Page 1 of Dark Encounter
Chapter 1
Erik
Death was inevitable.
It clung to me like a well-worn coat, the stench of it all over me no matter how hard I scrubbed my skin each night. It was my lot in life, my birthright.
"Please God! Please. Please don't. I'll do anything." The older man in front of me was on his knees, tears dripping down his face. There wasn't much he wouldn't give up to save him and his family.
"The time is over for negotiations, Samuel. You know that." I pulled on a thick black glove and stared into his face. My father had taught me as a boy to confront my fears, to slay my demons. Watching and coveting each emotion before death was my punishment. My dreams would haunt me later that night, my days melting into weeks and weeks into years of nothing but beautiful death.
"Can I fuck the old lady?" Kane's voice rose up behind me, and I shrugged.
"I don't care what you do with her. She was as involved as Samuel here was."
"No!" Samuel pulled himself to his knees, which garnered him a pop in the face. "Please. Leave her be. She had no part in it."
I hit him again, breaking his nose. "You lying is only going to make things worse."
He gagged and turned, vomiting something putrid on the ground behind him as I pulled on my other glove slowly, methodically.
The shrill screams behind me blended into the ether becoming nothing more than a hum. I'd heard them far too many times in my life to pay them any attention. The lesson was straight forward.
You fuck with the devil; you pay his bill when it comes due.
"Erik. Please. You know me." Samuel turned and wiped his sleeve over his arm as I popped one of my ear buds in and then the other.
Classical music filled my ears, leaving my heart light and unburdened. "Can't hear you, old friend."
I lifted my gun and nodded toward the ground.
He mouthed a few more cries; his begging lost to me. Nothing would retract the hit my father had put on the old man's head. He was our broker, the one who helped my father put himself back together after the death of my mother. He was once important, family.
That all changed the day he decided to start slipping a few bills in his own pocket. I was shocked my father had let it go that far.
Pressing the gun to his head, I pulled the trigger twice and turned, making my way to the bedroom. Kane had Lana pressed to the bed, her legs spread wide as he drilled into her. I tapped his shoulder and gave him a look as she screamed in horror.
"You're taking too long, asshole." I turned put two bullets in her head too before chuckling and walking back through the house. A picture here and there had Samuel's arm wrapped around my father's broad shoulders. One caught my eye, and I pulled it from the wall, taking it with me as I walked calmly out of the house.
How anyone could ever love a man like my father was beyond me. He was the kingpin of our syndicate, and the evilest mother fucker ever to walk the earth.
His black eyes bore into me as I lifted the picture up and walked to the car, resting against it while I waited for Kane. There was truly no getting into my old man's heart. Maybe once, but not after losing my mother and then my sister, Delaney.
He was dead to the world, and his pain was only buffered by the inflicting of horror and pain on someone else.
"I fucking hate you sometimes." Kane pushed me in the chest as I pulled off my earbuds.
"Sorry? Were you mumbling something?" I tucked them into my pocket and pulled off my gloves, watching him intently. "Did you fuck her after I killed her?"
"What? No." He popped me in the chest, and I reached out, striking him in the face like a viper might.
"Hit me again, and I'll make sure to drop your ugly ass on top of her corpse before I drive off." I narrowed my eyes a little, and he lifted his hands and backed off.
"Fuck. I was just kidding, Erik. Damn. You're extra sensitive today. Get some pussy and call me in the morning." He flipped me off and walked toward the road.
"It's ten miles back to the house," I called after him, but only got another finger in response.
Good. The last thing I wanted to do was drive home with him blabbering in my ear about some new girl he met. If the poor whore only knew who she was sleeping with, she'd fall over dead. Kane was vile, dark, lost. He'd lived a life of physical and mental abuse for years before my father pulled his ass from the hole he was in.
