Black Skies Riviera: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance

by Catherine Wiltcher

  “It seems a long time since that night,” I say, smiling weakly.

  “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

  We stare at each other for a beat.

  “So,” he says, breaking the silence first. “There’s this game I used to play with a woman I liked… I asked her a question, and then she’d do the same to me, after an agreeably informative answer, of course.”

  “Liked?” I search his face for the worst kind of confirmation.

  “Like,” he corrects. “Against my better judgement.”

  “What does the truth really mean to you, Aiden?” I whisper. “Was it lost in the woods fourteen years ago, or are you still searching for it?” I reach up and cup his jaw, feeling the weight, the power… “Will it set you free when you find it, or will it trap you inside a new cage?”

  “I’m all for taking chances, Issa. I’m taking a goddamn chance just being in here with you after what your father shared with me over a glass of my two-thousand-euro-a-bottle whiskey.”

  “Even if it means you end up hating…”

  Me.

  He takes my face between his palms, making sure to avoid all the swollen parts. “You’re a razor-blade, princess,” he states huskily. “I’m trying to drink it away rather than admit to it, but you’ve sliced down to parts of me I’d forgotten existed.”

  “I can feel your strength drilling down into my soul.”

  “That’s not all I want to be drilling… Even when you’re hurting. Even when I’m a selfish bastard for admitting it.” He leans in to kiss me, and then seems to think better of it.

  “Ask me that question again,” I urge, feeling his hot breath on my face. There’s whiskey there, and something else I don’t want to admit to. “Before I get too scared to answer it.”

  He nods slowly, reluctantly, as if he knows the pin is about to be pulled on us.

  “How did you know Felix was Interpol?”

  “Because he had links to MI6.”

  There’s a pause. “What’s British Intelligence got to do with it?”

  The hand grenade slips from my fingers. “Because I’m working with them, too.”

  He sucks in a sharp breath, but he doesn’t move away. He absorbs my deception like a body blow. “How much have you told them?”

  “Nothing.” I shudder as the first of my many weights slips from my aching shoulders. “It was never about…” I grind to a halt, trying to organize my thoughts. There’s so much to admit to. There’s so much to share. “Felix was onto you for the money laundering through your casino. It was trying to link Zaccaria and my father, with you as the common denominator. The Riviera deal made that link possible. As for me—”

  “Are you an agent?” His fingers tighten around my face.

  “No,” I deny, imploring him to believe me with a single word. “I’m just a woman trying to save my sister. Maxim cut a deal with the British four weeks ago for their protection. We can’t simply ‘run away’, Aiden. Not with Karina being so sick. It’s too easy for Zaccaria to hunt us down... It’s a miracle he hasn’t found her already.”

  “What was the trade-off?” His voice is like stone.

  “Insider intel on some secret society that Zaccaria’s involved in.” The words are flowing freely now, and I’m stumbling in my haste to explain everything. I want so desperately to bring him back to our lightness. “Whatever it is, it’s big. They’ve been working on it for years, but they’ve never gotten close to him before, because Zaccaria doesn’t trust anyone, and he never leaves Sicily. Then the Riviera deal happened. With Karina gone, I was all set to marry Luca in her place. I was told to infiltrate La Famiglia and find out all I could about—”

  “La Società Villefort,” he says grimly.

  “It was never meant to be you, Aiden.” My voice falters. “I was supposed to marry a bad man with bad intentions, not a bad one with good.”

  “Interesting choice of words when you just watched me murder a man… Why the bruises? The branding? Your father told me you asked him to do it.”

  “I wanted to show Zaccaria I wasn’t easily bullied. That they could beat me and torture me all they wanted, but I’d never crack. I also needed an exit strategy from Sicily. I figured it would take less than a couple of weeks for a proud and stupid man like Luca to reject his ruined wife.”

  “He wouldn’t have let you go, Issa,” he says angrily. “You would have been pushing up the sidewalks with all the other corpses.”

