by Naomi West
“Got it!” Row’s father bellowed from across the site. “He’s coming out!”
Row is up like a shot and sprinting across the site, leaving me to scramble out of the six foot hole I’ve been standing in all day, slowly chipping away at pottery fragments.
I catch up with them the moment a heavy piece of machinery gently lifts out the tiny casket and lays it in the prearranged area. Professor Rourke takes the most delicate little brush and starts to brush the dirt off one of the sides. There’s ancient Greek letters lining the sides.
“Daddy,” Row gasps as she reads the Greek. She gropes behind her for my hand and I thread our fingers. “It’s him. It’s Iairos.”
Her father looks over at her and something is set free between them.
In that moment, I see our future. We’ll rebury Iairos alongside his sister and his heart. Perhaps when our baby can be there with us. My mother and Mara will be there too. My mom and Row’s dad had apparently gotten a little friendly when they were all holed up in Corfu. And now we were all living together in Greece. As close to Iairos as we could be.
There’s so much work to do before we can do that. All the cataloguing and order that comes with Row’s job. And then we’ll have to pack up and move again. On to wherever her next job will be. But that’s just life, I think as I slide an arm around Row’s belly. That’s the good stuff.
The baby kicks against my hand and she looks up at me, smiling, her eyes shining with tears of joy.
“I love you,” she whispers. And then smirking, “Master.”
I smirk back at her. Some of the stricter rules we’ve abandoned. But a lot of it has stuck. And it makes our sex life surprisingly simple. And deeply rewarding.
And actually, that’s the perfect way to describe every moment of my life with Row. Surprisingly simple. Deeply rewarding.
THE END
DARE ME: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance [A Free Bonus for my Readers!]
By Naomi West
Dare me, and I’ll break you.
She thought she could defy me and get away with it.
But I don’t give a damn if she’s a mafia princess or not – she’s under my watch, and that means following my rules.
I could care less how much she likes it.
As long as she’s my responsibility, I’ll teach her what to like.
I’ll tell her what to do.
I’ll make her see how pleasure lies on the other side of pain.
Welcome to my world, darling.
It’s dark.
It’s hot.
And as long as you’re here, you are utterly mine.
Chapter One
Alessia
Good luck, girl.
My phone buzzes in my hand and I smile when I see the text from my brother’s girlfriend, Clara. She knows how much I’m dreading seeing my dad right now. My phone buzzes again and again in quick succession and I laugh at the flurry of texts she’s sending my way.
Knock ‘em dead.
Not literally.
Although I wouldn’t blame you if you did.
But no jail time for you.
So I guess I’ll just say break a leg.
His leg.
If anyone knows how awful my father can be, it’s Clara and my brother Dante. Two years ago, my father tried to murder Clara in retaliation for Dante attempting to leave the fold.
Oh, the life of a mob family.
Dante hasn’t spoken with our dad since. I haven’t been so lucky. My father’s developed a whole array of illicit ways to keep himself inserted into my life, whether it’s the tracking device I found in my car, the surprise visits at college, or the healthy dose of guilt he likes to slather on to any given occasion.
I came back to Chicago for the summer to spend time with Dante and our middle brother, Fabi, and I almost made it the entire summer without having to see our common patriarch. But then last night he sent me a text. If I didn’t come see him he was going to send one of his henchmen to drag me over to the house. He’d done it before.
My first year of college, when I apparently wasn’t calling home frequently enough, my dad’s main lackey, Dare Guinne, had marched into my freshman comp class, threw me over his shoulder, and dragged me to a hotel where my father was waiting for me.
This time I decide to come quietly.
I bounce on my heels as I wait for whatever car my father has sent for me. My phone buzzes again but I slide it into my pocket with a sigh as a black SUV pulls up to the curb.
“Of course,” I mutter to myself as I realize that it’s Dare in the driver’s seat. As head of my father’s security detail, Dare hardly ever leaves his side, but I’m sure he was sent on this particular mission in order to remind me just how far my father is willing to go to keep me in line.
“Alessia,” Dare nods his head to me as he comes around the car to open the door for me. His deep voice rumbles through me, so low it’s almost hard to hear. But I push the feeling aside easily. He’s always had an annoyingly attractive voice. I’ve been ignoring it for a decade.
I walk right past the backseat door he’s pulled open for me and go up to the passenger side door instead. He raises his eyebrows at me but says nothing as I hop up into the car.
“Your father would want you to ride in the back with the bulletproof glass,” he says, pulling smoothly away from the curb.
“Far fewer sins to deal with up here,” I say, knowing that the back seat is often where a lot of my father’s bloodier business takes place.
I can feel Dare’s black eyes bore into the side of my face but I don't turn to look at him. I can already imagine his expression. I’ve seen it a million times, the penetrating cut of his dark stare. He has one of those faces that gives away absolutely nothing.
