1. Dante

CHAPTER 1

DANTE

The dirt from my jeans has ruined the fine settee I've taken up residence on inside Rosario's mansion. I'm probably the first one who has ever sat on it or any of the other furniture. The entire lower floor resembles a showroom: untouched and dripping in wasted money.

The chandelier and gilt candle holders remind me of home: lavish, over-the-top Italian-American taste and paid for with blood money. But home isn't a place for monsters like me. Rosario and his cohorts made sure of that.

I'm dead as far as anyone is concerned, and I have been for two years.

Small flames flicker from the candles on the edge of the mantle, and a fire burns low in the fireplace. Their proximity makes me sweat, but I can't bring myself to get close enough to put them out. This weakness, too, is a gift from them.

A phantom burn lights my skin as they flicker like hungry, seeking animals. Memories of being trapped inside a fiery truck full of guns and explosives rip shivers through me. The smell of my skin melting off my body—the accident Rosario and his coconspirators rigged to take me out.

I've waited a long time to kill him.

My hatchet rests against my leg on my good side. That part of my face is still recognizable, and the muscles in my arm are still strong. The other side of my body, while able to function well enough, screams in constant pain. Nerves don't fully heal, and the missing links in those pathways are more common than the connected ones.

The party Rosario and his new wife are attending is running longer than expected. It's been hours waiting for the backstabbing son of a bitch to come home and meet his end. A hint of regret for the housekeeper who's been tied up in her room for hours niggles at me. Involving the innocent is becoming too easy.

If not for my adrenaline and desperate need for revenge, I might have gotten bored of waiting for the paunchy sixty-year-old man who pretended to be like an uncle to kiss up to my father. Rather, my excitement builds to nearly unendurable heights when something finally changes.

Rocks crunch under the tires of the car moving up the drive.

He's coming.

Someone half-dead and forever changed crawled away from that explosion, but not Dante Gemelli. The Mafia prince died long before I passed out or reached help. He was nothing but a ghost when I woke up alone, hundreds of miles away in an ICU. I still don't know how I got there, but being forever scarred, trapped in agony, and resembling a monster wasn't enough. The worst change was within me; a desperation to hurt others was born. That's all thanks to them.

My grip stays loose on my hatchet, like I'm bored, like this isn't everything to me. The door finally opens what feels like another hour later. Rosario and the eighteen-year-old girl he's made his wife step inside. The faint light from the fireplace shows off her curves and small features. She's stunning. Of course, he bought her for that purpose, but bought wives are rarely loyal ones.

A silly drunk smile curves her cheeks as she hangs up her purse, but then her eyes shift over to me sitting on the white satin.

"Oh my God!" She gasps, hand flying to her mouth as she makes out my shape in the shadows before Rosario even unbuttons his jacket. Her shriek alerts him to my presence, and I savor his flicker of outrage as he sees his space invaded.

"What the fuck? Rao! Where are you?"

His security guard is long gone. I would have killed Rao if I needed to, but he took one look at the mask and scars and let my reputation as an avenging ghost scare him off, making the sign of the cross as he went.

Rosario is rich but not important in the organization. He's not offered protection, so he has to hire them from outside brokers. That desperation for more was why he was stupid enough to make his move against me. With me gone and my father without an heir, it was his best chance to grab real power from the head of the Gemelli's.

But is it any surprise the dumb fuck still failed?

"Rosario," his wife screeches as she tries to jump behind him, but he makes no grand attempt to protect her. Her shoulder sticks out despite him being four times her size.

"Go get help, Lia." He pushes her back toward the door as he pulls a gun out of his waistband with a shaky hand.

"Lia," I say calmly. "I'd like you to go upstairs, please."

Rosario goes to flip on the lights, but I've cut the power. The fire illuminates our silhouettes, my mask, and the odd angle of my right arm.

"Who are you?" His voice shakes. Rosario is number eleven, and I'm sure he's heard about the gruesome way all his friends have died. A satisfied smile pulls up my cheek on one side. The fact he hasn't pulled that trigger means he's as stupid as Rao. He believes I'm a ghost.

Why try to shoot what's already dead?

"I think you know." These words have passed my lips eleven times in the last two years, a part of my ritual that never disappoints. Every last one of them have understood what it meant when I came for them.

Lia whimpers. My ghost story is well known in certain circles, with my name spoken in whispers leading up to funerals and talks about who my ghost might be coming for next—all of them.

"Please don't hurt us!" she cries in both their defense, but Rosario says nothing, the color draining from his weathered face. He's aged hard in these last two years, and I can only hope it's his fear and guilt weighing on him.

"Lia, I have no reason to hurt you. Please go upstairs, and we won't have any problems."

