The Reaper

by RuNyx

  Luna.

  She walked around to stand in front of him, the wall at her back, and let her eyes trace the rest of his scars and tattoos. A bullet marked his right bicep, hitting a skull in the middle. A phrase went down his left side, right beside his abs.

  And so the night will end.

  Morana traced the phrase, her fingers lingering on the slashed scar underneath the hard muscle. Moving up to his left pec, right above his heart, there was a symbol she didn’t know the meaning of. She touched it with her fingers, looking up at him in question.

  “One day,” he whispered quietly between them, the two words filled with so much her heart squeezed.

  Morana swallowed, asking a question she dreaded. “What if the day never comes?”

  He shook his head, sending water spraying out. “It will. Whatever the answer is, I will find it.”

  Morana didn’t know how to tread through this conversation so she tabled it for the moment. She wanted to find answers too, for him and for herself. But what if the answer wasn’t what he’d hoped for? Would he be able to cope? Would he be able to survive?

  Her chest ached wondering about it.

  “I can see the questions in your eyes,” he said softly. “But I know, I know, she’s alive.”

  Morana felt a tear go down her cheek, mixing with the water. “Then, we will find her.”

  He looked at her for a long minute before slowly pressing his lips to hers. It was soft, simple, but it made her heart clench.

  Pulling back, he pressed his forehead against hers, his mouth slightly trembling. He gritted his jaw to tighten it and Morana saw, pressing her hands to his face, holding him. They stood there like that for long minutes, before he suddenly pulled away, shutting the water off and handing her a towel.

  Morana inhaled deeply and dried herself while he did the same, then followed him naked into the bedroom. He handed her a fresh t-shirt without a word that she quickly donned, and put on a pair of boxers before pulling open a drawer and bringing out a scanner.

  Getting into bed, Morana saw as he ran the scanner through every inch of the room, finding only one bug near the door. Opening the window, he threw it out into the lake before closing it again and sliding into bed beside her.

  Morana followed, settling against him, her breasts squashed against his chest, her legs twined with his.

  “Who bugged the house?”

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I’ll have to find the rest tomorrow.”

  Morana looked up at him, her brain working. “Could it be Maroni?”

  He shrugged. “He’s never done it before.”

  “You’ve never lived with anyone before,” she pointed out.

  “That’s true,” he squeezed her around the waist, pressing a small kiss to her ear lobe. “We’ll deal with that tomorrow.”

  There was silence for a few minutes before she asked him, “Why did Dante do this?”

  His chest moved as he inhaled deeply before responding, “He’s had to go underground.”

  “But why? He’s Dante Maroni.”

  “Precisely,” he muttered, his finger drawing some pattern on her shoulder. “He’s an excellent extractor of information but there’s some information he can get better without his name.”

  Morana’s heart stopped and she leaned up on an elbow, looking down in his blue eyes, her hair falling over them. “Is this about the Syndicate? Is that the information he’s gone to get?”

  She saw his lips twitch slightly as he pushed a lock of wet hair behind her ear, the gentle gesture surprising her.

  “Yes,” he confirmed her suspicions. “He’s going to infiltrate the Syndicate.”

  Morana felt her jaw drop. “Are you serious? How the hell will he even do that? Will he be safe? How will we know anything?”

  “He’ll be fine,” Tristan pulled her down back to his chest. “And we have a signal to get in touch. But nobody can know. It is important that everyone, especially Maroni, believe that he’s dead. Or he could be in danger.”

  Morana nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation. “Shouldn’t we tell Amara though?” She’d have wanted to know in her friend’s shoes.

  Tristan shook his head. “Dante told me not to. She will have eyes on her, especially now. Nobody can suspect anything.”

  As much as it pained her, Morana understood that. She just hoped her friend forgave her when things settled down again.

  The dark room, his warm scent, his steady heartbeat slowly soothed her heart. The weight she’d been feeling the entire evening gradually dispersed from her chest as she snuggled deeper into the crook of his neck and shoulder, finding her happy spot. He pressed a kiss to the top of her lobe, squeezing her.

  Long minutes passed and Morana was almost on the verge of drifting off when his voice broke through the hush.

  “I was given this cottage since Maroni took me under his wing,” he began quietly and Morana got to attention, listening as he shared something so close to his chest with her. “When I was young, I used to lie here some nights after a training session, and I wanted to die.”

  Morana felt her breathing stutter, her arms get tight around him but she didn’t dare move, didn’t dare do anything to break the moment.

  He continued, his finger drawing loops on her back. “There was always a gun in the drawer, and I almost ended it some days. You know what stopped me every time?”

  Morana shook her head.

  “Thinking my sister would always wonder why her brother didn’t love her enough to live for her. I couldn’t leave her with that.”

  She felt her eyes burn, her heart hurting for the ache she heard in his voice.

  “But that day seemed so far away and I was so powerless. Every day felt like too much,” he spoke softly into the dark, his voice barely audible. “So, you know what I wondered about?”

  Morana shook her head again, her throat tight, her chest heavy.

  “You.”

  Her heart stopped.

