Grieved Loss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 3)

by Adelaide Forrest

  "You're my husband. It isn't jealousy to expect that you don't stalk other women, Ryker," I snarled, swatting his hand away as I continued to glare up at him.

  He chuckled, stroking his thumb over my cheek. "Sheathe your claws, Hellcat. She's a mark for work."

  The breath whooshed out of me in a rush, horror filling the void as I glanced back at the folder behind me. "Are you going to—?"

  "Kill her? No. I don't do women or kids. She's sleeping with a rival of Matteo's, so I'm just keeping an eye on him through her. That's all, Tesoro." The amusement never left his eyes, but he seemed genuine in his explanation.

  "I don't want you stalking another woman." I winced as I spoke the words. Knowing that he'd stalked me, that his obsession with me had started in such a similar way to what he was doing with her, it felt like a betrayal of our relationship. Like it made it meaningless in the long run. Wasn’t I just another mark to watch, just another woman on the other side of the camera, at one point?

  It was illogical.

  It was insane.

  But it was true.

  He shrugged, moving his greasy hands to wrap around me as he lifted me into his arms and brought me to the desk at the edge of the garage. "She hasn't given me anything useful yet. I'll put one of the other guys on her and go back to following Tiernan Murphy."

  "Really?" I asked, swatting his grease covered hands away when he tried to inch the nightgown up my thighs. I'd need a shower by the time he was done with me if he kept leaving black fingerprints all over me.

  "I like you jealous," he murmured, leaning down to tease my mouth with his lips. "What will you give me if I do this for you, Sunshine?"

  I narrowed my eyes on him, noticing the way his eyes lit up with humor. "I suppose I can think of something," I said, feeling more playful in the face of his joy. Ryker was such a serious man, such a beast that when he turned his good humor on me in the way that he did for only the kids and I, I couldn't help but melt.

  It was a real problem when I wanted to stay angry with him.

  "Show me," he whispered, those stained fingers working the fabric up my leg again.

  So I did.

  Forty

  Ryker

  Lino and his bodyguard, Georgio, led as we all climbed out of our cars and made our way toward the front doors of Murphy's. With us in suits, it must have looked like something out of a hardcore mob movie. Matteo and I went in the doors side by side after them, with Enzo and Simon taking up the rear.

  As we made our way through the empty restaurant, we found Murphy already seated at his favored table in the rear. His second-in-command sat next to him, and several other allies stood behind him looking grim and terrified. They were too young, too inexperienced to present a genuine challenge to any of us. It only made sense, given that he wanted people who would be loyal to him before Liam O'Connell when it came time for him to overthrow his king. Unfortunately for Murphy, the experienced generations supported Liam wholeheartedly. He'd done well by his people, allowing them to prosper in their small territory because of his ability to form an alliance with Matteo.

  Matteo and Lino each pulled out a chair on the other side of the table, taking a seat the moment Tiernan looked up from the papers in front of him. He beamed in greeting, as if he was welcoming old friends home instead of a group of rival murderers. "Gentlemen," he said, his voice too loud in the space.

  "Murphy," Matteo said in greeting as Tiernan's eyes slid to the rest of us in inspection.

  When they landed on me, he paused and an excited grin transformed his face. "Is this your Executioner?" Tiernan asked, leaning forward with a glint in his eye as he looked me over. "I've heard a great many tales about him."

  "They're lies," I grunted, keeping my face as cold and impassive as ever as I stared back at the slime-ball who would sell my wife and children if he thought he could get away with it and make a profit off them.

  "How can you be so sure? I haven't even told you what I’ve heard," he laughed, casting his eyes at the men who stood behind him to support their fearless imbecile of a boss.

  "Because no one who has felt my knife is stupid enough to talk about it after I'm done." I spoke the truth. The men who I tortured and released were grateful that they walked away with their lives when all was said and done.

