A Dark Place (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 5)

by Kailee Reese Samuels

  The heartache poured like a waterfall from my eyes. “He’s dead.”

  “And how did he die?”

  “My father yanked his body out of the trunk on the bridge and threw him in the river when I was thirteen because I wouldn’t leave him alone, and breaking my fucking hands wasn’t working anymore. He killed him.” I collapsed in his warm arms as his fingers brushed through my curls.

  “You heard his screams and blamed yourself.”

  “He went missing,” I whimpered, slobbering on his dress shirt. “Nicky knew what was going on? And he didn’t try and stop it?”

  “Nick called, and we sent Delarte Cristos in, to try and reason with him. We failed you, not the other way around, son. You were a kid. This one isn’t on you.”

  “I should’ve said something…”

  “And what would that have gotten? You killed? Your mama with another black eye?”

  I didn’t know. There wasn’t a right answer. “He was my best friend, and we were just messing around.”

  “But the undeniable hunger was there, and you felt it again when you saw the photos of Deacon.”

  I was out of options. There was no use in denial because Dom knew every-fucking-thing about me. “I need someone able to handle my bullshit.”

  “What do you think I’m offering?”

  “Not that boy, Sal—you.”

  “I don’t need to be saved.”

  “You still wish you could have stood up to Cesario and been the man you wanted to be. Sanctum can bring you back to the little lost boy.”

  By doing my father’s bidding?

  I don’t think so.

  I don’t react. I can’t. Or I will murder him in the light of day and spend the rest of my life in an Italian prison cell. “I serve Nero,” I repeat. “The wishes of Sanctum are my privilege to honor.”

  “Very good.” He slowly backs away. “I’m glad we had a chance to have this conversation.”

  I move to my new home in a daze of Father Thomas’ words. In the cluttered mess, I spend hours cleaning and organizing the place. I build the desk and chairs I had delivered. I hang the oversized pegboard and three whiteboards, preparing to look like a stalker.

  I collapse the boxes and walk them to the dumpster before taking a shower and grabbing a Caprese sandwich and a thermos of espresso from the café. I leave Illaria a set of new keys with a kiss to her cheek.

  In my ball cap and sweats, I open a bottle of water and survey the stack of computer equipment I also had delivered—racks, routers, battery backups, a couple of desktops, six screens with wall mounts, and the wicked new laptop pre-loaded with everything I need to get started, courtesy of Dom Daddy.

  I offered to pay Ronaldo triple—for an entire year—if he accepted my deliveries and ensured the internet connection was to my specs. I wasn’t dialing-in.

  “You there?” I ask Georgia in a message.

  “Hey, hotcakes! Are you up and running?”

  “I am, but I may need to run some configuration tests.”

  “Bounce off me if you need.”

  “Thank you much, Ma’am.”

  “We can voice chat, too!” she excitedly offers. “If you need.”

  “I’ll have to find the headphones. LOL.”

  “Take your time.”

  I take a bite of the sandwich and peck out, “Did Buck propose?”

  “Not yet,” she responds as I lift the bread to find Ilaria doubled the olives and basil. I smile. She knows me. The sandwich is fucking incredible. “But we had a wonderful time in Hawaii.”

  I lean back in the chair, wishing I had a direct link to the Nakamura Palace surveillance feed. Reo Sato is supposedly acquiring all new hardware since Baba’s passing, and he will grant permissions when it’s up and running.

  I click on the links to open the more essential feeds from Sugargrove. I put the cameras at the farmhouse back online and check the entry points at Juliet.

  They are my family, and my duty and responsibility as Luca Raniero’s great grandson are to make sure the things he loved most stay protected, even from six thousand miles away.

  I wrap the rest of my sandwich and take a generous swig of the water as I kick off my shoes and adjust my ball cap. I grab my pocket knife and get to work on unwrapping the seven-foot-tall stacks of boxes.

  This element strangely feels like home. It’s been years since I’ve done footwork like this, but I also know that I cannot let the magic dust steal any more of my nights. At least I must try. My intentions are good. I gotta scrape my ass off the bottom of her red stilettos because she fucking crushed me.

