Brutal & Raw: Mafia Romance & Psychological Thriller (Beneventi Family Book 1)

by Sonya Jesus

  “I did.”

  “But you took twenty dollars—and they traced the blood to a guy who was missing—a guy who the Cabralis killed and asked Costa for help with. The Feds showed up to ask about the money.”

  “They never asked me anything.”

  “Because I told Costa it was me. That I wanted to buy some chocolate for Magdalena, and when they got here, I answered their questions like Costa told me to.” He didn’t break my ribs, but it sure hurt to breathe. During the whole interview, he warned me not to give anything away with a threat. I suffered through the pain and learned to lie. Appearing innocent and clueless isn’t that hard when you are forced into it. Don’t look them straight in the eyes for too long. Show humility by looking downward and to the left, and always have your hands in clear sight.

  He whacked those words into me with Stone’s baseball bat. Stone still has the bat hanging in his room, and I still feel the lesson in my muscles. My brother doesn’t know any of it. I lower my free hand to the spot in my ribs, the one that aches with the memory, and gently soothe the imaginative pain away.

  “Magdalena corroborated your story? And you owe her something?”

  “No, but it might have been where Costa and Cabrali started plotting. They created a plan, and the truth is, as much as I hate to admit it, it’s a good one.”

  “You’re going to tell me my father arranged a marriage for you and expect me to believe it? Please, Breaker. This isn’t old-school Italy in the 1800s. Tell her to get the fuck out of your face and pursue what makes you happy.”

  I flip around to my ignorant brother and growl, “Power makes me happy.” I gesture toward the opulent room. “Money makes me happy.” And I point at the clothes he’s wearing, and how he never quite stopped liking expensive things.

  He glances down at his clothes and the seven-hundred-dollar shoes on his feet and doesn’t even bother denying it.

  “Believe it or not, Little Brother. Money does buy temporary happiness, and power offers security in our world. Both of which are hindered by my illegitimacy, so unless you want to step up and take what’s rightfully yours.” I give him time to interfere, and when he doesn’t, I say, “Magdalena has both.”

  “So do you.”

  “And together it will be even more. The Commission is big on family. So I need you by my side at the church.”

  “Hell fucking no, Breaker. I’m not going to be your best man. You’re an asshole, but you’re my brother, which unfortunately means I care about you.” He can shove his wide-eyed look up someone else’s ass.

  “Stop looking at me like that. I’m not going to say it back.”

  “Kelsie’s not going to be okay with this.”

  “Kelsie doesn’t have a say.” Our little three o’clock meeting did not go well. She wanted out.

  “Why not? She’s your sister.”

  “Only when no one else is around… The point is: Magdalena wants to get married this month, and I need things to go smoothly, so stop giving me shit, okay?” For all our sakes.

  He rubs the center of his forehead and throws his head back, succumbing to the idea. “You planning on sleeping in separate bedrooms? What’s going to happen when you do something to piss her off? You going to hide all the knives?”

  “She’s not so bad.” But she’s annoying as all hell and needy.

  “Name four things not awful about her?”

  “She fucks me right.”

  “You won’t say that when you’re coming inside her, and she’s jamming a seven-inch knife into your chest, screaming for more as she smears the blood all over you.” He makes a heart in the air with his index fingers. “Drawing these all over your body with your own blood.”

  “That’s kind of detailed…” I saunter over to the bed again. “Not sure I’m ever going to be okay with you thinking about where my dick has been.”

  “Apparently, your dick is tied into your power.” He looks over his shoulder at the locked bathroom door. It dawns on me that she could be hearing everything we say. I try to remember what the acoustics are like in the bathroom, but hopefully, they aren’t very good. Lowering his voice slightly, he swivels his upper body toward me and says, “You prefer Magdalena over her?”

  “She’s not an option,” I remind him, though the question rattles my insides. I’ll always prefer 327 over Magdalena, but considering the alternative, I don’t think it says much about 327’s status.

