Blood & Lies (A Twisted Duet Book 1)

by Bella J

  Fuck.

  I knew I was a twisted son of bitch, but it never crossed my mind that this game, this plan would tease and aggravate that part of me. I was convinced that the part of me hungry for revenge would be stronger, that I would be able to do this without giving in to my most twisted desires.

  Now watching her, all vulnerable, humiliated, scared, and completely at my mercy—now I wasn’t so fucking sure.

  I tilted my head to the side, assessing her, studying her, trying to figure out if it was her that provoked my darkness, or just the thought that I could do with her whatever the fuck I wanted to. It could probably have been any other woman, and I’d still feel the pressing need to let go of all my inhibitions and embrace the wickedness stirring in my veins.

  Goddammit, who am I kidding?

  It’s her. It’s her fight, her weakness, the fact that I couldn’t figure her out. That’s what made my spine tingle and my skin burn.

  Tatum stopped crying about half an hour ago, and with every man walking up to her whispering what I could only guess were sordid details of what they would like to do to her, her face hardened. Not once did she try to respond in any way. The entire time she just stared vacantly in front of her, like she was trying to shut everyone out—like she was compartmentalizing. Strength…that’s what I saw while I stared at her.

  “Will your mother be joining us?”

  I looked up as Uncle Gino took a seat next to me.

  “This is a men only gathering, but knowing my mother she will make an appearance.”

  He chuckled. “Knowing her she would, yes.”

  Uncle Gino was my dad’s middle brother. From all the men in our family, I always thought he was the most controlled and composed. At family gatherings he would be the one sitting at the end of the table just watching everyone, listening, calculating…evaluating. It’s like he preferred to take a step back and watch from the outside, see what no one else on the inside could see.

  Uncle Gino took a sip of his drink. “She seems like a beautiful woman.”

  I continued to watch Tatum, preferring not to respond.

  He turned in his seat toward me. “How are you holding up, son?”

  Surprised, I turned and stared at him with narrowed eyes. “I’m good. Everything is going according to plan.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  I frowned. “I’m holding up good, Uncle Gino. You do not have to be concerned.”

  “But I am concerned.”

  “I won’t fail, Uncle. You don’t have to worry about that.” I turned away from him, irritated and annoyed, hoping he would take the hint and leave.

  “I’m not questioning whether you will fail or not, Castello. I know you can pull this off. What I’m concerned about is the aftermath of when all this is done.”

  I shrugged. “When all this is done, then we can finally move on.”

  “Will you be able to?”

  Goddammit. I glared his way. “Will I be able to what?”

  “Move on?”

  For a few seconds we just stared at each other. I didn’t know what the right answer was to that. Would I be able to move on? Revenge won’t bring my brother back, but it might make the pain of losing him a little less…I hope.

  “I’ll be fine.” I turned away from him, and spotted Vico coming in through the door with his entourage of cousins and nephews. There was one cousin in particular I didn’t like. Nicollo Fattore, oldest son of Uncle Roberto, my father’s youngest brother. Nicollo was the same age as Vico, which was probably why they always seemed to be glued together.

  I’ve always blamed Nicollo for Vico’s rebellious side. Nicollo was one of those friends who would help you pave your own damn path to Hell while he stood on the sideline to watch you burn.

  When Vico spotted Tatum, he immediately walked toward her. There was no mistaking the malicious look in his eyes as he stared at her, the way he licked his lips like he was about to tear into a piece of meat. But that’s what she was, right? A piece of meat showcased to stir everyone’s appetite.

  “You’ve been staring at her the entire night.” Uncle Gino’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

  “She’s been put on display for that reason”—I gave him a sideways glance—“to be stared at.”

  “Sure.” He nodded. “But every other man here looks at her like she’s just a worthless slave they’d like to fuck…or kill. Yet you, you look at her like you see something no one else does.”

  Observant motherfucker.

  I downed my glass of scotch and stood up from my chair. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, Uncle. And feel free to go sample the worthless slave displayed for your amusement.” There was no hiding the sneer in my voice. I couldn’t help it. The old man was working on my last goddamn nerve, pressing all the wrong buttons. Like I said, Uncle Gino liked to assess from the outside looking in—and he saw exactly what I didn’t want to acknowledge myself, let alone have someone else see.

  Grabbing myself a new drink, I sauntered over to Vico still standing only a few inches away from Tatum, saying something to her. All the guys around him were laughing and cursing, drinking and enjoying the fucking show. What they didn’t grasp was that Tatum wasn’t put on display for their goddamn amusement. It was part of her atonement, her family’s penance for killing my brother. Not a goddamn peep show.

  “I cannot wait until my brother is done with you, when it’s finally my turn,” I heard Vico say to her. “He only plans to break you, but when it’s my turn, I will fucking shatter you…after I push my cock down your throat, using you like the slut you are.” He grabbed her breast in his hand and squeezed, causing her to groan and whimper.

  “Vico.” I stepped up behind him, but he didn’t turn around. “Why don’t you go grab yourself a drink?”

  “Thanks, brother, but I’m not thirsty right now.” He leaned closer to her. “Not for a drink anyway.” His other hand moved up the inside of her thigh, and my blood immediately scorched my veins as I watched him touch her.

