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

by Kailee Reese Samuels

  84

  lachrymose savant

  The Master

  Outside of Oscurità, I watch as the limo pulls away with Delarte Cristos and Rowan Tully.

  “I have no way to get home,” I mumble the realization, bending over and crying. I spot his new ring on my finger. Under the darkening purple skies, the diamonds sparkle in the glow of the moonlight. Lifting and spreading my arms wide, I roar as loud as I can, “I’m fucking mad as hell!”

  I walk inside to the building where my evolution started. If Sibyl turned me into something I didn’t want, Nero gifted freedom I never anticipated.

  I am one of the elite.

  Guarded by The Commission and watched over by my former father-in-law—Cristos—I am never alone, so why do I feel so fucking lonely?

  Keeping my suit on, I wander into the catacombs. I take off my shoes by the torches and feel the rough, uneven texture of cold bricks beneath my feet. I pull off my jacket and drop it on the rickety wooden table by the door.

  With my hands pressed together, I bend low with humility and reverence to the lost souls inhabiting the crypt.

  I am one of them.

  With a torch in my hand, I step into the cell I call my own. It’s not mine; others wreak havoc in the space and sacrifice their spirit for the sake of another’s will. The closer I get to completing my service, the more I realize how little I can control, and maybe that is the point of the exercise.

  At Sibyl, we were trained to become killers. Hit the target. Rinse and repeat. We were robots with guns. But it isn’t that simple at Nero because there are multiple plates all spinning at once.

  Sanctum provides a sanctuary in Nero for assassins who work dynamic, multi-faceted problems and have a keen understanding that every action—every pawn we eliminate—there is an equal and opposite reaction. We’re the rogues of the underground, hired to assess and challenge the direction. We mitigate the damage, enabling the source, and guiding the flow.

  I am a fucking levee.

  The reality stings.

  But it doesn’t paralyze my thoughts as I stare from the floor to the vial, blade, and bang sitting on the table. The wall of implements serves as a macabre backdrop.

  The old me would’ve had a field day with this—the glass would be emptied, and one of the many tools would be inflicting pain on my body.

  I consider the temptation.

  A hit of pain to line up my circuitry.

  A high in a mistake.

  Leaning against the wall, I light the smoke and fill my lungs with nicotine. “I don’t want to go back,” I bargain, lying to the devil. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t get out of this one. And I can’t win.”

  I need to call for help. I should. I’m not in a dark place; I’m in a bad place of silence and apathy where it would be so easy to grab the machete off the board and rip it over my wrists.

  I could call Daddy Dom and say thank you for holding me up. Or I could call Daddy Vinny and say thank you for the memories. Or fuck, I could call Daddy Cesario and say fuck you for ruining me.

  Fuck you for killing the me I could be.

  I never had a chance.

  I would’ve asked Cristos for a salacious hit to tide me over, but he was struggling himself. He’s probably going to some upscale hotel to bury himself in Rowan, and I can’t even describe what that means and how immoral that is. I know why he wanted to save her, and I can’t change that either.

  “Kaci,” I mutter, pulling my knees up to calm the shaking. “What am I going to do?”

  Her answer would be to get up, snort the coke, and have a good time playing in my blood, but that isn’t enough anymore. There has to be more.

  Break the fucking code, Raniero.

  Break the goddamned code.

  I twist, rocking rapidly and resisting the urge. I am trained to seek those things before me. They’re programmed in my hard drive. Things are chronically chaotic, and I seek solace in the comfort of drugs, pain, and women. I’ve done it for years.

  Grinding my jaw, I fight with my fiercest opponent. “Don’t fucking do it, asshole.”

  I am either winning or checking out because if I cannot challenge my code, I cannot save Iris—and she is the only one who matters. I must be able to resist and withstand the delirium for her, our baby, and the future. Save Iris.

  Sweat covers my body. I unknot the tie and strip off the damp dress shirt. I consider burning the building to ash and walking away in its wake, but destruction won’t change the history of the tombs’ walls.

