Jaded Devil: An Enemies-to-Lovers Mafia Romance

by Nicole Fox

  The Mariani commander nods slowly and glances towards his men. “Then we no longer find ourselves in common cause with Rokiades and the Greeks.”

  Renata smiles slowly, her eyes trained on Rokiades. “Do you hear that, old man?” she taunts. “It’s over. Tell your men to put down their weapons.”

  “Over?” Rokiades snarls. He shakes his head. “It’s not over until I say it is.” He holsters his gun and pulls out a small device from the pocket of his jacket. He holds it up, making sure everyone can see it. “This denotator is rigged to a bomb that will take out the entire compound,” he explains. “All I have to do is press the red button.”

  There’s a tiny little light at the upper left corner of the device, just above the red button. It’s blinking fast.

  “If you press that button, you’ll die, too,” Renata points out.

  “Yes,” he replies. “But I’ll take all of you down with me. Are you willing to have all these lives on your hands, Renata? Are you willing to die? Are you willing to allow your child to die?”

  “Don’t listen to him,” I hiss at Renata.

  But his words have already pierced through her. Her eyes go wide with shock as she realizes that Rokiades has kept an ace up his sleeve the whole time.

  “You’re the only one with the power to stop me, darling,” Rokiades continues in a sickly-sweet tone. “You know what you need to do.”

  She looks down for a moment and I notice her hands clench into fists.

  “Renata—”

  “You still want me to marry you,” she says, cutting me off.

  “Exactly,” Rokiades replies. “I will even spare your child if you agree to it.”

  Renata glances at me. Of course, he notices.

  “Tsk-tsk. Now, you’re asking for too much. There has to be a consequence. Kian O’Sullivan will not be allowed to live.” He turns his gaze to me. “What do you say, Irishman? Are you willing to die for your men?”

  Cillian grabs my arm. “Don’t you fucking dare. You’re no martyr.”

  I give him a smile. “Sometimes, being a don means making tough decisions. You’re the one who taught me that, brother.”

  “You pick that fucking lesson now? Out of all my wisdom over the years?”

  I give him a nod I hope is reassuring and turn to Rokiades. “It is my duty as don to die for my men if I have to,” I announce solemnly. “I’ll do what I must.”

  “Renata?” Rokiades presses.

  She turns to me, her eyes swimming with tears. Uncaring of the legion of men we’re surrounded by, she reaches up and cups my face with both her hands.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  I shake my head. “Don’t be,” I say fiercely. “You have been the adventure of my life.”

  A tear falls. I reach up and press my finger against the little silver scar on her cheek.

  “I gave you this, and I’m sorry for that. But,” I add, turning my finger to the thin scar over my own eyebrow, “you gave me this, and I want to thank you for that. For fighting so hard. I never saw the knife coming.”

  She frowns, a ripple of confusion passing over her face.

  “Renata!” Rokiades roars. “I don’t like to be kept waiting. Come.”

  She holds my gaze for a moment longer. Then she starts to walk around the table.

  “Bring him with you,” the Greek commands.

  She glances back warily. I move to join her.

  “No,” Cillian growls, getting in my way.

  “Brother—”

  “You can’t fucking do this!”

  “I can’t let you die,” I tell him. “You’ve got a family to love. You’ve got the Clan to run. So does Artem. We cannot let him win.”

  “We’ll find another way.”

  “He presses that button and we’re all gone,” I point out. “I have to do this.”

  “Kian—”

  “Cillian. Sometimes, even decent men must do terrible things for the greater good.”

  He clenches his jaw. And then he bows his head and I know I’ve won. We clasp hands for a moment before I round the table and catch up to Renata.

  The two of us walk towards the Greeks, but when we’re halfway there, Rokiades holds up his hand.

  “Stop,” he says. “Renata, take his gun.”

  She turns to me, but she makes no move to take my gun. In this case though, I’m more than willing to hurry things along. I grab her hand and shove the gun into her palm. “Give it to him.”

