“What is it?” I asked as I set my knife and fork down and she took them to the sink.
“I was just…”
“Just?” I pushed.
Sloan cleared her throat and turned to look at me, folding her arms as she leaned back against the counter.
“I was just wondering if we’d even hate each other at all if it wasn’t for our names. I mean, why do the Calabresis and Romeros even harbour so much hatred for each other in the first place? Is it all about power? Does that really matter so much?” she asked in a soft voice.
My spine straightened and my gaze hardened as I looked at her. Because sometimes I did forget who she was. What she was. And that couldn’t happen.
“It’s more personal than a power struggle,” I growled.
“So when you see me, all you see is the feud you hold with my father?” she asked. “Even though I’ve never once done anything to any of you?”
“And what did my mother do to any of you?” I snarled. “What did my brother do?”
“Your brothers?” she scoffed. “They’ve spilled plenty of Calabresi blood. I know for a fact that-”
“Not those brothers,” I hissed, shoving to my feet so fast that my chair toppled over with a crash. “I’m talking about Angelo. He was four when your family broke into my house and burned it down with him and my mother inside.”
“What?” she gasped, her gaze dropping to his name inked on my chest as I prowled towards her.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. That’s why we hunt you. That’s why we came after your Uncle Sergio that day. He was there. He was responsible. And I won’t stop until I’ve taken the lives of every member of your family who accompanied him.”
“I don’t know why you think they did that, but my papa wouldn’t agree to something like that. He wouldn’t involve a woman and child in your feud. He-”
“Are you really that naïve?” I demanded, caging her in against the worktop with my arms. “Or do you just prefer to turn a blind eye to the foundations your pretty palace is built upon?”
Her lips parted and I could tell she didn’t believe me.
“I’ll show you,” I snarled, reaching out and snatching her off of her feet.
She shrieked as I tossed her over my shoulder, carrying her out of the kitchen and down the hall to the back of the house.
I kicked open the door to Papa’s office and strode towards the huge mahogany desk before dropping her into the leather chair in front of the laptop and wheeling it so close to the desk that she was trapped in place.
If the little principessa didn’t want to take my word for it then I would just have to show her exactly what her family were capable of. I’d watched the CCTV footage from that night more times than I could count, marking each and every man shown on it for death.
Sloan may not have wanted to believe the worst of her blood. But reality was going to come for her whether she liked it or not.
The security footage began to play and I willed my heart to settle as I watched a group of people spill out of a large SUV on someone’s drive. It was grainy, but I could make out my father leading the line toward what I assumed was a Romero property. I could see the porch and one of the front windows from the angle of the camera, but nothing more.
Two men moved past my papa as he spoke some order I couldn’t hear and I drew in a deep breath as I recognised my bodyguard, Royce, on the right and Uncle Sergio on the left. My hands clenched into fists as they battered down the front door and the group surged inside with guns raised. A man I recognised as one of my father’s guards, Eddie, carried a can of gasoline as he headed in after them. He’d died the day the Romeros had attacked us on the road. The day Rocco had almost killed me too.
Rocco reached over my shoulder and turned up the volume, the sound that fed through the speakers making my blood turn to ice. A woman was screaming and a child was crying. A second later gunshots sounded and fire flared in the front window. Some of the men ran back to the SUV with bundles of weapons and boxes in their arms as chaos broke out.
“My father had a cache there,” Rocco said darkly. “But they didn’t need to kill my family in the process of robbing it. Your father planned it that way. Why else bring the gasoline?” He slammed the laptop shut and I jumped in alarm as tears filled my eyes. My heart broke over what my family had done to his. I knew blood had been spilled between all of us for years, but this was personal, sadistic. How could they kill a mother and her child?
The tears spilled over and I turned to Rocco, his face cast in shadow as the light from the hall glowed behind him.
How could Royce have been a part of this either? He’d always seemed so moral, so kind. I’d known he’d worked for my father for years, but I’d never thought my papa would organise something so heartless.
