Page 1 of The Wraith & Her Killer

ProLogue

My entire life, I’ve been surrounded by monsters, but I was taught that the worst of them were always lurking just outside of my home. I was born the bastard child to the Pakhan of the Kuznetsov bratva in upstate Chicago. My mother was the help, and she died while trying to run away with me when I was thirteen years old.

It wasn’t my father who pulled the trigger, though. Mikhail Kuznetsov was a brutal man, but I believe he loved his family fiercely. From what I observed, he loved me and worshipped my mother behind closed doors, but she didn’t want to live a life of lies and secrecy. She would always have to hide me from danger or hide her love for my father, since he was in an arranged marriage with a Bratva princess—who happens to be a raging, spoiled cunt.

So Mama took me and ran. But leaving that life behind wasn’t just leaving my father and the secret family we’d built.

I was also ripped away fromhim.

The boy who had claimed my heart.

Literally.

He was the son of the enforcer. I’d never learned his name, and he didn’t speak much, but he was always there. For years, he was my constant, always hovering. There was a moment when I awoke from a nightmare to find him sitting cross-legged at the end of my bed, his head tilted to the side like my screams were the most interestingthing in the world. He wasn’t concerned with comforting me, but reveled in soaking up my terror.

As odd as he was, he swallowed my fear until I had none left inside of me. He consumed it all. Consumedme. Like adelicacy.

It’s like he decided in that moment that I was his, because he crawled over to me and placed a careful hand on my chest, right over my heart. He dug his nails into my skin to the point of bleeding, like he wanted to reach into my chest to actually touch my heart as he whispered,“This is mine,”before moving his grip to my throat and squeezing hard enough to feel my pulse stutter.“Every beat of it, mine.”

Everything about him electrified me as much as he terrified me. Night after night, he watched over me, but that last night before my mother took me and ran, his voice ingrained itself into my memory for life.

“Ty moy, malen'koye privideniye.”You’re mine, little ghost.

I didn’t know how to process his words or the fact that they made me feel more at peace in my whole life than I’d ever felt before. He up and left my room without so much as a backward glance. Little did I know, that was the last time I would ever see him.

Unfortunately, Mama and I didn’t make it far before her life was taken by one of father’s many enemies. I didn’t even get to properly grieve her when I was stolen from the wreckage and sold as a housemaid to a man who was as cruel as he was devilishly and deceptively handsome. Santino Ferrero. A true wolf in sheep’s clothing. At twenty-four, he was one of the youngest men to head the Italian mafia chapter, located somewhere on the west coast. I’ve never been able to figure out where I’ve been taken and held captive with the language barrier of everyone speaking Italian around me and having never been allowed to step foot outside the house.

The housemaid position lasted until I turned eighteen, then Santino had other plans for me. I’d finally grown a decent set of breasts, my waist slimmed, and my hips rounded out. Santino definitely noticed. It was then that Ibecame his subservient rag doll. A sex toy. A punching bag. I had to become whatever he needed for his beast to be satiated.

I’d heard him use the wordsadismoaround me, which wasn’t hard to translate, but what he was doing didn’t feel like sadism at all. Most times his touch was only intended for pain. An outlet for Santino to unleash a day's worth of pent up frustration and anger. Eventually, I hated myself because he trained my body to crave the pleasure hidden within his pain.

He wasn’t a good man, and he was an even worse leader from what I’ve gathered. The few moments he spoke English and I was forced to kneel naked at his feet during meetings, it sounded like he was a backstabber; a traitor and tyrant. A man who never followed through on his side of his business dealings. He knew what he was, and yet he didn’t like being called out by the other leaders.

I tried my best to make myself small, sweet, and submissive. If I withstood his brutality, I was occasionally rewarded with a gift of some sort for being hisbrava ragazza. His way of keeping me from fighting back. That’s how I earned my floral tattoo and my bright, pastel hair. The small acts of rebellion were nice, but really it was my silentfuck youto Santino. He hated them.

Lately though, he’s been more violent than before. He’s twitchy and is constantly looking over his shoulder, like he’s waiting for someone to strike. It’s not abnormal for mafia and bratva men to have enemies, but this was true fear. That fear results in him hurting me beyond what I’ve trained myself to handle.

I swear I’ve heard my father’s name amidst his Italian rumblings, but I can’t be sure. A small part of me had hoped he would come for me, but after ten years, that hope has fizzled out.

The truth is, I’m tired. I’msotired. No person should have to endure what I have in my life, and today broke me.Hebroke me. I can’t remember much of what happened after he nearly broke my nose with his flying fists, but every part of me hurts. Every part of me wants to end it all.

There’s nothing left of the heart that’s supposed to beat withinmy chest and my will to live, to escape to another life, disappeared years ago. Tonight was the first night that I let the tears fall freely. I wept for the life that was stolen from me. From the family that I was taken from. I cried for just how alone I am because in all these years, my father never came for me, never tried to rescue me.

A minuscule part of me even hoped thathewould come for me—the boy who claimed my heart for his own— but we were barely teenagers when my mother took me and ran. Whywouldhe come for me?

Now, at twenty-three, I’ve lived about as much life as I can handle anymore. I’m ready to sink into the ether. After all, how many times can a soul shatter before it’s turned to dust?

1

Have you ever heard the sound a heart makes just before it stops beating? No? Well,fuck.It’s my favorite sound in the universe. The muscle that’s so precious and essential for life, yet I crave the power that comes with snuffing it out.

I think I had a heart once… but I lost that and my sanity right along with it.

“No, please! Let me go!” The bloody, garbled screams of humble, local businessman Joe Cantorelli echo off the walls of his bedroom, his wife laying lifeless beside him. “I-I s-swear I didn’t know!”

A normal man would perhaps pause and listen to the voice of reason here. The one that saysmaybe this man is innocent, and we need to hear him out before stabbing him through the heart.But I’m not a normal man and I don’t own one of those little feathery-winged angels that sits on my shoulder and encourages me to do the right thing. I think I’ve even scared the little horned fucker who’s supposed to sit on the other shoulder off, too. It’s just me calling the shots in here and that’s the way I like it. You don’t need a fucking voice of reason when you follow the evidence and facts laid out before you.

It’s always the same with these assholes.

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