Page 1 of Bleed
Prologue
I never used to believe in serendipity. I mean chance encounters that lead to bliss? Come on. But she changed all that the day she walked to the little coffee shop, with a laptop under her arm, and a stack of books held to her chest like a precious baby. I watched her from across the street, a man smitten in the blink of my hazel eyes.
The autumn wind blew the fallen leaves around her feet on the sidewalk as wildly as it whipped through the flaxen hair that stuck out from under her little crochet cap. She was beautiful, in a familiar sort of way, and as I stared at her like a creep from across the street at my “job”, I couldn’t help but think I knew her somehow.
The clatter of the commercial kitchen in the fusion restaurant I’m the head chef at breaks me from my trance. The heat of the ten-burner gas stove and the steel flat top are scorching their way back into my bones as I shake off the feeling and go back to the numerous orders being spewed out by the POS at the register. Memories will do me no good in a place where I could get burned from lack of attention, and from the owner if I fuck up.
I already have the scars on my arms and hands from many years of hot pots and pans singing my skin, and I barely have any feeling left in my fingertips from the amount of times I’ve burned them. But those scars are nothing compared to the ones she eventually left me with, the ones that are so much worse than what I did to her. But we’ll get to that soon. I have too much to do right now, and I want to be undisturbed when I tell you the story of how we met, for the second time (I told you she looked familiar), what happened, and how she changed my life.
It's romantic, in its own fucked up way. I guess you would say that she’s my soulmate, the one meant for me. But it’s not for the reasons you would think. Oh, no. It’s much, much worse, and I’ve loved every second of it, even if it did almost kill us both.
Stay with me, I’ll get to the fun parts, just you wait and see.
Chapter One
“Love. Love is for fools.” I whisper through the pounding club music above the head of the girl who bats her long, dark, eyelashes at me as she looks up from her knees with my cock in her pretty little mouth. “Fucking, that’s all I need, and sucking.” I add with a small laugh, grabbing her hair and yanking her head down further on my hard dick.
And killing.
She’s a pretty thing, with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes that are watering so nicely as I choke the air out of her with every thrust past her stretched out lips. Her shiny, pink gloss is all gone, having been smeared on my cock then sucked down by her in a valiant attempt to get me off, but she’s too plain, too simple, and she’s not crying hard enough. She’s boring me. The fact that she’s sucking me off in the corner of Charlotte’s most popular dive should be good enough, but nope.
God I wish I was normal and could cum every now and then from just this. Sometimes my tastes…
“Suck harder. Put some more enthusiasm into it.” I groan, pulling her hair harder, making her eyes tear up more. “If I’m not satisfied...well, you’ll find out.”
Watching her go from slow deep sucks to ferociously taking me down her throat is beautiful, but it’s still not sufficient. I’m fucked up, I know this, and she’s about to find out what happens when I can’t be pleased. Too many years of working a high stakes job full of death and mayhem have made me what I am today. I’m not proud of it…well, okay, maybe I am.
The chef’s job I have at Valentino’s is basically just a front. It’s a “real” job to have in case the 5-0 come down on me for my actual career. It’s a good cover that was set in place over ten years ago when I first took my oath into the Carlucci family. Valentino is Mr. Carlucci’s Nephew, and only heir to the family fortune, so I should count myself lucky that I’ve always worked for him and been in his good graces as the “Reaper”, his number one silencer.
I enjoy my position in the family, probably too much, and the intense release my “work” brings me is why I’m so messed up now, and need to see blood, create violence, and bring death to get off. She’s going to have to die now, no matter how hard she tries.
The music changes from something with a deep, thumping bass to something brighter and more techno as she gobbles me up, her tears dripping on the floor at my feet. Strobe lights from the dance floor flicker across us, illuminating the filthy thing she’s doing for me, but just enough that people around can tell someone’s getting their knob polished, but not who we are. I like my anonymity very much, and my career depends on it. I can’t risk a murder charge from a cheap suck ruining everything.
She may not know who I am or what I’m capable of, but I’m sure she can tell that this night isn’t going to end nicely for her.
Poor thing.
I like to give my marks a choice of how they die, right before I end them, and she will be no different. Reaching back into the waistband of my jeans, I feel the handle of the large hunting knife all smooth and satiny under my calloused fingertips. Then I move over to my back pocket, touching the outline of the syringe filled with puffer fish venom through the denim.
She can choose the easy way or the hard way. It doesn’t matter to me. Death by lethal injection, it’s quiet and clean, or murder by stabbing. The monster in me really wants to stab the fuck out of her, to make her bleed, to spill her blood all over the floor and walk away from it before anyone is the wiser.
“Keep going.” I say to her, pulling her hair tighter in my fist, bringing her lips down to the base of my cock, gagging her. “Don’t worry about who’s around us. You’re with me and only me.”
She tries her best, I can tell, but it’s not enough, and before she can bring me close to any climactic feeling of pleasure, I rip her off me and push her back.
I’m bored, she’s boring me, and that’s bad for her, because the faster I finish getting my fill from her, which I won’t, the faster she dies.
“Enough.” I say as she lands on her ass, looking up at me with shock and surprise at the change in my demeanor.
My switch has been flipped from pleasure seeker to reaper. It’s time I finish this contract and end her.
I don’t know why the family wants her dead, or what she’s done to deserve it, but I really don’t care. It could be something as stupid as she’s really bad at giving head and her husband wants someone new with her out of the picture. I could see how that would fit.
I’m chuckling to myself at the thought as I bend down and lift her up by the shirt collar, bringing her face so precariously close to mine that I can smell the fear on her breath.
“Do you know who I am?”
“N…no.” She stammers, looking back and forth from eye to hazel eye.
