Bad Medicine (Underworld Kings)

by KD Robichaux

  You can see it in his eyes—the recognition.

  As this distracts him, it gives me a chance to move closer. We don’t dare cause a scene here at the event, much less one where Ferro’s family is present; it would be a bloodbath—a declaration of war. Reaching into my pocket, I find the capped syringe. I stealthily move through the dancing couples and the small groups of people talking, merely feet away now. All the guards are looking to where Ferro is, and I see my in. Just to the left of Ferro is an unguarded space and a straight shot to the exit door that leads to the alley.

  Ferro says something to one guard then, and I see it the moment it registers. The guard catches sight of me in the crowd and moves.

  “Sir, it’s DeLuca,” I hear him tell Ferro, close behind me. I have no idea how he can tell, since I’m wearing a mask, but I don’t have time to question it. I move faster, knowing the henchman is going to make a run for it, to try to tackle me. So I bolt toward Ferro in a last-ditch effort to at least pummel the fucker out of sheer desperation to exact some kind of punishment on him, but by then it’s too late. All guards focus their attention on me. And just like that, two men take Ferro by the arms and rush him out as the other men make their move toward me.

  “Hey!” one hollers, and I spin to look at Marcello, who is already in motion, coming to me.

  “Gentleman! Hey now, this is a ball. Why are we making such a ruckus?” Marcello announces, and this stops the three men, getting their attention just long enough for me to take an alternate route to the emergency exit.

  I barely make it out then, rushing toward the street, where I see Ferro climbing into a black SUV and fleeing.

  “Fuck! God dammit!” I curse into the darkness, tugging at my hair. I lost him, and now he knows we’re after him. Hell, he already had suspicions, but now he knows for sure, and this will force him into even deeper hiding. That means another night, another day, and more time will go on that Arabella is not safe enough.

  I pull out my phone and dial Marcello.

  He answers and barks, “I’m on my way out.”

  I end the call and look around the alley and street, trying to think of what to do next. It’s time for a plan fucking B.

  20

  Arabella

  He left me, and I feel… incomplete.

  I miss him. Yet just a few days ago, I loathed him. Wanted him to fuck me, yes, but then to let me go and move on. Now, my captor has stolen it all. My heart. My trust. My loyalty. I now crave his presence at all times, when before I met him, I was content on my own.

  There’s no denying that, even though I’m falling for him, how we came to be is still a brutal reality. My husband hired him to kill me. And for what? Another woman.

  Why didn’t he just end us? Why would he resort to such extremes?

  But I know the answer to those questions already.

  The treaty.

  Our marriage was a deal to end the war between our two families. If we divorced, he would have lost his title, and our families would have been enemies again.

  Why was I never enough? Why didn’t Ferro try to make our marriage truly work? Was I not pretty enough? Not smart enough? Not a good little housewife? Did that even matter? And would I have ever been able to love him if he’d been good to me?

  I know the truth to that question as well.

  No.

  I wouldn’t have.

  I know that, because I have now tasted love and desire, and there is no world where I could feel that with anyone other than DeLuca. He’s quickly becoming my everything. I’m obsessed. I’m also highly aware of my craziness and what I would do to make him keep me. How did I ever become a woman who wanted to be kept? Two weeks have passed that I’ve been his, and it feels like I’ve always been. Born and branded to belong to the monster who is also a dark knight.

  How is it that I can love him so fiercely while still trying to get to know him? While still trying to understand his twistedness—and my own? We are both equally as obsessed with one another. That’s dangerous. Fire we shouldn’t play with. But we grow more insane with each passing moment. Whether just talking or making love. Ripping at the sheets or sharing a candlelit meal. We are growing mad for one another. Yet… that feels more right than wrong. It’s as if it’s so wrong that it’s perfectly right; every couple should feel this way about one another.

