14. Chapter 14 Dante

Chapter 14 Dante

T he stale air reeks of copper and fear, the floor painted in shades of agony only I can conjure. Vito Rizzo kneels before me, his $10,000 suit ripped and stained crimson, Armani reduced to a abstract monument to my rage. He should have known better than to cross me.

His mistake…

"Please, Dante," Vito wheezes, bloodied spittle dotting his chin. "It was just business. Let me make amends - I'll give you double the territory, triple the cut. Your own private island to rule however you want!"

The sheer nerve of this weasel - as if there's any corner of this world I don't already own. I crouch, bringing us eye to eye, watching him flinch away from whatever he sees swirling in my gaze.

"You know, Vito, most men grovel so prettily when they realize their 'business' has earned them a first-class ticket to hell." I reach out, smearing his tears with the pad of my thumb. "But you? You still think you have cards left to play. How...quaint."

His body wracks with fresh sobs as I rise, brushing invisible lint off my sleeves - a picture of elegant violence. I can almost hear puzzlement oozing from him, a silent plea for mercy. As if he ever showed that courtesy to the women he trafficked, the souls he crushed beneath his Ferragamos.

"Oh Vito," I sigh, letting disappointment color my tone. "If you'd kept your sins to extortion and drug peddling, we wouldn't be here. But you just had to start trading flesh like cattle, staining my streets with your filth."

I let that hang in the air, the damning truth that will haunt him into oblivion. Fury uncoils in my guts, a cobra preparing to strike. No one peddles human misery in my city. Not without paying the price in blood.

"Boss?" Alonzo's gruff baritone cuts through my musings. "How do you want to handle the clean-up?"

I glance back at him, his hulking frame nearly blocking the exit. Like a good dog, always awaiting my command. But I'm not done toying with my prey.

"Leave him." I flick an imperious hand at the quivering sack of shit before me. "Let him live long enough to comprehend his folly. To realize that every scream, every shattered bone was a choice."

I lean close one last time, breathing in the stench of voided bowels and fear-sweat. "Savor your last moments, Vito. Reflect on your sins. But know that when your time comes - and it will come - I'll be there to welcome you to hell personally."

Then I'm striding away, Alonzo falling into step like a loyal shadow. I can't linger, not when a far sweeter prize awaits, trussed and trembling in her gilded cage. My Natalie. The only soul as fractured and hungry as my own.

She haunts me with every breath, the dark chaos of her gift clinging to my blackest fantasies. I see her in the spray of gore on tile, the velvet caress of a freshly sharpened blade. A poisonous flower I'll pluck again and again, until the fatal beauty of her ruin is seared into eternity.

"Alonzo, have Doc waiting on standby," I call over my shoulder, my mind already ten steps and two schemes ahead. "Once Vito slips into the abyss, I want every inch of him violated. Let's give his famiglia something truly unforgettable to dredge from the river."

My consigliere grunts assent, busy barking orders into his cell. Ever the efficient machine, my Alonzo. But all other matters fall to static as the elevator zooms me closer to her - my darkest muse, my twisted seductress.

Shadowcrest is cloaked in shadow, a subtly shifting chiaroscuro of desires best left unspoken. Natalie stands at the window, her silhouette like some tragic heroine painted in shades of yearning and dread. I stalk closer, savoring her tension, the ripple of barely leashed defiance she wears like a shield.

"Still trying to will yourself wings?" I ask, coming to rest a hairsbreadth from her back, caging her in with my presence. "We both know you're exactly where you belong. Where you've always belonged."

She whirls to face me, disgust and desire warring in the thundercloud of her gaze. "And where's that, Dante?" she hisses. "Under your boot? Collared and chained to the foot of your bed?"

The image hits me like a shot of raw lust, searing and visceral. I crowd closer, pinning her against the glass with the hard lines of my body.

"Oh no, my wicked girl. Mere restraints could never hold a creature like you." I breathe the words into the hollow of her throat, tasting her pulse flutter wildly beneath my lips. "You'll kneel for me of your own twisted accord. You'll beg so sweetly for me to ruin you, knowing it's the only way you'll ever feel whole."

She shudders, caught between revulsion and that traitorous heat I can smell rising from her skin. It calls to me, that ghostly bouquet of hatred and hunger. I want to roll in it, let it seep into my lungs until she's all I breathe.

"Keep dreaming, you psychotic fuck," Natalie snarls, but the blow is softened by the audible hitch in her voice. "I'll die before I ever beg for you."

"Brave words from a little raven backed into a corner," I chuckle darkly. My hands skim her curves, seeking skin and finding flimsy cotton instead. "But bravery and stupidity are often confused. Care to guess which one you're exercising now?"

She tries to twist away with an affronted hiss, but I anchor her in place with bruising fingers. Leaning close, I let my next words drip like honey into the shell of her ear.

"I have a surprise for you, moy voronenok. A little reminder of what happens to those who forget their place."

On cue, a sharp rap sounds at the door. I feel Natalie freeze, a rabbit who's scented the wolf pack circling near.

"Ah, and here it is now. Shall we greet our guests, sweet Natalie?"

I don't wait for a response, dragging her down the hall with measured ruthlessness. In the foyer, Alonzo waits with Marco and his delivery - two bound figures who reek of the fighting pits, their bloodied hoods leaving no question as to their occupations or fates.

"As requested, Boss," Marco says, shoving the captives to their knees. "Fresh from the Petrov's kennels."

