by S. Coop
“Get your hands off of her, asshole!” Lasandro yelled.
“No!” Morgan yelped as her eyes popped open.
Lasandro stalked toward Marcus. “Let her go. Now.”
Marcus shook his head. “Such fire for a newborn.”
“I’m right here, asshole!” Lasandro kicked Marcus in the back. He may not have been a vampire long, but he knew how to fight because he had been fighting his whole life.
Marcus’s body swayed forward, barely teetering. Instead of falling face-first on the stone porch like Lasandro thought he would, Marcus turned around and grabbed Lasandro by the neck with a force that he had never felt before.
Morgan helplessly watched Lasandro’s legs dangling in the air. “No!”
“How dare you!” Marcus thundered. “It will take more than that to take me down, you little cockroach! Do you know who I am? And you touch me?” Marcus tossed Lasandro’s body like a rag doll, launching him twenty feet before he thudded to the ground unconscious, blood streaming from his mouth with a loud thud.
Morgan began to cry harder when she saw Marcus hovering over Lasandro’s limp motionless body. “No! Marcus, stop!” She rushed to Lasandro’s body and threw herself over him.
Marcus descended close to Lasandro’s chest, the steel heels of his boots poised to crush his chest.
“Please!” Morgan begged. “I’ll take care of it. I promise.”
“I can’t believe you are protecting this vermin.” In all the years she had been his, Morgan had never openly defied him. Marcus wiped away blood that began to drip from his nose and mouth. He felt the little shit’s pain, but crushing him to death would be an injury he was willing to endure because if he killed Lasandro, Morgan would feel it as well. Judging by how much she protected him, she would never recover.
Marcus shifted his boots back on the ground as feelings of jealousy rose inside of him. Morgan had never treated him with that much affection. He loved her throughout the years, but the way he turned her prevented any reciprocation from her.
When she was human, Marcus watched her go about her daily life, watched her with Nikolai from the shadows. Then she joined up with the resistance, and that’s when things got ugly. He was a German officer and had to do what he had orders to do. He looked back at the vile creature she was protecting. It took all of his strength to refrain from ending Lasandro’s existence, but he knew by doing that, he would also be crushing Morgan’s heart.
“A little warning,” he said, trying to hide the crack in his voice. “Take care of this, or I will.”
Marcus was gone as quickly as he had arrived …
Chapter Six
Memories
Days later, Morgan sat by Lasandro’s bedside. She couldn’t believe what a mess she had made. How could she have been so careless? She thought back to her first encounter with Lasandro and how she could have done things differently. Instead, there she sat next to an injured newborn, her newborn. He had taken the brunt of Marcus’s rage, and his body had been healing for days. She didn’t know if Lasandro would make it through, and even though there would be consequences, Morgan still wanted him to be okay, even if it would all be easier if he died.
Whether she wanted to admit it or not, this charming conman had begun to grow on her …
As Lasandro drifted in and out of consciousness, memories began to seize his mind and not the good memories—the memories you want to forget about. His thoughts went back to the night he met Morgan and how he got into this ordeal. Then his thoughts began to go in rewind at high velocity until they stopped on his mother, Maria. He missed her. He missed her badly. Even after all of these years …
It was such a beautiful day. Lasandro remembered how his mom had taken him to the park and pushed him on the swing. “Up, up, and away!” she would always say when she began to push.
Maria was beautiful with long silky black hair, flawless caramel-colored skin, and ocean blue eyes. Everywhere she went she turned heads. She loved the outdoors and taught Lasandro the beauty of nature. He didn’t really understand or care then. He was a typical seven-year-old who only wanted to play and have fun.
Maria was a great outdoorswoman, but like Lasandro, she was a terrible cook. She could burn salad and make mac and cheese taste like salty plaster, but that never bothered Lasandro. All he really wanted was spending time with her. He couldn’t wait for dinner, not because the meal would be any good, but because they would be together.
Sitting at the old mahogany kitchen table for two, Maria bravely took the first bite of the mac and cheese she whipped up. “Hmm, not so bad, Vinny,” she said with a wink.
