Owned by the Mafia Bad Boy (Books 1 - 4)

by Raven Dark

  My gut clenched at the thought that the man I’d grown up all my life believing was my father, who had protected and raised me, wasn’t who he pretended to be. That some other faceless, nameless man out there, one who apparently had no interest in me, was supposed to be my dad. Just thinking about it made me feel like my world was turning on its head. My nails dug into my palms. I had to know. No more putting it off.

  At the end of the hall, it half registered that I heard voices drifting from beyond the doors to Dad’s room. His doctor, probably. I pushed the doors open.

  “Hey, Daddy, I brought you—”

  “We can’t have you or anyone else telling Daniella the truth, now, can we?”

  The man speaking stood at the end of my dad’s bed, screwing a silencer onto a gun. Before I could do anything, he pointed the pistol at my dad’s head.

  6

  “A little late for a modeling shoot, isn’t it, Gala?” I teased, leaning on a wall across the large room set up like a modeling studio.

  Seated atop a dais on an uncomfortable looking chair, Gala had been looking over her creamy shoulder at the photographer crouched on the floor in front of the dais, making a kissing face at him. Precisely placed bright lights were set up around her, accompanied by flat grey panels placed to create the appearance of a seamless background. As soon as she saw me, her overly made up, flawless face flashed a brilliant smile.

  “Kane.” She stood up, letting the wine-colored, ruffled skirt she wore cascade down her long legs, and pranced down the stairs, the dramatic movements only half put on for those watching. Her bleached blond curls bounced around her shoulders, the orange-red feathers surrounding her neck fluttering as she moved. I wondered how she didn’t break her ankles in those four inch heals.

  “Hey! We’re in the middle of the shot, Gala, you can’t just run off like that!” the studio director shouted.

  “Pipe down, Pierre, we can spare a few minutes for my gorgeous fiancé.” Gala air-kissed both my cheeks. She pressed against me for an instant, all prim and proper, as if she wouldn’t think of offering the real affection her upbringing taught her was taboo in public. “Hi,” she murmured in a much less dramatic voice, and I settled for squeezing her too slender arms. We’d hug later, when no one could see us and gawk like we’d showed up naked.

  “Fine, fine.” Pierre clapped haughtily at the stage crew. “Break, everyone. Ten minutes.”

  Of course. He wouldn’t dream of trying to muscle Gala back onto the stage, but I wondered which was the bigger influence on him, my reputation for getting what I wanted by whatever means I had to, or Gala’s father’s reputation as a Don.

  “Walk with me, sweetheart?” She linked her arm in mine.

  I nodded and led her out to a large garden where the moonlight cast a silvery glow. This late, the museum where the photo shoot had been set up was closed to everyone but the modeling studio and staff. No one was out here now, so we could talk more freely.

  “Isn’t this a little late for a photo shoot?” I asked the same question I had when I arrived and glanced about at the darkened yard.

  “Not this time. Pierre’s new Moon Kissed line. He wanted a full moon. We’ll be coming out here later for the outdoor shots.”

  “Ah.”

  “God, I hate these long-ass shoots that happen right before fall line.” She yanked off her strapless heals with a grumble for her aching feet and walked alongside me, barefoot, carrying the shoes.

  I slid my hand in hers. I knew more about what she was talking about than I liked to admit. No way was I any sort of model, but people were forever asking for photo shoots for magazines and product endorsement from a billionaire like me. My father still owned far more of the business than me, but people wanted the fresh, young face of Davros Inc, not the grey-haired hard-nose who no longer had the smooth lines and muscled body to make silver-fox status. The long hours sitting under white hot lights, the caked on makeup, the stuffy clothes you didn’t dare wrinkle; I’d rather stab myself in the eye with a hot poker than go through that again.

  “So, I’ve been in town a week, and I haven’t even seen you since the last time I was here,” Gala said.

  “I know.”

  Her soft, glossy mouth turned up at the corners for my one word answers. “Business.”

  “Among other things.”

