Cruel Boys: The Dark Bully Romance Box Set

by Bella King

  My capture had been my own fault. I stepped out of line when I should have pulled back. I was busy busting low-level scum that worked for Caleb, but on a particularly gnarly bust, I had caught sight of the brutal mafia boss himself.

  I was thinking with my pride by pulling a gun and running after him. I thought what a hero I would be at the academy if I managed to pick him off that easily. I should have known that Caleb didn’t make mistakes like that. It had been a trick to lure me in.

  Now, I was strapped to a chair, barely able to move, at the complete will of a man who played with people’s lives like pawns in a game of chess. They had no value to him. The only thing that mattered, in the end, was the checkmate.

  Caleb stepped up to me again, placing a glass of water to my lips. I drank it greedily, gulping it down painfully, letting it wash over my lips and drip down my chin and neck. I closed my eyes as the cool liquid finally eased my symptoms, giving me new willpower in which to plan my escape.

  Escape was the only thing I had left for me. If I stayed here much longer, there was no telling what would happen. Would I be diced up and fed to the sharks, throw in a room full of thugs to enjoy, or strapped full of explosives and given a lobotomy to make me into a brainless time bomb to walk back into the police station where I had come from?

  I wouldn’t put any of that past Caleb. He had been creative with the way he killed people in the past, but he never got his hands dirty personally. That was why I was surprised that I seemed to be alone with him. Whatever this was, it had gotten personal.

  “Kalila, would you like me to undo these ropes?” Caleb asked, placing the empty glass onto a short table beside me when I had finished drinking.

  I nodded.

  “That will be a yes sir or no sir,” he snapped, his voice turning dark.

  “Yessir,” I answered quickly. I tried to sound brave, but my voice cracked and trembled as I spoke.

  “That’s better. I will undo these ropes, but I want you to promise me something,” Caleb said, taking a step back so that I could see his full figure.

  I stared at him, my eyes wide with fright and my heart beating fast. This was the closest I had ever gotten to him, and seeing him in person this way was terrifying. It wasn’t that he looked particularly menacing, a slim but fit man in his 30s with a jawline like a model and ice-blue eyes, but that I knew that under the charm and good looks was a monster who was capable of ruining my life in the worst ways possible.

  “I want you to listen to me closely. This could go one of two ways for you. Either you can listen to me and obey, and I will keep you alive, or you can try something silly, and I will make sure the remainder of your life is short and miserable. Do you understand?” Caleb asked, his voice like silk.

  I began to nod but corrected myself. “Yessir,” I replied, my voice beginning to go back to normal.

  “Perfect,” he said cheerfully, drawing a steel blade with a hook at the tip from his pocket. He stepped toward me, and I began to shake involuntarily, as he brought the blade up to my face. Light danced off the silver metal, a wicked past carved into the blade.

  Caleb slipped it under the cords that held my head into place and cut through them like they were thin threads instead of burly ropes. I had to catch my head from falling over when I was finally released. My muscles were still getting used to being awake.

  “That’s a little better, but we should get rid of all of these,” Caleb said, his eyes twinkling and a flicker of a smile appearing at the sides of his mouth.

  My heart was thumping so painfully hard in my chest that I thought Caleb would hear it for sure. I tried to control my breathing, but I found myself gasping for air as the ropes sprung loose from my chest. I hadn’t realized how much they had constricted my breathing.

  I thought Caleb would stop there, but he continued to cut loose the ropes that bound my small body to the chair until there wasn’t a single one left to hold me in place. If I wanted to, I could get up and walk out the door, but I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

  “There,” Caleb said, his voice pleasant and cheerful. “You can stand up now.”

  I didn’t know if I had the strength to, but I didn’t want to disobey him. The knife hung lightly in his fingertips, his grip practically nonexistent on it. Anyone else would have dropped it this way, but somehow, the skin on his fingers managed to cling to the knife and keep it in place.

  I stood up slowly, my knees wobbling under the weight of my tired body. I felt like I was a camel loaded up with too much cargo, unable to keep myself standing steadily.

  When I rose, I only rose to chest-height of Caleb. He was a tall man, standing much higher than I imagined from the pictures I had seen of him. He was even more handsome up close than he had been from a distance. He could have done anything in the world, but he had chosen to follow in the footsteps of his father, who was still alive and living in some exotic country under a false name, retired from the mafia business.

  “You’re good at this,” Caleb noted, nodding his head lightly. “Now, I want you to do something else for me,” he said, staring into my eyes.

  I was pulled into his gaze, unable to break away. I was worried he could scramble the contents of my head with his eyes alone, but I couldn’t look away. What had those eyes witnessed over the years? I had seen some truly horrifying things during my training at the police academy, but that paled in comparison to what those eyes had seen.

  Caleb waited for me to realize that I hadn’t responded properly to him yet. He was patient with me. With anyone else, he would have taken that blade to their neck already. I wondered why he was doing this, but I knew that whatever his plan was, it would be way over my head. That’s just how he operated.

  “Yessir,” I blurted out.

  He nodded, then held out the knife that occupied his hand. “Take this, Kalila.”

