by Lana Sky
“Are you sick?” Fabio asks, a hint of sympathy leeching into his tone.
“No.” But I am.
Sick enough to toy with fire and enjoy the searing burn. God, I can still smell her. Feel her.
“Well, if you aren’t sick, we need to move. Here—” he throws a handful of fabric at me, dry at least. “Get dressed. I have a car waiting. You have five minutes. I assume your lovely fiancée is somewhere safe and sound in this house…” He trails off, his expression shifting from anxious to horrified. With a forced cough, he heads for the door. “I’ll find her.”
I wonder if he will, “safe and sound” in that pink fucking room.
I can’t seem to move, eyeing the black suit Fab left as though dressing is a foreign concept.
My innocent little fiancée…
Even if I wanted to fuck her—hell. My cock throbs, and I drop the pretense, at least in my skull. I do. I crave her if only to get her out of my system for good.
But I can’t touch her.
“Don? Change of plans.” Fabio storms into the room, scoffing when he sees I’m still not dressed. Rolling his eyes, he inhales on his cigarette. “Mischa’s called off the meeting—”
“Son of a bitch!” I lurch to my feet, already spinning toward the window. I expect to see a hoard of mafiya vehicles peeling down the driveway. If not now, then soon. “I should have known this fucking plan wouldn’t—”
“Oh, the plan is still on,” Fabio insists in that superior tone he rarely uses. The one that signifies when he’s fully in “accountant” mode and the world around him becomes reduced to numbers and profit. “The arrangements are already being put into place as we speak. Your wedding, by the way, will be within a week.”
My head spins, and I wish I truly were hungover. I’d be too numb to fully feel the consequences of those words and what they represent.
My wedding, to a woman I can’t ever fully claim.
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw cracks, snapping me back to the present reality. “So why did Mischa call off the meeting?”
Fabio huffs on his cigarette and then sighs. “His wife is awake. I thought it prudent to allow him some time to help her…adjust.”
Namely to the reality that her daughter is being married off and an attempt had been made on her life.
“So what now?”
“You still get dressed. I’ve been pulling some strings to help you get the famiglia back underway—”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t,” he says. “If you do anything illegal, I don’t want to know. But I figure keeping you busy minimizes the risk of you going on another killing spree.”
“There’s another thing,” I say. “Antonio was set up by someone else. I need to find out who.”
“That could be a nice way to segue your relationship with Mischa away from murder.”
“It could,” I admit.
A happy family on a mission of revenge.
It’s the shit warm, fuzzy fairy tales are made of.
~ The story continues in Shattered Throne, Book three in the Mice and Men Series ~
Afterword
You have finished book one of Donatello and Willow’s story. Do you want to see where it all began? Check out the War of Roses Trilogy!
XV: Fifteen: War of Roses Trilogy Book One
Kidnapped, Ellen must do whatever it takes to survive her cruel mafia captor, Mischa. Will he break her— or will she outsmart him?
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WHEN HATE BECOMES OBSESSION…
Mistaken for her beautiful half-sister, Ellen Winthorp is taken captive by a madman who declares that she will be his "fifteen": the fifteenth victim of a vicious mafia blood feud. Armed with only her instincts, Ellen must resist her captor for as long as she can—which is easier said than done the more she's exposed to the complex man beneath the beast.
* * *
Because Mischa Stepanov isn’t a mindless monster—he’s a wolf, and she’s the unwitting doe caught in his midst.
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Unraveling the torment of his past may be her only hope of salvation...
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Or the secrets uncovered may destroy them both.
Chapter 1 of XV: War of Roses Trilogy Book 1
Noise…
Chaos…
Briar…
* * *
The first thing I’m aware of is that I’m blindfolded—a fact that could be a blessing in disguise as my thoughts blur and jumble together. Only one coherent question escapes the fray: Where am I?
No answer comes to me immediately. My straining ears can make out only a few words muttered nearby in unfamiliar voices. Deep, masculine voices.
Various smells irritate my nostrils as well: sweat, body odor, male. All male. God, where am I?
I try flexing my shoulders only to wince. My hands are impossible to move, tied behind my back with something rough. Rope?
Oh, God.
Familiar terror gnaws at my belly as moisture gathers in my armpits and sweeps across my palms. At least, now, I have an inkling of my fate. I’m trapped in another one of his games. My nostrils flare with renewed purpose: seeking out his scent.
He must have hired lackeys this time; foreign body odor drowns out the stench of his cologne. I can’t smell him.