  I loosely drape the tie around my neck. I could hang myself from one of the hooks. Some unsuspecting soul would stumble upon my corpse. What would they say? What would they remember?

  Another lost soul gone too soon.

  He had issues. He was crazy. He was bipolar. He was an addict. He was a killer.

  Never would they speak the truth—he was haunted by ghosts and forced into a corner where the emptiness became the only comfort.

  “Fight, you motherfucker!” I howl in the cellar. “Fight!”

  I am dripping in the thrashing currents of a wicked storm—use the drugs, self-inflict hurt with the implements, and end it all.

  “There has got to be another option. There is always another option. I just haven’t found it yet.”

  I deeply breathe, feeling the expanse of my chest as I glance down at my trembling hand holding the burned cigarette.

  “Ashes,” I mutter, blowing them away. “Burn yourself down. Crack the fucking code, you damned hacker. Don’t give in.”

  I lay against the brick and close my eyes. I could bash my skull, though I’d likely go unconscious before death occurred. “Stop!” I roar, flinching with unimaginable pain. “Fuck!”

  A shadowy figure in a hooded red robe appears like a vision. Fuck, I killed myself, and this is how I depart.

  “Are you a little red hoodlum?”

  I catch a glimpse of his smirk and the blue eyes shining like a bright beacon on the worst of nights. “Are you the wolf?”

  “Yes,” I reply, staring at his ringed knuckles. “I am.”

  “I always knew you were into some kinky role-play,” he mutters as I laugh, and tears of relief stream down my cheeks. He takes the torch in the holder and snuffs it out on the ground. “We’re turning out the lights.”

  “It’s already pitch black,” I honestly counter. “You only extinguished the fire source.”

  “The fire never stops,” he informs, bumping into my leg. “It’s like water.”

  “I almost called one of my many Daddy-figures to save my ass.”

  “If you need to call me Daddy,” he offers, sitting next to me. “I suppose you can.”

  “Daddy Cruz,” I chuckle, laying my head on his shoulder. “Spank me, Daddy Cruz. Rape my ass, Daddy!”

  “You let her go.”

  “Are you here to kill me?” I casually inquire. “Take out the troublemaker? I’ll let you kill me. I won’t even fight back.”

  “That’s exactly what I have in mind,” he says, holding my hand. “Now that we’ve gone through all of this, I will eradicate you. I am the executioner.”

  “Fuck you, man.”

  “We need to talk,” he says, knocking his hood back. “I am assuming that Cristos made his case, and you bought into it, considering Rowan isn’t here, and you sent merchandise to Kill Rat.”

  “Ya, he did before he said goodbye to me.”

  “You need to know the truth, Sal,” he says. “And I am awful about talking to you because I don’t want to put any more shit on your already full plate.”

  “Give me one more to spin that I love.”

  He snickers as I grab a smoke and a lighter. I flick it, but he swipes it from my hand. “I need you to listen to what I am telling you.”

  “This is serious…”

  “Yeah, I am,” he replies. “After Jaid got back, you sent me as a stand-in for you. I didn’t blame you for doing it, and I understood the reasons behind why you couldn’t
go. You’ve felt like you owed it to Kaci to watch over and protect Jaid for years.”

  “I wish I didn’t feel that way,” I mutter. “I wish we didn’t have the connection we do.”

  “I agreed to go because I love you and you love her, so in a way, I loved her too.”

  “Love by association,” I say. “I get it.”

  “Yeah,” he replies as his voice hitches. “Abel wasn’t there. And by that point, the kids were staying with Henney and Giles. The first day, we were distant, but I didn’t think anything of it because she and I have never been particularly close. She isn’t Iris.”

  “Right,” I remark, latching our fingers. “I understand…popcorn.”

  He snarls, knowing the lies cling like kernels in teeth. The kernels are the most important part of anything. “We had dinner, a couple of drinks, and said goodnight. I was staying in the loft bedroom upstairs,” he says as I feel the tremble emanating through his body. “I didn’t realize it until I woke up that she had…”

  He stops, and I hear his sniffling. “Talk to me, Cruz. What’s wrong?”