  I hesitated, looking down at the knife like it was a beartrap that would tear apart my hand the minute I touched the cold steel. I knew that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer, so refusing was out of the question.

  “Yessir,” I said, reaching my hand down and letting my fingers clasp over the wooden handle.

  Chapter 2

  Trust is the only law that has any truth to it. Everything else is fabricated by feverish minds.

  Caleb’s hand was warm and kind, like someone you could trust. It was unnerving, but it still helped to put me at ease as I took the knife from his hand. I feared he would have me cut myself with it, to prove my obedience to him, but he just stood there, motionless as I held it in my hand.

  “It’s a nice knife, but I prefer not to get blood on it,” he explained to me. “Take a look.”

  I rolled the knife over in my hand, examining the elaborate engraving on the blade. The wood on the handle was so worn and smooth that it must have been at least a hundred years old. That or Caleb was slicing through necks with it on a daily basis.

  It occurred to me that I could stab Caleb right then and there. I would die along with him, no doubt, but I would die a hero. Then again, I wasn’t willing to end my own life just for recognition by the police department. They might not even know it was me that killed him.

  No, Caleb knew that I wouldn’t try to murder him with it, otherwise he wouldn’t have given it to me. I turned my head from side to side, examining the room once I was done with the knife. It was a simple concrete holding room, larger than it needed to be, and probably once used for storage. There was a door on the left, about ten yards from where I stood with Caleb.

  I wouldn’t be able to run to the door without him catching up to me, but even if I did, it was probably locked. There was no way for me to escape from Caleb, and I knew that. I was foolish enough the first time, which was how I got captured. I wouldn’t be underestimating him again.

  “Looking for a way out?” Caleb asked as I turned my head to the door once more.

  “No sir,” I answered, but clutched the knife tighter in my grip.

  “You can l
eave if you want, but that’s a good way to end up dead,” Caleb said nonchalantly.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

  “Maybe you’re hungry? We should get lunch,” Caleb replied, acting like he hadn’t just kidnapped me.

  I was hungry. My stomach growled at his words, and a smile flickered across Caleb’s face again. I wasn’t sure if he had somehow read my mind or he was the one planting the thoughts inside it. Either way, it was unnerving.

  “Do you want this knife back?” I asked him, holding it out.

  “Keep it,” He said, turning around and flicking his hand in the air. “You might need it.”

  Having a weapon around him was a complete trust game, but I knew that trust had little to do with it. He must have known that I was smart enough not to try to stab him in the back, but it almost seemed stupid for him to let me have a way to defend myself. Almost. I hadn’t forgotten that Caleb was the most powerful mafia boss on the planet right now. He left nothing to chance.

  I placed the knife into the pocket of my jeans, feeling the coolness of the metal against my thigh as it slid in. I wasn’t sure what game he was playing, but whatever it was, he was winning.

  Once I had pocketed the knife, Caleb turned around to face me again as though this was all a grand test to see if he really would get away with giving a foolish young cop a knife and letting her use it on him if she wanted. For him, it seemed to be a test of his own power, and I had just given him that satisfaction.

  “What do you like to eat, Kalila? Oh, no, wait. Let me guess. Italian,” he said, stretching a finger out and pointing it toward me as he guessed.

  Italian was my favorite, but he already knew that. Indeed, he seemed to know a lot more about me than he was letting on. I was starting to think that this kidnapping wasn’t a mere result of me following him. I was now starting to suspect that he had guided me into a trap that he had set up sometime before.

  Well, at least I couldn’t blame myself for being captured anymore. One way or another, he would have found a way to make it happen. Caleb was known for theatrics, as I was discovering firsthand. His actions were like a movie, entertaining and horrifying the general public at the same time. He certainly had me captivated.

  “Italian is my favorite,” I said, cocking my head to the side and brushing the messy waves of blonde hair from my face. “But I think you already knew that.”

  “A lucky guess,” Caleb said with a shrug.

  I didn’t believe him, but I wasn’t in any position to argue. “I am hungry,” I admitted.

  “Another lucky guess,” Caleb replied. “Let’s go get some food,” he said, holding out a hand.

  I didn’t know whether I should take his hand or not, but he looked down at it expectantly. I held out my own, reaching for his and clasping my fingers around it. The moment I did, his fingers came down tightly, holding my hand firmly in place.

  He walked me to the door, which turned out to be unlocked. With one hand, he turned the knob and pushed the door open. I was met with a blinding light and was pulled outside into the fresh air.

  Chapter 3

  Freedom is a myth.

  I was amazed to find myself in an empty parking lot without a soul in sight. The only thing on the sun-cracked pavement was a two-door black sports car.

  This wasn’t what I expected. I expected to be led through armed security to some other holding cell where a tray of cold spaghetti would be pushed through a rectangular flap at the bottom of the door, possibly laced with poison.

  Instead, there wasn’t any visible security, no gates or fences of any kind, and we were heading toward a sports car in the middle of the day. I had no clue where we were, but I was as close to freedom as I could be without actually feeling free.

  Caleb let go of my hand as we approached the car, and pulled out a key fob, clicking it twice to unlock both doors. “Get in,” he said, opening the door for me.

