Fall (A Mafia Crime Family Romance)
Bella Love-Wins
Contents
COPYRIGHT
Blurb and Author’s Notes
Prologue
1. Antonio
2. Natalia
3. Antonio
4. Natalia
5. Antonio
6. Natalia
7. Antonio
8. Natalia
9. Antonio
10. Antonio
11. Antonio
12. Natalia
13. Natalia
14. Natalia
15. Natalia
16. Antonio
17. Natalia
18. Antonio
19. Natalia
About Bella Love-Wins
COPYRIGHT
FALL
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Saints of Sin #1
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Copyright (c) 2019
Bella Love-Wins
Written by Bella Love-Wins
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All Rights Reserved.
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Cover Design by Book Cover by Design (Kellie Dennis)
Blurb and Author’s Notes
BLURB
From Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author Bella Love-Wins, comes an emotionally dark mafia crime family romance serial.
My name is Antonio DeLucci. They call me The Trigger. I’m the most trusted made man in the Romano crime family. I’m at the peak of my career with the mob, and in their good graces, but I’m not their blood. All this time, I thought there was an upside to that fact. It meant one day, I could have her.
Natalia.
The boss’s only daughter and sole heir of the Romano empire.
I protected her since she was a kid. I craved her since the day she turned eighteen and snuck into my apartment to tell me she wanted to be mine and mine alone.
But she is forbidden.
Off limits.
I wouldn’t dare give in to temptation.
Until now.
And when her father finds out what I’m now doing in secret with his sweet virgin daughter, there’ll be hell to pay. Loyalty is everything to him, and I’ve betrayed him in the worst possible way, with the person that matters most to him.
Any day now, it’ll all come back to haunt me.
Except right now, I don’t care.
She’s mine, and I’ll move heaven and earth to keep her.
No matter the cost.
No matter how far I fall.
Even if it kills me.
Author's Note: Fall is book one of the Saints of Sin Series. This is a full-length serial romance that ends in a cliffhanger.
Prologue
Antonio
“I know I shouldn’t be here. But I don’t care. Not anymore,” she whispers up to me, her tone intense but meek. “I only care about you. About us. This is where I belong. With you. Nothing else matters to me.”
She can see how hard I’m fighting this thing between us. She knows how wrong is it for us to make another move. We both understand how much hell will come down on us both if I give in.
Maybe she wants a bit of trouble. After all, she’s been a good girl all her life. I would know. I’ve been around her family since I was in my late teens. I watched over her while she played with her toys around my little brothers. I kept her safe as a shy teen, and I always saw her a kid. Then this summer she went on a trip to Italy with her nonna and returned a woman, with curves that I had no business noticing. And on this same night, on her eighteenth birthday, she comes from left field and makes it clear to me that she’s old enough for me now.
"Your father already made a commitment for you to be with someone else," I remind her, and my blood runs hotter than hell in no time. I shouldn't even mention that undeserving little prick. I've never met him, but I know enough. Just the idea that one day the boss might force her to marry that useless asshole drives me close to madness. This is how love works in this famiglia. I’ve heard stories, and the living proof of it is right before me in this bed, and in that house, and all over this very situation that threatens to drive us all apart. The boss’s marriage was arranged. As was Nonna Romano’s marriage to her husband. And probably before her too. Crime families do this to augment their power and expand their territory. Love comes with time. That’s what Nonna Romano tells Natalia over and over. This is how the famiglia has always been, but I don’t have to like it.
“That will never happen. Not anymore. I’m yours.”
I see the same resolve in her eyes as I always have.
And something else.
Longing.
I need to watch myself with this girl. She's barely out of high school, barely an adult compared to my being thirty, years younger than my younger brothers, who I still see as kids. She's not just practically jailbait. She's completely off limits. Her dad isn't only my employer. He's a mob boss. And his daughter, the mafia princess, is under my care. It’s my job to protect everyone in Romano’s family, including this seductress who’s found her way to my suite.
And if I dare touch her naked virgin body, there’ll be hell to pay.
I search her face, and she remains locked onto my gaze, hiding nothing, bold as fuck. Looking down her body, I see a slight imprint of the bra and panties she wore under that designer dress she had on tonight. The one teased me with all her curves on full display, causing me to swallow hard every fucking time I saw her across the room, or opposite me at the dinner table for that eight-course meal they planned for her.
* * *
I ate the food put in front of me tonight, but all I thought about was tasting her.
Sweet Natalia.
Forbidden fruit.
And now, she’s here, tempting and innocent, yet inviting. I breathe in her scent and groan aloud. She smells like vanilla and honeysuckle. Sweet and pure and feminine. There’s barely any light in the room with the blinds closed and the curtains drawn, but I can see enough. Her creamy skin, those long, dark locks I’ve dreamed of wrapping around my fist as I take her. She must have a good idea what I’m thinking, because she moves closer to me and cranes her neck up, showing me more of her. A narrow band of light from one of the floodlights installed at the edge of the property streams in through a gap between the curtains, falling on one side of her torso and hips.