  I pace the library, looking for a book that might hold my attention, as I’m riddled with nerves. Ferro is a dangerous man. But so are my father and DeLuca. It just comes down to who is more cunning. Still, I hate knowing that the two most important people in my life could be hurt by Ferro or his men.

  What will it mean if they catch him and end him? Will the families go to war again? Will DeLuca be pulled further into The Ruin than he was before? Will I lose the one man who makes me feel alive?

  This brings tears to my eyes, and I must sit before I fall to the floor. Taking a seat in the wingback chair next to the unlit fireplace of the library, I sob into my hands. I cry over the fact that the man who vowed to protect me wanted me dead, and the man supposed to kill me is the one who makes me feel most alive, loved, cherished. It’s twisted and completely fucked up. And now that man is the only one I will ever want, and at this moment, he could be at the hands of the same monster who hired him to kill me.

  “Arabella, are you okay?”

  I jump a bit, Maxwell’s presence alarming me.

  “Oh yes, sorry. I’m just having a hard time with all this.” I wave my hand in the air between us, but he knows what I mean.

  “He is a very smart man, ma’am. I promise he will be okay,” he assures, coming to take a seat in the empty chair next to me.

  “You promise? How? How can you promise something like that?” My voice showcases my desperation for him to be right.

  “I do. I’ve never once seen him bleed.”

  I huff out a small laugh at his comment. “I hope he keeps that record going tonight.” I blink away my tears, wiping at the rest with a handkerchief he holds out to me. “Any word?”

  He’s only been gone for three hours, yet it feels like an eternity.

  “No, ma’am. I assume they’re close to finishing the plan.”

  I gulp, realizing he means the death of my husband. It feels wrong now to refer to Ferro as my spouse. He’s my betrayer more than anything else.

  “Can you call him?”

  “Sorry, I can’t. It’s one of his rules. He’ll call when he’s on his way back home. I’m not his driver tonight, because he entrusted me with your safety instead. But Sebastian is in the car at the ball, waiting to bring him home to you.”

  I let out a sigh of understanding and nod my resignation, but he doesn’t miss the disappointment on my face.

  “Why don’t you and I have some tea or something? Help calm your nerves.”

  I look up at the gentle giant, and to be honest, I have to say I’ve grown quite fond of him. He’s so intimidating in appearance, but getting to know him has shown me his duality. He’s definitely a man who could snap your neck one minute and break bread with family the next.

  “Sure. I could go for some tea. Thank you.”

  He stands, gesturing for me to lead the way.

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  It’s near one in the morning when I feel DeLuca’s warm body slide into bed behind me. His skin finds mine. He and I are both naked, nothing but flesh and sheets atop the mattress.

  “Mmm, hi. You’re here,” I say with sleepy relief.

  He doesn’t say anything but a throaty few words. “Need you. Now.” With that, he moves us, positioning himself between my legs and lining his crown up with my entrance. All sleep leaves me then, and I whimper when he slides all the way to the hilt in one movement. Our eyes lock, with my hands cradling his face.

  “Baby,” I moan, needy for this closeness. I sense his fear, his pain, his worry, and that tells me tonight didn’t go the way it was supposed to. I want to ask him what happened, but m
y lover needs me. Needs our connection as much as I do. Lifting my knees, I anchor them to his sides and allow him in deeper.

  He moans his appreciation. “God, you’re perfect. Tight. Warm. Mine.” He praises me more as he thrusts in a hypnotic rhythm.

  “I’m only yours. I always will be,” I declare, somehow knowing exactly what he needs to hear without him prompting me.

  “You can’t ever be taken from me. I’d burn the world down for you. Tear it to the fucking ground,” he growls, thrusting into me hard, each pump of his hips pronounced. I can’t help the high-pitched breath that comes out of me.

  “Oh God!” I cry.

  “No. I’m the fucking devil. The devil who will bring down the fires of hell on anyone who tries to hurt you,” he seethes in my ear, moving to bite and suck on my neck.

  My pussy clenches down on him then, my orgasm hitting me full force, and I scream out his name.