“Why am I still alive?” I whispered, but Rocco didn’t answer. “I should be dead in penance for this.” Fear brushed along my spine as I said it, but it was the truth. My father had taken a child from Martello Romero, why hadn’t he taken his in return?
“We’re using you to bend your father to our will,” he said frankly, his voice void of emotion.
I nodded, tears dripping from my chin as I pushed my way to my feet.
“So it’s just a matter of time,” I breathed, my body numb as I moved to walk past Rocco, sure he wouldn’t want me anywhere near him right then. I must have been a constant reminder of this atrocity.
He caught my arm before I could leave the room and I turned to him with my heart hurting. “I’m so sorry, Rocco.”
His jaw ticked as he drew me closer, reeling me in like a fish on a hook. “I see the truth in your eyes, bella. You didn’t know.”
I nodded and more tears ran down my cheeks, the horror of what I’d learned making it hard to breathe. My father was a monster. I’d never shared a deep relationship with him, but I’d always loved him. Cared for him. Thought the best of him.
Rocco lifted a hand, catching one of my tears on the end of his finger. He placed it in his mouth and I stilled as I watched him.
“Calabresi tears don’t taste as sweet as I expected,” he muttered to himself and my throat thickened. “Hurting you isn’t the same as hurting him.”
“Did you think it would be?” I asked, his hand trailing down from my wrist to wrap around my hand instead.
“I didn’t take you because of him,” he admitted and my lips parted in surprise.
“So why-”
He pressed his mouth to mine, gentle and deep and full of so many unspoken words I started to drown, before he pulled back just as suddenly.
“Because you’ve been mine since we first locked eyes. I was just taking back what belonged to me. There was never any plan to kidnap you.”
He took hold of my throat, brushing his thumb over my pulse and making me shiver.
“I’m not a possession,” I said bitterly. “Most of the people who were supposed to love me have tried to own me instead. And I’m tired of being owned.”
“I don’t want to cage you, principessa.”
“Says my captor.” I narrowed my eyes on him as anger flitted through me.
“You’re my captor too,” he said in a low tone, taking my hand and placing it against his heart. “We chained ourselves together the day we hesitated to kill each other. I’ve never been with a woman since without feeling like I was betraying you. That’s how deep in my soul you are. We were together from that very moment.”
He released me, striding out of the room and leaving me with my cheeks wet and my heart sore.
***
Rocco left me in the house for the afternoon, heading outside to do ‘jobs’. At least, that was what he’d grunted at me when he headed out the patio door. I was wearing one of his shirts again, the scent of it keeping my heart steady, no matter how insane that was.
I decided to do some baking to take my mind off of things because every time I paused to think, I relived Rocco’s words. That my father was a beast and my bodyguard
was nothing but a mindless tool he’d used to hurt people. In a way, it hurt more to discover that Royce had been involved in that nightmare than it did my father. He was the man I’d looked up to as a kid, relied upon. He’d wipe my wounds when I grazed my knees, he’d held my hand when I crossed the road. And I’d always thought of him as a decent, deeply good person.
I didn’t know what to do with the admission Rocco had given me either. That I had a hold over him as much as he did over me. The longer I thought on it, the more it drove me mad. And I certainly didn’t want to acknowledge the wild girl in me who was dancing in circles, singing her heart out about it.
I took the cupcakes I’d made out of the oven, placing them on the counter and popping them out of the silicon tray onto a cooling rack. I’d made five in total, each my best work and each a different flavour. If Rocco didn’t like one of them, I’d lose a bet with myself. I’d seen how he’d eaten the pancakes I’d made him, but this time I wanted him to devour one of these cakes and claim it as his favourite thing in the world. Maybe I was just trying to make up for my family’s terrible deeds in some minuscule way, but I wanted to bring a smile to his face. It was some small thing I could offer.
The cakes needed to cool off before I could ice them so I headed out of the room to track down Rocco.
