SLEEPING WITH THE DEVIL

THE PIER

*CHAPTER 7: THE PIER*

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The garden of Villa Bianco smelled like roses and gunpowder.

Luca Moretti was on his knees on the stone path, his white tuxedo soaked with blood from his right hand. Killian had shot him clean through the palm. Not to kill. To punish. In our world, you touch what is not yours, you lose the hand that touched it.

His little pistol with a silencer was lying in the rose bushes where Killian had kicked it.

And I was pressed against the cold stone wall in my red Valentino dress, the $8,000 dress that now had blood spots on it, holding the voice recorder that was still blinking red. Recording Enzo's confession. Recording Luca's threat. Recording the gunshot.

My heels were broken. My necklace was crooked. But I was alive.

"YOU SHOT ME! IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE!" Luca was whispering-shouting, terrified that the 100 guests inside would hear him. In mafia, to be seen kneeling is to be seen as weak. To be weak is to be dead.

Killian stood over him, perfect in his black tuxedo, not a drop of blood on him. He looked down like Luca was an insect.

"Lower your voice, Luca. There are ladies dancing inside. You are ruining their music."

He crouched down and pressed his Glock against Luca's forehead.

"You made three mistakes tonight. You touched my girlfriend's thigh at dinner. You followed her into the garden. You pointed a gun at her head and threatened to throw her in the lake next to her brother. In my family, we allow one mistake. You made three."

Luca was shaking. "I didn't know she was Marco's sister, I swear -"

"Don't say his name," Killian cut him off. "You don't deserve to say Marco Reyes' name. He drove for me for three years. He took a bullet for me in Naples in 2019. He had a scar on his left shoulder. What scars do you have, Luca? Except the one on your lip from when you fell as a child?"

Luca cried. Real tears. The heir of the Moretti family crying in a rose garden.

Killian stood and came to me. His face changed instantly. The Devil was gone. Just a man worried for his girl.

"Elara, are you hurt? Did he touch you?" He checked my arms, my bare back, my legs. His hands were gentle but urgent.

"He grabbed my arm. And his blood got on the dress," I whispered.

He saw the blood spots and his jaw tightened. He took off his tuxedo jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders.

"That dress cost $8,000. Now it's ruined. You owe me," he said, trying to make me breathe.

"I don't have $8,000!"

"Then you stay 30 days to pay it. With interest. In kisses."

"Pervert!"

"Yes. Stay behind me."

He turned back to Luca. "Get up on your knees. You don't stand until I tell you."

Luca stayed kneeling.

"Now we make a new deal. The old deal with my father about the Sicilian shipment is dead. I killed it when I shot your hand."

"What deal?" Luca held his bleeding hand with his good hand.

"One, you bring me Enzo Rossi. Tonight. In one hour. To my villa. Alive. He ran into those roses. Find him. If you don't, I will take your other hand."

"Okay, Enzo, one hour, Villa Blackwood!"

"Two, Enzo writes a full confession. Handwritten, signed, video recorded by my lawyer. Date: August 15, 2021. Time: 11:47 PM. Place: Old pier of Villa Bianco. Ordered by: Vittorio Blackwood. Paid: $50,000 to Luca Moretti. Shot by: Luca Moretti, three shots to chest. Driven by: Enzo Rossi. Body thrown: Lake Como, old pier, with stones tied to feet."

Luca nodded fast, blood dripping.

"Three, after that you leave Lake Como tonight. Go back to Sicily. Tell your father Don Moretti that Killian Blackwood says no. No to the shipment. No forever. $20 million cannot buy my lake, my house, or my girlfriend. If your family comes back, I will sink every yacht you have with you inside."

"My father won't like that."

"Your father will like being alive more than $20 million."

Killian showed him his phone. On it, live video of the ballroom. Vittorio was still laughing inside, not knowing his son shot his business partner's son outside.

"I have Enzo's confession on this recorder," Killian said, pointing at my hand. "And your threat to kill an NBI agent. That's attempted murder and conspiracy. Thirty years in Italian prison for you and my father. One click and I send it to Interpol Rome. Tomorrow, 200 police raid both villas. You want that?"

"No!"

