I still remember. I can’t forget…
There was so much blood everywhere.
All over her.
Running from her head, right down to her body. Redness and blue. Those were the colors I remember. The red blood, and the blueness of her lips.
Then cold… her body was so cold and limp. Lifeless. Like a doll.
My baby girl may have lain there dead like that for a good hour before I made it home. She lay there in the kitchen with our son crying behind her, enclosed in the safety of the safe room I made for them.
She never made it inside with our boy.
Today marks two years and ten days since it happened, and I still have the image of her playing in my mind. Her sitting there against the wall, slumped against it, the baby crying and the tension of death thick in the room.
I still try to guess what could have happened. Why she never made it in, why she never escaped with the baby. Every time I think of it, I come to the same conclusion: I should have been there.
It was my fault, and as I sit here trying to forget and move on like I’m supposed to, and like I should have, I can’t.
I wasn’t there when my family needed me the most. I was too busy saving everyone else and falling into the enemy's trap.
No matter how many I kill to get vengeance, it won’t be enough. Even cutting off the head of her killer wasn’t enough.
I can’t avenge her death. And every time I remember what happened, I feel like I failed her and our son.
I brought her into the darkness of my world. The bad boy and the good girl. I did that knowing one day, I’d have to step up and take charge of the family business. I was already in too deep when I married her. Underboss following Frankie’s death. I should have left her alone.
Warm fingers flutter over my chest, and I’m brought back to reality. I didn’t realize I was staring out into the nothing of the night, not quite seeing anything.
I blink and return my focus to Aurora. She smiles and runs her fingers over my jaw.
“You’re miles away,” she states, moving a lock of her long brown hair over her shoulder.
It’s the hair. That’s why I’m with her.
I know I’m an asshole, but I don’t care. I’ll pick my own medicine to help me do what I have to.
This is what I do to try to ease the guilt from my mind.
Aurora slides up the bed and starts undoing the buttons on my shirt. I should go home, but I can’t just yet. Today has been shit, and I need this. I need to escape. After all, isn’t that one reason people come to The Dark Odyssey?
The escape.
The escape into fantasy.
I don’t have any fantasies, but I’ll take the escape. I’ll take the respite and the freedom my brothers and cousins provided when they set up this place. A sex club where you can live out any fantasy and be with any woman you choose. With the wild masquerade lingerie parties they hold here, it’s all kinds of wild. A mating ground and the playpen for the billionaires. They all come to seek out a play mate.
I don’t have to try. I’m Vincent Giordano, and I’ve never had to try for anything. Never lacked for a woman at my side, and I never will. I come here, and there’s always a never-ending supply of them eager to please me, and I take it.
Falling into pleasure is better than rage.
“What do you want me to do to you tonight?” Aurora asks, running her fingers over my chest. She circles over my tattoo of the Japanese character for fire, and her smile widens.
I look up at her and slide my arm behind my head. This woman is a beauty. I’ll get lost in her tonight, and then I’ll go back to reality and be the leader I’m supposed to be.
“How about I allow you to be creative?” I tell her.
She slides off the bed, and her little red negligee floats about her thighs. “You like when I strip for you… and give you a lap dance. We could start there and see how creative I can get.” She runs her hands over her massive tits and grins.
Good… this is my distraction.
It was a good idea to come here tonight. I need to forget my current debacle because I’m like a time bomb waiting to explode.
It’s a good thing I didn’t find Mark. You don’t screw with mobsters and not expect to get burned.
“Yes, you do that,” I say to her, and she nods. She’s a good girl—that’s why I pick her when I come here. She follows instructions well and knows what I want.
And… she looks a little like her. Like my Sorcha. It’s the hair. She used to wear her long brown hair down just the way Aurora has it, with the long graceful waves kissing her elbows.
Aurora makes a show of smoothing her hands up to her tits again and circles her nipples, which strain against the lacy fabric. Her hands go up to the straps, and she pushes them down her slender, silky smooth arms.
I watch, and I’m aroused, but I don’t have that intense desire to take her. Not the way I did with Sorcha.
It’s always a fuck with these women.