  “It was reckless and rash. I know that now. But people make desperate decisions for desperate reasons,” I say echoing my thoughts from the other day.

  “Wait a minute.” He finally drops his hands from my face, and the loss of his intimacy is a bitter chill. “You say that the British have been building a case against Zaccaria and La Società Villefort for years? That’s impossible. Zaccaria was only accepted into the fold three months ago.”

  “I’m just going on what they told me.”

  He reels away with his hands in his hair. “Fuck!” he roars at the white and gray calacatta marble tiles.

  “I’m so sorry—”

  “Is that everything?” He advances on me again, looking like a man on the edge. “Are all your stones unturned, halfway? What about your dead sister? What about your grief-struck family? What about the fact that my own wife is a goddamn liar and a traitor.” He moves in closer and I refuse to look away, even when he pinches my chin between his fingers. “What about the fact that, despite all this, I can’t stop thinking about how much I need to be inside her, or how much I want to pretend that this goddamn evening never happened.” He stops then, breathing harshly, looking as shocked as I am by his admittance. “Fuck this shit. I need a drink.”

  He walks out then, slamming the door behind him.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Aiden

  I stalk through the cabin, past the blood-soaked carpet, and I don’t stop until I hit the main saloon bar. I need more than a drink, I need a miracle, but a large bottle of Glenfiddich will have to suffice. Two betrayals in one evening is making everything hurt.

  I don’t bother with a glass. I take the whole bottle outside and I stand on the bow of my superyacht at midnight, swigging freely like that kid in the park again.

  I’m trying my damnedest to hate Issa, but I can’t. I imagine pulling the trigger on her like I did Felix, but the pain in indescribable. I consider asking her to leave like I’ve done to so many women in the past—I’d even get Frankie to drive her anywhere she wanted to go—but the thought of losing all that grace makes me want to pull the trigger on myself.

  Beautiful, kind, selfless, mixed-up, deceitful Issa.

  Everything she does is out of love for her sister. She channels all that pain and suffering and uncertainty for that single emotion. I channel mine for hate and revenge.

  I take another swig and curse her name to the wind. This loose feeling in my chest is like a wound now. I can’t shore it up. It keeps seeping things I don’t recognize. I want to dive into the dark ocean to wash them away, but the ocean breeze keeps whispering hope, and the moon speaks of a faith I find myself daring to believe in.

  I only realize how drunk I am when I go to put the empty bottle on the table and I miss the edge by a foot. Staggering backward, I curse as shards of broken glass go flying across the deck.

  “Don’t touch it, you’ll cut yourself.” Issa steps out of the saloon, with a red blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair is wild and unkempt and her lip is bleeding again, but she’s the only woman I see...

  She’s the only one I ever will.

  She takes me by the arm and leads me over to the line of cream couches. Once upon a time, Maxim Lebedev sat here and warned me that Ielena Dubova was so much more than she seemed.

  No shit, Sherlock.

  “How does it feel?” I slur, collapsing into one and pulling her down on top of me—feeling her fragility and tightening my arms to stop it from slipping away.

  “How does what feel?
”

  “To be good? To be so fucking altruistic you bleed your precious colors.” I swipe my finger across her lip, catching a bead of blood. I hold it up to the moon and it shimmers silver. “See?”

  “Liars aren’t altruistic, Aiden.”

  “They are when they’re my wife’s.”

  Tell her.

  She curls up like a kitten on my lap and we sit in the rocky stillness of us for a moment. People talk about the calm before the storm, but this is the calm before the epic twenty-eight foot tsunami into monsoon season with no survivors.

  “I thought you’d kill me when you found out.”

  Tell her.

  “Doesn’t work that way, sweetheart.” There’s a pause. “Your sister’s going to be okay. She made it through her operation. Her team is one of the best.”

  Frowning, she sits up and my arm slithers from her shoulder. “H-how do you know that?”

  “I tracked her down.” I keep my gaze steady as I drop the H-bomb. “I pieced together the clues from our conversations. I found your drawings. I had you under constant surveillance… You married a real piece-of-shit, Issa,” I add, shaking my head at her ruefully.

