Mafia King's Contract Breeder

"That is the way of life."

"It doesn’t have to be!" I argued. My gaze caught on the gleaming steel of the gun at his side. "It could be– better."

"What would you call better?" Emmanuel replied.

"I–" I struggled for the right words, self conscious that I would sound unbearably naive. "It would be better if everyone could be safe. If hard work would make a good living."

That was what I had always wished for my family, what seemed to get further and further away after Dad lost his factory job.

He used to say that after he came home drunk and angry: hard work don’t make no living these days!

Emmanuel Sagres would no doubt laugh in my face about it.

"Mmm," he said thoughtfully, not laughing. "Peace and order."

"Yes."

"Who enforces the peace? Who defines the order?"

Huh.

"...I’m guessing the answer you’re looking for is: you?" I said dryly, pinching my nose.

"It is an open-ended question. But someone must do it. Why should it not be me, rather than my enemies?"

"Decent people don’t have so many enemies," I muttered darkly.

Had he considered what he did first that turned people into his enemies?

"Do you consider yourself ’decent people’?"

"Yes...?" I said.

"I believe that you claimed I am your enemy." He lifted the gun in his hand lazily. "You even went so far as to shoot me."

My mouth opened and closed. The clogs in my brain began to drag like they had rust in them.

Every time I started talking about some deeper topic with Emmanuel, he managed to confuse me until I was not quite sure what point I was originally trying to make, and yet everything he said sounded oddly...reasonable.

"That’s...that’s more of a matter of principle," I said defensively.

Was he still my enemy? Even if he had paid off my Mom, even if he paid me for this contract, money couldn’t wipe clean all the horror he had caused. Then again, he had also shown mercy and patience and protected me when he didn’t need to...

I shook my head before I could spiral too much.

"I mean...what’s your point?"

"Everyone thinks they have the right idea about how the world should work. But only those who are willing to fight for it— to risk danger, violence, and death—" Emmanuel tapped the side of the gun, "—can gain power. And with power comes choice."

"So everyone should fight for what they believe in...?" I frowned.

"Oh dear God, no." Emmanuel barked out a laugh, flashing sharp teeth in the dim light. "Most people’s ideas are stupid. Most people need their decisions made for them."

My frown deepened.

Aha, there it was, the end of the logic trap.

"Spoken like a true tyrant."

Emmanuel smiled.

"You say that like it’s a bad thing..."

"Because it is."

"Because it frightens you," he countered smoothly. "But it doesn’t frighten you because you hate it. It frightens you because you want it."

I looked up sharply.

Emmanuel leaned closer to me, his long shadow falling over me in the flickering candlelight.

"You hide from me. You push me away," he said softly. "But where do you run the moment that you are afraid in the dark, Lara?"

A treacherous thrill ran through my body. My breath hitched without permission, too loud in the silence.

Emmanuel was not touching me, but I was far too aware of the air that hung between us.

"Don’t flatter yourself," I said, as evenly as I could. "I was only looking for a light, not for you."

"If you say so," he said, leaning back and reaching across the coffee table. "Here’s a candle. You can take it back to your room."

He pushed a candle from the cluster in the center to the edge of the coffee table, looking at me expectantly.

I looked at the candle. I didn’t move.

He pulled out his phone, checking his messages with a look of pure focus, as though he did not care either way.

Maybe I didn’t agree with Emmanuel’s view of the world, but his words had a hypnotic charisma that lingered long in my mind. The thought of lying alone in my suite listening to the thunder roll did not appeal so much.

A smirk tugged at the corner of Emmanuel’s mouth when he looked up again.

"Or, if you like," he said lightly, "We could play a game."

"What kind of game?"

Emmanuel put his phone away and pulled open a drawer under the coffee table. He tossed a brand new pack of playing cards on the table.

"What are you good at?" he asked. "Poker? Blackjack?"

I sat back on my heels. My Mom was a chronic gambler, so of course I knew how to play card games well. It was a cheap, reliable source of entertainment in the Brinson household before Mom had gone and gotten hooked on it.

"I’m not playing card games with you," I said warily nevertheless. "I know your reputation. I’ll owe you so much debt by the end of it you’ll collect interest on me just for breathing."

Emmanuel chuckled. He pulled the plastic wrap off the deck of cards and smoothly began to shuffle it, the cards sliding between his hands in a smooth waterfall.

Yeah, he definitely knew how to cheat at cards.

"We don’t need to play for money."

"Then what will we play for?"

"Up to you. You can choose. The game...and the stakes."

I considered it.

Poker was more about strategy and psychology, whereas blackjack was faster, more about luck. Emmanuel Sagres would have an edge where strategy was involved.

"Blackjack, then."

He pushed the deck of cards towards me.

"You can be the dealer."

I took the cards and shuffled them again. Then I dealt both of us the first hand of two cards, one visible, one hidden.

"And the stakes?" Emmanuel asked.

"A question," I said after some thought, "that has to be answered truthfully."

Emmanuel inclined his head.

"Very good terms." He ran his thumb across his hidden card and checked it. "Hold."

My hand was an eight and a seven; fifteen.

"I’ll hit it." I took another card and flipped it over.

Seven again.

I winced. I had gone bust.

Emmanuel turned his hidden card over to reveal an eight and a King.

"Okay," I said. "You can ask me a question."

"Have you had an orgasm since I last touched you?" Emmanuel asked.

I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth, starting to feel as though I had dug my own grave.

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