Ilet myself into the back of the mortuary and listened for sounds of life, following the metallic clatter of the undertaker’s tools to the cold room. I’d make this quick.
Mr. Snow hunched over a corpse, elbow deep in their chest cavity. Tubes attached to the body led to a tank full of red-tinted liquid.
I knew enough of anatomy to cause pain to the human body without accidentally killing someone during the torture process, but knowing wasn’t the same as seeing.
I didn’t mess with people after they were dead.
The seedy, white-haired man leaning over the dead body on the gurney seemed almost ghoulish, with his spine showing through his smock and his thin arms pale under the stark lighting.
When he saw me, his eyes bulged twice their size. He staggered back.
“M-Mr. Monroe,” he stammered.
“Good evening, Mr. Snow. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
I came around the gurney and he scurried across to the other side with jerky movements like a rat.
“I’ve been informed you have something to say to me. Some dissatisfaction with your pay?”
His throat bobbed.
“What? I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I ran at him, causing him to crash into a gurney pushed to the wall. It rolled across the floor, making him lose his balance. He stumbled like a baby deep on legs too long and thin to hold up its frame. I snorted. Pathetic.
There was nothing I hated more than a coward.
Mr. Snow wanted to act a big man behind my back, but when it came time to tell me his grievances to my face he recoiled. Searching for anywhere else to look. Someplace else to hide. Tripping over his words.
He was well suited to his line of work. Dead men didn’t argue or intimidate. He wouldn’t fare even half as well working among the living.
“I was told you had a request for me. Are you saying I’m wasting my time coming here?”
“No, no,” he choked out, edging away from me along the wall.
My sneer turned into a grin. His fear was so thick I could practically smell it wafting off of him. He was one second away from begging, bargaining, anything to make sure he didn’t end up like the guy on his gurney.
“Then tell me, why am I here? What do you want?” I snapped.
He swallowed, practically flat against the wall.
“Look, I’m sorry. I think there was a misunderstanding.”
“Bullshit. Grow a pair, old man.”
I slammed my palm down on the metal gurney. He jumped, losing his footing, and fell to the ground. I loomed over him.
“It’s the money,” he blurted once I was too close for his comfort, “we aren’t doing well financially. The mortuary. It’s expensive to run. It’s a small, family business. Most people go with the big-name funeral homes.”
A coward and a shit business man.
“Is it my problem that you don’t know how to run a business, Mr. Snow?”
He shook his head.
“You, you have to understand—”
“Do you give orders or do I?”
His chin wobbled. “No. No. It’s just I can’t let this place close down. It’s my wife’s. It’s her legacy. This is the only way I can support us.”
I almost recoiled from his admission.
Weak.
Weak men were no good to me.
I wasn’t even angry at him, I pitied him.
If his services weren’t so conveniently located and accessible, I’d terminate our contract right here and now with a well-placed bullet and the strike of a match.
“When you give me a reason to give you more money, I’ll consider it. One of those ‘big-name’ funeral homes might be a better investment.”
His lip quivered, but something flashed in his green eyes.
That was where Emily got them, I thought, marveling at how differently they affected me looking out of his face versus hers. Hers a bright, vivid hue, filled with life and fire. His, a muted shade, too small for his long face.
“You can’t threaten me. No one else will agree to this type of arrangement.”
His voice finally got a little bass in it. Look at that. Sad sack of shit was standing up for himself.
“I don’t make threats, undertaker,” I crooned, voice low. “I make promises.”
“How did you even get in here? You’re not supposed to come before midnight. You’re trespassing.”
I laughed darkly, knowing he would do absolutely nothing about it.
Didn’t matter which cop or detective he spoke to within 100 miles of here. As soon as they heard my name, they wouldn’t do a damned thing.
My lip curled with scorn looking at the sniveling, sorry excuse for a man crumpled on the ground.
“Are you listening, old man? I need to make sure you hear me.”
His throat bobbed again. “You can’t–”
“I can and I will. Waste my time again and you won’t like the consequences. You have a problem? Something to discuss? You speak to Nixon or you have him pass along a formal request for a meeting. Be a man, Snow. I don’t work with rodents.”
I turned, leaving the mortuary building, my back rigid with annoyance. Though, Snow may not have been worth the trip here; Emily was.
Immediately, her wet, naked body flashed behind my eyelids.
That inexplicable blaze of want flamed through me. I lifted my gaze, peering through the trees across the property, but her cabin couldn’t be seen from the road.
How in the hell did someone like her come out of the ball sack of someone like her father? She had more spine at what I imagined to be something close to twenty-one than her father did pushing fifty.
I floored it back to the house, tearing down the deserted road. I was back in half the time it took me to get to the mortuary.
With a single-minded purpose, I stalked through the house, up the stairs, into my bedroom, into my closet. I searched for a mask, securing it to my face with vivid images of Emily still playing through my thoughts.
Tension flared across my shoulders, in need of a release.
I took the upstairs entrance to the club on the house’s second floor, opening via the biometric lock to step out onto the mezzanine. The strong, bass-driven beat rattled through my bones. Sex hung in the air. Predictable roars, groans, and laughs echoed through the hall, bouncing off the high ceiling.
My hands curled around the railing from the mezzanine, staring down at the masked patrons below.
I cocked my head, narrowing my sights on the people fucking on the altar. Three of them.
The woman lay on her back against the solid wood. One guy had her by the hips, jackhammering in and out of her pussy. The other pumped his thick cock between her lips until she convulsed with the need for air.
My own cock thickened as I watched, leaning casually over the rail as they continued. I was already primed, on edge from watching my little lamb. I should’ve brought her back with me.
The thought of having her in here, showing her my kingdom, was intoxicating, and also… revolting.
I wanted every inch of her to myself. Picturing it now, I could say with confidence that if she were here several clients would be leaving short an eyeball, maybe a hand.
I’d need to collar her.
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood, frustration clouding my thoughts with hot steam.
I should’ve taken her at her cabin.
My grip tightened on the railing. I shut my eyes, the thick, seductive energy of the club swirling around me, whispering to me the promise of release. And yet…
The beauty stretched over the altar didn’t have hair the color of night. She didn’t have skin so unblemished and milky white that I ached to turn it red, taste it on my lips.
Emily Snow would be mine eventually.
Why not sooner?
Why delay the inevitable?
The undertaker would have no choice but to do what I wanted if I had his daughter. The perfect bargaining chip. The perfect hostage.
The woman below gasped as her eyes made contact with me, her purpose shifting from conductor of pleasure to performer in the blink of an eye.
On her back, letting two men use her, she writhed, squealing with pleasure, her moans growing louder as she put on a show for me.
My teeth grated, the need still there, begging to be addressed, but the hard length in my pants was already softening as I imagined fucking the beauty below. Imagined wrapping my hands around her slender neck, binding her hands and ankles. Making her scream.
A low growl rose in my chest and I cut my stare away, swiping a palm over my jaw, frustration turning to a manic wonder as the stoic realization dawned.
It was Emily or nothing.
