2. Dominic

Fear has a distinct smell, something that belongs only to it. Pungent. Acidic. And at the same time, sweet. Alluring, even. 

Or maybe only sweet and alluring to a sick monster like me. Either way, the girl huddled in the corner had it coming off her in waves. 

I pulled the skull mask down to cover my face. The room was dark, but I could tell she was awake. Even if she held her breath and didn’t move a single muscle, I’d know. It was the scent. That fear. It gave them away every single time. 

And I liked it. It was like an adrenaline rush, the anticipation of what was to come. 

I liked messing with them. 

I closed the door behind me, blocking off the little bit of light I’d allowed into the small, dark, and rank bedroom. She’d been brought here yesterday to this remote cabin in the woods. So cliché. Cabin in the woods. But that’s what it was. That’s where I did my best work. 

I walked over to the crouched form on the floor. She stank. I wondered how long they’d had her. If they’d washed her during that time. 

I wondered what else they’d done to her, considering the no touching dictate on this one. My various employers didn’t usually give that order. They didn’t care who had the girls before auction. It’s what they were there for. But this time, Leo—the liaison between the buyer and me—had made certain I understood this particular restriction.

I shoved the thought of rape aside. I didn’t do that. Whatever else I did to them, I didn’t do that. Some tiny little piece of my messed-up brain held on to that, as if I were somehow honorable for it. 

Honor? 

No.

I had no delusions on that note. Honor was a thing that had never belonged to me. Not then, not when I was Dominic Benedetti, son of a mafia king. So close to having it all. And it certainly didn’t belong to me now. Not now that I knew who I was. Who I really was.

More thoughts to shove away, shove so far down they couldn’t choke me anymore. Instead they sat like cement, like concrete bricks in my gut. 

I stepped purposefully toward the girl, my boots heavy and loud on the old and decrepit wood. 

“Wakey, wakey.”

*Text slightly modified for website.