by A. P. Moraez
All he could think was that this was it, he was gonna die, ripped apart during sex. But that didn’t happen, as the minutes passed and Ivan didn’t let up on the violent rhythm, the pain subsided and all Ash was left with was pleasure. As Leonardo owned his mouth with his lips and tongue, Ivan fucked him and the sensation of being dominated, the fullness inside of him provided by Ivan’s cock… it took his breath away in the best possible way.
After several minutes, when he thought he’d explode from the pleasure of it, Ivan roared at his back and fell forward, stretching Ash’s legs even more as he came inside of him in endless spurts of warmth that had Ash’s eyeballs rolling inside his skull.
Ivan let his whole weight press Ash down onto Leo’s sweaty front. For the first time that night, his cock was down, apparently finally spent for the evening.
He buried his face onto the crook of Leo’s neck and just let himself feel. Feel Ivan’s powerful body encasing all of his back, feel the giant cock pulse and soften inside his body, feel the thick cum sliding down the inside of his thighs and balls; Ivan’s hot, irregular breathing right down his neck.
After a few moments, Ash rose from the hiding spot he’d found on Leo’s neck and faced the man that was caressing both his sides. Leo had a satisfied, soft expression, his eyes glinting under the fluorescent lights. His blond hair was matted by sweat, clinging in chunks to his forehead. Ash kissed him on the lips as Ivan rolled to the side and threw a leg and an arm over them both, pulling Ash off of Leo and sandwiching him between the two of them.
The new angle had Ash facing the medical tables in the corner, still supporting the two dead bodies. Only now he realized they no longer had eyes. More blood had pooled under the tables; they’d have to clean it up later.
Ash dragged his eyes away from them as Ivan started snoring lightly right behind his left ear.
Leonardo had his eyes on him, as if studying what his reaction would be. He leaned his head down a little and pressed one more light kiss to Ash’s puffed up lips.
“Sleep,” he murmured, “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Ash rested his cheek against the firm, tattooed chest. Leo turned his head to the ceiling and closed his eyes. From this angle, he looked even more powerful, even more… angelic, with his sharp angles, blond hair and sculpted chest.
Funny how that exact thought had been one of the first Ash’d had about the man when they met.
Only now, the only thing he saw was an angel of death.
b
ten years ago…
ASH BURST INTO his room, relieved to finally be able to take off the suit and tie he’d been wearing for the last several hours.
Before even touching anything, he flew to the adjoining bathroom and scrubbed his hands raw with water and soap. Then, for good measure, he rubbed them with hand sanitizer.
If he closed his eyes, they’d undoubtedly show him the faces of the family he’d just finished… handling, so he didn’t. Later, maybe, if he was lucky, Leo’d give him something to numb the feelings, then Ash’d allow himself to think about it. For now? For now it’d be eyes wide open.
He’d just gotten back to the room when there was a knock at the door.
Ash smiled to himself.
“Come in.”
“Hey, man!” Eric burst through the room. “You just got back?”
“Yeah.”
“I was starting to panic because you weren’t here yet. The episode is almost starting.”
Ash grinned to his friend. “Things got a bit hectic.”
Eric dropped on the foot of the bed and regarded him with a mixture of concern and curiosity.
“I’d never know working for Leo would be this… demanding. Let alone for someone practically just starting out.”
Ash’s smile threatened to fall, but he made an effort to keep it there.
Sometimes he envied Eric and the other younger kids. Their innocence. How they could just go to school every day and focus on their lives and just… not know.
“I suppose it’s good money, though, judging by all this.” Eric made a sweeping motion, indicating the whole room, with his right arm. “I can’t wait to be done with school so that I can have a job too. Maybe Leo will have something I can do, just like you.”
