Making Deals With The Devil
The abandoned church stood like a graveyard of forgotten faith.
Nestled on the edge of the city, where silence reigned and the streetlights gave up halfway down the road, the cathedral loomed—gothic, cracked, and long stripped of its sanctity. Ivy strangled its stone spine. Stained glass windows were shattered, casting fractured rainbows over rotting pews and broken confessionals. Only one figure remained intact—a battered statue of Christ, arms wide open, head tilted to the side in silent suffering, watching the sinners below.
Adriano Greco stood near the altar, clothed in black from his boots to the high collar of his coat. The shoulder cast he wore—a reminder of Grayson's last attempt to end him—did little to soften the cold aura he projected. His good hand rested lazily on one of his golden pistols, holstered but ready.
Luca leaned against a cracked column, his leg still bandaged, a grimace carved across his face like stone. Marco stood by the door with his arms folded and a gun tucked beneath his coat. Serena sat on a pew, tapping into her tablet, her dark hair veiling her face. The rest of Adriano’s men—six now—stood watchfully, scattered in the shadows like demons waiting to be summoned.
The church doors creaked open.
Senator Grayson stepped into the church, shoulders squared, his jaw tight. He wore a charcoal gray coat, scarf neatly tucked into his collar, but no amount of political polish could hide the panic buried beneath his skin. His eyes darted across the cathedral—at the shattered glass, the peeling murals of saints, the armed men half-concealed in shadows. He stopped dead when his gaze landed on Adriano.
Adriano didn’t move. “Welcome to the House of God, Senator,” he said smoothly, voice echoing off the decaying walls. “Fitting place to confess your sins, don’t you think?”
“I came alone,” he said sharply. “Just like you asked.”
Adriano replied “And yet you look like you brought a battalion of fear with you.”
Grayson’s jaw clenched. “You think this is a fucking game, Greco?”
Adriano’s lips curled into a cold grin. “It is. And you’ve already lost. Now sit down, Senator. The lord is watching.”
He gestured to a broken pew. Grayson didn’t move.
Adriano slowly stepped forward, his boots echoing off the desecrated marble. “You thought you could kill me, huh? Send masked dogs into my house. Into my room. Where my woman sleeps.”
“You're a fucking criminal,” Grayson spat. “You think you can blackmail a United States Senator and get away with it?”
Adriano stopped mere inches from him.
“I don't think, Senator. I know.”
His voice was calm. Chilling. With the acoustics of the cathedral, it sounded almost divine.
“I gave you a chance and you spat in my face. And now look at you. Trending across every platform, your family's on the verge of falling apart and your career’s dangling by a thread like that cross up there.”
He pointed to the crooked crucifix.
Grayson’s lips tightened. “You’re evil.”
Adriano chuckled. Then full-on laughed.
“Evil?” He glanced at the statue of Jesus. “That’s rich coming from the man who tried to have me murdered, fucked a girl young enough to call him 'dad,' and still has the audacity to call himself a family man.”
He turned to face Grayson again. “You know what the Bible says in Luke 8:17? ‘For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.’”
“You’re insane!” Grayson snapped, his voice breaking slightly. “You think you can blackmail me into doing your bidding? You have no idea about what I’m capable of.”
“Oh, I know exactly what you’re capable of,” Adriano said, stepping closer. “A seventeen-year-old girl. That’s what you’re capable of. And now?” He smiled wider. “Now you’ll be capable of blocking investigations for me. Whispering in the ears of the right people. Helping keep me untouchable.”
“You want protection,” Grayson said through clenched teeth. “From the Feds?”
“I want a seat at the table,” Adriano replied. “And I want you to give it to me.”
Grayson’s hands trembled. He looked around the church, the peeling paint, the shadows like watching ghosts. “You can’t do this to me forever.”
“I don’t need forever,” Adriano replied. “Just long enough to become untouchable. You have your little web—judges, cops, commissioners. You're going to make sure they look the other way when my name pops up. You're going to bury anything that points back to me.”
“And if I refuse?”
Adriano’s voice darkened as he started circling Grayson slowly like a wolf does prey.
“Then your wife finds out about Cassie’s other visits. Your kids find out you paid for her abortion. The world finds out where the money came from to pay her silence. The cameras roll, the vultures descend. You’ll be ripped apart.”
Grayson looked like he was about to throw up.
“You either work for me… or you become a corpse that'll make headlines,” Adriano whispered, eyes glinting like glass. “Your choice, Senator.”
Grayson shook his head. “This isn't as easy as you think it is, Greco.”
“It is when the alternative is national disgrace, jail, or a bullet to the head.” Adriano leaned in close. “Your intern wasn’t the only skeleton in your closet, Grayson. I got files, transactions, campaign fraud, off-shore accounts you use to keep funds stolen from charities. Hell, Serena here could probably dig up your porn searches if I asked.”
Serena didn’t look up from her screen. “Already did. Kinda boring.”
Grayson turned away. His breathing quickened. He ran a hand through his greying hair and looked up at the crucifix like it could save him.
Adriano followed his gaze.
“Funny, isn’t it?” he murmured. “The man on the cross died for sins he didn’t commit. But you? You’ll live and suffer for the sins that you did.”
Grayson’s eyes filled with hot tears. “I’m not a bad man. I love my family.”
Adriano chuckled. “Of course you do. Every monster does. But here’s the difference—only one of us stopped pretending a long time ago.”
The Senator opened his mouth but found no words.
Adriano stepped back, letting the silence choke him.
“Fine.” Grayson said after a moment of silence. “I’ll do it… I’ll do whatever it is you want me to do.”
Adriano smiled and stepped forward, grabbing Grayson by the cheeks and tugging on them. “Good boy!”
Adriano turned to the others and chuckled but the moment he turned back to face Grayson, his expression hardened. “From now on, you’ll vote how I want, sign what I give you, and smile for the cameras like you weren’t just bent over and fucked. Welcome to my payroll, Senator.”
Then Adriano motioned to his men. “Let’s go.”
The crew began moving like shadows peeling off the walls. Marco walked past Grayson with a smirk. Luca gave him a slow once-over, then limped along. Serena packed up her tablet and offered the Senator a dry, “Nice tie.”
Adriano paused at the church door. He looked back one last time.
“If you want to, you can stay here and pray all day but just know this. If you ever try to double cross me, not even God will be able to save you. ”
And with that Adriano was gone, slamming the doors behind them.
Grayson stood alone in the silence.
He looked up at the crucifix, at the painted eyes of Jesus watching him in chipped agony. His knees gave out and he collapsed onto the cold, cracked stone. Then the tears came.
He cried alone in the dark, the Devil’s leash already cinched tight around his neck.