He has short dark hair and a very shadowed face. His whole countenance reminds of me a black hole. One that I’m constantly in danger of getting sucked into. It used to make me nervous enough that I would babble about anything to fill the suffocating vacuum his stare creates. But that's when I was younger, I remind myself firmly.
I’m a 22 year old woman now. So instead of blabbing out of nervousness, I opt for complete silence. I try to channel something stoic.
I’m an iceberg.
I’m a redwood.
I’m the motherfucking ocean.
I cross my arms over my chest in frustration when it doesn't work. I’m still hyper aware of him beside me in the car. It doesn't help that he's taking up more than his fair share of the front seat.
His humongous paw rests casually on the stick shift. His seat is pushed back almost into the backseat to accommodate for the length of his legs. His shoulders are broad enough that they seem to stretch toward me.
I turn in my seat so that I’m looking all the way out my window, attempting to ignore him completely.
Iceberg, iceberg, iceberg, I chant.
The ride carries on without another word to one another, but that suits me fine. When we pull up to my father’s house - or ‘lair’ as Fabi calls it - Dare comes around the car and holds open the passenger side door open for me again. Dread fills my stomach at the idea of going inside. When I keep hesitating, Dare leans across me and unbuckles my seat belt. The smell of soap and sweat washes over me. He smelled exactly the same way when he dragged me from the classroom. I’m immediately reminded of how willing he is to drag me around.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I mutter, smacking his hand away.
He follows closely behind me as I walk into my childhood home. I may have grown up here but there is nothing homey about it at all. Scars pepper the deep brown wood of the grand entryway. I know they’re bullet holes. As a Patrizzio, I’ve seen my fair share.. The carpet is blood red, a choice of furnishing that isn’t accidental. Shaking my head, I jog up the huge spiral staircase in the entryway to get to my father’s office. I ignore Dare ascending the stairs behind me. I take a deep breath as I stand in front of the huge red oak doors of my father’s office. I do what I’ve been d
oing since I was a little girl whenever I have to see my father: I arrange my face into a blank expression and prepare to act like I barely understand what’s going on. It’s just easier if he thinks I’m an idiot. You could have knocked him over with a feather when I got into the University of Michigan. I had to convince him I got in based on an Italian heritage scholarship. As if that even exists. But he bought it.
I push open the door and step in, attempting to close it behind me, but a gigantic hand slaps it open and Dare steps in behind me. I inwardly shrug. I can barely remember the last time I was alone with my father. Dare has been there, silent and hulking, through almost every moment of my life for the last decade.
“Ciao, bella,” my father says and gives me a brisk kiss on each cheek before embracing me tightly. He smells exactly like he used to when I was a little girl, like licorice. I’m unprepared for the wave of nostalgia that washes over me and I stiffly lower myself into the chair across from his desk.
He sits in his high, leather backed chair behind his desk and surveys me. I stare back at him and am truly shocked at what I see. My father has aged ten years since I saw him six months ago. His hair has more of that salt than pepper tone to it and his olive skin is deeply lined. He looks just like my grandfather, before he died.
“School is fine?”
“Yes, Papa,” I nod.
“And your summer vacation, how did you spend it?”
“With Dante and Fabi.”
The lines on his face deepen and I almost feel sympathy for the man whose sons won’t see or speak to him. Almost. Then I remember why. Aside from attempting to murder Clara, he also accidentally shot Dante in the leg. I cross my arms over my chest, all wisps of nostalgia effectively squelched.
Sensing the shift of energy in the room, my father leans back and crosses his arms as well. “The Greco family is causing problems again.”
I raise my eyebrows. He’s talking to me about a situation with a rival mafia family? He never shares this kind of information with me. He studies his fingers for a second before continuing on. “You’re no longer safe on your own anymore. For the time being, anyway. You can take your pick. Stay here under the protection of my security detail, or return to school with Dare as your personal bodyguard.”
My body goes as hot as a bonfire as his words pierce me. Back to college, my safe haven, with the domineering giant currently looming over the room in the corner?
Iceberg, iceberg, iceberg.
I press my hands together. “What? Papa, that’s ridiculous.” He stares at me without speaking so I continue. “The Grecos won’t leave Chicago. They probably don’t even know I go to Michigan. I’ll be fine.” I’m proud when my voice doesn’t shake even though my insides feel like an earthquake.
My father, deceptively calm, leans back in his chair and studies me for a second. “You really think you’ll be fine out there all by yourself?”
I can already tell from his deprecating tone what he thinks on the matter so I choose to say nothing. I school my face into a neutral expression and stare back at him. Revealing nothing. Like father like daughter. He shrugs his shoulders. “Maybe you will be just fine. Maybe you’re tough enough. Hopefully you’re tougher than Aurelia Kostak.”
