Kiss Of Death: A Dark Mafia Romance

Una

I close my eyes and grit my teeth, waiting for the touch to come. My entire body is trembling, demanding I react. I’ve been here before, back when I was trained, but that was to purpose, for a reason. This…this just feels like punishment and slowly, piece by piece, it is shredding my humanity.

I hear the shifting of feet. A palm slams around my arm, the cool metal of the glove touching my skin before unloading a massive electric shock. Kill, kill, kill. It’s my only thought, over and over until I can comprehend nothing else. My mind shuts down, completely blank. I react, instinct overriding everything. It’s as though I’m watching a TV, watching someone else break the man’s arm and snap his neck with such force that his lower jaw comes almost completely loose. Another Elite moves towards me and I watch as I go hand to hand with him. He raises a gun and I shove his wrist to the side, snapping his arm until the gun is pointed at his own chest, then I squeeze the trigger twice, ending him. Another starts to approach…

“Enough!” Sasha’s voice booms through the room and I swing my gun in his direction, then at Nicholai standing against the far wall. “Una, drop the gun.” It’s Sasha. I try and force my body to obey, my fingers to release the gun. My hand shakes. He moves closer until the barrel of the gun is against his chest. “Una, look at me.” I look at him and he wraps his fingers around the gun, careful not to touch me. I slowly release the weapon and stagger back a step. Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to force the red mist from my mind. Dropping to a crouch, I press the heels of my hands against my eyelids. “You push her too far,” Sasha says.

“I give her what she needs,” is Nicholai’s cool response.

“She will break. Her skills are unparalleled, but if you break her mind, she will be of no use to us. If you wish to punish her so, just shoot her already.”

“You forget your place,” Nicholai growls.

“I train the soldiers. And she is my best.” I hear the heavy steel door open and then close again. “Una.” I open my eyes and glance up at Sasha who is towering over me. The floor around him is covered in blood. And two mangled bodies lay at the center of the mess. “Go and get cleaned up.” He jerks his head towards the door and I stand, walking numbly down the hallway.

I can’t take much more of this. He’s been doing this for a month straight, forcing me to endure and kill. Instinct and lack of conscience are what make the perfect killer. Touch conditioning hones in on the most primal of instincts, forcing the things that make us fundamentally human from our mind, and without that, emotions—affection, love—they are all inconsequential. He’s turning me into an animal and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.