  “What if she were?”

  “She can’t be. I’m marrying Magdalena, and there’s no way I’m going back on my word.”

  He points to his temple and taps on it a few times. “I’m the smart one, and I think about everything. Lawyer, remember?”

  Put the bottle to my lips and down another ounce or two. I obey my own command and ignore Stone’s flair for the dramatic.

  “Tell me the things you like about her.” By her he means the nameless girl in my bathroom. “She has three names that I know of, and you choose to use her.”

  “Stop evading.”

  He’s going to hate me tomorrow, so why not play this out before I’ll have to threaten him again and dangle his future in his face. “I don’t know.” I’ve played the tapes over and over, and I still don’t know what it was that caught my attention. “I took her virginity.”

  He bobs his head, as if making mental notes. “She was the first virgin?”

  No answer necessary. Obviously, I don’t make it a habit of fucking girls who don’t know what they were doing in the bedroom. No one has time for that.

  “Was it weird to be her first?”

  “Are you trying to be my therapist now?” I lash out because my heart clenches at the memories of the time she told me. First, I wondered what the fuck was wrong with her, but eventually, it just piqued my curiosity. Reluctantly, I admit, “It intrigued me.” Not many girls do that. “I wanted to see if she was lying.”

  “Was she?” he asks more like a brother than a preacher, so I nod.

  Remembering how I buried myself in her tight pussy causes my dick to twitch. It was so fucking good I did it over and over again, wondering if it would eventually go away, but the feeling never did and sex got better and better. She was only mine, no one had permission to touch her, so it was only my unsheathed dick inside her, becoming part of her story forever. Though, technically, kidnapping her also put me in her permanent story.

  “Why did you tell her about your personal shit, knowing it was being recorded?”

  “No one watches the videos, except me, or someone I ask to…and because she wasn’t going to live through it.”

  “Is that what it takes to get you to confide in someone? Confine them in a room and mark them for death?”

  I don’t particularly like his tone, but… “Pretty much.”

  “She was easy to talk to because she had to listen.”

  Yes again.

  “What would it take for you not to—”

  “No more.” I swipe my hands through the air, cutting him off. “Stop talking about 327! Back to Magdalena, because she’s going to be setting up all the wedding stuff, and I’m going to need you to deal with her.”

  “Tell Kelsie to do it.” Before I can curse him out, he chuckles at his own comment and offers a better option. “Tell Rom to do it, because I’m not going to be Driving Miss Crazy.” His eyes spark with amusement, and he holds up four fingers in the air, lowering one after a short while. “You still owe me three reasons why she isn’t awful.”

  “What are you getting at, Stone?”

  “Humor me. You tell me, and I’ll make sure she doesn’t stab you at the altar when you hesitate the ‘I do’ part.”

  Because I’m going to need him to do this, I accept the trade. “No backing out—no matter what.”

  A brisk shake of the head later, and I’m searching for reason number two. “She smells nice.”

  “Yeah, nice robust fragrance of Crazy N*5?”

  I crack a smile and hold up three fingers. “She’s got connecti
ons.”

  “Not neuronal ones.” He waits for me to pick up on the pun, but it flows right over my head.

  My mind is on family and how I made a mistake forcing them to be here. For a long time, I thought Costa isolated me from Stone, but the truth was, I pushed him away. Just like I pushed Kelsie away. I didn’t want to love anyone. A fourth finger flies up, “I don’t love Magdalena, and I never will.”

  “I can tell you why.” He gets up and purposely knocks the box over. Five videos drop out. “Costa’s porn, huh?”

  “Fuck you,” I say as I grab one of the tapes. “How did you get these?”

  “Zero, three, two, seven. Not that hard to guess the safe’s combination… Same numbers that unlocked your heart.”

  I’d smack the stupid out of him with the end of the bottle, but he backs away just before the end of it hits his nose.

  “You’re lashing out at me because I know the truth.”