With that, he reaches into a drawer on the side of his desk and pulls out a photo. He tosses it on the desk in front of me. It’s a photo of a girl, eyes wide and unseeing, her arms flung wide in the pool of blood she died in. I suck my lips into my mouth and look away. I used to know Aurelia. She was the daughter of a Polish businessman. Our fathers sent us to the same private grade school. I knew she had died, but I hadn’t known she’d been-
“Murdered. By the Greco family,” my father interrupts, “her father got into it with them. Thought money could protect him. And perhaps it did. But it didn’t protect his daughter.”
I don’t need to look back at him or the photo. He’s made his point.
“I say again, you can stay here in the house until things cool down with the Grecos. Or if finishing college is so important to you,” he waves his hands in the air like he can’t imagine why, “then you go back with Guinne.”
I can feel Dare’s gigantic presence behind me. Standing as still as a mountain. It’s like he sucks the air out of every room he’s in. I can’t imagine being stuck with him for two more semesters until I graduate. But then I think of every time I’ve fallen asleep in the library, studying until all hours. I think of every paper I’ve written, the reams of notes I’ve taken. Not graduate? Inconceivable at this point. All the reasons I’ve been working my way through law school come back to me. I think of becoming a lawyer. Of having the power to put someone like Greco, or my father for that matter, behind bars. I can feel him and Guinne watching me, waiting. I stand, and not looking at either of them, walk to the door.
“I need to be on the road by 5 pm,” I say in Dare’s general direction, and I feel the cage bars slam around me.
Chapter Two
Dare
What. The. Fuck. I swipe my hand across my brow and follow Alessia out of the office and down the hall. I generally do my best not to undermine the boss’s decisions, but I had to scrape my jaw off the floor when he told us my new assignment.
I'm sure Alessia thought I was in on it, but I sure as hell wasn’t. I know Alessia is in real danger, but fuck, this is ridiculous. He was giving her a false choice. He was trying to get her to choose to stay at home by making the other option so bad she’d never take it. I’m sure Patrizzio thought there was no way she’d choose to return to college with me by her side. But she called his bluff.
Jesus Christ. College. My stomach sours at the thought of it.
After ten years of tailing Patrizzio, it feels weird to be actively walking away from the boss’s side. But if Alessia’s my new assignment then I have to get used to shadowing her at all times.
It feels weird, but it also feels really, really good. I’ve stood by and watched the boss do some really terrible things over the years. Maybe it would be a nice break to look over this little slice of cherry pie for a few months. She’s not the most interesting girl in the world, certainly a little shallow, but at least I know she’s not going to shoot anybody in the head. Or, at least, order me to.
I watch Alessia stride down the hall in front of me. I have to admit, if I have to sit in on whatever boring classes she’s taking, at least the view is nice. Her ample ass swishes back and forth in her tight jeans. Her long swing of shiny black hair tumbles down her back and the tips tickle at her trim waist. I instantly raise my eyes back to her face when she whirls around to face me.
“You’re already tailing me?” Her voice sounds more resigned than surprised.
I nod. But say nothing else. She sighs and her shoulders curve inward for a second before she seems to pick herself back up.
“Fine. I need to go pick up my things from Dante’s house, then.”
I nod again. “I need to speak with your father before we go. Please wait here.”
She blinks at my polite tone but says nothing else. She lowers herself to a chair in the corner of the hallway. It seems like she’s in shock; I know how she feels.
I take a few steps away from her and then reconsider leaving her alone there. If she bolts while I’m talking to Patrizzio, then the rest of my day is blown trying to track her down.
“Artuz,” I say into the device on my wrist.
“Yeah, boss,” his voice crackles in my ear.
“Come up to the West hall. I need you to watch Cupcake,” I say, using the nickname the security detail has had for her since she was a kid. Her eyes flash to mine and I see her lips tighten in anger. Whether it’s over the use of the nickname or because I’ve called in somebody to babysit her, I’m not sure.
“Please and thank you,” Artuz says into my ear. “I’ve been waiting my whole life to get a little closer to that juicy ass.”
Artuz is a dipshit. He always has been. But he served in my unit when we were in the military together,
and he’s damn good at his job. Which is why it confuses me when a bolt of rage surges through me at his words, and have to remind myself I’ve had the same thoughts. Not that either of us would ever act on them. She’s Patrizzio. Off-limits.
“Not Artuz,” Alessia whispers to me, her dark eyes suddenly taking up half of her face. “I’ll stay here, okay? Just-” she breaks off and runs a hand through her waterfall of hair, “I just can’t deal with him right now.”
I study her for a second and figure she’s telling the truth. If I were a pretty young thing I probably wouldn’t want to kill twenty minutes talking with Artuz either.
“Cancel that, Artuz,” I say into my wrist and I watch as relief flashes across her face before she completely shutters it again.