But you can survive this. I fall back on the mantra that has gotten me through every day for sixteen years. You can survive, Ellen. Focus, Ellen. Breathe, Ellen.
Ten hours—that’s how long I endured last time. My resolve had nearly splintered by the end. I’d almost given in. Almost.
But even psychological wounds eventually heal and leave tougher scar tissue behind. I can last another ten hours with Robert. My brain makes that distinction as the barrage of scents dissipates, revealing one that overpowers the rest: a man’s. I taste the nuances in his stench rather than smell them—he’s that potent, composed of a multitude of different things.
Cigar smoke.
Vodka.
One scent in particular makes my heart stop. Salty and sweet, it’s almost as familiar as the flowery perfume wafting from my skin now. Blood?
Robert never smokes. He doesn’t drink. Whenever he hurts me, he always washes his hands before and after. It is our routine, and he is nothing if not predictable.
No. This is someone new. Someone taller, whose shadow completely blots out what little detail plays across my blindfold. His footsteps are steady. Heavy.
“This her?”
I sense the outline of his fingers before the callused edge of one grazes my forehead.
“You made sure?”
His voice is deep. Almost too deep to be intelligible: a series of grated, rumbling notes. There’s an accent tucked among them—something thick. Eastern European? Briar had a maid from there once. Sonja.
Sonja liked to read Jane Eyre. She liked scribbling love notes to Robert Sr.’s men before fucking them in the broom closet late at night when she thought no one was looking. Sonja liked a lot of things before Robert took a liking to her.
But another figure from my memory possessed this accent as well. Even though his words were hissed in a whisper, I still remember. Breathe!
“Bring her.”
Those two words snap me back to the present. Unfamiliar hands grab my shoulders, cinching the soft silk of my blouse. Briar’s blouse. She dressed me in it lovingly, remarking on how the color complemented my eyes. Our eyes, the same shade of light blue.
“Move!”
A tug on my shoulders hauls me upright and unseen hands shove me forward. Every sound echoes. Four footsteps, including mine. The biggest man takes the lead, I suspect, his gait rhythmic against creaking floorboards.
In contrast, the men holding me dig their nails into my skin and scurry toward an unknown destination. A rusty squeal seconds later conjures the image of an old door opening, and the footsteps trail off.
“Move!”
Something rams into my side and I stagger for balance until my cheek strikes a h
ard surface. It’s warm. Human.
“Get her on the bed.”
Those harsh hands return to my shoulders to fulfill the command.
“Sit her on the edge…like that. Cut her hands free.”
A metallic hiss sends a shiver down my spine—then pain! Fire courses through my fingertips as circulation returns to them. I long to flex each one, but I know better. Instead, I keep them close, settling them onto my lap.
These men kept my skirt on, at least. Her skirt. The hem comes down past my knees, and I’ve never been so grateful for four inches of satin. It will buy me more time.
Ten hours. I’ve already lasted ten minutes. You can do this, the courageous part of my soul whispers. But then that voice dies in the wake of two more words uttered in that guttural cadence.
“Leave us.”
The two smaller men scatter in the direction we entered—but it’s all wrong. No. No. I don’t smell Robert, and he’d never leave me alone with another man. Not his lackey. Not even his own father.
Most alarming of all, this man certainly is no Winthorp. His voice isn’t familiar and this house doesn’t smell like any property on the familial grounds.
They took me from the motorcade…
Fire sears through my skull as memories return in snatches. The clearest one is of her face. Briar. So beautiful, dominated by that pure, sweet smile. “I want you there,” she insisted. “We’re sisters, after all.”
Sisters. I cherished how that word sounded in her soft cadence, tucking that moment inside myself like one of the trinkets hidden in my secret cache. Love was more precious than a button or rock I’d stolen away. Those four words meant everything. I want you there.
But the memory of that moment serves as a weak antidote to the terror paralyzing me now. More bits and pieces come back.
I was in the car—the beautiful limousine for once, instead of one of the servant vans that took up the rear. For part of the way, I was even sitting beside her while she braided my hair. “We look alike now,” she wistfully remarked, beaming at our reflections in the polished windows.
We look alike. The phrase haunts me. As if I could ever look like Briar, with her lighter ringlets and her creamy skin. The only feature we truly share is our eyes. Our mother’s eyes. Large, round, and blue. In every other respect, she takes after her father, with a beautiful aristocratic nose and a graceful neck. Every Winthorp possesses the same subtle characteristics—markings of the blood, they like to claim. Good blood. Blue blood.
I take after my father, whoever he is.