  The key slides into the lock, and Jaid smiles. “Holy hell!”

  “You like it?”

  “You’re outdoing yourself,” she assesses, utterly mesmerized. “I came as soon as you called, but it’s not quite Ireland.”

  “Little south.” I wink and hop up, feeling a bit awkward. Should I shake her hand, hug, or kiss her? I’m not sure. “Where is Lukas?”

  “Madeline picked him up in Copenhagen. He’s in Berlin.”

  “He’s safe?”

  “He’s safe.”

  “And you’re safe?”

  “I am,” she says, staring at me. “Sal…I am so sorry…”

  I spread my arms, and she nervously steps closer as I hug her tight. I smell her honey-scented hair and try not to cry. She is sunshine in the early morning and cloudy, rainy days curled up with a good book.

  In my arms, she glances up and pulls my glasses from my face. “Are you getting old?”

  “Just wiser,” I smirk.

  “I can only stay for a few days.”

  “You should have brought him.”

  “Lukas?”

  “Ya,” I say, playing with her long, dirty blonde bangs. “He could’ve helped me put all this shit together.”

  “I’m here. And I am not leaving Europe until you do. Let’s do this.”

  I lean down and softly kiss her. “I love you, Prissy Pants.”

  “I know,” she whispers. “And I love you too.” I reluctantly break away. “What are we doing?”

  I step to the desk and wave my hands about as we form a plan of attack. She twists her hair up, looking not a day over nineteen. She is still young and beautiful—twenty-eight, a mother, and the best researcher I know. Not a hacker—a researcher—which is what I need to dismantle the Lotus Queen.

  Hours later, in the middle of the night, I sit on the floor hooking the computers up as she stands at the rack with a screwdriver in between her teeth.

  “Stop staring,” she mumbles as her hands plug in the cables. “Get to work. We’re almost done.”

  Finally, she drops the screwdriver in her hand. “Just say it.”

  “I’ve never seen a MILF that I wanted to bone this bad.”

  She laughs, and I grin.

  We’re good.

  Ebb and flow.

  With a smirk, she whispers, “You ain’t too bad yourself, Nero.”

  She’s the mother of my lover’s spawn. And I’m the motherfucker that’s loved her since we were kids.

  In the middle of making ground in our flirtation, she furrows her brow at the laptop screen and pulls the chair to sit on the edge. I get up to see the source of her distraction. “Zoom in.”

  My house with Kaci comes into view as I spot the black SUV and Nicky walking around to the side. “What the hell is he doing? And where is Merritt?”

  She covers her mouth in horror as he pulls a woman from the backseat and heads to the door. “Fuck.”

  “Is that Dr. Lani? Oh…my God…what do we do?”

  “Yes,” I mutter, stunned and speechless. “And I don’t have a fucking clue.”

  34

  Unwanted

  A Disciple of the Craft

  I yank her body from the car as she attempts to flail away. Dragging her to the door, I hit the code for the locks. I bust inside and throw her body to the floor as her eyes widen in panic.

  I smirk and rip the duc
t tape from her lips. “What are you doing, Nicky?”

  “Overdosing.” Without caring, I tug her up by the arm and swing her over my shoulder before tossing her in the middle of the dining room table. “Feasting.”

  “There is no reason for this,” she begs as I grab the bag I brought to the house several days ago—my premeditated invasion for my insatiable perversion. I crank the music on the boom box up. “We can talk it out.”

  “No,” I shake my head as the pounding racket in my brain is too much. “I really don’t think we can.” Pulling my jacket off, I squint, considering my options. “I don’t think we can, bitch. You didn’t tell Sal the truth when you knew what the DNA results were. You knew neither Deacon nor Sal was the father of Iris’ child, and you let The Unholy sons walk right into a nightmare.”

  I snip the zip-tie at her feet as she jumps with fright. “Please, Nicky!” she cries. “Don’t do this! I am begging you!”

  Snatching the bundle of white rope from the duffel, I wrap and knot her left ankle to the table leg. I repeat the process with the other, forcing her legs to spread. “How old are you?”

