La Regina: Nicola |18+|

1. Mysterious Man

Nicola

I casted a bored look at the lifeless body before me.

Blood pooling around the carpeted floor. The familiar metallic-tang filled my nostrils. A single small blade in my hand freshly stained with red, drop by drop on the sharp edge, making messy trails on the floor.

The adrenaline faded away slowly, leaving me numb from head to toe. Now the anticipation gone, the afterkill kinda sucked.

Another man down. Another completed mission.

I had been doing this for too long that sometimes I had to wreck my brain to do it more interestingly.

There were too many methods to explore.

An artist, my brother, Cesco said.

This was one of few things I lived for.

Gore. As I basked in torturous methods and bloody scenes. I always had the desire to kill. The rawest, ugliest form of it.

All led to another thing I craved for; power.

As a woman born in man's world, there was an ambition I always got back to.

To make a name for myself. To gain limitless control.

And to put it simply, if I didn't best them—the men, then I wouldn't even be noticed.

Ironically, since I was merely a child, these cursed hands had benefited me. I, to my father's surprise, had made my way up to the top, pushing through the rank and undoubtedly earning myself a significant spot in the family.

For the violence I had brought upon. The ruthlessness I often felt. And the mercy I rarely showed.

The killer. The executor.

Though at first it had been only my older brother, Cesco, groomed to be one, I soon followed his footsteps as I had passed my father's expectation.

It had started with a job.

Now, it became my high.

It became a craving I couldn't get rid of until it was fulfilled.

A sick, twisted addiction that scared me sometimes.

But crazy always ran in Arcuri's blood.

Another fact about Arcuri; my father, Gianluca Arcuri was a longtime consigliere to the Italian mafia, serving the current Don, Vittorio Valenti and the Don before him—his father.

Meanwhile, I and my brother's job were to eliminate and execute. The weapons to clean up the mess.

Arcuri and Valenti were to balance each other for decades, running a crime empire in New York.

I often wondered what they'd do without us.

Probably not a lot.

I entered my apartment through the back door of the building. Though the entire building was owned by my father and the staffs wouldn't even blink twice at my horror state, it was still too early to make a fuss.

As soon as I stepped inside, I stripped to my underwear and discarded my clothes on the laundry basket by the foyer to be burned later.

I walked over the kitchen to wash my hands, lights so dim yet I was very aware of the figure standing by the floor-to-ceiling window overseeing the city below.