  “That leaves you unarmed.”

  “That’s the point,” I tell her with a wry laugh. “Give my gun to Rokiades. And remember… he won’t be prepared for what he doesn’t see coming.”

  She nods slowly, careful to keep her expression appropriately destroyed as her fingers close around the gun.

  “Good girl,” Rokiades commends her. “Now, come to me. O’Sullivan, you can stay where you are.”

  Renata walks away from me, leaving me standing alone in the gulf between the Irish and the Greeks. The position is a vulnerable one. But I don’t feel vulnerable at all.

  Because control is an illusion.

  Sometimes, the men who think they have it are mistaken.

  Sometimes, the women who think they have nothing have it all.

  Renata walks right up to Rokiades and hands him my gun. “How poetic,” Yannis comments, “to be killed with your own weapon.”

  He pushes Renata back towards his men and then he approaches me with my gun. The expression on his face is both perverse and manic.

  “Any final words?” he asks me.

  My eyes meet Renata’s over his shoulder. “She’s stronger than you think,” I tell him.

  “Don’t worry,” he replies. “I’ll beat the strength right out of her. And I’m going to enjoy doing it.”

  On the last word, he pulls the trigger. The click is loud.

  But the bullet never comes.

  And the second it takes him to realize that my gun is empty is the second Renata uses to pull out the scalpel I’d pressed into her palm along with the firearm.

  Before any of Rokiades’s men can stop her, she steps forward and buries it in the side of his neck.

  His body collapses instantly. But before he even hits the ground, I lunge forward and grab the detonator in his hand.

  Greek loyalists rush forward and grab Renata, disarming her in a matter of seconds, but I raise the detonator above my head.

  “Enough!” I roar. “Let her fucking go now. Or we all die.”

  The men holding her release her instantly. She runs towards me, her arms engulfing my body tightly.

  “Drop your weapons,” I instruct all of them.

  Only after they do as I ordered do I wrap my arm around Renata and pull her back towards the safety of the Clan. As we round the table, I make eye contact with my brother.

  “You can take it from here, bro,” I say, handing him the detonator.

  Cillian accepts it and gives me a satisfied nod. Then he and Artem take charge. “All you motherfuckers put down your guns…”

  I don’t care about the aftermath. The only thing I care about is the woman between my arms. I grip Renata’s face as I look down at her. “How are you feeling?”

  “Shaky,” she admits. “Thank you.”

  I frown. “For what?”

  “For reminding me that I’m not powerless.”

  “You never were,” I say, touching the scar she’d given me the first time we’d met. “You were always in control.”

  Epilogue: Kian

  Six Months Later

  “Are you sure about this?” I ask Renata for maybe the fourth time today.

  She cradles her large bump and glares at me. “Kian…”

  “I know, I know,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m just pointing out that you don’t owe him anything.”

  “It’s not about that,” she says. “I want answers about my mother. And he’s the only one who knows the whole story. And anyway… he’s the only family I have
left.” Her tone isn’t exactly sad, but there’s a certain melancholy there. Understandably so.

  We’re sitting pretty close together. I have my arm draped around her shoulder, but I remove it and take her hand instead. We’d found Drago with his throat slit in a cell beneath Yannis’s mansion. Whether Yannis killed him or one of the Greek soldiers went too far, we may never know.

  I’d expected a stronger reaction from Renata when I broke the news to her, but she’d just stared at me and asked to see his body. She stood over him for a long time, and when she turned away, her eyes were dry.

  “Renata, are you okay?” I’d asked her.

  “Not quite. But I will be.”

  “It’s okay to mourn him. He’s your brother.”

  “He was my brother. It’s just strange to think he’s not here anymore.”

  “Do you need to sit down?”

  She turns to face me. “You don’t have to worry about me, Kian. I knew what my brother was. What he did. He got the end he deserved.”

  “Still, you don’t have to feel guilty for being sad.”

