Devil You Know: A Dark Mafia Enemies to Lovers Romance (The Diavolo Crime Family Book 2)

by J. L. Beck

  I rear back, again trying to get free, but he just drags me to a chair and tosses me at it. It occurs to me I should be afraid. For my life, and for Lucas’s, and yet, I can’t summon it, not with my cowardly father standing in front of me.

  “You knew,” I accuse. “You know Lucas is your son, and still you did this to him?”

  “He isn’t my son. He is a mistake. Something that should have never happened. Did you bring the other Diavolo with you?” he asks, spreading the curtains to peer out into the gathering darkness.

  When I don’t answer him, he marches back across the room and strikes me hard in the face. I glare up at him. “No, it’s just me. I came alone.”

  “Stupid girl. You’re dumber than I thought you were if you’d come in here like this.” He shakes his head in disgust and swings around to kick Lucas in the belly.

  I jolt upright and rush over, but he only grabs my neck hard in his hand and drags me back to the chair. “Move again, and I’ll shoot you so you can’t.”

  “Then stop hurting him. He doesn’t deserve that.”

  “You don’t have any idea what he deserves. You’re just the same as his mother. A little whore who fucks anything with a cock. At least his mother had the smarts to stay away from me after she got pregnant.”

  I narrow my eyes. “The way I heard it, you raped her.”

  He moves fast despite his age. One minute I’m sitting on the chair, and the next, I’m flat on the floor with my cheek split open.

  I roll over to lever myself up, but I can’t see out of my right eye, and my head is spinning. Somehow, I hit it on the hardwood and didn’t realize.

  My father stands over me, staring down into my blood-streaked face. “You’re just like all the rest. I had high hopes for you when you were going to marry that Gardello boy, finally worth the money spent keeping you alive all these years. But no, you had to go and blow it, and Diavolo too, I imagine.”

  Rage and anger have my adrenaline spiking, and my foot moves without thought. I kick out at his legs, but he neatly dodges them and returns one to my ribcage.

  Pain shoots up my side, and I roll over, trying to protect my new wound.

  He crouches down beside me and presses the muzzle of the gun to my forehead. “Tell me why I shouldn’t shoot you right now and save myself some time when the other Diavolo finally arrives to save his brother?”

  I won’t justify my life to him for another second, so I keep my mouth shut and just glare my hatred toward him. How could this man have given me life?

  He stares into my eyes, and I can see how lifeless and soulless his are, and I feel pity. But nothing else. He might have been my father when I was a young child, but it’s been a long time since I’ve felt anything beyond duty toward him.

  “If you need to kill me to feel like a man, then do it,” I say. “But it won’t change things. Nic is still going to kill you, eventually.”

  He curls his lip. “Nic, is it? So, you are fucking him.”

  A man in a black suit comes out of nowhere and ties my hands behind my back while my father continues to hold the gun to my head.

  “Any last words,” he says, stepping back to get a better angle, I assume.

  I suck in a breath and brace myself for the shot.

  25

  Nic

  I’m cursing Lucas all the way back to the house. Soo sits in the driver’s seat, listening to me rant about my idiot brother the entire trip. We spent most of the afternoon looking for him once I got word he’d been taken. The spies Soo had on him spotted him rolling out this morning, and by the afternoon, Lucas had made a move and gotten caught.

  How did one old man get the drop on my brother? He must have a lot of extra security right now. Maybe they were able to subdue him. But there weren’t any signs of a struggle at the family house, and the wife was too drunk to do anything but stare at us while we combed her mansion. We left her there with her booze and the heavy sadness that seemed to stir in the surrounding air.

  I took two seconds to look into Celia’s old room. It had been cleaned out, completely empty of belongings and furniture.

  Telling her how easily her family erased her from their lives would hurt her, so Celia will never know.

  Once we get home, I go in search of Celia. She’s not in the bedroom, and it’s past dinner time. I check the library, then circle back to my office. On the desk is a piece of paper.

