Blood.
The shit got everywhere.
I inspected the dried stain near my left elbow. I’d rolled my sleeves up first but still, another Brioni shirt ruined. I had no doubt the suit and shirt casualties totaled in the tens of thousands by now. I should’ve sent this fucker the bill before killing him. Or invested in Brioni stock.
“Call the undertaker,” I ordered Nixon.
“I’m surprised it’s not past his bedtime, yet,” he quipped.
Irate and still edgy from the kill, I stared deadpan at Nixon who shook his eyes at my lack of humor.
The slight, white-haired man who ran Snow’s didn’t live up to his title in the least. He didn’t look like the guy in the morgue who dealt a person’s final rites; he looked more like one of the mice that lived under the building’s floorboards.
“We’re getting rid of him now?” he asked, crouching down next to the bloodied pulp of pimp filth.
I sunk a blade under his ribs after Nixon and I took our time torturing any useful information from his thin lips. I’d have let Nix and the others handle it, but this was personal. No one encroached on my territory without meeting the business end of one of my blades personally.
A dark, almost black pool of blood shone on the ground around the corpse. The next time we came in here, it would be gone. My housekeepers had grown accustomed to cleaning blood as if it were spilled milk.
Nixon straightened to his full six foot height. I checked the time. 11:30. By the time we arrived at the undertaker’s doorstep it’d be after midnight as was part of the agreement.
“Yes, now,” I said, the contempt still bitter in my mouth. I was fast-tracking his trip to hell tonight. The fucker had been harassing our escorts, trying to get them to break contract with me and join under him. I might’ve let him off with a warning if he hadn’t touched one of them.
Nobody touched what belonged to me. Not unless they paid the fee and bent the knee.
My fists clenched, thirsty for more of his blood.
Our girls didn’t go near the streets.
White collar hotels only. Trusted clients were approved for trips and outcalls. Otherwise, they were on call only so we controlled security and screening. When I took my cut, it was because I earned it. We offered something they wouldn’t find with the likes of this scum.
I met a lot of his kind in my time. My mother went through about five just like him. On her knees in parking lots giving head to jackasses who went home to beat their wives and were only willing to pay $50 for her time.
My girls didn’t even meet a client until he was vetted and paid upfront.
The pile of worthless flesh and bones on the ground thought our girls would settle for that demeaning existence after working with me. It was fucking laughable.
“Help me move him.”
Nixon took his legs and I took his head. He left a trail of blood on the ground as we walked him out to the car. We were on the property, at the stables. They hadn’t been used to store horses for about eighty years. My dad used to use them for the same thing I did. You couldn’t even hear a gunshot out here from the house. About a quarter mile from the main estate, nestled in a grove of trees, nothing could be seen, either.
We hauled him into the back of the car and closed the trunk.
“I’ll take him,” Nixon offered, but I shook my head.
“No. I want to watch the bastard burn.”
Nixon paused. I saw him about to challenge my directive, but change his mind, standing down instead. He was the only person I would take that kind of insubordination from. My second in command, my shadow, my brother even if not by blood.
Everything I had would be his if I kicked it, but if the devil hadn’t taken me yet I doubted he ever would. My soul too rotten even for his taste.
I was born alone, my mom’s only child. The only pregnancy she carried to term. Her sperm donor wasn’t in the picture. After she abandoned me, luck, or god, something got me in the way of Thane Monroe, the king before me. He left the house and the syndicate to me when he died. Gave me his name along with the kingdom.
When he died, I almost felt something. Something more than rage or disdain.
If I bit a bullet, I knew Nix would fucking eviscerate the man responsible.
We had enough shit on each other to sink the other irreparably, which made it easier to let him get away with shit I didn’t allow for the others. I had no one I’d call ‘friend’ besides him.
He knew everything about me worth knowing.
A screeching bat flew out from under the eaves of the stables, flapping wildly into the black night. Slamming the trunk closed, Nixon made his way back to the house.
“Say hi to the old bastard for me, would you?” he called back to me as he departed.
Nix was the one who usually handled pass offs to the undertaker, but it was good to let the people under my thumb see my face every now and again. Remind them who ran the show.
The mansion loomed like a goliath over the rest of the property. Even in the dark, its strong, stark black façade demanded attention. The towering turrets seemed to pierce the sky. It was an imposing gothic mansion that had been in the Monroe family since it was built in the mid-19th century. Over 12,000 square feet on thirty acres.
Fit for a King. Fit for a Monroe.
The early years of my takeover weren’t without some pushback. Cut brake-lines, drive-bys, even a particularly sneaky fucker who tried to bury a landmine outside my front door and blew himself up instead.
I had to claw my way to my throne, earning my place and my reputation, but after expanding the syndicate’s reach, influence and profits, no one questioned my authority.
Gravel crunched beneath the tires as I drove around the stable to the rear of the house, taking the private driveway our members used to access the club. Security let me out and I started up the road to the mortuary.
The undertaker’s name was Snow.
Before we struck our bargain, he ran it with his wife, but she was gone now. We’d been working together since the start of last winter. Years ago when Thane still lived, he’d proposed the same arrangement to Snow. The man had said no at the time, but since losing his wife, his tune changed.
I’d say money problems if I had to guess, but in truth I didn’t give a fuck what the reason was. It was a good arrangement, especially considering the short distance between his mortuary and my estate. The fact that he only had one employee besides himself on site, and they were a blood relative to my knowledge made it even more appealing.