It's a lie that I have no reason to hurt her. It would probably feel great. She reminds me of the last traitor who needs to die, with long blonde hair only a shade lighter than Tatiana's and silvery-blue eyes like hers too. I shake my head; she's not my little backstabber. She's innocent.

For two years I've been obsessed with my list, my revenge, but most of all with the girl who flirted and chased me just to help kill me. My desire to end this, to see her hurt and bleeding, grows exponentially with every kill. The bitch is next, and that's as close to comfort as I have.

"What about him?" Lia asks, snapping me back to the present and the task at hand. Her bravery, youth, and beauty don't belong in this house caught between an old fucking man and a monster, and I've never enjoyed killing the innocent. My growing craving for it disturbs me.

"I think you should be more worried about what will happen to you if you don't go upstairs." I lift the hatchet. The blade holds a freshly sharpened edge, but blood stains the handle deeply.

She looks at it for one second, considering what disregarding my request will mean for her, then nods before clasping her hands together.

"Thank you, Dante. Thank you!"

Despite never meeting, she knows the stories well enough to call me by name. That's good. Rosario worried over me and the fate I would bring him enough to confide in her. My ghost cost him sleep.

She attempts to run toward the stairs, but Rosario's ring-covered hand strikes her across the cheek, knocking her to the ground. Her blonde hair splays out in front of her as she comes to a stop a few feet from the bottom step.

Rosario grunts in wordless outrage, stepping toward her like he might further prevent her escape. What kind of a man gets angry that his wife wants to save her own life? What a miserable fucking coward.

I've never loved anyone, and scarcely remember the feeling of having a family, but had I stood in a similar position with my mother or sister, the second they were gone would have been a great relief. Those feelings are foreign now, buried beneath my scars and a life of solitude and grotesque violence. Cleaving Rosario apart will be the best night I've had in a while.

"Touch her again, and I'll kill you slower," I taunt from my spot on the settee, cutting his approach short. This time she crawls away on all fours, not regaining her footing until she's on the third step. There's nothing more to say until she disappears, and I imagine Tatiana crawling away in a similar fashion.

"Was it worth it?" I ask, turning back to Rosario. What has he told himself about his choices over the past two years?

His plan hasn't gone as he expected; he never took that power my absence might have allowed him, and now he's about to pay for his crimes against me without ever having tasted true victory. It's so sad I would laugh if those muscles and chords still worked.

He takes two steps back, edging toward the door.

"Don't run, Rosario. It will only excite me." My cock hangs between my legs, all but useless in the years I've spent seeking my revenge, but I'm a predator and this is the closest thing to physical satisfaction left for me.

He spins on his heel, rushing out of the house with his designer shoes slapping the paving stones of the walkway. I give him a second before I follow, knowing I'll catch him much too fast if I don't. Ending it too soon only means less fun for me.

"Dear God, help me!" Rosario's scream rips the night apart, high-pitched in his terror. His arm moves in a familiar pattern—the sign of the cross.

I might be a demon but not the kind you can send back to hell with a prayer. Too bad he's too superstitious and stupid to simply use that gun. Bleeding and dying are about the only human things I'm still capable of.

He runs across the property so slowly I think he's fucking with me, but his panting reveals his effort. Every creature values its own life to some extent. Most things will run if you chase them, even allowing for how drunk and miserably out of shape he is.

He occasionally glances over his shoulder as he huffs, finding me behind him every time. Each flash of his fear fills me with joy, and when he runs just a little faster? Near comic perfection. He stumbles as my ax swings in a slow rhythm. His feet catch on some roots and rocks, and he belly flops against the ground.

The wet grass surrounding him acts like a slip-n-slide, launching him ten feet ahead as he skids painfully. He gets even less assistance from the muddy ground as he tries to push back to his feet and leaves one of his dress shoes stuck in the mud. The intermittent October storms have soaked the entire area. Fortunately for me, I wear boots, but I still give him the time he needs to get back on his feet and convince himself he might get away.

He's forty feet ahead when he reaches the corn maze and ducks inside. Farmland surrounds his entire property: an apple orchard on the far end and pumpkins between. His gasp of relief echoes. He thinks he has a chance. His hope makes this so much more delicious, but this is where I really have my fun.

Finally picking up my pace, I turn into the maze, the promise of the hunt overwhelming my sense of theatrics. He's easy to track, heavy footed and panting. He assumes he has an edge on me inside this maze, but I took a few turns through every inch of his property, acquainting myself as I planned my attack.

Letting him think he's got the lead, I follow closely. He starts to believe he's somewhere deep in that maze and far from me, but I'm never more than a turn behind. As he reaches the end, he slows and finally stops running, assuming I'm lost. Deep breaths fill his aching lungs. He might say they're burning, but he doesn't understand the definition of the word.

