Chapter 4 Kill Em With Kindness

• SEVYN
• My mother was improving but my finances weren’t.
• They had found a donor and hearts didn’t come cheap. The specialist had handed me the invoice and my eyes bugged out.
• $1, 878 994.00!
• Almost two million freakin’ dollars!
• After seeing that hospital bill, I also needed a heart transplant.
• The cost of the heart transplant was not just the actual procedure. Many different factors came into play. Tests, consultations with heart specialists, and other hidden costs. Finding and transporting the heart to the hospital and aftercare as well as the lifelong necessary medication. We had maxed out the insurance, it was cash payments from here on.
• Where would I get the money?
• I had to find it somehow or my mom would die.
• My father had disappeared too and I feared the worst. Or maybe he took a leaf out of his best friend’s book and ran. The housekeeper said he had told her he was going to visit my mother at the hospital and never returned. This was three days ago.
• Yet again, I was backed into a corner and there was only one thing left to do.
• I hacked into the system again and took another three million from the account Lincoln had given me.
• Stupid? Crazy? Brave??
• I’d say drastically desperate.
• I was backed into a corner and beyond desperate.
• What else was I to do?
• My mom was depending on me and my sister’s tuition needed to be paid. Bills were piling up and needed to be attended to. What was I to do?? Sell myself? Who would pay that much for me anyway? I was out of options and already in over my head. It’s not like I’d be in less trouble for taking more of his money, would I?
• If the owner of the money was going to come after me anyway. I had already taken half a billion dollars, what was a measly five million?
• My mother was my priority and worth the risk. I was prepared for whatever happened. At least, I would have made sure everything was in order if anything happened to me.
• After working my last day at work, I let myself into my two-bedroom apartment on Bowery Street in the East Village, New York, kicked off my high heels and dropped the keys on the table by the door. I had to resign before I got fired. There was no other way around it. I couldn’t say. Even if I never got caught, my guilty conscience wouldn’t let me.
• “What I day…” I sighed and massaged my neck as I walked up the spiral stairs. My apartment was spacious and decorated with soft neutral colors and furnishings, with scenic windows, high ceilings, and smooth tiled floors. The open-plan kitchen was equipped with stainless-steel appliances I’d spent a fortune on. “I need a bubble bath.” Stripping off my clothes as I stepped into my bedroom, I padded to the en suite, rolling my tense shoulders.
• While running the water, I dropped a bath bomb into the tub and inhaled the fresh citrusy scent. Tying my long dark hair into a messy bun, I immersed myself in the inviting water and closed my eyes. Shutting out the world and my amounting problems momentarily.
• Feeling relaxed and rejuvenated, I let the water out after a long soak and wrapped a bath towel around me, before going back to my room.
• I’d left the lights off and only the natural light from the stars and moon streamed through the windows. I was ready for bed.
• Tomorrow had enough problems of-
• “Buonasera, Sette.” Good evening, Sevyn.
• Hearing a foreign voice, I screamed and staggered back, hitting into my nine-drawer dresser and mirror. My toiletries collided and tumbled to the floor, and my jewelry box stubbed my toes. You’d think I’d notice.
• “Not the welcome I was hoping for.” His deep, rich voice drifted from where he was sitting against the headboard. On my bed. On my pillows. With his shiny leather shoes still on. His face was hidden in the shadows. I could only see the outline of his long legs and shoulders. “I was hoping for.. more…”
• “W-who are you??” I stammered, clutching my towel against my chest. Even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I felt them burn through me with such intensity my insides shivered.
• “Your owner. Your possessor.” He raised his knees draped his hands over them and rapped the words like a drill surgeon. “I’m your lord and master. Your king,” he continued the list of accolades, slow and measured. “Should I go on?”
• “You don’t own me!” The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them.
• He hummed or was it a laugh? “Don’t I, schiava?”
• At that moment I was glad to have taken Italian classes in school. “I’m not your slave!”
• “I didn’t have any claim to you, ladra.” He just called me a thief and although it was the truth, it stung. “Didn’t even know you existed,” he said, sliding to the edge of the bed with feline grace. “Our paths would have never crossed. I’d never known a creature such as yourself walked this earth.” He spread his legs and steepled his hands together, perched on the edge of the bed like a king on his throne, sucking the air out of the room and owning the space, commanding attention. “Not until you caught my attention.”
• My instincts told me this was the face behind the fat bank account I’d been dipping my naughty fingers into. “H-how??” Ice slithered down my spine. Cold terror clutching my heart in its icy embrace. I could be wrong. Please let me be wrong. “How did you get inside my apartment?”
• He cocked his head to the side, tapping the tips of his long, tattooed fingers together. Had those hands killed someone? Taken a life effortlessly, without a second or first thought? Were those beautiful hands going to end my life?
• Suddenly, his tall frame towered over me. His body was a rock-solid wall on my back, impassive, unyielding, and intimidating. “How did you get my money, lei?” His warm musky breath fanned my neck.
• “I…” He got me there. I couldn’t deny it. He caught me. The question running in my mind was now that he got me, what would he do with me?
• My lungs screamed for air. My body was impaled by fear, unable to move. I dared not breathe. Dared not do anything for fear of making the wrong decision. I knew one wrong move would cost me my life.
• “Cat got your tongue, tontolina?” He laughed softly, his cool fingers skimming across my flaming cheeks. He had rough, calloused hands. Hands that were used for hard labor. Breaking necks…plucking out eyes..or murder?
• He was right, I was a fool. The tontolina of all tontolinas.
• The moonlight spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating his features and making his hazel eyes glow in the dark. He was a hauntingly beautiful man. With a square jaw and high cheekbones that could slice through butter. His lush black hair was styled in an undercut with the thick dark tresses slightly messy and rugged on top. He was lean and taut like an athlete. His thighs muscled powerful, but not too thick. The dark slim-fitting designer suit clung to him like it was pasted on.
• “You took my money, Sevyn Hart,” he said, removing his dark suit jacket and laying neatly on the opulent gold and white kist. “And you know what happens to people who take what’s mine, Sette?” He unbuttoned his shirt slowly, surely, keeping his molten eyes on me. “They die.” The corner of his mouth tilted slightly as shrugged out of his shirt and added it to the neat growing pile.
• “D-die..??” Of course, he was going to kill me. He was Vincent Marchetti, the don of the Cuori Neri, the most ruthless mafia gang in New York. He didn’t kill his victims though. He made them suffer so much they opted to take their own lives. He was infamous for his black heart and merciless nature. I might as well say my last prayer. I was finished.
• “Eventually.” He tugged down his zip and peeled off his pants. “Personally, I think death is too good for them.” Remaining in his boxers, he folded his pants neatly too, placing them on the kist like a good little boy. “So, you know what I do, lei? I make them suffer until they wish for death. Death that doesn’t dare defy me and come to take them and put them out of their misery.”
• “Go ahead then.” My sweaty palms clutched my sides. I’d just stepped out of the bath but I was sweating buckets. “Get it over and done with.”
• That hum and smirky laugh fanned my face. “Where’s the fun in that?” he whispered. “I’m not going to kill you, cuore mio.”
• “You’re n-not?”
• “I don’t want your life,” he murmured against my neck, his hands caressing my shoulders. “It means nothing to me.”
• “So w-hat do-you want?”
• “Your surrender.”
• With that, he sauntered to the bathroom and took a shower.