by KD Robichaux
Bad Medicine
an Underworld Kings Novel
KD Robichaux
CC Monroe
Copyright © 2021 by KD Robichaux and CC Monroe
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Copyright © 2021 by KD Robichaux
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Also by KD Robichaux
Also by CC Monroe
Dedication & Prologue
1. Arabella
2. DeLuca
3. Arabella
4. DeLuca
5. Arabella
6. DeLuca
7. Arabella
8. DeLuca
9. Arabella
10. DeLuca
11. Arabella
12. Marcello
13. Arabella
14. DeLuca
15. Arabella
16. DeLuca
17. Arabella
18. Deluca
19. DeLuca
20. Arabella
21. DeLuca
22. DeLuca
23. Arabella
24. DeLuca
Acknowledgments
Stalk the Authors
Also by KD Robichaux
Also by CC Monroe
Also by KD Robichaux
All links available at www.kdrobichaux.com
THE BLOGGER DIARIES TRILOGY:
Wished for You
Wish He Was You
Wish Come True
* * *
THE CLUB ALIAS SERIES:
Confession Duet (Before the Lie & Truth Revealed)
Seven: A Club Alias Novel
Mission: Accomplished (Knight Novella Boxed Set)
Knight: A Club Alias Novel
Doc: A Club Alias Novel
Astrid: A Club Alias Short Story
* * *
CLUB ALIAS MEMBERS SPINOFF STANDALONES:
Scary Hot: A Club Alias/Until Series Crossover
Moravian Rhapsody: A Club Alias Novella
A Lesson in Blackmail
* * *
THE ADVENTURE CHANNEL SERIES
No Trespassing
Dishing Up Love
* * *
COWRITTEN WITH CC MONROE
Steal You
Number Neighbor
To Have and to Hold
Bad Medicine
* * *
PUBLISHED IN AURORA ROSE REYNOLDS’S
HAPPILY EVER ALPHA WORLD:
Until We Meet Again
Scary Hot
Until Cece
Also by CC Monroe
Always and Forever Series:
Always the One
Always Us
Forever the One
Forever Us
Lana: an Always and Forever novella
* * *
The Loving Series:
Loving Ben Cooper
Loving Kate Beckett
* * *
Co-written with KD Robichaux:
Steal You: A Standalone Dark Romance
Number Neighbor
To Have and To Hold
Bad Medicine
* * *
Crossover Series w/ Aurora Rose Reynolds:
Until Kayla
Until Mercy
Until Brew
* * *
Coming Soon:
Protecting Her Honor
Dedication & Prologue
As requested, this is for our amazing readers who have been craving another short and sexy romp with a Dirty Doctor.
Love,
KD & CC
* * *
***
DeLuca
* * *
The buildings on either side of me are like dark giants, seeming to breathe as the air whips around me. It’s crisp, with a breeze so sharp it feels like pinpricks along the skin of my face and hands. My body is covered in all black, from the denim on my legs to the thick winter coat, its collar turned up. I watch the area, checking for any passersby who might notice my presence. Luckily, this is an inner-city job, and in Desolation, New York, no one ever minds anyone else’s business. Eyes forward, no distractions or encounters with each other. That’s how this place has always been, and that’s why I call it home.
Moving across the street, I head into the alley and step behind the first dumpster just a few feet from the sidewalk. I take a moment to center myself, pushing back the brief niggle of guilt I still feel every time I’m about to break the Hippocratic Oath—to do no harm—I took all those years ago. Taxis honk and screech, heels of pedestrians clicking on the sidewalks surrounding me. I tune it out, focusing on the job that needs to be done.
I’m here to kill the woman who betrayed one of the leaders of The Ruin—a consortium for the Bratva, Cartel, Cosa Nostra, and any other organized crime faction that deals in the less than legal aspects of humanity. Arabella has threatened to expose our world outside of Desolation, and I can’t let that happen. I’m not particularly a fan of Ferro Fetulli, her husband and one of the highest-ranking men in the Cosa Nostra, but it’s a paid job, and I don’t ask questions. My world is threatened, meaning I could be taken down with it. And that simply can’t happen.
The sleek car they told me she would be arriving in pulls to a stop at the curb, just beside the alley that leads to a private entrance to her penthouse. I wait and watch as the car drives away. She has yet to turn around and show me her face. It’s as if she senses me.
Her eyes follow the car as it leaves, finally showing me her profile, and just that alone has me swallowing thickly, taking an involuntary step toward her. She’s stunning, a rare sort of beauty, almost old Hollywood, made for the silver screen.
Dropping her head, she releases a breath, and I release one in tandem.
Get your head in the game, DeLuca. She’s the enemy.
