I open my office door and stand aside so Mira can walk in. She’s been nagging me about the extra security around her and Leandra since we finished breakfast.
“I just want to take your wife out for lunch without four bags of muscle staring over our shoulder at the goddamn food on our plates.”
“They’re giving you more than enough space. They can wait outside the restaurant.” My footsteps are muted as I saunter across the carpet to grab my phone from my desk. “You won’t even know they’re there.”
“No. Alexius, you’ve had these guys follow us around for weeks. I just want two hours. Two goddamn hours without having them constantly staring at us. People think we’re mafia wives with the muscle you’re packing around us.”
I lift a brow with silent sarcasm, and she scoffs.
“Okay, bad choice of words. But I’m not a wife, so that’s only half badly chosen words.”
I sigh, again standing to the side so she can walk out of my office. “I don’t see how having them standing outside the restaurant would affect the privacy of your lunch.”
“Are you kidding me? Knowing they’re there is enough to suck the fun out of it.”
“I’m not budging, Mirabella,” I say, trying to sound stern while stifling a laugh. She always goes into this hyperactive mode whenever she doesn’t get her way. “Your protection is more important than a two-hour lunch date.”
“Alexius!” Mira stops and stomps her heel against the tiles. “We’re cooped up in this house all the damn time, and the days we are allowed to leave, you have an army of men following us. Do you know how awkward it is when there are men watching you like hawks while you decide whether you’ll need tampons for heavy or light flow?”
“Jesus, Mira. TMI. Goddammit.”
“Yeah. Exactly.” She places her hand on her hips and purses her red lips. “Point proven.”
I shake my head. It’s not so much the idea of Leandra and tampons as it is having Mira and tampons in the same thought that creeps me the fuck out. But still. “My answer is still no.”
“You’re smothering her, Alexius.” Her voice pitches higher than usual as she stares at me in earnest. “And you need to stop. As much as she’s your wife, she’s still this normal person who wants normal things, and trust me, being followed around by bodyguards all the damn time is not normal. Not for her.”
Unease crawls across my skin. I’ve sensed that Leandra hasn’t been herself lately. She’s been distracted. On edge. And quiet. Too quiet. I’ve been unable to figure it out, figure her out mainly because I’m hoping I’m wrong, that I’m the one on edge with us trying to catch a killer. But maybe Mirabella’s insistence on having some privacy is a sign that my instincts might be right. They’ve grown close, and it only makes sense that Leandra confides in Mira if something bothers her. But still, the idea of them unprotected, even for just two hours, doesn’t sit well with me. “Mira, I don’t—”
“Do you really want your men around while your wife tries on lingerie that she’ll be wearing for you tonight?” She nudges her chin in the air, a simple act of defiance, and I narrow my eyes at the cunning little beast.
“Well played.”
“Thank you. Now, can your wife and I please go out to lunch without being guarded like cattle?”
“Fine.” I sigh. “But you’re taking the Audi so I can track you at all times.”
“Oh, my God,” she moans, rolling her eyes and making a dramatic show of her disapproval.
I merely shrug, unfazed and hoping she’ll continue into a tantrum that would force me to change my mind. “It’s either that or being guarded like cattle. Your choice.”
“Okay, fine. Good God, you’re a pain in the ass. I don’t know how she puts up with your shit. It’s those blue eyes, I tell you. Fucking panty-melters.” Mira brushes past me, swaying her hips, her shoulders squared with confidence from her little victory.
“Two hours,” I call out after her, but she ignores me—something she knows how to do really fucking well. I’ll need to keep my eye on her with Leandra and make sure her attitude doesn’t rub off on my wife.
My phone vibrates, and I pull it from my jacket pocket, Isaia’s name flashing on the screen. “Yeah?” I answer while making my way down the hall.
“Alexius.”
It’s the sound of his voice, his tone, that has me stopping dead in my tracks. “Isaia, what’s wrong?”
The tires screech as Nicoli speeds around the corner, his red LaFerrari demanding the attention of everyone around. He slams on the brakes, skidding to a stop outside the entrance of the apartment building, and we’re both out of the car the second he kills the engine.
“This is not fucking happening.” Nicoli flicks his cigarette, then nods to the security standing by the double glass doors before rushing inside. I’m right behind him when Maximo pulls up with his Hummer, gets out, slams the door shut, and runs inside the building with us.
“Tell me this is some sick fucking joke.”
