Ruthless Prince : A Dark Mafia Arranged Marriage Romance (Dark Syndicate Book 1)

by Faith Summers

  I still want to talk to Candace though. She’s clearly upset with me.

  “What’s going on, Candace? Talk to me,” I insist.

  “You’ve changed.”

  “I had to.”

  She shakes her head. “We all have to change, but that doesn’t mean going to extra lengths to be cruel. Did you have to go to the strip club on your wedding night? Couldn’t you have just gone for a walk or something?”

  “I didn’t do anything there,” I justify, but I know what she means.

  “Massimo, seeing those naked women might be so commonplace to you that they look like part of the furniture. They’re there the second you walk in,” she chides. I stifle a groan, recalling the time I had to get her to bring me the keys for a safe.

  I had a business meeting I couldn’t leave. She came, saw the place, saw the women, and didn’t speak to me for a week after. She knows that even if I didn’t do shit, I saw enough.

  “What do you want me to do? Move the stage?” I smirk. I already dealt with the matter of the strip club.

  “Massimo, that’s not funny. Your wife was just as horrified to find out you have a strip club as she was to hear you spent the night there. I couldn’t have been more disgusted.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll be less disgusted when you hear I gave the club to Dominic.” I raise my brows. Yesterday, I tossed him the keys and handed him the envelope with the title deed. He’s there more than me anyway.

  Candace looks visibly surprised at my answer. “You did what?”

  “You heard me.”

  She looks proud of me now and taps my shoulder. “Thank you.”

  “What for? I’m the one who just lost a quarter of my income.”

  “For being the boy again,” she answers. I know what she means. She means me before Ma died. I give her a nod. “Emelia’s sitting on the terrace.”

  “I’ll go see her.”

  Pulling in a breath, I leave her and make my way outside. When I step through the door, a gust of wind lifts my hair and it smells like rain is near.

  Emelia is sitting on the little wall with her knees hugged to her chest. I move to her, and she looks at me. The sun glistens off her wedding band, a reminder that she’s my wife. A reminder of the feelings I have for her that scare me.

  I sit next to her, brushing my shoulder against hers, and she offers me a little smile. It’s more for pleasantries. But it says she’s at least willing to talk to me.

  “Hi,” she says.

  “Hey. Candace said your visit to Jacob’s family didn’t go so well. What happened?”

  She gazes out to the sea, looking lost. Her lips tremble and her skin goes pale.

  “They didn’t want me there. His mother… she didn’t want me in the house. It was his father who came out and asked me to leave. I got the feeling he wouldn’t have minded me being there, but it was her. I heard her. She was shouting and crying for her son. She said it was my fault he’s dead.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I say.

  She looks back at me. “I might not have pulled the trigger, but he was doing whatever he was doing because of me. I know I can’t blame myself. I know there was nothing I could do, but I feel so bad. Now his mother is blaming me. She thinks you killed him. I told them you didn’t.”

  “You believe me.”

  She nods slowly. “You’ve never lied to me.”

  “No. I haven’t, and I won’t start now.”

  “The funeral is next week. They won’t want me there.”

  “You want to go? Can you handle it?” I ask.

  “I should be there. I can’t handle it, but I should be there.”

  “Then I’ll go with you.”

  “Thank you, but they’d hate me even more if I brought you.”

  “That doesn’t matter. People’s opinion doesn’t matter in times like this. What matters is who you’re there for. You’re going for Jacob, not his family. And I will take you there personally to make sure you get to say goodbye to him.”

  “You would do that?” Her gaze desperately clings to mine.

  “Yes,” I answer with conviction.

  I’m surprised when she moves to me and slips her arms around my neck, holding on to me like she’s trying to garner strength. I circle my arms around her and pull her closer so I can cocoon her in my arms as she rests her head on my chest.

  “Thank you. Thank you, Massimo,” she whispers, grabbing my shirt. I cover her hand with mine and see my ring too.