  I scan the scribbled frantic handwriting and gently set the paper down on the desk. Soo walks into the room and sits down in the chair. But I’m already around the chair and out the door before he chases after me. “What’s going on?”

  “Celia went after him. She heard the news about Lucas on the security channel and obviously knows something about her father that we don’t.”

  I spin in place a few times, cupping my head in my hands. “If he has her right now. I don’t know where they are.”

  Soo takes my hands and drags them down so he can look in my eyes. “Stay calm. Throwing yourself into the fight without a plan will get you both killed. Think. Think about Celia. She needs you to help her, so think about what she’s said to you in the past. Think about anything she’s mentioned about her father even in passing.”

  I can’t think around my heart pounding in my ears. Soo’s voice breaks through some of it. I only catch a few snatches of words. “Think about what she said.”

  We have only talked about her father in the past. Since things grew warmer between us, we’ve been ignoring the topic because eventually, it will mean the end of something. I wrack my brain, forcing myself to focus around the rage, making a rising tide in my blood.

  Soo fishes his cellphone out of his pocket and starts typing at a breakneck pace, even for him. When he curses loud and long, I finally pull out of the fugue. “What? Tell me you know where she is.”

  He holds the phone up and shows me a map. “She took the SUV outside the tunnel and programmed in the address to the destination. I know exactly where she is.”

  When he heads down the stairs ahead of me, I grab his arm. “No, I have to go alone. If something happens to me, or to Lucas, or to any of us, I need you here to take care of things. Make sure our business is handled.”

  Soo halts on the staircase, gaping at me. “You want me to stay here while you go save Celia and Lucas alone? Not a fucking chance.”

  I shove him hard against the wall. “What do you think Ricci will do if I roll up on his house with an army with me? He’ll shoot them both and then come for me with his own small battalion.”

  “Fuck!” Soo shouts. No doubt hating this powerless feeling as much as I do.

  I pass him and bound down to the foyer and out the front door. The SUV is still parked out front, and I send the security team inside to help Soo figure out how to proceed once I save Lucas and Celia.

  The address is already programmed in the map, thanks to Soo texting it to the computer, and I pull away from the house.

  It’s an hour’s drive to the lakeside place the map is taking me. A cabin? She had mentioned a cabin where her father liked to go fishing.

  I can’t focus on anything but the road as I drive, or I think up scenarios in my head about what he might be doing to her. And if he finds out what she actually means to me, fuck. He’ll kill her just to mess with me.

  My stomach rolls and twists, my fingers are tingly with adrenaline. I can’t fuck this up, or I could lose everyone I love in one fell swoop.

  I turn the headlights off when I make it to the side road that is supposed to lead to the house. It’s smaller than what I would have expected, considering the mansion the bastard lives in. And I’d searched every inch of that house.

  I climb out of the vehicle and tuck a gun into the back of my pants. No doubt he’ll take it the moment I step in the door, but I prefer to be armed.

  The only sounds I can catch are bugs and the soft slap of water against wood. I creep up the porch to the door and press my ear to the smooth wood.

  I catch Ri
cci’s raised voice, “Any last words?”

  There’s no time to consider my plan. I snag the gun from where I tucked it and move to bust through the door. But several sets of hands take hold of me from behind. I swing out, but others grab my arms and wrench the gun free.

  I manage to take down one with a solid punch to the side of the head. More men charge at me, and after knocking the wind out of me with a sharp kick to my ribs, I’m burrowed into the corner of the porch, where they are able to overpower me.

  A car pulls up behind mine, and several men pour out. All of them in full tactical gear carrying automatic weapons. Fuck, this isn’t good.

  Ricci throws the door open, casting light across the patio. “Ah, finally, my last guest. Come inside so we can speak properly.”

  “Fuck you!”

  He laughs. The bastard who is holding my wife and brother hostage fucking laughs.

  “Let them go, and you can have me. You can have my entire organization with it.”

  Celia screams from inside. “No, don’t!”

