Luigi’s wife, Angeline, didn’t have a brain in her head. When they came over for dinner, Cosmos wanted to shoot himself just listening to her. He couldn’t understand why Luigi, an intelligent man, had tied himself to such a moron. Of course, Luigi fucked everything that walked in skirts in a two-hundred-mile radius. He’d even bragged to Cosmos that he often brought a woman into his study, fucked her right there or had her blow him while Angeline knocked on the door. Luigi took great pleasure in roaring at his wife to leave him alone, and she would slink away in tears.
Cosmos wasn’t a man to allow another to one-up him, so he’d done the same, but found the pleasure was even greater when he forced his wife to watch – or participate. Life was good. So good. When he was in a bad mood, he could take out his frustration on his beautiful trophy, reveling in her tears and her promises of doing better. When he was happy, he could do whatever the hell he wanted when he wanted – and that was often.
Luigi paid him well and always would. He would have that money coming in for the rest of Luigi’s life. That had been the deal, and Cosmos wasn’t a trusting man. If Luigi ever thought to get rid of him to save that money, he had insurance to prevent that. Recordings. Times. Dates. Even at nineteen he’d been smart. All that, along with recordings, was locked up tight in his safe. When he died, his lawyer would find the information. He often taunted Luigi with the fact that he’d better not die of some illness.
Luigi had picked him up off the street and groomed him for the position of his brother’s dog handler. Cosmos had taken that job knowing he would eventually betray them all. Honestly, that had thrilled him. Every time he sat down at the table with the Abbracciabenes he had secretly laughed inside.
Luigi had to put up with a moron with the face of a horse while he had a young model, her face and body beautiful. He knew someday Luigi would kill his wife, and he wanted to be there when it was done. Cosmos figured his own wife had a few good years left until her looks went. He’d replace her then. Until that day, he forced her to please him in every way possible. He had to admit, he missed the exhilaration of knowing death was coming to those close to him and sometimes, he couldn’t help himself, he had to repeat that experience. He would know who was going to die, but they wouldn’t. It made him feel a little like a god.
Cosmos sauntered out of his house, the three-story mansion with glittering chandeliers and gleaming wood, another sign of success he didn’t give a damn about, like his trophy wife, but enjoyed showing off to others. He liked the status. He especially liked to lord it over those who had said he wouldn’t amount to anything. His scum parents he sometimes saw just to remind himself of what his life could have been like. Someday, he’d set fire to their little box of a house and burn their alcoholic asses along with the dump they lived in.
He walked to the cliff overlooking the ocean. It was one of his favorite spots. This was where he disposed of anything or anyone who got in his way. A teenage boy who had tried to steal his car and had begged for food when caught, begged even to be turned over to the authorities. Cosmos detested him, that reminder of what he’d been. So pathetic. He brought him home on the pretense of feeding him and giving him a job. It had been so satisfactory throwing his ass off the cliff – a symbol of getting rid of his old self. Feeling the power. Knowing who he was now.
Another death had been that of a woman he’d spent hours with, taking her in every way possible, forcing her to service his friends and later Luigi. She’d been so accommodating until his friends had arrived. She had the audacity to threaten him. He was very happy to prolong her death, holding her over the edge, listening to her beg before he dropped her worthless ass into the sea.
Two dogs, ungrateful for his care, one biting him and the other cowering in the back of the kennel, both reactions after he’d disciplined them. Both every bit as worthless as the little bitch threatening him. He expected his dogs to obey him instantly. He kept them hungry and grateful for the least little bit of attention. The two hadn’t been worth anything, turning on him like that.
The biggest thrill was the whining, sniveling, snot-nosed six-year-old son of his gardeners – a husband-and-wife team. The couple always brought him along and he was continually screaming and crying, running to his mother when his father told him to stop. She babied him endlessly, heaping insults on her husband when he tried to discipline the boy. Cosmos had complained several times of the noise, but she only glared at him while her son had looked smug. He’d arranged for an accident, the poor little brat falling over the edge on his mother’s watch. Stupid cow. Now her husband had something to hold over her head for eternity.