Taming Seraphine

LEROI

I thought I knew what I was getting into when I rescued the frail blonde girl from the Capello basement, but the extent of Seraphine’s trauma goes deeper than her imprisonment and the abuse suffered at the hands of her own family.

Now I understand why she lashed out at Monica. Two women she loved were murdered. The rage and hopelessness that must have built up over the years had to be unbearable. Dredging up a memory like that would drive anyone to violence.

My arms slip free from around her shoulders, and she rises from the chair to walk around the table.

“Wait,” I say.

Her steps falter, but she doesn’t turn to meet my gaze.

“Did Capello ever explain his actions?”

She casts me a sidelong glance over her shoulder. “The dead man was our bodyguard, Raphael.”

I nod, my brows furrowing, already suspecting where this is going. “So Capello found out he was having an affair with your mother. How?”

“Dad needed a liver transplant, and he had us both tested. When my DNA didn’t match his, he tested Raphael’s against mine, and found out that Mom had been unfaithful.”

Shit

Without another word, Seraphine crosses the living room and disappears behind her door.

She feels responsible for involving her grandmother into this mess, so much so that she’s prepared to slam her own head into the table.

I round the table, wishing once again that I had taken my time killing Capello and his sons. The man’s sickness extends far deeper than that of the usual mafia boss. It’s the first time I’ve heard of a man willing to use his own children as a source of organ transplant.

“Seraphine?” I knock on the door.

She doesn’t answer.

“I’m coming in.” I pull down the handle and slip inside.

She lies face-down on her bed with her blonde locks spread across the pillow like a halo. The sight of her delicate figure trembling with sobs pulls at the withered fibers of my heart.

“What happened to your nanna wasn’t your fault,” I say.

As expected, she doesn’t respond.

“Promise me something,” I say.

Her head twitches.

“Promise me you won’t hurt yourself,” I say, my voice tight. “That you’ll save all your hurt and anger for the men who did this.”

She doesn’t move, not even to nod, so I lower myself onto the edge of her bed. “Look at me.”

She flinches at the command.

“Now.”

She turns onto her side and gazes up at me through blood-shot eyes. They’re the only sign on her features that she’s upset. I expect Seraphine has learned to hide her emotions as a form of self-preservation.

“I forbid you to inflict any pain, whether direct or indirect on yourself, is that understood?” I snarl.

Seraphine gives me a soft nod.

“Do you have any weapons hidden in your room?”

Her eyes narrow.

“Tell me.”

She reaches underneath her pillow and extracts a long, thin blade.

“Where did you get that?” I ask.

“From one of the men I killed,” she mumbles.

“Is there anything else?” I ask.

She hesitates.

I know why. It’s because she doesn’t feel safe. After what happened here with Billy Blue, I’m not surprised she’s always on alert. I could turn the room upside-down, but that would resolve nothing. If she’s ever going to break out of her compulsion to kill, she’s going to need to trust me to keep her safe.

“If I promised not to allow anyone to enter this apartment, would you hand over the rest of your weapons?”

She nods.

I rise off the bed and crouch beside it to look her in the eye. “Nobody but you and me will ever step through the front door without your express permission.”

“Alright,” she says, her soft voice a balm on my heart.

“Gather the rest of the weapons you’ve hidden.” I step back, letting her rise off the bed.

Seraphine slips a hand beneath the mattress and pulls out an ice pick. My jaw clenches, but I remain silent as she extracts an array of items she duct taped beneath the bed.

“Is that all of them?” I ask.

She nods.

“There will be consequences if you’re hiding anything else.”

I glare down at her for several heartbeats, drilling the message into her skull. If she were any other woman, I would treat her with a little more tenderness, but Seraphine is a potential trip to the electric chair wrapped up in an innocent little package. She bows her head and lowers her lashes, which I take as a sign of her submission.

“Promise me you won’t hurt yourself again.” I lift her chin, making her look me in the eyes.

“Promise me you’ll help me find Gabriel,” she says.