  “So good. But I’m not done. We’re going to play all night, Arabella. I’m going to mark every inch, every cell of you that I can.” He picks up the pace, knowing I’m going to come again if he shows me no mercy, which he doesn’t.

  We both come over and over throughout the night. From making love, to dirty touches even the devil would call sinful, then back to making love once again.

  Something changed in DeLuca tonight; a new part of him emerged, and part of me fears it was for a very bad reason. When the dawn comes, I succumb to sleep, knowing when I wake, my world may flip on its axis again.

  21

  DeLuca

  I can barely concentrate on my patients during Monday’s appointments, which is completely unfair to them and very unlike me. Thankfully, they were only here for checkups before being handed off to the nurses for their chemotherapy treatments. My mind is otherwise occupied by my failure to get to Ferro two nights ago.

  How the fuck had they known it was me behind the mask, making my way toward him?

  Who was the rat, playing us and feeding him information?

  These and other questions riddled my thoughts the rest of the workday, and as I’d ordered Maxwell to stay home with Arabella instead of driving me, I grab my keys from the top drawer of my desk before locking my office and heading down to the private parking lot behind my private clinic.

  The heat hits me before the sight does. In the middle of the empty lot is my black sedan. Engulfed in flames so hot I feel them from the doorway the moment I step outside. I blink at the inferno, my nostrils flaring, but my expression doesn’t change aside from that. I just stand there, staring at the fire, my hand raised at chest height where I had lifted it to unlock my car as I exited the building.

  I let out a heavy sigh, finally lowering my hand, replacing the keys with my cell, and I dial Maxwell.

  “Boss?” he answers, confusion clear in his tone.

  “I need a lift after all. Bring my Bella with you so she’s not left alone,” I order, monotone as I shake my head at the blaze before me. More annoyed than anything else. I have cameras set up all around my building, a system that can’t be fucked with, so I know for a fact I’ll be able to discover who set my car on fire—although I already know who did it, or at least who ordered it to be done.

  But why send me a message?

  What’s the point? Why not just wait until I was in the car and then blow it up? Why would Ferro keep me alive?

  Someone more worried than I am must’ve called the fire department, because I soon hear sirens in the distance. They’re putting out the inferno and I’ve already given my statement and access to the CCTV to the police, which my lawyer will take care of, by the time Maxwell arrives with Bella in tow.

  Her eyes are wide as her window in the backseat lowers, her mouth agape as she stares at the smoking metal ruins of what was once one of my luxury sedans. She snaps out of it though, surprising me when she doesn’t launch herself at me as I open the car door to slide in next to her. This entire time, I stayed calm, almost emotionless about the situation, because I knew my woman was on her way and that her presence would make everything better.

  At least, that’s what I thought.

  Instead, there’s a coldness to her expression as she scoots to the other side of the backseat, her throat moving in a way that tells me she’s holding back her emotions. It’s almost as if she’s… pissed. At me. Why the hell would she be mad at me when she just saw that someone blew up my car?

  “Bell—”

  “Are you all right?” she asks, her tone even.

  I reach over to take her hand, but she moves it away before I can grasp it. My brows furrow, a spark of frustration igniting in my chest. What the fuck? “I’m fine. Are you?”

  She turns narrowed eyes on me, and that’s when she tosses a manila folder I hadn’t noticed before into my lap. “Not as good as the fucking whore you spent all night with at the ball the other night. My father dropped these off for you this morning.”

  I swallow thickly, reaching into the folder and pulling out a stack of eight-by-ten black-and-white prints, still images taken from surveillance cameras at the masquerade with timestamps in each bottom left-hand corner. Most of them are of Ferro and his guards surrounding him, closeups of the henchman who was onto me in the crowd, and one of Ferro being escorted out the exit.

