Love and War: Part Two (Shadows in the Dark Book 2)

It’s a little after 3AM—go time. The clock is ticking on how much darkness I have left. I have to work fast. Daylight reveals too much—the time when the innocent comes out of hiding and cops grow back their balls. Those of us that fear no evil prefer to walk at night.

The limo is parked in the alley beside the club, the driver standing against the side with a smoke in his mouth. I peek around the corner, waiting for him to turn his back on me.

Upon the last drag he stomps out the bud, looking down at the pavement. I move quickly up behind him. The closer I get his head starts to turn. “Hey, who are—”

I stab the needle in his neck, injecting the horse tranquilizer into his muscle. Merely seconds pass and he’s limp in my arms.

I confiscate his chauffeur cap and badge, before removing his wallet from the pocket of his suit, ridding it of all cash and then tossing the rest to make it look like an amateur robbery.

I drag his ass down the alley, rounding the corner to the back dumpster used by the strip club. I toss him inside, closing the lid. He’ll be out for a while.

I grab my suit jacket nearby, pulling it on. Grabbing each lapel, I secure the button properly and then I quickly clip the badge into place to be seen. I take the cap and pull it on my head, forcing it low so that it covers my eyes. The rest Johnny brought me earlier to ensure it was the right size so that I have no problems looking the part.

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath, preparing myself for a kill, and savoring the excitement before the rush is gone. It’s time to fucking do this.

I walk toward the car and take my place beside the back door, waiting. Ten minutes of being still in the dead of night and the door to the club opens. He exits, alone, barking orders into his phone—the only time of day I’ve seen him without his bodyguards since I started following him.

My heart starts pounding against my chest with each step he takes toward me, remembering the last time he was this close. With each foot he gains the anger turns into fuel. I breathe steady to keep calm as I open the back door, staying quiet, letting him enter with my head down.

As he successfully reaches the inside of the car, I shut the door, feeling nothing but utter bliss inside as I make my way to the driver’s door, getting in. I ask no questions, as his driver already knows exactly where he’s supposed to go. I play the part down to the letter.

Step one down: secure the target.

Step two underway: in transit to kill zone.

I’ve researched everything there is to know about this city. One of the greatest skills to possess as a killer is a photographic memory. I know every field location, every low-key piece of land surrounded by trees, and every body of water within a hundred-mile radius. I’ve marked sewer holes on the map in my head, including abandoned buildings and construction zones.

The window between us remains closed, giving him his privacy, and with slow and steady effort, I pull the car out onto the road. On the way to the final destination, I relive every moment I’ve seen him in my head, starting with the first time, the time that would always cut off in my dreams, before I remembered everything . . .

I follow behind him through the dark room, the one that has all the pretty, bright-colored lights on the walls. He pulls on my arm, making me walk faster than my short legs can go. It hurts. “Ow,” I call out, tears making my face wet.

“Come, on, boy,” he says in a voice that scares me. Rachel’s is always soft. She’s nice to me. I have to call her Rachel unless we’re at home. She said it’s to keep me safe.

“You’re hurting me!”

He stops at a door and turns around. The back of his hand knocks me into the wall, my bones hurting as I try to stand up. I scream out in pain. I don’t want to be here anymore. “Keep talking, you little shit, and I’ll show you what real pain is.”

He grabs the top of my arm and pulls me inside when he pushes the door open. It’s an office. That much I know. This must be the place Mama said people go to get in trouble by the boss. I’m supposed to always stay where I’m told so that we don’t end up having to go there. “Elliot, let him go! It’s not what you think.”

“Mama?” I close my eyes and hit myself against my head with my fist. “Stupid, stupid,” I whisper.

I fight to turn around, but his nails are digging into my skin. I want to see her. I want to go home. She runs down the hall, her clothes still missing. He grabs her by the throat. “No! Please don’t hurt my Rachel.”

“Not what I think, huh? Do you just have random little boys calling you ‘Mama’?”

“He belongs to a friend,” she says. “She’s bad off on drugs. I’m just looking after him for a while.”

He laughs, squeezing onto her neck tighter, causing her to gulp for air while her fingers dig into his hands. He turns his head to look at me, the colors of the painting on his neck moving. Mama taught me it’s a cross. That it’s important when we pray. He pulls her into the room and slams the door, locking it. “You must think I’m stupid, bitch. Funny how much your friend’s boy looks like me when the only pussy I’ve used as a cum bucket is yours, and ironically, he’s just the right age. I gave you an order. You know what happens when my girls disobey me . . .”

“Please. I’ll take him somewhere else. I’ll get rid of him a different way. Just let me make it right.”

What’s she mean get rid of me? I don’t understand. I thought she loved me. “I have a better idea,” he says. “I think he should see just how he got here.”

He shoves her forward, forcing her to bend over the desk. “No!” she screams, fighting to turn around. “Please, just make him leave. Then you can do whatever you want to me.”