Briar loves to tout our tentative resemblance anyway—especially to her benefit. I am the one the maid saw sneaking out back two summers ago. I am the one who scurried out of the room of that visiting businessman one winter.
And now…
We look alike.
“Take off the blindfold.” That voice…
I swallow hard, uneasy. Robert has found a new monster to play with. Someone who shares his flair for the dramatic. But where is he? My tormentor always relishes this part of the game. How he enjoys savoring my fear as I try to piece together where I am. Admittedly, it wasn’t this hard before; he never strays too far from the property.
His favorite lairs are the boathouse, or the deserted crypt, or the east wing. I could always hear the bluebirds chirping throughout the grounds, no matter which corner of the estate he deemed my chosen cell.
My ears strain, searching for that faint, familiar song. This time of year, they’re nearly deafening, able to be heard in even the farthest reaches of Winthorp Manor.
Two seconds. Three.
I hear nothing.
“Take off the blindfold.”
The harsh rasp of syllables steals my breath away. I know anger on Robert. On Robert Sr. Even on Briar. They stutter. They shout. They scream.
None of them ever exude their impatience to the point where I can sense it in the air. Or taste it: copper on my tongue. This man isn’t a Winthorp.
The realization coaxes my body into action. My sore fingers finally contort, trembling after what must have been hours of captivity. Whoever tied my blindfold snagged bits of my hair in the process and every tug on the knot at the base of my neck rips tiny strands loose from my scalp—comparable to my pathetic hopes being ripped from underneath me one by one.
I don’t hear the bluebirds.
I can’t smell Robert’s favorite cologne.
When I finally get the knot loosened enough to uncover my eyes…
I see hell.
Mother used to say it was beautiful, forsaking the teachings of the local priest. “Hell is a rose,” she used to murmur, her gaze turned inward, wistful and distant. “A flawless one, with all the life sucked out of it. The thorns have become knives. Its leaves have swallowed up the stalk. It’s grotesque. It’s deadly. But never forget that, underneath the violence, it’s still beautiful.”
He is beautiful. Or he was once. Blond hair draws my attention first—a sun-kissed gold in places, darkened with age in others. It’s been clawed back from his face into a ponytail longer than mine was before Briar trimmed it. His eyes are that dangerous color between blood and brown. Like a flame, they catch the light filtering in through a sloppily boarded-up window beside him. His face is angular. Chiseled. Stone. Every feature is sculpted to convey just one emotion: determination. The way an owl might watch the mice scurrying underfoot in the stables. Or the way Robert used to look at me.
The way the devil looks, I presume, as if he has all the time in the world. More than ten hours.
An eternity to torture me.
~ Continue Reading XV ~
A Word from the Author
Hey there!
Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed the story, please leave a review and recommend the book to any friend you think would love this twisted world. You’d have my eternal gratitude. Even a short sentence goes a long way!
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About the Author
Lana Sky is a reclusive writer in the United States who spends most of her time daydreaming about complex male characters and legless cats. She writes mostly paranormal romance, in between watching reruns of Ab Fab and drinking iced tea. Only iced tea.
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
* * *
PAINTED SINS DUET:
A Touch of Dark
With a killer on her trail, this sheltered socialite has no choice but to turn to her father's sworn enemy.
Could the tension building between them be entirely due to lust, or the trappings of a greater scheme...
* * *
One driven solely by revenge?
* * *
PAINTED SINS DUET:
A Taste of Sin
IS HE A HEARTLESS MONSTER?
The more she’s subjected to his charms, the deeper Juliana falls under Damien’s spell. But the promise of protection and security may come at a higher price than she’s willing to pay...
* * *
OR A RELUCTANT PLAYER?
The reclusive billionaire has his own secrets, and his relationship with Juliana may threaten to send his precarious house of cards crashing down...
* * *
&n
bsp; Will their bond survive the chaos?
Or will they both be destroyed in the end?
* * *
SAVAGE FALL DUET:
King’s Men
She will do anything to save her family’s crumbling business empire—including selling herself to the billionaire responsible for the destruction...
_____
THE MORE TREACHEROUS THE LIE…
* * *
Ten years ago, Snowy Hollings did the unthinkable: she betrayed the love of her life.
* * *
Now, when her family's fortune is decimated overnight, the popular socialite is in for a rude awakening: you reap what you sow.
* * *
…THE HARDER THE FALL.
* * *
Mysterious newcomer Blake Lorenz despises everything that Snowy Hollings stands for--and he's determined to destroy her piece by piece.
* * *
When all is said and done, this ruthless corporate king will stop at nothing to torment the redheaded beauty.
* * *
She had it coming, after all.
