Claimed By My Father's Sin

Worth Cassandra Ashcroft

Salvatore's Pov

A few hours before the ball.

I tried using the smoke from my tobacco to mask the scent from the cheap perfume in the whorehouse. It took every resistance in me not to put a bullet in the blonde’s head, who was all over me in the dark corner of the booth where I sat.

My gaze fixed on two animals who tried to behave like nobles in another red-lit corner. “Ashcroft's daughters are on the market again; that bastard is doing us a favor by making sure they are as innocent as a lamb.” One of them who is my target for the day tilted his head back, taking the cigarette a lady had offered him with his lips and slapping the butt of another as he chatted with his friend.

“Let's see what we have here from his literary daughters.” His colleague, who sat beside him, said, helping break the seal of a letter he had collected for my target some minutes ago. “Who still uses letters these days when there are other means of communication?” he added as they both burst into throaty laughter.

“The old fool does. Why does he have to go through so much when he can just send them over so we can taste if those fruits underneath are ripe?” Their throats are enticing as they laugh, so enticing that I want to bury a blade in there and twist their guts out. The whores tending to them chuckled louder.

“Stop!” I hissed at the blonde whose hand couldn't stay to herself, but the b***h thought I was bluffing—until I caught her by the throat like a rag doll, leaning in close, the smile on her lips gone as blood rushed up to her face with just a little pressure.

“What if I pressed a little tighter?” I sounded like a deranged man, a half-smile behind my mask, as I watched her claw at my wrist to let go. “Now, run.” She scrambled back to her feet as soon as I let go.

I picked back up the glass of whiskey with ice cubes in it, my gaze back on the men, watching my target enjoy himself now so he could meet his dread later, but now he looked angry, his anger directed towards the letter in his hands.

“Is Ashcroft trying to mock me?” he growled, passing the letter to the w***e who tended to him as she climbed on his lap. “Read it out loud.”

“It's a pleasure you hav…” she read like he had commanded. The music was soft, and if any other person had given the same attention that I gave them, they would hear too. I was intrigued by whichever of his daughters this came from.

“Yours, Worth Cassandra Ashcroft.”

“Worth.” I raked my tongue along my lips, loving the way her name tasted. It felt so right being there.

“It's the girl who mocks you,” his friend laughed, breaking his ego more.

My target pushed his finger into the envelope again, bringing out what looked like a picture.

“This is the b***h. I would make her feel sorry for calling me a pervert and for her thinking too highly of herself for not wanting to be a housewife. I would strip her naked in front of her father and make her sorry… women and not appreciating privileges!”

The other gawked at whoever was in the picture. “She looks like a doll made for pleasure. You can send her here, to this whorehouse, so I can have a taste of her, that beautiful face.”

I leaned back, my hand itching so badly to pick my gun in my holster so I wouldn't hear their s**t talk again. I wanted to end this, but I needed my target to be alone—and now with those mouths of theirs…

“I need to go get ready for the damned ball,” he said between gritted teeth, pushing the lady off him, grabbing the letter, picture, bottle of rum, and his coat.

Good, I downed what was left in my glass, catching an ice cube between my teeth, straightening my mask before exiting the brothel, just twenty f*****g feet away from my target, who was now across the street, raging to himself, muttering curses under his breath, his hand clamped around the letter and the picture like he could choke her to death through it.

I kept my pace slow, an advantage of being crippled, I mocked. This was the normal street where you could do s**t with nobody knowing, the street where you could bury cocaine in a manhole with no cops coming to find you, along the walls where a few men smoked like there was no tomorrow, and street whores.

Fifteen f*****g feet. And it was time I needed to show my target that he had company. I increased my pace a little, my foot falling harder.

Ten f*****g feet. And a smile crept on my lips when he slowed, tilting his head back to find who gave him that weird creep. There were many other men, but why me? Why did those drunken eyes seek me first?

He spoiled our little game by trying to run from me, picking up his pace. I f*****g did nothing wrong—I just wanted to play the play that he and these bastards had deprived me of when I was little.

Then the chase began. I matched him. I didn't need to run; I knew what was going through the mind of a terrified person.

He took a quick peek over his shoulder as he veered towards an alley—wrong move, the fucker thought he would lose me through the shadows. I took longer strides. This is fun, but I love my time.

