by J Bree
I want the satisfaction of doing this face-to-face.
Quiet and calm.
Odie’s description was right, she looks like a sweet old lady. Butter wouldn’t melt and all that, but I know enough of her sins to be rock fucking solid in what I’m about to do.
“Señor D’Ardo, I’m sorry for being late.”
She’s not late, she’s actually fifteen minutes early but I force a smile. “No worries, I was enjoying a drink while I waited.”
She smiles back at me when I stand for her to take her seat, Frank holding it and helping her sit. She orders a tequila, still using that soft voice of hers like she’s such a fucking sweet, harmless thing.
She pulls a notepad and a tablet out of her bag, setting them on the table as she grabs a pair of glasses. “We should get right into this, yes? I know you are a busy man. Many businesses to run.”
I half-shrug, seeing through the bullshit. She’s here for more than just the job of finding me a girl. One of her sons might be missing but she has many others to assist. All of them are in the trafficking business. Girls, drugs, guns, she’s here to sell me a helluva lot more than unwilling pussy.
“I have a lot going on but I’m after something very specific. I know you’re the best at procuring very specific items.”
She nods and starts to shift the papers around, ready to take notes. The tablet will have a whole fucking catalog of girls on it, ready to show me once she’s narrowed the list down from my description. Too bad I have my own list.
Frank himself places the tequila down on the table, not once making eye contact. Maya doesn’t acknowledge him, just takes the shot like a fucking pro and motions for another. I start counting in my head, even as I speak.
“I’m after a blonde. Big blue eyes. I don’t want a starved woman, I want all the right curves. I want her to look like a million fucking dollars on my arm.”
She nods and scratches down notes in Spanish. I pause for a second, still counting down, and when I see her fingers start to tremble, I continue.
“I want her to be a painter, a forgotten and abused child. I want you to receive her as a bride for your dipshit son and for him to get pissed she’s not a virgin. I want you to take her photos in a shower and then sell her on to the Alcatron cartel for fucking big money.”
The pen drops and her hand comes up to clutch at her throat, the fiery poison spreading slowly through her body until she’s burning from the inside out. Her eyes flare wide as she gasps and looks over to me.
“You had to know… you had to know that someday, someone that you sold would fuck you over. You had to be waiting for the moment. I know you’ve made it a long way, too fucking long for my liking, but it ends here. You made her feel like a piece of meat, you handed her off to her rapists. Unfortunately for you, I found her. Brought her home, fixed her, made a list, and Maya, your time is up. Say hi to Mecedo for me when you get to hell. Fuck, he screamed so fucking perfectly for me.”
She coughs and blood sprays out of her mouth, the hacking sounds of her choking on it like a soothing melody to my soul. I should tape it for my girl, take it home for her to listen to, but she doesn’t really need it. The only thing she needs is the organ twisting and failing in Maya's chest right now.
Her eyes finally cloud over, her arms stop jerking and her body slumps against the table as it finally gives out. I sit there and wait, just to be sure her heart has stopped pumping before I move to prep what I need.
I’m not going to make a big fucking mess for Frank and his family to clean up, no way I’d disrespect them like that, but I’m also not taking her home with me. Nah, Odie’s had her safe space invaded too much in the last few months, I’ll do what I need to here.
I get the plastic sheet laid out and get the corpse on it, slicing open her chest and cracking the ribs. Fuck, I’ve done this enough times now that it’s like clockwork to get to the organ my girl deserves to have. It takes an hour and no one interrupts me. The sheet catches all of the blood and I roll her up in it once I’m done.
I call Frank when I’m ready to move her. He clears a path, gets his kids out of the way and I walk her through the back entrance and to my car without anyone seeing. Once she’s in my trunk and my tools are away, I wash my hands in the staff bathroom and check to make sure I’m clean enough.
Frank shakes my hand as I leave. “I’ll get the men out without a word. I’ll call the cops if need be, I’ve wiped the tapes already.”
I clap him on the shoulder. “Again, appreciate it, man. Anything you need, gimme a call.”
He smiles and waves me off.
I fucking love the Bay.
Chapter Twenty
Odie
I continue to keep up my training even if it's hard to do without le Loup around. I miss her quiet nature and the way she'd grin at me when I get something right. I also can only practice the same things she's taught me and after a few months of the same routine, over and over again, I find myself getting bored. I could just give it up or push through it anyway.
Instead, I follow mon Monstre down to one of his sessions and watch him in action. I watch the way he holds himself when he strikes at the punching bag and where he sets his feet. I count how many repetitions he does of the circuit, how long he spends at each machine.
I aim for half of what he does, half the weight and half the reps.
Even that feels impossible but I try and after a few weeks I feel stronger, leaner, more capable of taking down any man that attempts to touch me. When we make love, I see mon Monstre taking notice of the changes in my body but not once does he comment, only stroking at the curves of mine that will never disappear while my appreciation of bread stays so high.
For a while I think that maybe he doesn't like me leaner, that maybe this strength I now have will be some sort of thing on the list of reasons he adores me that gets struck off, but then I see him biting his lip over my legs when I step out of the shower and I giggle.