  There was a tense moment of silence, and then Murphy barked a harsh laugh and jabbed a finger in my direction. "I like this guy. I don't suppose I can buy him from you?" The teasing lilt to his voice did nothing to appease the monster that rose to the surface. He struck far too close to home, too close to the truth of my life that even Matteo didn't know details of.

  I was sure he'd been curious enough to dig at some point, but the specifics were limited. Even if finding my family was easy enough to do, given the prominence of the name before they died.

  "Ryker is a member of my family," Matteo growled, the deep note of the threat in his menacing voice catching me by surprise. It wasn't often that he was so vehement in his defense of someone, aside from Ivory or Luna anyway, but the way that Lino's eyes glinted as he glared at Tiernan from next to me confirmed just how strongly I'd been accepted into their circle.

  I'd known it, but hadn't been able to let myself feel it. Not before Calla and the kids opened me up to the kinds of things I'd never thought I could feel, the parts of me I'd thought had been killed long before.

  "Loyalty." Tiernan shrugged. "We all demand it, but it is such an inconvenience when it stands in our way, is it not?" he asked. Matteo didn't answer, and I glanced to the side to meet Enzo's stare as he kept his gaze active on the rest of the room. His military training showed in every line of his body, from the way he kept his arms clasped behind his back to the way his feet remained shoulder-width apart.

  If I was the brute executioner, Enzo was the shooter who would take out every enemy in the room before they could even touch their guns. Such was his reputation, and I knew from the way Murphy eyed the man warily that he'd heard it as well.

  "Can we get down to business? I have places to be," Lino said, leaning forward and rapping his knuckles on the table twice.

  "Yes, how is your wife? I trust she is proving to be worth the loss of your father? Such a tragedy, his untimely death," Murphy's second-in-command, Sean said from his side.

  "I didn't particularly consider it a tragedy that I had to put a bullet in his brain," Lino answered casually and shrugged. "He wronged us for his own interests. We do not tolerate such betrayals." Having been the one who was there to witness Gabriele's death, I knew he didn't regret it in the slightest.

  He hadn't regretted letting me torture his father before he died, either.

  There was nothing a Bellandi wouldn't do for his woman and children, and Lino's father had never been a true Bellandi. Not with the way he beat his son and tried to get rid of Samara.

  "Let's stop with the false pleasantries and dancing around our words," Matteo grunted, lifting a hand to the table to touch the surface. He immediately retracted it, rubbing his fingers together with a sneer as if he found the place distasteful or dirty.

  My guess was both.

  "Yes. What made you request a meeting, Matteo?" Murphy asked, daring to speak to Matteo like they were equals. They were not. Only Liam O'Connell held that honor within the Irish syndicate, and even that was only allowed because of mutual respect between the two men.

  Matteo smirked, unperturbed by Tiernan's attempts to ruffle his feathers. Very little could aggravate the man who was known for ruling with a frozen fist, untouchable by even the saddest of stories. Murphy didn’t have a sad story he could tell, nothing useful to implore Matteo to trust him.

  He was just another asshole.

  "I am aware that you have been in conflict with Cuevas for the remains of Adrian Ricci's operation. Given that he has retreated from the city, I assume it is correct that Cuevas has withdrawn himself and it is now yours?" Matteo phrased it as a question, but it was clear from the intent stare on his face that he already kn
ew the answer. I eyed the men at Murphy's back, watching as they glanced at each other in a nervous exchange. It was laughable, really, that Murphy had selected them to be his backup for a meeting with the crime boss who controlled the city, and they couldn't refrain from shaking in their boots until after we left, even when we'd made no moves toward violence.

  And we didn't intend to, not today, not in a restaurant with only the six of us present. Not on their turf.

  We weren't idiots.

  "That's correct." Murphy crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair. "I intend to use the earnings to purchase Aoife a lovely wedding present."

  "I'm sure she'll appreciate the fact that her husband rapes and sells women for his business. What a lovely gift," I snarled. I'd never met her, had only interacted with Liam in a limited capacity occasionally, but I felt nothing but horror for the fate I knew she would face as Tiernan's wife.

