Promises and Pomegranates: A Dark Contemporary Romance (Monsters & Muses Book 1)
Page 1
Copyright © 2021 by Sav R. Miller
Cover Design: Cat of TRC Designs
Editing: Ellie McLove – My Brother’s Editor
Proofreading: Rosa Sharon – My Brother’s Editor
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: authorsav@savrmiller.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
FIRST EDITION
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-7376681-0-7
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7376681-1-4
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-7376681-2-1
Contents
Author’s Note
Playlist
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
Thanks for reading!
Also By Sav
Let’s Be Friends!
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Author’s Note
Kal and Elena’s story is a dark contemporary romance based loosely on the framework and characters of the myth of Hades and Persephone.
Please be aware that it is not fantasy, historical romance, or a literal retelling.
This book is a dark romance, meaning it includes many triggers, such as graphic violence, explicit sexual scenes, and other mature situations. For a more detailed list of triggers, CLICK HERE.
If you don’t read this genre, I don’t suggest reading further.
Promises and Pomegranates is a full-length, interconnected standalone. There will be plot points and side stories that are not immediately resolved and that run through the series.
While Promises and Pomegranates is a standalone, reading the prequel may enhance your reading experience (though it is NOT required to read anything before this book). READ SWEET SIN HERE
I hope you enjoy Kal and Elena’s love story.
Reader discretion is advised.
For my thirteen-year-old self. Your obsession with Greek mythology, bad guys, and romance novels will eventually bring you here.
I’m so proud of you.
“We must bring our own light to the darkness.”
― Charles Bukowksi
Playlist
“Pomegranate Seeds” - Julian Moon
“love race” - Machine Gun Kelly, Kellin Quinn
“Forever Yours” - Grayscale
“She’s A God” - Neck Deep
“Goddess” - Jaira Burns
“Gossip” - Sleeping With Sirens
“Massacre” - Kim Petras
“Devil I Know” - Allie X
To listen on Spotify, CLICK HERE.
Prologue
As a child, I got used to silence.
The kind found in sleepy hospital rooms, hidden between the dull, intermittent beeping of an electric monitor and the steady drip of an IV bag.
With each interruption, nurses entering to draw blood or family members coming to offer false moral support, my body craved the void.
I fell in love with the innate stillness of it—the calm it provides, the secrets you can wedge into its depths.
Learned to seek it out in times of chaos, a force to ground myself in.
Eventually, it became a necessity.
The most difficult addiction to curb.
An obsession.
A… condition.
My peers in college, and later my colleagues, dubbed it a psychological disorder. Said my brain had wired itself to short-circuit under certain stimuli—sometimes, simply the existence of stimuli at all.
I felt it made me weak.
Dysfunctional.
Thus, I craved an outlet. Somewhere I could go and not lose myself in the lack of absence of noise. Where the violence coded into my DNA could be satisfied, the parts of me aching for death and destruction sated.
Working for Rafael Ricci, the don of Boston’s—at one time—premier crime family was never supposed to be a permanent thing. He’d plucked me from the streets and promised a life of luxury, if only I could get my hands a little dirty.
But, like all other things, it snowballed out of control.
I learned I quite enjoy the taste of brutality on my tongue.
Love the way it blossoms like a flower springing from the earth, igniting a compulsion like no other.
A desperation only relieved by the feel of another’s heart pulsing beneath my fingerprints—the flutter delicate and innately human, petrified and struck stupid in my wake.
A desire quelled only by bloodied hands and bodies mangled by them—my hands, the very pair sworn to an oath of healing.
I let the darkest wants live inside of me, manifesting through my obligation to an organization I joined before I knew what I was doing, allowing myself a pass because of the decency of my day job.
It was supposed to be enough.
Moral licensing I didn’t think twice about until the lines bled too fully for me to distinguish between them.
Until Elena.
The most forbidden of fruits.
Persephone to my Hades, as some used to call me. Springtime in a world rife with death and destruction.
A woman I scorned until I found myself blinded by a new obsession.
Until I tasted her—the dewy essence of her supple skin, the tang of her arousal glistening on her own fingertips, the salt of her tears as I shattered the last vestiges of her innocence.
Whether she knows it or not, she gave herself to me that night.
