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Would it help me to stop killing? Or would it only lead to a frenzied killing spree I’d be unable to control. The last time I’d had a vivid dream like this had been in the months before my twelfth birthday, before my first kill. My dreams had been filled with images of carnage, and when I’d told Dad about it, he’d decided to gift me a victim for my birthday.
“I’m fine. I wanted to kill long before you made it part of my duty as a Made Man.”
Dad regarded me with narrowed eyes, as if he might extract the true nature of my dream from me.
“Maybe you should spend more of your nights actually sleeping instead of creating mayhem with Alessio and Massimo.”
“Sleeps a waste of time.”
“Lack of sleep drives even the sanest person to madness.”
“That’s a very Nino thing to say.”
“Go to sleep.” He turned and left, but I could feel his worry radiate off him in waves.
And fuck, even I didn’t share his worry. This had been a major mindfuck of a dream—nightmare.
Blood everywhere. Screams. My heart pounding, pulse racing. Bloodlust, eagerness, the thrill of the hunt.
But in the end, the two people in the puddle of blood had set my veins on ice: Aurora and Battista.
I didn’t know if I’d killed them, but I was almost certain I had. What did my subconscious want to tell me with this shit show of a dream? That deep down the crazy fucker part of me wanted to kill them and everyone else I cared about? Or was this my subconscious manifesting my biggest fear?
I wasn’t sure. I left my room and strolled through the quiet and dark house. It was three in the morning and everyone was asleep or at least in their bed, even Dad hopefully too. I knew every corner of our home, so I crept through the dark hallways, wondering when my heart would stop pounding.
I wondered if Dad had ever experienced nightmares like that when his life had been in upheaval after he found out he had two kids. I wished I could talk to him, but things had been too tense between us in the last few months, and my dream would probably only confirm his own worst worries, that I was a ticking bomb about to tear apart this family, possibly in the literal sense.
My phone lit up the room, alerting me of the bell, which I always muted at night. I slid out of bed and tiptoed toward the front door. It was the middle of the night, and nobody ever visited at this hour.
I glimpsed through the peep hole, my fingers clutching my phone, ready to speed dial Nevio so he could come and chase away whoever waited in front of the door.
My lungs deflated, my heart beat tripled, and for a moment, I couldn’t move. I unlocked the door and opened it.
Nevio stood in front of me. A baseball cap was pulled down his face, and he was dressed in a long black coat which hid most of his body—a good thing considering what I saw beneath. He was covered in blood, from head to toe. Even his lashes were clumped with blood. He wasn’t wearing a shirt or shoes, and his skin and the clothes he was wearing were covered in blood too, though their black color made it hard to see.
Smudges of blood now covered my white door too and bloody footprints led from the elevator to my door. If Dad saw this on the security camera, we’d be in a ton of trouble.
“What happened?” I whispered. I couldn’t see any obvious injuries, nothing that would explain the amount of blood, except for a couple of bruises here and there. Tonight, hadn’t been a cage fight.
The stench of blood quickly became oppressing in the narrow hallway. Considering my line of work, I wasn’t sensitive about blood, but this was more than usual.
“I’ll grab a shower,” Nevio said, and I simply nodded, wondering why he was here. Maybe I should have sent him away. He had to be on edge. This was his doing, no doubt. He’d slaughtered one or more people tonight, and now he was here. Maybe I should have been afraid, maybe I had reason to be, but after the initial shock, my pulse was already slowing.
I stepped past him and opened the bathroom door for him so he wouldn’t have to touch it, then I did the same with the shower. Nevio came in and unbuckled his belt. He didn’t wait for me to leave. He simply shoved down his pants, and I merely stood in the middle of the bathroom, feeling a little lost. When he got out of his boxers, I didn’t blush like I usually did. Blood had trickled down even to his penis. It had gathered in the ridges of his six-pack.
Nevio stepped into the shower and turned it on. Soon, the water washed away the first layers of blood. I backed away, but I didn’t leave. I closed the door, in case Carlotta woke. If Battista started screaming, I’d hear him. I was glad he was too little to get up on his own and roam the apartment. He didn’t need to see the blood, even if he’d probably think it was paint. Nevio washed his hair but his eyes were on me as I leaned against the door. Steam slowly filled the room, creating a visible barrier in addition to the one I could feel between us tonight. There had always been a push and pull between us since that night, but no matter how hard I’d pushed the pull had always been stronger. Tonight, it felt different. It felt as if we were on the verge of a push that would pull us apart farther than ever before, and I didn’t think the push would be coming from me.
Maybe it should, maybe seeing Nevio covered in the blood of his victims should have been the final straw—and maybe in a day or two it would be, when it had sunk in—but right this moment, I felt drawn to him. I was attracted to someone whom many people would call a monster, and I feared it was his monstrous side that made out part of his appeal.
In less than ten minutes of showering, no trace of the carnage remained. Nevio was clean and he shut off the water, then got out of the shower completely naked.
Droplets of water meandered along his muscles, caught on them and the scars that covered his chest and stomach. One wayward drop traveled lower and caught in his trimmed pubic hair.
Nevio didn’t bother drying off. He stalked straight toward me. His hair dripped down his face, making it appear as if he were crying, but I’d never seen Nevio shed a tear, and I doubted anyone else had either. I wasn’t sure if he was capable of it. Nevio stopped close in front of me.
“You are pure light,” he growled.
I didn’t say anything.
