Mafia Romance

by Aleatha Romig, Skye Warren, Annika Martin, Natasha Knight, Kaye Blue, Michelle St. James, Renee Rose, Parker S. Huntington, Alexis Abbott, Willow Winters

  And Damon, though they inhabit the same dark world, he’s nothing like Daddy. He has complete control over himself, over the people around him. In fact the only person he can’t control is Jonathan Scott. Maybe that’s why it’s his obsession to hunt him down.

  He uses that control now, a subtle direction as he leans forward.

  And I find myself canting forward.

  He would never be as crass as to give orders. Never be as rough as to drag me by my hair. But it’s an order all the same, one my body responds to as surely as physical force.

  “You’re really young,” he remarks, sounding casual.

  Only his eyes show the truth of him, the lust and frustration that swirl in the black depths. There’s something else, too. A kind of desolation that can only be seen when he’s inches away.

  How many other people get this close to him? Not many, I’m guessing.

  It’s no coincidence he prefers his women dancing onstage, him in the shadows.

  “If I’m so young, why are you here?” I ask, unable to tear my gaze away, hardly able to blink.

  He laughs. “I don’t fucking know.”

  And maybe he was right, before, when he called me a baby. That’s what I had been, with Brennan. Using him as a security blanket. Even when I thought I might have sex with Damon, when I imagined it, it was some theoretical construct. The curve on a graph, its every point carefully plotted and explained.

  Real life could never be that pure. Who would want that?

  For the first time, my body becomes aware of him as a man. Of myself as a woman. Birthdays have never felt like big occasions for me. Mathematically one day out of three hundred and sixty-five isn’t significant. Except I’ve never felt like this before. Whether it’s because I turned sixteen today or because Damon is looking at me with pure hunger, I feel ready for him.

  “I know why,” I whisper.

  “Of course you do.” The words are condescending, but the way he says them isn’t. There’s a quiet confidence in him, almost pride, as if he likes me being smart. As if it affects him the same away his crisp suits and beautiful smile affect me.

  Everything about him in his moment invites my secrets.

  Like this one: “I dream about you.”

  His breath catches. “Don’t tell me that. What I’ll do to you—”

  “Do you dream about me?”

  “Never,” he says, his voice harsh.

  In the heartbeat that follows my world crumbles. I’m standing in the rubble when he runs a hand through his hair. When he says, “I could never let myself. Not if I wanted to leave you alone.”

  My hand reaches out, before I’ve really planned it. Before I’ve really thought through what it means. To touch him. To feel him, his heat and his heart. Two fingers pressing against the perfectly smooth fabric of his shirt. He’s so solid beneath those white dress clothes. As strong and as wide as I would have dreamed my wild boy would be, grown into a man.

  “I’m afraid to be alone.”

  His eyes burn. “You will never be alone. I swear that to you. I would never let that happen. But you deserve to have a normal life. That’s what I want for you.”

  “Does what I want matter?”

  He laughs. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

  I don’t know where the boldness comes from, but there’s too much of it. I’m overflowing with the desire to ask for what I want, to demand what I need. Is this what sixteen feels like? “A kiss.”

  A rough sound. “What?”

  “I’m asking for a kiss.”

  “Christ,” he mutters. “You’re so innocent.”

  Challenge simmers around us, sparkling and hot. “Then do it. What will it hurt?”

  “It will hurt,” he says, capturing my face with careful movements, his hand cupping my whole jaw. He tilts me only the slightest angle, but it changes everything. Thirty degrees to the right. That’s all it takes for me to open for his kiss. Made ready for him, my whole body brimming with anticipation.

  He leans close, his gaze a dark promise.

  One millimeter away from me, so close it hurts to be apart. Like our lips are magnets, trembling with an unseen force. His hand holds me away, that small amount. “Say no,” he murmurs. “Scream. Fight me. Cry for me to stop.”

  “Is that how you like it?” I whisper, the words brushing my lips against his.