“Yeah, right!” He began to laugh. They both choked down the meal with healthy swigs of milk.
“Your teacher called me today, Vinny.” Maria said with a thick Spanish accent. “She said you didn’t take your homework to school today, and all you do is draw in class.”
“It’s so boring, Mom,” he moaned. “Drawing is the only thing that keeps me awake.”
“Maybe so, but you still have to do your work, okay? Don’t let me down, sweetheart.”
“I won’t. Hey, guess what? My friend Frankie is having a birthday party this weekend and he invited me. Can I go please, please?”
“I don’t know about that. We will have to see, and you need to be a good boy this week. Then I will let you go. That’s the deal.” She waved her finger back and forth.
“Oh, all right,” Lasandro said with a sigh.
The front door swung open followed by grunting noises. It was his father, and he was carrying in merchandise. He brought in stereos and game consoles. He told the usual lie and said that he found them. Lasandro was upset, because he knew he would not get either a stereo or a game console, because his dad was going to sell it all.
Maria looked at Vincent with outrage then turned back to Lasandro and gave him a warm smile. “Give me a kiss good night and go to bed, Vinny.” She reached her arms out for a hug.
Lasandro’s eyes traveled from his father to his mother. It was much earlier than his usual bedtime, but he decided not to argue and gave her a hug. Once he got to his room, they started arguing and it was really bad, worse than usual.
“Why, Vincent? Why always this? Why can’t you work like everybody else?”
“Don’t act new, Maria. You know how I make my living. How do you think I keep food in you and that kid’s stomach?”
“That kid is your son! Call him by his name! He needs a father, a real father! He needs someone to look up to! Not someone like a baboso!”
Lasandro heard a loud slap. He knew that his father had hit her. Again.
“You bastard! You son-of-a-bitch! Get out now!”
“Gladly!”
The front door slammed shut so hard that Lasandro thought the hinges had fallen off. When he heard his mother’s sobs, he wanted to comfort her, but he knew what she would say. She would say that she was all right and to go back to bed.
I hate him! Lasandro yelled inside his confused brain. He ruins everything! As harsh as it was, he had grown to hate his father. His father was never around, and when he was, Lasandro and his mom had to walk on eggshells all day long, being careful not to piss him off. Even with their best efforts, it didn’t take much for his father to flip out. Lasandro lay there staring at the ceiling until he heard his mother stop crying. He closed his tear- filled eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Lasandro woke abruptly to the sound of glass breaking. He rose, rubbed his eyes, and walked into the living room. “Mom?” His voice was hoarse.
There was no answer.
She always answers, Lasandro thought.
It was pitch dark. Usually there would be some kind of light on somewhere. He called out once more. “Mom?”
This time there was an answer, but not the answer he was looking for.
“Go back to sleep, kid. It’s just a dream.”
“Dad?”
“Go back to sleep. Go.”
Lasandro’s father sounded frightened, and the
shakiness in his tone scared Lasandro. After his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, he saw the unthinkable.
And his heart broke.
“Mommy!” Lasandro cried. “No, Mommy!”
His father held his mother, her body drenched in blood.
“Daddy, what did you do to her?” Lasandro screamed.
“I … I …” His father swallowed hard. “It wasn’t …”
Lasandro mindlessly started punching his father in every available place, but his knees quickly buckled and he went down hard as police lights began to flash in the windows.
His father stood there, motionless, in a state of shock. He couldn’t feel Lasandro punching him. He couldn’t feel a thing. He leaned down and laid Maria’s corpse on the floor. “It wasn’t …”
Lasandro crawled to his mother. “Mommy? Please, Mommy, move!” Lasandro cried for his mother to show signs of life. He shook her, trying to get some response from her, any response, but there was nothing. He could feel Maria’s blood soaking into his nightclothes. He lay beside her and pulled her arm over his small frame. He barely noticed policemen putting handcuffs on his father.
