“Christ.”
“While her own father was made to watch.”
“Salva—”
“While I stood by and did nothing,” he spits, his tone harder. “Not a goddamned thing. Fuck. I couldn’t even look at her. It made me sick. Or it should have. But you know what?” He walks away, so his back is to me. “It made me hard. It made me fucking hard.”
I watch his back, big broad shoulders, muscular arms. He’s built like Sergio. Powerful.
“I am my father’s son. A monster. Like him. Maybe worse.”
“No. No, that’s not true.” I try to take the drink from him, but he won’t let me.
“I’ll be her monster.”
“Salvatore, you don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do,” he says too loudly. “I do have to. That’s the point. I will take the girl. I will break the girl. It’s my duty.”
The monitor goes off then. Jacob’s fussing. He probably hears us, his room is just down the hall, and Salvatore isn’t being quiet.
“Shit,” Salvatore says, realizing. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. He’s been waking up at night,” I lie. I don’t want him to feel any worse than he already does. Jacob lets out a long cry. “I’d better go settle him down.”
Salvatore nods. I realize he hasn’t even taken his jacket off. I go to Jacob, pick him up out of his crib, cradle him, kiss the top of his perfect head, kiss the soft dark hair there.
“Shh, baby. It’s okay. Shh.”
It doesn’t take him long to fall asleep again. And when he does, I lay him back down and tuck him in, but by the time I return to the living room, Salvatore’s gone.
31
Natalie
I don’t dream of Sergio often. I wish I could. But the nights I do, I wake up crying. Tonight’s one of them. Maybe it’s because Salvatore was just here. Maybe it’s what he told me. Maybe it’s just the mention of Lucia DeMarco’s name.
And it’s strange, although I can’t remember the dreams themselves, I do remember feeling safe, even with the bittersweet edge. Even knowing I’ll miss him that much more the following day. Jacob keeps me busy and I’m so grateful for him. I’m not sure I’d survive this if it weren’t for him.
It’s four in the morning when I wake up with tears on my cheeks. I switch on the light and get up, knowing I won’t be getting any more sleep tonight. I go to the dresser, open the drawer where, at the back, I keep a box. I carry it to the bed, open it. Inside are just a few things. Memories. The first is the ring. His ring. The Benedetti family crest dark and proudly displayed. I always notice it on Salvatore’s finger too.
I slip it onto my finger. It’s so big and heavy, I have to hold it in place to look at it.
I’m to give it to Jacob when he’s sixteen. It’s part of the agreement. I’m not yet sure I can, but it’s what Franco expects.
But I’m not above going back on my word with Franco Benedetti. I don’t want Jacob involved in this life. I don’t want him to die the way his father died.
Slipping it off my finger, I set it back inside the box and smile at the next thing I see. An 8X10 of us on our wedding day. Sergio is holding my hand and smiling so wide. And he’s just whispered something into my ear that made me laugh so hard, I’m almost doubled over.
It’s strange, if you look at my face, all you see is the happiest bride in the world. And I was happy in that moment. I remember the nagging feeling of something not quite right, and I know now that it was a premonition, but still, in that moment, I remember feeling happy.
I set the box down and put the expensively framed photo on the nightstand. And it feels right. Something inside me tells me this is right.
I’ve grieved for over a year. Sergio is gone. But I have Jacob now. And I have my memories. I’ll take them. Take the bad, the sad, with the good. And in a way, time has been kind to me. Time is making me remember the good ones. Even though I never forget the sad. The feeling is always there, always along the edges of those happy moments, but it’s manageable, more and more as time passes. I’ll always love Sergio. He’ll always be the love of my life. And I’ll honor him. I’ll raise his son to know him. Know his father as I knew him. Devoted and full of love.
That’s what Jacob will know of Sergio.
Because that’s who Sergio was.
* * *
The end.
2nd Letter from Natasha
Dear Reader,
* * *
I imagine stoning by Kindle right about now.
* * *
If this was your first book by me, know it is the only one that does not have a happily-ever-after and I hope you’ll go on to read Salvatore and Dominic Benedetti’s stories.
* * *
If this wasn’t your first and you’ve already read Salvatore and Dominic, then I just want to say thanks. Thanks for walking into this eyes-wide-open. Thanks for being open to the heartbreak of Sergio’s story. Thanks for trusting me to take you there.
* * *
I told you at my opening letter that Sergio had a very strong voice in my mind during the writing of the book. Well, that was true for most of it. By the time the last scenes came, he’d quieted. I know that he knew what had to happen. He went into it eyes-wide-open, too. And I think that takes courage. My heart broke to write this book. It’s breaking now to write this letter. But I’m glad I did it. Sergio deserved to have his story told and I love his and Natalie’s story so very much. I even love the heartbreak of it.
* * *
Thank you so much, again, for spending your time reading my book. You don’t know how much that means to me.
* * *
Love,
Natasha
Salvatore: a Dark Mafia Romance Excerpt
Prologue
Salvatore
I signed the contract before me, pressing so hard that the track of my signature left a groove on the sheet of paper. I set the pen down and slid the pages across the table to her.
