But together, we weren’t lonely. We fit perfectly, Dominic and I. It was almost as though we were the last two pieces in a puzzle, lost for years and found under the dusty couch. And once linked together, the empty space was filled and everything was complete as if it had never been empty at all.
When I was a little girl, I believed in fairy tales. Not the ones Disney tells. No, I believed the real ones. The scary ones. The ones where not everyone got to meet their prince in shining armor or got their happily-ever-after. I learned too young how fucked up life could be, how pain and suffering and death lurked behind every smile. But I never stopped believing in the power of love, and I always loved the beasts more than I did the princes.
Dominic was my beast. And somehow, I was his princess.
I stood along with Effie at the entrance of the ancient, tiny chapel where we’d be wed. I wore the antique-lace wedding dress passed down from my grandmother, clutching roses so red they almost appeared black. Two men opened the doors, and the small gathering stood. The scent of incense and time poured from the open doors.
I met Dominic’s gaze through the net of my veil, and my heart thudded against my chest. For a moment, I wished I had accepted Salvatore’s proposal to walk me down the aisle, because suddenly my knees grew weak, and I wasn’t sure my legs would carry me the distance between us.
But then Dominic smiled, and I saw how that dimple softened his face, giving him a younger appearance, an innocent one. An angel of death. That’s how I’d seen him at the cabin, where he’d been sent to break me. Now I knew it was true. He was my angel of death. But he would slay all my enemies, and he would protect and love me.
The organ began to play the wedding march: a heavy, dark gothic piece I’d chosen. One Dominic had raised his eyebrows at but accepted without question. Effie walked ahead of me scattering bloodred rose petals in her wake. I took my first step, standing taller as I did, meeting every eye in the church, knowing that even though Dominic and I may never be accepted by some, it wouldn’t matter, not anymore. We only needed each other.
Dominic took the last steps to meet me, and with his arm around my waist, he led me to the altar. We stood before the priest. The music stopped playing, and he began the service. I didn’t hear much of what he said. I couldn’t stop looking at Dominic, and he seemed unable to take his gaze from me.
I realized then I was wrong when I thought the love I’d find would be an ugly and twisted thing. I realized that love itself would bend any ugliness into its own—sometimes strange—sort of beauty.
Because it had been in those darkest moments that love had crept in and tethered us together, tighter than any chains could.
It had been in that darkness that beauty seemed to want to find us most.
I’d always preferred night to day, and I’d never been afraid of the dark. And as Dominic and I stood hand in hand, promising ourselves to each other, I knew this was exactly where I belonged, where we both belonged. We’d come from ugliness. Suffering had put us on the road to our destiny. But Dominic had been wrong about one thing. Even in our world, our love would last forever. He and I, we would make our own happily-ever-after.
The End
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Salvatore: a Dark Mafia Romance (Excerpt)
Prologue
Salvatore
I signed the contract before me, pressing so hard that the track of my signature left a groove on the sheet of paper. I set the pen down and slid the pages across the table to her.
Lucia.
I could barely meet her gaze as she raised big, innocent, frightened eyes to mine.
She looked at it, at the collected, official documents that would bind her to me. That would make her mine. I wasn’t sure if she was reading or simply staring, trying to make sense of what had just happened. What had been decided for her. For both of us.
She turned reddened eyes to her father. I didn’t miss the questions I saw inside them. The plea. The disbelief.
But DeMarco kept his eyes lowered, his head bent in defeat. He couldn’t look at his daughter, not after what he’d been made to watch.
I understood that, and I hated my own father more for making him do it.
Lucia sucked in a ragged breath. Could everyone hear it or just me? I saw the rapid pulse beating in her neck. Her hand trembled when she picked up the pen. She met my gaze once more. One final plea? I watched her struggle against the tears that threatened to spill on her already stained cheeks.
I didn’t know what I felt upon seeing them. Hell, I didn’t know what I felt about anything at all anymore.
“Sign.”
My father’s command made her turn. I watched their gazes collide.
“We don’t have all day.”
To call him domineering was an understatement. He was someone who made grown men tremble.
But she didn’t shy away.
“Sign, Lucia,” her father said quietly.
She didn’t look at anyone after that. Instead, she put pen to paper and signed her name—Lucia Annalisa DeMarco—on the dotted line adjacent to mine. My family’s attorney applied the seal to the sheets as soon as she finished, quickly taking them and leaving the room.
I guess it was all official, then. Decided. Done.
My father stood, gave me his signature look of displeasure, and walked out of the room. Two of his men followed.
“Do you need a minute?” I asked her. Did she want to say good-bye to her father?
“No.”
She refused to look at him or at me. Instead, she pushed her chair back and stood, the now-wrinkled white skirt falling over her thighs. She fisted her hands at her sides.
“I’m ready.”
I rose and gestured to one of the waiting men. She walked ahead of him as if he walked her to her execution. I glanced at her father, then at the cold examining table with the leather restraints now hanging open, useless, their victim released. The image of what had happened there just moments earlier shamed me.