I should never underestimate his love for me, no matter how my body looks.
He loved me starved and broken, of course he'll love me leaner and strong.
My favorite practice will always be our time together in the gun range. I've gone from fearing the power and finality of them to being so proficient in them that I can clean and assemble any of mon Monstre's collection. I know which ones will do the most damage, which ones will keep a death clean and which will blow a man to pieces.
My own collection of guns gets bigger.
When we're done shooting for the day he takes me back out to the mats, intent on walking me through all of the positions le Loup has taught me. I’ve been so bored with the routine that little things have started to slip.
He pulls my arms down until they’re in a better position. “You need to keep up with your practice, baby girl. Gotta stay sharp if we’re staying here.”
I smile up at him so wide my cheeks hurt but the smirk he gives me in return is full of lust and adoration. “I guess I do, mon Monstre. Are you going to help with that? Are you going to instruct me? Show me all of your tricks and tips to take a man's life? Le Loup showed me so much but I want to know how you do it, too.”
I get him onto the mat and use my thighs to trap his arms. He could break out of the hold, I'm sure of it, but he lays there and lets me manipulate him the way I'd have to if I were attacked again.
If the Jackal's man grabbed me again like he did that night I'd kill him without a thought, I could choke him out and aim my gun at the Jackal, killing the man who dared to betray mon Monstre, his oldest and most loyal friend.
When I finally move to let him up, Illi grabs my thighs and holds me still. His hands move along the hard muscle there, bunched up like this my legs look less feminine and more like the weapons I'm slowly turning them into.
I get a little self-conscious and try to move.
He growls at me with a frown, grabbing my workout tank and pulling me down until I'm draped over him. He kisses me brutally, all teeth and
a hand snakes up into my hair to pull me until it hurts.
My pussy is instantly wet, like he's trained me to love his brand of violence.
He jerks my head back to speak to me, the words low and pissed off where they're murmured against my lips. "This is mine. The whole fucking lot of this body and this ass and those fucking tits are mine. You think anything it could change into will stop that? Nah, baby girl, you've got it all wrong in that perfect head of yours. It's fucking mine now and it's mine when you're all big and round with my babies and in fifty years when you’re gray and covered in wrinkles it's still mine. Don't you ever fucking forget it. I play for keeps and you're it."
My mouth is open, the pressure of his fist in my hair so strong I have to keep it that way, and so when he kisses me again it's a little wet and uncoordinated. It doesn't matter though and the tears that fill my eyes at his words don't matter either.
He flips us both over so he can fuck me on the mat, brutal and raw, until I remember that his heart beats for me and nothing will change that. When he pulls out again to come all over my pussy instead of inside it I whimper at him.
If I'm his, why won't he fill me up with his come? Fill my belly with these babies of his he keeps promising me?
I wait until he cleans me up with his shirt and lays back down with me before I bring it up, the high of my multiple orgasms making me brave enough to ask the question.
"There's no way on this Earth I'm worthy of having kids with you until my list is crossed off. No way I'm having you vulnerable and, fuck, hormonal with those men still out there. We can't start a family until they're all gone. Even the Jackal. D'Ardo would find out and come here himself to fuck with you. He's fucking... deranged about mothers. His own and any other woman who's had kids."
Oh.
I wasn't expecting that.
My chest feels as though it might burst open with pressure but my stomach feels like a void, an empty chasm now I know his reasoning.
"What if you can't kill them all? What if someone gets away?" I whisper, a lump forming in the back of my throat that makes it impossible to swallow.
He pulls me into his arms more fully, tucking my head up into his chest. "Don't you worry about that, baby girl. That’s my shit to deal with, your shit is to paint and to train and to... bake bread. Whatever you wanna do."
His hatred of my bread baking is still funny to me, the way he glares at the kitchen the moment he comes home to the smell of it.
He can't help eating it with me.
I stretch out my back like a cat, the aches and pains I feel are like an addiction. If it's possible to be both used and adored, then Illi has perfected that line with me.
Even with every inch of me aching, I know it's a feeling I know I'm going to crave for the rest of my life because the pain is a sweet and tender thing. His heart beats beneath my cheek, steady and sure, and I rub my face against him.
"I'm going to need to need this every fucking night, baby girl. I need you naked and in my arms, rubbing on me like a fucking siren and I'm going to need you to tell me that it's not going to change."
I smile at him, pushing my hair over my shoulder so it’s out of our way. He growls at the move, pushing it back so he can thread his fingers through it.
"Right. Let's get the fuck up before I decide to stay home and fuck you for hours instead of getting to that list of mine."
With the amount of work I put into my art, I start to run out of canvases and oils on a weekly basis.
It’s often enough that I begin getting better at using mon Monstre’s computer and ordering things online.
I don’t always paint the cartel or the trauma I had from that time of my life. Sometimes I paint old memories of French countryside. Sometimes I paint sunflowers and they're so bright and cheerful that my heart can’t help but swell in my chest with that bittersweet joy that comes from looking at them.
Sometimes I need to be reminded that the world outside this apartment still exists and even though it has not treated me well, there is joy there and beauty and all of the things that makes life worth living for.