Surrendered her soul under the guise of choice.
And though I left the way Death usually does—silently, before dawn—it was never my intention not to return and collect.
Chapter 1
Slurp.
Slurp.
Slurp.
Gritting my teeth until my jaw aches, I glare at my boss while he sips from a mug of steaming tea, watching the video playing on his computer.
The sound of his lips sucking in liquid grates on my nerves, a dull knife sawing at the frayed edges. By the time he pushes the piece of paper in my direction, sets his mug down, and removes his glasses, I’ve imagined all the ways I could kill him.
An overdose of insulin would be the easiest, cleanest route—especially since he keeps his meter and pens in the top right drawer of
his desk, unprotected.
Though, I suppose most men in our world wouldn’t take the time to research hit methodology; they want quick fixes and dumped bodies, and they don’t care if their crimes can be traced, because they bankroll the local police, anyway.
All they care about is maintaining their power.
Their edge.
And an overdose isn’t satisfying.
Not in the same way as cutting into someone’s chest cavity, breaking and peeling back their ribcage, and severing their beating heart while the life bleeds from their eyes.
There’s something magical in the act of holding another’s life in your hands. A kind of symmetry found in nature, where you’re given the opportunity to bring beasts to grisly fates or heal them instead.
They’re completely at your mercy.
Power the likes of Rafael Ricci can’t even begin to imagine—which is why he has me.
Finally, scrubbing a hand over his clean-shaven jaw, Rafe removes the glasses from his nose, and sits back in his leather chair, looking up at me. His dark eyes are blank as they study me, not giving even a hint as to what’s happening behind them.
Crossing one leg over my knee, I grip the joint with a gloved hand, waiting. After almost twenty years working together, I’m sure he realizes I’m not a fever you can sweat out.
If he wants to sit in silence until one of us cracks, I’ll play.
It’s only his daughter’s life on the line.
Snapping his fingers, Rafe gestures for the two beefy guards in the room to leave, the fat gold ring on his thumb glinting in the overhead lighting. He reaches into his desk drawer, pulling out a decanter with the Ricci crest and two crystal tumblers.
Without speaking, he pours the alcohol into the glasses, shoving one in my direction before bringing it to his mouth and taking a generous swig. Some dribbles down onto the collar of his white dress shirt, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
I palm mine, holding it above my knee, but don’t drink.
Sighing, he cocks an eyebrow. “It’s rude to refuse hospitality from your boss.”
“Not when my boss knows I didn’t come here for happy hour.”
Downing the rest, he slams the tumbler back on the wooden desk, wiping his mouth with the back of one cuffed sleeve.
“What did you come here for, Anderson? So far, you haven’t actually said.”
“The video speaks for itself, no?”
“I see you fucking my oldest daughter in my house, even though she’s been engaged to someone since her conception.”
My blood boils at the thought of another man’s hands on her soft, supple flesh, his lips on hers, his DNA where mine first ventured. Curling my hand around the glass, I squeeze until my fingers numb, tempering my reaction.
Knowing I can’t afford to lose control.
“Well, we all know fidelity isn’t exactly a Ricci strong suit.”
His jaw tics, but he doesn’t take the bait. Perhaps because he isn’t sure whose affair I’m referring to—his or his wife’s. Or perhaps because it doesn’t really matter, since rebutting my claim won’t make it any less true.
“Elena is not like the rest of us,” he says, glancing at the framed picture of her on the corner of his desk. In it, she wears her high school cap and gown and lays in a field of flowers, with the Fontbonne Academy in the foreground.
The picture of scholastic success, although she likely knew even then that her dreams of higher education and a career would be short lived.
Hard to pursue personal interests when your livelihood depends on whether you adhere to certain duties.
Though that didn’t stop her from pursuing me.
Shrugging, I lean forward and set my tumbler on the wood surface, reaching into my trench coat pocket for the letter tucked inside. Pulling it out, I smooth it down over my pant leg, and hold it up for him to see.
“Doesn’t matter if she’s worse. This is a letter I received at the home I rent across town,” I say. “Not mailed, or taped to the free clinic I used to work at. It was slipped directly through the mail slot in the front door of the home, meaning—”
“Whoever delivered it wanted to send a message.” Rafe rubs at his chin with the heel of his hand, scanning the page. “You don’t have to fucking explain to me how blackmail works, Kal.”
