The Innocent: A Dark Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance (The Syndicate's Revenge Book 3)

by Mara McQueen

  The perfect illusion.

  If Patrice, with all her Brotherhood training, bought the show, then nobody else would doubt it.

  Enzo had heard rumors about her. The woman who could poison you with one drop and a smile on her lips.

  Patrice hadn't been smiling at Ava's wedding.

  She'd jumped onto his back and flicked some wretched powder in his face that had knocked him cold.

  Enzo had woken up halfway across the world, groggy and thirsty, only to find that uncle Victor had been killed and that he and his other First Family cousins had to marry into the fucking Brotherhood to protect the Syndicate and an all-out Clan war.

  The last thing Enzo wanted was to get married, especially to a Brotherhood Elite.

  But he quickly realized having Patrice as a fiancée would help with his plan.

  He wanted revenge and she was the perfect cover.

  So he hadn't fought the arranged marriage. That didn't mean he was glad to have her in one of his favorite houses.

  He hadn't forgotten her little stunt at the wedding. Had he been petty by scheduling the party on the same night he knew she'd arrive?

  Maybe. But better get her used to this type of events now, because there would be a lot of them until he found out who'd attacked his Clan.

  "When you're done ogling and—" Patrice gestured at the mountain of people grinding around Enzo. "—dealing with that, I want a word with you."

  "Really?" Enzo leaned back further in his chair, Taylor's arms draping around his shoulders. "This might take a while. Why don't you make yourself comfortable?"

  On second thought, better not. Enzo spied Michael, a low-ranking Syndicate member he'd lent some money and advice to way back, hulking into view with his oiled-up chest. That imbecile was looking a bit too closely at Patrice. Enzo gripped his glass tight enough to break it.

  Patrice gave Michael an all-mighty sneer when he got within ten feet of Patrice. The man backed away with an idiotic grin.

  But it was nothing compared to the scowl Patrice sent Enzo's way. He must have drunk too much wine, because he thought she looked all kinds of cute right now.

  "I think I'll do just that," Patrice said, scowl turning into a warning smile. "Enjoy your evening."

  She turned on her heels, parting the crowd with her presence alone.

  Enzo narrowed his eyes. That had been easy. Too easy.

  The Viper didn't give up without a fight.

  Patrice was up to something.

  Enzo downed his glass and threw it on the nearest sofa.

  He disentangled from the hungry limbs gliding around him, stood up, and righted his cufflinks. A chorus of mewls and disappointed groans resounded behind him.

  "Alas, that part of the party is over." Enzo sighed, giving all of them a half-smile. Now that Patrice was in the picture, no more extracurricular fun for him. He didn't need a contract to keep from cheating. But that didn't mean he had to be a bad host. "I'm sure you'll think up ways to have fun without me."

  The crowd sighed even harder as Enzo stepped out of the room. Damn Brotherhood meddling, screwing up his life.

  But Enzo was, above all else, a man of his word. He was about to get married. He was technically engaged. And he had a plan.

  The devoted fiancé angle would work just fine for him, unless Patrice somehow got in the way. She seemed like the type who could turn his life upside down—and she'd already started.

  Chapter Three

  PATRICE

  "What the hell is this?"

  Patrice's voice had entered dangerous whisper-screaming territory and she couldn't tone it down, not even a little.

  First, she'd traveled halfway across the world to see a fiancé she didn't want and didn't like.

  Then she'd actually met the infuriating man. At an orgy. That he was hosting.

  And now, to top off this sodden, rotten night, the room Charles had snootily escorted her into was absolutely ridiculous.

  "This is the Master's bedroom," Charles said with all the gravity of presenting a king's throne. "Or former bedroom, I should say. He insisted you have the best room in the house and he has relocated to another."

  "It has a stripper pole," Patrice said between clenched teeth.

  It also had an absolutely ridiculous bed—big enough for at least seven people to thrash and writhe in. It even stood on a platform. A literal platform for his esteemed highness.

