Dark Soul Vol. 3 (3 page)

Sergei’s hands trailed lower, washing the flat strong belly. “Did you come?”

The hooker laughed softly. “What kind of question is that?”

“You acted as if. But I figured you can’t come that often.”

“No, I can’t.” The hooker took the shower gel from his hand and began to wash him in return, before Sergei could touch him lower.

“Yeah, I did. You almost got me there, but your bite-happy friend pushed me over.”

“Vasily?”

“Him.” The hooker’s hands felt nice, sure, not exactly gentle or teasing, but friendly enough. “If you’d kept fucking me longer, I’d have come from you. You’re a big guy, and you know how to fuck.”

Sergei chuckled. “And after that?”

“After that it gets painful. Sore.” The hooker shrugged. “My body doesn’t work like a woman’s. I come once and then I want to rest, too.

And that’s not going to change, I don’t think.”

Still, he’d gotten fucked for more than an hour when he was already sore and acted as if he’d enjoyed that. Sounded like a shit job. Sergei leaned in, lifted the other man’s chin and kissed the thin, sharply defined lips. The hooker seemed surprised, but kissed him back, allowed him to explore, touch, taste, leaned into him, his erection poking Sergei’s thigh. Sergei let one hand fall down and wrapped it around the hooker’s dick, stroking him slowly, feeling him harden and lengthen in his hand. It seemed perfectly natural to him, and such as pity that the other guy wanted nothing more than to cut all that off, because he was just beautiful like this, too.

“What am I to you now?” the hooker asked.

“Something very pretty.” Sergei kissed him again, kept stroking, oddly gratified that the other man responded so readily to his touch.

That act of the hooker was done, the brazenness had vanished—what he was touching was the actual person underneath, vulnerable, delicate, yet strong.

The other man thrust into his hand, groaning, slung one arm around Sergei’s shoulder to steady himself and kept pushing into his hand. He’d have been okay with just that, but then the hooker stopped and turned around. “Fuck me,” he said, and leaned against the tiles.

Sergei ran his hand down the curve of the man’s ass, noticed another bite mark there. “You’ll be sore.” How many times had he been fucked? Anywhere between four and eight, probably, all in two hours.

“Yes.” The man widened his stance. “Fuck me.”

Sergei stepped up close and stroked the man’s dick. “I just get condom.”

“No. Just put it in. I want it now.”

Sergei hesitated. He remembered too well how “she” had faced down Vasily over this.

“I’m healthy. I’m usually really careful. Besides, as the catcher I have a better chance of getting anything. Odds are against me. Come on, give me what you have.”

Sergei pointed his dick at the hole that looked red and abused, but much looser now. There was enough water and resident lube to allow him to push into that naked heat. He groaned and thrust forward, relishing the sensations and willingness, but he noticed the hissed breath from the man. He reached around and resumed stroking him. “You okay?”

“Hurts, but that feels good.” The man laughed tonelessly. “I’m a sick puppy. I like the pain. Give me more.”

Sergei moved, the man greeting him on every thrust, fucking his hand on the way forward, controlled yet passionate at the same time. An odd moment, removed from the other men, just him and a stranger, like it hadn’t been in forever. A rare moment of privacy, his own emotions, guard down . . . and that with somebody who changed from male to female and back again with such ease.

The man came first, spilling into Sergei’s hand, clenching all around him, and Sergei thrust harder and faster to get off, too. He pulled out afterward, pushed his hand into the stream of water and was surprised when the hooker turned, pressed up against him and kissed him again. “Thanks. I did need this.”

Sergei felt an odd twinge in his chest. He’d needed it, too. But in a different way. “Stay here tonight. We drop you off tomorrow.”

“No. I . . . I have no way to replicate ‘the look.’”

“I’ll take you home before they wake up.” Another stolen moment of being alone. “Sleep in my bed.”
Not with them.

“What are they gonna say when they see me?”

“Nothing. They aren’t stupid.”

The man stepped out of the shower, reaching for a towel, but then offered it to Sergei and grabbed the one underneath for himself.