At the mere thought of Eric even remotely involved with anything similar to what he had been doing for Leonardo Lazarus and his groupies during the last year or so, Ash chilled all over. It was okay for him to do this. No one cared about him and he didn’t have anybody else. Being Leo’s and Ivan’s fuck toy was just a part of his life now, as were the constant hits they gave him, and for which he was thankful, since they helped numb him. The start had been difficult enough, with all the using, killing, plotting, threatening. Once the men discovered Ash’s talent for finding breeches and weaknesses both in locations and people, though, he’d had no choice. Ash tried to make himself believe in their words that the people they killed deserved to die. Murderers, thieves, rapists, drug lords. Competition. A far cry from good people, Ash, they said, knowing that he still cared in some deep part of him, no matter how numb the drugs made him. Even if that was all true, though, it was still a job for someone like him. Not Eric. No. Never Eric.
“Or maybe you could finish school and find something you really like, uh? Get out of here?” Ash said, while he finished undressing and putting on a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt, as he always did when he had no plans of getting out of the house for the evening. “Weren’t you liking that chick you’ve been texting with? The one from New York?”
God, all he wanted for the only person in this place he could truly call a friend was for him to get out. Ash dreaded the day Eric found out exactly what went on right under everyone’s noses, here in this mansion kids like Eric still thought was safe. Dreaded the day Eric found himself covered in blood every other night, like his life had been since that day when he’d helped Leo kill the brothers downstairs.
At the mention of his online girlfriend, Eric perked up, even though his expression was a little sheepish. “Yeah, maybe. We’re just friends, though. We mostly do math homework together and talk about comics. I’d like to meet her in person, though.”
“You only got half a year of school left, right? Why don’t you plan a trip to visit her and, while you’re there, visit some campus or another? See if you find a place you’d like to go to school at?”
Eric shrugged, “We’ll see,” he said, while slipping out of his flip-flops, “I still have time, anyway.”
Ash smiled and settled beside him on the bed, then turned on the fifty-inch TV hanging on the opposite wall.
“Man,” Eric sighed, “don’t get me wrong. I really don’t like staying on our old room alone, but I’ll take it if you getting a new one for yourself means we can watch stuff on this big-ass screen.”
Ash laughed, but then they fell silent. A new season of Supernatural was starting and, for an hour of the day at least he’d get to be normal with Eric.
They watched and cheered and shared their mints, and every time Eric laughed in that carefree way of his, with his mop of curly dark hair bouncing in every direction, a bit of the constant heavy weight and guilt on Ash’s shoulders gave way. Ash was a lost cause, but Eric didn’t ever have to be. Ash would protect him, no matter what. Even if it took pretending and lying and killing again and again, he promised himself nothing would ever erase the loose smile and that innocence of the boy who, at this point, was the only good thing he had in his life beside his music.
ASH HAD BARELY put the guitar back on its case, still feeling the thrill he always felt after the gigs he’d been getting at a bar close to Vesuvius, when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket.
It was Nate.
“What?”
“We need to talk. Where are you?”
“I’m on my way home. What happened?”
“Nothing that we can talk about over the phone. How long before you get here?”
“I don’t know. Twenty minutes?”
>
“Great. Talk soon.” With that, Nate disconnected.
Ash sighed heavily, barely managing to force a smile to Camilo, one of the security guards, on his way out.
Judging by the Nate’s tone, they’d need their plan B tonight, as seemed to have been becoming more and more frequent. When Leo’s charm, logic, and persuasion failed; when manipulation, small punishments and threats no longer worked, they send in their plan B.
For the last year or so, Ash had been summoned countless times, briefed, then sent away to do whatever diabolical task Leo had in mind that night. Night, yeah, because most of the things he had to do for the angel of death were not things easily done in the light of day. Nothing stood in his way. At this point, all he could see when he closed his eyes — besides the occasional times, like had just happened a few moments ago, when he’d still been playing and suddenly those neon blue orbs started dancing before his eyes — was blood; all he could smell was the fear and the pleading; all he could hear was the screams.