The last thing Lasandro remembered about that night was seeing his mother taken away by the coroner and his father taken to jail. A policeman waited with him until a representative for social services showed up. Having no other family to speak of, Lasandro had to be placed in a foster home.
The cop who waited with Lasandro felt bad for him. “Poor kid, you’re gonna be all right,” the policeman said.
Lasandro knew he would never be all right again.
Morgan waited bedside while Lasandro’s memories persisted. She was not leaving his side. They had come this far, and there was no turning back. She put her years of telepathy to use, and as his Maker she mentally beckoned to him to show her some kind of sign that he was coming to. Where are you, Lasandro?
Lasandro was lost in thought, so deep that the outside world had faded away …
He landed in his teen years now. He had been in and out of foster homes five years when he met Derrick, who was another struggling foster kid. Together they decided to run away from a group home and try to make it on their own. It was hard for both of them. They laid their heads any place that was available and stole on a daily basis to get by. They didn’t imagine it would be that hard, but they agreed it was better than being caught up in a system that didn’t care about them. Lasandro played lookout for Derrick and vice versa when they stole from local stores. They had been caught countless times, but with his good looks and smooth tongue, Lasandro was usually able to talk them out of trouble.
As teenage boys, they were on the prowl for their next meal—and female companionship. Talking to girls came easy to Lasandro, unlike Derrick who often stuttered whenever he was around a hot girl.
“So like, where do you go to school?” a quirky blonde girl asked Lasandro while vigorously chewing gum.
“Oh, we’re from out of town. We go to school abroad, in France.”
“Like O.M.G. I have a friend that like goes to France like every summer. She’s such a spoiled bitch. If I was as rich as her, I would like totally …”
The girl ranted for what seemed like hours.
Lasandro’s replies where “uh huh,” and “really.” Listening to her was equivalent to getting teeth pulled without Novocain. Lasandro turned his attention to the girls’ older sister who had just gotten off her cell phone. He could see that she was upset by the call.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she replied.
“Sorry, but I couldn’t help but notice that you are upset. I’ll leave you alone now, but if you want to talk about it, I’m all ears.”
“Why would I tell you anything?” the girl spat. “I don’t even know you and you’re just a kid.”
He was completely striking out. He wasn’t used to that since it didn’t take much for the younger girls to fall head over heels. This girl was a challenge because she was older, and he was never one to back down from a challenge.
“My name is Lasandro, and all I’m saying is only a dumb ass would talk to a lady like he was yelling at you. He doesn’t know what he has.” He shook his head. “You take care.” He walked toward Derrick, who was trying hard to hook up with the younger girl when her sister called out for him to come back.
“Wait.” She moved in front of Lasandro. “Say, do you want to get something to eat?”
“Sure,” Lasandro replied, hiding the smugness he felt. Got you, he thought.
“I’m Lucy, by the way.”
Lasandro nodded. “Nice to meet you, Lucy.”
Lucy paid for everything, and the night ended with Lasandro having sex with her in her car. “Mission accomplished,” Lasandro bragged to Derrick later on that night.
That night would be memorable for two things: his first sexual conquest and second Derrick’s arrest. Instead of stealing merchandise from a store as usual, Derrick decided to rob it. Lasandro wanted no part of that, but Derrick did it anyway and got caught. He went away for a long time.
Lasandro had to fend for himself, now that he had no partner in crime. He thought back to how that girl paid for everything the night they went out. That’s when he decided on “making the ladies happy” as a full-time job. That decision turned out to be a lucrative one, and Lasandro never had to punch a clock.
There were two main cons for Lasandro. There was what he called a “quickie-con,” and then there was the “long-term con.”
While Lasandro sat at a bistro several years later, he spotted a lady that had “quickie-con” written all over her. She had to be in her early fifties. She had dyed blond hair, fake boobs, Botox lips, and and an almost tan. A real, live Barbie doll, he chuckled. He gazed down at her hand and saw no wedding ring on her finger. Not that it mattered, but husbands were an unnecessary complication. Lasandro knew she was his for the taking.