Curves.
Lines.
Perfect skin.
And enough meat on her body to grab hold of, just the way I like a woman.
Part of me wants to wait, to stare at the feast before me, to devour her with my eyes for a while longer.
But I can’t.
Won’t.
I have less than three days with this woman, and then she’ll be gone for who knows how long. I’ve wasted too much time playing it safe. I’ve ignored the need building inside of me for too much time, and now it’s grown into an insatiable beast, ready to ravish her until there’s nothing left.
I won't wait for a second more.
Fuck responsibility.
Screw loyalty.
To hell with rules.
I’m ready to claim the woman who’s always been mine.
1
Antonio
Fourteen Years Ago
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Families belong together.
It’s the last phrase my mother said to us on her deathbed sixteen months ago, and the only words that have ever stuck hard and fast in my brain. It’s also the reason I’m running. It’s the one truth that won’t let me stop putting one foot in front of the other. The only code I live by. The most important rule I live by. One that won’t let me stop fighting to make it to my brothers’ sides.
The blood on my
busted knuckles has dried, but my hands won't stop throbbing. I don't care about the pain. The sharp sting will be replaced by a dull throb, and then the soreness will ease, and all that'll be left is some bruising and a scar or two where the skin broke. That will pass eventually. But if the state of New Jersey was incompetent enough to place someone tough and hardened like me with such a fucked-up foster father, then my seven-year-old twin kid brothers, Joshua and Joseph don't stand a chance.
The fucker had the gall to try to lay a hand on me. And he figured I’d just stand there and let him? He thought I’d take it and come back the next day for seconds? Bullshit. Not gonna happen. I don’t take crap from no one. It wasn’t even three days since Child Protective Services dropped me off here, and the idiot thought he had some claim to me. But I’ve seen his kind before. I’ve seen the shit they do, and how fast their abusive ways escalate when they believe they can get away with it. I’ve witnessed the worst side of people and fallen victim to a few incidents back when I first got dragged into the foster care system. And I’m stronger for it. Men like this are far too common. I only needed to look at the other kids living with him to know he’d try to break me the same way he broke them.
But I’m no fucking victim.
I’m a survivor.
As I run along the side of the cold, deserted rural road with only the hazy winter moon peeking through the clouds to light my way, I picture the bastard's mean, grizzled face and bloodshot eyes when he looked up at me from his spot on a worn-out patterned fabric recliner. He had the nerve to bark at me through his alcohol-induced stupor, ordering me to get him another six-pack of beer from the fridge and clean up the piss he left on the bathroom floor because the asshole can't aim right. Maybe he mistook me for one of his other foster kids. One of the weak ones who thought they could survive living under this degenerate's roof because the alternative, living on the street, was more than they could handle. But for me? I'd sleep under a fucking bridge or curl up in a cardboard box before I let anyone take advantage of me or any other kid around me.
This fucker wasn't too happy when I told him to get his own damn beer, but he was spitting mad when I told one of the other foster kids he shouldn't go for the six-pack because the old guy already had too much to drink. And when he pushed his lazy ass out of the armchair and seethed at me, I didn't wait for his raised hand to make contact with my face as he moved to slap me. I'm on the offensive. That's how I've had to become to survive. So I hit first. My fists were ready with one hell of a one-two punch. Each hit landed on one side of his jaw, sending him reeling right back into his nasty old armchair that reeked of alcohol and piss.
I was dressed for the elements and ready to go. My bag was packed too. I didn't bother settling in because I knew this shit was coming. So by the time he realized what hit him, I was out the door. The only thing is I didn't expect him to grab a rifle and aim it in my general direction as I leaped off his front porch. That was a first. He caught me by surprise, and the only reason I'm still breathing is because the idiot was too drunk to aim right. Apparently, he hadn't clued in on the part about operating a firearm while sober. I can still feel the bullet whizz by one side of my head, and I can hear the echo of the gunshot blast, immediately followed by the rush of air as it was displaced by the fast-moving high caliber bullet. Boy did that ever wake me up. I know now never to turn my back on a man with a loaded weapon.