  There’s a thud, and her voice cuts off. Ricci’s shadow breaks up the pattern in the doorframe again. “Sorry, my daughter never knows when to keep her mouth shut.”

  I grit my teeth and punch one of the goons trying to hold me down. I’m rewarded with a right hook against my jaw. I revel in the pain, letting it fuel my anger.

  “Bring him in,” Ricci orders, and his men drag me inside the cabin.

  Once we reach the door, Ricci retreats into the room. Two guards enter behind me and close the door with a heavy, final thump.

  Lucas is lying on the floor across the room, his face swollen and bruised. Celia is sideways on the floor in the other area. Her face is pink from crying, there’s a gash on her cheek, and her right eye is swollen. I will fucking kill this man if it’s the last thing I do.

  “You have me now, so let them go. Tell me what you want, and I’ll tell my men to do it. You’ll be the most powerful man in this state again.”

  Ricci waves his gun at the guards, and they reach up to wrench my arms behind my back to handcuff me. The goon sits me on a stool near the door, far away from Celia. She is laid on the floor, her hair pooling around her. My chest aches from looking at her. I want to raze this entire room and carry her home.

  She meets my eyes, and hers are swimming with tears as she mouths the words, “I’m sorry.”

  I shake my head. Ricci looms closer now that I’m less of a threat to him. “Let them go,” I order again.

  As I suspected, he simply laughs, then brings the gun down into my face, splitting my cheek open with the butt of his handgun.

  It’s not the first time I’ve taken a gun to the face. I turn my head back to him, glaring. “Let them go,” I say again, “or I’m going to choke the life out of you with my bare hands.”

  Ricci looks at me long and hard before bringing the gun down again, this time harder. Pain splinters under my eye, but I shake it off. But he doesn’t like the fact that his blows are barely fazing me. He hits me again, this time on the side of the neck, then my temple, which shoots sparks through my eyesight.

  “Stop!” Celia screams. “Stop hitting him, please!”

  Ricci rounds on her, gun raised, like he might hit her again. She squirms away, right into the feet of a guard, who puts his hands on her to sit her up.

  Once she’s secure with the guard, Ricci brings his attention back to me. My eyes are on the guard, and the fucking grim look he’s giving Celia sitting against his boot laces.

  “Don’t you fucking touch her,” I say, making direct eye contact with the guard.

  His smirk tells me what he thinks about my threats. I smirk back, even though my teeth are coated in blood. After I rip Ricci’s head off, that fucking guy is next.

  Ricci advances again and sits down opposite me. The look in his eyes promises murder, but the look in mine promises pure torture. I can’t wait to get my hands on him. I’m buzzing with it.

  “So, what was your plan? Get the other families to turn on me and attack once I’m vulnerable?”

  I’m slow to answer, letting him seethe as he thinks I’m ignoring him. “As far as I can tell, you are vulnerable. I have what I need from the five families to ensure your power base is gone. Even if you kill me, that destabilization is already set, and I’ve already made sure things get carried out.”

  “Oh, I plan to kill you and your useless bastard brother. Then I’ll move on to my whore daughter after I’ve let her watch you both die right in front of her. How does that sound?”

  I shrug despite my bonds. “It sounds like a pleasant dream, Ricci. Hold on to it while you’re able. Because soon, I’m going to make sure you have no dreams ever again.”

  There’s movement by Celia, and I drag my eyes to the guard. He’s kneeling behind her, a bunch of her hair in his hand, and he’s sniffing it. Smelling her fucking hair right in front of me. I briefly wonder if he knows that he just signed his death warrant.

  Glancing down at Lucas, I realize that my brother’s eyes are open again. He is looking straight at me, giving me a single nod.

  I shift on the seat to make sure I can at least stand. Ricci is droning on about something involving dismantling my territory, but I’m not paying attention, not while that fucking man is touching my wife.

  My vision takes a red haze until I can almost no longer think straight. All I can see is his blood on my hands so I can keep her safe. Then I hear engines revving up in the distance, and I know this is my chance.