  “My drawings? But why would you even…”

  Boom.

  I see the shadow pass across her face. A second later, she’s scrambling up from my arms. “Please, no,” she whispers, casting the red blanket aside to reveal the remnants of her torn white and amber silk dress. “Aiden, not you. You—”

  “Wed you for a reason,” I say bleakly. “First name was for your hand. Second name was for your sister’s head.”

  “What names? What are you talking about?”

  “For every noble reason, there’s a dissolute one.”

  “I-I don’t believe you.” Her face is as white as virgin snow. “If you've known about her, why haven’t you told Zaccaria yet?”

  “Don't go searching for foot holds when you’re climbing a mountain of shit,” I warn. “It’s only a matter of time, in that respect.”

  “No,” she says again, shaking her head at me. “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Don’t presume, and never assume.” My own head is starting to spin. “I’m not the man you think I am, Issa. It would take six years, not six days, to understand my motives.”

  “I know that you’re an even bigger liar than I am! Worse still, you lie to yourself. You fight it constantly, but you hear the cadence in this marriage just as much as I do. The moments that shine on us are so blinding. What could possibly be worth destroying—”

  Us.

  “Revenge,” I say simply, staggering to my feet like a kid who can’t hold his drink. “And don’t talk crap about how special our marriage is. Thirty minutes ago, you told me you’d cut a deal with MI6 to disappear.”

  “I told you because I wanted more.” She sucks in a ragged breath. “Don’t sell out Karina. Come with us.”

  “No, thank you.”

  The tears are streaming down her face. I want to catch them and taste her pain.

  “I’m serious—”

  “So am I. This is my world. My kingdom. My Riviera—”

  “Your vengeance,” she adds bitterly.

  “I need another drink.”

  “Fourteen years,” she says, grabbing hold of my arm. Her face is a canvas of pain, but it's the agony in her soft brown eyes that’s the hardest to look at. “Are you the Count of Monte Cristo, Aiden? Have you locked your pain away for all that time? You’re rich beyond your wildest dreams—superyachts, black Maseratis, casinos—but you’re still locked in a prison cell. Tell me, what did Zaccaria offer you in exchange for your soul?”

  “You know nothing.” I shrug her off easily.

  “Then show me,” she pleads, following me inside. “I cut myself open for you earlier. I bled every failing and every untruth. Now my sister’s life is in your hands. You owe me an explanation if you’re planning on destroying us.”

  “It’s a fait accompli, Issa.” I pause with my fingers on another Glenfiddich bottle, catching sight of the tattoo on my wrist.

  “Not all ravens have their wings clipped, Aiden.” She comes to stand next to me at the bar.

  “You’re right.” I wrench the cap off and take a deep draft. “After I disclose your sister’s location tomorrow, I’ll be as free as the proverbial.”

  “Then I want you to fuck me.”

  “What?” I crash the bottle down in shock. Her chest is rising and falling to the rhythm of her fear, and I can’t take my eyes off it.

  “I want you to fuck me so hard that the truth has no choice but to come spilling from your lips.”

  “You’ve got your sex ed mixed up, sweetheart. That’s not how it goes.” Even so, my cock is as hard as stone.

  She closes the gap between us until all I can smell is her new perfume. “If you can’t say what you need to my face, say it to the space in between us. Say it to my mouth, my hair, my pussy… Just say it.” She tugs the remains of her silk dress over her head and stands there naked in just a pair of white lace panties and the small, square dressing taped to her chest.

  She’s fucking perfect—tall, slender, elegant as hell. Her breasts are small and firm, and my mouth hungers for a taste.

  “I’ll hurt you.”

  “Not as much as you’re hurting yourself.”

  “Jesus Christ, Issa,” I curse. “Some bastard just tried to rape you.” I turn back to the bar, curling my fist around the neck of the bottle. Temptation is as much of a bitch as regret.