“Isaia sure as fuck didn’t sound like he’s kidding.” I follow Nicoli across the foyer, people scattering out of our way as we dart for the stairs. “Which floor?”
“Third,” Maximo calls out behind me, and the three of us sprint up the stairs, taking two at a time.
I can hear my blood rushing in my ears, my pulse racing and thoughts stumbling around the words Isaia said when he called. All I kept thinking while listening to him speak was that this couldn’t be true. That none of what he said was real. Even his voice, so flat, so emotionless, didn’t seem right.
We reach the third floor, the pounding of our heavy footsteps resonating down the hall.
“This one.” Maximo bangs on the door once. “Isaia. Open up, man.”
I’m not in the mood for waiting, so I brush past Maximo, grab the glossy doorknob, and jerk the door open. The sunlight coming through the apartment’s floor-to-ceiling windows is blinding, bouncing off the stark white walls. I stomp inside past the kitchen, entering the living room through the large archway. “Isaia! Where the fuck are you, man?”
I turn when I find the living room empty. It’s when I glance up at the second floor that everything inside me chills. “Jesus Christ.”
My heart drops to my feet, and my lungs deflate. I don’t even blink when Nicoli bumps into me and follows my gaze, the scene bringing him to a screeching halt. “Dear God.”
I’m frozen, my every muscle iced. It’s like the world stops, and nothing else exists but this sheer terror that sinks into my chest and steals the breath from my lungs. Black shadows close in around the edges of my vision, zeroing in on the bloody body hanging from the second-story railing.
“Isaia!” Maximo’s voice seems to echo far in the distance even though he’s right in front of me, a flash of leather and panic. When the vile stench of blood fills my nostrils and infects my brain, the world starts moving again. But it’s wrong. It’s all wrong.
“Jesus, Isaia,” Nicoli calls, and my attention snaps to my little brother sitting on the spiral staircase, elbows on his knees, clutching a bottle of bourbon. “You okay, man?” Nicoli rushes up the stairs, Isaia taking a long swig of the bourbon, not saying a damn word.
“Melanie,” I whisper, staring at her almost unrecognizable body, her dirty, blood-soaked hair framing her face as her head dangles eerily to the side with cable tied around her neck. “Jesus.”
Her eyes have been cut out, two gaping holes with congealed blood clinging to her cheeks like runny paint, her lips sewn shut with black thread, tears of crimson dried on her chin. It’s like the devil made her face his canvas—his own sick, vile masterpiece of pain. There’s a pool of blood on the carpet below her, the thick liquid seeped into the white fibers. Cuts all over her body left gaping holes of flesh and jagged wounds crusted in blood. It’s a goddamn horror scene no ordinary mind can imagine.
I tread backward until I feel the leather couch behind my knees and sit down. “This is…” I shake my head before pulling my palms down my face. “Jesus Christ, this isn’t fucking happening.”
“I’ve been telling myself that ever since I walked in here and found her like this.” Isaia pours more alcohol down his throat, thirsting for the escape it can give. The bottle is already half empty, which explains Isaia’s lack of freaking the fuck out.
“All this time,” I start, my voice low. “All this time, we’ve been upping security at the clubs, waiting for him, thinking that’s where he’ll strike. And then he…” I point at Melanie’s lifeless body, my jaw clenched as anger surges up my throat, forcing me to swallow my words.
I scream. I fucking roar, grabbing the vase on the coffee table and throwing it across the room. Crystal shatters, and it’s an explosion of yellow rose petals everywhere. “Motherfucker!” I growl, kicking at the fucking table. It’s like the devil’s serpent crawls all over my last goddamn nerves, destroying every ounce of control I have. “How is this fucker doing this?”
“She was an easy target for him.” Maximo paces, his hands on his sides and his gaze fixed on her lifeless body. “We didn’t have her protected.”
“Because we didn’t think she was a target.” I rough my hand through my hair, fighting the urge to tear it from my skull. “We didn’t once think—”
“No,” Isaia interrupts, his eyes downcast. “I didn’t think. I didn’t protect her. There’s no we in this fucked-up equation.” He chugs down more bourbon before swinging it across the room, amber liquid splattering against the wall and joining the ruined vase and roses on the floor. “It was my responsibility to protect her, and I didn’t. I might as well have invited this fucker in here.” He chokes on his words and straightens, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “I might as well have sat there on that goddamn couch and watched while he…while he tortured her to death.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say, my chest tightening as I watch my little brother struggle to keep it together.