  “Vico! I said, go grab yourself a motherfucking drink.”

  He turned to face me, and we both glared at each other. It was the mighty stare-off between brothers, one trying to intimidate the other without saying a word.

  From the corner of my eye I saw his thumb stroke the skin of her thigh and at that moment all I thought was if he moved that hand another inch, I would fucking break it.

  “Fine.” He stepped away, taking his hands off her. Immediately I felt my blood settle, the jealousy dissipating. Jealousy? What in the name of ever loving fuck was that about? Why would it bother me when Vico touched her? She was hanging from the ceiling half naked, for God’s sake, so why can I not handle the sight of my brother’s hand on her body?

  Vico straightened his gray suit jacket, a smug grin plastered on his face. “We still have an entire evening ahead of us. Still lots of time to sample the slut.”

  His entourage of stupid fucks laughed as they started walking toward the bar behind me. Of course, Nicollo had to prove what a dick he was by bumping his shoulder against mine accidentally on purpose.

  Nicollo might be family, but I couldn’t stand him.

  Taking a deep breath, I glanced back and saw them all huddling around the bar. I was going to have to keep a closer eye on Vico. His need for power, to prove to everyone that even though he was the youngest Fattore man, he had the balls to be a bad ass had the potential to ruin everything.

  When I turned back around, Tatum’s head was hanging down, her eyes closed. There was a tiny drop of blood slowly easing down the side of her chin from where the rope had cut her at the corner of her mouth. She was exhausted, weak, and bordering on malnourished. But that’s just too goddamn bad. The evening was far from done.

  I stepped closer. “Tatum.”

  No response.

  I walked right up to her taking her chin in my hand and lifting her face.

  “Tatum?”

  Her eyes opened as her head lolled from side to s
ide. I gripped her chin tighter, forcing her to look at me.

  “Don’t fall asleep on me now, little mouse. I need you fully aware for the next few hours.”

  A waiter who stood a few feet away brought over a tray of champagne at the snap of my finger. Grabbing a glass, I yanked the rope out of her mouth and saw the rawness it had caused in the corners.

  A soft moan echoed from the back of her throat as I brought the glass up to her mouth.

  “Open.”

  She didn’t. In fact, she forced her mouth closed and tried to pull her face away from me.

  “Tatum, stop being so fucking stubborn and just open your goddamn mouth.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  A tear slipped down her face and I placed my thumb over it when I started squeezing her cheeks, forcing her to open her mouth.

  “I swear to God, woman, do not test my patience. Now open your fucking mouth.”

  I gripped harder and poured the champagne over her lips. She swallowed, but half of it spilled out on the sides, trickling down her chin and neck. My eyes caught the movement of a few droplets, and I watched it slowly trickle down her chest all the way to her nipple until it ran dry. My tongue wanted to lap it up, suck every goddamn drop off her body. She was helpless, and wouldn’t be able to do a goddamn thing about it if I decided to drink an entire fucking bottle of champagne off her. I could do to her whatever the fuck I wanted, and she couldn’t do shit about it. I’ve never taken a woman against her will, neither did I want to. But her? This entire goddamn game just kept on feeding, taunting, and teasing every ounce of desire I had for the darkness, for the forbidden. And God knows she had forbidden stamped all over her.

  Fuck. It made my cock hard, thinking about how vulnerable she was right now.

  When the glass was empty I loosened my grip on her cheeks and moved my fingers down to clutch her chin. “Being stubborn will only make this harder on you.”

  “Fuck you.” Droplets of champagne spewed out of her mouth while her tired blue eyes glared at me.

  Good God, I loved her fight. It made me want to test her agility by bending her forward, spreading her legs as wide as her body would allow before I sank my cock inside her, slowly stretching her while her inner walls would pull me in deeper.

  I’m so fucked.

  I brushed my thumb lightly over her full, tempting lips. “Keep fighting me, little mouse. Keep fighting me until your last goddamn breath. It makes me want this so much more.”

  Her eyes remained focused on mine, but she didn’t say a word as I pressed my thumb harder against her lips.

  I leaned closer. “You need to realize that no matter how hard you fight me, how difficult you try to make this entire process, I will achieve my goal.”

  “And what is your goal exactly?”

  For a second I glanced down at the spot on her nipple where I knew the drop of champagne stopped, then looked back up at her.

  “To make you pay.”

  If she was pale before, she was Snow White right now.

  “How many times do I have to tell you that I had nothing to do with Carlo’s death?”

  “As many times as you want, but it won’t change a damn thing.”

  My hand inched over her jaw, down her neck. Her skin was soft beneath my fingertips, like silk. And when I felt the vein in her neck pulse to the rhythm of her heart against my palm, a lightning bolt of extreme, dangerous desire shot down my spine causing my cock to ache like a motherfucker. It was like my body had a will of its own, defying my mind around every fucking turn when it came to this woman.

  Down, and down my hand inched, my eyes already focused on the destination. Supple, round, slightly more than a palm-full sized breast with a pretty pink nipple begging to be tugged, squeezed and pinched.