  Mine and hers.

  When I wrote our wedding vows, I took out all traces of the word love. At the time, I was thinking of my hatred for her father. I wasn’t thinking about her.

  I should have been.

  I hold her now and find myself at that part again when I know the moment I accept what I feel for her, it will make or break me.

  It’s the first time in my life where I actually don’t know what to do.

  She’s my enemy’s daughter.

  Loving her is wrong. But she feels like the only good thing in my life.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Emelia

  It’s raining.

  Not hard. Just a light spray that trickles over the cemetery.

  Massimo holds my hand as we walk across the pathway toward the gathering of mourners.

  We didn’t go to the church service.

  Not knowing what was going to happen, we just came here. As I look ahead, I’m grateful to have caught the coffin before they lowered Jacob into the ground.

  Like at my wedding, I scan the crowd looking for my father, but he’s not here. I’m not sure if that’s because he was told not to come. Maybe Helena, Jacob’s mother, didn’t want him here either. I don’t know.

  The priest finishes a prayer when Helena sees me coming. She freezes, her stare on me, causing everyone to look at Massimo and me.

  I have a single red rose in my hand that I want to give to my friend. I want to say goodbye properly. Then she won’t see me again.

  I understand her grief and her pain. I understand that she’s upset with me, but what I won’t allow her to do is make me feel worse than I already do.

  I look at Massimo as he pulls me to a stop just ahead of the crowd.

  He dips his head, and a lock of hair falls over his eye. “Out of respect, I’ll keep my distance. I’ll stand right here, and if anyone says anything to you, call me. You understand?” he says with a hardened gaze that flicks between me and the family.

  “I understand… Thanks for coming with me.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  He releases my hand, and I continue the rest of the way. I head straight up to Helena, but Bill, Jacob’s father, steps forward, probably gearing up to ask me to leave.

  “Emelia—” he says, but I stop him. I shake my head firmly and stare him down.

  “No, do not tell me to leave. Don’t do it. All of you.” I look at each member of Jacob’s immediate family and some of his cousins, aunts, and uncles I know. “All of you know me. You’ve known me since I was born, and you know how close I was to Jacob. You know I should be here. You can’t tell me to leave.”

  “What about him?” Helena points to Massimo. “Are you going to say the same for him? Your husband?”

  It still feels so weird to think of Massimo as my husband, but it’s the first time he feels like he is.

  “He didn’t kill Jacob, Helena. It doesn’t matter what you believe though. He’s here to support me, and I’m here to say goodbye. I’ll do that, and then I’ll go. You’ll never see me again.” It’s hard to say such a thing to a woman who was close to me, like my own mother. But it’s harder to have her look at me the way she is.

  Turning away from her, I face the glossy chestnut casket where my best friend was laid to rest forever. I never thought I would experience this day. Jacob had so much to live for. Gone far too soon.

  I walk right up to him and lay the rose on top of the casket.

  “Thank you for being my friend… Thank
you for being who you were. Thank you for being everything. I love you too,” I say and place my hand on the cool surface of the wood.

  I stay like that for a few moments. Then it really hits me that he’s gone. My legs start to shake, and I tremble.

  When warm fingers caress mine, I lift my head and find myself staring deep into Massimo’s bright blue gaze.

  He covers my hand with his, giving me a gentle squeeze, and that’s how I find the strength to walk. Walk away.

  The next two weeks follow, and I grieve by spending my days in the hall painting. I paint to forget, to cope, and to try and move on. It helped me when Mom died. When I paint, I escape, and I don’t think about anything else. The images that fill my mind replace my worries and fears. This is the first time in my life when I’ve had so much on my plate.

  I’ve been purposely avoiding thinking about my less-than-perfect relationship with Massimo because it’s too confusing right now.

  He’s been nice to me, and nice is what I’ve needed. My brain is trying to keep me grounded and my head screwed on. Although my heart misses the man it fell for. I’m aware, though, that each day that passes gets stranger than the last.

