His Mafia Rose

Caspian

My room was bathed in the soft, muted light of city streetlights through the floor-to-ceiling windows. A cigarette glowed in the ashtray on the bedtable, its acrid scent blended with the high-priced cologne that filled the air. The peacefulness of London at midnight stretched out before me, but here there was only the sound of my breathing and the muffled hum of surveillance hardware running in the background.

Since my father had come 2 days earlier, I had been overwhelmed with work and had come in the first chance I got. I was reclining on my bed, clinging with one hand my phone, the other holding tight around my cock, as I gazed at my screen.

My eyes were fixed on Genesis's live feed, my own monitoring-private portal into her life. Genesis was in the bathroom; under the scalding heat of water, the steam curling about her, warping her shape into the sexiest silhouettes.

Her blonde hair clung to her body, water drops tracing out her shape in languid, teasing taunt as she carried on with her shower unaware of my virtual presence. I blew through only my nose, my jaw set tight as my hand moved faster.

Genesis shifted again with a sensual aura I'm pretty sure she was fully aware she possessed, fingers gliding over her skin as she lathered soap up her arms, along the curve of her waist, and lower; my body shook as my hand accelerated. My heart pounded in my ears, silencing everything else.

My grip faltered for a moment, my muscles twisting as a mass of pleasure gathered in my stomach. I was close; close enough that I could taste it.

Then-

Knock. I froze,

Then another.

This one harder. More insistent.

My eyes snapped open, the pleasure all too short-lived. My breath was still rough, my muscles tense with excess anger, and the insistent knocking at the door pierced the haze like a blade.

A second thud-this one louder, more intense. My jaw clenched.

They'd better have a goddamn good reason for disturbing my solace at this time of night, if not I'm blowing their heads off.

I discarded my phone onto the bedside table, the screen still glowing with the live feed. Dragging my sweatpants onto my waist from the floor; I sprinted for the door.

My fingers wrapped around the handle, knuckles clenched as I jerked the door open, hard eyes, and curse words on the tip of my tongue-

And that's when I saw.

The garbage bags.

Black plastic running redly on the marble floor.

I was paralyzed, catching a hitch in my breath as life stood still. The guard didn't flinch, his face an unyielding mask of boredom, but I wasn't staring at him anymore. I was staring at the bag, eyes squinting as the metallic stench of blood filled the air.

Blood.

My gut recoiled.

Dark plastic. Blood. Dead body.

The memory slammed me like a train, pitiless and inhuman. The weight of that night, the cold bitter bite of her being thrown away like a dirty cloth, the way that blood had soaked into the plastic, its pooling at my feet.

My throat constricted, my mind screaming to deny it, to push it away. I stepped back, my heart racing in my brain, my entire body shaking in horror at the ghastly déjà vu standing before me.

Not again.

The bile churned in my belly, scorching and heavy, and I'd only stepped back twice when my stomach revolted against me, spewing its contents on the spotless floor. The spasms coursed through my body, destroying my composure, my jagged breathing in spasmodic fits.

My knees buckled.

My vision whirled around me.

My head screamed.

Not again.

For a moment, the world skewed. Sensations dulled, drowned in the cacophonous roar of memory battering me in waves. Past and present blended, black and red, and the metallic stench of blood hung heavy in the air. Vision fogged, stomach cramped, breath caught in my chest.

I forced myself to steady my breathing, to push the horror back into its place in the darkness where it belonged. My body resisted, resisted with the bestial desire to duck away, to cover, to let it pull me under. Caspian Graves did not break.

My fingers trembled a little as I dried my mouth on the heel of my hand, scrubbing out the last traces of weakness. I straightened, back stiff, wrestling myself back into control, back into me. When I did finally answer, my voice was rough but as sharp as steel.

"Talk."

The guard swallowed hard, rigidity in him evident even under the poor lighting. My eyes never left his, cold, waiting, unyielding.

"It's Valentine, sir."

Silence.

I did not blink.

Did not twitch. Did not shift.

The words dangled in the air, but my head brushed them aside, rejected them categorically, and refused to hear their meaning.

Valentine.

It could not be. Could not be.

And yet, irrevocably, irrevocably, my eyes drifted back to the bag.

I did not need to know. I already did.

The truth glared back at me, bloody, swathed in black plastic.

Valentine was dead.

Not just dead-killed.

Killed in the same brutal, savage manner my mother had been.

Something was wrapped around my chest, something cold and tightening, pressed into my ribs with pressure I couldn't stand. No time for grief. No time for anything weak, anything soft. Not now. Not in this life.

There only existed rage.

Frosty anger.

My fists were closed and my fingernails had bitten into the web of my hands until the pain anchored me, still the beating of my heart, and sharpened my mind. My face smoothed into a blank, an unexpressive.

"Where?"

A single word cut the silence, cold, emotionless, not questioning.

The guard paused. "The warehouse docks. We found him an hour ago. It was… the same, sir."

The same.

A message.

A warning.

A game I'd once been ambushed into playing but this time, no, I was not going to be caught napping. My heart rate slowed, leveled, my breath out. The storm in my head coalesced into something narrower, more deadly. I allowed it all to filter in, allowed the reality of it to become a part of my bones, allowed the fire burn in my veins turn to ice.

"Clean it up," I instructed him, voice hard. Steady. Controlled. "Burn the warehouse."

The guard hesitated. "Sir-"

"Burn it."

An order that left no room for debate.

The guard nodded stiffly and then bent to pick up the bag, slinging it with the same cold efficiency with which he would carry any other trash. I watched the black plastic scrape across the tile, leaving a fine smudge. Then he faded soundlessly, vanishing into the corridor.

I closed the door.

The air was heavy. Thick. My lungs expanded in agonizing slowness, deliberately, as I exhaled.

I would not come undone.

Not now.

My mother had been taken from me. My best and most devoted warrior had been taken from me. But too long ago, I had learned that grieving was a luxury. A weakness.

There was only action.

Only vengeance.

My eyes darted to the bedside table.

The phone still remained. Still glowing. The live image of Genesis still illuminating, her form still twisted beneath the water, steam curling around her, unaware in ecstasy.

The desire to hold onto the one thing which had ever given me comfort.

But not.

I had work to get done.

Holland Graves would be hearing from me soon.