  “Some days, I thought about how I would find you when I grew up and kill you, different ways I would kill you,” he went on, baring his mind to her, chuckling darkly. “Some days, I imagined someone else getting to you and how I would kill them. Oh, how I killed them. And some days, when it got really fucking sad and I wallowed in self-pity, I thought of how you’d smiled at me and I wondered if you’d smile at me like that after seeing the monster I was becoming.”

  Morana pulled back and put her hand to his jaw, her eyes locking with his in the little light from outside.

  “Do you still think about killing me?” she asked point-blank, ready if he did.

  He stayed silent for a beat. “No,” he shook his head once.

  Morana breathed. “Do you still imagine someone getting to me and killing them?”

  “No,” he repeated, his voice sure.

  “Do you still think about my smile?”

  He watched her for a long moment, his eyes lingering on her mouth, before pushing his face closer to hers, his hand coming around to her neck in a hold her skin knew intimately now.

  “I think about a lot of different things now but don’t mistake me for someone soft, Morana. Whispered words in the shadows aren’t who I am. I’m still a monster.”

  Morana searched his eyes, feeling his palm resting against her steady pulse, suddenly realizing that was why he always held her neck – to feel her heartbeat under his hands. A slow smile curled her lips, her palms cupping his jaw, stroking it, his scruff scraping over her skin.

  “When I was young and alone in my room at night, with a father who didn’t like my existence and no mother and no friends, just my overactive imagination and my brain, you know what I used to think about?” she murmured, never breaking their locked gaze. “When one of my father’s guards sneaked into my room and I had to fight him off -” his hand tightened on her neck in reaction but she continued, “-wallowing in my loneliness and sel-piy, you know what I would dream about?”

  He waited for he
r answer, never moving those intense blue eyes from hers.

  “A monster,” she whispered between their lips. “My monster. One who could keep me safe and kill the other monsters who wanted to hurt me.”

  By the last word, his mouth slammed into hers as he turned her under him.

  “You always fucking had him, wildcat.”

  And then he ravaged her like the monster he claimed to be.

  Walking down the cemetery holding the hand of her man, while pretending to mourn for another man who was in her heart, wasn’t her idea of a great morning. However, given everything Tristan had told her, Morana had appropriately donned a simple black dress and put on some makeup to make her face appear paler. She kept her eyes down behind her glasses, her hand on the inside of Tristan’s arm, impressed with his performance.

  He was stoic enough that had she not known him, she would have been convinced that he was hiding some deep sadness and just didn’t want to talk about it. As it was, being the outsider of the Outfit as he was, he hung back during the funeral.

  They had done a closed casket ceremony, burying the burned body that was ‘Dante’. Tristan had told her in the car that the body had belonged to one of the traitors who had been close enough in the physique department to Dante to pass off as him.

  Dante was completely underground in the meantime.

  Morana had tried calling Amara again that morning, just to check up on the other woman and found her number disconnected. Zia had dropped by too, her eyes saddened, and asked Morana about her daughter. And it was really starting to worry Morana.

  She stood back at the edge while Tristan went ahead to speak with someone, watching everyone.

  Lorenzo Maroni was rigid, understandably, while people paid their respects and offered condolences. She recognized Lorenzo’s cousin, Leo, with Chiara on his arm, her face tear-stained. Whether they were genuine or fake, Morana didn’t know.

  Amara’s half-sister Nerea stood in the back next to another soldier, dressed sharply, a lone woman in a man’s world. Morana wondered about her. Other members of the family, children included, stood with sad, confused faces. The rest of the Outfit slowly milled around, most of the men with expressions meant to resemble sadness. There were more people than she’d been expecting, the funeral much grander than she’d realized it would be. But then, Dante Maroni was a brand.

  It made her realize she’d never asked Dante about any siblings. She knew through rumors that he had a younger brother but he’d been missing in action for many years. She made a mental note to ask him later.

  In the cool breeze on the hill, Morana watched Lorenzo interact with everyone, trying to pinpoint what it was about the man that bugged her so much. It was an eerie thing, the way he looked at her sometimes like he had secrets about her.

  The sound of a car door slamming shut brought her attention to the man sauntering down the hill to the gathering, surprise filling her.

  Her father was there.

  He paused for a second where she stood, his eyes moving over her with hidden disgust before he proceeded to where Maroni stood below. Morana, now removed enough from the man that he didn’t affect her as much, tried to analyze why he reacted to her like that. Tristan watched her father with focus while the older man ignored him and headed straight for the boss.

  Morana was too far away to hear what was being said but the men shook hands and then walked a little ways off to talk. If her father was there to talk about her to take her back, he could think again. If he was there for business, it would be curious given the timing of it all. Maybe he was just there to pay his regards but she didn’t believe it.

  Watching them both openly, Morana’s eyes did a scan of the area and came to a halt on a man on the opposite hill, behind a tree. From the vantage of the funeral procession, nobody would be able to see him, hidden as he was. But she, still standing on the hill, could make out his silhouette.