“Of course, it is.”
“None of us thought she’d be a target. We only thought about the girls at the clubs.”
“And your wife,” he snaps, then turns his attention to Nicoli, who’s pacing up and down the second floor. “Mirabella. We doubled security around them. Not once did I think it necessary to do the same for Melanie.”
“We couldn’t have known.”
Isaia slams his palm down on the staircase barrier. “I should have! I should have known. I should have protected her. But I didn’t.”
“Jesus, Isaia.” Nicoli stands tall at the top of the stairs. “No one could have predicted this. You were just fucking the girl, for Christ’s sake. It’s not like you were going steady with her.”
“Nicoli,” I snap. “Seriously?”
“What? It’s the truth. I’m just saying it as it is. Isaia’s been fucking her for years. It’s never been anything more than that, so how the fuck were we supposed to know this motherfucking son of a bitch would even think about targeting Melanie?”
“You’re an asshole.”
“No, he’s right.” Isaia’s eyes are glazed as he looks at the body, his leather-clad shoulders slumped, his white shirt stained with bourbon. “Nicoli’s right. We were just fucking. We weren’t anything more than fuck-buddies, and still, she winds up dead.” His dark gaze cuts to mine. “More proof that the Del Rossa name is a fucking curse. We ruin everything we touch…don’t we, Alexius?”
There’s this moment between us, a silence that’s so fucking loud, it’s deafening. I know exactly what he’s not saying out loud. That’s been his problem with me ever since I brought Leandra into our lives, the fact that I used her. Corrupted her. And now he can’t fathom the idea that I’ve fallen in love with her and that she feels the same about me, the man who showed her no compassion while my brother offered her kindness by not letting her walk down the aisle alone on her wedding day. That’s the difference between Isaia and me—he has a heart. I don’t. But I have her instead, the woman who siphons life through my veins, and that’s what has my brother so mindfucked when it comes to my wife. It’s a feud between us that’s far from over, but now is not the time or the place.
I look at Maximo. “Any sign of a note?”
“Not that I can see, no.”
“Found it.” Nicoli leans over the black steel barrier, studying the side of Melanie’s face. “Fucker left it in her ear…or at least, what’s left of it.”
Eyes, ears, mouth—it’s this fucker’s pattern of torture. That, and the…God.
My gaze cuts to the top of her thighs. Her ankles are tied, keeping her legs together, but there’s a piece of wood peeking out just below her mutilated sex. The wooden cross.
My stomach coils, and I turn my back to the scene, rubbing my palm across my neck. “We need to get her down from there,” I say to Maximo, who inches closer.
“We should get him out of here first.” He gestures to Isaia, who manages to walk down the stairs only to have the bourbon kick his ass and fall on the last step. I’ve seen my little brother drunk countless times, but this is the first time I’ve seen him both drunk and defeated.
“Caelian is on his way. He can take Isaia home while we take care of shit here.”
Maximo nods, but I can see he’s struggling to keep a straight face. This time our killer hit too close to home. He’s no longer taking a shit on our goddamn front porch. Instead, he’s knocking on our fucking door…and he’s on his way in.
An hour later, Maximo drapes a black sheet over Melanie’s body, mumbling, “Sick fuck,” over and over again.
After Caelian got Isaia out of here, we got her down and removed the note from what was left of her ear. I’ve read it five times, yet the words still aren’t sinking in.
Nicoli is trying to wash the blood from his hands in the kitchen sink, groaning every two seconds. One wouldn’t think he’s a man used to getting his fingers dirty with the blood of others. But I get it. The drop of crimson I managed to get on my sleeve is bugging the shit out of me, and it’s probably because it’s just too damn close for comfort.
Whoever this fucker is, the time is drawing near. I can feel it, the sense of foreboding growing darker with each passing second. He’s getting closer. Ultimately, we will come face to face.
I’m sitting on the sofa holding the bloodstained note in my hand. It’s not really a note. It’s more like a slip of paper scribbled with a message written in blood from the goddamn Antichrist. But it’s the choice of verse that has me confused and scowling. It doesn’t fit the pattern compared to the others. Those had Biblical passages about prostitution and sex, and deception. But this one is different. It doesn’t fit the mold. It’s like it’s a message, a warning.
I shake my head. “Something isn’t right,” I mutter.