But what he did also made me mad as fuck. My blood started to boil, and my vision went red, my pulse pounding so hard I could hear it. Turning around, I used the shrubs beside the walkway for cover in case he tried to let off another round from his shotgun. I jumped the wooden railing on one side of the porch in one vault, not sure what exactly I was going to do, but I knew it had to be something. He was so fucking drunk, he didn't see me coming, and when I shoved his sorry ass, I didn't realize my own strength. The man lost his balance and tumbled to one side. His rifle went off as he fell, and he was so intent on hanging onto it that he didn't brace his fall or even try to protect his head during the fall. Not that I fucking cared, but when the side of his head hit the wrought iron edge of the broken down porch swing in the corner, it didn't sound right. He wasn't moving at all, not even a little bit. Then, all that blood started oozing from the wound onto the floor. More blood than I'd ever seen before. Way too much blood.
I was sure I’d end up in trouble for what I did.
Until I looked around from my spot above the old man’s motionless body and saw the pair of eyes staring back at me through the open window nearest to the front door.
"I saw everything," the timid boy's voice whispered. I'd seen him the first day that Child Protective Services dropped me here. Only one kid in this foster home had pale green eyes, sandy blonde hair, and a small frame, one that made me think he didn't like food or wasn't being fed enough in this place. He kept to himself before now, so I didn't know anything about him, other than the fact that our piece of shit foster dad seemed to particularly enjoy beating up this kid.
"No, you didn't," I warned him. "You didn't see nothing. Got it?"
“I saw it all,” he shot back a little more forcefully.
“What do you think you saw?”
“It depends…” he offered.
My eyes narrowed at him. “You’re gonna try to shake me down… for this prick?”
“No! That’s not what I mean.”
“How old are you anyway?” From his size, my guess was he had to be around my brothers’ age.
“Thirteen.”
“You’re a little small for Thirteen.”
“I’m big enough. And I don’t want anything like money.”
“What do you want, then?” I pushed.
His little head disappears from the window, and when he emerged at the front door, I see him holding a small, tan leather suitcase. “To leave too… I want to go wherever you’re going.”
“I don’t have a place to go. I’m just not staying here.”
"That doesn't matter," he persists.
“But you don’t know a thing about me.”
“I know enough.”
"There's a couple of problems with what you're asking me for. First off, I'm leaving here to go collect my kid brothers, and we're skipping town. But I only have enough cash for three bus tickets."
“I got cash for my own ticket,” he says, making his case.
“The second problem is, well, four underage kids taking a bus out of state will stick out more than three. I gotta think about my brothers, you know? The third thing is, what’d you do if we manage to make it all the way there and they can’t let you stay? And another problem is, I might not make it far enough to be worth it for you.” I nodded at the old guy on the floor, his body eerily still. “Especially not after that.”
“Is he… do you think he’s dead?”
“I’m not sure I want to find out,” I admitted.
He shrugs one shoulder. “Well, I told you I saw everything. Wanna know what I saw?”
“What?”
“Well, first he tried to hit you. That’s why you were running away. He tried to shoot you but missed… then he tripped and fell and hit his head over there.”
“You realize you’re missing a few details?”
He shook his head but his gaze held mine. “Nope. If anyone asks me, that’s exactly how it happened.”
At the sound of movement in the house, I was tense and on edge again. There was no point sticking around. The kids inside probably didn't see what really happened, but it wouldn't help the situation if they saw this other kid and me out here, bent over the old man's body but making no effort to help him come to. The cops would eventually come to the house. Not anytime soon, as the house was in a remote area, and neighbors were used to hearing weapons go off whenever this foster fucker did his target practice out back.
“Fine.” Lifting my backpack over my shoulder, I straightened up to full height. “What’s your name again?”
“Vincent Costangelo. Vinny for
short.”
“Let’s make a deal, Vinny,” I offered. “You go to the middle school at the edge of town, right?”
“Yes, why?”
“Because… listen, do me a favor and stay here a little while longer. When the cops come around to find out what happened, tell them what you just told me. I’ll figure something out and come back for you. I promise.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure thing,” I told him. “Deal?”
"All right," he agreed, with some hesitation.
“You should put your suitcase back inside. And don’t touch the body. See you around, Vinny.”
Jumping the steps of the porch, I got the hell out of there and refused to look back.
With that hellhole behind me, all I can think about is making sure Joshua and Joseph are fine. Josh and Joey. It fucking sucks because not only did we not end up in the same foster home together, we're not in the same school district, and according to the state, I'm a terrible influence and am more at risk of leading them astray if I spend too much time with them. I don't disagree that I've done some bad things. Nothing I did before measured up to what just happened to the old man, but every wrong move I ever made was to survive and keep my brothers safe. No system in the world can keep me away from Josh and Joey. It's my job to protect them.
As I head toward their foster home in one of the posher suburbs, I hope they're no worse off than today at lunch when I stopped by their elementary school playground to see them. Physically, they were fine. But from the fearful looks in their eyes, from the way their little, gloved hands reached for mine and grasped through the chain link fence between us, I knew they weren't happy. More than that. They were afraid of something.
Fall (A Mafia Crime Family Romance) Page 1