The location was perfect. Out of town, isolated, and barely ten minutes from the house. The undertaker was clean, not even a speeding ticket to his name. I drove off the road up the driveway to the stark, white mortuary building. The lights were off inside, but the door opened and the undertaker appeared like a ghostly apparition in the doorway. My nose wrinkled at the sight of him. Despite the otherwise choice arrangement, there was something about the old man that didn’t sit right with me.
His face was just a little too gaunt. Eyes just a little too beady. Tall, but slender and lanky, with arms too long and shoulders too narrow.
Pulling a cash-filled envelope out of the glove compartment and wedging it in my waistband, I pushed out of the car.
“He’s in the back,” I said, offering no other information.
The undertaker nodded, coming around the back with me. Wordlessly, he lifted the pimp’s legs, and I took the head. Between us, we moved the body easily into the building, heading to the stairs that led to the cold basement where he kept other corpses on ice.
We placed the guy on a metal slab, ready to roll him through to the incinerator.
“Who was this guy?” the undertaker asked.
“Why don’t you ask him and find out.”
I pulled the envelope out of my waistband, holding it out to him. I spotted him eyeing my bloody hand before taking it. He looked inside, his lips pursed. Was he counting it? My eye twitched. Usually, he had the smarts to wait to do that after I left.
“Is there a problem?”
He closed the envelope, folding it gingerly.
“It’s four thousand,” he said.
Fucking perfect. My teeth ground in annoyance. The last thing I wanted to do tonight was discuss a pay hike with this rat of a man in his goddamn corpse refrigerator.
“That’s what we discussed.”
He swallowed. “I’d like to renegotiate.”
Why? It was already twice what he charged normal customers for direct cremations.
I stared at him, deadpan.
He recoiled, fiddling with the envelope as he found his balls and continued. “That’s what business partners do, isn’t it?”
“Is that what you think we are? Partners?”
I saw him shrink, retreat into himself like a turtle into its shell.
“I need a service and I pay you for said service.”
I pointed to myself. “Employer.”
Pointed to him. “Employee.”
“But we—”
“But nothing,” I snapped, my patience waning. “Did you think I came here tonight to talk about the disposal fee with you? If you have a fucking problem, why didn’t you—”
My head snapped towards the still open door. It was faint but I heard it. Rustling. The shift of clothing over skin, of soft soled shoes over tile floor.
Unless his dead tenants liked to take late-night walks, someone was out there.
“Is something wrong?” the undertaker asked.
I glared at him. Did he really not hear it?
“Stay here,” I hissed, leaving both bags of bones behind as I walked up the stairs, slowly, making sure I didn’t make a sound on the steps.
Voices. More than one. My fists tightened involuntarily. I’d have Snow’s head on a fucking spike if he’d hired more help without clearing it with me, first. Part of our deal was that his was the only living face we’d encounter while disposing of our enemies. He swore up and down no one else resided on the property.
At the top of the steps, what looked like a back door was hanging ajar. The voices filtered through. I frowned, straining to hear.
It sounded like… women?
His wife died years ago and there was no way that old fucker was getting any tail out here.
Anger smoldered within.
“Are you kidding me?” one voice said.
“They need it tomorrow,” the other replied.
“Don’t hospitals have morgues? People die there all the time.”
“They get overflow sometimes and we’re close. I need to help my dad. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Her dad? Convenient of the man to neglect to tell me he had a daughter.
The door creaked open, flooding dull white light into the passage as she tiptoed inside.
Pale under the weak light, she froze stiff when she saw me. Full, pink lips parted, but she said nothing. She stared; shock, more than fear in her green eyes.
“And who are you, little lamb,” I asked.
Her feet shifted. I thought she’d bolt, but she firmed up her stance instead, standing her ground.
On the taller side of average you’d expect her to be flatter in the areas where curvy girls excelled, but even in the oversized sweatshirt she wore I could see the unmistakable hourglass figure she hid beneath her clothes.
Her hair, black as the night with an almost imperceptible sheen of indigo, hung in messy waves around her heart shaped face.
“Emily Snow. Who the hell are you?”
A searing flare of want burned through me.
My fingers tingled with heat, aching to touch her. To punish her for daring to speak to me that way.
She might have been perfect.
Her wicked almond eyes shone with indignance. Contempt.
I had to have her.
The conclusion sat so comfortably, it was like slotting the last piece into a puzzle.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” I rasped against the physical effort of holding myself back.
“I fucking live here,” she bit back.
The best ones always did. A smile pulled at my lips.
“I gave you my name, who are you?” she demanded, trying and failing to conceal a tremble running up her arms from her clenched fists.
Who was I?
Her worst nightmare and her deepest desire.
From this day forward, she’d never forget my face.
“A ghost.”
Turning away from her took Herculean effort. My body burned with the need to possess her, right there on the grass outside her father’s mortuary. But downstairs, I had a body to burn. And drawing out the anticipation would only make it that much sweeter once I had her.
I flexed my fingers, tipping my head to one side to crack my neck as the thrill of the hunt tried to overtake everything else.
It was her I heard when I was downstairs. Had she heard us? What did she know?
The image of her flashed behind my eyes as I made my way back to the man that I highly doubted shared any real blood with the goddess upstairs.
Her sturdy stance, erect posture, direct, almost insolent gaze; she wasn’t afraid, not like she should’ve been. She was challenging me.
Those types didn’t like to lose.
They pushed back when you pushed them.
I allowed myself the mental image of her stripped down, bound, begging. Her fair skin reddened, her knees bent, giving herself wholly to me. Bowing to her king. My cock thickened in my pants, throbbing until I needed to clench my jaw against its awakening.
She’d be my greatest conquest.
The undertaker just gave me a reason to come back.
