Hello beautiful human beings!

I´m really sorry, I wasn´t able to update at all this week, I had tests, projects, my dad was out of town and my mom had major surgery, so I was responsible for her recovery, my grandma (who is chronically ill), my little brother and my 2 dogs (one of them has horner syndrome) and I wasn´t able to walk due to an injury in both my legs... So yeah, crazy week... Anyways, I´m going to try and upload today as many chapters as I´m able, but if I can´t, on Sunday I wil resume completely the daily schedule. Also, I already have sorted out the second part of this story, "He Loves Me Not", I will upload it in a different story, I believe that that part totally deserves its own space and tittle. So yeah...

Enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer

Neither the characters nor the story are of my property, they belong to their respective authors.

This story is a dark stalker romance with extreme dubious situations.

Please proceed with caution.

Itachi

The taste of my little Petal is still on my lips as I drive all the way to Wisconsin.

That's a lie.

It's not only her taste that stays with me. Her screams, her cries, her sobs still echo like music to my ears.

Who needs those studio-made sounds when I can play my little Petal like my custom-made instrument?

Now that I figured her buttons and saw her unravel, begging for more as I wrenched orgasm after orgasm from her, I won't be able to stop.

Not now.

Not ever.

In order to go back to her, to light both our bodies on fire, I need to take care of this fucking ordeal first.

I tuck my little Petal's taste and cries at the back of my mind where they join images of her spent, with a soft satisfied smile on her lips.

No idea why I want to see that smile over and over again.

That smile is only mine.

Just like my little Petal is.

I stop near a shabby old building on the outskirts of Wisconsin and put on black aviators. Instead of driving through the poor, shitty neighborhood, I leave the car at a public parking lot and walk the rest of the way.

The neighborhood isn't only old and poor, but there's a certain depression lurking in the air like another layer of atmosphere.

Curious glances fly my way and I try to walk normally without attracting any attention. This isn't the Senju's turf. There are other gangs, local and even Russian, and they don't react well to the name. They won't hesitate to come after me if they know Tobirama Senju's hitman is in town.

He might be feared, but he's not liked and when the shit hits the fan, his enemies will always try to bring him down, not offer him a hand of help.

I'm risking a fucking gang war here. Some of those smudge-faced kids and the whores who pretend they want to give me head will tell their pimps and I'll soon have a crowd on me.

These people always know when there's a stranger in town.

So, I have little to no time to get the information I need and get the fuck out of here.

I step inside the bakery shop without making a sound. The two patrons at the table lift their heads. The waitress's face is caught in what resembles a grimace and is in no way a smile.

"What can I get you, darlin'?" she asks in a thick accent.

"Chiyo. Where is she?"

"Ch-Chiyo?"

I pull out my gun and point it at her face. The two patrons scream and scramble out of the shabby bakery. The gangs are coming for me anyway, might as well make it worth their trip.

"Chiyo," I repeat. "Say one wrong word and your brain will be gone."

The waitress's face turns white as she points behind her with shaky fingers.

A woman stands behind the counter, wiping her hands against her apron and wearing a serene expression. Her purplish white hair is pulled into a bun under the kitchen cap and her wrinkled face eases as if she's relieved.

She knew someone would come to find her one day, and to delay that as much as possible, she moved into a territory that doesn't like the Senju.

Chiyo Akasuna, a former cook at the boarding school and a current nobody, but she's smart. She knew to stay out of the Senju's reach, but she kept close enough to Chicago to check on a certain someone.

I stride toward her and stop close enough that only the counter separates us. I place my gun on the marble, a clear threat that if she doesn't tell me what I want to know, I won't hesitate to kill her.

"You've grown, Itachi." Her wrinkles crease as she smiles. "You used to like rocks, but it looks like you changed toys."

Interesting. Not only does she remember me, but she also knows me. Weird that I don't have a clear recollection of her, which means she did an excellent job at staying in the background.

"The new toys hurt more." I finger the trigger of my gun, even though the safety is still on. "Don't make me try it on you."

She throws her hand around as she retrieves dough and proceeds to twist it. "I'm old, my boy. Death will come for me one way or another."

"You get to decide whether it hurts or not."

"No wonder he keeps you." She shakes her head. "That fucking brat and his thirst for the best things never changed."

She knows Tobirama.

This is getting more interesting.

"Is that why you hid the boy from him? Because you knew he'd mold him into his thing?"

"Mold him?" She scoffs, her attention never wavering from the dough. "He wouldn't have been able to with you in the picture."

I freeze, my finger stopping at the trigger. I was hoping it isn't true, but —

"Remember Sakumo?" Her wrinkled eyes meet mine for the first time, they're tired. So fucking tired. I haven't seen tired eyes like hers in a long time. "You used to protect him, used to make the other boys eat dust before they laid a hand on him, and you didn't care that you'd be punished for it."

"Your point?"

"You've changed toys to hurt him now. You can't expect me to tell you where he is."

I pull the safety and point the gun at her head. "Then you'll die with that knowledge."

"Death doesn't scare me." She meets me head-on. "I signed my death certificate the moment I snatched Sakumo from Senju's blood pool and gave him a safe place to stay."

"Safe place?" I chuckle without humor. "You might think yourself a saint, but you're not. That fucking school was anything but safe. He was a weak little fucker and would've been raped then killed if he was left to fend for himself.

"But he had you." Her wrinkles crease again, revealing crooked teeth as she smiles. "You don't want to kill him."

Doesn't mean I won't.

Sakumo's fate was sealed the moment Hashirama shot his seed into his mother's womb.