  There were handcuffs dangling from the bed's canopy, too many bottles of lube on the silver-trimmed nightstand, and something that looked suspiciously like a whip thrown onto the blue velvet sofa.

  Everything dripped in extravagance and excess. There was no way Patrice was bringing her precious beakers anywhere near this place.

  It also spoke of countless wicked parties Patrice had never attended. She didn't plan on sleeping with their memories, either.

  She was one bad news away from shaking. Either with rage or nerves, she didn't know.

  Damn the Syndicate for being so stupid and getting slaughtered at that wedding. Damn the Brotherhood for crashing it.

  But, most of all, damn Enzo.

  How could such a gorgeous man enrage her so much?

  She'd barely gotten a glimpse of him at the wedding from hell. You know, when she'd tackled him and knocked him out with her sleeping draught.

  Enzo had been bloodied, shirt ripped, a gash on his forehead, but still impossibly gorgeous. But seeing him tonight, in all his glory, had sent shivers down her spine.

  He had that intoxicating presence that filled a room without him even trying. She'd seen the looks on his guests' faces. They all gravitated toward him, like he was the sun itself.

  Those cheekbones and that jawline could get Patrice into the kind of trouble she did not need.

  Enzo was charming and in control. Patrice was efficient and precise.

  If their Clans hadn't royally fucked up, there was no way she would have ended up with him.

  But she had and she'd hated every second of it so far.

  "I'm not sleeping here," she said, as calmly as she could while her insides roiled. She wasn't about to let anyone in this house know how it unnerved her. She was way out of her depth.

  "Come now, my tastes in decorations can't be that bad." Enzo's raspy voice said from behind her, breath ghosting across the shell of her ear.

  Patrice flinched away. How had he gotten so close without her hearing him? Or without Mr. Oscar sensing him? One measly hiss, was that too much to ask for?

  She took a great big gulp of air and met Enzo's gaze straight-on. Bad idea. Those dark eyes of his pierced right into her soul.

  "Flashy decorations aside," she said evenly. "I don't plan on sharing a bed with your former conquests."

  "Wouldn't that be something?" He leaned against the intricate doorframe, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Patrice didn't miss the way his muscles bunched up underneath his shirt. "But I am a man of my word. When I agreed to the unholy alliance between us, I swore off anyone else. I won't cheat. Can't cheat. Neither can you."

  "Really? Because you could have had me fooled with the writhing triplets back there."

  "They're not related, they just all dye their hair red. It's the color of the year, apparently." Enzo grimaced. "And they weren't writhing on top of me."

  "Oh, aren't I just the luckiest woman in the world?" Patrice sighed dramatically and sneered at the room.

  Curious. It didn't feel like Enzo. He was all crisp and perfectly-pressed lines. His bedroom was gaudy. It didn't compute in Patrice's organize-oriented mind.

  Then again, she'd just met the man she'd spent most of her life calling the enemy, so she could be wrong.

  "You might be if we play our cards right," Enzo said easily. "Neither of us wants this, we could set some rules to make this situation livable for both of us."

  Livable. This house was anything but, at least to Patrice.

  Enzo's world was nothing—nothing—like hers. She had order on her side. His seemed
shameless chaos. And it annoyed Patrice that she was deathly curious to find out just how shameless it could be.

  She shook her head. No, no, no. Everything seemed more tempting in the dark. She didn't need the kind of trouble Enzo's life would bring into hers.

  It was about time her insides stopped fluttering. She had to remember she was the Lady of the Brotherhood, feared in all the mafia Underworld.

  She stood up straight, threw her shoulders back, and smiled the most cutting smile of her life straight at Enzo.

  The gorgeous bastard smiled back knowingly, as if he sensed her inner turmoil. Screw him.

  "Yes, rules." She liked rules. They brought comfort in the vicious existence she had in the Underworld. "Number one—we're not living here, in your den of debauchery."

  Patrice walked past him with all the haughtiness she could muster. Her heels clicked through the blaring music and the whispers and moans of the few guests who'd wandered out into the hallway.

  The party was spilling out into the hallway She could swear Mr. Oscar sighed.