  The next thing I know, she’s plastering her naked body to my back, her hands are slipping around my waist, and my lust is kicking up a gear into something savage and primal.

  “This is the one time you don’t need to do the right thing, Aiden.”

  “I never do the right thing.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “I fucking hate surprises. And you’re only doing this to save your sister.”

  “No Aiden,” she says quietly. “I’m doing this to save you.”

  My self-control shatters. I turn so fast her lips are still making declarations at me.

  Grabbing her by her waist, I slam her up against the nearest wall, sending pictures flying as she cries out in shock. I taste it like it’s my last meal, driving my tongue so deep inside her mouth that she has no choice but to submit to me.

  She’s kissing me back just as hard, moaning into my heart and soul.

  Dragging my lips away, savouring metal from her cut mouth, I whirl her around to grind my erection into her so violently her palms, breasts and cheek are pressed flat against the wall.

  “You really want my animal?” I snarl.

  “Yes.”

  “You want me to lose it?”

  “Yes.”

  She doesn’t even whimper when I tear her panties from her body and kick her legs apart. Pushing my boxers and pants away, I stoop down to line up my cock with her slick entrance.

  “Do it,” she gasps out. “Take me. Use me.”

  “I’ll fucking shatter you.”

  “I’ll mend us both.”

  “You asked for this, halfway.”

  Grabbing her hips, I tug her back to give her balance, and then I’m driving into her so deep my balls are touching skin.

  “Shit!” she screams as I close my eyes in ecstasy. She’s so tight she’s gripping every single part of me.

  I circle my hips and open her up even wider, and she mewls into the wall. “You want me to stop?” I taunt, repeating the same action, feeling her body tremble and strain.

  “No, Aiden. I want you to let go.”

  “Then brace yourself.”

  Withdrawing completely, I slam back into her, hearing the air whooshing from her lungs and condensate on the glass picture frame by her mouth. I do it again and again, watching the same mark darken as my soul lightens. Her wetness is spilling down her thighs. She comes once, twice…convulsing and milking me as I destroy her barely broken-in pussy.

  Heat is
pooling at the base of my spine. The final rush comes up so fast I’m groaning out her name before I’m emptying myself. I come so hard and for so long, it feels like I’m leaving a version of myself inside of her.

  Afterward, we collapse forward together as her strength gives out. I ram my fist into the wall to stop the collision, and then we’re slithering to the floor in a chaotic heap. I cushion the fall, pulling her onto my lap and wrapping my arms around her as we ride out the rest of the storm together—racing to calm our madness.

  I never knew you could feel this close to a woman. She’s slipped inside my skin. She’s making our hearts beat in sync.

  We’re not perfect. We’re messy and dysfunctional, driven together by circumstance and linked by forces that ambushed us and caught us unawares. But we’re us. There’s an us now. And that knowledge is coercing words from my mouth that I never thought I’d speak again.

  “My parents were murdered, Issa.” That single sentence is like the long, slow walk to hell. So many memories come crashing down on me that I have to take a moment before continuing. “I was just a kid from a council estate in Brixton, South London. The mafia didn’t exist. Money didn’t exist. Until I came home one night to find my mother drowned in the kitchen sink and my father’s decapitated body stinking up the hallway. There was a decade-old note from Zaccaria stuffed in his mouth, but nothing else to go on. When the police shut the case down citing some bullshit reason, I followed that note to Sicily.”

  “Do La Famiglia know who killed your parents?” she asks quietly.

  “Zaccaria said he could track them down by joining La Società Villefort. Said he owed it to my father, but it was a fourteen-year waiting list and I’d need to work for La Famiglia in the interim. What kid questions a don like him?” I add dryly. “Rich, powerful bastards move in mysterious ways. I hate them all, except Rick Sanders. There’s a kind of honor in his sin. A corrupt logic. He skims the top off life without damaging the reefs underneath. As for Zaccaria, I was aimless so he rooted me to a cause. He taught me how to kill, to lie, to steal, greed… I fucking enjoyed it, too. It filled a hole where decency used to live.”