  Today is Saturday again.

  It’s a month since Massimo and I were married, and two months since we’ve been in this arrangement.

  He leaves in the mornings, weekdays and weekends, and most days, he’s home by dinnertime. As to where he goes during the day, I don’t know. It could be work, as in D’Agostinos, the strip club, or something more dangerous. He never says. Though I can’t imagine that he could receive a warning of danger without doing anything about it. He said he would keep me safe. That was all I needed to know.

  At night, we lie next to each other until we fall asleep.

  That’s the routine we’ve fallen into. We don’t even kiss anymore. All that steam and wild sexual energy we shared before the wedding is gone. Not that I had time to think about sex with everything that’s happened with Jacob.

  In the periods of time when I’ve allowed myself to think, I contemplated what must have happened to Jacob. What he saw and heard that he shouldn’t have. What more could have happened?

  Today, Massimo left a little earlier than usual, so I decided to change up my routine and spend the day on the beach reading one of the thriller novels I was going to read in Florence.

  Every time since the fundraiser when I’ve gone to the beach, I’ve thought of my conversation with Dad and making that escape. Every time. In the back of my mind, I’ve been waiting for that moment Candace suggested. The right time. The moment when I knew I’d earned Massimo’s trust.

  I think I have it now. I am at the point where he trusts me.

  The last two weeks have seen that change I was waiting for. Since the funeral, Massimo has eased up on the constant supervision. Maybe it was just as simple as him thinking I needed time to myself to breathe and to heal without having someone always looking over my shoulder. That small change, however, could mean a clear path to leave. A clear path to get to the cave, take the boat, and escape.

  I’ve been out here today for six hours. Only once someone has come to check on me. That was Pricilla with some lunch. Just her. No guards.

  Unlike all the times I’ve come out here before, when the thought of escaping crossed my mind today, I didn’t know if I could it do it.

  I didn’t know if I could leave Massimo. I didn’t know if I could betray him like that, or my heart.

  Things are different from when Candace put the idea in my head. I’m different. It would have actually been easier to run away when we first talked about it than to wait it out the way I have. Doing so changed me.

  Massimo and I have this continuous up and down cycle. We’re back and forward, and he changes like the wind. My heart, however, clings to something it wants from him. Something I only feel with him.

  I finish reading my novel and head back inside when it gets dark. Covered in sand, I start taking off my clothes when I step into the room.

  I don’t see Massimo until he comes out of the walk-in closet and startles me. Instinct makes me reach for the beach towel to cover my nakedness.

  With my hand at my heart, I try to calm my breathing.

  “I didn’t know you were in here,” I say, feeling foolish. This is his room. He’s usually home by now, except he’d be in his office or the study, on the phone, making business calls.

  A sensual smile slides across his lips as he gives me a once-over that makes my nerves scatter and tingle with heat. “That a problem? When last I checked, it shouldn’t be. This is our room, after all.”

  Our room… It’s a nice thought.

  “No. It’s not a problem. I was just going to shower,” I reply.

  “I’ll join you,” he answers, stepping forward.

  When he walks up to me and stops a breath away, he feels like the Massimo I’m used to. He definitely becomes himself when he tugs the towel away from my body, revealing my nakedness.

  He looks me over with appreciation. My cheeks burn. I haven’t been naked in front of him in over a month.

  “Come, let’s go,” he says, then, with on hand on my ass, he ushers me into the bathroom, where he takes his clothes off and we both step into the shower.

  With the water on a light spray and his arms placed on either side of me, it feels like I’ve stepped back in time to the people we were weeks ago.

  I gaze up at him as he stares at me like he’s expecting something.

  “What are we doing?” I say, barely above a whisper.

  “Waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “You.”

  I narrow my eyes, not understanding. “What do you mean? Why are we waiting for me?”