  She stopped at the banister, looking down at the countless burly bodyguards Raiden, the Brotherhood Prince, had insisted on sending along with Patrice to help her move. Wouldn't want to chip a nail on her precious, deadly hands.

  Enzo stopped next to her. Being so close to him did nothing to calm her down. The man a weird sort of magnetism to him. It took all of Patrice's training not to look his way.

  "I would've figured the first rule would be not to attempt to kill each other."

  Sadly, that was implied—and stated in the marriage contract they'd both signed. Can't have an alliance to save her Clan if her would-be groom was choking at the dinner table, now could she? "Yes, we can add that to the list of rules."

  He gazed down at the army of bodyguards trickling in and at the mountain of luggage they carried. "Planning on invading a small country?"

  Patrice sighed. "You know we can't until the year is up."

  The freshly-signed Treaty between their Clans stated, in no uncertain terms, none of the members involved in the marriage alliances—five from the Brotherhood and five from the Syndicate—could conduct any official Clan business until the year was up. No schemes, no negotiations, no assassinations. Wouldn't want to give the others power to destabilize the enemy Clan from the inside.

  But that didn't mean Patrice couldn't bend the rules. Just a bit. She suddenly had all the free time in the world.

  Raiden had given her a side mission—find out information about the Phantom. A rumored spy, more myth than human. It was said the Phantom could find any secret for the right price. The Brotherhood had funds and needed any scrap of information on the wedding they could get their hands on.

  Patrice's truth serum might've been the best on the Underworld market, but she doubted she could discover anything about the spy. She'd try, sure, because her Clan meant the world to her, but she had a different goal in mind.

  She planned on using it to discover what toxin those wedding bullets had been laced with.

  As soon as they pierced flesh, they rotted the tissue. The Brotherhood had almost lost Mason, the weapon specialist, from a nick to the shin.

  Patrice had made a very dangerous and very lucrative business out of poisons and all manner of toxic substances, and not even she knew what that toxin was. But she planned on finding out. That meant she had to haul all her equipment along with her.

  Her lab was sacred. It was also portable, thank you very much.

  She waved at the first bodyguard, who was already ascending the steps. "Leave everything in the foyer. We won't be here long."

  On cue, all the bodyguards deposited the luggage onto the floor, waiting for her next command. In the Brotherhood, Patrice was feared and respected. But she wasn't in her Clan now. She was in the Syndicate princeling's territory.

  "We won't?" Enzo asked in perfectly polite viciousness. "Do tell."

  "While I'm sure it would be absolutely exhilarating to spend my nights listening to a chorus of moans, I'm afraid I must decline the gracious offer."

  "Yes, heaven forbid you listen to people having fun and enjoying themselves," Enzo said and had the audacity to wink at her. "You might be tempted to have fun yourself. Wouldn't want that, would we?"

  Patrice felt a blush creeping up her cheeks, but she was powerless to stop it. Because she was, in fact, tempted. Nobody needed to find out about that, least of all Enzo.

  "What do you suggest instead?" he asked.

  "We could live at my place." A secluded little cabin nobody could find on a map. It got cold and lonely, but it was safe.

  Enzo huffed a laugh. "If you think I'm going to live the rest of my days locked away in a cabin out in the tundra, you're as insane as people say."

  Patrice tilted her chin up. They did call her insane. And menacing. And powerful and dangerous and everything she'd hoped to become when she was nothing but powerless.

  Let them talk. None of those who opened their mouth behind her back had the guts to face her.

  But there was one huge problem. "How the hell do you know where I live?"

  She'd been painfully careful to keep her home hidden, especially from the Syndicate. Information trickled out of that Clan like blood from a freshly cut artery.

  "I have my ways." A corner of Enzo's lips ticked up. "The answer is still no."

  Patrice instantly blistered. "So I'm supposed to uproot my entire existence to come here, but you can't be bothered to do the same?"

  "Not fair, is it?" He stepped closer, crowding her against the banister.