He will be killed either by me or Senju's men. The only difference is that, if I do it, I get to live, if I don't, Tobirama will lose all trust in me and would turn the whole fucking city against me.

But Chiyo doesn't need to know that. We're finally going somewhere and if she thinks I'll protect him instead of killing, she'll talk.

I retrieve my gun and tuck it away.

Her hands work absentmindedly at the dough. "It wasn't easy to get him to where he is today. He suffered a lot."

Spare me the history lesson.

Still, I listen, with my hands clasped in front of me.

"After he left, his new family didn't want him, because he was too quiet."

I don't remember Sakumo being too quiet, he never shut the fuck up.

"He had a few foster homes until he graduated from high school." She molds the dough into small shapes but doesn't continue.

"Then?"

"Are you going to kill him?" She meets my eyes.

"No." I don't hesitate and for some reason, it doesn't feel like a lie.

She nods sharply. "Return tonight and I might have something for you."

"How about now?"

"Zabuza and his men will be here in two minutes. They'd love to send your corpse back to Tobirama." She raises an eyebrow. "You killed his brother three years ago."

That Zabuza. Fuck.

"I'll be back tonight." I brush past her and into the kitchen.

"I was going to say use the back entrance." She smiles. "Itachi?"

"What?" I throw one last glance at the old woman.

Her face creases into a smile. "Thank you for protecting Itachi back then. You'll love the person he became."

"Tonight." I wave the gun between us and step out straight into the pouring fucking rain.

Fantastic.

I go into a back alley and take cover between two closed shops. No one is here, so I'm temporarily safe from Zabuza's gang.

Retrieving my phone, I put on the listening devices I installed in my little Petal's house.

I should've put cameras. I tuck that idea away for later use.

No sounds come out, which means she must be at her shift. A smile tugs at my lips as I think about the way she walked to her car this morning.

She was so sore, she had to take an hour off to have a bath. There'll be a lot of baths in her future. I'm sure about that.

Baths with me, where she'll be tucked all over my body as I make her soreness better and worse at the same time.

If obsession has degrees, I'm at the drunk stage where everything and anything is up for grabs.

And my little Petal is my poison.

I spend a few hours at the local library, going through public newspapers from the time Chiyo saved Sakumo.

There hasn't been nation-wide news about the disappearance of a boy, and Sakumo's mother is still a mystery.

I know she was Hashirama's woman, but she was neither his wife nor his whore. He never married before or after her.

I don't know why I think Sakumo must look like her. He couldn't have been with her since he was an orphan at the time, from the mother side at least.

The Senju were gods by then. Before that, they had their rivals up their asses, making them lose one deal after the other, then Butsuma, Hashirama and Tobirama wiped them off the face of the earth in a cowardly mass shooting.

Since then, everyone else bows to the Senju power.

The other families don't obey them out of respect, but out of fear. They know the Senju have no moral code or mercy and would do the same to them as they did before.

After a fruitless search in the newspapers, I quietly sneak into Chiyo's bakery through the back entrance. It's early evening, but I don't have time to waste.

I need to get this over with so I can go back and break my little Petal a little more, get under her skin a little more.

Problem is, she's getting under my skin, too and there's no way to stop that.

My feet halt of their own volition near the kitchen's ajar door. The stench of something metallic and potent fills the air instead of baked goods.

Blood.

I flatten my back against the wall and bring out my gun as I slowly push the door open.

If that fucker Zabuza is starting something here—

"Took you long enough." Tobirama stands over a corpse, a scowl written on his face.

Beside him, Ruiga and Jiga grin, their hands bloodied, droplets smudging their faces and shirts.

Chiyo —or what remains of her— lies cold on the floor, her head snapped, lolling to the side at an awkward angle. Her nails are chipped, an object protrudes from between her breasts. Her panties are bunched to her ankles, soaked in blood.

The fucking animals.

They raped an old woman dry in the ass. An old fucking woman.

I'm tempted to put bullets in their heads, but I force my hand to drop to my side and to wear the blank face I'm so good at.

"I needed her for information," I say in a bored voice, but a fucking fire rages inside me.

She was the last person who knew me and Sakumo.

"I got it myself." Tobirama kicks her lifeless corpse. "You're getting sloppy, Itachi."

"I found her, didn't I? The cleaners," I motion at Ruiga and Jiga, "only followed me here and took credit for my job."

"A job you're not doing well." Tobirama appears calm, but I know when he's at his limit.

He's been dreaming about being the leader since his father was alive, and now that he has it within reach, he won't allow anything or anyone to sabotage it.

"What did she say?" I throw a fleeting glance at Chiyo's corpse.

She was loyal to Sakumo, but considering the torture she endured, she must've talked. At a certain point of torture, the brain shuts down and will do anything to stop the pain.

"He's in the city," Tobirama says. "He's hidden well, so he could be in a safe house or under some fucking witness protection program."

"Is that all she said?"

"What else should she have said?" he asks.

"Just asking."

Interesting. Chiyo knew exactly where Sakumo was, and she contemplated telling me, thinking I'd protect him. But when Tobirama was involved, she kept her loyalty until the bitter end.

She really was ready for death.

"What happened to his mother?" I rip my gaze away from her and focus on Tobirama.

"Where is that question coming from?"

"She could be hiding him."

"Impossible." He clicks his tongue. "I killed that bitch with my own hands."

So that option is out. Back to the drawing board.

"I'll find him," I tuck my gun away and turn around.

"You better." Tobirama's voice echoes behind me. "I have strikes, too, Itachi, and this is your fucking last."