Rae

Something about the sound of a gun cocking gives me goosebumps every time. Holding a power capable of killing someone with just the pull of a trigger. What a fucking rush!

"Please."

I turn my eyes toward the broken body lying on the ground. There's this blood trail that's a good three feet in length from where he was originally dropped by my men. And now he's at my feet, begging. 

"Who the fuck sent you?" I ask, running my fingers over the engraving of the gun. It was a gift from Leander when I turned eighteen. It's this beautiful rose gold gun with roses etched into the sides. One of a kind. Never another like it. Just like me.

"I don't know!" he cries out in agony.

I back up a little and crouch down in front of him. I rest my elbows on my thighs and let the gun hang in between my legs. "So you're going to sit there and tell me that some man named Bob approached you with some large sum of money to take my head so Bob could put it on his mantle for the world to see?" I ask, craning my head to the side. "Been there. Done that."

"It's the truth," he sighs. "I don't know who it is. I never met him. We talked on the phone."

I look around the dark room to see that my men have formed a circle around us. I point at this idiot with my gun. "This is the most cliché set of circumstances I've seen. Wouldn't you all agree?" I turn my attention back to the guy. "Let me guess, Bob gave you like 50K or something?"

"A hundred," he grimaces as he turns his head to spit.

"I'm personally offended," I reply. "I'd like to think I'm at least a million-dollar kind of woman. I don't know many people who think so lowly of me, but I can assure you I'll find him and take him down," I add, cocking my gun. Instant goosebumps, and I sigh contentedly. "Such a dopamine rush, no?" I ask. "Well, anyway, I'll let him know he can say hello to you in hell."

He quickly protests, but he grows silent the moment my finger pulls the trigger. The bullets hit him dead center in the forehead. I watch his body fall hard to the groun,d and I push off my thighs to stand. I grab a cloth from my coat pocket and wipe the gun off. 

A man approaches me with a rich cherry wooden case. I press my finger on the little sensor on the front, and it opens. I remove the silencer and place it in its spot, and then do the same with my gun. When they're safely inside, he closed it, and I locked it with the same sensor. I wipe the sensor clean with my cloth, and the man retreats into the darkness with the rest.

"Drain his account and burn the body," I explain, to the closest man on my left. This man is Lincoln Murphy. He is the second person I would turn to. The first is his older brother, Leander. He somehow managed a life outside of the empire, and for that, I'm jealous. He's off galivanting with his sweet little girlfriend, whom I had yet to meet in the two years that they had been dating. Lincoln swore she's real. He even proved it to me with pictures. That's how I deduced she was his sweet little girlfriend. I never would have pegged him for enjoying the company of a redhead, but then again, I enjoyed being redheaded every once in a while, so I couldn't understand the draw to them. They could be sexy and fun and provide one hell of a good time. Or at least I could.

"Yes, ma'am," he replies. He hands me a cloth, and I frown at it before bringing it to my face. The always unfortunate blood spatter. A shower is in my future, not that I mind. It's muggy anyway.

He tosses me a set of keys. I run my fingers over the familiar ridges and grin. I blow him a kiss. "Just the car I wanted to drive," I sigh happily, tossing him the cloth. "Catch you in the morning," I call to him over my shoulder as I head for the exit.

And there she is, my Bugatti La Voiture Noire. 

This beautiful car rides like butter and is slick as hell. The best time to drive it is at the dead of night. I need a good getaway car without all the attention.

But when I arrive home, I feel empty like always. I talk a mad game, but I walk a walk that gave me nightmares. 

I shower, feeling the sadness of life weighing heavily on my shoulders. The hot water couldn't provide the comfort I needed. I would have settled for a hug from someone at least, despite how pathetic that sounded.

Sleep is not my friend most nights. Lying in bed tonight is one of those nights, and yet sometime between two and four, I crash and wake with a start to the sound of my annoying alarm on my phone. I stop the angry beeping and collapse back into my bed hard and with all the drama of the world. I feel sickly tired, but the world doesn't stop just because I feel sickly tired. I have to throw on my big girl panties and face the world as if I hadn't just killed someone hours earlier. I'd walk into work with a smile on my face and preach a wicked game of confidence. 

I never got off for killing someone. I always hate that part of the job. Father always seemed to do it without issue and then look me and his remaining three daughters in the eye as if he didn't do the most unforgivable act toward a human being.

But I was supposed to be a ruthless crime boss, and killing is just a part of the game. Doesn't mean I like it, though.

I know exhaustion reads deeply on my face. I put sunglasses on before leaving my room to hide the puffy, tired eyes that I could only put so much makeup on to hide it. I head straight for the fresh pot of coffee that has been made, but Leander stops me. He hands me a tumbler instead. He can't see me, but I'm eying him beneath the sunglasses. I bring the tumbler to my nose and open it enough to smell it. I can smell the caramel creamer, and I bring a hand to my heart as I lean against the counter. "My kryptonite," I sigh before bringing it to my lips. 

He chuckles. "I know," he replies, patting me on the shoulder in passing. "We need to head out. You ready to go?"

I drink about half the tumbler before he even asks me that. I come up for air and sigh as I lick my lips and dab at the corners of my mouth with my finger. "No, but I don't have a choice, so let's just get this over with," I grumble, adjusting the strap of my bag on my shoulder.

He gestures for me to go first, and I sigh. Upon reaching the elevator, I hand my empty tumbler to one of the gentlemen standing at the ready and hit the button. I shouldn't have downed the coffee so quickly. I'd regret it later, but it's absolutely what I need right now. I can feel Leander's lovingly judgmental eyes on me, and I roll mine. I love the security these sunglasses give me.

I step on as soon as the elevator doors open, and he joins me, standing to my right. If anyone can understand my struggle, it's Leander. Being sixteen when father died, I couldn't legally run the syndicate. I was decidedly barely legal at eighteen, but it was more acceptable then. So between sixteen and eighteen, Leander stood by my side and made the final executive decisions with my expressed approval only. No one was allowed to tell him what to do except for me because, well, it was my syndicate and he was my Murphy. 

The Murphy's had a long-standing agreement that spanned even before his grandfather, but we apparently don't talk about that because that was a very dark history. His grandfather worked with my grandfather, his father worked with my father, and being the oldest son, he worked with the eldest child of my father. To a lot of people's dismay, I wasn't born a son, and nobody wanted me in the leader position in the beginning, but I was pretty sure I earned my keep. Only two people questioned my judgment, and that was fine because they stopped being my issue the moment Leander became my Murphy.