Title: Soldier Rising: Tales of the "Ripper"
Summary: As an underdog Jasper undergoes an Induction into one of the most powerful families around. Follow Jasper as he makes a name for himself in the Mafia. Rated M for Violence.
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or its characters.
Soldier Rising: Tales of the "Ripper"
At this point in time Jasper was becoming restless. He paced around the apartment while periodically glancing at the door or straining his ears for any sign of a key being pushed into the slot it was made for.
The soles of his dress shoes descended on the dark wood flooring in conjunction with the ticking of the clock down the hall.
It was 10:55.
He knew that as rapidly as the breaths were being expelled from his body, there were a group of men advancing towards their destination.
Thursday evening was to serve as an induction day and he was starting to feel the effects of adrenaline squelching and dilating the blood vessels throughout his body, in preparation for the rest of the evening.
Although his services have been used to endorse the Luciano family for a few years now, he couldn't help but feel slightly nervous. This job is what would ultimately make him or break him.
The years leading up to this moment played themselves over and over in his head like a broken record. He was so encased in his own thoughts that he failed to notice the sound of metal sliding upon metal as the door was forcibly pushed open.
"Whitfuck, where the hell are you?" The booming of a man's voice reverberated throughout the apartment. With the exception of the man's voice, the only other sounds to fill the silence were the heavy footfalls of the voice's men.
Edward Masen was the man that took Jasper under his wing and taught him all about Carlisle and the Luciano family. Although they were relatively the same age, Jasper looked up to Edward and admired him for the badass he could portray on and off the job.
They found Jasper perched on his granite countertop warring with ideas on how to pull off killing another man.
"Whitlock, why the hell do you look like your shitting bricks? You're thinking too much. It's supposed to come to you, don't force it." Masen knew that Jasper was stressing over what was to come. He had known the kid for enough years to know the signs of his pensive thinking.
Jasper simply nodded and hopped off the countertop. The muted thud of his landing solidifying his resolve with one method of execution.
"Let's go."
"Do it slowly. And be as creative as fucking possible." Yelled Masen from the doorway of the basement. "Carlisle should be down here in a few minutes to check on your progress. And so help me fucking Jesus that you do your shit correctly or both of our asses will be on the line. Remember I was the one that felt you were ready to rise up the ranks."
Jasper simply nodded and watched as Masen and a few others took a seat near the doorway before transfixing his stare to the bloodied man in the chair.
He was a mess. That, Jasper admitted to himself. The blood was thoroughly caked into the hair on top of the man's head that it was hard to tell that the man's hair was blonde. Thick streams of congealed blood resided around the dips in his eye sockets and in the grooves of his broken nose. The white shirt covering his torso was littered with the imprints of shoes and bloodied knuckles. The man was a mess, and it needed to be fixed.
"Water. I need some water." His words were simple. So simple that the men looked toward Masen for the meaning of Jasper's statement before shrugging off the bizarre request and disappearing through the door to retrieve it.
Minutes or hours could have passed before Masen returned but Jasper would have never noticed. Time ceased to advance the moment he descended the stairs.
"What's your name?" was the only question that Jasper would ask that would be personal. He took satisfaction in the breathless grunts that his victim emitted as each pass of his blade drew closer to the steely blue of his irises. He wanted to keep the bound man informed in everything he was going to do.
"James." At this point James understood that holding anything back would result in an even slower torture. He'd been in the business long enough to know that anyone who withheld their name from their captives would only be screaming it with bloody gurgles later.
"You see this knife James? I want you to memorize every little insignificant detail etched into the blade that is being held in my hand," He stated calmly. The only moment between the two men were the swaying of an arm and the hypnotic stare of the steely blue eyes as they followed the blade. Jasper cleared his throat before continuing. "Not only do I want you to remember how this will look, I want you to remember how it will feel when your skin yields to the force that will be used when it comes to carving out every inch of your body."
A clearing of a throat alerted him to the return of Masen with his materials. He methodically placed the knife in the back pocket of his jeans before turning to face the men behind him.