Beside me, my dark seraphim has gone pale as chalk, horror and understanding blooming like black roses across her face.

"Dante..." Her voice trembles, a broken chord in the taut, awful silence. "What have you done?"

"No more than what is necessary. You need to remember, moy voronenok - this is my world, my rules. And all who defy me will be made to regret it."

With a snap of my fingers, the prisoners' shrouds are ripped away, revealing faces turned ghastly in the low light. One gazes up at us with resignation, dark eyes hollowed by too many blows to the head. The other, a shaggy blond brute, bares his teeth like a rabid beast, spitting curses in guttural Russian.

"Filthy swine!" he slurs, straining against his bonds. "I'll piss on your grave, you arrogant сука!"

I release Natalie long enough to crouch before this belligerent mongrel, my blood humming with a familiar dark thrill. "You kiss your mother with that mouth? Or is she too busy walking the streets for food scraps?"

The insult earns me a bestial roar as the Russian lunges for me, his chains snapping taut. I laugh, cold and pitiless.

"You Petrov lackeys are all the same - too stupid to know when you're beaten. But don't worry, мудак. I'm going to educate you on what real submission looks like."

I rise, letting menace roll off me in palpable waves. Glancing back at my shell-shocked queen, I beckon her forward with a crook of my finger.

"Come, moy voronenok. It's time for you to see the fate of all who cross me. The symphony of screams I can conduct with just a flick of my wrist."

Natalie remains rooted in place, defiance and dread warring across her exquisite features. I sigh, affecting a pout.

"Don't make me tell you twice, sweet thing. You know how I hate to be disobeyed."

Slowly, she inches closer, each step heavy with the weight of understanding. Good. Let the lesson sink bone-deep.

I reach for her, dragging her tight to my side, relishing the way she fits against me even as she tries to cringe away.

"Now, zaichik, let's play a little game, shall we?" I purr, staring down the blond thug whose spewing vitriol has escalated to a froth.

"You get to choose which piece the good D'yadya here loses first - an ear, a finger, or perhaps those insolent blue eyes?"

Natalie quakes like a leaf, strangled sounds of negation lodged in her throat. I tighten my grip, fingers biting into her tender flesh hard enough to mottle.

"Tick tock, solnyshko. If you don't decide, I will. And trust me..." I flash her a smile as cutting as the blades strapped to my forearms. "I won't be nearly as merciful as you."

Tears track slowly down her cheeks, each one a glittering testament to the fragile fissures spiderwebbing her resolve. I hunger to lick them from her skin, savor the salt-sting of her dawning capitulation.

"Please, Dante," she whispers, barely audible above the Russian's raggedly barking. "You don't have to do this. You've already proven your point a thousand times over."

I tut, catching her chin in an iron grip, forcing her to meet my fathomless gaze.

"Oh, but I do, Natalie. You still don't comprehend the depths of my depravity. The endless lengths I will go to to secure my kingdom." I lean in, ghosting my lips across the trembling seam of her mouth. "And you, my wicked jewel, are the crowning glory in my dark realm. A glory I will slaughter a thousand men to keep."

She shudders, eyelids fluttering shut as if to block out the sinister promise of my words. I chuckle, releasing her to stalk towards my captives, allowing the unhinged glee to bleed fully into my expression.

"Since my love is too soft-hearted to decide, I guess I'll have to improvise. Alonzo, pass me those pliers. Let's see how loud a mutt can yelp when you start pulling teeth."

The next minutes pass in a red blur of muffled screaming and wet, crunching sounds. I lose myself to the familiar dance of violence, a crimson-spattered valse where I am both composer and conductor.

By the time I step back to admire my grisly handiwork, the Russian is more gore than man, his shattered jaw hanging askew as he gurgles on his own blood. I feel Natalie's stare like a brand between my shoulders, disgust and reluctant fascination singes me to the marrow.

Turning to face her, I spread my arms wide, viscera dripping from my fingers to stain the plush carpets below. Her horrified gaze rakes over me, drinking in every lurid detail of the beautiful carnage I've wrought.

"This is who I am, Natalie," I rasp, letting her see the unholy rapture thrumming through my veins, the sickness that blackens my soul. "This is the beast whose bed you warm, the monster who will one day sire your children. Tell me, Moya Koroleva... do you still think you can deny me?"

I extend a blood-drenched hand, a perverse invitation to the infernal waltz that will define our entwined eternities. Natalie hesitates for a breathless moment, revulsion and that ever-present, insidious heat warring behind her blown-black eyes.

Then, with a muted sob that sounds like the sweetest surrender, she places her trembling fingers in mine, the blood squelching obscenely between our skin.

I grin, feral and victorious, tugging her to me until our lips hover a hairsbreadth apart.

"That's my good girl," I croon, nipping the words into her quivering mouth. "My obedient little pawn, so ripe for ruination. Now come, moy dragotsennyy..."

I lead her down the hall, back towards the velvet shadows of my bedroom, my blood singing with the thrill of a battle hard- won. There will be more wars to come, more of her walls for me to demolish brick by stubborn brick.

But tonight, with the moon staining crimson and my enemies' anguish still ringing in my ears, I will remind Natalie of her place, the throne of thorns and obsidian that awaits only her.

And when she's panting my name, nails scoring furrows into my sweat-slicked back as I drill my dominion into her very bones, I'll swallow each broken moan, glutting myself on the honeyed depravity of her shattered cries.

For I am her king, her cruel god.

And in the end, she'll always kneel.