  I had a strong urge to run, but I didn’t trust my surroundings. There could be invisible traps set up, hidden snipers ready to pick me off at the snap of Caleb’s diamond-decorated fingers, and dogs that would spring out of the bushes and rip my legs off if I tried to run.

  I got into the passenger’s seat, sliding down against the warm leather. Caleb shut the door with a soft thud, circling around the car to the driver’s side and climbing in. He looked at me and smiled. “You should probably wear something nicer for lunch.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. I was still dressed in the undercover t-shirt and jeans that I had been captured in. The badge that I had when I was captured had disappeared from my back pocket, but otherwise, I was in the exact same garb as when I had first spotted Caleb.

  “I got you a dress,” Caleb said, reaching into the back of the car and pulling out white lace fabric in a clear plastic bag on a hanger. “Put this on before we go.”

  I took it from his hand and looked up at him. Was this a joke?

  “Go ahead,” Caleb said, holding up his gold watch to show me the time. “They stop serving lunch at three.”

  I suppose he wanted me to change in the car with him there. Not wanting to get in trouble with him, I pulled the dirty t-shirt over my head, placing it at my feet before untying the laces to my pink tennis shoes.

  Caleb turned his head, shielding his eyes as I changed. How bizarre.

  I unbuttoned and unzipped my pants, pulling them down to my ankles and using my feet to pull them the rest of the way off. I looked at the dress in the bag. The top of it had thin silk straps. I would have to remove my bra to wear it.

  I unlatched my bra from the back, glancing over at Caleb periodically, but he kept his eyes shielded, refusing to spy on the young woman he had captive. There was something very odd but likable about this man. I shouldn’t have felt this way about my captor, but he hadn’t done anything to harm me yet.

  I let the bra drop down into my lap. I looked down, seeing the glint of the knife sticking out of the pocket of my jeans in the midday sun. I reached down and removed it, looking at Caleb once again to see if he did anything. I could stab him and drive away in the car, but at this point I felt like I was having a nice lunch date with him, instead of being kidnapped. It was surreal.

  I placed the knife beside me on the seat and pushed my bra to the floor with my other clothes. I removed the lace dress from the plastic bag and pulled it over my head, struggling to get it on in the strict confines of the car.

  Once I finally had it on, I realized that it was a perfect fit, and far nicer than anything I owned. I looked in the side mirror at myself, adjusting my hair to look neat enough to match the dress. I looked stunning for a woman who had recently woken up.

  “Finished?” Caleb asked, still in sitting with his head turned away and a hand over his eyes.

  “Yessir,” I replied, holding the knife in my hand, not knowing where to put it.

  Caleb turned to look at me, a smile spreading across his handsome face. “You’re beautiful, Kalila,” he said, blue eyes dancing across my neck and breasts.

  “Thank you,” I replied, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks.

  “You might want to wear some shoes, though,” he said, reaching into the back seat again and retrieving a set of nude heels. “These should be in your size.”

  I took them, peeling my socks off and leaving them on the floor with my other clothes. I slipped my feet into the heels and did the straps. They were perfect, and surprisingly comfortable for expensive shoes. I had heard that foreign shoes hurt your feet.

  Caleb ignored the knife in my hand, pushing a button on the dashboard to start the car. “Away we go,” he said, stepping on the gas and accelerating quickly out of the parking lot. He rode away from the building, bouncing onto the main road with other cars.

  Chapter 4

  When you’ve been around the world, no place feels like home.

  I noted that the license plate on the car in front of us was different than the ones I was used to. It was stretched out in a long rec
tangle on the rear of the car, and the car itself was smaller than what you would see on the west coast.

  “Where are we?” I asked, looking around at the winding roads and small cars through the window.

  “Italy. Where else would you find Italian food?” Caleb said, as though traveling to Italy was the only logical way to get lunch.

  I must have been knocked out for a long time. Either we were actually in Italy, or this was some elaborate trick. I doubted even Caleb could pull off something this grand though, so I accepted the fact that we were indeed in Italy now.

  We traveled through the streets, no black SUVs full of bodyguards and thugs following us or appearing anywhere on the road close by. I was beginning to wonder if Caleb thought that he could pull off a kidnapping without any help. Maybe it really was just him and me.

  Either way, I was in a whole different country, far away from the comforts of home. Nobody would recognize me here, and I had no ID to prove who I was. I was a nobody, lost in the sea of strangers that occupied the hot streets during the day.

  This was nothing like I had expected from Caleb, but he had a habit of bewildering the police force with his antics. After losing so many officers, we had pulled back from attempting to stop Caleb directly and switched to damage control, only arresting easy targets, thugs who were pawns in his chess match.

  The illusion of safety that Caleb had given me was just that, an illusion. I would do well to remember how many had perished under his command. The man sitting beside me, looking like a woman’s dream come true, was really one of the worst criminals to walk the face of the planet in recent years. Caleb was the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  “So, tell me about yourself,” Caleb said as his hands effortlessly gripped the wooden steering wheel.

  “What do you want to know?” I asked. I suspected he already knew everything about me anyway.