But it could have been so much worse for her.
It could have gone the way my father wanted. His cruelty knew no bounds.
She had me to thank for saving her from that.
So why did I still feel like a monster? A beast? A pathetic, spineless puppet?
I owned Lucia DeMarco, but the thought only made me sick. She was the token, the living, breathing trophy of my family’s triumph over hers.
I walked out of the room and rode the elevator down to the lobby, emptying my eyes of emotion. That was one thing I did well.
I walked out onto the stifling, noisy Manhattan sidewalk and climbed into the backseat of my waiting car. The driver knew where to take me, and twenty minutes later, I walked into the whorehouse, to a room in the back, the image of Lucia lying on that examining table, bound, struggling, her face turned away as the doctor probed her before declaring her intact, burned into my memory forever.
I’d stood beside her. I hadn’t looked. Did that absolve me? Surely that meant something?
But why was my cock hard, then?
She’d cried quietly. I’d watched her tears slip off her face and fall to the floor and willed myself to be anywhere but there. Willed myself not to hear the sounds, my father’s degrading words, her quiet breaths as she struggled to remain silent.
All while I’d stood by.
I was a coward. A monster. Because when I did finally meet those burning amber eyes, when I dared shift my gaze to hers, our eyes had locked, and I saw the quiet plea in
side them. A silent cry for help.
In desperation, she’d sought my help.
And I’d looked away.
Her father’s face had gone white when he’d realized the full cost he’d agreed to; the payment of the debt he’d set upon her shoulders.
Her life for his. For all of theirs.
Fucking selfish bastard didn’t deserve to live. He should have died to protect her. He should never—ever—have allowed this to happen.
I sucked in a breath, heavy and wet, drowning me.
I poured myself a drink, slammed it back, and repeated. Whiskey was good. Whiskey dulled the scene replaying in my head. But it did nothing to wipe out the image of her eyes on mine. Her terrified, desperate eyes.
I threw the glass, smashing it in the corner. One of the whores came to me, knelt between my spread legs, and took my cock out of my pants. Her lips moved, saying something I didn’t hear over the war raging inside my head, and fucked up as fucked up can be, she took my already hard cock into her mouth.
I gripped a handful of the bitch’s hair and closed my eyes, letting her do her work, taking me deep into her throat. But I didn’t want gentle, not now. I needed more. I stood, squeezed my eyes shut against the image of Lucia on that table, and fucked the whore’s face until she choked and tears streamed down her cheeks. Until I finally came, emptying down her throat, the sexual release, like the whiskey, gave me nothing. There wasn’t enough sex or alcohol in the world to burn that particular image of Lucia out of my mind, but maybe I deserved it. Deserved the guilt. I should man up and own it. I allowed it all to happen, after all. I stood by and did nothing.
And now, she was mine, and I was hers.
Her very own monster.
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Beautiful Liar (Excerpt)
Prologue
Slater
My bike’s engine rumbled as I pulled into the parking lot of Hello Kitty Kat, a little strip club outside North Bend, Oregon. I took it all in: the old, windowless cabin-like structure; a red neon sign above the door, flashing the image of a half-naked woman wearing the predictable cat ears and a tail; the letter O burned out so it read HELL KITTY KAT.
Four bikes stood in a row near the entrance, but pickups took up the majority of the parking spots in the lot. For a Thursday night, the place was hopping.
I pulled my bike into line with the other four, killed the engine, and grabbed a pack of cigarettes out of my pocket. I lit one and took a long drag. I held the cigarette between thumb and forefinger, got off my bike, and headed for the entrance. Before I reached it, two men pushed the door open. Music drifted out, a slow, predictable tune to which I imagined one of the kitties stripped. I checked my watch. A little after one in the morning. This was a twenty-four-hour establishment, and I admit, the day the shit had hit the fan, I’d found myself at a strip club similar to this and hadn’t left for a full forty-eight hours.
One of the men stumbled into me. I caught and righted him. He looked up. And up.
“Oh. Sorry man,” he mumbled.
I was a big guy. Six feet six and 250 pounds of muscle covered in tats. The man stepped backward, and this time, his friend caught him.
“Lou here’s had a little too much to drink,” his friend, who seemed the less drunk of the two, said, slurring his words.
“No problem.” I tossed the butt of my cigarette on the ground.
The guy nodded and quickly took Lou toward his truck. I saw him glance back at me and pocket his keys. “I don’t think I can drive, man,” I heard him say.
“Well, I know I can’t,” Lou said.
They both apparently found that hilariously funny and, after recovering from their belly laugh, walked toward the road.
Two less drunks behind the wheel tonight. That was a good thing.
Crushing the still smoking butt under my boot, I pulled the door open and entered. The place reeked of beer, sweat, and horny men, but I didn’t care about that. I was here for one reason and one reason alone.