Slapping the letter down, I slide it in his direction. “Great. So, then I also don’t need to explain that if they’re not afraid of approaching me, they certainly won’t hesitate to accost Elena.”
“I like to think my name holds a lot more weight in Boston than yours,” he says.
“It doesn’t.” His face reddens, irritation spiking with every new word that falls from my lips. “At one time, sure. But then you got sloppy, and now your main source of power comes from alliances.”
“Watch it, Anderson.” Wagging his finger in my direction, he sits forward, the metaphoric hackles on the back of his neck rising with his anger. “You’re treading a very thin line between the truth and disrespect here, son.”
Internally recoiling at the nickname, I shrug again, unbothered by his intimidation tactics.
You can’t conquer what doesn’t fear you, and with us, it’s always been the other way around.
“The point is,” I continue, ignoring him. “The author of the letter lays out very clearly what they want, and how they’ll proceed if they don’t get it. You ready for your entire operation to be outed?”
“Please. The feds won’t come sniffing around unless the local police give them a reason to, and we won’t have any problems with them. They tend to cooperate.”
“I’m not talking about cops. But since the other families you do business with have supposedly been on a strict no-drug rule since the eighties, I doubt they’ll love hearing about what you’re doing in Maine with the Montaltos.”
Swallowing, Rafe’s tan skin flushes slightly, and he glances at the computer screen again. “I can’t give them Elena.”
Rapping my knuckles against his desk, I nod. “Your funeral.”
Pushing to my feet, I smooth my hands down the front of my suit and button my black trench coat. I snatch the flash drive from where it’s stuck in the side of the monitor, and slip it in my pocket, and turn on my heels to leave.
Disappointed, but not surprised. There are few things the former king of Boston’s underworld cares about other than his image. Apparently, his daughter’s safety also comes up short, which makes my stomach twist as I reach the door.
I’d been hoping to make this easy, and my entire plan, my freedom, banked on his desire to protect his family. Now I need to reevaluate my next step.
I’ve just pushed open the door and stepped over the threshold when Rafe clears his throat behind me, making me pause. I don’t look back, waiting to see if it was an intentional sound, my palm flush with the intricate oak in front of me.
“What…” He trails off, and I turn my head to the side, my eyes focusing on the wall where a massive replica of Michelangelo’s David hangs, combining Rafe’s religion with the one thing he despises most: art.
That’s what planted the rebellious gene in his daughter.
Drove her to me.
“Don’t waste my time, Ricci,” I warn, growing impatient with the silence following his half sentence. I’m way out of line, but I know he won’t do anything about it.
How do you control Death when it knows your every weakness?
Blowing out a breath, he tries again. “You could protect her.”
Blinking, my gut churning like a tropical storm, I take a step back and pull the door shut, turning slowly to face him again. I glance at the picture on his desk, feeling myself get lost in her cappuccino gaze for a moment, before nodding.
“I could.”
He taps his finger against his chin, then drops both hands to his desk, twisting his thumb ring as he contemplates. “What will we do about Mateo? He won’t give her up without a fight.”
Satisfaction settles in my bone marrow,
making me lightheaded. Giddy, almost.
“I’ll take care of him.”
Rafe’s eyes narrow, studying me once again, and he sucks on his teeth; the suckling sound is a shock to my system, a trigger I’m not expecting, and anxiety floods my blood before I have a chance to control it.
The response is immediate, growing in urgency as he continues using his tongue to clean his veneers. My shoulders tighten, my muscles growing taut as the violent need to end the sound washes over me, blurring my vision.
And for a moment, I see him slumped in his chair with a bullet wound ripping away the flesh and bone in his forehead. I see myself covered in his blood as I carve the cartilage and skin from his ears, harvesting them like a farmer bringing in vegetables.
His voice pulls me from the episode, and I resurface, blinking away the intrusive thought, as my body tries to readjust to reality.
“I know you don’t do things for me for free,” Rafe says. “What do you want?”
Inhaling deeply, soaking in the aroma of stale cigars and expensive liquor, I smother the grin threatening at my lips. My heart rate kicks up, relief taking the place of violence.