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She turned critical eyes around the basement cell. “Well, it looks like it was ripped straight out of a Medieval Torture Chambers Monthly, special edition.”
That outrageous, unexpected statement nearly pulled a laugh from me.
“Since the décor isn’t to your liking, I’d recommend doing everything you can not to end up as a guest here. That means keeping your smart little mouth shut, and your sister’s, too.”
She swallowed hard, and my eyes tracked the movement. “I know. I get it. Don’t worry. I know what I agreed to.”
No, bambina, you’re wrong. You have no idea.
“You offered to make me your god, Charlotte. A man like me doesn’t forget a promise like that.”
“A man like you? What kind of man is that?” she asked, her soft voice failing to hide the undercurrent of challenge in her tone.
“A man who gets whatever he wants,” I clarified.
“You mean takes it, right?” she added.
The sass on this woman would be the death of her.
I shrugged. “Either way, it ends up mine.” I reached up and rubbed a dirty smudge from one of her plump apple cheeks. “You’ve started out as mine. Don’t forget that.”
She stared at me for a long moment, her gaze reminding me of the long look we’d shared upstairs. The one that had shown into her soul, and I’d been able to see how it glowed.
“You can go, for now. But remember, Miss Burke, I’ll be watching. I’ll always be watching, so behave accordingly, and be a good fucking girl, or we'll be right back to where we started.”
* * *
The bodies had been takencare of, and my study was once again undisturbed. But the stink of death remained, and my handwoven Persian rug was gone.
“What do you want on them?” Elio asked as soon as our guests left, driven home by the two men who I'd be using to tail them from this point forward.
We ran several different levels of surveillance on our targets. Most often, our targets were politicians or important public figures. We used the information we gathered to curate a nice leverage folder (blackmail was such a dirty word). This was the first time I’d be using my invisible eyes for a pet project. We never watched potential problems or witnesses. They ended up fertilizing the Black Baccara roses that grew in abundance on the Casa Nera grounds. The burgundy velvet roses were splendid this year; they’d been fed so well.
“Eyes on them round the clock.” I sat back in my chair. This was the highest level of invisible eyes. I wanted to see what Charlotte was going to do with her hard-won chance to impress me. Men my age often took up new hobbies. I already read voraciously and played chess. That left golf, and I’d beat too many people to death with golf clubs to take the sport seriously. Maybe stalking the little nurse could be my new hobby, at least until I grew bored of it. As I inevitably would.
Elio nodded and left. Mysottocapodidn’t question my reasoning, even though leaving the sisters alive would require a lot of effort on our part. This was uncharacteristic of me. I wasn’t a man known for mercy.
And yet, when that beautiful, brave young woman had sunk to her knees in front of me, she had blown something inside me wide open. When she had prayed to me…the darkness lurking in my soul had become hungry for more. Sure, I was no saint, but people used to worship demons, too.
For all the religious education I’d had as a child, beaten into me by uncaring, or downright evil-intentioned men, there was a twisted kind of curiosity in me toward this girl. Besides, my mother had always worn a St. Anthony’s pendant. My mother, who had never deserved her terrible life. A woman who had prayed for my father’s soul every single day, until she’d died too young. A light stolen from the world.
Charlotte shared her goodness; I could feel it radiating off her. Innocence and compassion. Things I had little experience with but felt curious about. I was a man who could buy anything he wanted, do anything he dreamed of, and had long since realized how tedious that kind of life became.
Charlotte pressing her forehead into a loaded gun and asking to die in place of her sister was a fucking turn-on. It was brave in a way I’d never seen. As pale and innocent as a Caravaggio angel, a nurse who would step in front of a gun to save her sister, she shone with goodness. While I’d long ago accepted what I was, I was intrigued by how much darkness and temptation it would take to sully her angelic aura.
How much sin could turn a heavenly creature to the dark?
I looked forward to finding out.
6
CHARLIE
Iwas late for my rotation the next day, but considering that I was running on fumes, it was a miracle I’d made it at all. At this stage in my nursing program, I couldn’t afford to miss work shifts. It looked unprofessional, and besides, I needed good references to get a job afterward. I didn’t want to waitress at La Leonora any longer than necessary. I was born to be a nurse. At certain points over my five years of part-time study, it’d felt like an impossible mountain to climb, but I was so close now.
Now, when everything else in my life was threatened.
I hurried around my tasks, keeping my head down and hoping that no one noticed I was late. Doctor Dan’s smirk told me he had certainly noticed. I was three hours into an endless day, gulping down a bottle of water near the department reception’s desk, when I heard my name.