Nine… Eight… Four… Three… Two… feet.

“I didn't mean to scare you.” Maybe he shouldn't have glanced back.

“What do you want from me?!” I caught him by the collar of his shirt like a mouse. He looked so terrified—where was that boldness he had at the whorehouse when he spoke s**t?

“Look,” I pressed him to the wall so his feet were dangling, “we are alone.” A spilled-over bin, washed paint on the walls, cobwebs, and the smell of dung—a shitty place to die.

“WHAT DO Y—”

“Shh… Do you think you can give me what I want, Benjamin Jones?” His brows were almost reaching his hairline. “Let's make a deal.”

I let him go, watching him fall butt-flat on the floor, trying to scramble off the cold metal of my gun against his head. “Sit.” This was power. Being the devil is power.

Like a dog, he did, his lips trembling. “Let's make a deal,” I repeated, and he nodded hastily. I crouched down to his height.

“If you can give me what I want, then I'd let you go, but if you can't, I'd be a kind man and show that hell isn't a bad place.” For a man terrified, he kept a straight face before his throat crackled into a laugh.

“Kill me, and they would hunt you down ev…”

Click, click. “Shh…” I c****d the gun, reminding him it was still against his head. “What do you choose, Ben?”

My gaze had sauntered down to the picture that sat beside us; the itch to turn it over and see whoever was in there was overwhelming.

“I have done things. You want money, right? Or do you want me to kill someone for you? What more might you want to ask that I haven't done before?” he said in one breath, his chest rising fast. “I’d give you what you f*****g want, and you'd let me go.” Sweat broke out on his forehead, and I scoffed.

“Fine, Ben, you stole something from me a long time ago, and I want it back.”

“Hehehe,” he laughed. “What? Who are you?” My hand caught the lace of my mask, pulling it off, tilting my head to see if he would catch a whiff. “I stole nothing from you!”

“Sciocco, Eduardo La Rocca, 2014, 8:53 pm, Ashcroft ball, does that ring a bell?” He raised a brow. “Did I steal the bell?” the motherfucker asked as he laughed again.

I followed in with the laughter before slamming the butt of my gun into his face, catching him off. “Ahh… damn it!”

“Russian soldiers, your treachery—inviting La Rocca to the f*****g party with that motherfucker Ashcroft, bringing the La Rocca's guard down, inviting the Italian enemies, killing the Italian Don and his men, and selling his son out to the Russians,” I paused. “Does that ring a bell, Ben?”

That was what I wanted, the realization creeping in into his face.

“Yo… you are… are th… the La Roccas' boy!”

“Dopotutto non sei stupido,” I said with indignation. His cracked lips and broken nose had blood spilling from them, his face pale like he had seen a ghost, the reaction justifiable because the man in front of him was a ghost of the boy they had destroyed.

“What I want back from you, Ben, is the boy you have stolen. I want you to return his childhood to me, and I am counting to ten for you to hand it over.”

“Ju…” “Ten… Nine…” I ignored his rant, counting. “You are… “seven” insane! I followed orders; I was only following orders. You should… “Five,” I fed on the panic in his face and voice, and I would do this over and over again. Ashcroft, is the one who would be needing a slower death, I would make him watch everything he has crumbled; he’d regret the day he had crossed me.

“Bye, Benjamin.”

The violent jerking of his body before he went limp, the brain matter—what a beautiful sight. Staring down at his pants, he’d sure stink in hell if he went with these pee-stinking pants.

The overall satisfaction? I still am not satisfied, even after killing multiple Russians and English fools involved.

My eyes found the picture and the letter he had with him at the whorehouse; his blood, which was forming a pool around him, had soaked into the letter as I picked it up alongside the picture.

“Worth Cassandra Ashcroft,” the daughter of my nemesis, is it?

My gaze traveled to the picture to see who had dared to say such things to a man, and I saw her—auburn hair, hazel eyes, high cheekbones, the kid I had thought I had saved from her father.

It seems Benjamin had passed the laughter onto me. I couldn't hold back the sick laugh that escaped my throat.

I stared down at his corpse.

“You know what, Ben? I'd take your place in the ball.”