Tainted Love

by Drake, Tabatha

  “I will drown you in this tub!”

  “You’re welcome to try.”

  I lunge forward and he takes me into his arms as I wrap my hands around his thick shoulders. Water spills over the sides as I try to wrestle him downward, but he doesn’t budge an inch.

  Finally, I fall against him and he kisses me in victory.

  “Jackass,” I say.

  He grins. “Oh, that’s a new one. I like that.”

  “How about cocksucker? Do you like the sound of that one?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Limp dick piece-of—”

  His jaw drops. “Limp dick?”

  I laugh. “Oh, have I gone too far?”

  “I might have to get out the handcuffs again for that one.”

  “Promise?”

  Dante takes my face in his hands and pulls me back in for a hard kiss. More water tumbles over as I shift to straddle him and pin him to the edge. We hold each other in a wet embrace, passing sweet kisses back and forth. My stomach lurches as he cups my ass and quickly stands up, carrying me with him as he steps out of the tub.

  Water drips off our bodies, gently tapping against the hardwood floor as he takes us down the hall to the bedroom.

  * * *

  Dante’s hand shoots forward, reaching for my neck.

  I dodge, twisting around to land a backhanded punch to his face. It’s a glancing blow, just barely scratching his temple as he springs away. I use the short moment of imbalance to launch forward and shove him back even more, leaping vertically to kick him hard in the chest.

  Dante grunts in surprise and stumbles to one knee. I stand above him, digging my feet into the floor as I pull back my hand to deliver another punch. He looks up just in time and grabs my fist, jerking me down. I grit my teeth as I fall to the floor and he moves to pin me with a smug look on his face. I perform a quick spin, taking him by surprise as he falls to his side and I force him onto his back instead.

  I slam my palms against his shoulders and lean all the way down to kiss him. He holds my face, breathing hard as he laughs between kisses.

  “How did I do?” I ask, righting myself on his hard waist.

  “Good. Well…” He chuckles. “Usually, you wouldn’t make-out with your opponent once they’re pinned… but, yeah. Good.”

  “I guess I shouldn’t kiss you ever again,” I joke. “Wouldn’t want to develop a habit for it.”

  He leans up. “I think we can make an exception, just this once.”

  I laugh and kiss him again, feeling the sweat on his skin.

  The roar of motorcycles echoes from down the driveway outside. Dante’s brow twitches with excitement I rarely see. There’s nothing that gets him quite as excited as his siblings.

  We jump off the floor and walk outside onto the porch as the two bikes park side-by-side near the house.

  Dante smiles as Elijah and Lilah dismount. “Well, this is unexpected.”

  Elijah pulls off his helmet and sets it on his bike. His eyes study me as he steps closer. “Ditto,” he says. “I guess I don’t have to ask how the knee is…”

  “It’s fine,” I answer, performing a quick kick with my heel.

  Lilah joins us and Dante’s face twitches as the large, purple bruise above her right eye comes into the light. “Do I have to ask?”

  She lets out a thin growl. “No.”

  “Lilah got beat up by a girl,” Elijah says, not even trying to retain his grin.

  She shoots him a hard glance. “Just… don’t.”

  Dante’s cheeks twitch with delight. “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story,” she mutters. “Not worth getting into right now.”

  Elijah leans over to whisper. “A girl with a boy’s name—”

  “Elijah,” she snaps.

  Dante chuckles, shaking his head. “You’re okay, though?”

  “I’ll live.” Her attention shifts to me and she looks me up and down. “What’s going on here?”

  “Just doing a bit of training,” I answer, wiping a bead of sweat from my brow.

  “Training for what?”

  “Your timing is pretty good, actually,” Dante tells them. “We could use your help.”

  The twins exchange a quick glance before their lips curl with curiosity.

  Chapter 28

  Dante

  “Security,” Lilah says. “And lots of it.”