  “Emelia, I won’t be with you when you have another man on your mind. When I kiss you, you’re kissing me. When I’m inside you, I want you to be thinking of me only. So… we’re waiting on you, Princesca.” The words roll off his tongue.

  When he leans forward and looms before me, I feel it. That wild sexual energy that always consumes me when I’m with him floods me, and I’m paralyzed by the need and desire.

  I reach forward and lightly run my finger over the tattoo of the angel inked on his heart.

  I trace the outline of the wings and trail down to his navel, lingering by the fine dark hair of his happy trail.

  He touches my cheek and turns his smile up a notch. “You want me.”

  I hold his gaze. “Do you want me?”

  “Always… I always want to fuck you.”

  He moves forward to kiss me, but I turn my face away, causing his lips to brush my cheek. It’s the first time I’ve ever done that, and it surprises him.

  He catches my face, holds me tight so I can’t look away, and presses me into the wall, pushing his cock into my belly.

  “What? I can’t know what you’re mad at me for if you don’t tell me. What are you pissed at me for today?”

  “How often do you go to the strip club?” I ask. I already know it pisses him off when I talk like this, but he’s right. I’m still pissed that he even owns a strip club, and that he goes there.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want you to go back there,” I answer and steel my spine, readying myself for some crude remark about me being jealous, or some shit he’ll say to hurt me. I’m definitely surprised when he releases his hold on me and chuckles.

  “I gave it away weeks ago,” he answers, surprising me further.

  “What? You gave it away? You—”

  He steals my words with a heart-stopping kiss. The type of heart-stopping, bone-tingling kisses we used to share. The one we didn’t had on our wedding day. I missed those. I missed his lips crushing mine the way they are now, devouring me, like he wants to take me whole.

  “Mrs. D’Agostino, just shut up and let me fuck you,” he groans, and I nod.

  He slides his fingers inside my pussy, checking if I’m ready for him. I am. I’m always ready for him. He
smiles when he feels his way around my passage and pulls his fingers out to lick off my juices.

  Greedily, he lifts my leg, takes hold of his cock, and drives into my pussy, plunging in deep. So deep I gasp and grab his shoulders.

  He fills me up completely with his thickness, and my body yields to him. I savor that feeling of him being inside me, and I know from the satisfied look on his face that he can see that I do.

  My muscles squeeze around his cock from the intense pleasure when he starts pumping into me. Slow then fast and faster, and oh. My. God.

  I arch my back and scream his name.

  “That’s right, amore mio, scream. Scream my name because only I can make you feel like this,” he groans, pounding into me. “Only I can fuck you like this because I know exactly what you need.”

  He does. That’s why he knows to pick me up so I can wrap my legs around his waist. Fucking me in this position reaches every inch of my body, sizzling my nerves with fire. It burns, it scorches, it incinerates. It wipes my brain clean of everything that isn’t this wild man before me who’s shaken my world in so many ways.

  Time freezes, and all I feel is passion and pleasure, desire and carnal, primal need that drives us to take all we can from each other. He smiles wide when I start to move against him too and we crash back into the other side of the wall, tearing down the shower curtains. Something smashes and breaks. We don’t know what it is.

  We don’t care what it is.

  Then it’s like we both go crazy on each other. I remember coming harder than I ever have, then us leaving the bathroom and heading to the bedroom. Night turns to day. Then we switch from sleep to fucking until it’s night again.

  We’re so engrossed in each other that the next few days pass while we barely eat or sleep. I get to a point where I almost believe we could be like this forever, and I have a hard time believing we weren’t like this before. I have a hard time believing that his lips weren’t always touching mine and I lived my life for nineteen years without my body touching his.

  I don’t know what day it is when I eventually conk out into a deep sleep where my body feels heavy, like I’m sinking into a state of blissful pleasure. Then a buzzing sound wakes me. It sounds far away, but as I come to, I realize it’s not that far.