  He is face was hidden under a beard, and he was leaning on some type of a cane, just hiding behind a tree and watching the two men she had been watching. Frowning, she quickly opened her texts.

  Morana: There’s a strange guy at my 5’o’clock watching my father and Lorenzo.

  Morana: You can’t see him from your spot. Come stand by me.

  She saw Tristan look down at his phone before he casually walked up the hill to where she stood. Finding a spot beside her, he nonchalantly ran his eyes over the place she’d seen the man and Morana turned to see the man watching them now.

  He was too far away for her to make out anything about him but she could feel his eyes on her, a shiver going down her spine.

  “You know who he is?” she asked Tristan quietly.

  “No,” he replied, his voice calm. “But he’s watching us.”

  “I know.”

  They stayed silent for a few minutes as the procession continued below. Dark clouds gathered in the sky, casting a doomed glow over the hills and though it was fall, the winds were cold. Standing there silently, Morana found her gaze drifting to the strange man over and over again.

  “Anyone suspects anything?” she asked, her lips barely moving.

  He stood stony beside her, his mask on, speaking equally quietly. “Everyone suspects something, they just don’t know what.”

  Morana huffed a silent laugh at that, looking down at her father, who was talking to Lorenzo Maroni with his head bent.

  “He might be trying to take me back,” she commented, studying the body language of both the men. “Not out of any love, but for his pride.”

  “He has no pride,” Tristan noted beside her. “He won’t be able to take you, not even over my dead body. You’re too smart for him.”

  Morana glanced up at him, her heart softening at how much respect he had for her intellect. It wasn’t something she’d expected but the more he told her little things like this, with no pretense or guile, the more she felt herself bloom on the inside.

  “Thank you,” she murmured softly, squeezing his forearm.

  He shrugged. “It’s a fact. You’re smarter than most of these men put together, and I don’t just mean with your tech stuff. Anyone who denies that is stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid.”

  He turned to look at her, his blues locking with her hazel. “I’m the smartest of them. I claimed you long before any of them had a chance.”

  Heart fluttering, Morana looked back down with a slight smile on her lips. It slowly died. “You know we’ll have to talk about that day someday, right?”

  He didn’t respond.

  Morana stayed silent, letting it go. Pushing him when he was just starting to slowly open up would be irresponsible. He would talk when he was ready, if he was ever ready.

  “I came across a very interesting theory the other day about the Alliance,” she started, changing the topic to more neutral ground. “It mentioned how the Alliance broke because there were, in fact, three parties involved and one of them got out. Have you heard anything about that?”

  The silence from the man beside her stretched for long, long minutes, to the point that Morana had to look up at him, just to make sure he’d heard her. His eyes were staring into space, somewhere far away. She didn’t know where he’d gone but wherever it was, it was unpleasant.

  Sliding her hand into his, she interlinked their fingers, hers smaller and softer sliding against his rough, abraded, longer digits. Squeezing tightly, she kept her eyes on him and waited for him to come back to her, “Tristan?”

  He blinked, looking down at her, suddenly aware of his surroundings. He scanned the hills once and then took a deep breath in, showing her a flicker of vulnerability she would never have been aware of a few weeks ago. Not saying a word, he quietly retreated into his own mind and Morana let him, knowing this perhaps wasn’t the time or place to ask.

  One of the men from the gathering called Tristan and, after giving her hand a small squeeze like a secret while his face remained completely expressionless, he walked down with the coiled gr
ace of the predator he was notorious for, his body encased in a black suit and black shirt.

  The more she got to know him, the more she realized how deeply he felt these little things and how expertly he pretended not to.

  After a few minutes of observing everyone, Morana felt someone else come to stand beside her. She glanced up and saw Lorenzo Maroni there, alone, without her father.

  “Walk with me, Morana,” he demanded and walked uphill towards the cars without giving her a chance to respond.

  Cautious but curious, Morana sent Tristan a quick text and followed after the older man, finding him standing alone near his town car as he waited for her. Morana quietly moved to him.

  He opened his jacket and brought out a cigar, sniffing it once before cutting it.

  “The cigars were a gift from one of my associates,” he began without preamble. “That associate was, just the other day, telling me about someone looking deep into our business.”

  Keeping his eyes on the casket far below, he lit up the smoke. “That wouldn’t be you, now, would it? After the way you threatened me, I’m inclined to believe that.”

  Morana watched the large silver ring on his index finger that hadn’t been there before, the skull face polished and detailed and considering he was attending his son’s funeral, oddly jarring. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  The older man watched her with eyes that saw too much. “Where’s Dante?”

  Morana blinked in surprise and looked down at the casket pointedly.

  He chuckled. “I’ve been doing this for far longer than you’ve been alive, little girl. I know that,” he indicated the wooden box, “isn’t my son.”

  Morana stayed silent, not sure what he was playing at, and why he was asking her.

  Lorenzo Maroni’s eyes crinkled, his handsome face creasing with lines of age as he looked at her with dark eyes that held stories beyond her imagination. She could feel the full force of his experience in that one pointed look and it took everything she had to keep her spine straight and head high as she regarded him back neutrally.