  Only the smallest shake of his head. “I like you moaning and needy and begging me for more.”

  I can’t imagine moaning. “How do you know?”

  “Because I did dream of you, Penny. I dreamed of you and I watched you and I wanted you. Even though I knew it was wrong, I couldn’t stop. It isn’t about how old you are—it’s you. It’s only ever been you.”

  That’s the last thing I hear before his lips press against mine. Then there’s only empty sky in my head, only starlight, only a vast and pulsing space. There are no walls here. Nothing that could possibly separate us. His mouth so hot against mine that I’m melting, turned liquid in his hard grip.

  Square inch by square inch, my body relaxes. Only then do I realize how tense I was. How tense I’ve been my whole life, braced for something awful to happen.

  As if he were waiting for that sign, Damon moves against me. A new configuration of his mouth against mine, a new kind of kiss, every curve completely distinct. Pleasure sparks across my lower lip, and I realize he tasted me. Oh God, his tongue. He touched me with his tongue.

  My lips part on a gasp, whether from sensation or shock.

  He takes the advantage, nudging my mouth open. Opening me like a petal grown wide and blooming. Then his tongue touches mine. My whole body changes then, becomes something flushed and alive, every cell breathing for the first time. There are feelings in new places, a heat between my legs, a terrible tension that I think only he can fix for me.

  I’ve touched myself under the covers before, but it’s never hurt like this.

  There’s something happening inside. A change.

  A sound breaks through the silence, low and sensual. It’s me.

  And just like that he sits back. In the space he had been there’s only empty space. My breathing comes fast, my whole body aching and hot. I feel like he took me apart and put me back together. A child before. A woman now. And every womanly part of me attuned to him, wanting more.

  He breathes hard, staring at me with something like desperation. “Fuck,” he says.

  “Please more,” I say, before I even know that I’m pleasing him. Before I see the flash of pure desire in his dark eyes. I like you moaning and needy and begging me for more.

  How much more could he make me do?

  He stands, abrupt and impersonal. “That’s enough.”

  “That’s enough,” I repeat, my voice hollow. “That’s what you have to say to me?”

  A cruel smile mars his beautiful face, and even before he speaks, I know it will cut me. “What do you want to hear? That kissing you was so magical that I never want to touch another woman, never want to look at one? That you’re the only person I’ve ever wanted this badly?”

  I flinch at his tone, but it’s a mistake. It’s blood in the water. “Don’t be like that.”

  “Oh, but that’s what I am. Remember? I’m a criminal. A cold-blooded killer. So callous that I took money from a sad old man who can’t fucking stop gambling the money that should feed his daughter.”

  The reminder of my daddy makes my breath catch. There’s something that can pierce the haze of desire. Grief can do it. A grief so hard and tight it’s a fist in my chest. “You didn’t take it. You gave him money.”

  “You’re right,” he says, his voice silky smooth. So like his father it slices me open. Like two hands on either side of a wound, pulling the skin apart. “I gave him money he could never repay. Because there’s something I want more than his debt. There’s you.”

  I’m completely flat. Two dimensional. Made into an object without value.

  “Stop it,” I w
hisper.

  “That’s not what you were saying a few minutes ago.”

  “And this isn’t what you were saying a few minutes ago,” I say, tears hot against my eyelids.

  “True. There’s something painfully sweet about your little jailbait mouth. But I can’t let you distract me. Not with Jonathan Scott still roaming the streets.”

  That’s what this is about. His father. His hunt.

  And that look in his eyes—I recognize it too well. The one Mama would get before she found a new boyfriend with new needles. The one Daddy gets before the rent money disappears. There’s always an addiction. And God, the books on the nightstand prove no one’s really immune.

  “Then stay,” I say, more afraid for him than myself. There’s a reckless aura around him. A violence that seems almost directed at himself—or the man who made him that way. “Stay here with me.”