By the time he’d been doing the job for a year or so, something shut down inside of him. Was it the drugs Leo and Ivan constantly fed him while they fucked? Or was it a natural reaction of his mind, like when people that suffer serious accidents black out in the middle of it and then can’t remember it once they woke up? Ash didn’t know for sure, but something inside of him just… broke. Now he only asked who and when, no more why. It was at some point after Ash had tried to rebel one night, after a long week, when Leo woke him up in the dead of the night to send him to one of his jobs. That night, Ash said no; said that he wasn’t feeling it that day. It’d only taken a second for Leo to shift from gentle and loving to menacing and stern.
“You’re not feeling it, uh?” he’d said, approaching Ash with measured steps. “I thought I’d explained that very first night, what everyone must do on our team to ensure our success; our safety.”
When Ash had pulled his gaze away from Leo’s, locking his jaw and staring at the floor between them, warm fingers pulled them right up.
“On our team,” Leo continued, “we all have our roles to play, Ash. You’re our little plan B.” He smiled fondly. “And you’ve been doing a fantastic job of it. Why this crisis now?”
“What if there comes a point where I don’t wanna do this anymore? What if I can’t?”
Leonardo had only smirked.
“You will. You don’t have a choice.”
And he didn’t. Leo had kept all the footage of that day in the basement. All of it, including the part where Ash shot the guy right in the middle of the head. He was totally in Leonardo Lazarus’ hands and there was nothing he could do about it. Some days, it frustrated the hell out of him, because the sole fact Leo had so much power over him made him feel he didn’t really have a future outside of being Leo’s personal plan B. Other times, he didn’t know if he cared. That included the times when he was too high to feel, sure, but also the other times. Like when they were in bed together and Leo whispered sweet nothings in his ear, telling him that he was precious to him.
Ash wasn’t enough of a fool to believe Leo didn’t sleep around with people at Vesuvius, with Ivan when they weren’t sharing him, or with anybody else he fancied a roll in the sack with, really. Still, having the attention of someone as powerful as Leonardo Lazarus was a high on itself. Aside from being used both as a fuck hole and an assassin of sorts, Ash… liked his life. At least here in the mansion he was safe; he knew where he stood. Out there? Out there he’d be back to being the nobody who’d come from a little town; the boy that’d been dejected from his own father; who’d had his heart messed around with his whole life without even suspecting about any of it. Out there, he’d be the one alone, never belonging anywhere. Low-class filth.
The only thing he truly regretted was that, in the end, he hadn’t managed to save Eric from the truth. The shock it’d been… that fateful night when Eric barged into Ash’s room, fuming, teared-up, and told him there was no need for Ash to lie to him anymore, that Leo had just recruited him as well.
Ash would never forget the feeling of the world falling out from under his feet at the thought that Leonardo and Ivan had introduced Eric to their world exactly how they’d done to Ash himself. To his immense relief, they hadn’t done that. At least, according to Leo, that was a thing they reserved for Ash, and Ash only. For some reason, maybe even a bit of jealousy, the thought of his friend sharing the same two men that shared his body on the regular made him want to throw up more than the thought of Eric becoming a part of the world of drugs, human trafficking, bloodbaths, and God only knew what else the Lazarus family meddled with.
Their friendship had been strained for a few weeks after Eric found out the truth. Once Leo had them banding up together to go do their first few jobs as a unit, though, they kinda eased into their old friendship again. And thank God for that, because Ash wouldn’t be alive without Eric. The boy was a genius behind computers and phones and wires. All that technological stuff that got him eye-crossed. Eric usually covered from him from a van nearby while Ash went in and did what had to be done. He monitored police radios, disabled alarm systems, poisoned water supplies using some of his drones. He was almost like a wizard, really. A technological wizard that, in the last year, had saved Ash’s life more times than he could count.
Eric was already there, standing around Leo’s desk once Ash finally got to the mansion. Nate was also there, and Ash only caught the tail end of the details they’d been discussing about tonight’s task.