  “If he’d been a better brother, a better man, I would have been sad. Right now, I’m just tired. I’m just glad it’s over.”

  I nod. “Do you want to deal with his funeral arrangements yourself? Or should I take charge?”

  “No, you can handle it. I’ve already said my goodbyes. Oh… but there is one more thing you can do for me.”

  “Anything,” I say solemnly. “Name it and it’s yours.”

  “Will you tell Aisling? She deserves to know her nightmare is over.”

  I promised her I would. Then I’d spent the next few days watching her, waiting for her to break down. But the sadness I’d expected never came.

  Apparently, she really had said her goodbyes.

  But he was the last familiar face in her life. And after his death, she’d moved into my home, assimilated into my life, left behind the self she’d spent decades trying to escape. I appreciated how difficult the adjustment was for her. How difficult it still is.

  But I couldn’t be prouder of her.

  “I’m your family,” I remind her as often as I can. I say it again right now.

  She tilts her face towards me and smiles. “Of course you are, my love,” she says with a nod. “I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t. I just… I know next to nothing about my parents, and I want…”

  “Answers,” I finish when she trails off. “I know. I understand.”

  She gives me a kiss on the cheek and leans her head against my chest as we drive through the city in the direction of the Grand Regent, where we’re meeting someone for lunch.

  She’s made an effort for this meeting. She’s wearing a soft yellow dress that drapes over her shoulders and flows down her body. If you didn’t see the stomach, you wouldn’t even realize she was pregnant.

  But Renata owns everything about her pregnancy. She’s one of those women who’ll find any excuse to announce to the world that she’s going to have a baby.

  A miracle baby. That’s how she refers to our child.

  “I wasn’t meant to get pregnant by anyone other than you,” she told me the night I asked her to marry me. I’d replied with the only thing I could: a kiss that started in my soul.

  “Why are we bringing an entire entourage?” she asks now, lifting her head from my chest.

  “Because we need to make a show of power.”

  She frowns. “Kian, he’s my grandfather.”

  “He’s the Mariani don.”

  “I thought you said he wasn’t a threat to you.”

  “Not the point. It’s about making sure he knows where he stands in the pecking order. I will respect him. But he has to respect me.”

  “He’s been pretty respectful so far,” she points out.

  “And I plan on keeping it that way.”

  She snakes her fingers between mine and I return pressure. It’s surprising how much I enjoy these intimate gestures. I’m not exactly the touchy-feely type. At least, I wasn’t before I met Renata. But there’s an easy comfort between us now. One that’s helped us in the bedroom, too.

  Renata still has trouble submitting to me completely. The lack of control makes her feel untethered, vulnerable. She wants it—she just isn’t sure yet how to fully let go.

  Of course, we’ve had to take a break from the rough stuff in the last couple of months since Renata’s stomach swelled. But there’s a certain unrestrained wildness in passionate, slow lovemaking, too. I’m the one who has things to learn about that. And she has lots to teach me.

  I lean in and kiss her temple. As my lips press against her soft skin, I realize how stiff she is. “Are you nervous?”

  She sighs. “Duh.”

  I laugh. “He’s the one who’s been asking to meet you, remember?”

  She gives me a shaky smile just as we pull up to the secluded five-star resort nestled between two massive golf courses.

  Our entourage consists of five men. I’d wanted to bring twice that number, but I’d changed my mind. I don’t want the old don to get the impression I’m nervous about this meeting. I’m not. I just tend to get a little overprotective where Renata and our child is concerned.

  The concierge is standing at the entrance to greet us. He’s dressed in a suit tailored to perfection and wearing a simpering smile. “Mr. O’Sullivan,” he says, clasping his hands together. “Ms. Lombardi. It is a pleasure to welcome you to the Grand Regent.”

  “We’re meeting—”

  “Don Mariani,” the concierge finishes for me. “Of course, sir. He’s waiting in one of our private dining rooms for you both.”

