Promises and Pomegranates by Sav R. Miller

—sometimes, simply the existence of stimuli at all.
I felt it made me weak.
Dysfunctional.
Thus, I craved an outlet. Somewhere I could go and not lose myself in the
lack of absence of noise. Where the violence coded into my DNA could be
satisfied, the parts of me aching for death and destruction sated.
Working for Rafael Ricci, the don of Boston’s—at one time—premier
crime family was never supposed to be a permanent thing. He’d plucked me
from the streets and promised a life of luxury, if only I could get my hands a
little dirty.
But, like all other things, it snowballed out of control.
I learned I quite enjoy the taste of brutality on my tongue.
Love the way it blossoms like a flower springing from the earth, igniting
a compulsion like no other.
A desperation only relieved by the feel of another’s heart pulsing beneath
my fingerprints—the flutter delicate and innately human, petrified and struck
stupid in my wake.
A desire quelled only by bloodied hands and bodies mangled by them
—my hands, the very pair sworn to an oath of healing.
I let the darkest wants live inside of me, manifesting through my
obligation to an organization I joined before I knew what I was doing,
allowing myself a pass because of the decency of my day job.
It was supposed to be enough.
Moral licensing I didn’t think twice about until the lines bled too fully for
me to distinguish between them.
Until Elena.
The most forbidden of fruits.
Persephone to my Hades, as some used to call me. Springtime in a world
rife with death and destruction.
A woman I scorned until I found myself blinded by a new obsession.
Until I tasted her—the dewy essence of her supple skin, the tang of her
arousal glistening on her own fingertips, the salt of her tears as I shattered the
last vestiges of her innocence.
Whether she knows it or not, she gave herself to me that night.
Surrendered her soul under the guise of choice.
And though I left the way Death usually does—silently, before dawn—it
was never my intention not to return and collect.