  “Forty-six.”

  “You best behave,” I warn, severing the zip-tie around her wrists. “No kids? Why not?”

  Beneath a shower of tears, she quivers, “Never had the time with the career.”

  “Really?” I remark with genuine curiosity. “Me, neither. Kids and killing don’t mix.”

  “You have Kade,” she sobs with pleading eyes. “Trotter Kade Cristos.”

  She says my son’s name like I have forgotten…like I could have forgotten…I can never forget. I do this all for him. With the ruby and crab ring on my finger, I backhand her across the cheek hard. “Don’t even!”

  “Nicky, there are ways we can talk this through,” she negotiates as I flick the foot-long candle lighter and wave the flame in front of her face, barely missing her skin.

  “Do you have any idea what burned flesh smells like to a menace like me?”

  She closes her eyes. “I can’t say I do.” I twist a bunch of her hair in my hand as our eyes meet, and I click the spark. “Please…”

  “The aroma is like heaven to a scoundrel.” I ease my eyes over her average face, nothing to write home about. “She’s always been such a dirty whore.”

  “Who?”

  “All of them!” I roar like a primal animal. “I hate all of them!” I suddenly stop, briefly acting normal. “But in this case, Gwyn Grace.”

  Her lip trembles in terror. “Tell me about your mother, Nicolas.”

  “How about, no?” I grin and singe her hair, keeping the heat near her aging skin. She shivers, shaking the entire table, as I climb up to continue my French cirque-inspired bowl cut via a torch. “She was a whore. My wife is a whore. Iris is a whore. And guess what, Lani?”

  I jump to the ground and maniacally grin as her words stutter with agony, “I am a whore.”

  “Very good!” I cheer with glee. “Gwyn never wanted me because I was the ringmaster’s spawn, and she passed me off to a woman named Lisa Akins. And do you know what she was?”

  Under my terrorism, she sniffles and answers, “… A whore?”

  “That’s good, Lani!”

  I dig in my bag for my favorite hunting blade. I haven’t used it in years, and I’m so stimulated by the feel of it in my hands. I close my eyes and moan as I throb in my jeans. “You are doing this all because I didn’t tell Sal that he wasn’t the father?”

  “I am,” I reply, carefully cutting the buttons from her blouse one by one. “I met Sal when he was very young, and I promised Luca Raniero that I would take care of him for the rest of my life. You lied to Sal and opened the wound for that dirty cunt to infect him…to hurt him. You’re guilty by association.”

  “Nicky, please… it’s…” I silence her words with a grope of her bra-covered breast in my palm. “Don’t rape me.”

  “Bitch, I am not just going to rape you. Don’t insult me like that. I am a serial killer. Far more skilled than any rapist. I’ll fuck you when you’re dead.”

  Her scream echoes through the neglected house as I grab the medical shears and slice her pants from her body. I’m so aroused, a drop of precum froths from the tip. “You’re insane.”

  “Gee, you don’t say?” Laughing hysterically, I toss her pants and grab the giant bag of gummy bears from the pack. “… Candy?”

  “No!” she wails, unable to comprehend my mania as I tear open the bag. “I don’t want any candy. I don’t want to be raped. And I damn sure don’t want to be your summer carved turkey.”

  “You won’t be a turkey,” I reply with a mouthful of colorful bears. “You’ll be my summer carved…what?”

  “Whore.”

  With a grin, I nod, chewing. “You’re learning! Never too old. Or too late!”

  “I never meant for anything I did to hurt Sal. The choice to tell Sal of the DNA report rests in the hands of the mother, Iris…the whore.”

  “But you,” I sneer, poking her with the tip of the blade between her quite underdeveloped breasts, “had a choice. Your loyalty should’ve been with Sal, The Unholy, and Sibyl. And it wasn’t.” I shake my head as I look her in the eye. “You chose to let that whore…”

  “You sold your ships to Iris!”

  “Don’t remind me of that! That was before when she was still in my good graces. She is the devil.” I teeter on the edge, thinking I should stab her in the heart and walk away, but I can’t. I need more. I want more. The feast of her flesh and the horror from her lungs will quench the ache within. “Daddy never wanted a boy like me. Daddy never wanted a fiend like me. Daddy never wanted to love a son like me.”

