Chapter 1 The odor of death

Twenty-two years ago….

The only daughter of the Blood Moon pack's Alpha saved a dying man who was bleeding to death in their pack forest.

She slept beside the man for a whole month, attending to him until he recovered completely. In showing his gratitude to the pack, the man kidnaped the Alpha's daughter out of the pack into his Mafia world and forced her to become his wife.

He was threatening the pack with her as leverage. If they ever tried anything, he had promised to kill her.

The Gangster boss's name was Salvatore Solana. Luciano Salvatore's father.

Today…...

Luciano's POV

The smell of dead people's corpses, 'the odor of death', that distinct and unpleasant scent. That arises every time I walk through these corridors, hits me hard again.

The number of times I have walked in here. You would think I would be used to it now. But no..... It will never be possible for me to accept everything happening here.

The memories of my first kill and all my walks in here resurface in my mind every time I step in here. To keep up with my uncle, I quickly take fast steps to catch up with him.

He has left me behind and he is on the higher deck of his warehouse. Quickly running up to him. I straw behind him through the main corridor to his office at the end of the hall.

The traumas I went through when I first held a gun at someone's head for my first kill. And the ones I had to go through watching what always goes on here attack me.

I take deep breaths to fight for the present air. And push the memories to the back of my head. The type of death and pain that people go through here is not something I would wish for, even for my worst enemies.

As I escape the first corpse room. I breathe in so hard. To prepare myself because this is just the beginning. There are a dozen rooms on my way to his office, each with a more disturbing death style marked for each of the rooms to come.

I hate coming here. This is the place where my uncle used to torment me when I was younger and scare the hell out of me. He referred to it as molding me.

I was weak in his eyes and did not fit in naturally like all the other Solanas in our family before me. For the past years, I paved the way to shredding the last parts of my humanity that held me back and put a wall between me and my uncle.

And now I am no longer human anymore.

I am a serial killer.

I have more blood on my hands than any of my age mates I know at twenty-two years old. These killings took away all of me, but came along with a blessing.

Finally, I did not have to go through my uncle's torture anymore. Because after the killings, I gained a bit of the upper hand over him.

I became a person he was scared of whenever I was around a gun and a bullet.

I unexpectedly glance at my reflection through the eyes of a woman bleeding to death in one room. My mind is brought back and I quickly look away. I don't want to be tempted into helping her. Looking into that pain in her eyes. I am sure I will find myself tempted to help. In this line of work. A few people have to die for me to be able to save many more.

No matter how much my human part wants to intervene. I have promised myself to look away for the time being. Anything human that makes me feel human or any kind of warm feeling, I will bury it without question.

I don't need destruction at this moment. I must be a monster that destroys to survive in this world, and any feelings would be my biggest weak point.

I try to pull all my focus fully into the hallway and not get tempted by the rooms on the side. Despite that, the smell of blood finds its way to me and fills my nose again, this time so hard.

I can't ignore it as it makes me feel too nauseated.

I hate all kinds of human secretion smells. I can't stand them. Unfortunately, that is a basic need for my uncle. He is a special case.

Although he is my flesh and blood and someone who has raised me.

He is the only serial killer that scares the hell out of me.

He is insane.

A serial killer that snapped a long time ago.

And killing anyone is a hobby or a basic need for him. From what I understand, only three things are keeping me alive beside him.

First, it's because he can control me through a threat he has put on my family. He knows I will do nothing to jeopardize their livelihood.

Secondly, the fact that I am the bullet, and the outside world fears me more than they do him. And lastly, I am the only close family he has left. He has no heir to continue our family legacy.

Unlike everyone in my family, killing for me did not come easily. I learned in the most hard way that killing for a reason is human and animal nature.

We have to kill to survive. We have to kill if we do not want to get killed, but unlike me, my uncle kills people for fun.

I don't want to keep going through these corridors or this torture, and I want it to end as fast as it came.

So, I turn around, halting my uncle's movement. “You said you had information you wanted to share…. Isn't it enough up here?... Where we are standing right now... For you to share the information!”

Five years ago. I swore never to come back here. Even with a gun pointed at my head, I would never have come here willingly. There was no way in hell. He would have brought me here. And more specifically, after what happened yesterday, with Keirah.

I have been in so much pain since then, loathing myself for allowing him to take her away from me. When I knew this was going to be her final destination.

Looking at her corpse in here today was not something I was going to allow myself to live through. But my uncle knows the weakness that will bring me here willingly, anytime. A dying wish promise I made to my mother.

We both know I will do anything to fulfill it. And that is what he has used to make me crawl out of my sanctuary to this hell.

Blood has always stained all our hands in the Solana family for generations. And would stain the coming generation too if no one does anything to stop all this bloodshed.

This is our legacy.

But before the Legacy for which he would die to fulfill. I would die to do the impossible to fulfill the promise I made to my mother on her deathbed.

“Yes.” My uncle answers without giving away anything more. I stand still, debating whether it was a trap and whether he might not have been truthful.

“I am sure I told you the last time we met. I won't stand you wasting my time.”

“How are you the only person supposed to continue our family legacy?”

My uncle shakes his head in disappointment as he studies my face, and even without replying to him. We both know the answer to that.

He worships our family legacy. He will do anything to keep it, and I don't. I hate it. I turn my head, ready to leave. He walks in front of me and halts me as he continues speaking. “With you, there is no hope, Bullet. In our line of work, there are principles and rules that everyone follows, and you're not an exception.

“Getting out of our line of work?! Bullet… You are choosing wrong! You are choosing to end up with a bullet in between your eyes…. Just like your mother…

“She was delusional, and you should have understood that by now… No one leaves the Mafia life and stays alive.

“If she didn't lie to herself that she would leave, she would be alive today.” My uncle continues to speak in spite.“But look at the poison she planted on you!”

I made a dying wish promise to my mother. That I was going to leave the Mafia world. On the same day, I also made a secret silent promise to myself.

I was going to stop our family legacy. Put an end to all these innocent people's killings,

With or without a soul, I will keep the two promises.