Chapter 1

Erik

Death was inevitable.

It clung to me like a well-worn coat, the stench of it all over me no matter how hard I scrubbed my skin each night. It was my lot in life, my birthright.

"Please God! Please. Please don't. I'll do anything." The older man in front of me was on his knees, tears dripping down his face. There wasn't much he wouldn't give up to save him and his family.

"The time is over for negotiations, Samuel. You know that." I pulled on a thick black glove and stared into his face. My father had taught me as a boy to confront my fears, to slay my demons. Watching and coveting each emotion before death was my punishment. My dreams would haunt me later that night, my days melting into weeks and weeks into years of nothing but beautiful death.

"Can I fuck the old lady?" Kane's voice rose up behind me, and I shrugged.

"I don't care what you do with her. She was as involved as Samuel here was."

"No!" Samuel pulled himself to his knees, which garnered him a pop in the face. "Please. Leave her be. She had no part in it."

I hit him again, breaking his nose. "You lying is only going to make things worse."

He gagged and turned, vomiting something putrid on the ground behind him as I pulled on my other glove slowly, methodically.

The shrill screams behind me blended into the ether becoming nothing more than a hum. I'd heard them far too many times in my life to pay them any attention. The lesson was straight forward.

You fuck with the devil; you pay his bill when it comes due.

"Erik. Please. You know me." Samuel turned and wiped his sleeve over his arm as I popped one of my ear buds in and then the other.

Classical music filled my ears, leaving my heart light and unburdened. "Can't hear you, old friend."

I lifted my gun and nodded toward the ground.

He mouthed a few more cries; his begging lost to me. Nothing would retract the hit my father had put on the old man's head. He was our broker, the one who helped my father put himself back together after the death of my mother. He was once important, family.

That all changed the day he decided to start slipping a few bills in his own pocket. I was shocked my father had let it go that far.

Pressing the gun to his head, I pulled the trigger twice and turned, making my way to the bedroom. Kane had Lana pressed to the bed, her legs spread wide as he drilled into her. I tapped his shoulder and gave him a look as she screamed in horror.

"You're taking too long, asshole." I turned put two bullets in her head too before chuckling and walking back through the house. A picture here and there had Samuel's arm wrapped around my father's broad shoulders. One caught my eye, and I pulled it from the wall, taking it with me as I walked calmly out of the house.

How anyone could ever love a man like my father was beyond me. He was the kingpin of our syndicate, and the evilest mother fucker ever to walk the earth.

His black eyes bore into me as I lifted the picture up and walked to the car, resting against it while I waited for Kane. There was truly no getting into my old man's heart. Maybe once, but not after losing my mother and then my sister, Delaney.

He was dead to the world, and his pain was only buffered by the inflicting of horror and pain on someone else.

"I fucking hate you sometimes." Kane pushed me in the chest as I pulled off my earbuds.

"Sorry? Were you mumbling something?" I tucked them into my pocket and pulled off my gloves, watching him intently. "Did you fuck her after I killed her?"

"What? No." He popped me in the chest, and I reached out, striking him in the face like a viper might.

"Hit me again, and I'll make sure to drop your ugly ass on top of her corpse before I drive off." I narrowed my eyes a little, and he lifted his hands and backed off.

"Fuck. I was just kidding, Erik. Damn. You're extra sensitive today. Get some pussy and call me in the morning." He flipped me off and walked toward the road.

"It's ten miles back to the house," I called after him, but only got another finger in response.

Good. The last thing I wanted to do was drive home with him blabbering in my ear about some new girl he met. If the poor whore only knew who she was sleeping with, she'd fall over dead. Kane was vile, dark, lost. He'd lived a life of physical and mental abuse for years before my father pulled his ass from the hole he was in.

I got in the car and lit up a joint as I pulled out of the driveway and headed home. Some small piece of humanity that remained inside of me wept at the thought of killing Samuel. Offing a stranger was one thing, but putting a bullet between the eyes of a man I might have called Uncle one time was another.

Pulling on the joint, I sucked in deep and held the fiery smoke in my lungs until I couldn't take it anymore. The world was dim around me, the night falling fast. How badly I wanted to walk into the house and find someone like Jenna waiting for me.

My best friend, Nate's girl, was everything a man might want, and yet she belonged to him.

"Not that I'd want much more than a night of fucking anyway," I mumbled under my breath and opened up my house north of the city in the mountains. Most days, I stayed at my father's mansion on the beach, but taking a life always left me in need of solitude. No one could hear me screaming from here. No one could know what my life had become.

I left the lights off as I walked through the kitchen to the living room, pausing only to strip and set my gun down on the table.

A woman would be good for the night, but I'd just abuse her, and nothing left me colder. It was part of the reason I couldn't stand Kane. He loved to force a woman into submission, and where I was unable to be anything but demanding, I'd never violate her rights. Not unless I knew without a doubt that she wanted me to.

Grace wanted it. I could feel it all over me. The sexy little librarian where I spent my afternoons pretended to be modest in her antiquated sweaters and ankle-long skirts. Innocence sat on her, but she hated it. The yearning to be forced over a table and fucked within an inch of her life was lurking below the surface.

"She'd be so fucking tight." I groaned and walked into the bathroom, stroking my erection and pinching the tip of my cock roughly. She wouldn't be able to handle me. Not for a minute.

I turned on the hot water and pressed my bare ass to the shower door as I took hold of myself and closed my eyes. Maybe she was just what I needed. A virgin with a naughty side that no one had tapped into yet.

A chuckle bubbled out of me. How the fuck did I know if she was untapped? She might have a million boyfriends waiting for her after she left her job of prudence. Her curves were delicious, her tits perky and dark hair long and silky.

If she needed someone to teach her how to be a good girl in bed... I could bend my rules a little to help her out. Get her ready for another man.

I groaned as my balls tightened. It'd been too long since I'd found myself buried in a sloppy wet pussy. It was going to have to happen sooner or later.

Maybe I could make her my pet. Have her service my cock and promise her the world, and then kick her ass out when she got needy.

Disgust ran through me. Fucking humanity again.

"Bet she's never drank from a man." I arched my back and pressed myself into my tight grip as warmth spread across my stomach and left my heart racing. Would she welcome me in her mouth or beg me to fuck her nice and slow in the ass?

What kind of woman was she beneath that false serenity?

I wanted to know so goddamn bad, and yet I'd been ignoring her for the last month since Jenna and Nate hooked up. Seeing him fall head over heels in love with someone messed with my head. My life wouldn't allow anyone or anything in it. Death would come looking for them as it always did with the women in my life.

"Stop it," I bit out and turned, pressing my forehead against the steamy glass wall. The water called to me, but I remained locked in place, my only movement the thrusting of my hips, the clenching of my ass.

I needed a release, and I wouldn't be denied due to my fucked up thoughts. Depravity. I needed a long night of drugs, liquor or pussy to shut the darkness up inside of me for a little while longer. I needed Grace Adams on her knees in the library, her sweet mouth full of dick.

"That's it," I whispered loudly and reached up with my free hand, gripping the side of the shower as I gave myself over to the approaching orgasm.

I would deflower her, mark her as my own and force her to submit to whatever my fucked up mind could concoct. She'd love it and come to worship me. They all did.

As long as love was never a part of the deal, I'd let her stay.

A scream ripped from my lips as I jerked, fucking myself until it hurt to do it. I needed someone to unleash my demons on, to share my pain with.

But, I needed her to need me first.

Otherwise, it'd be one more sin to add to the scoreboard.