Page 1 of Villainous
Before the war
Villainous
Rage with a mix of longing and ache ramps up in my chest as my gaze stays glued to the woman I’ve been tracking for the last decade, the woman who stomped on my heart and left it in pieces.
Men toss dollar bills onto the velvet stage as they gawk at her like she’s a piece of meat. Maya’s tiny body glides down on the silver pole, and her luscious tits bounce as she twirls around as if she’s a ballerina while her dyed black hair sways. I miss yanking her hair as she blows me and her warm body next to mine as I make love to this woman. She’s mine. She will always be mine. No matter what happened between us.
But I can’t let her distract me from my mission. My twin brother, Devious, sent me to kidnap and torture her until she tells me where her brother, Cashel, is so we can kill him. We’re at war with the Irish mob.
I’m glad the goddamn awful techno beat halts. Don’t get me wrong, I love strip clubs, but it irks my nerves when the music is shitty. The place isn’t as lavish as the strip club I run, and it appears they are violating a lot of health inspections. Spots of mold grow on the red ceiling, and the scent of mildew permeates the air.
She plucks the money from the velvet carpet, crams it in her G-string, then marches to the back of the club. Several minutes later, she waltzes to her boyfriend, Chuck, who’s perched on a dark leather couch. Her plump lips touch his as she wiggles her perky ass on his lap.
I squeeze the crystal glass tight until my knuckles turn white. Normally, I know how to turn off my emotions and not let shit get to me, but witnessing her loving another man makes me want to slit both of their throats. Maya will always be mine, and no one touches what’s mine. There hasn’t been a day I have gone without thinking about her. There’s always been this magnetic pull between us ever since high school, and I’ve never experienced it with any other woman. How would our lives be if she hadn’t left me without a word? We arranged our marriage to unify the bloodline between the Italian and the Irish mob, but she became a ghost. One minute, we were lovey-dovey, planning our wedding day, and the next, she disappeared from my life and I’m going on a killing spree, hoping to avoid the gigantic hole in my heart. It’s how I deal with my issues, killing anyone I can get my hands on. Scratch that—any adult. Not children. I will never harm a child.
What are they speaking about? According to our new hit man, Demonte, she’s been dating him for a year. Chuck has no famiglia, and there isn’t much history on him. It doesn’t matter—he’ll be lying in a pool of his own blood soon. According to Demonte, she’s been working as a stripper since she was nineteen years old and has been moving from place to place all over the US, keeping a low profile. She gave herself a fake name—Terry.
My pulse jumps in my neck, and my heart beats loud in my ears. I dangle my cigarette between my lips and puff on it, blowing smoke from the corner of my mouth as I’m perched on the leather stool, and then I stroke my goatee.
I wonder if black is still her favorite color. Does she still go to the nearest café and read books on a rainy day? Does she still dream about being a ballerina? Or when she’s nervous, does she bite her nails, and does she still snort when she laughs? Those are the simple things that I miss about her. Those little essentials turn me on about her. I used to love seeing her eyes light up like Christmas lights when she spoke about her dreams.
The stripper in the skimpy outfit bats her eyes at me and flops on my lap, slinging her arms around my shoulders.
“You want a dance?”
Her tone is too cheeky for my liking.
If it was any other day, I’d take her to a hotel and fuck her, then send her on her way with a stack of cash. That’s why I love strippers and prostitutes—they treat everything as a business transaction with no strings attached. I don’t have to get to know them or worry about them trying to pursue a relationship. Just get my dick wet and go.
My eyes snag onto the tiny holes on her arm. For a person who is strung out on drugs, she looks as healthy as an ox. “No.”
She peels herself from my lap. “Maybe next time.”
Maya and Chuck stride to the exit.
“Let’s follow them,” I sneer to both of my bodyguards, Vito and Dante, who are dressed in dark suits.
Once we’re outside in the parking lot, the crisp air bites at my cheeks. I puff on my cigarette, then stomp the butt on the dark asphalt.
Chuck brushes his thin lips across her forehead before she plops onto the passenger seat, and then he settles into his super-white Toyota Sienna.
A family car for a family man. He looks like the type, and he’s probably a fucking gentleman and treats her with respect. Boring Chuck is also probably the type that rubs her back when she has cramps. He brings her medication or watches a chick flick movie with her. He also doesn’t know that she isn’t the type to like any of those things. She doesn’t want any of that, and she would like to be left alone. Give her ice cream, but she isn’t into those types of movies; she loves horror films and sci-fi. He also seems like the type that works at a boring desk job and fucks her vanilla. Maya was once into having rough sex. The choking, the biting, that was how I used to fuck her, and if I didn’t rough her up, then she wouldn’t ever come.
She’s painting this picture that she’s a Goody Two-shoes, like she wasn’t just shaking her ass in front of men. I should put a bullet through every man in the damn building for gawking at my woman. Time has changed so much since I last saw her. She’s no longer the girl I fell in love with in high school.
Chicago weather is brutal in the fall. Snow falls freely from the sky, sticking to anything it can find. Skyscrapers light up the pitch-black sky. Horns blare in the distance, and the city bus whooshes by us, adding a gush of wind.
I secure my dark trench coat tighter around my hard body as my driver, Henson, opens the rear door of my black Mercedes SUV with the tinted windows, and I veer in next to Vito. Dante perches in the passenger seat.
We tail them for a few blocks, and the traffic is just as bad as New York’s, thick and compact. I would live here, but our territory doesn’t run in this area because the Chicago Outfit runs this turf.
We have an alliance with them. Devious helps them with protection from the Albanian mafia in exchange for laundering money.
Henson cruises into an underground garage and parks a few spaces from Maya and her boring desk-job boyfriend.
They get out of the car, and he traces his fingers over my woman’s hips, then trails down to her ass cheeks, squeezing tight.
My rage is back full force. I need to compose myself because if I don’t, then I’ll put a bullet through his head, and there are too many witnesses and cameras. My fingers are itching to kill him, and I want to fuck Maya on his corpse to prove to her who she belongs to. The thought makes my dick hard against the metal zipper, so I adjust myself.
