Page 67 of Wrecked By a Devil

“Is that so?” She gets up from her chair, starting to pace around the office. “What is my place then, Zeke? Because I have no idea what our relationship is.”

“It’s not one where I have to answer to you about my business decisions,” I say, leaning back in the chair.

“So that’s what we’re calling taking people’s lives now?” She doesn’t sound like herself.

“Yes,” I respond. “That is my business, and if you knew half of the things I’ve done, you would run through that door and never look back.” My voice softens as I continue. “You deserve someone better than me.”

“Don’t don’t tell me what I deserve,” she crosses her arms, her small figure standing tall in front of my chair.

“I’m not a good person, Riley,” I get up from the chair and walk over to the small office bar to pour myself a drink. “In fact, I’m the opposite of a good person.”

“Well, I can’t judge unless I know all those terrible things,” she continues, taking the bottle from me and pouring my drink herself, before handing me the glass. It’s one of the things about her that drive me crazy. She’s so unpredictable.

“You don’t want to know them, trust me,” I take a sip from the glass.

“You’re once again assuming to know me better than I know myself,” she steps closer to me. “Test me.”

“Fine, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I head over to the leather sofa and make myself comfortable. “You might want to sit down for this.”

She does as I say and walks over, filling the empty space next to me on the sofa. Instead of facing the wall, she turns in the seat and turns her body to face me.

“I’m mafia, Riley,” I say, not breaking eye contact this time. I want to see the moment her illusion about me shatters, the terror on her face. “My whole family is, and what you see here is just a front for our operation to run smoothly and to make an insane amount of money.”

She raises an eyebrow, no trace of that terror that I was expecting to see on her face. “Do you really think I’m that stupid and haven’t noticed that already? I knew it since day one when I walked in on you torturing that guy…”

“What you saw that day is not even half of it,” I continue.

“I’m surprised that let me live,” she scrunches her nose, trying to understand my logic. “I never thought that big bad mafia dudes let witnesses walk away and even give them a job.”

“I don’t kill innocent people if I can get them to keep their mouths shut.”

“So that’s why you’re interested in me?” The terror I was expecting to see on her face earlier is now finally showing up, but it’s not over what I expected it would start showing.

“No. I mean yes…” I take another sip of whiskey, trying to organize my thoughts. “That’s how it started, I hired you to keep an eye on you, but I wasn’t going to stick around.”

“I don’t think any of this is a big deal, if we’re being honest.”

“You should,” I stare at her, trying to understand how she can sit there so calmly after everything I just told her.

“Why?”

“Because you only hear the cleaned-up version,” I continue, my jaw tightening. “The version people tell themselves when they want to believe men like me are just businessmen with a darker side.”

“So tell me the real version then,” she insists.

“The real version is that I do what needs to be done.”

“That sounds like something a villain in a movie would say.”

“Maybe because villains are usually the ones who admit what they are,” a humorless smile pulls at my lips.

She studies me for a moment before speaking again. “So what? You torture people because you enjoy it?”

“No.” The answer comes too quickly, and I watch her eyebrows pull together slightly. “I torture people because sometimes fear is the only language men understand.”

“That’s not what a bad guy would say,” she insists.

“I’ve developed a torturing technique that is so painful for the receiver, they feel like their flesh is being torn off their bones, even if they’re not even bleeding yet,” I continue telling her about the things I have done and she leans in, listening carefully to every word that leaves my mouth. “But my biggest regret is getting my brother, Malachi, in a situation where he got kidnapped and tortured because of me…” Even now, a year later, speaking about it and remembering it makes my heart ache. “I have spent endless nights since then trying to get my revenge. and I made sure the deaths of some of the people involved were slow and painful. Unfortunately, the ones who are really to blame for what happened are still alive, and I promised myself to kill them in the most brutal way when I get my hands on them.”