A dull thwacking noise reached me and I headed to the conservatory that overlooked the patio, my gaze falling on Rocco beyond the window. He was shirtless, his chest coated in sweat as he raised an axe above his head. His shoulders flexed and his biceps tightened before he swung it down hard and split a log in two.
I drifted closer to the floor-length window, pressing against the curtain so as not to draw his attention as I watched. My heart pumped harder and heat spread keenly between my thighs as I took in his powerful frame and the way his muscles stretched and yielded with each swing of the axe.
My fingers wound into the material of the curtain as I sucked on my lower lip and let myself fall into the trap of his body. Rocco Romero. My enemy, my nightmare. But not just that anymore. Now he was the man who fought wolves to keep me, a man whose heart had been bruised and battered by my family, and who didn’t blame me for it, despite the blood that ran in my veins.
I frowned as I noticed pieces of paper pinned onto the logs lined up on the ground; each of them had names written on them. Frederico, Paulo, Amelia, Whatshername with the big teeth, That guy who cut me up on the highway last week.
My hands knotted around the curtain as he raised the axe above a log named Gwen and her convenience store, breaking another log in two with a deadly blow. His mouth was moving but I couldn’t hear what he was saying, though it kind of looked like he was singing.
I was too curious not to find out so I opened the patio door, silently pushing it wide and glad when I didn’t catch his attention. His voice reached me on the wind and I smothered a laugh at what he was singing.
“Sixty five fuckers standing on the wall, sixty five fuckers standing on the wall, and if one mean fucker should treat me like a whoooore…” He cut Frederico in half with a forceful strike and wrenched the axe free of the lump of wood the log had been sitting on. “There’ll be sixty four fuckers standing on the wall.”
A laugh burst from my throat and he turned his head, his mouth twisting up at the corner. “Do you like my song, principessa?”
“Yes, but I’m surprised I’m not in the line-up.” I nodded to the line of logs, pressing my back to the wall as I fought the urge to go over there and inspect his bandaged wolf bite (AKA stare at him up close).
“Hm,” he said thoughtfully, moving to a pile of logs which hadn’t yet been named. He took a pad out of his back pocket with a pen, scribbling a name on it and picking up a log with a cut branch protruding from the side of it.
I folded my arms, expecting to see my name slapped onto it, but when he pinned it in place, I found Guido’s name staring back at me. He placed it down on the chopping block, lifting the axe above his head and slamming it down. He severed the branch from the log and I smirked as I realised the gesture he was making.
Rocco scooped up the cut branch, tossing it to me and I caught it out of the air. “His dick’s not that big but you get the idea.” He winked, raising the axe again and cleaving Guido apart with a huge crack. The noise splintered through the air and made my pulse spike.
“I made you cakes,” I said, wetting my lips and tossing the stick onto the ground.
“I told you I don’t like sweet things, why do you keep making them for me?”
“I guess I like a challenge.” I shrugged and Rocco dropped the axe into the snow, stalking toward me.
I pressed my palms flat to the wall behind me, my skin burning against the icy surface as he closed in on me. My breath hitched as he snapped an icicle off of the roof over the patio, biting off the sharp end and crunching it between his teeth.
“Is that why you’re out here staring at me, bella? Am I your next challenge?” he asked, swallowing down the ice as his eyes trickled over me. “Do you think I’d be tempted by you standing out here in the cold in nothing more than my T-shirt?”
I pressed my thighs together, gazing up at him under my lashes. “Maybe I like the cold.”
“Is that so?” He took another bite out of the icicle, crunching through it like it was some delicious treat. He moved up into my personal space, so close I couldn’t breathe. “How much do you like it, Sloan?” He lowered his hand, running the length of the icicle over my breast and I inhaled as cold water soaked through his shirt and plastered it to my skin. His eyes remained locked on mine as he rolled it across my sensitive flesh and my nipple pebbled beneath its frozen touch.
A moan escaped my throat despite my best efforts at keeping it in and Rocco’s pupils dilated. I kept my palms against the wall, fearing if I moved he’d stop. And right then I wanted more. Everything he could give.