  He gives me a crooked smile, eerie because of how sweet it looks. “No, baby genius. You know the answer is no. I have something else to do first.”

  “You’re not a killer. You said you were, but you’re not.”

  I don’t know if I’m trying to convince him or me. How could I love a murderer?

  “I’m not?” he says, almost idly. What he shows me next takes my breath away. It’s hard to hold his gaze, to stare into the terrible soul he shows me. “I’ve never killed before now. But I think I’m going to enjoy this. I’ll draw it out, make it last. And when I come back this will finally be over.”

  He leaves the room with that threat in the air.

  With that imagery in my mind. Torture. The kind of torture that Jonathan Scott did to me. The kind he must have done to his own son for years. It’s a form of justice, a balance to the equation. But it will turn Damon into the same monster he’s hunting. It will break this man as surely as his father broke me.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I spend the next few days in a kind of stunned purgatory. My mind replays that kiss over and over again, recalling the silver flecks in his eyes I could only see that close, the slightly mint flavor of his breath. A thousand details my mind catalogued for me to look through, hour after hour, minute after minute.

  And every daydream ends the same way.

  With the nightmare of me in that black pool, fighting to breathe.

  Avery has downloaded these books on her phone about PTSD and repressed memories. She reads them out loud to me, but I’m not really sure if they’re for me or her.

  It takes days before her worry level starts to rise.

  Breaking out of this gilded cage will require more than ordinary worry.

  Over a breakfast of oatmeal and grapefruit slices I say, “He’s not coming back.”

  Her hazel eyes meet mine, panic pure and strangely beautiful. “Penny?”

  I pick up my spoon, wondering about the best way to convince her. Damon is going to crush the last small piece of his humanity torturing his father, who also happens to be after you. No, she wouldn’t rush to Jonathan Scott’s aid. And that’s the way she would see it.

  He’s not the one in danger. What he did to me, the way he violated me, it’s unbearably intimate. He knows things about me, private things, but I know things too. Like the fact that he wants to die.

  He wants to be tortured, for whatever insane reason is in his head.

  “Why did you say that?” Avery demands. “What do you know?”

  “He never said goodbye.”

  She gives me a hard look. “If you mean Gabriel, he’s coming back. Any minute now.”

  “Him too.”

  “Penny. Who didn’t say goodbye?”

  “Damon.”

  She hides her relief. “Do you want him to come back?”

  Only with every cell in my body.

  I want him to come back whole, not as the monster he hunts. I shrug, swishing my oatmeal around in the bowl. Avery is always pushing me to eat more. Doesn’t she realize that I’ve survived on less my whole life? This is what I need her help with—getting us out of this fortress so that we can find Damon.

  “Maybe we can visit the Den one of these days. We’ll get Gabriel to take us.”

  Does she really think that’s how it will happen? That Damon will let us visit him for tea in the afternoon? That her precious Gabriel will come out of this unscathed? No, she wants to believe that. I understand about that. “He needs help.”

  She bites her lip. “Do you ever hear voices? Voices that aren’t there?”

  All the time, but not the way she means. I think she has repressed memories, ones that are coming out to haunt her. My memories live on the surface. They keep me cold company, even when I’m alone. “You definitely can’t trust me.”

  Her eyes widen. “What?”

  I feel a little guilty for this, but I need Avery to be afraid.

  Need her to understand the enemy the men are facing. It’s not that he doesn’t care about their souls. It’s his goal to burn them. I understand Jonathan Scott in a way no one else does, maybe even his son.

  “Run and tell your daddy that Jonathan Scott is here.”

  Sometimes I wish I could push the memories down, the way she does. But that would be such a complete aloneness. I guess they bring me some comfort after all, memories of the terrible Jonathan Scott. I think I’m finally getting through to her when we hear footsteps outside.

  I watch with an aching chest the hope across her face.

  The doctor comes into the kitchen. Hopes dashed.