When Leo’s glinting eyes landed on him, Ash shivered. Good things never came his way once those eyes full of malice landed on him and those pierced lips arched into the familiar smirk.
Ash exhaled deeply and closed the door behind him, ready for one more addition to his nightmares to start.
ignite iii
eight years ago…
ASH SMASHED THE van’s door shut and screamed for Eric to go.
“Where’s Matthew?” Eric shot, panicked.
“Dead.”
Eric’s eyes widened at the same time he turned sharply to the left into the main avenue. He’d been monitoring traffic and street cameras two streets away from where Ash and Matthew were supposed to finished the business, as planned, and escort the big coke cargo back to Vesuvius.
Only… something had gone terribly wrong. As soon as the doors of the truck containing the thousands of pounds of drugs had been opened for them to check and Ash was about to transfer their new client the other half of the money, the place had been swarmed by the police.
Ash had barely managed to make his way back to Eric, taking advantage of all the shooting and screaming to make a quiet retreat through a side door on the pavilion.
Eric was breathing heavily, clearly freaking out. “I don’t understand. I kept eyes on the cameras and ears on the police radio all day. There was nothing being said about an operation, and the cameras didn’t show them coming. Something doesn’t add up, Ash. They shouldn’t have been there.”
“Just drive, okay?” Ash pressed, hand still clasped firmly around his gun, checking all their sides to see if they weren’t being followed. “We’ll figure it out later.”
“Is Matthew really dead?” Eric asked as they stopped at a red light.
“He was shot in the chest. If he isn’t dead, he’s toast, anyway. From the hospital directly to jail. There’s nothing we can do to save him.”
The words left a bitter taste in Ash’s mouth. Matthew was a nice guy. He’d gone on a few jobs with them through the last two years. He didn’t deserve an ending like that.
Eric could only give him frantic nods as a response. Even in the cold Colorado winter, his curly head was dampened in sweat, the curls glued to his forehead; a sure sign the guy was beyond panicking.
“Hey,” Ash said, squeezing his friend’s shoulder, for comfort, “Calm down. We’ll figure it out later.”
COME TO THE office, the message pinged on Ash’s phone. Bring Eric.
Ash swallo
wed dry as heat and apprehension blanketed him. This was it. They’d had three days of respite, but now that Leo was back, they’d have to explain what the hell had happened with his cargo. Thing was, Ash himself didn’t know what the hell had happened. It wouldn’t be a pleasant meeting, because if there was something that Leonardo Lazarus didn’t like, it was when things didn’t make sense and nobody around him could clarify things for him.
With a weight in his gut, Ash left his room and crossed the long corridor that would lead him to the old one he’d once shared with Eric.
Ash knocked at the door. Eric had been typing away on his computer, as always, so he didn’t look as Ash entered the room. When he finally did, after a few seconds, his whole expression shifted to immediate apprehension and even a slight edge of fear, mimicking exactly what Ash himself was feeling.
They’d never failed before. They’d never had to explain things before, let alone explaining how they’d probably lost Leo millions of dollars three nights ago.
“Eric, Leo wants to see us.”
Eric gave a curt nod, closed the laptop lid and, in silence, they left the room behind and marched to the ominous dark-wood door at the head of the corridor.
“Come in,” came Leonardo’s deep voice just a second after Ash knocked.
Nate gave Ash a plastic smile as he and Eric filed in, closing and locking the door behind them.
Ash returned it, out of habit. He didn’t feel it. Something about Nate’s father’s expression was raising all the red flags in Ash’s head.
They only got even redder when, instead of demanding an explanation and screaming at them, Leonardo gave them a curt smile of his own and said, in a calm, low voice that simply didn’t suit the situation, “Sit down, boys. Let’s talk.”
“Look, Leo, I’m sor—”
“No need, Ash,” Leo cut him off, raised hand in the air, “I know exactly what happened.”
“You do?” Both Eric and Ash inquired in unison, surprised.