  I back away and dance to the song as I strip my shirt off. The beat pulses in my brain, numbing the pain with every sway of my hips. “You’re triggered…”

  “Triggered by?”

  “The fact that your wife had a child you didn’t want. Just like your Daddy and you. You are repeating the cycle, but you’re too lost to see that.”

  I lick my lips and blast her across the mouth with my knuckles again. Her lip gushes with red as my dick pounds at the sight of her blood—delicious and lush, the perfect narcotic. I lean between her thighs and flick my tongue in the crimson. “So fucking good.”

  “Sal would never approve of this.”

  “Mr. Salvatore has no idea what his carnival boy is doing.” I open my eyes wide and grin. “Are you ready to perform, doll?”

  Her breathing turns erratic as she mutters, “I couldn’t break my oath with Iris, but I most certainly will now. Serene is pregnant with another child you can warp, ruin, and destroy with your sociopathic instability.”

  I grab a handful of bears, popping each one in my mouth individually. “Did you just say Serene is pregnant again?”

  “I did,” she cries, reaching for me. “And I shouldn’t have, but this has got to stop with you. You can’t keep killing girls for the euphoric dose.”

  “But I am,” I reply, lifting my brows. I look in her eyes and a tender moment passes between us where I don’t want to kill her. “Things are so out of control, and I can’t stop, Lani. It’s not a feature in my processes. I came fully equipped as your worst fucking nightmare.”

  Releasing her hands, she tries a different tactic, steadying herself, and delivering a harsh arm-scolding, “Nicolas Icarus Cristos, you are a better man than this.”

  I shake my head, running a surface cut up her thigh as I slowly hump at the table when her teardrops fall. “No, I am not. I am the mistake Daddy never wanted to own up to. And the dunce the diva next door married to keep the peace.”

  I spread the flat side of the blade over her golden yellow panties. The red stains would look amazing. I might have to steal them when I am through to jerk off in again and again.

  “Her scans are bad,” she informs with a professional, emotionless tone. “We found a few spots, took some biopsies, and…”

  “Serene has cancer,” I mumble, dro
pping the blade on the floor as her eyes close. “And she is pregnant. My son will grow up without his mother.”

  “Nicky…”

  With my arms outstretched and my palms pressed down on the table, I close in on her with my thin frame. I stare at the blood seeping from her leg, but the momentum is dead. Frustration sets in fast, followed by a furious rage. “Does he know?”

  “Who?”

  “Raniero.”

  Her lips open and close, making me wish I had stitched her mouth closed earlier. Silence the demons and quiet the whores so my artist can create a masterpiece—a spectacular rendition of a cursed doll. Unfortunately, I can never keep them.

  Oh, how I long to keep them.

  I glance up with revenge in my veins. “Answer me now, Lani.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes!” I howl, losing what strength remained. “Everything matters.”

  Torture provokes truth.

  At a certain point, everyone has a price. A price to buy them out, a price to save their lives. What would she give up to not endure the circus king?

  “He called her from Italy when we were at the hospital waiting for her blood work order from the oncologist.”

  “He knew before me,” I mutter, understanding the power he has held over my entire life. “He fucking knew before me!” I grab the bag of bears and toss them in the air like glitter as tears stream down my cheeks. “He knew my wife was sick and pregnant before I did!”

  Tears wet her lashes as I breakdown on his dining room floor. “Nicky, you need to stop doing this and go home. I won’t say a word about what happened tonight.”

  “He knew before me,” I repeat like a record stuck on repeat as I grab the knife. My hands shake, and my knees tremble, but there is no escape from the heinous walls inside my mind. They’re stained, painted red with their blood, and the time for recapturing innocence was lost the first time I felt the fleeting life force of another human drain away in my hands. “He knew before me…”

  “Don’t do it, Nicky,” she frets. Her words don’t matter because all I hear are booming sounds in the big top. “You have a beautiful wife, a lovely son, and a baby on the way.”