TAINTED LOVE ▸ BILLY RUSSO

chapter one - secrets

I look at the ceiling of the building. It was old. I had got used to it. Six years is a long time, especially to be dead. I was a ghost.

When you're too involved in sketchy businesses shit happens. Like when you're turned in to homeland security after someone failed to burn you alive. Classy.

I get up from my weak bed and walk to the fridge, opening it and noticing how empty it was. My stomach turns in hungriness and I groan loudly as I walk away and towards another room, opening the door.

"Let me go!" The muffled voice from the man tied to the chair in the middle of the room entered my ears.

"Shut up. I'm too hungry for this." I shush him and he cries, the blood leaking his body making a puddle on the ground.

"I told you everything I know! I promise." The bloody man cries and I shot him a warning look. "Please. Have mercy."

"You didn't have mercy when you tried to make me barbecue." I say through clenched teeth.

The phone on top of the table started ringing and I look at the man, taking my gun and placing it under his chin.

"Who's that?" I ask in a threatening tone, not having time to play nice.

"I don't know! Please!" He cries and I take a deep breath, getting up and grabbing the phone, answering the call but not saying a word.

The man on the chair was still crying and as soon as he made a noise I grabbed my gun back and placed it in his head, telling him to shut up if he wanted to keep breathing.

"You have one of my men." A male voice comes from the other side of the line.

"If he doesn't speak, soon I'll have much more than one man." I say to the phone.

"Who are you?"

"It doesn't matter who I am. Your man will die, I hope you know that." I informed him. "You see, your man has made a mess of my floor. I don't think I'll be able to clean up the blood."

"Why are you killing my people?"

"I have my reasons." I replied.

"Very well." The man on the other side of the line nods and I smirk at the bloody one in front of me, laughing at his face. "I have a proposition." He says and I scoff. "Work for me."

"I don't work for men." I smirk and pull the trigger on my gun, making the man's blood hit my wall. "You heard that? Soon it'll be you." I hung up.

I look at the dead man before groaning in annoyance and grabbing a hammer, smacking the phone into little pieces.

When I'm done cleaning the mess, I grab my phone dialing a number that was burned into my brain.

She took a second to answer but eventually did.

"He's dead." I tell Eve and I can tell it hurts her to know I'm like this. "Who's next?"

"I'll meet you at seven at the same place." She hangs up.

🂡 🂡

I walk in the cold of New York City, my hands buried in my pockets and the hood over my head. There's no such thing as safety for people like me.

I see Eve on one of the benches so I walk towards her, sitting by her side.

The girl takes a file from her bag and I open it.

Billy Russo was my next victim. He was in front of a security company and was the best of the best at what he did.

He was also one of Rawlins' men.

"Don't be reckless, Stacy." Eve tells me as I stare at the floor in front of me. "Get close to him before you strike. Everything you need is on the file-"

"I know what I'm doing, Eve!" I snap at the woman and she swallows hard, looking away from me. "I'm sorry... I had a rough week. I- I'm sorry."

"Just be safe, Stacy. I can't save you now." She gets up from my side and walks away, leaving me alone with the files.

"Fuck." I mutter to myself, hitting the bench I was sitting on.

I get up, annoyed, and walk away to where I was living.

I spent the night coming up with a plan to kill this man. The only thing I know is that men only see one thing, tits. Dirty fucking creatures who believe they're better than us, even when they know is not true. I killed so many men in my life. Most of them underestimated me and thought I didn't have what it took to shoot them dead.

In the morning, I dress something with cleavage and drive to ANVIL, his company. At the end of that same day, I had a job. Personal Assistant.

Two months later, I proved he could trust me over and over again. Still, I didn't know anything about the man that would be by my side every day.

I decided to step up the game. We had gone on a few dates and somehow, I ended up here. In his bed, naked.

I didn't care for him. I didn't feel anything for the man laying on my side. An unbearable sense of empathy for someone I had sex with God knows how many times.

"You okay?" He asks out of breath and I turn on my side, a smile creeping into my face.

"Yeah." I kiss him as he smiles against my mouth.

Every emotion is fake. I would feel sorry for him if I had a bit of empathy left. I don't. It burned with my friends when Rawlins tried to clean up the house.

When he couldn't kill me, he turned me in, planting evidence on everything he knew I had done.

At the end of the day, it was my fault. I would have done the same thing in his place. I had enough proof of what he did to keep him locked up forever.

Homeland Security was on my ass but they knew nothing more than my name. Stacy Quinn.

They never found me but just to be sure, I pretended I was dead.

At that moment, I promised myself that I would kill him. I would take from him everything he ever loved just like he did to me.

I'm brought back to reality when Billy gets up, walking to the bathroom as I sit straight on his bed, pushing the covers on top of me.

"So when are you taking me to your house?" He asks when he comes back.

"I told you it's not a good idea, Billy." I look up from my phone at the now half naken man.

"I just thought it would be nice to know you a bit more, I mean, I know nothing about you."

"Well, I know nothing about you too." I say getting up and grabbing my underwear from the ground.

"You know, I was a marine." Billy says and I look at him.

"I suppose that came from there." I touched the gunshot wound under his stomach.

"Yeah." He agrees, bringing his fingers to one of my scars, tracing it. "Can I ask how my personal assistant has more scars than me?"

"Angry ex lovers." I lie with a smirk and he nods at me, mirroring my face.

"You're so full of shit." He wraps his hands around my waist, bringing me closer, crushing his lips to mine.

I felt something. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was something. In the last five months, we have known each other, we had been sleeping together for three and I still knew little to nothing about him. He told me about his baseball coach when he was a kid and that his mother gave him up but that was about it.

I needed the other things. The fears, the desires, everything.