  But a couple of them are of me and Rosalie on the dancefloor, and the position from the angle of the camera is precarious. It looks like I’m holding her in an intimate embrace, when in all actuality, I was pulling her into a position where I could see around her when Ferro was walking in the door with his men. She was a tall, lithe woman, and she’d been wearing heels with her ballgown, so it made her too tall for me to look over her head like I could’ve if it were my petite piccolina I’d been dancing with.

  Instead, I wrapped my arm around her lower back and tugged her toward my left side so I could see past her shoulder. Yet the photo looks damn near like I’m grinding her against my thigh. Rosalie’s expression isn’t helping anything either. Where she’d actually been gasping in surprise at my sudden movement, her face is one of almost ecstasy, as if she’s in the throes of passion, looking like a fucking porn star in this dramatic and completely deceiving screenshot.

  My eyes meet Arabella’s, which are burning hotter than my fucking car was not twenty minutes ago. “This isn’t what it looks like,” I tell her, hearing the cliché and wanting to roll my eyes at my damn self.

  “Really? Because what that looks like is you dancing with some woman at the ball, when you swore to me you wouldn’t even be around any females the entire night! What did she say when she saw my lipstick all over your cock, Doctor?” she asks, making the title sound like a dirty word.

  And said cock twitches behind my zipper at her tone, her haughtiness, her jealousy and possessiveness. She’s fucking sexy in her temper tantrum, the hotheaded Italian inside her DNA coming out to play for the first time, and I’ve never been more turned on. In my goddamn existence.

  “Did you have to talk her into still giving it up, or was she some sort of sick bitch who got off on fucking another woman’s man?” she continues, and I sit calmly, still watching her every nuance, every twitch of her brows, every snarl of her perfect lips, every tremble of her chin she attempts to hide. She glances toward the front of the car then, and I follow her look, seeing Maxwell meeting our eyes in the rearview mirror before turning back to the road.

  “Are you finished?” I ask, my voice gravelly, as if my throat has been scoured with sandpaper. God, I want to fuck her. Right here in the car. Company be damned.

  She won’t meet my eyes and crosses her arms over her chest, but not like a petulant child. It’s more like she’s trying to protect herself. From me. And I can’t stand for that.

  “Arabella.” My tone brooks no room for argument. Her eyes meet mine automatically, as if against her will. Her body responds to my commands, even when her mind tells it not to. “Do you truly believe that I would allow any woman to touch me after what we shared just two hours before t
hese photos were taken? Do you really think this… person comes close to making me feel the way you do?” I ask, imploring her with my stare.

  Her chin wobbles, but she sucks in a breath through her nose to steady her emotions. “It’s right there. Literally in black and white. You did allow a woman to touch you. You allowed some whore to touch what belongs to me.”

  Again, her possessiveness over me is a force to be reckoned with. Never have I felt more desired, wanted—fuck, loved. No one has ever laid claim on me this way before. No one has ever had the audacity to even try. But my Bella… fuck, my Bella is glorious in her fiery jealousy. And it’s then I realize she feels for me exactly what I feel for her.

  Not giving a single fuck that we are mere inches from Maxwell and that he can see us in the mirror, I reach across the space between Arabella and me with the speed and power of a rattlesnake, my hand clamping around the back of her neck and snatching her to me. I move her with such ease that she doesn’t even have time to gasp until my lips are already slamming down on hers with a ferocity I know must hurt her, but I also know my girl loves a little pain with her pleasure.

  My tongue shoves between her lips, and she whimpers as my hand moves around to her throat and tightens, forcing her to open for me as she tries to pull in a breath. I use my grip there to push her up against the leather seat, turning us so my head blocks anything our driver might see if he snuck a peek.

  I kiss her deeply, passionately, pouring every ounce of possession I feel for her into the act, and finally, I feel her meeting me with her own aggressiveness. Although she can’t control the kiss nearly as much as I can, since she can barely move anything other than her mouth. Her hands come up then, gripping my shirt in her fists, pulling me closer, her little sounds of pleasure and emotion driving me toward a breaking point I know I will reach before we ever make it home.