Most of the time, I remember that I have mon Monstre and he will always be my reason.
The amount I'm spending on art supplies starts to make me feel guilty, knowing that mon Monstre isn't taking on jobs at the moment because he's too busy trying to finish his list, so I start looking into what I can do to slow down how much I have to buy.
I stumble on a website where I can upload my art and sell it. Not just the originals, but prints of them as well. Pillows, blankets, mugs, sweaters, my art could go on anything I want to be sold to people out in the world.
I don't expect much, but I begin to focus on painting pretty things in my down time. I don't make a fortune, but after a month of uploading things I'm able to start buying my own canvases and supplies. My sunflowers begin to take off and I buy myself my own computer and a drawing pad for digital art. It's not my favorite way of doing things, oils will always be my greatest love, but it's for to play around with.
A few weeks later, I'm able to switch over to using my own money entirely. The feeling I get from owning things and not relying on anyone else, even mon Monstre who has never withheld anything from me, is intoxicating and powerful.
I am standing on my own two feet for the first time in my life.
I'm finally free and yet I want nothing to change about my life. Nothing but the list to be finished with and for mon Monstre and I to be able to start a family.
One night I finish the painting of violets and oleander flowers and come back to my senses to find Illi sitting on the couch waiting for me. He's already showered and back into clean clothes and there's dinner, already laid out on the table, a bottle of wine open and waiting for us both. My hand shakes as I put down the paintbrush and I wipe my hands down the legs of my sweatpants.
"You back, baby? Come eat."
I nod and lean down to kiss him, our tongues dancing together like an erotic dance. I duck off to the bathroom to wash up and pull on one of the new sweaters I have. He isn't dressed for bed yet and I want to look nice for him.
He smiles at me like I'm the sun when I walk back out.
When I sit beside him at the table I can see the first rays of morning sunlight beginning to shine across the water outside of my favorite window. Gulls are calling out and the sight of it all is still my most treasured thing about the apartment.
"Are you happy, baby girl?" Illi murmurs as he hands me a glass of the pinot and I smile at him.
"I've never been so happy, mon Monstre. I've never loved my life like this before."
He grins, a big wide showing of his perfectly sharp teeth and I shiver, remembering what they feel like pressed into the soft skin of my thighs.
"I want you to stay here with me forever baby girl. I don't want you having your father's name anymore. You're mine, I want everyone to know that too."
I frown. It sounds like he's proposing to me but I can't imagine him being the marriage type.
Then he pulls out a ring.
God help me, it's the most beautiful ring I've ever seen. A big rock in the centre of a platinum setting, the deep dark blue is stunning.
"I thought about taking you somewhere to do this but I know what this place means to you. Marry me, baby girl."
My words dry up in my throat, tears filling my eyes and all I'm able to do is nod. He chuckles at me, taking my hand and sliding the most beautiful ring I've ever seen onto my finger. It fits perfectly and weighs my hand down with the sheer size of the rock there. It’s absolutely stunning.
I still can't say a word.
"The kid's diamond color is dark blue. I needed to be fucking careful buying one here in the Bay. Everyone knows what the diamonds mean and there's no fucking way I was getting you a white diamond. I’d only ever support Lips so blue it is.“
I don't know what any of that means but it sounds so important to him, so vital to who he is on the streets here, so I nod my head and force my
self to speak.
"I love it, mon Monstre. I love you so much."
He grins and pulls me in for a blistering kiss, as fierce and brutal as he always is with me. When he finally lets me go I let the tears in my eyes fall, the stream of them along my cheeks a joyful thing.
He frowns a little at them and I laugh at him. "I can't wait to call you my husband. I can't wait for us to be wed."
The frown disappears and he grins. "if you want something big, we can do it that way. I fucking hate churches but I'll do whatever you want, baby girl."
I laugh. "I only know you and your friend, mon Monstre. It can't be a big wedding. I'd like it if le Loup could be there though."
He shrugs and starts to fill my plate up with food for me, the care he always shows me warming my heart. He's perfect. The perfect man for me.
"We can hold out until the summer, it's not too far off. She'll be home then and we can try to drag her along. She's not really into that kind of thing."
Ah yes.
The Mounty girl damage he's warned me about. It doesn't matter if she doesn't come, I'd just like to invite her in case she wants to be there with us.
Something catches my eyes at the door and I glance over to find the hearts in jars waiting there. He usually keeps them downstairs, away from where I'd see them everyday. I think he worries I'll fall apart again if I'm reminded of them everyday,
He notices me looking. "They're stacking up, baby girl. I need a new shelf for them all."
To think that there are men out there who buy flowers for their beloved and hope that wins them their love.
Mine brings me hearts.
Chapter Twenty-One
Illi
When I get home for the night, the TV is on which is rare but I guess with me telling her she's not allowed to cook that she’s gotten bored. I move the package and the boxes of pizza from one hand to the other, fumbling around with the keys and the new security system. I swear under my breath at how inept it makes me feel to be juggling all of this bullshit but the smell of the pizza has my stomach rumbling and my girl needed a night off.