“Okay. I’m too tired to go anywhere.” He toweled off and walked into the bedroom, completely naked, still damp between the shoulder blades and along the legs.

Sergei dried himself, tried to make sense of the fact that he’d be sleeping in the same bed with a naked man for the first time. Doing this under the shower was one thing. But actually going so far down the road— He tossed the towel into the shower and walked over to the bedroom, where the other man was just slipping under the covers.

He set the alarm on his phone, then switched off the light and joined him. They smelled of the same shower gel, and how smooth that skin was now. The man turned toward him in the near dark and kissed him again. “I hope you sleep well.”

“You too.” Sergei closed his eyes and relaxed. He could fall asleep at the press of a button, but he was still very aware that he wasn’t alone in bed. At the same time, he felt more alone, more at peace with himself because it was a stranger.

He dreamed of shooting, killing, dreamed of houses turned to rubble, explosions tearing out windows, the unmistakable sound of gunfire. Small arms fire. Enemy soldiers, partisans, attempting to crawl away and getting shot in the back of the head. He dreamed of Vasily high on his perch, killing like God.

Before he was fully awake, he jumped to his feet, almost crashed into the wall with the sheets tangled around him, and knocked the lamp off the nightstand. In the light from the open door, he saw a human shape point a pistol at him and dove for cover.

Still, impact in his back, and he fell, uncontrolled. It was a terrible punch, the force of it spreading through his whole body. Blood was rushing from a wound. Center of his back. He twisted, turned to look at the bed, the hooker, hoped she was okay, then saw the shooter move closer.

He was the hooker, a Makarov in his hand, moving slowly toward him.

Sergei stared, tried to get away and realized he couldn’t move his legs at al . He didn’t even feel them. He clawed for the bed, tried to push himself up, but then the shooter pointed the gun at his face, black eyes deep pools of complete, light-defying darkness, worse and darker than the muzzle of the pistol.

“You shouldn’t have woken up,” the shooter told him.

“Well, I did.”
Bastard.
Sergei pressed his lips together, again tried to move, but his legs were dead weight. Too much dead weight.

“Fuck.” He looked to the door, hoped one of the others was awake, but then he noticed the shooter was half covered in blood spray. Like he’d cut a throat or two. Or three.

“Your comrades are dead,” the hooker confirmed.

“Okay.” Sergei stared at a blood drop traveling down that smooth chest like savage makeup, realized he was going into shock, all emotions frozen, lacking urgency. “I’m last?”

The shooter’s gaze traveled up and down his body. “Did I hit you in the spine?”

“Yeah. Legs are gone.” No use denying it. His uncoordinated movements would have given it away.

“I did consider just putting you out of business,” the shooter said.

Sergei laughed. “How?”

“I’d have shot you in the knees.”

“Fuck you.”

“You killed some of my friends, Sergei. That’s your name, right?

Sergei.”

“Yeah.”

“You shot two of my friends yesterday and beat up my boss, Stefano Marino. It’s war now. I’m here to kill everybody who’s threatening Stefano.”

“I thought you looked . . . Italian.”

“I’d have told you I was Greek. Or Mexican, or Latino. You’d have believed me. You
wanted
to believe me.” The shooter crouched near him, but not close enough to reach him or fight him.

Sergei felt his blood drenching the cheap dirty carpet around him and tried to move again. Fuck. Everything around the wound was on fire, but there was no feeling at all below that line. Like he stopped right below his ribcage. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

“Fuck, I liked you.”

“I know.” The shooter’s sharp features softened, and he transformed back to the young man Sergei had kissed and fucked in the shower. Sergei glanced toward the bathroom; the shooter noticed.

“You weren’t like them.”

Not like them.
That summed up his whole life.

The shooter moved closer, close enough to touch, as if luring him into a movement or an attack. Sergei tried to move his legs again, but as far as his spine was concerned, they weren’t there and had never been.

“Okay, so finish me off.”
Job well done
. Infiltrate the enemy’s safe house, put them all to sleep, then kill them one by one. It would send a strong message. Few men he knew would have been able to accomplish that. None of them would have played a cross-dressing hooker and taken it up the ass all night. He grimaced with the pain.