I back toward the wall, looking around the room for a place to hide. “Come here, little bastard.”

“My name is Kross.”

He looks at me, a scary smile on his face. “Well, Kross, today we’re going to make you a man. We need to raise you up right. I’m going to show you how we deal with women that disobey. Sit in my chair, Son. Only special boys are allowed to sit in that chair.”

She tries to stand again but he grabs her hair, pulling her head back, and sticks a knife blade against her throat. He licks her cheek like a cat I saw once. “Keep moving, bitch, and I’ll cut up this pretty face. Stand there and take it and I may let you keep him.” Why is he doing that to her? Mommy said to never touch knives because they can cut us.

She looks at me, where I’m standing in the corner. She’s crying. “It’s okay, Kross. Come sit down.”

I do as I’m told, climbing up in the big, black chair until my feet are straight out in front of me, my arms on the handles to my sides. “Kross, I used to like your mama; enough to nut in this hot cunt of hers. I used to keep her to myself instead of sharing her with my customers like the others. She was mine. She had it all. All she had to do was stay mine. I gave her one order and she disobeyed me. She ran off and didn’t come back for a few years. She betrayed me. She should really be grateful that I took her broke ass back. And now, after everything I’ve done for her, I find out that she didn’t follow my order at all. In fact, she did the opposite. Do you know what happens when someone doesn’t mind their owner?”

“They get a spanking?”

“That’s right, except we spank women a different way from boys.”

“How?”

“Come here. I’ll show you.”

“No, Elliot. He’s four. Please make him stay there. I’m begging you.”

“Shut up, bitch. You brought this on yourself.”

I walk around the desk until I’m beside him. I don’t want to get a spanking. I cover my eyes with my hands when he pulls her underwear down. I’ve never seen Mommy without her clothes on before tonight. “Open your eyes.”

I do as he says, even though I don’t want to. I don’t want to make Mommy cry. When I do, I see between her legs, but she looks different than me down there. She doesn’t have a wee-wee. He pulls his knife toward him, before placing a covering over the sharp part. “If you move, I’ll slit your throat.”

He kicks his boot against the inside of her foot, making her spread her legs. Then he holds the sharp part in his fist, but he doesn’t cry like I did when I cut my finger once trying to put jelly on my toast while Mommy was sleeping.

He touches her skin with the handle and pushes it against her, making it disappear. She screams, and I cover my eyes again. “Open them, Kross. You need to learn if she’s going to bring you around this place. She must be trying to get me closed down with her stupidity. This ain’t no place for a kid. There are rules, but she thought you should be here, so you can see what happens when you are.”

I lower my hands. His knife keeps going in and out of her body like magic. She’s gripping onto the desk, crying loudly. She keeps saying she’s sorry, but I don’t know what she did. Mommy always tells me what I did wrong if I’m in trouble. He’s not telling her what she did wrong before spanking her.

He starts making a funny noise the faster his arm moves, like when I have to stab my plastic shovel hard into the sand to dig the hole. Mommy screams. I cover my ears, but I can still hear the bad words. “I’m going to destroy this cunt, bitch. When I get done with you it won’t be possible to carry a bastard kid.” Her cries get louder.

He drops his knife to the ground and pushes his pants down to his thighs like he’s going to tee-tee. He has my parts, but something is wrong with it. It’s hard. I think it’s broken. I pull my hands down, about to ask him why mine doesn’t look like that, when he pushes against her, making it disappear like he did his knife. He’s spanking her with his body. He’s using his wee like Mommy’s belt. That’s too many times. Mommy said three licks are enough to learn.

I jump when a loud scream hurts my ears. He’s hurting her. He’s smiling. He likes hurting her. Mommy cries when she has to hurt me. Red. What’s all that red? I run around the desk and hide underneath it, pulling my knees to my chest. I clench my eyes closed, pressing my hands down on my ears and squeezing them. “My wee is bad. I’ll never hurt a girl with my wee. I’ll never use it.” I repeat it three times. “I promise, Mama.”

My jaw locks as I pull into the clearing surrounded by large pines. When I finally experienced the rest of that memory for the first time, I hurled. I’ve killed more than a hundred times, many different ways. I’ve done some pretty sick shit in my life, witnessed even worse by the people I worked for, and none of it has ever made me physically sick. No point of view is worse than seeing something that dark through the mind of a child. It all finally made sense for me. My hatred for sex. My fear of it. My lack of interest in it . . .

I finally realized there wasn’t something wrong with me. I just didn’t want to become the only person I ever associated with the act. I never realized there were two sides to it, the other being pleasure, until that fucking bitch forced it on me; only making me hate it even more because something I didn’t want or consent to felt good.

With every unwanted ejaculation, I forced myself to control my dick, until finally, I could turn off a hard-on with a matter of thoughts. By then, though, I had bulked up in size and my attitude scared her. She stuck with physical abuse and verbal threats by that point, until I was finally old enough to leave and used my dick for the first time as a weapon, a form of revenge, and I made it so that she couldn’t ever do what she did to me to anyone else.

