“Don’t blink, little girl,” he warned again.
The tear fell, and her eyes started to close … God help me!
The second her quivering lids shut, she felt the cold knife pierce her skin above her right eyebrow. It sunk deep and true, causing a shrill sound unlike any she had ever released to fill the air around them.
The pain only grew worse as he dragged the blade down her skin slowly, painfully. He then released the pressure on her skin, only for him to dig it back in right under her eye and begin it all over again.
Her shrill screams filled the space once more. However, the struggle in her was dying as she became too weak.
Lifting up the knife, this time he held her face roughly, shushing her screams while he cut a line down the right side of her lips.
When he pulled away again, letting her come up for air, the adrenaline she had used to fight was now gone.
As her blood trickled down her face and burned into her skin, she knew she would never forget the feeling when her tears met the blood to scorch paths of bloody tears down her face.
“Please, just kill …” It was hard for her to whisper her plea through her hoarse voice, but she had to try, hoping for mercy.
The maniac began to laugh while he caressed the edge of the blade over her skin. “Little girl, this is only the beginning.”
Closing her eyes, another tear fell, mixing with the hot blood. Mercy wasn’t going to be given tonight, leaving her with one final hope. To be saved.
The knife pierced her skin over and over as he cut into one arm … then her other arm … then her stomach. The agony and torture only continued. With every single cut that was given, she could feel him lay claim to her.
Heavy, cumbersome chains were placed on her body with each mark, her mind with each evil laugh she heard, and her soul with each time she heard the words “little girl.” They wound and wound around her, pulling tighter and tighter …
Eyes beginning to blink slowly, she could feel herself drifting off now, the pain becoming too much to bear.
Her one final hope of being saved from the devil had disappeared. No one was coming to save her. And if someone did, it was too far past late. To save her now would mean that someone worse would have to take her soul from the devil and claim it as their own. However, a man like that shouldn’t—wouldn’t exist. And if he did, that wouldn’t be saving her at all …
The girl was starting to lose consciousness, and her now traumatized, gray eyes began to drift away. There was something he enjoyed about seeing the eyes change from the person they once were to the person they were after he was done with them. It was his mark; how he claimed them.
He had taken away the young girl she once was and made her into his beautiful creation. Her body, her mind, and her soul belonged to him and always would … until he took away her last dying breath.
Her eyes rolled to the back of her head before her eyelids closed.
“Good night, my little girl.”
The door opening had him turning his head to see his man pushing another man into the warehouse.
“Oh God!” the man cried, trying to get to the little girl, but his men wouldn’t let him. “What did you do to her!” he screamed.
Lucifer slid the knife over the unconscious girl’s body. I made her beautiful. “I warned you that the longer you took, the longer I would have with her, Maxwell.”
“My daughter … How could you …? Why did you do this …?” The little girl’s father fell to his knees.
“This city is in need of a change.” Turning, Lucifer wanted to see his face as he said, “Dante Caruso may have gotten you elected, but he no longer controls you. I do. You will do anything and everything I ask. Don’t”—he pointed with his knife to the camera that had been recording the whole time—“and I will happily remind you who you and your precious family belong to.” Walking up to the man on his knees, Lucifer touched the blood-dripping blade to Maxwell’s face. “Do we have an agreement?”
Tears ran down Maxwell’s face as he nodded. “Yes.”
Going back to the girl on the table, he picked her up, cradling her in his arms as she slightly started coming to.
Leaning down, he whispered into her ear, “I’ll have you again, little girl. Next time, I won’t be giving you back. I’ll kill you, and then you’ll be mine forever.”
Before handing her back to Maxwell, he held his new daughter to him tightly. A daughter who no longer belonged to Maxwell, but to the devil himself.
Chloe’s mind flickered back to life when she heard a loud crash. The pain she felt was unbearable to her soul.
Opening her eyes, she realized she was in her father’s arms as he took her down a hill to the wreckage of his car. Placing her in the wrecked car, he then pulled out his cell phone, dialing three numbers.
Her eyes opened and closed, seeing the mangled car around her as she heard her father’s distressed voice.
“My name is Maxwell Masters, and there’s been a terrible accident …”
Forty
Death Would Follow
When the screen went black, it took everything in Lucca’s power to keep down the bile rising in his throat. He wasn’t a man with a weak stomach. He had inflicted some of the sickest shit you could ever see. However, it was something altogether different when he had to watch a helpless, innocent young Chloe beg and plead while she was marked for the rest of her life.
The already shattered remains of his heart managed to shatter into even tinier pieces as he felt a pain unlike any before. It wanted to break even a man as strong as him, but he couldn’t—wouldn’t—let it. Chloe had lived it, and he had witnessed it. Now she could give some of her burden to him, and they could share it together.
Pulling out the disk, he crumbled it in his hands. No one would be able to see its contents again.
The phone ringing on his desk had him staring at the unknown number.
Sal came in with his laptop then, having been notified of the call and telling Lucca exactly who was on the other end.
Lucca picked it up and waited for Sal to give him the thumbs up.
Sal nodded.
Calmly, Lucca hit the answer button and put it to his ear.
“Hello, Lucca. I have something of yours,” Lucifer mocked.
A low growl escaped Lucca’s throat. “If you hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you and anyone else carrying the Luciano name.”
“Hurt her? I need her. It was only a matter of time before you came for me, anyway. We both know that.”
He did know.
“Don’t worry; I’m not going to hurt her …”—Lucifer paused, his voice becoming proud—“like I did your mother.”
The darkness in Lucca rose, grinning for what was to come.
“That was all I was waiting for.”
At Lucca’s words, the line on the other end went eerily silent before it clicked, ending the call.
Lucifer had just sealed his own fate. The only reason Lucca had kept him alive this long was to prove the man had had a hand in his mother’s death.
Getting up, he didn’t have time to waste. “Go fetch my dog.”