The Butcher

  The Butcher

  Celia Aaron

  Celia Aaron

  Copyright © 2018 Celia Aaron

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book only. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Celia Aaron. This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. WARNING: This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language.

  DIRE WARNING: If you pirate this book, your soul will rot in hell.

  Cover art by Perfect Pear

  Cover model Michael Scanlon

  Cover image by Furious Photog

  Copy Editing by Spell Bound

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Celia Aaron

  About the Author

  1

  David

  The assassin’s head came off with gratifying ease. His body fell at my feet, blood spurting from his neck where I’d just sawed through it.

  “Just hand her over!” A yell from below pulled a low, rusty laugh from me, and I slung the severed head down the stairwell, listening as it thunked down the steps and elicited panicked shouts on the first floor.

  “Come and get her.” For extra fun, I kicked the body through the railing. It fell cleanly, landing with a hard thud at the very bottom of the five stories. More shouts, some of them indicating I’d crushed another one of Blanco’s goons.

  “David!” Angel’s worried yell had me backing away toward the door. “I think they’re in the elevator shaft.”

  “Fuck.” I followed her into the hallway, slammed the door, and rushed toward the apartment where we’d been holed up. Voices and metallic clangs told me she was right about the elevator shaft. I’d destroyed the wire that hauled the carriage with some well-placed shots, but Blanco had sent a swarm of men to this building, some of them suicidal enough to try Spider-manning their way up the metal walls.

  “Get inside.” I pointed toward the apartment. “Stay close to the door.” I pulled a pistol from the back of my pants. “Hang onto this. You see anything, you shoot. Don’t hesitate. They won’t.”

  “Okay.” She nodded hard, determination in her eyes. “I’m not going back. I won’t let them—”

  Grabbing a fistful of her shirt, I yanked her to me. “You aren’t going anywhere.” I kissed her hard, the only way I ever knew how. She clung to me as I wrapped my other arm around her waist and bent her back. At my mercy, the way I liked her.

  Her tongue tangled with mine as the sounds from the elevator shaft grew louder. The guys on the stairs wouldn’t be far behind. But I kissed her a little longer, reminding her who’d had her first, who would have her forever.

  She bit my bottom lip, giving as good as she got. We warred for only a second more before I released her and shoved her toward the door.

  “Wait for me, Angel.” I dug my fingers into the crack of the elevator doors and pushed them open, then aimed my other pistol down into the darkness.

  A single yell. “He’s going to—”

  Then I opened fire, only peeking over the edge once I knew they were pissing themselves from the rain of bullets. I picked off two of the remaining climbers with ease, but the third dropped into the elevator carriage. I aimed through the panel of the roof right at where I suspected he was. He fell when the thunder of my bullet rang out in the enclosed space. Head shot.

  Feet pounded on the stairs.

  Angel had the apartment door wedged open with a lamp base. “They’re coming.”

  I reloaded. “Wait for me.”

  Angel met my gaze before raising her gun and plastering herself to the wall just inside the entryway. “I’ll always wait for you.”

  “That’s my girl.” I fired at the stairway door as it flew open and banged into the wall. Two bodies dropped, maybe three.

  More men were coming, and I didn’t have enough bullets for all of them. But I’d shoot until I was out, then go hand-to-hand for as long as I could.

  An unexpected shot from the apartment had me running for Angel. I burst in, but she wasn’t against the wall.

  “Angel!” I hurtled through the chaos as more shots rang out behind me.

  “Back up, motherfucker.” Jorge held Angel in front of him, his gun to her temple. “Or I’ll waste her just for fun and tell Blanco you did it. Drop the guns.”

  Everything inside me went cold.

  “Don’t!” Angel’s wide eyes implored me.

  But I wouldn’t let her down again. Wouldn’t leave her. Would never fail to save her if I could.

  “No!” Her scream fractured my heart as I let my guns fall to the floor.

  Jorge turned his barrel on me, his finger on the trigger and a grin on his scarred face.

  2

  David

  Five Years Ago

  “I saw her again.” I stripped off my bloodied t-shirt and threw it into the pile of dirty clothes at the foot of my cot.

  Peter sat up, the sleep fading from his eyes in a snap. “Where?”

  I sank onto the cot, the dingy fabric groaning under my weight. Though I was only sixteen, I was bigger than most grown men I came across. A good thing—my size had its perks. I pulled a wad of cash from my pocket and tossed it to my brother.

  He caught it and whistled low. “Nice.” He leaned over, the space between our cots just big enough for him to put his feet on the ground. “But what’s the damage? And tell me more about her.”

  Greed roared through my veins, and I wished I hadn’t led with the news of my mystery girl. The glimpses I’d had of her over the past six months were like little jewels, ones I kept stumbling across, collecting, and treasuring whenever things grew quiet.

