Chapter 9

The little fiend built a shelter. Not only that, but she built a good one. Here I thought she had no idea what she was doing. Then she wakes up and works all day long, even into the waning light of evening. Respect had blossomed in my chest for her as I crept around, stalking her like a fucking predator, instead of doing shit around my homestead.

She plugged her door up, turning in for the night, while I sat here wondering if she was sore. It's what kept me going when I punished people in my old life. Knowing the sickly sweet amount of pain they were in. Knowing it was because of me. I wonder how deep the ache in her muscles runs. Does the gnawing sting reach her bones? Is she shifting around inside her little hovel against the fingers of misery?

I shiver at the thought, suddenly feeling heated in the below-freezing cold. The wind is blowing lightly, the frigid burn of it coating my lungs each time I take a breath. I shift as I look back to make sure she's still securely inside her shelter.

Turning back, I take my time installing the camera as well as I can, hiding it with foliage. I step back, my headlamp illuminating everything before me enough that I can see it's hidden so well I can't even find it with my light.

I smirk, stepping to the side. Pulling the feed up on my phone, I sync the new camera with the system. It's battery-operated, so depending on the cold weather, and how the battery does, I'll still need to come to her camp and change it out, but this will be a far easier way to monitor her. Especially now that she's set up camp on my property.

Have to monitor predators, after all.

She's beginning to feel like the fiercest one I've faced in my life.

On the way back to the cabin, my fingers itch to pull the feed up once more. To see what she's doing. If she's emerged. I know she hasn't, though, so I starve the obsessive thoughts off, not feeding them enough for them to grow. Their growth is something I don't fucking need.

Obsession landed me here.

"Keep it together, Slate," I say, chiding myself for even having to speak the command aloud.

Making my way downstream, I came across the crudely made bridge I'd made in the springtime, so I wouldn't have to wear waders each time I wanted to cross over. I spent the day trying to camouflage it with random foliage and deadfall, so it looked more natural.

I spent so much to become a ghost here. To have absolute solitude away from the prying eyes of the world. Now a problem has fallen right into my lap.

I could just face her and tell her to get the fuck off my property. She likely didn't see the private property signs littering the exterior of my land because of the storm she arrived in. So I can't fault her for that. Facing her seems like the worst idea ever, though.

Inflicting suffering was my life before, and I can feel the nagging itch just beneath my skin. Begging me to get my fix. To watch something bleed before me. My ears long for the harrowed screams of my victim, singing to me as their life is in my hands.

I don't want to watch the wilderness kill her. It would be like a wolf giving its prey to a lesser predator, and I'll not have it. Not on my watch.

If I can't have her, no one can. Not even the icy chill of fucking winter.

I get back to the cabin. I'm instantly thankful I had thought logically this time and covered my tracks as I went back home. The porch light is on, and the animals are settling for the night.

I removed the lines from the stream yesterday, forgoing putting them back out because I was too rattled as I stumbled upon her. Tomorrow I need to get them reset, a little further downstream, away from her camp, and I need to check traps.

I'd watched her today as she'd aimed and shot at a squirrel, hoping it would be her dinner. Her finger pulling the trigger had sent waves of something iniquitous through my veins. Something I shouldn't be feeling.

But she'd missed and gone back to camp hungry. Even though that usually would feed the beast that dwells in the depths of my soul, the one that gobbles up other's pain like candy, it hadn't. I'd wanted to chase the bastard squirrel down and break its neck, offering it to her field dressed and ready to cook.

I'd wanted to watch her mouth as it chewed on the spoils of what I'd hunted for her. It was that which had disheartened me. Ice had chilled my veins, and it wasn't from the frigid temperatures outside. It was that no one's ever affected me in such a manner.

A man such as me, who's done the things that I've done, doesn't need to be near such beautiful, unmarred flesh. I've felt the sharp claws of obsession before, and this feels like something else entirely. Something almost akin to mania.

What would I do if I had her to myself? The limits are endless out here. No one knows I'm here. No one would ever find her.

I'm absently washing my hands in the sink when the ghost of a smile lifts my lips upward. I see it in the reflection on the glass of the window before me.

The man looking back doesn't look like me, and it pulls me back to reality.

"I'm different now," I say aloud. Repeating it for good measure.

Drying my hands off, I grip the edge of the counter with them, leaning forward and dropping my head. Flashes of another life have been plaguing me, and I can't fucking shake them as easily as I usually can.

She's brought distraction with her. She's distracting. Lunacy is slithering through my nervous system like a bolt of fucking lightning.

She'd arrived in the middle of one of the worst storms this island has seen in years, and it's fitting. She feels like she's the embodiment of the wind. A current that's bringing with it destruction.

And I'm right in her direct path.

* * *

"Ardesia ‘the grim reaper' Ricci," my brother Lucio says as I push into the room.

I roll my eyes at the nickname. And the use of my true, untranslated name. The people he has me deal with are vile. The scum of the fucking earth. They deserve what they have coming. It's how I justify feeding my obsession with death and pain.The Grim Reaper comes for all, though, so maybe the name is fitting.

