First Comes Blood by Lilith Vincent

5

Lorenzo

Chiara Romano sits in a crumpled heap, staring at Cassius as he strides back into the house. I’ve watched her from the shadows as she’s talked with and been defeated by each of the others in turn. Cassius seems to have destroyed her.

Get up. Don’t be broken, I urge her silently.

I haven’t had my fun yet.

Vinicius joins me in the shadows. “Cassius looks pleased with himself. I told her not to trust anyone, but she wouldn’t listen. Now look at her.”

We watch Chiara take a deep breath and get slowly to her feet.

“He went too easy on her,” I sneer. “She’s not even crying.”

“When was the last time you had a woman and she wasn’t crying or expecting to be paid?”

I bare my teeth at the darkness. “I don’t pay for pussy. Now fuck off. I want to wish Miss Romano a happy birthday.”

“She’s not your wife yet, remember that,” he says sharply, grasping my arm.

Don’t fuck the virgin, he means, because she’s not mine to ruin. I pull out of his grip. She’s mine for the next thirty minutes, and I can’t make any promises. Things might get out of hand.

I step out of the darkness and walk the perimeter of the swimming pool toward Chiara. She’s got her head down and she’s sniffling as she walks, and I can tell she’s halfway to bursting into tears.

Perfect. I’ll barely need to do a thing to have her sobbing.

Chiara stops short, and her gaze travels from my feet all the way up to my face. “Have you come to make a fool of me, too?” she whispers.

I regard her in silence. It won’t be useful to me to have the mayor in my pocket. I know that’s what the other three are looking forward to, but what I do doesn’t require contracts and permits, and I fix my own problems.

Chiara takes a shaky breath. “Whatever you do, whatever you say, I’m not going to fall for it. Your friends have shown me what cold bastards you all are, and you seem like the worst.”

There isn’t much I can do with a wife, either. She can’t smuggle things across borders for me once she bears the Scava name. I can’t make any money off her because everyone will be too scared to touch what’s mine.

“I know you all think that I’m some spoiled princess who needs to be taught my place in the world,” Chiara continues. “That I’m not as clever or important as I thought I was.”

The only thing she’ll be useful for is to bear my children. Three should be enough, and then I’ll have to kill her. She’s too weak and disobedient to risk having her taint them.

“Do you want to know what I was thinking when I was getting ready tonight? One more year. One more year and then I’ll be free to begin my life.”

At least she’s got a pretty face and she’s small enough to be pinned down with one hand. I’ll enjoy having a little fun with Chiara.

Her brow wrinkles in confusion. “Do you have a present for me? Some piece of advice, or a warning to do as I’m told?”

The fuck I do. The only presents I give are bullets to the head. She’s got diamonds around that chokeable throat of hers. Those are from Salvatore. A mistrustful look in her eyes. That’ll be because of Vinicius. And one of her hands keep straying to her ass, courtesy of Cassius. A pre-emptive strike. I’ve always liked his style.

Now, what do I have for this spoiled, naïve princess to make her birthday night complete?

“Say something, please. You’re scaring me.”

I tilt my head the other way. I haven’t even done anything yet.

I take a step toward her, and fear flickers over her face. “I’m the most dangerous of them all. Do you know why?”

Chiara walks slowly backward as I approach, shaking her head.

“Because I don’t want anything from your father, or from you,” I say softly. “I just like to win. Once I marry you, I’ll probably slit your throat on our wedding night.”

Her back hits the wall of the house and her eyes are huge in the darkness.

I keep coming until my body is nearly touching hers. “Your blood all over the rose petals on the bed. What a pretty sight that will be.”

Chiara tries to dart away, but I grab her shoulder, turn her around and slam her against the wall, holding her there with one hand. “You thought you could seduce Salvatore. Bargain with Vinicius. Manipulate Cassius. They let you play with them for a little while because it amused them.”

I lean closer with every word until my lips are against her ear. “But I don’t. Play. Games.”

“You’re crazy,” she whispers.

People say that to me all the time. What they really mean is I can’t be controlled, and that’s fucking terrifying to them.

I smile against her ear. “If that’s what you need to tell yourself. Either way, don’t bother trying to charm me. You’d have more success with a piece of frozen metal.”