Before this thought can course through me and actually take root, she turns, giving me a clear view of her face. This exquisite creature stands just a few feet away from me, and my body ignites with a flame that’s unlike any I’ve ever felt, let alone the one that sparks right before I attack. No, this is a fire telling me I need to claim what’s mine.
I don’t have time to think or hesitate. I pull the hood from my coat pocket and move in quick, measured steps, making it to her in five strides. Just as she’s about to reach for the handle of the door that’s set into the brick building, I slide the murky material over her dark hair and down over her head. I clamp my hand over her mouth before she can scream. She fights against me as I move backward toward an alcove where we can’t be seen, but she’s no match for my strength.
I hit the button on my earpiece, and my driver’s voice comes through. “Yes, sir?”
“The alley four blocks up on the left.”
“On it.” My driver ends the call, and I use both of my arms to keep her close to me.
“Hush, Arabella. You’re mine now,” I rumble at the side of her head, the softness of her backside flush against my front making me harder than I’ve ever been in my godforsaken life.
A whimper leaves her, the sound erotic and just what I need to fortify my decision.
Our fates are sealed.
&nbs
p; No matter the consequences with The Ruin, Arabella Fetulli is mine.
1
Arabella
One week earlier
* * *
“Deep breath in. Good, now forward fold, letting it out. Halfway lift, breathing in. Now all the way down, placing your hands on the outside of your feet on the mat. Hop or step back into plank. Now up into downward-facing dog,” the yoga instructor on my tablet says in a soothing but firm voice, and I follow along, doing exactly as she explains, the sweat trickling from my hairline and down the sides of my face. I force myself to breathe as I stare down at the floral print of my yoga mat, trying to clear my mind of the absolute mockery that is my life.
Trapped. Any other person in the world outside The Ruin would say that’s what I am. A modern-day Rapunzel in my tower. But I was brought up this way, so I know nothing outside of this lifestyle. I was born to be a bargaining chip. As soon as it was announced I was a girl, there was no question as to what my duty to the family would be: to marry someone who would solidify our place in the Cosa Nostra, making our foothold even stronger.
I knew I would marry Ferro Fetulli before I even knew my multiplication table. And since this was how my mom and dad, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, and most of the other people I was permitted to be around lived, I didn’t know any different. Sure, I’ve read and heard about those who marry for love. I’ve seen TV shows and movies about “normal” people finding a love match and getting their happily ever after. But to me, that isn’t normal. That is strange. In fact, it sounds a bit exhausting. So not a single question was ever uttered from my lips when it was time to make it official with my betrothed, which was four years ago, the day I turned twenty-one.
We consummated the marriage that night, just like my mother had told me. And a week out of every month since then, he’s come to me in order to try to get me pregnant, whether for an heir or for a bargaining chip just like me.
But what he doesn’t know… and what I would be punished severely for if he were to ever find out… is that I’m on birth control—one of my very few acts of rebellion.
I know my place. I may act in my role as the perfect mafia wife. I may not be familiar with any other lifestyle. But in no way do I want to carry on the Fetulli bloodline. Because I would never want my child to have to live this life, a never-ending cycle of rules and fear. Especially if I were to have a daughter who would be matched with a man like Ferro.
Thankfully, I only have to deal with him a few nights a month. The rest of the time, he’s God knows where. My penthouse is my own. He doesn’t live here with me. My ivory tower. He has mistresses, his own home in a skyscraper on the other side of the city, and runs his family’s business—a highly profitable prostitution ring disguised as high-end tanning salons—with an iron fist.
I had hoped, in the beginning, that our marriage might turn out like my parents’, an arranged one that turned into a friendship that blossomed into actual contentment. Not necessarily love, but they’re happy in their companionship. But alas, Ferro never even gave us the chance for that to happen. I barely even know the man, and I’ve been around him my whole life. And what I do know about him—he is not a good person.
But I’m… here. Not happy, yet not miserable. Just… going through the motions of being alive. Alive, but not really living. I can’t complain though. I do whatever the hell I want—under tight surveillance, of course. I’m not told “no” often. I have an endless bank account, the opportunity to study whatever I want if I were to go back to school for a fourth degree, can get into any hobby I could possibly desire. But…
I think I’m lonely.
I have my parents, and Ferro whenever he comes to sow his seed. I have my security team. But I have no friends. Hell, I don’t really even have any acquaintances. Even my yoga instructor is some nameless guru I found on the internet, not an actual person I know, who’s livestreaming or something. I’m completely isolated. Like I said, Rapunzel in her tower.
My most recurring dream is of a prince coming to take me from this place, or sometimes he just stays here with me. I’ve never been outside Desolation, NY, so my imagination is limited during my dreams as to where he might take me. But in every one of those fantasies, we fall in love. True love built from a foundation of friendship and admiration, just like my mom and dad.