  I listen from the kitchen table while Lilah and Elijah practically finish each other’s sentences as they report back what they found on their impromptu trip to Chicago. When I told them about Lucy’s desire to kill Marty Zappia, they didn’t ask questions. They hopped back on their bikes and left — knowing exactly what to look for when planning a hit.

  “They added more when they suspected the Lutrovas were in town,” I note. “It’s not surprising they doubled-up after finding out I was undercover for months.”

  Elijah shakes his head. “They didn’t just double-up…”

  “This was full-on Fort Knox,” Lilah adds. “We couldn’t even get close to the casino.”

  I pause to look at Lucy sitting beside me. She’s leaning forward with wide eyes, hanging on every word they say. “Why not?” I ask.

  “They were checking everyone for tattoos,” Elijah explains. “Zappia’s casino is officially a snake-free zone.”

  Lilah smirks at me. “You really pissed them off, big brother.”

  “I can imagine.” I reach for Lucy’s hand beneath the table and her little fingers settle against mine. “What about Marty’s rebellion?”

  Elijah shrugs. “We asked around, but…”

  “There was nothing,” Lilah says. “Whatever Baby Zappia was planning, it seems to have been forced to the back burner for now.”

  Lucy’s hand twitches. “Or he changed his mind,” she says, her voice laced with ice. “He might have mentioned a change of heart while he was beating me.”

  “In either case, there didn’t seem to be much of a family feud going on,” Lilah says. “Word is they’ve gotten awfully cozy inside the fortified walls of their casino.”

  “There are tunnels underground,” I recall. “Used to smuggle booze back in the day. They must be using them to get around without going outside.”

  “They’ve run scared to the depths of them,” Elijah says. “The oldest brother leaves every so often to do some business at his restaurant with two very large men at his back, but little Marty hasn’t been seen outside for weeks. Daddy, too.”

  Lilah’s voice goes soft. “It seems like a dead end, big brother. We can’t get in and they’re not coming out.”

  My heart aches for Lucy. This wasn’t the news she wanted to hear. She sits quietly, thoughts twisting behind her little eyes.

  “We’ll keep looking,” I say, refusing to give up.

  I’m not going to let Marty Zappia coward his way out of this. I made a promise that he’ll pay for what he did to her. If I have to burn the casino to the ground in order to do it, then that’s what I’ll do.

  “There has to be some other way to get his attention and—”

  “I’ll go in.” Lucy sits up in her seat, rolling her shoulders back with confidence.

  “Luce—”

  “I don’t have the tattoo,” she says. “I can make it through security, no problem.”

  “No.”

  “What better way of getting his attention is there than bringing him face-to-face with a ghost?”

  My head wags back and forth. “It’s too dangerous for you to go in alone.”

  “She’s not wrong,” Lilah says slowly. “We drove by the ballet academy. It’s ashes. As far as the Zappia family is concerned, Lucy Vaughn is dead.”

  “And I want to keep it that way,” I growl.

  “I can draw him out,” Lucy argues.

  “No.”

  “Dante, she’s the best card you have,” Elijah says.

  The training in my head battles the hard pull of my heart. Every mission requires risk.
Every risk brings a greater reward or a soul-crushing penalty. I can’t stomach the thought of experiencing the latter. Not with her.

  “And besides…” Lucy says, her eyes hard with determination. “Little bastard owes me a poker game.”

  I look at her with surging pride, once again torn between strangling her to death or fucking her until she’s numb.

  * * *

  “No pain at all?”

  Lucy shakes her head at Elijah. “Not much,” she answers. “I mean, I can’t go too hard for very long, of course. It throbs a bit right here…” She raises her leg to prop her foot up on the sofa and Elijah slides in to take a better look.

  I stare at the two of them from across the living room. Lucy with her pink cheeks and Elijah with his wide, medically-fascinated eyes. I find myself wishing for him to overrule her and drop some terrible bomb of bad news.