Lucia.
I could barely meet her gaze as she raised big, innocent, frightened eyes to mine.
She looked at it, at the collected, official documents that would bind her to me. That would make her mine. I wasn’t sure if she was reading or simply staring, trying to make sense of what had just happened. What had been decided for her. For both of us.
She turned reddened eyes to her father. I didn’t miss the questions I saw inside them. The plea. The disbelief.
But DeMarco kept his eyes lowered, his head bent in defeat. He couldn’t look at his daughter, not after what he’d been made to watch.
I understood that, and I hated my own father more for making him do it.
Lucia sucked in a ragged breath. Could everyone hear it or just me? I saw the rapid pulse beating in her neck. Her hand trembled when she picked up the pen. She met my gaze once more. One final plea. I watched her struggle against the tears that threatened to spill on her already stained cheeks.
I didn’t know what I felt upon seeing them. Hell, I didn’t know what I felt about anything at all anymore.
“Sign.”
My father’s command made her turn. I watched their gazes collide.
“We don’t have all day.”
To call him domineering was an understatement. He was someone who made grown men tremble.
But she didn’t shy away.
“Sign, Lucia,” her father said quietly.
She didn’t look at anyone after that. Instead, she put pen to paper and signed her name—Lucia Annalisa DeMarco—on the dotted line adjacent to mine. My family’s attorney applied the seal to the sheets as soon as she finished, quickly taking them and leaving the room.
I guess it was all official, then. Decided. Done.
My father stood, gave me his signature look of displeasure, and walked out of the room. Two of his men followed.
“Do you need a minute?” I asked her. Did she want to say goodbye to her father?
“No.”
She refused to l
ook at him or at me. Instead, she pushed her chair back and stood, the now-wrinkled white skirt falling over her thighs. She fisted her hands at her sides.
“I’m ready.”
I rose and gestured to one of the waiting men. She walked ahead of him as if he walked her to her execution. I glanced at her father, then at the cold examining table with the leather restraints now hanging open, useless, their victim released. The image of what had happened there just moments earlier shamed me.
But it could have been so much worse for her.
It could have gone the way my father wanted. His cruelty knew no bounds.
She had me to thank for saving her from that.
So why did I still feel like a monster? A beast? A pathetic, spineless puppet?
I owned Lucia DeMarco, but the thought only made me sick. She was the token, the living, breathing trophy of my family’s triumph over hers.
I walked out of the room and rode the elevator down to the lobby, emptying my eyes of emotion. That was one thing I did well.
I walked out onto the stifling, noisy Manhattan sidewalk and climbed into the backseat of my waiting car. The driver knew where to take me, and twenty minutes later, I walked into the whorehouse, to a room in the back, the image of Lucia lying on that examining table, bound, struggling, her face turned away as the doctor probed her before declaring her intact, burned into my memory forever.
I’d stood beside her. I hadn’t looked. Did that absolve me? Surely that meant something?
But why was my cock hard, then?
She’d cried quietly. I’d watched her tears slip off her face and fall to the floor and willed myself to be anywhere but there. Willed myself not to hear the sounds, my father’s degrading words, her quiet breaths as she struggled to remain silent.
All while I’d stood by.
I was a coward. A monster. Because when I did finally meet those burning amber eyes, when I dared shift my gaze to hers, our eyes had locked, and I saw the quiet plea inside them. A silent cry for help.
In desperation, she’d sought my help.
And I’d looked away.
Her father’s face had gone white when he’d realized the full cost he’d agreed to; the payment of the debt he’d set upon her shoulders.
Her life for his. For all of theirs.
Fucking selfish bastard didn’t deserve to live. He should have died to protect her. He should never—ever—have allowed this to happen.
I sucked in a breath, heavy and wet, drowning me.
I poured myself a drink, slammed it back, and repeated. Whiskey was good. Whiskey dulled the scene replaying in my head. But it did nothing to wipe out the image of her eyes on mine. Her terrified, desperate eyes.
I threw the glass, smashing it in the corner. One of the whores came to me, knelt between my spread legs, and took my cock out of my pants. Her lips moved, saying something I didn’t hear over the war raging inside my head, and fucked up as fucked up can be, she took my already hard cock into her mouth.
I gripped a handful of the bitch’s hair and closed my eyes, letting her do her work, taking me deep into her throat. But I didn’t want gentle, not now. I needed more. I stood, squeezed my eyes shut against the image of Lucia on that table, and fucked the whore’s face until she choked and tears streamed down her cheeks. Until I finally came, emptying down her throat.
But the sexual release, like the whiskey, gave me nothing. There wasn’t enough sex or alcohol in the world to burn that particular image of Lucia out of my mind, but maybe I deserved it. Deserved the guilt. I should man up and own it. I allowed it all to happen, after all. I stood by and did nothing.
And now, she was mine, and I was hers.
Her very own monster.