  “Are you wondering how many times your brother sucked them?”

  My eyes shot up to meet hers which were cold and hard as she stared at my face.

  “The first time I stood in front of him naked, he stared at my breasts the exact same way you are now.”

  My heart stammered, and my lungs deflated as a rush of air escaped me.

  “He told me that I had the most beautiful breasts he had ever seen. And that night, he sucked them both until they were swollen and red.”

  As if she managed to ignite a goddamn inferno beneath her skin, I pulled my hand away from her like touching her had burned my palm.

  “What are you doing?” I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out what kind of game she was trying to play.

  She lifted her chin, newfound confidence beaming from her eyes. “I’m just telling you the story. The story of Carlo and Tatum, best friends…even better lovers.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do.”

  She smiled, her lips pale and dry. “And what is it that I’m trying to do?”

  I shifted, bringing my cheek right up against hers, placing my lips by her ear. “You think that placing images of my brother fucking you would stop images of me fucking you from entering my mind.”

  A rush of air moved across my neck as she sucked in a breath, and I inched forward. “That’s right, little mouse. My mind is filled with images of me fucking you right now. And let me assure you, knowing that my brother fucked you does not stop my cock from getting hard when I look at you bound by chains with your tits hanging out. But let me ask you this, Tatum. Did he fuck you like you wanted to be fucked? Did my brother feed your deepest…darkest…most forbidden desires?”

  The only sound was that of her heavy breathing, her hot breath coating my skin. With a quick sideway glance my gaze swept toward Vico and his friends, all still laughing and enjoying copious amounts of alcohol.

  I grabbed her hip and my fingers speared her flesh. “I knew my brother better than anyone else, and I know for a fact he didn’t have it in him to give you what you crave.”

  “What do you think it is that I crave?” Her lips were so close, I felt it brush against my cheeks.

  Slow, leisurely strokes, I moved my hand up the side of her body pushing the tattered fabric of the rag back. The closer I moved my fingers to her breasts, the deeper she started to breathe, the more my cock started to ache.

  “You crave something you’ve never had. I bet you fantasize about it, feeling pain at the exact same time an orgasm rips through your body.” My fingertip started to slowly circle her nipple, and I pushed my lips harder against her ear. “How many times have you touched yourself, played with your own pussy, fantasizing about what society deems taboo?”

  “Don’t—”

  “I know my brother never gave you that. Do you want to know how I know?”

  “How?” she whispered, and I sucked her earlobe between my lips before letting it go with a pop.

  “Because he’s not me.”

  11

  TATUM

  I have never hated my body before. I never needed to. But right now, I loathed my traitorous body, cursed every damn part of me that responded to him—his touch, every promise hidden within his words.

  He was a bastard—a filthy, twisted son of a bitch who kidnapped women, holding them against their will. He was a man without conscience, a psycho who didn’t think twice about cutting off fingers and gifting them to his prisoners. Yet his touch somehow managed to burn me from the inside out, causing my body to betray me in the worst possible way. The wetness currently pooled between my legs was the twisted evidence of my own depravity. How could my body want him? How could the mere prospect of him giving me pain melted together with pleasure make me want him?

  Was it because he looked so much like Carlo, the man I thought I loved once? Was it the similarities between them that started to pull me toward him? Or was I really as fucked up as most people in my family had suspected all these years?

  Everything Castello said was true. Carlo was a good lover, but there were nights I craved more, where I wished he would treat me more like a sex toy than a damn porcelain doll. There were times when he fucked me from behind when I
wished he would pull my hair and wrap his hand around my throat, to squeeze while pushing me to the very edge of what my body could take. I wanted him to tie me up, to make my body his playground, and to not hold anything back. Some mornings I would stare at my naked body in the mirror, wishing I could see the bruised evidence of how thoroughly he had used me. I wanted him to paint my body with his pleasure, branding me, marking me as his. But he never did.

  It was a part of me I suppressed every day, a part of me I didn’t want to acknowledge. Like Castello had said earlier, it was all things society had dubbed as taboo, twisted and completely unacceptable.

  And now, during the most fucked up time in my life, stuck in this horrific situation, the man who held me prisoner managed to make all those cravings and desires come back up to the surface.

  Castello turned around and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with all the other men. For some reason I found it horrifying, being there without him. When Vico approached me earlier, swearing at me, degrading me, threatening me, Castello stepped up and put a stop to it. Not that I think he was in any way concerned about my safety, but rather it being more a way of showing little brother who was in charge. But still…I was secretly grateful. The entire time Vico had his hands on me I was wound so tight that my entire body went rigid, my wrists twisting in the cuffs, the metal slicing through my skin.

  That alone was proof that the wetness I felt between my legs wasn’t because of the situation I was in…it was because of him—Castello. If it wasn’t, my stomach wouldn’t have churned when Vico had his hands on me. I wouldn’t have felt the very unwelcome urge to vomit until Castello arrived. If I was completely wacked, insane and turned on by merely the danger and the rush of adrenaline, Vico’s touch would have done the same things to my body as Castello’s touch—but it didn’t. Instead it sucked every ounce of energy out of me, whizzing my mind into shards of despair.