“All right, I won’t. Just let me go, please. I’m only seventeen.”

Like that will make me merciful toward her after I watched her try to scheme and manipulate her way through tonight. If she wants to act like a tricky little bitch, then she’ll be treated like one. “I don’t want to. Be a good girl and let me have my birthday present, and you won’t have to see my face for another year and a week.”

“Your birthday present? What do you want?”

I glance down her body and say softly, “Good question.”

I grab a handful of her skirt and pull it up.

“No, don’t, please—”

I pull a zip tie from my pocket and pin her wrists behind her. I tried doing this the easy way. She can’t be good, so I’ll have to make her. She struggles in my grip but she’s not going anywhere. A moment later I have the tie around her wrists and pulled it tight.

Chiara starts to whimper. With my free hand, I reach inside my jacket and draw my knife, showing it to her. That shuts her up. The pointed blade glistens in the moonlight and she freezes at the sight.

“How much blood you shed is up to you. If you scream for help, I’ll kill anyone who tries to rescue you and make you watch. Would you like to see your mother die tonight, or are you going to calm the fuck down?”

Chiara doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Her cheek is pressed against the wall and her eyes are wide. Much better. I pull up her dress again.

I’m not going to do anything. I just want to look at her.

Probably.

It depends how much she tries to fight me. There’s a fading red handprint on her ass, courtesy of Cassius. Fuck, she’s got a cute little body. The sight of her and the scent of her fear is making me hard.

I grasp her G-string, slice through the straps and pull it free while Chiara chokes out a protest.

“What do we have here?” I murmur, holding the scraps of her underwear aloft and examining them in the dim light. There’s a dark, wet spot where the fabric has been nestled against her pussy.

I show her the underwear, my thumb moving over the slippery patch, and put my lips close to her ear. “Is that for me? Or for one of the others? Who turned you into a slippery mess while you were pretending to be a sheltered, naïve Catholic girl who’s so scared, so confused by all these bad men?”

“Please, don’t,” she whimpers, shaking her head, her face creasing like she’s going to cry.

Oh, please cry. Making horny girls cry is my favorite thing.

“Do you like bad men, Chiara? Was it me who made you wet? Please say it was me.” I run my tongue up the shell of her ear, and she shivers against me. That ass of hers rubbing against my cock nearly sends me over the edge. I have only a tenuous grasp on control, and she’s about to shatter it. I press the flat of the knife under her chin and growl, “Wriggle like that again and I’ll fuck you right now while everyone in this house listens to you scream.”

Chiara pants softly, her whole body rigid as she tries desperately to keep still.

I flip the knife in my hand and shove the hilt between her thighs. Her bare pussy is right there as I stroke the handle back and forth across her lips. So wet, so ready for me to shove it inside her.

“Or did you get wet for all of us? Is that what you want, Chiara, for us to line up and fuck you, one after another? I’ll go last. Do you think you’ll still be struggling by the time it’s my turn?”

Horrified, she squeezes her eyes shut. Bet she wishes now that she never asked me to speak.

“Why are you even here? You obviously hate me.”

Hate? To feel hate, you have to be able to love. I run my eyes down her quivering body. I like them innocent and trembling, but the innocent and trembling ones never want me.

“We’re not doing it to you, idiot. We’re doing it to him.”

“My father? But aren’t you all friends?”

“There aren’t friends in our world. There are only allies and enemies, and the two can switch places at a moment’s notice. The mayor wants us as allies, but we don’t like to be used, Chiara. He has to be taught a lesson, and it’s more fun for us making him suffer by making you suffer.”

“But...but he thinks you want to be allies,” she says in a small voice.

I laugh softly. “So you’re fucked, aren’t you? Think of it this way. It doesn’t matter what happens next. You were fucked the moment we stepped foot in this house.”

I put my lips against her ear as I speak softly, twisting the hilt of my knife against her pussy. “You’re getting your juices all over my knife, Chiara. When you go to school and confess to your priest, make sure you tell him what a very bad man did to you, and just how much you loved it.”

I grip the knife harder and increase the pressure, watching her eyes widen as the hilt just presses between her lips.

“Happy fucking birthday.”