As Jasper extended a hand for the water bottles, it didn't escape him that Edward had his eyebrow quirked in confusion over his request.
Edward knew not to question the motives of Whitfuck. Any little object would always play into the bigger picture later. It would only be a matter of time before he revealed the nature of his ways. And he was excited for it. He knew that by giving Whitlock the opportunity to take another man's life, he would solidify his position amongst the Lucianos.
Carlisle was a ruthless Don, and he would only want the meanest, grittiest, savvy minded individuals to make up his family. There was no place in a Luciano's mind for weakness. That much was proven when Carlisle's wife Esme died at the hands of his long time friend turned enemy Eleazar Gino.
At this point, Jasper knew nothing of the man that sat tied to a weathered wooden chair. After Jasper retrieved the materials, he was about to turn around when Masen whispered something in his ear.
The only response that registered on Jasper's stone face was a sinister half-smile. He turned back to the man cowering in the chair that was placed in the center of the barren room.
James Gino.
He circled him. He circled him like a caged animal that is forced to endure the monotony of zoo life.
Eleazar's son. He knew then that he had to make James' death extra special.
Not only for himself but for Carlisle.
Satisfied that his knife remained in his back pocket placed one water bottle on the floor beside James and unscrewed the two bottles that was in his possession. Jasper slowly flicked his wrist and watched as the water mixed with the blood in his hair and trickle down to fill the crevices of his face. He repeated the process with the other bottle making sure that all traces of previous bloodshed was removed.
"There. Now we can actually see that face of yours. Don't be mistaken that I did that for your convenience. I'm much too selfish. I only want the blood that will cover your body to be the blood that I will spill."
He noticed the adams apple in James' throat bob in accordance to his words. Jasper would be lying if he said he didn't thrive on knowing he made the man frightened.
He couldn't wait to personally acquaint his blade with the thin lids covering his steely blue eyes. And that's exactly what he did. He took the blade of the knife and delicately sliced the eyelids from around the eyes. Jasper made sure to take some extra time in doing so. He wanted to make sure that James' eyes stayed intact. He didn't want James to miss the opportunity of viewing the wonderful work his body would become.
Without looking, Jasper threw the eyelids haphazardly over his shoulder which landed on one of the men's slack-lined thighs. The man that went by the name of 'Bear' quickly discarded the eyelids from his slacks. Not necessarily because he was repulsed with cut up flesh, but because he didn't want the bloodied flesh to stain his pants.
Jasper looked on with morbid fascination as he studied James' lidless face. He couldn't help but smile at what other delightful things he had in store for Gino's son.
"Stop. Please stop. I'll do anything you ask of me." Pleaded James. Little did he know that his plea for help meant nothing to the ears that he desperately tried to reach. It would have been different for Jasper to find attachment with his words if he had not known that the man that sat before him, dripping blood, was nothing close to being labeled 'man'.
James was a monster. A monster that held no regard for the lives of the innocent. Granted Jasper never thought of himself as a saint, in fact he was far from it, but he and the Luciano's knew the difference between killing men and raping teenage girls and women with no rhyme or reason.
Therefore, James was not a man in the eyes of Jasper; he would have no qualms with killing him.
After filling himself with hate for the man that sat before him, he got to work.
He proceeded to peel piece after piece of skin slowly from James' muscle before instructing him to hold it. Jasper also warned that if he were to drop even the smallest piece to the floor that he would prolong the torture more than he originally intended.
Jasper was lying of course. Whether the monster dropped it or not, he still would prolong his actions. He would milk the bastard of every scream and plea he could muster before he even thought about stopping.
As Jasper continued to work he set the rhythm of his slices to the screams that bubbled from the mouth of James.
The more frequent the screams rang, the more frequent he would cut.
It was length of the screams that Jasper took satisfaction in.
It was the long low pitched gasps and whimpers that made his little game more worthwhile.
Jasper knew that James was too blinded by the pain of losing his skin to even notice that it was the longest screams that motivated Jasper to remove the largest amount of surface area.
He didn't know that the faster the skin was removed, the sooner he was coming to leaving his existence behind.