The white shirt turned transparent over my breast and Rocco growled appreciatively. He dropped his arm, stepping back with a look of self-discipline.
I caught hold of his hand with the icicle still in it, guiding it back onto my body as I let the crazy part of me take over.
He swallowed thickly, watching as I dragged his hand onto my other breast and a dark look swept across his features.
“Are you afraid to keep touching me, Rocco?” I breathed in a challenge, my pulse thrumming in my ears. His hard-on was straining against his jeans and his muscles were taut all over. I knew he wanted me as much as I wanted him. And I was done pretending that wasn’t true. Especially now I knew who he really was; a man seeking revenge for the murder of his loved ones. Me being here wasn’t personal, not in the way I’d expected anyway.
“I’m not afraid of anything.” Rocco moved the melting icicle over my nipple, his gaze searing into mine with a villainous hunger.
I tipped my head back against the wall, my thighs parting of their own accord as weeks of pent up desire unfolded in me and begged to be sated.
The heat of his fingers grazed my nipple and burned right through the cold that had burrowed into my flesh. I held my breath as he glided the icicle down between the valley of my breasts, skating over my stomach and down to my thighs. Goosebumps clung to my flesh as he brushed it up the centre of my underwear to the top of my panty line, pulling a needy groan from my lips.
I swallowed hard, breaking his gaze but he immediately caught my chin with his free hand. “Uh uh, bella, look at me and tell me what you want.”
The ice melted against the soft flesh above my panties, dripping down between my thighs and sending a violent shiver along my spine.
“Rocco,” I breathed.
“Say it.”
“More,” I begged and his hand slid into my underwear, sending chills rippling through my flesh. My back arched and I bit down on my lip as he rolled the smooth length of the ice onto the most sensitive part of my body.
“I’ll give you more,” he purred. “More of the hate, more of the spite, more of me. Is that what y
ou want, Sloan Calabresi? Your captor making you feel like this?”
“Yes,” I cried out, my eyes falling closed as he painted soft circles against the sensitive spot at the apex of my thighs. Pleasure collided with a bite of pain as the ice glided against me, making my head spin from the intense sensation.
He pressed hard up against me, drawing my senses to the taste of his flesh as I instinctively bit down on his shoulder. He swore under his breath, circling the icicle faster as icy water gathered in my panties and sent my body haywire. My hips rolled in time with his hand as I lost all self-consciousness and gave in to the pleasure he delivered me.
His hand suddenly dropped lower and I wasn’t remotely prepared as he pushed the remainder of the icicle inside me. I bit down harder to stop myself from crying out as his thumb pressed right to the centre of me. It felt burning hot in comparison to the ice and he rubbed in smooth, delicious circles while pumping the ice in and out of me with his fingers.
Cold and heat crashed together. My thighs clamped around his hand a heady moan spilled from my lips and I came so hard my vision curtained with darkness and my knees nearly gave out.
Rocco steadied me, crushing me back against the wall with the firm plain of his chest as he pulled his hand from my panties. He placed the last of the icicle straight into his mouth and crushed through it with his teeth with a savage expression on his face.
“Well what do you know?” He smirked. “I found something sweet I like after all.”
The triumphant look in his eyes brought heat to my cheeks and though I’d wanted this badly, I suddenly feared what I’d let him do to me. If I’d been a complete idiot to let Rocco slip past my defences and right into my panties. I just kept letting him get closer and closer. He might have really believed we had some connection, but that didn’t mean he was going to let me go. I was still his captive. So why did I have to want him so much?
I slipped away from him, heading inside, the aftershocks of my orgasm still rippling through me as I hurried into the house. His heavy footfalls pounded after me, the sound of snow falling from his boots as he followed me across the conservatory, through the hall and into the living room.
Beautiful Carnage: A Dark Mafia Bully Romance (The Boys of Sinners Bay Book 1) Page 23
