Lust & Lies Box Set-Sexual Awakenings, Excess, Predator & Prey

by Kate Stewart

  I rolled my eyes at Cedric’s sense of humor while I ripped it apart. Inside, I had everything I needed. A loud, orange T-shirt, matching socks, and twin Glocks buried in an oversized Smokey mascot doll with enough ammo to take out every pedestrian in Barga. He’d managed to stick a nine millimeter in an orange foam football.

  I knew it was pointless, as did Cedric, still I texted him to ease his mind.

  Me: Love the shirt. Thanks for the friends.

  Cedric: I said every hour.

  Me: Not going to happen. He’s not here.

  Cedric: You work fast.

  Me: I have his address.

  Cedric: Wait for him to come to you.

  “Don’t I always,” I said to no one. I loaded both guns and tucked them under my pillows. I sat on the balcony in the lone chair provided and watched the sun drift from one edge of the sky to the other. Restless and curious, I slipped into my hatchback and typed in Daniello’s address. Five minutes outside of Barga, I turned onto a dirt road. I spotted the villa in the distance and his plane on a hill next to it. There was one way in and one way out. Anyone who occupied the house could see who was coming half a mile away.

  Despite the fact that the villa was lifeless, it made it no less beautiful. Stone walls and iron gates surrounded the large home. I could only see the bones of the house from a distance; up close it seemed impenetrable. I stopped outside the walls and got out of the car. I saw a security camera in the corner of the fence and turned to look directly at it. I choked any emotion I had down and let my anger through.

  “That’s not how you say goodbye to a lover.”

  I got back into the hatchback and kicked up dust. I raced down the road and couldn’t help but to take in the countryside.

  Such a different world.

  He lived a different life in Italy. His second reality. I wondered how many secrets he kept from me.

  I felt a sick gnaw start as I thought how uninvolved we really were.

  “Sono qui.” I am here, I said as I shifted my car and gripped my phone. “Stop bitching at me, Tula.”

  “Your English is getting better.” My sister’s smile could be heard over the phone. “Tell me, brother, at your age, why this sudden interest in speaking English? God knows you were too stubborn to use it before.”

  “I have been to the States.”

  “And you have met a woman?” I could hear the smile in her voice.

  “Stop talking nonsense.”

  “Hmmm. She would not have forgiven her uncle for missing her party.”

  “She will not need to forgive me. Domani.” Tomorrow.

  I hung up just as my phone pinged with another security alert reminder as I pulled up to my Villa. The gate was still intact. Sometimes animals set it off. I pulled forward and saw everything was as it should be. Rocco pulled up behind me seconds after I grabbed my bag from the trunk.

  “Where have you been?” he barked in Arabic. I walked past him without a glance his way. His presence alone set my blood boiling.

  “Fine, in English. Where did you go?”

  Inside, I threw my bag down on my couch, grabbed a beer from my kitchen, and took a swallow. “I do not answer to you. Get the fuck out of my house before I kill you like I should have a month ago.”

  Rocco stepped toward me like the fool he was. “He wants to meet with you.”

  “And you are being a good little dog. Tell him I got the message.”

  “You are working alone?” Rocco pulled out his gun and set it on the table before he removed his jacket.

  “I have always worked alone. The States were a mistake. Do not make yourself comfortable. You are not welcome here.”

  Rocco threw his head back in a laugh. “All because of you and that whore. We are no longer in the States. We have no issues.”

  I shook my head. “If you call her a whore again, I will pull every tooth from your head.”

  Rocco lifted his palms. “Fine.”

  “Get out. I have much to do.”

  “I will stay for dinner.”

  I reeled on him, and he smiled. “Ah, ah, ah, cousin, you cannot touch me now.” Rocco’s eyes narrowed in challenge.

  “Get. The. Fuck. Out. You are no more than a trained dog.”

  He shook his head and tapped his temple. “I have accomplished much.”

  “You have an owner. And I will always be free.”

  “You will always be a slave to your vengeance.”