  Peter tested a wide, darkening bruise on my shoulder with his fingertips. “Dislocated again?”

  I shrugged him off. “Don’t think so. The guy rammed me with his head, if you can believe that shit. Just went full WWE on me when he realized shit was about to go down.”

  He grabbed the hem of his grubby t-shirt and pulled it over his head. Peter wasn’t small by any means, but next to me, he was practically scrawny. “You’ve got a bleeder.” He pressed the fabric to my forearm.

  “Yeah, after the head thing, he pulled a knife.” The guy owned a restaurant over in Hunting Park. Though he served up shitty noodles for cheap, his main business was the girls in the back—the ones without passports who didn’t speak a word of English. He thought Serge Genoa, the head of the biggest crime syndicate in Philly, didn’t know about them. But of course, he did. No dirt went on in this city without
his say-so, and he always got his cut. The old boss called me “the kid,” but that didn’t stop him from sending me to do jobs that men twice my age balked at. It didn’t matter. Money was money. And money was the only way out of the hell Peter and I inhabited.

  “Did you have to …” Peter let the question trail off, maybe fearing the answer. He had a mind for business, not blood.

  “He’s alive, but he’ll be paying Serge what he owes.”

  “Or you’ll be back.” Peter dabbed some more blood from my arm, a bitterness in his voice that shouldn’t be there. We were too young for this life. I understood that fact as if I was outside looking in at us. But what I understood meant fuck-all. Survival mattered.

  I nodded. “Or I’ll be back.”

  He sighed and finished wiping at my arm. “It could use stitches—”

  I laughed. “Sure thing. I’ll head on over to the hospital, pay with my looks, maybe you can bring flowers and—”

  “Shut up.” He tossed his t-shirt into the dirty pile. We’d have to do laundry soon, and now at least we had a little cash to pay the laundromat. “Quit stalling and tell me about her. Was—”

  “Shh!”

  Footsteps in the hallway had us both lying down, feigning sleep.

  Our door opened, the creaking hinges straight from a horror flick.

  “Boys, I know you’re awake.” The voice twisted around us like a slimy caress.

  We didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

  He clicked his tongue along his teeth, the familiar sound setting off a near-gag reflex inside me. “If I hear one more noise from this room, I’ll be back, and you won’t like it.” His voice had a hint of anticipation, as if wishing we’d disobey so he could make good on the threat.

  I opened my eyes to slits, just enough so I could see the hulking figure in the doorway. Our newest foster parent Gerald Raines knew how to hit, though his golden gloves days were long past. Worse than that, he was cunning. When he got riled—either from drinking or just reflecting on his shitty life—he’d make sure I wasn’t around and go after Peter. I’d come home plenty of times to find Peter with bruises and black eyes. Rage would take over then, and I’d look for Gerald, ready to murder. But he was always gone, as if sensing my danger approaching and running before the storm could get to him. I wanted to leave, to take Peter away from this burning garbage heap and live on the streets if we had to. But Peter would talk me down, say it wasn’t so bad, remind me that this was our last shot at staying somewhere with a free roof over our head, and explain for the millionth time that if we went back into the system for another round, we’d be separated.

  “You boys are lucky I took you in. Two animals like you don’t deserve anything better than life in a six-by-six cell. That’s where you’ll end up, anyway. Both of you.” He hesitated in the doorway, waiting for any reason to unleash whatever violence was roiling inside him. Brave tonight, coming at us while I was here. He must have hit the bottle hard. His black shadow lurked in the doorway for a few more moments before the door creaked closed and heavy footsteps signaled his retreat.

  Peter let out a shaky breath, and I could almost taste his fear. An acrid, clinging flavor—one I’d become intimately familiar with in my line of work. Work. My day job. I would have laughed, but it wasn’t funny. Not really. What I did was wrong, no two ways about it. But it added to our bankroll and that’s all that concerned me anymore. Money was freedom, and I would do whatever I had to so that Peter and I could finally be free.

  We waited Gerald out for a little longer, making sure he’d returned to his filthy recliner in the tiny house’s living room. My aches created a baseline of pain through me as I stared up at the shadowy ceiling, the water stains the only thing giving this room any real color.

  She flitted across the corner of my mind then, her dark hair like a wisp of smoke I could never catch. I’d seen her a few times, mostly in this shithole of a neighborhood. Maybe she lived nearby. Like us, she didn’t go to school, didn’t seem to give a shit, and had way too much knowledge in her wary eyes. From the moment I spotted her, I felt a pull toward her. It was dumb, puppy love or some shit. But I couldn’t deny it. I’d break off from Peter or whatever group of dropouts or stoners we were in and head her way. She always bolted or melted away into the hot summer alleyways before I could get to her. Maybe I scared her. I was a big guy who always sported some sort of damage. Fear made sense.