I smile, remembering the first kill that made me proud. You should never tell the person you’re raping what your deadly allergies are, because one tainted condom is the perfect murder weapon. The body rids of the trace and food allergy deaths are common.

The window between him and I lowers. He has the whisky glass in his hand, almost empty. “Where the fuck are we? This isn’t my house.”

I breathe in deep, producing a calming effect against the voice that sends my rage into overdrive. “Plans have changed.”

I exit the car, quickly making my way to the back, opening his door. He places the glass into the cup holder. “Who are you? You’re not my driver.”

I lean into the doorframe, farther into the light. “Most in your case would call it a son, but I’m going to stick with sperm donor.”

I remove the hat, tossing it at him. His eyes widen as he takes in my face, then my tattoos. “You?”

“Again,” I taunt, “My name is Kross.”

“What are you doing here? You want money or something?”

“I thought you’d be a little happy to see me after all these years, Dad.”

He reaches in his suit jacket; my guess going for a gun. “Don’t waste your time. By the time you get the barrel to my forehead that Rohypnol that was in your whiskey will be in full effect.”

He removes his hand. “What do you want from me? You aren’t getting a dime.”

I grab his jacket, pulling him toward me. The slight deadening of his body weight proves the drugs are working. I prefer modern methods. It makes my job a hell of a lot easier and less of a mess. I don’t prefer leaving my DNA around by having to use my fists on a regular basis. “I guess it’s a good thing that I’m a self-made millionaire then, because I only want you.”

He tries to push back, shoving the soles of his shiny, black shoes into my abdomen, gaining a few feet as he fumbles around with the door handle, opening the opposite door.

I roll my eyes, slamming my door shut, before rounding the car just in time for him to fall out. I pull my knife from my leg holster, before squatting to his level, tapping the blade to my lips. He looks at me. His eyes are dilating. He’s calming. With every passing minute, he’s becoming my puppet. “What do you want with me? I let you live.”

“That you did. Pity. You should have killed me when you had the chance. I lived in Hell for years because of what you did to her, and now, I’m here for you.”

“If you had knocked up a stripping whore you’d understand. You don’t make girls like her the mother of your child. You didn’t live in Hell because of me, but because of her. We didn’t plan a kid. She got pregnant behind my back. She should have ended you when I told her to.”

I grab his neck, gripping tight. “Oh, I think it’s much too late to dwell on should haves. A lot of dead people would probably even agree with you. You’re a fucking dumbass. We choose the mother of our children based on the pussy we decide to nut in. The irony in you wanting me gone—I turned out just like you, only better. While you were learning how to overpower women by raping them, manipulating them, controlling them and killing them—a weaker being—I learned how to take out the fucking best. It gives me a high. The harder the kill the better it feels.”

“If you’re just like me, then join me,” he says, his words starting to slur together.

“Not a chance in Hell. I want your soul.”

“Why? What is it worth to you?”

“Because I’m fucked up because of you,” I scream. “I hated any thought of sex because I watched you mutilate her pussy. My virginity was forced from me because I was a file in the system. I was locked in solitude. Kept from people to protect secrets. I was used and abused. For years, I thought my biological mother abandoned me because I couldn’t remember anything from that night and before.” I hit my head against the flat end of the blade in my hand. “I like to kill. It gives me purpose. I like to deal. It gives me control. I like to tattoo. It relaxes me when the nightmares try to drive me insane. You would have probably had years left, but unfortunately for you, my girl loves me through every fucked-up layer, enough to put me out of my goddamned misery. I never asked questions about my past. She did. One file was like a key to everything I had forgotten.” I squeeze his neck tighter. “You’re going to get a scar just like mine.”

I lean in, placing the tip of the blade to his forehead, slicing it in a long downward stroke, my heart pounding at the sight of blood. I raise it again, slashing it in a short, horizontal line, forming a cross.

His body is so sedated he doesn’t even scream. He’s likely not even processing what I’m saying anymore, but I don’t care. I need to get the words out. His lids are lazy, but he manages to look at me. “No woman is worth this,” he says, barely audible. “Your own blood. I spared you . . . because you’re blood. You were even named after me.”

I tap the bloody blade against his cross tattoo. “That’s where you’re wrong. They’re all worth something to someone. Her life was worth it to me. My girl’s life is fucking priceless. I was going to make this short and painless, but unfortunately for you, the pussy I knocked up is carrying my daughter. I will go on a killing spree before she ends up like one of your girls. She will never see me do the things you did to my mother to hers. I will find it somewhere inside of me to be her father, but this neck piece haunts my dreams. The only way to silence them is to silence you. I’m burying you without it.”

I grab his head and shove him to the ground, before straddling his shoulder to hold him still. And then, slowly and meticulously, I do one thing I’ve never done—ruin another artist’s work, outlining it one slice at a time.