  I swallowed the last of my beer and set the bottle on the counter.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets in an attempt not to break the bones in his face. I took a step toward him and met his black eyes. “When we were boys, and we moved from Egypt, I was forced by my father to be friends with you and play games with you. I did not like you then, and I do not like you now. I no longer wish to know you. Get the fuck out of my house.”

  Rocco’s face reddened with each word I spoke. He shrugged on his jacket and grabbed his gun, tucking it back in the holster. “You have no loyalty.”

  “I have found it does not pay off.”

  “There are still games to be played, cousin.” Rocco chuckled as he slammed the door behind him. I finished my beer and took a look around. Weeks on the job had done nothing to ease my ache for her. I sat at my desk and opened my laptop. During my missions, I had succeeded in avoiding her. I ’d resisted every urge to watch her. As I sat at my desk with the possibility of seeing her a click away, I lost the battle. I pulled up the footage of the penthouse and rewound it to the last time I saw her. Nothing. She had not been back to the penthouse. A dull ache ripped through my chest where she had resumed her place. No matter how hard I tried to rid myself of thoughts of her, they pushed through the recesses to the forefront of my mind and tortured me in waking dreams.

  Rocco had been right. Taylor was a weakness. And my father had seen me as a disgrace up until the day he died for not being one to follow his footsteps. His disappointment in me was the result of my hatred for him. He had pre-destined his sons to become his disciples, soldiers and the predecessors to the family business. He, like Rocco, fed on power and corruption. He was the evil I despised. He had lost one son to his iron will and another to his depravity. Rocco was his only heir.

  My security alarm pinged again as I pulled up the footage. I moved my mouse to pinpoint the time of the alert and saw a yellow hatchback pull up to my gate. Probably just some lost traveler.

  I froze when I saw a glimpse of red hair when she exited the vehicle. She walked up to my gate and peered through the iron to survey my property. All the breath left me when she turned and looked right into the camera. My heart thundered as she spoke directly to me.

  “That’s not how you say goodbye to a lover.” My chest recoiled as I gripped my keys in my hand and I paused at the door of my villa. Dread filled every part of me as I recalled my cousin’s parting words.

  “There are still games to be played, cousin.”

  I’d spent the time in Barga, unsure of my next move, walking the streets, taking long drives through the Lucca countryside, and living like a tourist. Metal-gray Dyer seemed light years away from the countryside filled with trees, lush green fields, pastel flowers, and a mountain backdrop. I felt like I was driving through a picture I’d seen in an art gallery when I lived in New York. With the sun nestled into soft white clouds, the hills in spun gold, I turned a drive into a dream. As angry and lost as I was at the hot mess my life had become, as tortured as I felt about everything I left behind, including a suffering Amber, I found a sort of peace as I drove.

  At night, I lay wondering about the lover who left me so abruptly, who had tortured me with his hello and goodbye. I hated that I loved him. I hated that I couldn’t find it in me to resent him for any part of what happened when I was with him. I hated that I played with fire and burned my sister, the person I loved most in the world. I hated that in order to protect her, I had to stay away from her.

  I was never meant to have a family or love. I had resi
gned myself to that fact long ago. And those thoughts had been stripped away once again with Daniello’s absence and the nightmare after. I’d been conditioned to believe emotions were for the weak. I should have trusted my mentor and not my heart.

  “You ever heard the saying ‘Don’t ever tell your problems to anyone. Twenty percent don’t care, and the other eighty percent are glad you have them’?”

  Ray ignored my teary eyes. “Handle it.”

  “What if it’s positive?”

  Ray’s eyes scoured me briefly, his face void of any emotion. “Handle it.”

  “Ray, you can’t be serious.”

  He shot up from his chair. “You’re going to finish first in your class. We should be hearing from Harvard any day. You want to give that up for a mistake?”

  Bile threatened as my stomach churned. “You are a cruel bastard.”

  “I’m a sensible man. And you’ve let your emotions run rampant, which is exactly what I taught you not to do. You need to figure it the fuck out.”

  “Jesus, what is wrong with you! I came from a family incapable of love, and even I know this isn’t right! You . . . you are all wrong.”