“Yeah, it’s spine. You put me out of
bizness
.”

The shooter pointed the gun at his face—at a low angle, less threatening than pointing it right between his eyes. Surprisingly, Sergei wasn’t afraid. If this was how he’d die, he’d take it. Beat being torn apart by a shell or sniped by a partisan. Even though it didn’t really matter how he died.

“Any last words?” the shooter asked.

Sergei looked up into those dark eyes. So many things he could have said, like that he could see them both in that merciless face— the hooker and the young man from the shower. They were the exact same thing and yet completely different. That he was oddly glad the whole talk of changing his body had been a lie. That they could have met under different circumstances, not involving other men or blood.

“No, it’s all right. I understand.”

The shooter crouched low over him, shielding him like a hawk shielded its kill before dismembering it. He placed the muzzle of the gun against the soft flesh between throat and jaw, pointing straight up. It would take the bullet through his brain and possibly blow the roof of his skull off. He’d not even hear the shot.

The killer ran a gentle hand down his face, oddly comforting, given the situation, and Sergei reached up to press it. He felt the counterpressure. Then nothing.

Dark Lady II

ugusto Viero walked in as Stefano was struggling into his Ashirt. Even he hesitated a moment at the sight of Stefano’s bruises.

Stefano turned as Augusto stepped forward again and the doctor backed away to write him a prescription. More happy pills, more painkillers that knocked him flat as a kick from an Apulian donkey, as his father would have said. Lifting his hands to button his own goddamned shirt was an exercise in willpower and fine manipulation that he was barely up to, but he’d be damned if any man would help him get dressed. His underboss least of al , who was currently staying here to help with the plans for the war against the Russians.

“There’s police at the door.”

“Tell them five minutes.” Or ten. He had been looking forward to the painkillers, but he’d take those when he could relax. Not that he wasn’t already feeling boneless and hazy. Pushing his shirt tails into his trousers pulled different muscles and added a slightly different shape to the many jagged, spiky pains in his body. Funny how only a few hours after getting up, it was easy to forget there had been a time when he hadn’t been in pain. He pulled his cashmere sweater over his head, then ran his hand through his hair, ensuring he didn’t look more tousled than could be expected from the idle rich.

Augusto stepped seamlessly into Vince’s role, watching Stefano’s back and providing some much-needed moral support. Whatever Augusto’s own ambitions, right now, he was definitely on the same page as Stefano. Of course the man resented him secretly—a healthy, expected desire to take over made him an ultra-efficient lever with which to run the whole organization. Making him underboss two years ago had dulled that hunger for promotion for a little while, but no doubt Augusto had already digested that particular morsel.

Stefano walked down the stairs to the main reception room and all but breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the top dog of the local police and his second, an ambitious, steely-eyed woman. Thankfully, though, Peter Thomson had expensive mistresses and even more expensive European schools for his legal children.

I like men with weaknesses,
his father had said.
I can buy them.

Men without weaknesses I have to kill.

From previous dealings, he knew there might be a case against him, but actually dragging him down would likely take too many resources, what with his battery of lawyers and the fact that the smaller guys in the organization were most likely to take the fal . Even Augusto would take the fall if required—he’d never turn into a rat, as that would destroy what he wanted to own. Now, there was some real old-fashioned leverage.

But back to the enemy at hand. He rather assumed that while Thomson thought him a scumbag, the received wisdom in local law enforcement was
But at least he’s
our
scumbag.

He stretched out a hand.

“Peter, so nice to see you.”

An hour spent denying all knowledge of anything—why he’d been targeted, why his bodyguards had been shot, and what the thugs had wanted from him. Stefano professed ignorance and outrage, both of which were no stretch from the truth. Peter seemed to accept that, or acted as if he did, and wished him a rapid recovery, without any irony Stefano could detect.

When the woman, Ann Devereux or something, shook his hand, she leaned in and said, “You might be relieved to know that the men who attacked you were murdered last night.”