Blood Before His Kisses

Chapter 3

Dad and I had been inside for hours when I decided I needed to shop. My closet wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t armed enough either.

“I’m heading out, Dad,” I said, already sliding my earpiece in. Music keeps the world quiet. Keeps me sharp. I don’t shop in silence, silence is for funerals and hits. I shop to a soundtrack.

Dad looked up from his glass of Macallan. His eyes scanned me once, like he was checking for threats I might’ve missed. “Come home early, Detta. And if anything happens that you can’t handle, call me.”

I smiled. The kind of smile that doesn’t reach my eyes because my eyes are busy counting exits. I leaned down, kissed his cheek, and whispered against his skin, “Copy, Dad.”

His cologne — tobacco, old money, and gunmetal clung to me as I walked away. Good. I like smelling like him. It reminds people who I belong to.

I took my baby from the garage. Porsche 911 GT3 RS Weissach. Black, of course. Carbon fiber everything, wing on the back like a blade, track-bred but street-legal. She purrs when I start her, but she screams when I want her to. I ran my hand along the hood. “Hey, pretty girl,” I murmured. “Miss me?”

The drive to the mall was short. Not Rustan’s. Not Greenbelt. This one doesn’t have a name on Google. It’s the kind of place where they scan your last name before they unlock the doors. Limited editions only. If it’s available to the public, we don’t sell it.

I stepped inside and the air changed. Cold. Perfumed. Expensive. My heels clicked against marble and every sales associate stood straighter. They know me. They know better than to ask if I “need help.”

First stop: bags. I don’t browse. I point. Hermès Kelly 25 in black box calf, hard, structured, no softness. It could break a nose and still look good at a christening. A Gucci Dionysus in white, because contrast is a weapon. Prada Re-Edition in black nylon, because sometimes you need to move fast and quiet. I had them wrap all three. No bag, just tissue and a black box. Bags deserve coffins.

Jewelry? I’m picky. Flashy is for mistresses and targets. I only took two. A pair of diamond earpieces , one in black ceramic, one in white gold. Aesthetic. Balanced. Like me.

One for mourning, one for killing. They’ll sit right over the earpiece I’m already wearing. Music and murder, layered.

Perfume was next. I don’t test. I already know. The limited edition I wanted, white lily drowned in something metallic and dark. It smells like my mother’s ghost and my father’s war. The SA didn’t speak. She just handed me the crystal bottle like it was a loaded weapon. It is.

Clothes? Barely. I’m not here to play dress-up. I grabbed a few pieces, Alaïa bandage dress in black, obviously. A Saint Laurent blazer with shoulders sharp enough to cut through excuses. Two pairs of Celine shades. That’s it. Giada Rosetti doesn’t hoard fabric. She collects advantages.

I swiped my black card. The one Dad gave me. Not to pay but to ping. Every transaction sends him my location, my timestamp, my heartbeat. He’s been tracking me since I could walk.

Because someone’s been following me since I stepped out of my 911.

I felt him at the curb. Then at the entrance. Then past the Hermès counter. Amateur. His footsteps were too careful. Pros don’t try to be quiet. They just are.

I didn’t flinch. I don’t do fear. Fear was beaten out of me in Russian when I was seven. I was raised by a Bratva king. What’s a shadow in a mall to me? Nothing.

I didn’t go to my car. Not yet.

Instead, I drifted toward the far end of the mall, the dead wing. No boutiques. No glass storefronts showing off diamonds that cost more than lives. No cameras. Just cold tile, emergency exits with red lights bleeding on the floor, and the sharp sting of bleach in the air. It smelled like a crime scene that hadn’t happened yet. Perfect.

He followed. God, he actually followed.

His reflection ghosted behind me in the darkened glass of a shuttered shop, sloppy, half a step too close. I could hear the cheap rubber of his sneakers squeak against the floor. Could smell the cigarettes and desperation on him.

Idiot. He walked right into my web and thought he was the spider.

I stopped. Let the silence stretch until it hurt. Counted to three. One for Mom. Two for Dad. Three for me.

Then I moved.

One second I was walking, my heels quiet as a confession. The next, his back slammed into the concrete wall hard enough to knock the air out of him. Dust rained from the ceiling tiles. My hairpin was already kissing his throat, black titanium, pulled from my chignon in a single, practiced flick. The blade inside was out before he even registered the pain. Thin. Surgical. Hungry. It didn’t reflect light. It swallowed it.

“Hi, sweetheart,” I purred. My voice was sugar with razor blades in it, soft enough to make him lean in, sharp enough to cut him if he did.

I pressed. Just a breath. A millimeter of pressure. A bead of red welled up against the steel, bright as a warning light. He gasped, a pathetic wet sound, and his pupils blew wide until there was nothing left but black. His cologne — fake, drugstore, trying too hard mixed with the sudden sour tang of fear.

