checking out my ass from the corner of my eye, but I’m not concerned. Shit head here just added himself to my hit list, or should I say shit list? Meh.