He walked by her table and purposely dropped his cellphone.
“Excuse me,” the silicone-laden woman called out to Lasandro. “I think you dropped something”
Lasandro looked from her confused face to the cellphone she was holding.
“Oh, my employees would freak out if they couldn’t get a hold of me. You’re a lifesaver Mrs. …”
“Ms., Ms. Watkins, and you are?” she asked.
“Lorenzo, Lorenzo Cole of Cole Publishing. Have you heard of us?”
“Oh, umm yeah, Cole. I’ve heard that name before. You publish books right?”
Lasandro chuckled to himself at how gullible she was. There was no Cole Publishing in Shadybrook or anywhere else that he knew of. Still, he continued with his charade.
He began to lay the groundwork. “Well, Ms. Watkins, if you’re not busy we can discuss it over drinks if you like. I owe you at least that.”
“Sure.” She accepted and seemed to be trying not to sound too eager. “I’d like that very much.”
Lasandro spent the rest of the afternoon fabricating just about everything with jokes thrown in here and there. He made sure to control the conversation, deflecting any questions she asked about publishing. He was on his game so well that he was a bit dismayed that she wasn’t more of a challenge. She had the gift of gab so he quickly found out all he needed to know and some things he didn’t want to know.
She invited him back to her place. When the check came, Lasandro reached for his wallet. If he had guessed right about this woman, she would offer to pay.
She did.
He protested a couple of times until she insisted, then he finally accepted, glad she wouldn’t let up. He didn’t want to have to break out with “Gee, I dropped my cellphone so I must have dropped my wallet, too!”
The moment they walked through her the front door of her brownstone, she was all over him, and after seeing her luxurious furnishings, he happily reciprocated. His seduction was quite precise, and he always started out the same. Like a practiced actor, he knew his role
.
He kissed her neck while holding her close. She ate it up, as they all did. He continued to kiss along the nape of her neck as she groaned in ecstasy. She grabbed his hand, guided him to her bedroom, dropped his pants, and dropped to her knees. Lasandro saw excitement in her eyes when she saw what she was working with. Holding his shaft, she took him into her mouth, inch by inch, his member growing with each movement. He threw his head back and moaned, enjoying the primal pleasure. She increased her speed, twisting his shaft to the rhythm.
Lasandro was spent. He loved this part of the job. He grabbed a tuft of her hair, pushing himself deeper into her mouth while he exploded, releasing a warm load down her throat.
He guided her to the bed and pulled her panties down. He reached over and retrieved a condom out of his pants pocket, opened it and slid it on. He grabbed her hips and squeezed them as she straddled him. He slid inside of her, and she screamed like a banshee. He hoped there were no cameras, because she was putting on quite a show. He inspected her body. Her breasts were so big, perfectly round Double D’s that barely moved when she bounced up and down on him. He had seen his fair share of breasts, so he knew they were fake right away. He preferred real breasts. Their suppleness really did something to him, although he considered himself an “ass man.” He was disappointed she didn’t have much of an ass to slap.
While she growled with each stroke of his erect rod, Lasandro looked around the room taking in the valuables, cataloguing them in his mind and calculating what could vanish with him.
She hit her climax and fell forward. He pulled off the condom and lay next to her.
“Was that as good for you as it was for me, baby?” she asked, sweat dripping from her forehead.
“You were amazing,” he replied. Lasandro closed his eyes and pretended to fall asleep. She curled up beside him and in no time was snoring like a bear. Lasandro attributed the sound to her nose job and crept out of bed.
Knowing that she was good and asleep, he quietly put on his clothes and went to work. He started with her purse, which was sitting on the floor next to the bed, and found eight hundred in cash. Then he moved on to the rest of the house, swiping diamonds and gold jewelry from her jewelry box and whatever else of value he could carry. When he could carry no more, he took off like a bat-out-of-hell convincing himself it was okay. He provided her a service, which was himself, and in return she provided payment. Whether it was consensual or not was irrelevant in his eyes. He had to strike it rich, and he would do anything he could to do to make it.