  He looks as rough and jagged-edged as ever, his shirt sleeves rolled up revealing thick forearms and some kind of pale tattoo on his smooth freckled skin.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks me.

  I like Anders, because I don’t have to pretend around him. Whatever’s in my head, he seems to understand. “I used to dream about trees,” I tell him, but I don’t mean trees. I mean the wild boy who lived in them. The pretend-life we could have lived if he stayed. “About sunshine. And dirt.”

  He simply nods. “Better, then.”

  I am doing better, strangely better than Avery herself. It seems strange, like maybe I should be more broken by what happened. Then again there’s no timetable for recovery. “I know it doesn’t sound pretty—dirt. The smell of it, thick and strong. It means you’re free.”

  Even in my fantasies we don’t live in a castle. If he had stayed we would have lived in the woods, would have fished in the lake, would have walked barefoot and wild.

  * * *

  The good news is that Avery comes up with an elaborate plan to escape the mansion. That it’s such a secret confirms every fear I’ve had about our positions here. Prisoners.

  The bad news is that she thinks she’s leaving without me.

  I sneak after her and the security guard on her tail, making it into the trunk of the black SUV before the door closes.

  “What are you doing?” Avery whispers, her eyes wide with surprise.

  With a sigh I burrow myself into her body. She knows exactly what I’m doing.

  After a moment her body relaxes, accepting me.

  It’s actually pretty impressive, the feint she set up so they would think she left with a delivery truck from earlier. The security guard drives us off the property himself.

  Less impressive when we sneak onto the streets of west side. That’s where her plan ends, with two young women stranded in the worst part of town with no money. Only a rich girl, honestly.

  “Tanglewood Sober Ride,” I tell a surly bus driver, dragging Avery back with me before anyone can protest. The program is rarely used by people who actually should use it. More by people who want to joy ride on moldy old buses, which tells you everything you need to know about the state of the seats.

  The bus shakes violently as it begins moving, knocking Avery off balance.

  I drag her into the seat next to me.

  “Thank you,” she says, sounding breathless.

  All I have for her is a small smile. We make a pretty good team, though I’m not goin
g to tell her that. I hope we never have to break out of a multi-million-dollar home again.

  “We should go to the Den,” she says. “It’s on Fourth Street, once you go past the train tracks and—”

  I squeeze her hand. These are my stomping grounds. “I know.”

  The buildings get more narrow as we approach the historic district. The alleyways more winding, every building with three secret exits leftover from the prohibition.

  On Fourth Street I pull the cord, making the bus stop.

  We reach the Den to find the door open, the fortress completely dark. Empty. At least that’s how it looks from a few feet away. When we reach the short steps, we see him. Anders. The doctor. Spread out on the stairs like some kind of gruesome warning sign.

  Avery kneels beside him, pressing her hands to his chest, coating her hands in blood. She takes off her sweater and pushes it against the wound.

  He coughs. “Don’t.”

  I can’t help but think pain is a good sign at a time like this. It means he’s alive and feeling. Then again that sounds like something Jonathan Scott would say.

  “You’re losing blood,” Avery says, clearly panicking.

  “Don’t,” he coughs again, his words mangled.

  Panic descends on me like a heavy fog, keeping my feet in the same place, blurring my vision. It feels too much like being underwater, this fear. Too heavy to possibly fight.

  Avery looks back at me, as if I might have the answers.

  “He’s not here,” I say, because I know he won’t be upstairs.

  “Gabriel?” she asks.

  I shake my head. It’s Damon. It’s always been Damon.

  Anders drags her close. “Don’t go to him. That’s what he wants.”

  That is what Jonathan Scott wants, but then he orchestrated this violence. He’s the conductor, keeping all of us playing. We’re all just instruments to him. Even Gabriel, rare and beautiful.

  Avery calls the police while I consider bolting. I want to find Damon, to protect him. At the same time I want to run far away from here, to hide in the trees somewhere, to live off the ruined land.

  The truth is that I will go find Damon. It was always leading to this.