  Her pale green eyes sparkled. “Your new sub?” She didn’t look at all like the jealous fiancée. Instead, she looked like a loving best friend. The kind who had been wanting to see me settled down with the perfect woman since our teens.

  I inclined my head in answer and stopped at a ledge that ran along a small bridge. A narrow creek wended its way through the garden, rushing under the bridge.

  “I’ve seen you around with her. She’s gorgeous.” Her orange painted, fake eyelashes fluttered as she looked out at the full moon. Had her voice sounded strange? What had she picked up on between Anika and I?

  “I bought her to protect her. In six months, she’ll be gone, off making some other man happy. Just in time for our long awaited nuptials.”

  Why I was feeling so defensive, I didn’t know. I picked up a rock from the wood slats underfoot and threw it with more force than was necessary at the small creek running through the garden.

  She gave a soft, lilting laugh. “You know, you almost sounded like a real master.” Her voice dripped sarcasm.

  “Fuck you.” But I smiled at her. I threw another rock, and it bounced off a stone in the creek.

  “Okay, so you bought her. Just to protect her, or was there more to it?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Right. Cold and ruthless Kane Davros would never dream of falling for a woman.” Gala picked up a rock of her own and threw it. It skipped along the water. Her father would have skinned her if he found her doing anything as uncouth as skipping stones.

  “Don’t even joke about that, Gala. A man like me can’t afford anything as emotional as love.” A painful longing squeezed in my chest and I stamped it down before it could take root. “Besides, it wouldn’t matter anyway.”

  “Why?” She skipped another stone.

  “Because. She hates me. She’d sooner cut out her own heart than spend longer with me than she had to.”

  For some reason Gala snickered. It couldn’t have sounded less like a cultured princess if she tried.

  “What the hell are you laughing at, woman?” But my voice lacked real force, as I always did while alone with Gala. Gala was the one person I’d grown up being able to relax around. When we were alone, being with her was the only time I could ever truly be myself. I didn’t have to worry about protocol or expectations, or what anyone thought. I didn’t have to worry about protecting myself or someone else by being cold and cruel.

  “Nothing.” She shook her head at me, and the moonlight made the four inch think makeup on her face look like a flawless, smooth mask, the kind you’d wear in a theatrical play. “It’s just that, for the world’s most infamous playboy billionaire, you have a lot to learn about women, Kane.”

  I cocked my head. “Care to elaborate?”

  Another laugh. “Kane. Oh, Kane, honey. There is nothing closer to the fiery passion of real love than a woman’s hatred for a man.”

  “Ha. You’re way off base. You don’t know Anika. She’d never feel anything for me but the deepest loathing. Her father’s seen to that.”

  “We’ll see.” When she spoke again, her voice was much more serious. “Does she know?”

  “You mean the truth about yours and my arrangement? No.”

  She turned to me. “You have to tell her.”

  I raised my brows at her, hope springing to life in my chest. “You want me to tell her? Gala, do you know how dangerous that is?”

  She closed her hand over mine on the railing. “Do you trust this one?”

  “What? Yes. It’s not that.”

  It wasn’t. I did trust Anika. Everything in me told me she never would have gone digging into
mine and Gala’s personal life if I had told her the truth. She’d tried to use as much discretion as she could. Her mistakes were those of a novice to my way of life, someone who was still trying to learn the rules. Had she understood the whole picture, I suspected neither she nor Fran would have put Gala or me in any danger.

  Gala shrugged. “Then what’s the problem? She’s going to be with you for six months. She deserves to know what’s going on.”

  Triumph trickled into my blood. I’d thought the only thing keeping me from telling Anika the truth was knowing I couldn’t reveal Gala’s secret without betraying her, and endangering us both. Now, I didn’t have to worry about that. Still, something held me back. I took both her hands in mine and squeezed them.

  “Thank you for trusting me with your secret, Gala. I’ll tell her, but when the time is right.”

  Gala pulled her hands free and put them on her hips. “Kane.”

