Mafia King's Contract Breeder

Lara POV

The van’s headlights carved the tunnel into something out of hell. Sickly white, throwing every shadow into sharp relief.

"Oh my God." I pressed a hand over my mouth and nose.

Bodies. Everywhere. Dark pools spreading into the concrete, still growing.

And in the middle of it, Emmanuel Sagres. Suit soaked through, dark and wet, a grin on his face that had nothing sane left in it as he drove his knife into the man lunging towards him.

He looked like some kind of bloodthirsty vampire, still elegant even as he reaped lives.

Unbreakable.

Invincible.

Something twisted in my chest, watching him. I was terrified. Horrified.

And under those, something I didn’t want to name. Something that looked, God help me, like awe.

How could I think that?

He was a murderer. However he framed it—business, war, necessity—men were dead at his feet because he’d put them there.

Vienna rushed over to his side.

I climbed out of the van and froze immediately.

The smell hit me before the sight fully registered. Copper, thick enough to taste. My stomach churned.

I smothered a gag, pressing myself back against the side of the van, clutching onto the gun that Vienna had given me for dear life.

Before I could gain back a shred of composure, something cold like a zombie’s claw wrapped around my ankle.

I shrieked, kicking back.

An assassin lay across my path, not quite gone yet. Bloodshot eyes focused on me from behind a black mask with the deadly intent of a man used to killing.

My arm lifted instantly. I pulled the trigger.

I saw the deadly intent disappear from the assassin’s eyes like a light going out, leaving only blankness.

"Oh God...I killed someone..." I heard myself say.

My head was spinning. My body felt as though I was submerged in ice, the sounds of voices all came from far away.

Some part of me knew that they were there, but it was all too much for me to process. I staggered back and threw up all over the blood soaked concrete.

"Lara."

I looked up, my eyes watering, to find that Emmanuel had made his way through the pile of bodies to loom over me. The manic smile had disappeared from his face, replaced by something that could almost be called soft.

He tugged me into the van and closed the door, cutting off the sight of bodies, the stench of blood.

Emmanuel unscrewed a bottle of water and pressed it into my hand. He smoothly took the gun from my stiff fingers and replaced it with the bottle.

"Drink."

I rinsed out my mouth on automatic.

"You did very well, Lara," Emmanuel said softly. "Impressive reflexes."

I stared at him, the words landing somewhere between my ribs. A compliment from the Devil himself. The man whose initial assessment of me was ’healthy, reasonably attractive body’.

Figures that the way to get a compliment from him was by committing murder.

A hysterical little sound bubbled out of my throat.

Oh God. Oh God...what had I gotten myself into...

Emmanuel lifted his hand as though to touch my cheek, but then he paused, seeing that his hands were streaked with blood and dirt. He opened another bottle of water, cleaning his hands with a handkerchief.

"Sir—" The van door slid open and Vienna’s face appeared.

"Get out," Emmanuel said, his voice clipped. "Finish the clean up so we can get back to the Tower. Take all the bodies with us. I will be out shortly."

"Yes, sir," Vienna answered meekly. "But you’re injured, sir— your shoulder—"

She looked at him with concern before her shoulders slumped like a drooping willow.

"The first aid kit is under the front seat," she added, then closed the van door again.

"You’re hurt?" I turned back, really looking at Emmanuel for the first time.

He was so covered in blood that I had not realized that it was not just the blood of his enemies. He held himself no differently, spoke just as evenly as usual.

"Mmm." Emmanuel hummed lightly, easing off the dark suit jacket that disguised blood so well and tossed it into a plastic bag.

I scanned him and honed in on the gash opening his shoulder, deep enough that the shirt around it had gone black.

I sucked in a sharp breath at how deep the gash ran.

In that first moment that the van rolled into the tunnel, he looked invincible. Now that he was so close, under the dim, yellow lights on the inside of the van, that invincible aura that surrounded him thinned out. I could see how pale he was, and it gave me an irrational burst of fear.

"I know first aid," I said, the cold stiffness that held me in its grip thawing as I propelled myself into motion again. "Let me help you with that."

I fumbled the first aid kit open, hands not quite steady, and started on the buttons of his ruined shirt—trying to peel it back without dragging the fabric across the wound.

The knife flashed silver.

I flinched back.

But all that happened was a wet rip as Emmanuel cut his right sleeve clean off.

A smirk touched his lips.

I swallowed heavily as I leaned forward, pressing the gauze into his arm, trying to stop the bleeding.

"You can press harder than that," Emmanuel said.

"Does—doesn’t it hurt?"

"I’m used to it." He glanced down as though he did not much care, then back to my face.

It didn’t stop right away. I held pressure anyway, both hands stacked over the pad, the way I vaguely remembered from some first aid pamphlet years ago. Blood welled up warm around my fingers regardless.

I looked away.

"Are people always trying to kill you?" I asked, voice low.

"I have...persistent enemies." He tilted his head. "But you needn’t worry. I am quite capable of protecting you — at least, if you actually stay where I tell you to."

"I’m not afraid," I protested at once, bristling.

I peeled the soaked gauze away and got my first real look at the cut, which was deep, clean-edged, longer than my palm.

I gagged uncontrollably again.

Emmanuel let out a laugh.

"You clearly cannot stomach this," he said lightly. "And there is no need for you to be part of this, quite the opposite."

Holding my breath, I pulled the wound’s edges together as gently as I could manage and pressed the strips across, one after another, closing the gash in small, careful increments.

"I don’t like this," I admitted, "...but I don’t like being kept cooped up in a cage any better."

"One cannot always have everything they like..." Emmanuel murmured.

Glaring at him, I found the antiseptic in the kit and poured it over the wound without warning.

Emmanuel didn’t so much as wince, only the skin around his eyes tightening slightly.

What I had witnessed tonight was not a mafia gang fight. No way. I knew what that was like, shots fired across the street along with loud curses. People died too, but compared to the bloodbath out there, that was child’s play.

I remembered the skull mounted on his bedroom wall. The first man he killed, he said, when he was only fourteen. At the time, I thought he was monstrous. Seeing this, tonight, made me wonder if it could have been self-defense.

The thought distracted me as I tied the bandage, so much that I was startled when Emmanuel said, sharply, "What is that?"

I looked down at the little bow I had tied over his upper arm.

It was so out of place on the brooding, blood-stained mafia boss that I almost laughed.

"I, um—" I said, straight-faced. "That’s the only way I know how to tie it."

Emmanuel stonily tucked the edges of the bow into the side of the bandage to hide it.

"Stay here," he ordered, and got out of the van again.

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