Page 9

Chapter Nine

CRUE

T wo days and you’re following her again? Pathetic.

This isn’t a hunt anymore. You’re pussy-whipped and you haven’t even gotten to test drive the product. Grow some balls and kill this bitch already!

My inner voice is loud and overbearing. This was bound to happen eventually, but I had hoped it would take a while longer.

“I can’t kill her yet.” Oh, wonderful. Now I’m talking to myself while I meander through the streets of New York.

Matteo’s list is taken care of. Mark saw to it personally. There’s nothing stopping you from finishing this.

“Matteo wants me to break her first.” Arguing with myself over semantics is a new low. But that’s exactly what I’m doing by tailing Fiametta around. I know she’s seen me. I allowed her to, on a few separate occasions, even before I made my first move on her.

By doing that, I’m ensuring I stay at the forefront of her mind. When I’m through with Fiametta Napoli, I’ll be the only thing she thinks about. Mad rambles and panicked outbursts about the beast trying to hurt her will follow, to her father’s great dismay.

And then I’ll kill her.

So, break her faster. Cut off Tomas’s head in front of her. Curb-stomp the ginger firecracker’s skull while she watches from her bedroom window.

Tie her to a street pole and fuck her stupid for all of New York to see.

Just. Finish. It.

My mind is a self-correcting ecosystem. Killing satisfies the darkness inside me. Snuffing out someone else’s flame ignites mine and keeps the shadows at bay. It’s never for long, but any stillness from my own overbearing thoughts provides the clarity I need to stay in control.

Fiametta has changed that. I’ve been slaughtering Lorenzo’s men for over a year, but since Matteo put her in my path, my shadow has grown longer.

Two weeks ago, I was killing on my own terms.

Logic dictated my actions.

I had control.

Now, I won’t get it back until she’s dead.

Unless, Little Flame, you’re the one who will shine brightly enough to cast it away for good.

Little Flame? Cute. You still have to kill her.

“I will.”

Before she ends up killing you .

“What?” I stop in my tracks.

You’re acting all brazen and brash. You’re not giving yourself, her or the goons tailing her time to rest. Keep moving down this road… keep fucking up, and she’s going to be the reason you die.

Hmm. Good point. I’ve been following her for hours today and I haven’t once taken in my surroundings long enough to know where I am. I haven’t given myself an exit strategy for if I get caught, and I won’t know where to run to if they start shooting at me.

The noise in my head, filled with overbearing thoughts and driven by insatiable bloodlust, isn’t helping either.

“Right, time to drown you out,” I grumble and slot a pair of wireless earphones into my ears. I grab my phone and put on some music, before pushing the volume up to max.

Can’t think when I can’t hear my thoughts. With momentary reason restored, I get back to my task. Fiametta and Simone have been walking for hours. Their travels have taken them for lunch at a vegetarian restaurant – Fiametta doesn’t eat meat in any form. Another bleeding-heart tendency, I wonder. Then they moved on to shopping in various stores, and finally they took a stroll in Central Park.

Tomas learned from our escapade in the boutique and has opted to keep some distance from the girls. Not far enough that I can get to her without his noticing, but there’s nowhere near enough space for him to spot me lurking in the distance.

It does make me wonder if others from Lorenzo Napoli’s crew are out and about, too. I’m certain that Fiametta will have given them more information about me, by now. My size, hair and eye color, as well as any other defining features she might have gleaned during our escapade.

She came too close to dying in that changing room, just to make the same mistake of keeping me her dirty little secret.

During our stroll through the park, Fiametta makes another surprising gesture that sends my mind into overdrive. As we break out of the brambles and back into the more manicured park, Simone grabs a stick of gum and plops it into her mouth. While they’re walking and talking, the redhead discards the gum wrapper to the ground without as much as a second glance. But Fiametta notices her friend’s lack of concern for the natural beauty of this place and stops mid-conversation to return for the tiny piece of trash that isn’t going to cause any real harm.

Be the change you wish to see in the world .

Where did that come from?

Fiametta keeps that tiny piece of paper in her palm until they find a trashcan where she can dispose of it properly. An incredibly insignificant action in the grand scheme of world-wide pollution, and yet, it’s part of her morals and she won’t break them, even for a friend.

The more I learn about Fiametta, the harder I’m hit with the realization that we’re at opposite ends of the spectrum. She’s a peace-loving, nature-loving, hippy. She spends her Wednesday nights helping those who suffer, and the rest of her days making money to further that goal. I’m the monster she is protesting against. A greedy, overindulgent killer, who gets off on the sight of blood and loves watching cunts like her dad’s men die. I take what I want. I leave the earth upon which I walk soiled and tainted.

So, how the hell, and out of everyone in New York, is she the one who drives me crazy? Who makes me second guess my very own nature? Who makes it hard to make my kill.

Something deep inside me tells me that I already know the answer. I want nothing more than to believe she is the same cruel, power hungry monster as Lorenzo. As I am. That Fiametta was raised with a silver spoon in her mouth and believes the entire world is a steppingstone to what she wants.

But that’s the furthest thing from the truth. Unless she’s one hell of an actress, Fiametta is kind, happy, and vibrant.

Most of all, Fiametta is innocent.

Her father ordered my mother’s murder, not her. And like that joke I wanted to tell Matteo about how it’s always the women these men love who suffer the harshest consequences, Fiametta Napoli is the next in line, and set up to pay for the sins of her father.

I decide it’s best to cut this short and head back to my apartment to wait for Fiametta and Tomas to do the same. Following her is becoming increasingly challenging with the way she inspires feelings in me, nearly every time we’re out there.

If I want to see this thing through, I can’t keep letting these feelings cloud my judgment. I’ve survived all these years by being tactical and precise. I make moves based on a killer instinct that has never let me down. My cruel inner voice was right about many things, but the most important was that these emotions, infantile as they may seem, will be the death of me if I can’t get a hold of them.

But before I can make my move, I need to know if Fiametta Napoli is a pretty face and fleeting fancy, or if this Little Flame has lit an inferno inside of me.

This settles it.

I’m getting back into her apartment tonight and finding my answer.

If I don’t like what I find, I’m finishing this job for good.