That’s when I saw it.

Left arm. Black dragon. The tattoo was fresh enough that the edges were still raised, angry. Scales crawling up his bicep like a parasite, jaws open, eating him from the inside out. The ink was good. Too good for a nobody like him.

My heart stopped. The mall, the bleach, the sound of my own breathing, all gone.

Then it roared.

For a second I was six again. Marble floors slick under my bare feet. White dress sticking to my thighs. Mom’s blood, hot and wrong, soaking into the hem. The sound of her last breath still lodged in my ribs like shrapnel.

But no.

I forced myself back. Studied him. Really looked.

Trembling. Sweating through his black tee. Piss-weak grip on my wrist, like he was afraid to leave bruises. His hands were soft. No calluses. No scars. This wasn’t him. The man who took my mother wouldn’t shake like a leaf in winter. He wouldn’t reek of fear and cheap cigarettes and regret. He would’ve looked me in the eye while he did it.

This was just a message. A disposable one.

“Sweetheart,” I said, tilting my head. The movement was slow, deliberate, like a snake deciding where to bite. My smile didn’t touch my eyes. My eyes were ice, and they weren’t blinking. “Where’d you get that tattoo, hmm? Talk to me. Because right now, you’re breathing because I’m letting you.”

My voice was soft. Polite, even. The kind of tone you use at a funeral when you don’t really care who died.

He said nothing. His lips were sealed, pressed into a bloodless line, but his body was a traitor. His carotid was doing all the talking — pulsing against my blade like it wanted to escape his skin, like it knew exactly how close it was to getting cut. I could feel his heartbeat in the steel. Fast. Erratic. Pathetic.

A single drop of sweat slid from his temple down to his jaw, cutting a clean line through the grime on his face. His breath hitched every time he tried to inhale, shallow and useless.

I leaned in. Close enough that my lips almost brushed his earlobe. Close enough that he had no choice but to breathe me in. My perfume, lilies and gunmetal, Mom’s garden and Dad’s armory, filled his lungs whether he wanted it or not. It was the last beautiful thing he’d ever smell if he kept his mouth shut.

“Last chance,” I whispered, so quiet only the devil could hear. My breath stirred the hair near his ear, and he flinched like I’d burned him. “You speak, or I open you up and read your insides like a f*****g book. Page by f*****g page.”

The threat hung between us, thick as smoke. I let him taste it. Let him picture it.

Still nothing.

His eyes darted left, right, looking for an exit that didn’t exist. Looking for a god that wasn’t listening. The only god here was me, and I was fresh out of mercy.

Fine. My patience isn’t infinite. It’s expensive, and he just went broke.

I pressed harder.

The skin gave with a quiet, obscene little sound like wet paper tearing. More red welled up instantly, spilling over the edge of the blade and painting his collarbone. It was warm. It smelled like copper and bad decisions.

He whimpered. Not a scream. A whimper. The kind a kicked dog makes. His knees buckled a fraction, and if my free hand hadn’t been fisted in his shirt, he would’ve slid down the wall.

His hands came up, hovering near my wrist but too terrified to touch me. Too scared that if he did, I’d take them too.

“You feel that, sweetheart?” I murmured, watching the blood drip onto the dirty tile. “That’s your life trying to leave you. And I’m the only thing holding the door shut.”

“Wait — wait!” he choked out.

“Sweetheart,” I cooed, easing the blade back a millimeter. Not enough to let him breathe easy. Just enough to let him lie. “Now. I have a favor. No, not a favor. An order.”

I dragged the point of the blade down his throat, not breaking skin, just promising I could. “Tell your boss I’m bored of his puppets. I don’t want his errand boys sniffing around my Louboutins. If he has something to say, he can crawl to Casa Vendetta himself and say it to my face. Got it?”

He nodded, frantic.

“And one more thing, sweetheart,” I said, lips brushing his ear. “You’re my dog now. You report to me. Every move he makes. Every breath he takes. Every w***e he f***s. You tell me. You lie, you stall, you forget… and I’ll find you. And when I do, I’ll make sure that dragon on your arm is the last thing you see before I feed it to you. Understand?”

“Y-yes, ma’am,” he stammered. He was crying. Very pathetic.

I pulled back and smiled. Not the pretty kind. The kind that makes grown men check their wills. The kind that says try me and your family will be buried with you.

“Now you can go,” I said, sliding the blade back into my hair like it was just a hairpin. Like it hadn’t just tasted blood. “And sweetheart? Don’t even think about disobeying me.”

I stepped back, adjusted my blazer, and walked away without looking. My heels echoed like gunshots.

He didn’t move. He couldn’t.

Because Giada Vendetta Bellucci Rosetti doesn’t give warnings.

She gives death sentences with a smile.