  But tonight had been different. She’d been over in Hunting Park walking along the sidewalk, earbuds in, her hands in the pockets of her tight jeans. I was on the other side of the street, making good time to the Noodle House. I wanted to get there right at closing to waltz inside easily and save on witnesses.

  Despite the time crunch, I’d crossed the street and headed toward her—even though that was away from the noodle shop. She didn’t have the usual laser focus, her body was more languid, relaxed. Just walking at night, a kidnapper’s dream in a tank top, jeans, and worn-out black Converse, her dark hair like thick ribbons.

  Heart thumping, I strode toward her. My palms began to sweat, and I tried to rehearse my “hello” in my mind. My voice had dropped four years before, but I had no doubt it might try to crack when I spoke to her.

  Her steps slowed, and she looked up.

  Fuck. That face. An oval with a sharp chin, delicate nose, and dark, bottomless eyes. That moment reminded me of a stupid Valentine card I’d received when I was still in school. Second grade. A big red heart with an arrow through it and some goofy wording like “Cupid shot straight, Valentine!” But damn if it wasn’t accurate. I felt pierced, something inside me beginning to bleed. And she was the arrow, her gaze the razor tip that cut through every bit of muscle and bone and hit straight through the heart of me.

  “You.” The suspicion in her voice increased the bleed inside me. She pulled one earbud free and glanced around, as if looking for the quickest avenue of escape. I couldn’t blame her.

  “Hi.” My voice didn’t crack, thank god. I stopped a few feet in front of her, just close enough to catch her scent. Sweat, cheap soap, and something finer that I couldn’t place.

  A streetlight crackled nearby. Bugs chirped in the high grass of the unkempt front yard to my right. Her breathing was louder than all of it—at least it was to me. Speeding up, the vein in her neck pulsed at a precarious pace.

  “What do you want?” Her voice came out low but confident, though she couldn’t hide the slight tremble to it.

  “Nothing.” I shook my head. “I mean. Not nothing. Just to talk.”

  “Talk?” She glanced at my hands, the fists still bruised from my last job.

  Fear. The familiar scent wafted through the stuffy air. She was afraid of me. And there was a small, fucked up part of my soul that enjoyed her fear. The rest of me, though, wanted to put her at ease. But in this dark, seedy part of town with shattered streetlights, hardcore rap thumping in the distance, and plenty of vacant lots where people did evil deeds, a sense of ease was as uncommon as a girl like her out by herself this time of night.

  “Are you following me?” She kept her left hand in her pocket, and I would bet the bankroll in Peter’s pillow that she had a knife inside.

  “No. I’m just over here to—” To beat the shit out of a guy. “To visit some friends.”

  “I thought you lived in Tioga.” She shifted her weight to her right foot.

  “You know where I live?”

  “I just see you over there creeping around.”

  Creeping. Okay, that was a blow. “I don’t creep. I mean, I live over there, yeah. But I don’t …” I couldn’t think of how to dispute the way I tended to stalk around, always ready for a fight but never looking for one. Sure, I was generally silent and withdrawn. But did that mean creepy? No. Just … reserved.

  A slight smile hinted along her lips, and my heart seemed to squeeze. “Did I wound you? Calling you a creeper?”

  Utterly unsure of whether she was teasing me or what to do next, I ran a hand through
my hair. At least she wasn’t running away.

  “I’m not a creep.”

  “You stare at me like a creep.” Her shoulders relaxed a little, but her hand remained in her pocket.

  “I don’t mean to. It’s just you’re, you know, you’re—” Pretty, just say it! “Odd,” I fumbled the word from my mouth.

  “I’m odd? You don’t even know me.” She arched a dark brow, her smooth olive skin luminous under the flickering streetlight.

  “I don’t, but I’ve seen you.” I wanted to put my hands in my pockets, but that would have spooked her, so I stayed still—even though my window to get to the noodle place at closing time was shutting with each awkward second I stood there.

  “What have you seen?” A note of challenge tinged with amusement—was she fucking with me?

  I’d play. “You lifted Yuri’s wallet about two weeks ago. Bumped into him on the street while he was getting rowdy with his friends in front of the corner shop with the tiger on the window. He never even knew it was you. Then, about a week ago, I saw you climbing through a window on Woodley Terrace.” Her eyes widened as I continued, “I waited around, sort of guessing that maybe you lived there. But then you came out from the back fence with a pillowcase thrown over your shoulder. You were in a hurry. Cops showed up at the house later that night, probably when the homeowners came home and saw you’d broken in. I’ve got a few others, but maybe I’ll hold onto them for later.”