  Sorry, Lucy. Your leg is about to fall off. No more training. No more plots for vengeance. You’re never going back to Chicago. You’ll have to stay here forever and—

  “She’s strong.”

  Lilah’s voice pulls me out of it.

  “I know,” I say.

  “I didn’t.” She leans beside me in the doorway. “I thought for sure she’d still be limping around here.”

  “If I’d had my way, she would have been.”

  Lilah grins. “That’s my big brother right there. Always trying to stay in control.”

  “Can you blame me?”

  “No,” she answers, “but I find it strange that even after all this time, you still believe you can be.”

  “This is different,” I argue. “She’s different.”

  “No, it’s not. Do you remember the day Mercer recruited me and Eli?”

  My eye twitches. “I could have killed him…”

  “And that would have been very unwise considering the consequences involved.” She laughs. “Sure, Mercer was a monster, but he kept this family together. We live in darkness, Dante. We always have.”

  “But she doesn’t have to.”

  “That’s not your decision to make,” she says. “It’s hers. Just like it was for all of us.”

  I watch Lucy smile from across the room. She chuckles at something Elijah says to her. Their voices blend in the air between us and my head keeps it from filtering out. I can’t focus on anything else but the light shining from her eyes. It’s still there, even after everything she’s been through. That won’t always be the case. Eventually, her soul will reach its limit and that spark will die. It could be years from now. Or next week. Maybe even tomorrow.

  “She’s strong, Dante,” Lilah says, “and best of all, she’s got us.”

  I smile. “Not a bad team, I guess.”

  “Give Lucy a chance. I’d say she’s earned it.”

  I look at my little sister again. Lilah is rarely wrong — a fact that she’s more than happy to point out at any possible occasion — and she’s not wrong right now either. Lucy is capable of making this decision for herself and even more than that, she’s capable of going through with it. There’s no doubt in my mind she’ll pull the trigger on Marty the first chance she gets and that scares me even more than it scares her.

  The living room table screeches along the wood as Elijah pushes it a little closer to the wall.

  “What are you doing?” Lilah asks them.

  He crosses the room to join us, giving Lucy plenty of space. “Just a test.”

  Lucy stands up from the couch and slips her shoes off her feet. “Something I haven’t tried since… well…” She looks at me for a moment and brings her heels together in the center of the empty floor.

  Since our first night together when I asked her to dance for me.

  I stay quiet as I watch her move. Lucy rises onto her pointed toes, easing up slowly until she can’t go any higher. There’s a slight tremble in her shins but she keeps herself upright and raises her arms above her head. She purses her lips and exhales, forcing all of her air out before finally tiptoeing along the floor in a straight line. Her arms fall to her waist, waving softly up and down.

  I smile as she does. It feels like only yesterday I brought her out here. The first week, she cried every night in my arms. Sometimes, it was because the pain was too much to handle. Others, it was the memory of her father’s blood-covered face. Mostly, it was the thought that she’d never dance again that brought her down. A life gone cold.

  And now, here she is, bending and twirling to the songs in her head like Marty Zappia never happened.

  She’s the light in my darkness.

  Her ankle twists and she slips off-balance. I lunge forward and grab her before she falls, holding her up as she laughs at herself. Elijah and Lilah break out in applause and congratulations.

  “I did it!” Lucy cries, throwing her arms around my neck.

  Her eyes shine with ecstatic tears. I feel my own rising to the surface as I hold her against me.

  I won’t let this happen.

  I won’t let her become a killer.

  Not like me.

  Chapter 29

  Dante

  I walk into our bedroom, following the gentle shuffling sounds of her getting dressed. She and Lilah picked out the perfect outfit for her to wear to the casino, something of Lilah’s she found out in the garage, stashed away in old, forgotten boxes.

  I nudge the door closed and she looks over her shoulder at me.

  “Do I look okay?”