  Backup is here.

  I launch my head back and into the guard behind me, then headbutt Ricci in the same move. I hit him in the face hard enough to send him reeling backward into the door, his nose most likely broken. Ricci lunges for me, but I’m charging across the room at the guard. I ram my shoulder into his chest, using my entire weight, and we both go tumbling to the floor.

  Out of the corner of my eyes, I see Lucas taking down one of the guards before untying Celia. All the while all hell breaks loose outside of the cabin. No doubt Soo and my men are killing every single person surrounding this place.

  In the shuffle, Celia moved out of the way. Ricci trains his gun on me, but then I look over his shoulder and smile. Celia has her own gun pressed into the soft space under Ricci’s ear.

  “Drop your gun, or I will shoot you in the head.” Her voice is clear and calm, and something warm and sweet blooms through the rage in my chest. Pride. I’m so fucking proud of her right now.

  The man I’d shoved off her finally gains his footing, but she shakes her head at him. “Don’t even think about it. I’ll kill him before you get your gun out of your holster. And if you touch my husband, he’ll be first, and you’ll be next.” There’s a dark edge to her voice I’ve never heard before, but damn, my queen, as she stands up to these bastards, is incredible.

  “Husband? I will admit I’m a little shocked, but not that much. He got what he wanted. Now I have to wonder, what do you plan to do here, Celia?” Ricci asks, his gun now on the floor by his feet. She uses her own foot to slide it out from in front of him and out of reach of the other guard. “I don’t know, Daddy. This whore doesn’t really make plans. I figure I’ll go with the flow, kill the guy who annoys me the most, and then move to the next.”

  She stares at me over her father’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  I nod. “Need to get these cuffs off.”

  She motions to the other guard with the muzzle of the gun. “Unlock him and then step away slowly.”

  Ricci jerks in front of her, trying to create a distraction, but she doesn’t fall for it. Instead, she presses the gun tighter into his neck.

  “Now, Daddy, we are going to have a little talk.”

  26

  Celia

  My hand is shaking on the grip of the gun, and my palm is slick. When I grabbed it out of the safe, I didn’t even think to check if it was loaded. So, my threats might get me killed. I’m just hoping they would have loaded the gun for the emergency
safe.

  I check on Nic. His face is bruised and swollen, but otherwise, he doesn’t look like he’s the least bit uncomfortable. Every bruise and scar he leaves with, I’m going to feel guilt over. I hate that he’s here because of me.

  “What are you going to do now, Celia? Are you going to shoot me in the head? Or let your husband do it?”

  I’m so tempted to beat the shit out of him with the cold metal, just like he did to Nic. But I know he’s trying to bait me, draw me into his little game so he can get inside my head. For some reason, he’s always considered us women of the family beneath him, idiots, and not worth his time.

  It’s always hurt that he thinks that, even though I’m smarter than him. And for once, I have the opportunity to get some answers. “Why are you like this? What made you turn into this person? A man who treats his family like trash and goes around competing to be the evilest villain.”

  “Don’t talk to me that way, girl. You are not my equal, and I don’t answer to you.”

  Nic crouches in front of my father, his eyes scanning his features. “You’re right. She’s not your equal. She’s so much better than you will ever be. You are absolutely nothing.”

  My father leans forward, and I tap the muzzle against his skin, reminding him I’m there and ready to blow his fucking head off.

  I’m nervous with Nic so close to my father. But he doesn’t do anything but stare him down, forcing him to meet his eyes.

  My father shakes his head and spits at Nic’s feet, but then he turns his head and speaks to me. “You would betray your own blood for this Costa trash? You’re even more of a whore than their mother was.”

  My mouth falls open, and I stare between the two men who have created my entire world. “What did you say? Why did you say that name?”

  Something evil flashes across my father’s face. This time he’s speaking to Nic. “She doesn’t know, does she? You didn’t tell your little wife who you really are? What name she now bears as her own?”