“I’m glad you came to your senses, boy.”

Bobby looked out over the waters of the Hudson, then back at his handsome date “My senses?”

“You stopped fighting what’s between us.” Angelo reached out, took Bobby’s hand and ran his thumb over the back of Bobby’s knuckles. “You let me in.”

“Did I have a choice?” Bobby smirked.

“You could have broken instead of bent,” Angelo said. “ A lot of men would. A lot of men do.”

“I guess I’m just the kind of sick puppy to suit you,” Bobby said, smiling as he drained the last of his glass. “You want more Chianti?”

“Port will do.”

Angelo had taken Bobby out to dinner in his favorite Manhattan restaurant. Bobby hadn’t paid attention to the name of it. It didn’t really matter. It was one of Angelo’s and that was all he needed to know.

“Coming right up.” Bobby flashed a charming smile.

Angelo smiled back as Bobby got up to grab their drinks from the bar. It actually wasn’t that hard to please Angelo. He liked being in control. He especially liked being served.

Bobby had gotten to know Angelo very, very well over the last fourteen days. The sex was exceptional, of course. Even more incredible was being up close and personal with the workings of a bona fide black marketeer. Angelo called him an apprentice at times and Bobby was comfortable with that. It was better than a lot of the things Angelo had called him, and he was learning a very great deal - as much as he possibly could.

Angelo got up from the table at the same time as Bobby and walked to the balcony which overlooked the Hudson. The restaurant had a second floor and Angelo liked to station his men on the lower floors, giving him and Bobby some privacy to dine and talk.

While Angelo took in the view, Bobby jogged down the stairs, got their order from the bar and was just reaching the top of the stairs when he heard it happen.

BLAM!

It sounded like a car door being slammed. But car doors didn’t make a man suddenly go stiff. They didn’t make blood flower in the back of his shirt, spreading like the wings of a dark phoenix.

Most men would have dropped on the spot, but Angelo turned around. Slowly. Stiffly. A dead man walking. There was a hole in his guts, a gnarly mass of red flesh right in the core of him.

Bobby stopped. Stared. Lifted the glass to his lips and took a deep swig. He’d never seen a hit happen like this before. He was usually as far away as possible, waiting for the text confirmation. So this is what it looked like.

Angelo’s face was slack, a sick sort of grey as he put his hand to his stomach and pulled it off again. It came away bloody, bright red fluid and little bits of flesh on his hand.

He looked Bobby dead in the eye as he sank to his knees involuntarily. Blood loss was a bitch for making the strong weak. He opened his mouth to speak. Red spittle emerged before the word.

“You.”

“Who else?” Bobby put the empty glass down and sipped at the other. “You said it yourself, Angelo. I’m the devil.”

“You love me,” Angelo said. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even a statement. It was a truth.

“Maybe I do,” Bobby acknowledged. “That doesn’t matter. You fuck me, I fuck back. No matter what.”

Blood was beginning to trickle from Angelo’s mouth. His guards were downstairs, blissfully unaware of what was taking place above them. All the security in the world wouldn’t save Angelo now. He’d made the fatal mistake powerful men so often make - thinking that something small and vicious can be tamed.

“Why?”

Bobby drained the second glass, put it down and walked over to Angelo, crouching next to him. He took Angelo’s chin in his fingers and looked the man dead in the eye.

“You said it yourself,” he said, pityingly. “I’m unredeemable.”

Angelo shook his head. “This is a mistake, Bobby.”

“No,” Bobby said firmly. There was something inside him, a little voice that was screaming that it wasn’t too late to save Angelo. Pressure on the wound. Call for help. He might still make it. He silenced that voice. He had been weak for far too long where this man was concerned. Angelo deserved this. Every fucking bit of it.

Bobby pulled a sheaf of papers and a pen out of his coat. “Sign here,” he said with a deviant little smirk. “Don’t worry. It’s just a will that gives me everything. Just standard boiler plate stuff. I’ll lodge it with Mr Feldman.”

“Unoriginal,” Angelo chided, his voice rough with pain.

“Sign it, asshole.”

“Stupid boy,” Angelo groaned. “You get a signature before you shoot a man, not after.”

So fucking annoying. Even as he was dying, he was self-possessed enough to give a lecture on proper criminal protocol.

“Sign it!” Bobby insisted, forcing the paper at him.

Angelo just shook his head, a curiously bright and deviant light in his eyes. Bobby felt a bolt of fear go right through him. Angelo’s heart should be pumping the last of his blood out of his body any moment now. He desperately needed that signature. If he didn’t get it, all this had been worthless.

“You’re not going to win this, Bobby,” Angelo said, hoarse. “Better run before they catch you.”

“Sign. Here.” Bobby grabbed Angelo’s bloody hand and tried to force the pen into it but the older man’s fingers wouldn’t close. The pen fell into the black blood pooling on the floor. Fuck.

“You’re a little shit,” Angelo said, his voice weakening. “A dumb little shit.”

There were footsteps on the stairs. Then there was a shout. Bobby turned to see a team of bodyguards charging him and Angelo.

There was a fist.

Large.

Coming fast toward his face.

Then nothing.