The woman onstage finished. The men cheered and whistled while she collected her discarded garments and, after blowing one final kiss to the audience, left the stage.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked.
“Whiskey.”
He nodded and poured out a glass of Jack. I paid the man and took my drink to find a quiet place in the back just as the music started and the lights went up on the stage. I finished my first and ordered a second while watching two more women dance before it was finally her turn.
The whole room went still. I leaned an elbow on the table and rested my chin on the backs of my fingers as music began to play and soft light settled on the stage. For a moment, it seemed like the whole place held its breath until she finally appeared to a round of whistles. The spotlight followed her feet, encased in strappy, high-heeled sandals, as she walked toward the center of the stage where the pole stood. There, she turned to the side, hands gripping the metal as the light slowly caressed her calf and rose up along her thigh, to her hips clad in dark lace. When she moved, it wasn’t like any other stripper I’d ever seen. There was something different about her, something just out of reach. She didn’t belong here, and that fact made her all the more desirable.
It made you want.
I watched, along with all the other hungry men in the room. Her body gyrated to the soft music, slow and dark as the spotlight finally reached her waist, where a jewel sparkled from the piercing in her belly button. She turned, the muscles in her arm tensing as she supported her weight. The light caught her breasts, small, full, and wrapped in lace. The sight of them instigated another round of whistling and catcalls from the crowd.
As the spotlight continued panning upward, she turned her head. I saw that her dark hair was confined to a tight bun on top of her head. The music suddenly changed, the beat picked up. She looked out into the audience. Everything about her, her body, her face, her eyes—even from this distance—everything screamed erotic, right down to her pink tongue licking her full crimson lips.
Then MacKayla Simone began her striptease.
I leaned back, hiding my face deeper in the shadows, even though she couldn’t see me due to the distance and the bright lights trained on her. I watched, my cock hardening, the memory of her in my arms, lying beneath me, still fresh. She released the bun and sent thick, dark waves of hair cascading down her back. Her body moved as if one with the music. She closed her eyes as she stripped off her bra. The crowd went insane. She gave them one hell of a show, shaking those tits, playing with her nipples, reaching down her belly, only to stop as one fingernail grazed the top of the lace triangle over the mound of her sex.
I wondered if I were sitting closer if I’d be able to see the slit of her pussy. See if she was wet. If I’d be able to smell her sex.
I swallowed hard, my cock throbbing against my jeans, and narrowed my eyes, forcing myself to remember what this woman had done to me. How one night with her had cost me everything. Every. Fucking. Thing. My wife. My daughter. My career. My name.
One night. A moment of weakness. And I’d paid. How I’d paid.
I downed the rest of my whiskey. MacKayla turned and gave us a view of her ass, spreading her legs wide and bending deep. The string between her ass cheeks was the only barrier between her and fifty men with raging boners. I stood, knowing my time had come. It wasn’t revenge I wanted, not exactly. I only wanted what was owed me, and the way I figured it, MacKayla Simone owed.
She owed me fucking big.
Available Exclusively on Amazon
Retribution (Excerpt)
Prologue
Adam
For the sixth day this week, I watched Elle Vega walk out of the trendy café, wave good-bye to her friends, and climb into her shiny, new VW Bug. Yellow. Compliments of Daddy, no doubt. I knew for a fact she had a Mini sitting in the garage at home, too, but she wouldn’t bring that around this group. No, she had to maintain the appearance she was like them. Like her frien
ds. She’d then take the long way to her condo in the West Village. Tiny, charming, absurdly overpriced. Perfect for the rich little bitch.
“Mr. Smith, can I get you anything else?” Mary asked, the dark circles under her eyes betraying her fatigue. She’d been serving me the same thing every day for the past six days — a double espresso and a slice of apple pie.
I took my wallet out. “No, thank you, Mary. What’s the damage?” I already knew. It’d be less than ten bucks, but I dug out a fifty-dollar bill anyway.
“Here you go,” she said, handing me the check.
I glanced at it before slipping the fifty into the little pocket folder. “That should cover it.”
“Oh, no, sir, it’s really too much.”
I closed my hand over hers to stop her from giving it back. “How’s Kyle doing, by the way? Things settle down at school?” She was a twenty year old single mom working two jobs, one of which paid below the minimum wage. Fucking ridiculous how, here in the United States of America, one of the wealthiest fucking countries in the world, we have kids like this raising their own kids, struggling to put food on the table.
She smiled, knowing she needed the money. Knowing I knew it. “Kyle’s good, and, yes, it’s going better. The bigger kids stopped teasing him, it seems. His teacher’s pretty nice, actually.”
I smiled back at her. “Good. I’m glad to hear it,” I said, standing. “Oh, one more thing.” I took a business card out of my wallet and handed it to her. “I’ll be going out of town for a while, but if you ever need anything, don’t be a stranger.” She was a good kid. Got a shit lot in life, but a good kid.
Dominic: a Dark Mafia Romance (Benedetti Brothers Book 2) Page 23