  “She drugged me and tied me up like some animal where I stayed until Merritt found me. She had left one afternoon because Raine was begging to see her. I was starving, utterly defeated, when Merritt showed up and untied me. He snuck out of the other house. And he swore he would never tell another soul because he was terrified of her…”

  “How did he know you were there?”

  “Because I flew in and rented a truck. It was a sweet piece, suped up with chrome, and lifted. When I arrived, the kids were outside playing in the snow, and he asked if I would take him snowboarding. And I said I would because I would be there for a week. He knew I wouldn’t back out of my promise, and that in a week, the truck hadn’t moved.”

  “Holy fucking shit, Cruz...”

  “Yeah, Merritt Cruz,” he professes with a light snort. “He’s the only reason I’m alive. I’m fairly certain she planned on killing me. She wants Iris’ spot, and eliminating me gets her one step closer to that.”

  “All this time, I’ve been worried that Diablo would take Cesario up on the offer, and the boogeyman has been right outside our fucking door.”

  “Boogeywoman,” he corrects. “Don’t be narrow. Evil doesn’t discriminate.”

  “She raped you...”

  “For days,” he mutters, gripping my fingers like I’m holding the life rope. “She would always start by talking about you. One thing led to another. I got out, I drove the truck to Washington, D.C., and met with Kary Vega. I told him everything. And then I went to get snipped because I was never risking what I believed had tried to occur. I recovered at his cabin in Virginia and never spoke another word of it.”

  “Until she wound up pregnant,” I gently say. “And you suspected.”

  “No, I knew,” he replies, shrouded in sadness as my worst fears quickly become a reality. “She couldn’t make a Raniero-Cristos, so she did the next best thing to cause permanent harm. She made a Cruz-Cristos, driving a wedge between you and me.”

  “Deacon...”

  “I don’t expect you to stay with me, Lucas,” he mutters, taking his hand and crying into his palms as my heart consumes itself. “She mutilated our relationship when I started lying, and I couldn’t stop. I did unforgivable things. I can’t expect you to forgive me, and I won’t ask you to. I’m going home to pack my shit from the Swamp Shack. I’ll transfer the title over to you next week, and you and your family never have to see me again.”

  He kisses my lips without another word, and I’m crippled by the truth he’s kept hidden for so many months. I don’t know what to say or how to react or what to feel because every inch of me is numb.

  “Cruz..” I plead, but it’s too late. He’s up and leaving. Pivoting at the doorway, he raises his hood and peers down at me. “I love you, Nero. I always will.”

  85

  A Bomb Clock

  The Master

  A void snares the vacancy in my ribcage as I find the vial in the dark and cut the lines by touch. I take the blame and bury the regret. Virulent guilt festers, rapidly multiplying into a fiend with a gut-wrenching bite.

  I wrap the tie around my wrist and peel the undershirt from my skin before running my hand along the wall of hack and slash toys. I grab the mid-sized chains, and they skim against the bricks with a jangling sound.

  My flesh ignites into flawless wrath, undiluted, and draconian, as my cock judders to make his opinion known.

  Hey, beast, Daddy’s home.

  One lash after another, I succumb to the stinging pain of the chains as my mind flourishes and wilts with their preordained programming, written in an indecipherable code—the language I can’t escape.

  I cling to the command, kneel before its power, and surrender my soul to the demon’s name. If no one is available, I will self-serve my gratification, a lingering code they left in place from my careless youth.

  I won’t blame the man whose roof I resided under; I am far too smart for that bullshit. The moment I discovered my penis, I sought to control the bastard, so I could forget the chronicle of lawlessness which my genetics were dipped in.

  I evolved, as most young men do, into seeking another to bestow the gift of suffering. Bilal understood, and we explored with fires and sharps. We were two kids sitting in the woods on a dare to see who could withstand the burn and cut the deepest. We were fledgling masochists, bound to fly in wounds, as a team. He understood when no one else would.