  It took all of Patrice's strength to stand her ground. Enzo still had a careless smile on his face, but his eyes shone like Syndicate daggers. Gone was the easy-going host, the outlandish party boy, replaced with the mafia lord so many people feared.

  "Almost as unfair as my uncle dying on his niece's wedding day." His words crawled over Patrice's skin, igniting it. "When your beloved Prince came to take my cousin Ava away."

  "She left with him because she wanted to," Patrice said between clenched teeth.

  Mr. Oscar shifted in the carry-on, rumbling. He sensed his owner was in trouble.

  "Half my Clan was slaughtered because your precious Brotherhood crashed that wedding," Enzo went on in that deep, dangerous voice.

  "We didn't kill Victor." Nobody in the Brotherhood would have dared raise a bullet against an enemy Clan leader without Raiden giving the command. All he'd wanted was Ava. No bloodshed, no tears.

  The wedding had gone horribly wrong for both Clans. But Enzo's had lost many more members.

  Patrice hated that everyone blamed her Brotherhood for that awful day. Her Clan was ruthless, but every member followed the Code. They didn't need any rumors about dissent within the Clan brewing in the Underworld.

  "Perhaps." His steel gaze snaked across Patrice's face achingly slow. "But you provided the perfect distraction."

  Patrice held onto the banister behind her for dear life. She felt Enzo's heat pulsing against her body. Could almost taste his barely-leashed fury.

  "My Clan has suffered because of yours. You don't get to come here and make demands. You might be the Brotherhood's Lady and the Viper but now you're in my world. Be careful."

  Patrice stared up at him, wishing she could melt his face off with a deathly glare alone, like all those silly little rumors about her warned.

  Enzo met her eyes, unflinching.

  The air crackled around them. Just as Patrice thought she couldn't take the tension any longer, footsteps approached them.

  Enzo blinked and his eyes returned to that same confident, relaxed look. A mask, then; one that hid the beast inside. He stepped away from her and turned toward the mountain of a man lumbering closer.

  Patrice grimaced. She could recognize that silly goatee anywhere. This was Darryl, one of the most violent Runagates in the world and proud of it.

  Whether people wanted to believe it or not, the world was divided into three categories. The secret Cla
ns, which ruled it from the shadows. The civilians, who had no clue they were mere pawns in a grand scheme. Finally, the Runagates, who hovered between Clan and civilian, and had no loyalty to either. All they cared about was profit. They sold information and lives to the highest bidder.

  Patrice hated the Runagates. Most Clan members did. But she really hated them. She'd spent two months in a Russian torture room because one of them had ratted out her location in exchange for a mansion, and Enzo had invited one to his party?

  "Leaving so soon?" Enzo asked with a laugh.

  Darryl nodded at the two women glued to his side. Their hands roamed in places they definitely should not be touching in public. "I think I'll have a small party of my own back at the hotel. You're welcome to join us."

  "Alas, I can't." Enzo sighed. "I have a special guest that requires my full attention. Might find my house scorched to the ground otherwise."

  Patrice huffed. She wasn't some child in need of supervision. And she wasn't a fan of arson. Explosions, maybe, but only as a last resort.

  "Enjoy your night." Enzo nodded at the two women who looked up at him as if they definitely wanted him to change his mind and join them. "Darryl, always a pleasure. Call when you're back in town."

  They shook hands and patted each other on the back. When Enzo stepped away, Patrice could swear she saw the glimmer of a golden key disappear between his fingers.

  But nobody else seemed to notice, least of all Darryl, who lumbered down the steps, giggling with the women.

  Enzo watched him leave like a hawk. When Darryl and his companions finally finished descending the grand steps, Enzo slashed one last look Patrice's way. "Good night."

  He turned, heading back to the party.

  Patrice was acutely aware the little exchange between her and Enzo had drawn more than one curious look from the guests. At least some of them must have been Syndicate assassins. She also felt the Brotherhood bodyguards tensing downstairs.

  This could escalate quickly. Then the Brotherhood would be blamed again, and most of the fingers would be pointed at her.

  That wasn't happening.