  He shrugged. "Men will be men."

  "Sometimes men will be pigs," Simon inserted from Matteo's other side. Matteo held up a hand, silencing his bodyguard even though he looked amused at Simon's statement.

  "You would let your men disrespect me in my house without reprimand?" Murphy asked him.

  Matteo raised his brow, smirking cruelly. "Is it disrespect if it's true?"

  I coughed to cover up the smile that came to my face, Matteo's rare moment of humor being used as a dig at the man I wanted to rip to pieces was enough to make me laugh. I held it back, but only just.

  Murphy's face morphed with fury, but Matteo plowed on. "I'm sure you know I have a very strict rule of no trafficking within my city. So long as you respect the limits of my turf, we won't have a problem. But should I discover you're selling people within the area I protect, you will find you learn very quickly what the Bellandis do with pigs."

  Murphy narrowed his eyes as his ruddy face reddened. "I do not take well to ultimatums."

  "No ultimatum," Matteo shrugged as he stood. "These rules apply to everyone who does business in my city. One businessman to another, I merely wished to make sure you had all the information before you make a choice you will regret. A war would be costly, and it would take me away from my family more than I tolerate nowadays. Don't piss me off, Tiernan." With Matteo leading the way, we followed him toward the door.

  “A man of your lineage is wasted playing dog to the Bellandis, Mr. Fiore,” Murphy called as we strode for the door. “Let me know if you change your mind and would like to come join a family a little more reminiscent of home.”

  I didn’t bother to answer as we made our way out. There was nothing else to be said. Nothing to be done, even if I wanted to break his spine for throwing out my history so casually. All we could do was wait for Murphy to break the rules.

  And then we would strike.

  Forty-One

  Calla

  Getting out the door that morning proved interesting, with Ryker determined to delay us until it became almost pointless for me to go to work at the studio. With him going to work too, Ines was with my Dad again, and they were both thrilled with the arrangement. It made me happy that they enjoyed being with one another, even if it was harder for me to justify working when Ryker had the means to provide for us all. Because he'd taken my options away from me for so long, I wasn't ready to willingly give up that taste of freedom. Not even when he'd dropped Ines off with Dad himself, taking a stop out of what would have been a busy morning. It seemed so simple, like trusting my husband to bring my daughter to my father's house should have been a given.

  But it was the first time I trusted Ryker to take either of the kids somewhere without me, and it felt like a massive step forward in our marriage. I may not have trusted him in certain aspects, like respecting the choices I made for myself and my body, but I trusted him with those kids. There was nothing anyone could say or do that would make me question his loyalty to them and their safety.

  If he loved me, the love he felt for them was like something out of this world.

  By the time I'd dropped Axel off at school, ignoring the pointed glare of the Principal with a friendly wave and overly bright smile that conveyed just how little she bothered me, I was almost late for the studio. I had to run across the street to make it in time, barely stashing my things in the back before I had to go open the front door for students to trickle in. My regulars greeted me with happy smiles, congratulating me on my marriage that the other instructors must have filled them in on as a justification for my prolonged absence. I wondered if they'd known I was getting married before I did, and that made me giggle where it might have pissed me off at one point.

  It seemed so absurd, it just wasn't possible not to laugh.

  "Excuse me?" A woman I didn't recognize asked, stepping up beside me at the front of the room where I waited for the rest of the class to filter in before we started at eight. "Are you Calla?"

  I spun to face her. She wore her sable hair in a nondescript bun, her fresh face free of makeup as if she wanted nothing more than to fade into the background. Much like me. "That's me," I said with a smile.

  "I joined while you were out for your wedding," she said. "Congratulations! I just wanted to introduce myself." She turned to walk away, and I fought the urge to giggle at how nervous she must have been to walk away after an introduction she hadn't made.

  "What was your name?" I asked.

  She spun back, her cheeks turning pink in her embarrassment. "Oh God, I'm an idiot. I'm so sorry!" She brought a hand up to her mouth, hiding it as she giggled at herself. "I'm Ness."