"Why am I here? You know I don't like to be summoned, Lucy."

He narrows his eyes at my use of his schoolboy nickname, and I inwardly smirk. No one's ever seen me do it outwardly. Unless they won't live to tell about it.

"Your work on the Trambino case was flawless, per usual. Your money has been transferred. But that's not why I called you here."

I know it isn't. He's got a look about him. While he's only a few years older than I am, thirty-eight to my thirty-one, his face looks gaunt. Sunken. His eyes are rimmed in purple, and he keeps padding his nose with a tissue every so often.

I truly look him over. He's lost weight.

Something's wrong.

"Tell me." It's a brisk command, one I know he'll heed. He knows my personality is such that you don't go against me.

Because I'll forget we're family. Forget I have ties to him in the reality I break from when the dark side of me takes over.

"I'm dying," he says, ripping the Band-Aid off, full stop.

My heart never speeds. I'm the picture of even-keel if you looked it up in the dictionary. It's why I make the perfect hunter. I never bristle. But for a fraction of a second, it beats off rhythm.

I swallow.

We both lost our parents to this life years ago. Running the New York chapter of the Ricci Crime Family pins a crimson red target onto your back, and those who surround you become fair game, too.

They'd been gunned down in an orchestrated attack during their grandson's christening. My brother's son—now fifteen—will be on his way to being made before long. As we all were.

"How are you dying? Who did you fuck with? We can get ahead of it," I stammer. Plans of what I'll do to the fucks who put a hit out on him wrap circles around themselves in my brain.

He chuckles, ending it with a cough. He reaches for his glass of water, swallowing a few mouthfuls before clearing his throat. "Cancer, fratellino. Stage four, they tell me."

I cluck my tongue in my mouth, a nervous habit I've had since I was a child, as I think. "Well, you'll fight, right? Riccis fight. It's in our DNA."

He nods. "I'm fighting, fratellino. I am. But I need to transition you into power. I need to know that I can take time to fight this with my family beside me. If any of the five families sense weakness, Slate."

His use of my true name snaps me back to the reality I'm standing in. My physical body felt the weight of his confession. Of his job that's looming overhead.

"Mio fratello, I can't do your job. The way that I am… I?—"

He lifts his hand, and when that happens, you shut your mouth. My lips seal shut in respect. "You'll do as you're ordered, as always. Until you're the one sitting in this chair doing the ordering. You're my Underboss. You knew this day could come."

I scoff, and he narrows his gaze on me. "You know better than I do. We both thought I'd go first, Fratello."

His answering smirk confirms my words. "We did. You're reckless and bloodthirsty. But we can agree that's what kept you alive this long, yes?"

For the first time since he became Boss, I sit in my brother's presence.It doesn't go unnoticed. His brows lift. But I'm facing his loss, and it's like a ton of bricks on my fucking chest.

"I'm sorry, Fratello. I can't…" I clutch my chest, and I'm right back in the padded cell in Bellevue, doctors looking at me through a small window in the door, scribbling notes.

"Breathe through it. This isn't as heavy as it feels," Lucio says, standing and moving toward me. His massive hand squeezes my shoulder, as he's done a million times.

Every time I crack, he's there to fill it. To patch me back up and tell me I'm going to survive. But how will I survive without him?

The room around me comes into view, the realm of dreams lingering a little longer than I'd prefer it to as I grab for my water.

"Fuck!" I slam my glass down as I curse the universe for the memory. Some of the liquid topples over the rim of the glass, splashing onto my skin. It's a reminder I am back in the land of the living.

Rubbing my eyes, I kick off the blankets and let my feet sink to the ice-cold wood floors beneath my bed. The chill brings me back.

I haven't had a dream about my life before in so long. I have to wonder if it's her that's stirred them. Likely not, but I haven't seen another human in forever. Even when I get shipments, they're dropped in a clearing by helicopter. I retrieve them once a month, never seeing a soul on the journey.

It's been almost a year without a dream, and it was ignorant to think they'd stay away.

Thinking about Lucio is something I try not to do because the guilt eats me alive. I'd left him. Run from him, more like. Shirked all my responsibilities as the Underboss of the Ricci family. But it was too much.

Enzo—our most trusted Capo—is probably the one in charge, and Lucio is likely six feet under, leaving behind his wife and three children. Boys, all of them. None of them are of an age to be made into the family yet.

I grumble, standing and moving toward the corner where the punching bag hangs from its metal pole, ready and waiting in the event I rouse from sleep in this kind of mood.

My fists bash against the leather, stuffing, not giving an inch as my angry grunts fly free. Tension ripples down my arms and into my fists as I forget myself and release anguish and misery before they swallow me whole.

The abyss of grief has been calling for me for a long fucking time, and if I'm not careful, I'm going to slip into it. Never to return.

A sob rips its way out of me, and I fall forward. My head rests on the blood-soaked bag as I heave breaths in through waves of sadness.

"Mi manchi, Fratello!" I admit freely. Though no one will hear my cry.

"I miss you, brother!"