  Ray straightened his tie and sat down again, his breaths coming fast. “I don’t want a child. I don’t need obligations, and neither do you.”

  “Ray, we don’t hate each other. We get along—”

  “Us again, Taylor? There. Is. No. Us. There’s an arrangement, a contract. And until I decide to fuck you again, I don’t want to see your face. Understood?”

  All I felt for him threatened to die away at that moment.

  “You are going to hell.”

  He flipped a page and picked up a pen. “I’m packing my bags, kitten.”

  I stalked toward his study door as my stomach churned then looked back at him one last time in a plea. “Ray?”

  His face was pale, and his eyes weren’t focused. “I can’t do it. I can’t. Please just get the fuck out.”

  A few days after I had arrived, I’d rejoined Donato at his bakery before sunrise to help him open. He’d seemed pleased at my reappearance. In need of answers, I decided to ask questions as he rolled out a table full of dough, but he beat me to the punch.

  “You have questions, Bella?” He peeked over at me expectantly with a freshly made batch of dough.

  I nodded. “How do you know Daniello?”

  “I am family. His father married my brother’s daughter.”

  “You are his great uncle?”

  Donato nodded. “His mother, God rest her soul, was not happy in Egypt. She wanted to return home, and so his father brought them here.”

  “Them?”

  “Daniello and Matteo.”

  “Matteo?”

  Donato punched the dough with his fist. “His brother.”

  Daniello had never mentioned a brother. All of his stories in Italy had consisted of him and Rocco.

  Donato’s kind eyes scrutinized me. “You did not know of him?”

  I shrugged. “Like you said, he is a private man. I don’t know anything.”

  In an attempt to hide my sulk, I kept busy with the dough.

  “Matteo is a very painful subject for him. Daniello was only eleven months old when his brother was born. They were very, very close.”

  “What happened?”

  “Amon, his father, made them join the Egyptian Army, and Matteo was killed. He was slaughtered by a commanding officer in front of Daniello, and he left the army a changed man.”

  My body tensed in recognition as I thought of Daniello and the hard edge he carried with him. The guard he rarely dropped. The anger that radiated from him, the grudge his eyes held. When Daniello spoke of his childhood, even his memories with Rocco, the stories were laced with happiness. I’d pictured a world of beauty and adventure like he had described, so very far from the childhood I’d lived.

  Donato paused. “I have said too much.”

  “Not at all,” I said while I began to braid some dough. “What about Rocco?”

  Donato raised a brow. “What about Rocco?”

  “He’s an angry man.”

  “He is a foolish and jealous man. His father was killed in the army as well, but he does not concern himself with sentiments for the dead. He is also a selfish man.”

  I deadpanned, “He’s an asshole.”

  Donato chuckled as he threw several loaves into the oven. “Rocco was the soldier his father wanted Daniello to be. Right before Amon died, he burdened Daniello with that truth. But it was no secret. Daniello remained a stranger to Italy for many years before his father passed.”

  “Rocco is jealous?”

  “Rocco has always been second best; a man determined to prove his worth.”

  “And Daniello?”

  “He is very much the soldier his father wanted him to be, but he serves no army.”

  Daniello’s words in my office months before rang home.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am the man who will disappear from your bed one night without any explanation.”

  You see, there are bad men out there who will not hesitate to pull the trigger . . . rape, steal, and climb with hungry claws to get to where they want to be.”

  “And you are one of them?”

  “No. I am the man who stomps on those men with my heel.”

  Donato had paused his hands and was staring at me intently. “What are you thinking of?”

  What if he isn’t a villain?

  Donato wiped the counter with the towel as he spoke. “I have said too much. This is not my story to tell. Please do not mention this to Daniello.”

  “You have my word.”

  I was living in limbo. The only news that kept me going was that my sister was still breathing. Nina had taken it upon herself to keep Joseph. I had no objections. I had no clue what the right move was, aside from taking the danger away from them. I couldn’t find my strength. I had no order. Love had ripped away the hard lines in my heart, weakened my walls.

  Love in any form made me weak. That was the truth of why I’d avoided it for so fucking long. Whether it be the love for Laz, Ray, my sister, or for the man I met just a few short months ago, it was a weakness. All I’d worked for I’d lost due to my weakness.