As soon as the task of peeling away the skin from the face was completed, Jasper jabbed his knife into James' jean clad thigh making sure that he avoided the femoral artery.
He didn't want the monster dying prematurely and he did need to have the use of both hands after all.
A win-win situation.
Jasper swiveled the cap of the third bottle of water and took a long pull before dumping some on James' lidless eyes.
"Unfortunately for you, you have no eyelids, so your eyes need to be hydrated until I'm done."
Jasper perched himself near the lowest portion of James' body before he withdrew the blade from his leg and used it to rip the jeans from his body.
He did to his legs what he did to James' upper body and face. The only new addition to his routine was the peeling of the muscle from the bone.
As his carving wore on, Jasper noticed that the man's screams were becoming few, far and in between. He knew that his time was limited before James' body gave in to the sweet temptation death was offering. He had seconds, a few minutes at most to complete what he was brought to the basement to do.
He stopped his ministrations and calmly told the man to look at what his body had become before he forcibly removed the eyeballs from their sockets as one final gurgled scream escaped the chapped lips oozing red.
"Beautiful." Jasper whispered through a devious smile as he wiped his blade clean with the soiled fabric of his shirt.
The smell of iron ensnared Carlisle in a memory of visiting a battleship museum as a boy. Carlisle Remembered asking his mother if anything else smelled as horrid as the rusty old ship. Her hands caressed his face as she explained to him that in due time his father would have the answer to his question.
The smell was so overwhelming that Carlisle had to steel himself against the wall that Edward had occupied.
"My God." He replied to no one in particular.
He was awestruck at the scene that lay before him. He turned towards Edward's proud face before returning his gaze towards Whitlock and the remains of the Gino fucker.
Jaspers hands and forearms were painted with various splatters and swirls of red.
The walls and floor spaces surrounding the body were tinged with similar versions of what decorated Jasper's arms. Some were dark and cracked with the exposure to the air while others were smeared and looked like the most delicious candy apple red.
A puddle of blood lay beside the dormant body that was tied to the chair.
The sound of dripping of blood from the body's elbow was the only semblance of time that Jasper could use during Carlisle's examination.
300.
Jasper counted three hundred drops of blood in his head.
Three hundred drops of blood equated to three hundred seconds.
Three hundred seconds meant that it took Carlisle five minutes to withdraw himself from his mind and wondering how on earth a man could reach this level of 'perfected murder' in such a short amount of time.
Knowing that as much as Carlisle wanted to reach within the confines of Jasper's mind to find all the answers himself, he couldn't so he settled for asking him.
"I was told to be creative Mr. Luciano. I was only doing as I was told sir."
Jasper was a man of few words. Carlisle knew that and he never valued that particular quality until recently. Words were a small sacrifice to pay for the brilliance that the man before him was capable of.
Carlisle broke his stare with Jasper before turning to the men beside him.
"Bear, Get this piece of shit out of my basement. Make sure that daddy fucking dearest is aware that his son is no longer around. Better yet, dump the body somewhere and mail those eyelids to Eleazar and one of his eyes to his wife Carmen."
"An eye for an eye."
"Yes, Jasper I can be quite poetic when the need arises." Carlisle smirked before ascending the stairs to the main house.
It didn't escape Jasper that Carlisle used his first name.
"Well Ripper, looks like you caught the eye of daddy Carlisle." Bear congratulated Jasper as he passed by to remove the body.
Masen simply nodded and returned to the main house to converse with Carlisle.
It was in the artificial lighting of the basement, illuminating his masterpiece, that he was no longer the Jasper that had entered mere hours earlier.
He had become Jasper "Ripper" Whitlock.
Member of the Luciano Family.
A/N: First and foremost I want to thank KrisScott for her lovely Beta skills. Not only does she look over my chapters for me but she listens to me rant about every concievable topic there is. I heart you tons hon :) This was my original one-shot. After much thought, I have decided to continue with this story. It's not going to be very long. I'll probably write about two or three more chapters on it but it will involve the "rising" of JRW over the years. So leave me a review to tell me what you thought :)