It’s those dreams that keep me going. My husband is a bad man with a scheming job in a dangerous city. While I shouldn’t wish harm on anyone, I secretly hope for the day he either makes a mistake big enough to land him in jail for the rest of his life, or that death comes knocking on one of his tanning salon doors. Because then I’d be free.
I have no idea what I’d do with that freedom, never really gotten past imagining the act of being set free itself. It feels too taboo to even fantasize what my life would be like outside this world. But I know it’d be great. I’d make friends. I’d go to a brick-and-mortar school for college instead of taking online classes, meet people, go to a gym and work out among peers. Hold conversations past polite greetings—
“You know, maybe you’d be pregnant by now if you didn’t work out so much.” The deep voice tinged with an Italian accent comes from behind me while I’m in a warrior pose, interrupting my thoughts. “There is a reason they’re called ‘child-bearing hips,’ which you barely have any to hold onto with all this… yoga you do.”
I roll my eyes before facing Ferro and hold in the sigh I want to heave. “Exercise and being in good health can make a pregnancy go much more smoothly, husband,” I tell him, reaching down and grabbing the small towel I use to mop the sweat from my brow.
“I must say, at least it’s done nothing to shrink your tits. They’re still a generous handful,” he says, reaching out and squeezing one of my breasts as I go to walk past him toward my bedroom. “Ugh!” He jerks his hand away, and it takes everything in me not to smirk at the look of disgust on his face as he wipes his hand on his denim-clad leg. “Go shower, Arabella. You’re as sweaty as one of the Johns when the ladies are done with them.”
I want to talk back, tell him that’s what I was on my way to do before he groped me, but instead I play my part, nodding and giving him a pliant smile before disappearing into my room.
In my bathroom, I close the door behind me and let out a long breath. Tonight is the last time I’ll see him until my next ovulation cycle in a few weeks. The last time I’ll have to endure his rutting while I lie there and take it, allowing him to fill me with the child-creating liquid I render useless with the tiny pills I pull from beneath my sink, hidden in one of my emptied eyeshadow pallets. One of the perks of having a limitless bank account is that I can pay my gynecologist whatever the hell it takes to keep her mouth shut and me supplied with birth control with no paper trail.
I swallow one with a mouthful of water from the sink, then store it away before undressing, wiggling out of my tight sports bra and my leggings that fit me like a second skin. I throw the sweaty, stretchy material into the hamper and tell myself to do laundry after Ferro leaves.
Instead of taking a long shower, I make it quick, ready to get this over with so I can relax when he leaves. I’m in the middle of an incredible audiobook, and I’ve been trying to beat the same level of Toon Blast for three days straight, driving me crazy.
I come out of the bathroom, towel drying my hair, and don’t bother putting on any clothes. Ferro is already at the bedside, unbuckling his belt. He hasn’t bothered undressing fully in years. Doesn’t even worry about taking off his shoes. I assume my normal position on the edge of the bed and spread my thighs, concentrating on keeping a pleasant look on my face as he stands between my legs, and I see him smear his own saliva on his shaft in order to sink into me.
I close my eyes and think about what might happen in the next chapter of the psychological thriller I’ve been listening to for a week. Will the female detective figure out who the serial killer is before he strikes again, or will he succeed in bringing her to the dark side, since in his m
ind he’s grooming her to be his perfect protégé?
It takes only a couple of minutes of thrusting for Ferro to heave out a breath as he plants himself deep and fills my useless womb. He steps back, closes my knees, and then pushes them to my chest, taking one of my pillows and shoving it beneath my ass. An attempt to keep his sperm from dripping out of me.
Whatever makes him feel better and gets him to leave faster.
He pats me on the knee, and I hear him buckle his belt.
He may be an ass, and a horrible person in general, but he’s never been violent with me. He makes his snarky comments, but he’s never been verbally abusive toward me. Our marriage is a business transaction, one he thinks I’m successful at on my end, even though I haven’t given him any children. In the public eye, I make him look like the perfect husband and I the perfect wife. Plus, he knows my father would have his head if I were to show up with bruises or even a tear in my eye if Ferro were the cause of either.
“Until next time, wife,” he murmurs, pulling his phone from his pocket and checking notifications as he walks out the bedroom door. A moment later, I hear the elevator door of my penthouse close, and I wiggle off of the pillow. I stroll into the bathroom and sit on the toilet, taking care of business and using wet wipes to clean myself up. There’s a tinge of pink, probably from not being at all aroused while he rutted away. I’m so used to it I barely even notice the discomfort while it’s happening, and at least he’s quick about it.