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Dominic: a Dark Mafia Romance Excerpt
Chapter 1
Dominic
Fear has a distinct smell, something that belongs only to it. Pungent. Acidic. And at the same time, sweet. Alluring, even.
Or maybe only sweet and alluring to a sick fuck like me. Either way, the girl huddled in the corner had it coming off her in waves.
I pulled the skull mask down to cover my face. The room was dark, but I could tell she was awake. Even if she held her breath and didn’t move a single muscle, I’d know. It was the scent. That fear. It gave them away every single time.
And I liked it. It was like an adrenaline rush, the anticipation of what was to come.
I liked fucking with them.
I closed the door behind me, blocking off the little bit of light I’d allowed into the small, dark, and rank bedroom. She’d been brought here yesterday to this remote cabin in the woods. So fucking cliché. Cabin in the woods. But that’s what it was. That’s where I did my best work. The room contained a queen-size bed equipped with restraints, a bedside table, and a locked chest holding any equipment I needed. The attached bathroom had had its door removed before my arrival. Only the bare essentials were there: a toilet, sink, and a shower/bathtub. The bathtub was truly a luxury. Or it became one at some point during the training period.
The windows of both the bedroom and the bathroom had been boarded up long ago, and only slivers of light penetrated through the slats of wood. Both rooms were always cold. Not freezing. I wasn’t heartless. Well…I had as much heart as any monster could have. I just kept the rooms at about sixty degrees. Just cool enough that it wouldn’t do any damage but it wouldn’t be quite comfortable.
I walked over to the crouched form on the floor. She stank. I wondered how long they’d had her. If they’d washed her during that time.
I wondered what else they’d done to her, considering the rule of no fucking on this one. My various employers didn’t usually give that order. They didn’t give a crap who fucked the girls before auction. It’s what they were there for. But this time, Leo—the liaison between the buyer and me—had made certain I understood this particular restriction.
I shoved the thought of rape aside. I didn’t do that. Whatever else I did to them, I didn’t do that. Some tiny little piece of my fucked-up brain held on to that, as if I were somehow honorable for it.
Honor?
Fuck.
I had no delusions on that note. Honor was a thing that had never belonged to me. Not then, not when I was Dominic Benedetti, son of a mafia king. So close, so fucking goddamned close to having it all. And it certainly didn’t belong to me now. Not now that I knew who I was. Who I really was.
More thoughts to shove away, shove so far down they couldn’t choke me anymore. Instead they sat like cement, like fucking concrete bricks in my gut.
I stepped purposefully toward the girl, my boots heavy and loud on the old and decrepit wood.
“Wakey, wakey.”
She sat with her knees pulled up to her naked chest, her bound wrists wrapped around them, and made the smallest movement, tucking her face deeper into her knees. I noticed she still wore underwear, although it was filthy. That was new. By the time they got to me, they were so used to being buck naked they almost didn’t notice anymore.
The three night-lights plugged into outlets around the bedroom allowed me to take her in. Dark hair fell over her shoulders and down her back. So dark, I wondered if it would be black after I washed the dirt and grime from it.
I nudged the toe of my boot under her hip. “You stink.”
She made some small sound and dug her fingernails into the flesh of her legs, crouching farther into the corner, folding and withdrawing deeper into herself.
I squatted down, looking at what I could see of her too skinny body. I’d check her for bruises later, once I cleaned her up. Make sure there wasn’t anything that needed immediate attention. No festering wounds acquired in transit.
“Did you piss yourself?”
She exhaled an angry breath.
I grinned behind my mask. There we go. That was different.
“Lift your head, so I can see your face.”
Nothing.
I lay one of my hands on to
p of her head. She flinched but otherwise didn’t move. I gently stroked her head before gripping the long thick mass of hair and turning my hand around and around, wrapping the length of it tight in my fist before tugging hard, jerking her head back, forcing her to look at me.
She cried out, the sound one of pain and anger combined. They matched the features of her face: eyes narrowed, fear just behind the rebellion in her hate-filled, gleaming green eyes. Her mouth opened when I squeezed my fingers tighter, and a tear fell from the corner of one eye.
“Get your hands off me.”
Her voice sounded scratchy, low, like she hadn’t spoken in a long time. I looked at her. Heart-shaped face. Full lips. Prominent cheekbones.
Pretty.
No, more than that. Aristocratic almost. Arrogant. Beautiful. Different.
Different than the usual girls.
She scanned my face. I wondered if the skull mask scared her. Fuck, it had scared me the first time I’d put it on. Nothing like death staring you in the face.
“Stand up,” I said, dragging her by her hair as I straightened.
She stumbled, but I kept hold of her, tilting her head back, watching her process the pain of my fist in her hair. Teaching her.
Actions spoke louder than words. I always started my training from minute one. No sense in wasting time. She’d learn fast to do as she was told, or she’d pay. She’d learn fast that life as she knew it was over. She was no longer free. No longer human. She was a piece of fucking meat. Owned. Owned by me.
That first lesson was always hardest for them, but I was nothing if not thorough.
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