  “He’s here already?” Renata hisses. “Are we late?”

  “The man’s been an absent grandfather your entire life. He can wait five extra minutes.”

  The concierge leads us through the hotel towards the private dining rooms. I know immediately which one Mariani is in because his men stand at attention outside the door. They move aside when we approach, so I turn to my own soldiers. “You boys stay out here. Make friends and play nice.”

  Then the concierge opens the door to a large room that overlooks part of the golf course. The old gentleman sitting at the table inside turns his gaze towards us, and then slowly, he rises to his feet.

  He’s wearing a beautiful blue suit that manages to dress up his potbellied frame. He’s almost as tall as I am and his eyes are the same exact shade as Renata’s.

  She stays glued to my side, like she doesn’t know what to do now that she’s here. So I take her hand and pull her along towards Mattias Mariani. Her grandfather.

  “Thank you for finally agreeing to meet me, Renata,” he intones in a deep voice, addressing her first. His eyes flicker to her stomach.

  She nods, drinking in his features like she’ll find all the answers there.

  Then he turns to me. “Don O’Sullivan,” he says with a respectful half-bow.

  It’s a good start. I clasp his hand and shake. “Don Mariani.”

  “Please,” he says as he releases my hand, “let’s sit. I took the liberty of ordering us some drinks. Renata, I’ve ordered a selection of fresh juices for you.”

  “Thank you,” she says. The moment she’s seated, she rests her hands over her belly. “I know you’ve wanted to meet me for a while,” she starts. “But I… just wasn’t ready.”

  “I can understand that, after everything you’ve been through.”

  I study the man closely as he and Renata talk. I’m only here to support her. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to wanting to get a proper read on the elusive Mariani don.

  “I want to know about my mother,” Renata says bluntly.

  Mattias smiles softly. There’s a definite paternal glimmer in his eyes. I wonder how much Renata resembles her mother to trigger it.

  “It makes sense that you’d want to know about your mother before you yourself become one,” he says slowly. “As an aside, congratulations are in order, I believe.”
/>
  She smiles. It’s the first smile I’ve seen from her all day that’s free of nerves and uncertainty. “Thank you.”

  “How far along are you?”

  “Just past seven months,” she tells him. “Only a couple more to go.”

  “You must be excited.”

  “Very.”

  The silence stretches out a little, so I reach for my drink and take a sip. “Thank you for keeping your word,” I say to him. “The territory disputes are no longer in question.”

  He inclines his head. “I’m a man of my word. I’m also a man who’s lost his taste for war. As I told you in our first phone call months ago, I do not wish to challenge the Clan. My only quarrel was when I thought my granddaughter’s interests were better served with the Greeks.”

  “Your granddaughter’s interests?” she repeats scornfully. “You’ll forgive me for asking why you even cared. It wasn’t as though you made any attempt to be in my life those first twenty-five years.”

  Mattias’s face slackens slightly.

  I resist the urge to jump into the conversation. This is about Renata. I don’t want to make it about me.

  “Renata, I know it might be hard for you to believe, but up until a year ago, I didn’t know you were still alive.” Renata frowns, but Mattias continues. “Drago made sure your existence was buried. He spread stories to my men confirming that you died as a five-year-old in the same attack as your father. It wasn’t until he had made the deal with Rokiades and arranged your marriage to him that I was made aware that you were still alive.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  He nods, accepting that. “As did I. Many people thought of your brother as a fool. And in many ways, he was. But he could also be strategic. He knew you were valuable; he knew he could use you when the time was right. He didn’t want to risk losing you to a more competent guardian. When he finally approached me, he told me that you had freely and willingly agreed to the marriage. He also told me that the O’Sullivan Clan posed a direct threat to you. Which was why I chose to ally with him in the first place.”

  His story explains a lot. I have no reason to doubt it. He made the best choice he could for his family, or so he believed at the time. I can’t fault him for that.