  “What truth do you think you know? And don’t say the word love unless you want me to shoot you in the leg.” I place the bottle on the floor and put the tapes back in the box. “This isn’t evidence of a heart, Stone. This isn’t evidence of anything, except gathering information.”

  “You whack off to information often?”

  I drop the box on the floor and kick it under the bed. “Did she put you up to this? Is that why you ran out of there?”

  “You really think she would? Couldn’t you hear what we were talking about?” Stone wisely backs up, but he heads toward the bathroom door.

  It dawns on me that I couldn’t, which hopefully means she can’t either.

  “I’ve never known you to pretend about anything.”

  “I’m not pretending,” I growl out. “Do not fucking open the door!”

  My heart races, flooding with my anxiousness. I don’t know if it’s the blood or the booze, but I reach for my gun and warn my brother one more time. “Take your hands off that handle.”

  “Not ready to face her again? Ever think why not?”

  “Because I’m drunk.”

  “Because you’re scared.”

  “Careful, Stone. I might be drunk, but I’m still deadly.” The alcohol dulls my natural responses, possibly making me deadlier.

  “Yeah, and still stupid too.” I rub my forehead with the barrel of my gun, not caring if he sees my emotion. I’m tired of always having to wear the calm exterior when I’m bubbling up inside.

  Behind that door, locked away and kept at a distance, is a girl who makes me want to pretend like I can be the guy she called out for. The one who holds her in his arms and tells her all the sweet things she wants to hear, like sorry for everything. I’m always going to be the guy who disappoints her, who makes her flinch and fear for her life. I’ll always be the liar shielding her from the gruesome truth, or the asshole who can look her in the eye and pretend no blood was spilled that day.

  I’ll be the guy lying beside her, killing her slowly every night.

  Words as bullets. Good thing I’m not someone who talks a lot, or she’d be full of holes.

  “She loves you. Kelsie told you that.”

  Stop talking.

  “She warned you about doing this. About bringing her here and facing the first person who you actually give a damn about.” His hand is on the door.

  I cut my glance toward the door and point the gun in his direction. “I’ll shoot her the second she steps foot inside the room.”

  “If you do, you’ll never get that image out of your head.” He lowers his hand from the knob and shoves it inside his pocket.

  I hold the gun close to my leg, finger on the trigger.

  “You can put in a new carpet, demolish the bathroom, and tear this room apart, but in here,” he says while pointing to his own head. “She’s always going to break down in your arms, she’s always going to hope for someone better, and she’s always going to die. Over and over again, you’re going to relive her loss. You’re going to feel the disappointment, and you will never be able to break away from it.” He drops his hand and ambles toward the door, swiping my bottle on the way. “There won’t be enough of this in the world to drown out the memory of her. You’ll forever be a failure because you don’t give yourself the chance to be more.”

  I hate this fucker. “Don’t start caring about me now, Brother.”

  He heads for the door and turns around. With a shake of his head, he glances at the bathroom and shrugs. “I think the only person who is ever going to care for you is locked in that fucking bathroom. You isolate everyone who gives a shit.”

  I inhale deeply and expel the air slowly. I don’t look up, but I don’t hear the click of the door shutting behind him, so I say, “I can’t let her go, Stone.”

  I can’t miss her every day, knowing she’s out there and not beside me. I won’t be able to handle the empty space within myself, knowing there’s someone who can fill it. I can’t keep watching the same five videos, trying to figure out what it is about her that makes her different.

  And I can’t keep looking into disappointed eyes, and blinding her is probably out of the question. I’d still hear it in her voice, and if she were mute, I’d feel it in her touch. How many disappointments would it take until those same beautiful eyes shone with hate? And if I feel like shit because she came alive when I apologized for the hot water, how many unsaid apologies would it take for her to forgive me? I don’t deserve her forgiveness. She could have had all the identities in the world, but I took them all.

  “You’re selfish,” he spits out.

  “I am.” I have to be. I don’t have the luxury of caring for someone. “Because all the people I care for become targets.”