  I smile at her. It’s a red dress that hugs the very best parts of her. The bottom swishes about just above her knees and anyone who wants to look can see the scar Marty left along her knee. I wonder if that’s intentional.

  “You’re perfect,” I tell her.

  Lucy turns around. “I’m not sure if that’s what I asked, but I’ll take it.”

  Her hands fall to her sides and I don’t see a single tremor in her fingers. She’s not nervous at all. Her training drives her forward, leaving behind any ounce of fear or doubt she may have inside.

  “Come here,” I say, luring her in with my eyes.

  She steps forward, her gaze locked on mine. “What?” she asks, her cheeks turning as red as her dress.

  I take her face in my hands and I press my lips against hers. Her breath tingles my face, warm desire exhaling from her lungs as I move my hands down her body.

  “Dante—” She tries to pull away, but I kiss her even harder, drawing her in so her body betrays her thoughts. “We have to go soon.”

  “There’s plenty of time.”

  I let a grunt slip from my throat. I push my hips against hers so she can feel my hard bulge begging to be inside of her. She falls back on the bed, pulling me down with her, believing that she’s in control. I fight the burning urge to fuck her right here and now.

  I take hold of her little body and push her closer to the headboard, aligning our bodies to keep her pinned where I want her to be. A moan slips over her tongue and stabs me in the heart as I slide my hands up her body. I guide her arms above her head, pushing past her fingers to take hold of the hard, metal ring hanging near the bottom of the headboard.

  The cuff clicks into place, secured tightly around her left wrist.

  Her eyes fly open. “Dante, what—”

  I push off the bed. “I’m sorry, Lucy.”

  “No!” She sits up and tugs, but the handcuff is far too tight. Panic crosses her eyes followed closely with blinding anger. “Don’t do this!”

  “It’s for the best.”

  “Let me go!”

  I put my back to her, unable to even look into her twisted, betrayed eyes. The metal hammers against the iron bars, growing louder and louder with each bang of her wrist.

  “I’ll be back in a few hours to let you out.”

  “Don’t take this from me, you bastard!”

  I step out into the hall and close the door behind me, shutting her inside as someone quickly ascends the staircase.

  Lilah reaches the top and stares daggers at me as
I walk around her. “Yeah, because this will totally end well.”

  “Don’t start, Lilah. We’re leaving now.”

  She heaves an annoyed breath but follows me down the stairs without another argument. Elijah lingers near the bottom with his arms crossed. He also says nothing as I pass by him, but his eyes say everything I already know.

  I’m an asshole.

  The bed knocks louder against the wall above our heads. Lucy’s harsh voice carries down the stairs, shouting obscenities and promises of retribution. Each word burns a hole in me. Each step away from her tears me apart, but I know I’m right.

  She’ll forgive me someday.

  Even if she doesn’t, at least, I know that I finally did something right in this world.

  Chapter 30

  Dante

  Without Lucy, there’s no way we can get inside the casino by walking in the front door. Lilah and Elijah weren’t kidding when they mentioned the new security put in place to keep people like us out. During my employment with the family, you could walk right in and be frisked inside. Now, no one even gets within a few feet of the front door without a full-body scan and a quick check for tattoos.

  Marty Zappia is inside. I’m sure of it. It’s Friday night in Chicago. For six months, I watched Marty waltz inside that casino every Friday night at nine-thirty. He’d get a glass of scotch from the bar, offer his father a quick hello in his office upstairs, and then he’d plant himself at the poker table until three. I’ll admit, he was a good player. More often than not, he’d take the whole damn table down. Decent men like Terrance Vaughn sat there every weekend only to be bled dry by an entitled brat. Mortgages wasted, savings account swindled. And Marty did nothing but smile.

  That ends tonight.

  The Zappia tunnels are the best-kept secret of the family. I spent months trying to figure it out, knowing that if the Russians passed on the Snake Eyes master file, the family would immediately go underground. We wouldn’t be able to contain the leak after that.