“No shit, brother.” Nicoli plops down next to me, sighing heavily. “We have a serial killer who just killed our brother’s girlfriend, and you think something isn’t right?”
“I’m serious.”
“I’d be worried if you weren’t. This entire situation is unfathomably fucked.”
Maximo takes the letter from me, reading it silently at first, then out loud as he paces. “Be sober. Be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking who he may devour.” He stops and turns to face me. “You’re right. This verse is different. It’s a warning.”
Nicoli scowls. “Everything here is a fucking warning. Melanie’s mutilated corpse is a motherfucking warning, and we are nowhere close to finding this bastard. And the worst part, the part that creeps me out the most, we could cross this bastard in the street and not know it.”
A feeling of dread rises in my chest, and I clench my fists to get rid of the crawling sensation on my skin. Jolts of static run down my spine with warning, so I get up and start walking around the living room. I need to focus, concentrate, and get my head straight so we can start figuring shit out. “We’re missing something.”
“Yeah,” Nicoli replies dryly. “His fucking name so we can find him and cut his heart out.”
“Whoever this guy is, he’s toying with us.”
Maximo leans against the wall, still staring at the note in his hand. “He’s watching us. He’s watching all of us. The fact that he knew where Melanie lived and when Isaia wouldn’t be here.”
“Yeah.” I pull my hand through my hair. “And Isaia has practically been living here the last few weeks, so this fucker had to have had a close eye on him to know when he’ll catch Melanie alone.”
“How did he get in here, though?” Maximo pushes himself off the wall. “How did he get past security?”
“The only way he could get past security without signing in is…” And like a goddamn punch to the face, a thought catapults into my head, and I jerk around to face him. “He lives here. He’s a goddamn tenant in this apartment building.”
“I’m on it.” Maximo is already out the door by the time Nicoli gets on his feet.
“If he stayed here, I can guarantee this fucker ain’t that stupid to use his real name.”
“I know.” I sigh. “But at least it’s something. And all we can hope for is that somehow, somewhere, he left us a goddamn breadcrumb.”
Not having any leads, any idea who he is, that’s what’s been eating at me the most. It’s the fact that this fucker is outsmarting us on our own goddamn turf, our fucking city. Not knowing has me on a razor-sharp edge, and we’re no closer to finding him than we were since the first murder. As Nicoli said, he could walk past me on the street, and I wouldn’t know. He could be the goddamn waiter at the restaurant where Mira and Leandra are having their lunch right now, and no one would fucking know.
Fuck.
I pull out my phone and dial Leandra’s number, and I’m holding my breath the entire time the phone rings, finally exhaling when I hear her voice. “Alexius?”
“Are you still at the restaurant?” I ask, rubbing my fingers along my forehead.
“No. Um…Mira and I sort of changed our plans.”
I freeze. “You what?”
“Well, technically, we didn’t change them. We just took a little detour on our way home from the restaurant.”
“Where are you?” I bite out.
“I’ll talk to you when you get home tonight.”
“Leandra, tell me where you are.”
“I have to go. I love you.”
“Fuck!” I shout into the receiver, the engaged tone resonating in my ear.
“Where are they?” Nicoli asks.
I swipe my finger across my phone’s screen and click on the tracker. “I don’t know, but I’m about to find out.”
“We have a problem.” I glance up, and Maximo is standing by the door with an envelope in his hand. “This was left for you at reception.”
“By who?” I stomp up to him and grab the envelope.
“A man who goes by the name Micah.”
“Micah?” Nicoli repeats. “Do we know a Micah?”
My breath hitches in my chest, and my heart races as I rip open the envelope. The paper is rough against my fingertips as I pull it from the envelope and open it. It’s crinkled like someone had dug it out of a trash can. Somehow, I know it’s him even before I read the words written with blue ink in elegant calligraphy.
Brothers,
It is time to gather at our Father’s house. To rid your lives of evil for good. As the Word teaches us in Matthew 5, verse 30, ‘And if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell.’
I’ve gone to the house of our Father to cut the member from your lives. But do not dwell; she will repent and be forgiven. Only then will she be gifted eternal life.
“Leandra,” I whisper, adrenaline flooding my system, flashes of her face, her smile bombarding my mind, terror squeezing the air from my lungs. “He’s going after Leandra.”
“Where?” Maximo’s eyes are wild as he waits for me to sort through my thoughts, to get the goddamn words out.
“His father’s house,” I murmur before looking up at him. “Our father’s house.”
