When Gianni heard his cane corso guard dog's ferocious barking, he must have been scared, which was exactly what Daddy wanted. He must have leaped straight out of bed in his peach-colored silk pajamas and paused when the barking stopped abruptly. It didn't take long to quiet his hound. Hounds were dangerous when trained, but his was simply hungry. So we threw top-of-the-line steak to a corner of the room as we crept in, and that was the end of that. His dog, caught between the option to attack a group of armed strangers and find a meal in their flesh- possibly dying in the attempt- or to tear through the delicious cut of docile meat, chose the latter. It was for the best.

What could he do anyway?

We were only coming to threaten his master, but if we wanted to kill Gianni, he would die, whether the dog fought or not.

By the time Gianni barreled down the stairs, it was too late. We were in, and the work began. His gait was anxious, his feet heavy, and there was a short barrel shotgun clutched in his arms that must have made him feel safe. He had no idea that it wouldn't have made a difference. He could have come down the stairs armed to the teeth, with a bomb strapped to his chest, it wouldn't have changed a thing. Minky and Gino were already stalking through the house, searching for his two Crespi sons, and I was waiting for Gianni in the shadows of his lounge. It was a spacious room, built for stars, with a raised platform for performances and stage lights to match. It would have been beautiful, if not for what we were about to do. I never liked the physical part, the grappling, the struggle, the blood.

Gianni's footsteps grew louder as he rushed toward me unknowingly. I stood still against the wall, next to the entryway and waited until he stepped into the lounge fully, and I could see the delicate nape of his neck=, before pouncing.

It was meant to be a quick strike to his neck, merely to incapacitate him long enough to get everything set up. We had planned to teach him a lesson through his sons. The worst we would have done is cut off a finger, and mostly, it didn't come to that. The threat to a man's legacy alone was enough. If he had stayed still and let me do my job, perhaps that's all it would have been, but he had surprisingly good reflexes, and he took a step forward just as my hand struck out and missed its mark.

I had grabbed my knife from its place on my hip by the time he turned around, and it cut through his hand before he could pull the trigger. It clattered to the floor as he hissed and jumped back. His eyes met mine, and a flash of recognition sparked in them. For a moment, it was just the two of us in the soft light of the moon, my knife a glimmer in the dark, as he looked at me and realized who had come to make a house call.

Then he began running toward me, the worst decision he could have made.

The trickiest part of our work was doing it right. Violence itself was a lucrative business. You could make a killing if you were good at it. I considered myself the best, and that was a mistake. Nobody is infallible. If the job is to maim someone or scare them into doing what you want, then you can't kill them. You have to know where the line is so you can stop before you go too far.

Sometimes, the line appeared to you so thin, you wondered if you imagined it.

I thought I saw that line when Gianni's body collided with mine, punching the full force of his momentum and fear and desperation into me all at once. He must have thought his life was on that all too fragile line. I hit the floor with the weight of all of Gianni and watched as that thin, floating line above us snapped. A howl of pain filled the air as he scrambled up and over me, trapping my torso between his thighs as his meaty fingers wrapped around my throat. I barely registered the pain of his grasp, my eyes were stuck on his side, where my knife was lodged into his abdomen, and blood spurted from him in thick ropes.

I cursed my miserable fucking luck. I knew the odds. You could stab someone. You could amputate something from them. You could cut and slice and fight and burn, and they would live. But the knife in Gianni's side was gushing too much blood, too quickly. Death from blood loss can take as little as two minutes if you hit the right place, and he was bleeding like a fire hydrant. It sprayed into the room almost comically, in every direction. Gianni was going to die very soon. Even as his hands tightened around my throat, I could feel him swaying above me.

His eyes were scared and frantic, a touch of madness in them as his nails dug into my neck and squeezed. He wanted to kill me so badly, but he didn't have the luck. He was losing strength, too weak to break my neck, and he didn't have enough time left to suffocate me.

My eyes still watered at the pressure. I could feel the bruises forming and knew that I should've writhed or fought- should've broken one of his fingers or pushed the soft pads of my fingers into his eye sockets, but I knew he was going to die either way.

It didn't take long for the blood loss to take its toll. He was trembling, his breathing came out in painful, choked gasps, and his eyes grew glossy with the sheen of vertigo, but his hands were stuck to me. He didn't let go for what felt like a long time, and I began to wonder if I miscalculated as dark spots danced across my vision.

But then he toppled to the side and his hands left me as his body cracked against the floor, lifeless.

Fuck.

Daddy was going to be pissed.

Note: Hey, hi, hello. I'm writing this as practice, but also because I read a book I high-key hated despite loving the premise (dark themes, obsessive men) and wanted to rewrite. Title is in the summary, it's on Kindle if you want to read it. Also, this story will get darker than this later on, so be prepared. I am not a consistent person so it may be days or months before I update.