"Good. Then go. Fix your hand, tell everyone you cut it on champagne glass, find Enzo. One hour. Starting now."

Luca stood, wobbling, and ran back into the castle through the side door, disappearing into light and music.

We were alone. Just roses, broken glass, blood on stone, and cold wind from the lake.

My adrenaline crashed. I started shaking hard.

Killian pulled me into his arms immediately, tight. One hand on my bare back under his jacket, one hand in my hair, pressing my face into his white shirt that smelled like Tom Ford Oud Wood.

"You're safe. You're safe now," he whispered, rocking me.

I cried into his shirt. Loud, ugly crying, staining it with mascara and blood.

"He was alive... was he alive when they threw him?" I sobbed.

Killian held me tighter. He knew what I meant. The video he mentioned in the car.

"Elara, don't -"

"Tell me! Was he alive?"

He was quiet for a long time. Then, broken: "The camera is not clear. But yes. He was moving. He was still moving when they threw him. I'm sorry."

My brother drowned. He didn't die from bullets. He drowned alive with stones on his feet.

Killian knelt with me on the cold stone, his tuxedo getting dirty on broken glass, not caring. He held me while I cried for Marco.

After five minutes, I had no tears left. Just hiccups.

"Come," he whispered, wiping my face with his thumbs. "I want to show you something. Before we leave. Something I should have shown you two years ago."

"What?"

"The old pier. Where they threw him. I want you to say goodbye properly."

He picked me up bridal style — my heels were broken and my feet bled from glass — and carried me down the dark side path of the garden, away from music and lights, down toward the black lake.

The old pier was rotten, black wood, half broken, 20 meters into black water. No lights. No railing. Just black water, black mountains, cold wind smelling like algae.

The perfect place to make a body disappear.

He put me down at the start but held my hand. "Wood is rotten. Hold me."

We walked slowly to the end, each plank creaking. At the very end, he stopped and took out his phone.

He played the video.

Timestamp: 2021-08-15 23:47:12. Black and white night vision, grainy.

A black SUV stops on this exact pier. Luca and Enzo get out. They open the trunk. They pull out a body — thin, Filipino, white driver uniform, hands tied behind, feet tied with rope and big stones. Marco.

His legs kicked weakly. He was alive.

Luca shoots him three times. Bang. Bang. Bang. Muzzle flash. Body jerks.

They throw him over the side. Splash. Gone.

They drive away.

Two minutes and eleven seconds to murder my brother.

I watched my brother die standing on the exact spot he died.

I stopped breathing. My hand went limp in Killian's.

"Elara! Breathe!" He grabbed my shoulders.

I gasped, then screamed. Not a cry. A scream ripped from my chest, two years of grief, rage, guilt, love.

"MARCO!"

Killian caught me as I fell to my knees on rotten wood. He held me from behind, arms around me, chin on my head, while I screamed my brother's name into the black lake that swallowed him.

We stayed like that a long time. Kneeling on an old pier in ruined expensive clothes, two people who both lost a brother, mourning the only way people like us know how.

Finally my screams became sobs, then silence.

Killian picked me up again, bridal style, his tuxedo ruined, dirty, bloody.

"Come, Little Spy in Red," he whispered. "We have a confession to get, a father to confront, and a war to start."

He carried me off the pier.

In the Bugatti, driving fast around Lake Como, lake black outside, castle lights behind us shrinking, I held the recorder tight. Red light still blinking.

"Killian," I whispered.

"Yes, partner?"

"Tonight did I fail or pass? Your rule."

He glanced at my bloody red dress, his jacket around me, my bare legs.

"Tonight you passed. You got a confession. You faced his killer. You shot for your brother. You didn't fail anything."

"So I don't have to take off clothes?"

"No. Tonight you keep everything on. You sleep in my bed, in that red dress if you want, and I sleep on the sofa, and I don't touch you. Because tonight you are not my maid, not my fake girlfriend, not my spy."

"Then what am I tonight?"

He squeezed my hand, not letting go, driving with one hand, looking at the black lake where my brother rests.

"Tonight you are my partner. My partner in revenge. And tomorrow you are still mine. For 28 more days. And after that... we will see if you still want to leave."

And I didn't pull my hand away.

I held his hand back, tight, and let the Devil drive me home.