  And still, when it came to regrets, I felt like I hadn’t fully lived until I admitted loving every one of them. Tracing my steps back, Laz had turned into an abusive liar and became impossible to trust. Ray had always thrown away my attempts at mending the bridge between us, and Daniello, well, he’d blown my life to hell with his sudden appearance, his secrets, and he had exclusive claim to the heart I had left.

  And he took it with him.

  I had no future. Just a path to right the wrongs I had buried with a new life that no longer belonged to me. I pulled at the bottle of whiskey and tossed it up in the air, shattering it with three bullets before it hit the ground. I stared at the peaceful hillside I’d taken residence on as I thought of Ray and his hopes for me.

  Ray came to me a week after our blowout, hungry and eager as he spread me with his hands and licked my center. Enraged at my body’s response to his touch I clawed at his skin before he entered me slowly while he hovered above. “Fuck, you feel good.”

  I lay back, lifeless, my jaw clamped, refusing to meet his eyes.

  “Still angry with me, kitten?”

  He pumped slowly, purposefully forcing me to face him as tears streamed down my cheeks. It was the first and last time he would ever see me cry. He paused above me and pulled out as he sat on the bed, his face to the carpet. “Don’t mistake sex for love and love for loyalty. The minute they stop paying attention to you is the minute it’s over. Stay loyal to your end game.”

  He and I had been mute ghosts drifting through the hallways of a cold mansion. His silence was deafening. He never asked the question that I knew weighed heavily on his mind. “I wasn’t pregnant.”

  Ray inhaled deeply, his brow covered in sweat. He said nothing.


  “What’s your end game, Ray?”

  “I thought I made that clear.” He slipped on his boxers and turned to me before he walked out the door. “You.”

  Ray had shown me the thin line between love and hate, and I had walked it with him until the end of our time together. It felt like a different line with Daniello.

  But was I confusing sex and love again?

  I watched the sun descend behind a line of Cypress Evergreens and made my decision. I was done waiting. It was time to make some noise.

  I’d spent the next day in the heart of Barga at the various shops, making small talk with the owner’s using the small amount of conversational Italian I knew, while I made random purchases and my presence known. I walked down the street, scantily clad in barely-there shorts and a tank top paired with three-inch heels. I was a walking neon sign and for no other reason than I was tired of the charade. I counted on small town talk, the way I did back in Dyer, to get word to my enemy, and I would bet my fortune it was Rocco.

  I was restless, determined to protect my family, and itching for a fight.

  That night at L’Osteria Di Riccardo Negri—a local bar—I made friends with Gian and Omero, two men passing through on business. They were bored with the sleepy town and a perfect excuse for me to behave badly. I stood at the blue, red, and gold neon-lit bar with Gian’s arm wrapped around me while Omero chatted me up about his time in America. Gian’s fingers drifted down my low-cut dress and massaged my back as Omero fucked me with his eyes. The two men were in no competition for my attention as I gave them both false impressions in equal measure. I had no expectations. I only hoped I was being watched. It wasn’t hard to slip back into sexual indifference with a stone heart. I’d been doing it a long time.

  “You like Italian?” It was a shitty attempt at flirting from Gian as he slipped his fingers between the low part of my dress and my skin. I didn’t object as I leaned over, a whisper from his lips. “I’ve gotten a taste for it.” Gian grew hard in his seat, an apparent outline in his pants, and squeezed my flesh as Omero ordered us another round. “Excuse me, I need to use the restroom.” Gian’s hand tightened briefly as he stared straight at my peaking nipples. And it had nothing to do with him. The room was freezing, and I was wearing a whore’s scrap of a dress. I grabbed my purse, which barely fit my Glocks and a second round of ammo, then made my way toward the back. While pulling up my dress, awareness hit me like a ton of bricks. Underneath the narrow stall and to the right I saw wingtips. Unlocking the door, I made my way to the sink. I placed my purse next to it and ran some water before I pumped soap into my hand then met his eyes in the mirror.