  “What?” But I smirked.

  “You know what. You can’t put it off forever. Eventually, if she hasn’t already, the right woman will come along, and you’ll run out of reasons to keep her at a distance.”

  “It’s not about that.” It isn’t. “It’s safer for her not knowing.”

  “Bull.”

  I smiled, covering my annoyance with her and kissed her on the forehead. The kind of chaste kiss that, had the public been watching, would have looked perfectly natural for a couple who were supposed to believe public affection was a doorway to hell. She closed her eyes, letting me know she felt the far deeper connection between us than the kiss might have implied. When her eyes opened she shook her head, like I was clueless. “So where is Anika now?”

  “At the hospital, visiting her dad. Are you going home after the shoot?”

  “No.” She rolled her overly painted eyes. “Daddy insisted I stay with a friend.”

  “Why?”

  “He said it was because he had a guest coming over, but I heard one of his staff say there was an FBI agent coming to question him.”

  My muscles tightened. “FBI?”

  If she noticed my reaction, she gave no sign. “No one’s saying much, but I think it has something to do with his latest deal.”

  “Gala, what’s the agent’s name?”

  She scrunched her finely arched brows, questioning. “Why? Kane, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, just, what’s his name?”

  “I don’t remember. Saddler? Hadder…?

  “Hadler. Agent Hadler.”

  “That’s it.”

  My pulse thumped hard and I squeezed her arms, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I gotta go. See you Thursday at my father’s.”

  Gala called after me, but I stalked to my car and climbed in.

  “Everything all right, sir?” David got in and looked at me over the front seat.

  “David. Agent Hadler. Where is he?”

  “He’s on assignment, sir. Is he the one?”

  “Yes. He has to be. And he’s not on assignment, unless it’s to do with Dominic.”

  “I see, sir. What do you need me to do?”

  “I need to arrange a meeting with him.”

  He nodded, the solemn look letting me know he understood what I didn’t say, as much as what I did. I needed the kind of meeting that, if the agent put up any resistance and the FBI discovered what I’d done, would land me in prison for life.

  “It’ll be done, sir. It’ll take time to arrange, and a lot of strings pulled, but it will be done.”

  In minutes, we pulled into the hospital lot and I hurried up to the floor where Anika’s father stayed. With everything in me, I wished I could tell her what I’d discovered. I had a real chance of saving her father from the chopping block. The trouble was, as David knew all too well, I had tasks ahead of me that would endanger anyone who got involved. If I was going risk a twenty-five year stint in Riker’s, the less she knew, the safer she’d be.

  The elevator dinged and opened on her father’s floor. I was halfway to the doors to his room when a man yelled a curse from inside, and Anika’s father cried her name.

  “Anika…” I pulled my gun out from inside my blazer and broke into a run.

  As soon as I saw what was happening in the room, the coffee in my hand crashed to the floor. I barely noticed the hot liquid spraying over ankles and legs, all my attention riveted on the man pointing the gun at my father’s head. With my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest, the silencer on the end of that gun looked about three feet long.

  I was no gun expert, but my dad had them, and I knew enough to know that thing would reduce any shot fired to a soft floomf, something no one would hear unless they were in the room. White-faced, my dad lay frozen, hands raised. Leg still wrapped in heavy bandages, the gunshot wound there still healing, he wouldn’t be able to get very far if he tried to run.

  I could only assume the gunman was one of Gavini’s men. The mobster had given Kane two weeks to give him my father’s head, but had he changed his mind? Not for the first time, I wished I had far more knowledge of fighting than the six years Dad had given me when I was younger. No karate move could protect me from a bullet, but there were likely maneuvers that could allow me to take control of the situation if I’d known them.

  Instead, I grabbed the food tray sitting by the door to the room and threw it at the man as hard and as fast as I could before he could fire. It struck him in the hand hard and he lost his grip on the pistol. It flew out of his hand across the floor and he rounded on me.

  “Daniella, get out of here. Run.” My dad.

