Empire of Lust: An Enemies with Benefits Romance

I roll my sleeves up to my elbows while I approach the two unconscious scums hanging from the ceiling by their wrists.

“Are you sure you want your hands dirtied, rich boy?” Nicolo taunts from his position in the corner, lighting a cigar and crossing his legs at the ankles.

“Fuck off, Nic. This has nothing to do with you.” I reach for the water hose and spin the handle to the highest pressure.

“On the contrary, this has everything to do with me, considering my boys were able to find you these two.”

“Which you’ve already been compensated for with money your companies don’t deserve.” I tilt my head to the side. “You’re not doing me a favor. This is a business transaction.”

“Shouldn’t you be a bit more grateful? Not only am I letting you use my basement for your small fetish, but I’m also going against Bruno by catching these two in the span of…” He stares at his Rolex. “Twenty hours.”

Right after I watched that footage at the end of which Aspen came out with a bloodied face, I forwarded it to Nicolo and told him to find them. Of course, he’s a cat who never hunts without a purpose, so his condition was obviously more money for his company.

I didn’t even pretend to manipulate him into reducing the amount. Any negotiation on my part would’ve propelled him to perform a sloppy job. A slow job.

So I gave him the exact amount he asked for. Thus, the quick result.

I spent the whole day in court, defending a mentally ill man who murdered his own parents in cold blood twenty years after they physically and emotionally abused him.

And I enjoyed every second of getting him the ‘not guilty’ verdict and rubbing it in the prosecutor’s face. That tool stood no chance, because I take abuse by parents seriously, personally, and handle it mercilessly. The media can call me a savage devil all they like, but just because these people gave someone life, I don’t consider them above reproach. Many of them are flawed humans who should have been made infertile, and if they need to die for their sins, so be it.

That’s why I barely felt any sense of loss when Benjamin Shaw passed away. That old man finally met his end with a heart attack while he was in his extravagant Jacuzzi. He drowned just like my mother did. Irony is the pettiest bitch that way.

But even with the endorphins I got in court, I couldn’t chase away the needle-like sensation that pricked at the back of my head or the tightening in my chest at the thought of who I left back in my house.

I called Martha twice during the only recesses I got, and apparently, Aspen spent most of the day sleeping. I contemplated sending Dr. Werner to check on her again, but the thought of him touching her while I wasn’t there quickly erased the blasphemous thought.

She’s probably recuperating all the lost hours of sleep deprivation. It’s no secret that she spends all-nighters at the office more often than not and has an incurable workaholic soul.

The only reason I haven’t gone back home to check on her myself is the phone call I got from Nicolo announcing that he’d found the owners of that unidentified car. He could have been lying, of course, and picked up two random men, but the quick background check he did on them indicated they were thugs who’d spent time in the same prison as Bruno.

Ignoring Nicolo’s presence and words, I direct the hose at one of the men, who has a blond beard and the build of a wrestler, and turn it to wide open. He gasps awake, his eyes unfocused, and guttural breaths leave his parted mouth. I give him a break to wake his leaner friend with a nose and lips that are too big for his bland face.

He rouses with a start, jolting in his binds like an animal taken for slaughter.

“What the…what the fuck?” blond beard drawls, still dazed.

“You put your filthy hands on someone you’re not supposed to touch, that’s what the fuck.” I raise my fist and punch him so hard, the crunching of bones echoes in the air as he reels back in his bindings.

I do it again and again until the sound of breaking bones is the only thing I hear and the metallic stench of blood lingers in the air. The red splatters on my shirt, arms, and face, but I don’t stop.

Don’t take a break.

And I definitely show no mercy.

I’ve always loved violence, but this is the first time I’ve revered it.

Fuck the law. Sometimes justice can only be achieved with old-fashioned eye for an eye.

Specifically his eye that I punch over and over until capillaries explode in it, but no matter how much I hit it, there’s no erasing the image of Aspen’s swollen eye or how she could barely open it this morning.

The fucker faints on me somewhere in the middle of my adrenaline-induced fun. So I turn to his friend who’s been watching the show while trembling.

“Hey…hey…we can talk about this.” His friend swallows, smelling of revolting sweat mixed with cheap cologne and pure fear.

I drive my fist into his face, making him choke on his own spit. “That’s the thing. I have nothing to talk about.”

“Please.” He coughs. “Surely you got us here for information, right? I can tell you anything you want if you spare me.”

My breathing is harsh but collected, like a predator in the middle of a hunt. I don’t need information from this fucker since I know Bruno sent him. I already asked Nicolo to get to Bruno while he’s still in jail, but apparently, the bastard is more untouchable than a god within Attica’s walls.

“How much did Bruno pay you to follow and assault his daughter?” I ask the scum.

He pales under the fluorescent light, his thin lips shaking. “I don’t…that’s not…”

I deliver an uppercut that makes blood explode in his nose. “I thought you’d tell me anything. But if you’re ready for your death, never mind.”

“No…wait… Bruno doesn’t pay. He…gave us protection when we served time and demanded compensation when we got out. That’s all, I swear. We didn’t even know she was his daughter. He only gave us a picture and a name and told us to teach her a lesson.”

A lesson.

My blood roars in my ears.

Their lesson could’ve been rape, and yet, the old man didn’t even care to prevent that.

I slam my fist against his jaw and the fucker wails like a baby.

“You said you’d spare me,” he cries.

“No, I didn’t.” I pull him by his shirt and breathe against his blood-and-sweat-stained face. “Here’s how it will go, motherfucker. I’ll punch you until you lose consciousness like your friend here, then I’ll waterboard you to consciousness and do it all over again. I’ll torture you for every mark you left on her skin. By the time I’m done with your sorry excuse of an existence, you’ll wish for death.”

And then I do as I promised until my knuckles, hands, and arms are bloodied and the lowlifes hanging on to life by a thread.

The problem is, it still doesn’t feel like enough.

“You know, I have tools that can be used instead of your fists. What are you, a caveman?” Nicolo, who’s been watching from the corner with a gleam in his sadistic eyes, joins me. His expensive woodsy cologne stands out amidst the piss, blood, and sweat.

Even I have started to smell like the scums. If Aspen were here, she’d tell me her favorite quote.

If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

Maybe my rich boy status, as Nicolo likes to point out, is a mere camouflage of the monster I was always meant to be.

Normal people would feel a smidgen of remorse or a pang of guilt for not feeling guilty. Me, on the other hand?

The only thing I feel as I stare at their unconscious, barely breathing forms is the need for more.

I watch the blood dripping from their faces and my fists like a serial killer would. “Tools don’t give the same satisfaction as my bare hands.”

Nicolo’s laughter echoes in the space with the evilness of a super villain. “Are you sure she’s still not your woman? Because at this point, you’re doing more for her than a man would do for his wife, honor, and power.”

I don’t like the sound of that.

In fact, I don’t like it at all, to the point that I decide to call it quits.

Leaving Nicolo behind, I grab my briefcase and jacket from a nearby chair and don’t feel anything as I smudge the tailored cloth with blood. But I make a note to buy a change of clothes on my way home.

“What do you want me to do with these two?”

I look at him over my shoulder. “What you do best, Nicolo.”

He doesn’t need me to elaborate. His sadistic smirk is the last thing I see as I close the door behind me.