  With dribble icing the crown, I reach the point of exhaustion, fighting through the terrorizing fears, and resuming consecrating the sins. I firmly believe in the connection—mind, body, spiritual—as every strike washes the panic until I stabilize and every breath after welcomes the ocean crashing into my flames and squelching the fight.

  I should kill the switch, but the power button went out years ago. And I can’t unplug it because it’s hardwired in. The only way out is the same as it ever was.

  Kaci got it.

  She understood the need for masochism had a plot twist where I would also crave serving as a Dominant to another. She broke the rules and taught me pain didn’t need to equate to submission. It could, but it didn’t have to. There were no rigid regulations as to how each soul should feel. She changed the course of my dialogue.

  I would’ve ended up a collared house boy in a regal mansion, never fulfilling my destiny.

  But it could’ve been worse.

  Like being in a morgue where the acts of psychopaths are not only condoned but venerated.

  “They were going to go snowboarding…on slopes…skiing…” I mumble as I feel the blood leach from my skin. “I’m leaking.”

  The wounds won’t matter because this time, I end. There is no need for a standoff. I will admit defeat and put the gun to my temple and pull the trigger.

  “I can’t do this anymore!” My arm swipes over the table, destroying the lines, and knocking the nine onto the floor. Falling to my knees, I sob, “I can’t get out of this one. And I can’t win!”

  My forearms buckle to the ground as I roar and howl like a monster. “Fuck!”

  With my head tucked low, the light halos around my silhouette, and I slowly glance up to the priest.

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

  He backhands my face with no regard. “You are a Nero!”

  With a smirk, I admonish, “And you are guttersnipe.”

  Lunging forward, he wraps his hands around my neck as we fall to the ground. In the echoes of my mind, I hear a familiar, spooky voice whispering, “Please fight.”

  But I don’t want to fight. I can let him kill me, and this will be over. Fini. The end. The final act of a tragic life that never should have happened. I didn’t ask to be born—but who does?

  Don’t start analyzing, Raniero.

  Just collapse to the flames and burn.

  Die, ya bastard.

  I gasp for air as he tightens his chokehold. His face is the last
I will see—his bulging eyes, reddened skin, and disheveled, kooky white hair. He’s scary on his best day. His cassock covers my bleeding wounds like a coffin I should have been in long ago. The apparition’s voice grows louder, “I trained you to be a fighter, Nero.”

  I lift my arms and spot the rings on my fingers and lay my hands on his. “You had plenty of time and opportunity to kill Carrick! There will be no last rites for your negligence!”

  Mine?

  Did you just call me negligent?

  Don’t start strategizing, Raniero.

  Just drown in the ocean.

  He’s suffocating me—forbidding the passage of the air I need to exist. I close my eyes, seeing her smiling face.

  “We’re going to have a baby,” she said as I put all the tactical gear back on in Tulum. “You and me.”

  “Are you excited, Mrs. Raniero?”

  “Like you don’t even know!” she giddily answered, rushing off the bed to my side. She kissed me. “I love you so fucking much, Sal. Promise me this is almost over.”

  I hugged her close and looked into the blue-violets that knew me better than I knew myself. I have held back finding intimacy with her, and I’ve avoided communicating because I wanted her so bad…I feared losing her…and the very thing I was evading ended up causing great harm.

  “We’re going to be great,” I vowed. “We’re going home, Darlin’.”

  “I’m counting on it,” she grinned. “And I’m never without you again. I’ll stalk you.”

  “Not necessary,” I said. “I’ve got shadowing you down to a fine art. I love you, Lotus.”

  My eyes flare open to the man killing me. His face will be the last I see, and suddenly, I am not alright with that idea. The phantom voice blares, “Get the fuck up and fight, Pretty Boy! Fight!”

  I flip him off of me just as Cruz returns to the doorway. I am coughing, choking, and inhaling every breath.