  “You stupid bitch.” The suit went for the gun, bending over between my dad’s bed and the window that took up part of the wall. I took the few seconds I had to race across the room, and, as he came around the end of the bed again, gun in hand, I shoved the table there straight into him. He flew back against the wall with a shout, dropping the pistol again.

  “Real smart girl. You think you’re so tough.” He shoved the table aside and stormed after me, meaty fist swinging for my face.

  My dad shouted in protective anger, and I weaved to the left. My attacker’s fist still whizzed past my face, almost shattering my jaw. I stepped out of the way, grabbed his wrist in both hands, and yanked him forward, off balance. He stumbled, hitting the floor.

  There, he was away from my dad, and unarmed, giving me the advantage. I barely faced him before the gunman whipped onto his back and threw his foot in a sweep kick, knocking my feet from under me.

  “Shit…” I crashed to the floor, the wind knocked out of me as if I’d been punched in the gut.

  The gunman sprang to his feet and whipped out another pistol, pointing it at my face.

  “There’s no silencer on that. You shoot, and you’ll draw every nurse here in thirty seconds. You’ll never get out of here.”

  Again, it was the moment I needed. He froze, just for an instant. I rolled under the bed and grabbed the gun that had skidded there.

  “Come out, you filthy cunt, or your dad’s dead.”

  Okay, so apparently he’d gotten over his worry about getting caught. Heartbeat thudding in my head, I tried to think. I’d never actually shot a person before, only game. My dad had killed a man once, one of the men who worked for Gavini, before we’d moved to New York and changed our names. It’s why we changed them. The idea of killing someone made my stomach clench violently, but I had to defend my dad. It amazed me how much easier it was to think of taking a life when it was for someone I loved.

  Gripping the gun, I listened to the man walk closer to my dad, watching his feet move closer to my head. It had to be now or never.

  I rammed my fist into his foot as hard as I could. He staggered back with a livid growl and I rolled out from under the bed. On my back, I fired upward, right at him, hoping I hit something vital. Recoil sent a bolt of pain through my wrist, but the bullets struck with those soft floomfs, hitting the guy twice in the stomach.

  Blood sprayed from both wounds, and he groaned b
efore he dropped with a crash. The wounds weren’t fatal like I’d hoped, and I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or not. No, definitely not. He struggled to his feet. He wouldn’t stop until he was dead. Bile burned my throat.

  “You little bitch, you’ll get it!” He scrambled for his gun.

  “Anika, look out!” Dad again.

  The mobster pointed the gun at me.

  “Don’t. Even.” Kane’s voice, low and livid with protective rage.

  The man spun on Kane.

  Something happened then. In that single moment, seeing my Kane with a gun pointed at his face, the man holding it about to fire, a horrible feeling gripped me. A feeling not unlike what I’d felt when I’d seen the man about to shoot my dad. It was the bone-chilling terror you feel when you know you’re about to lose someone who has become a part of you. My whole body seized, and my heart seemed to be trying to beat its way up into my mouth.

  Snatching a breath, I fired two shots at the mobster’s back.

  The man convulsed, like he’d been electrocuted, letting out a gurgled sound. He dropped, face down, and didn’t move.

  As soon as the man stilled, Kane kicked the gun away, putting it too far for him to reach even if he happened to be alive. He wasn’t. Kane kicked him over with his foot and met his dead, staring eyes with a deadpan scowl so matter of fact it made my blood run a little cold.

  “He’s dead.” Why I felt the need to say that, I didn’t know. Maybe because I still couldn’t fathom that I’d killed a man.

  “He is. Good job.”

  “Good job?” my dad snapped behind me. The bed creaked as he tried to get up. I looked over my shoulder at him. “Davros, why didn’t you just shoot him? If you had, Anika wouldn’t have had to.”

  “Hello to you, too, Dad.” Kane muttered and hurried to my side. My dad made a disgusted noise. Kane helped me up, and I leaned on him until my blood rushed away from my head. “You okay?”