After Sorcha’s death, I reverted to the guy I used to be in many ways, changed in others. I fuck to forget, especially when I can’t kill.
That’s what I’m doing tonight.
Her massive tits bobble when she pushes her negligee down her body and allows it to float down her legs. She’s wearing a thong, and her perfect mind works just the way I want it to, so she knows to turn slowly so I can see her ass. The red line of the thong running down the middle of her cheeks only enhances the vision of her.
She gives me a saucy grin and grabs her tits again, squeezing. I smile back.
“Come here,” I say. Just then, the fucking phone rings.
She stops when I answer straightaway.
That’s what I’m like now, and I’m not thinking about the job when I do that. It’s my son I’m thinking of. Timothy.
“Yes,” I say in a hurried voice.
“Boss, it’s me.” It’s Tony, one of my men. I bare my teeth and seethe.
My prior rage rushes right back, and I straighten up knowing what his call means, especially when I told him hours ago not to call me unless he had good news for me. Good news as in he found Mark, that piece of shit who thought he could fucking get away with stealing from me.
I told them all that. My brothers included.
“What do you have for me?”
“We found Mark. Salvatore and Gabe found him, but …there’s a complication.”
“What the fuck is it?” I ball my fist and tighten my grip on the phone. Mark is a simpleton, a fucking simpleton. He shouldn’t have been this hard to find, yet we’ve spent the last three days looking for him.
“His daughter was there, and… she’s seen too much.”
“You fool,” I snap.
“Boss, there was nothing we could do about it. We caught up with them at the docks. Near the warehouses.”
Fuck… fucking Mark. What did he think he was going to do? Swim away from us? And with his daughter?
I didn’t even fucking know he had a daughter. Men like him make me sick. You have family and behave the way he does…
Stupid fucktard. I’ll teach him a lesson tonight he won’t forget. I stand, and Aurora starts putting her clothes back on. I look away from her and gaze around the suite. I need to calm down. I don’t want to do any killing tonight, but duty calls, and I won’t allow this to drag into tomorrow.
I call Mark a simpleton, but he’s actually managed to screw with me in a way no one has.
This is what happens when you trust too much. You get screwed over. This is what happens when you give a man a chance when he looks desperate.
The problem with giving people chances is you facilitate their behavior. You make them worse, and others suffer for it.
I suffered big time.
I reach for my biker jacket and check for my gun. Aurora tenses when she sees it.
“Boss, are you still there?” Tony asks nervously.
“I am. Take them to La Volpe Rossa.” That’s where we question people. Pa had the place set up just for that. It also makes a good torture chamber for the less cooperative. I think I may need to make full use of the place tonight.
“Okay, got it.”
“I’m on my way.” I hang up and shove the phone in my pocket.
I start doing up my buttons and shrug into my jacket.
“Will… you be coming back?” Aurora asks. She presses her lips together nervously and folds her hands.
She looks so different when her true nature comes out, what she truly wants. She wants me. She wants this to be more. I know she puts on that act of being sassy and confident, like she’s okay with us just fucking around. But I know she’s not.
“No,” I answer. Disappointment clouds her bright baby blues.
“What about tomorrow? Can I see you then?” She reaches up and touches my jaw. It’s supposed to be a tender gesture of affection, but I feel nothing, and she mustn’t feel for me either.
“Maybe…” I step away from her, and her hand falls to her side.
This is the part where I should end this. It’s nothing. Not for me, and it can’t be. I don’t feel what she wants me to feel for her, and I won’t go down that road again.
I am danger. I am death.
Death is what follows me. I was born with death encoded in my DNA. It follows me, and I exact it.
“Vincent, I like seeing you. We have fun together.” She gives me a nervous smile and her eyes beg me for what I can’t give her. “Please try to—”
I hold up my hand and stop her. “Don’t. Don’t fall for me sweetheart. I can’t be with you that way.”
The light of hope in her eyes goes out and a dimness takes its place.
A stab of guilt tugs at my dead heart but I push it away. It’s something I can’t entertain, definitely not right now.
I turn and leave without another word.
I jump on my bike full of rage when I think of Mark and what the fuck this night will bring.
Like a beast I ride with animalistic fury, death on my mind.