“Do you remember the man who removed your collar?” At her nod, I add, “He’s pulling together information on Capello’s drivers and bodyguards. At least one of them will lead us to your brother.”

Hope shines in her blue eyes, but the rest of her features remain stoic.

“I won’t be able to rest until I kill each of those men,” she says, her voice tightening with determination.

“Of course,” I say with a nod.

Her eyes widen. “You’d let me hurt them?”

“Do you think putting those demons to rest will stop you from lashing out?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll help you kill every one of those bastards who assaulted your mother.”

Her jaw clenches. “I don’t need your help.”

I chuckle, because I know she doesn’t. She killed eight men in my apartment right under my nose. “Not with the stabbing part, but you’ll need me to help track them down, break and enter their homes, and to leave no traces at the crime scene.”

She swallows, looking like she’s about to argue, but I add, “You only got away with that little massacre because one of the assholes in our poker crew was smoking something stronger than weed. We’d drunk several bottles of whiskey and were fucked out of our minds. If more than one of us had been awake⁠—”

“Fine,” she spits. “We’ll do it your way.”

I nod. “And you will learn how to kill without making a mess.”

Her nostrils flare as though she finds my commentary on her methods an affront.

“Clean kills are what keep us away from getting caught and sentenced to death.”

“But I don’t want them to die slowly.”

“Then we’ll take precautions.”

Her lips part as though to ask a question, but the doorbell rings. My eyes narrow. Miko lives in the apartment next door, and he always knocks.

“Wait here,” I say and guide her toward the bed.

After gathering up her stash of stolen weapons, I place them on the dining table, pick up my phone, and fire up the security app. Whoever is outside has placed a hand over the doorbell camera, hoping to make me think it’s malfunctioning.

Clumsy.

I walk to the door and uncock my pistol. Nobody but Miko visits without arranging it first and even if they did, they would call up via the concierge.

Positioning myself by the wall three feet away from the door, I ask, “Who is it?”

There’s no answer from the other side of the door.

My jaw clenches. There were always going to be repercussions from the poker night massacre, but I didn’t expect it this soon. Don and his team were careful to dispose of all the crew’s cars at various locations around New Alderney, so there wouldn’t be a fleet of abandoned vehicles outside my building.

Miko tampered with as much security footage as he could access, but even his hacking skills have their limits. No amount of technical know-how can erase a man telling a friend or loved one where they’re going.

It’s only a matter of time before someone comes looking.

When the doorbell rings again, my nostrils flare.

Another hitman would judge the distance of my voice, and know I’m not directly behind the door. They would wait until I’m tempted to use the peephole before shooting a round of bullets through the wood.

Raising my voice, I say, “If you don’t tell me who you are, you’ll stand in the hallway all day.”

A feminine giggle sounds behind the door, and my eyes roll. There is such a thing as a female assassin—I might have one in my own home right now. I have two of them working in the firm, a blonde and a brunette, both with a one-hundred percent success rate. They’re beautiful, cunning, and able to get close to even the most reclusive targets because no one ever suspects that the demure, attractive woman is a killer.

“Open the door, Leroi. It’s me,” says a voice that grates on my nerves and not because it belongs to an assassin.

Quite the opposite. This is a woman who likes to be choked. And spanked. And degraded. I didn’t realize she was bad news until after we’d fucked for the sixth time, and I found her snooping through the apartment.

It turned out that she worked for the New Alderney Times, but she refused to confirm whether or not she was writing an article on me or my infamous cousins.

Fuck. “What are you doing here, Rosalind?”

“We haven’t played together for a month.” I don’t even need to look through the peephole to know that she’s pouting. “I’ve missed you.”

I’m not stupid enough to think she’s alone. It’s a classic move in the hitman handbook—using the man’s wife or lover to lure him into opening his door. Except she’s neither, just an irregular hook-up.

“You know better than to come here,” I say.

“Let me in,” she whines. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

The sound of creaking has me turning around. Seraphine stands in the doorway of her room, her features a hard mask.

In her hand is a pistol. “Who the hell is Rosalind?”