  "It's nice to meet you," I said in response. "I hope my class doesn't disappoint. I have to admit, I'm a little out of practice compared to how I normally am, so I hope you'll cut me a little slack."

  "Of course. That's understandable. I can't imagine newlyweds have much time for yoga. Of all the more fun kinds of workouts there are to be done." She blushed again. "Oh God, that was inappropriate. I'm so sorry," she reached out, touching my arm so delicately that I couldn't help but laugh with her.

  "It's fine. It's the truth," I admitted with a roll of the eyes.

  "Ugh, my boyfriend too. It's the worst and the best all at the same time, I swear. Anyway, thank you for forgiving my horrible faux pas. I'll let you get to teaching the class before I make a complete fool of myself again." She shook her head, as if she couldn't quite believe how many times she'd humiliated herself in a short period of time. Something about her made me just want to reach out and hug her, to tell her it was okay to be a goofball or to say things that might make other people uncomfortable.

  She reminded me of a less confident Sadie in a lot of ways, like she had no filter but couldn't quite accept that about herself. She was young, and she would get there, eventually. "It was wonderful to meet you Ness. I hope you enjoy my class." I smiled as she walked to where she'd already laid out a mat, taking a space next to a man who had to be a new student too, since I didn't recognize him. Men weren't common in my classes, so I would have remembered him if he'd been there before.

  He turned to smile at me, but his eyes went to where Dante lingered in the doorway to the backroom. He'd barely spoken as he brought me to the studio, lurking behind me like the creep he was as I attempted to ignore him. As much as I liked Dante, being out and about was an entirely different experience than it was when he'd simply been spending time with us at the house.

  I didn't want to make him feel weird, but I also didn't want my students to feel awkward either.

  I strode over to him. "Once class starts, you can wait in the back room. I'll leave the door open so you can hear, but I don't want them to feel uncomfortable with someone watching them who isn't participating," I said, and he looked hesitant for a moment as he glanced back to the room behind him. "If you sit at that table, you should be able to monitor me without them being able to see you."

  That seemed to appease him, and he nodded his assent with a smile. "Sure thing, Mrs. Fiore."

  "Don't make me stab you. It tends to freak
out my students." I glared as I turned and went for my mat. When I took my place at the edge, I gave myself a minute to take a deep, soothing breath before I exhaled out and smiled at the students watching me and working to center themselves despite whatever stresses worked through their brains.

  It took effort. Every time. But I cleared my mind of all the noise.

  And then I taught.

  Forty-Two

  Ryker

  Following Tiernan was usually such a mindless activity that it didn't matter where my brain was. The man was so predictable it wasn't funny. Home with his side piece more often than not, though he sometimes mixed it up by bringing other women to his home a couple nights a week.

  He lived the life of a man who believed variety was the spice of life.

  It was his mentality, and he didn't seem to care if his woman knew it. Normally I'd have felt bad for the way he treated her, but she seemed to be aware of his promiscuous activities and infidelity, and, considering he was publicly engaged to another woman, I couldn't muster up my sympathy.

  After he left home, he generally went to see Liam and Aoife a couple times a week. The rest, he went straight to Murphy's to conduct his loan shark business. There were no moves or even remote mentions of the trafficking operation from what I could tell, but I spent most of that day more distracted than normal.

  Calla was at work. She was out of the house without me, and it had driven me mad with worry all day long. By the time I got home after picking Axel up from school, finally with permission from Calla, all I wanted to do was curl up with my family and relax. So we did just that, ordering in Chinese food and vegging out in front of the television. It wasn't something we did often, as Calla preferred to be actively involved with the kids, but from the way she rubbed at her neck and shoulders all evening, she genuinely felt sore from the way she'd suddenly thrust herself back into the physically demanding nature of her longer days. I knew she'd had two of her more advanced sessions today, on top of the long hours since she covered for the instructor who had taken over her classes in her absence to make up for her sudden time off.