  “Right.” He nods and opens the door. “Kelsie always says, ‘Mobsters don’t fall in love unless they want that person gone from existence.’ I guess she’s right.”

  “She is.”

  With that, he leaves the room, and I lock the door behind him. Shutting him out.

  He took my fucking bottle. Asshole.

  I sit on the floor, near my bed, back pressed against the side of the mattress, staring at the stream of missed calls from my fiancée and taking a moment to get control over my feelings. My brother got inside my head. Stone and liquor are not a good combination. The thought of a lifetime of loneliness haunts me. A lifetime of Magdalena, who is fucking calling me again, doesn’t sit well.

  I let it ring until she switches it off and wait for a notification.

  No messages. No texts. No urgency.

  A soft knock comes at the door, and I glance back at the bathroom. I wonder if she heard all of it and if it would make it easier or harder to kill her.

  I get up on my feet and take my time walking over to the door and unlocking it. Then I sit on the bed and watch the door for what feels like hours. It’s still dark out though, so maybe not that long.

  The door slowly opens, and she steps out wearing a short dress that’s snug around her waist and thighs. She’s not wearing a bra or panties, because I don’t remember the guys bringing any back, and the ones she had on were soaked. The fact I sent my brother in there while she was naked causes my muscles to spasm and twitch with rage.

  I notice her hands are tied behind her back, and my gut twists up in knots. Fuck. I unlock it, and she can’t even let herself out without struggling.

  Looking at her face without the blindfold isn’t going to happen, so I focus on her curves.

  On those perfect curves. On how much different she looks now without me in her life. When she left, she was barely skin and bones, and now, she’s healthy—healthier without me. Her curves are the sexiest thing I’ve seen on a woman in all my life, and my business is mostly dependent on the female population. Her bare feet, with black polish painted on her toes, are not covered in dirt. She turns around, looking over her shoulder, and giving me a glimpse of her tied hands. Her long fingers, the same ones that used to run through my hair, also have black nail polish. Those nails used to dig into my back when
she clung to me while we were tangled up in each other’s arms and taking the mountain road to the highest high. It felt so good to be inside her—to touch heaven with sin—and violate all the laws of gravity.

  When we were together, nothing anchored us to reality, not even the place we were in or our identities. We were different people in each other’s presence.

  I like that she has this effect on me. All the things Costa beat into me switch off, and I can be a man around her. Just a man who craved her body and adored the way it fit with his.

  Maybe what I liked about the girl with no identity was that I could lose my own. I didn’t have to be a mafia boss or the leader of a trafficking ring. She expected nothing of me because she didn’t really know who I was. She still doesn’t.

  She never once demanded proof.

  I lean forward, resting my elbows on my thighs, watching her cower away from me. Slowly tiptoeing backward as her breaths get heavier. Hesitation stills her backward movement, and her toes point toward me. She’s afraid of getting close, but she wants me to react.

  But I don’t know how, nor which reaction to choose. The man, the boss, or the pleasure. There’s still a gun at my side and a bullet on my lips. So many questions I want to ask, and so many answers I need, but stopping her heart would save me from the torture of hearing her pleading voice again.

  Speechless and stuck within ourselves, our memories suck us close without trespassing distance. We connect, and when my eyes meet hers, the world erupts. My guard explodes, flinging pieces of the sharp metal all over the room, but none of them fall on her. She uses the silence like a bulletproof vest.

  I let her feel safe for a second longer and curl my finger, summoning her over.

  She takes one step closer before stopping. She holds my gaze for seconds too long, and defiantly bolts for the door. I spur to my heels but take my time reaching her. It’s not easy to open a locked door with hands tied behind her back.

  She watches my approach with hands on the knob, desperately trying to turn it without being able to see. I trap her between the door and my body. Flattening my palms against the door and boxing her in. My muscles bulge with the force of the blood pumping through my veins. She can’t leave me, not alive anyway.