Counting to ten, I wait for the hungry beast inside me to take control of my body. Feeding that demon grows more difficult by the day, and I can't spare any of this meal.

"Thank you, God," Rosario says—What better sign could I ask for?

My hatchet swings.

Multiple stalks of corn fall in a row, ending with my blade sinking deep into his shoulder. The wet crunch predates his scream by a half second. I waited about that long to start screaming, too, when I burned.

The night comes alive as it increases in volume and timbre. My chest fills with dark satisfaction. The loneliness and isolation—my constant companions—move aside as his inevitable death approaches. His end, his suffering, they're everything.

Stepping over the downed stalks, I come to stand above him. My hand slips into my jacket, finding the old pocket watch my grandfather gave me before he died. Flipping open the cover, I check the time. Eighteen minutes…. That's how long I burned, and how long I like to make them bleed.

His expression twists as he cries. His position feels familiar, much like when I woke up alone in a hospital hundreds of miles from home. When I hoped to call my parents and someone delivered my obituary instead.

My hatchet collides with his outer thigh, splitting apart his flesh and revealing the bone beneath. His pathetic cries are the catchiest tune, and I lose myself as I fall into them.

My family already considered me dead while I was fighting for my life—just like Rosario. He's dead no matter how he cries. He waits and hopes for anyone to help him—just like I waited months for my father to do anything about the death of his only son. My relief never came, and neither will Rosario's. My father's face appears between us, and I swing again, taking the whole leg this time. There was no vengeance for me.

Rosario begs for the life he signed away two years ago and screams for the pain to stop, not realizing the two requests can never align. If he lived, his life would be pain. He prays but doesn't pull the trigger, entirely forgetting he has a gun. Our own minds can be our greatest weakness. His faith in God is proving a strong second.

Thick metallic blood permeates the air, fills my nose, and coats my tongue as Rosario seeps into the dirt beneath us.

"You never told me if it was worth it," I remind him as I swing again, taking his arm clean off, but the force drives the blade into the dirt beneath him— shit .

Fat blubbering tears slip down his cheeks. His mouth opens and closes as he gulps, but he doesn't answer. Tired of waiting, I wrench the blade back and forth to dislodge it from the ground.

"Was it fucking worth it, you old bitch?"

"No, no, no, may God forgive me," he whimpers.

"There is no fucking God, you pathetic idiot!"

My shout draws a flash from a window in the house—someone opening a curtain to look. I've got an audience, but is it the housekeeper, his wife, or both?

"I'm not a ghost. I'm not dead. It's simple—I am man-made revenge." One more swing. Wet flesh parted, flashes of organs gleam under the moon, another sprinkle of encroaching rain. "Crafted by your own fucking hands." Hands scattered at his sides rather than attached.

He never answers. The night is devoid of screams. No more cries, not even from the women watching in the distance. Finally, number two on my list is dead at my feet.

Heavy breaths stretch the still aching skin of my chest, and the fire that nearly took my life two years ago roars in my mind. Shots of adrenaline pump through my system, dulling the pain around the edges but urging me to fight. Heavy swings continue to fall as I cut him down into smaller, gooier bits. Recognition of who he once was is gone, and nothing satisfies me anymore, not the blood, not his death.

Nothing.

There's fucking nothing.

Impotent rage fills me, possesses me, and I'm desperate to swing my hatchet into living flesh again. Rosario isn't the answer anymore. He's nothing but mush, and I want another living soul to cleave apart. My breath sticks as my throat and lungs close on phantom smoke. I consider going back into the house to have some fun with the wife who resembles Tatiana, but that's not enough to take her life.

Being a monster doesn't make me evil, so I don't act on those urges.

My boots squelch against the tacky blood-mud slurry as I move in a circle around him like a carrion bird: desperate, hungry, aching. Those winged beasts will be here in the morning to pick him over, unless his wife calls for help. Hopefully she's too afraid and his carcass feeds the animals until Rao summons up the nerve to return.

Finding the phone Rosario dropped as he ran—possibly calling for help—I dial a number I know by heart.

Each time I kill one of them, I call my father.

The phone rings and rings, then, finally, he answers.

"Hello? Rosario?" he asks with an annoyed tone. Rosario is a nobody who knows better than to call him this late.

Silence.

"Rosario? What the fuck do you want?"

There's a long pause before he speaks again, a tremor in his voice this time. "Is it you?"

I nod, but he doesn't see.

"Is he dead? How many more of my men are you planning to kill? You're going to tell me who you are."

I hang up the phone.

He can pretend he doesn't know, but he does. My ghost still haunts this world, and he'll suffer for what he did until he dies. Killing my father isn't part of my plans, though. Life will be more of a hardship for him.

Now that Rosario is dead, I only have Tatiana left.