Owned by the Mafia Bad Boy (Books 1 - 4)

by Raven Dark

  “No, it was the truth. It’s what it is.”

  He looked at the ceiling, chest rising high, then dropping. “Fuck, I hate him.”

  “Who? Kane? Or his father?”

  “Both. The whole family is toxic. Pain and carnage wherever they go. Victor is a monster, and now it seems Kane has become just as much of one. I always dreaded what might happen if I crossed paths with Victor again, but I never expected you to get hurt because I chose the wrong friends.”

  The protectiveness and worry in him squeezed my heart. I put my arms around him. “We’ll figure this out. There has to be another way.”

  Nodding into my shoulder, my dad squeezed me close. He held me almost too tight, as if he thought I’d disappear if he let me go. For a long time, I stood in the warmth of the one man I’d ever trusted with my life, wishing I could protect him the same way he always had protected me.

  The urge to pack up and bolt with him, to move to some far away part of the world where neither the Gavinis nor Kane could find us, pulled hard at me and I closed my eyes. I squeezed my dad close and wrapped myself in what I hoped wouldn’t be the last moment of true safety I’d feel in a long time.

  * * * * *

  I knew I should have never accepted the shift at the hospital. Getting off the bus out front almost two hours after the conversation with my dad, it sank in how tired I was, not having slept the previous night. I’d only agreed to cover for Fran for four hours since she was sick, but my legs felt like they had lead weights attached to them, and I seriously wondered if I would make it to eleven AM. On the bright side, Fran wouldn’t be there, so I wouldn’t have to worry about being tempted to tell my best friend everything that had happened last night.

  If Fran found out about the situation with Kane, she’d lose her shit. She’d probably try to keep me from going back to Dad’s in time to meet Kane at noon. I needed to be there when he showed up. But I also needed to come up with an alternative to his despicable deal. Fran would insist there was another way, and she’d hopefully be right.

  On the downside, the shift was short enough that I’d still arrive at Dad’s in time to meet him. Part of me wished I could use my job as an excuse to avoid him. Not that it would help my dad, or me. And worse, Kane would likely only hunt me down. He had before.

  I slung my purse on my shoulder and headed for the doors to the hospital, but something made me stop. The feeling of being watched pressed into my back, running all the way down my spine. I froze, turning slowly.

  Kane? Was the bastard there, watching me? Had he followed me here, thinking I was trying to get out of meeting with him?

  Across the busy street, a black car sat idling at the curb. One tinted window was rolled down, but from here, I couldn’t make out the face of the driver. It wasn’t a limousine, but that didn’t mean Kane couldn’t have driven here himself. He probably had a black Rolls Royce just like that. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only person I suspected had one of those.

  Dominic Gavini. It has to be. My heart sped up.

  Was I imagining it, or had the man watching me smiled? I felt the color drain from my face.

  More than once in the last two weeks or so, Dad or I had caught someone watching us from a distance in a car like that, often more than one man. We had no proof, but we always suspected it was the mob boss, or someone he’d sent after us. No one ever threatened us or got close, but I knew it was a matter of time. Had our time run out? Had Gavini decided to come after us at last?

  Swallowing, I spun and rushed through the crowd, into the hospital. I didn’t know if I felt better or worse that the man was probably someone hired by Dominic Gavini instead of Kane, but that man’s presence made one thing clear. If Dad and I couldn’t come up with alternative to selling myself as a submissive to Kane in return for paying off my dad’s debts, I’d have to take his offer. I’d have to, or who knew what Gavini might do to us?

  We showed up at exactly noon. Not one minute before, or after, David shut the limo off in front of the Montrose farm and honked lightly. Boyhood years of my father’s conditioning wouldn’t allow me to greet Anika and her father before or after the time I set with them. David was amazing at taking my obsessive need for order in stride, never leaving things out of place or messing with my itinerary.

  As he got out and walked around to my door, I couldn’t help wondering if Anika would be so adaptable. The same strict need for order wouldn’t permit me to let mistakes on her part to slide. Thoughts of all the delicious things I would do to her for any infraction against the rules I’d set flickered through my thoughts, dark shadows that made my cock painfully hard. Some of my methods wouldn’t be so delicious, not for her, and my heart twisted a little with guilt for pulling her into my warped world.

  My world, where only the vicious survived, normal relationships were out of the question, and courting a woman with gentle romance or seduction was for pussies.

  I’d deceived her, I’d begun the first stages of manipulating her into binding herself to me beyond all hope of escape, and I wasn’t done yet. I wasn’t done, and triumph ate a hole in my gut knowing what I could do to her once that happened. She was already mine, but she’d seal herself more completely to that fate soon. She would, because the alterative to my offer was unthinkable.

  Before David and I made it halfway up the drive, Anika’s father opened the door and pointed the same rifle he’d come out with last night in our faces. It was a useless gesture. David had drawn the pistol from under his uniform blazer and aimed it in a professional two-handed grip at Lance Montrose’s face.

  Perfectly calm, my driver stepped up to the porch, moving so he stood in front of me. “However fast you think you can pull that trigger, Mr. Montrose, it isn’t fast enough. Put the gun down.”

  Sometimes it drove me nuts having a driver who insisted on treating me like a fucking president with his secret service agent, but this wasn’t one of those times. I wasn’t a bad shot, but I’d never been as fast as him.

  Lance Montrose widened his eyes and looked from David to me. “Seriously, Davros? You’d let your goon shoot me on my own property?”

  “Yes.” But I touched David’s shoulder and he stepped aside. “Or I would if I thought you’d really shoot me.”

  “How do you know I won’t?”

  “Because. I’ve been faced with men who are ready to kill. You aren’t there. Yet.” When his brows scrunched, I nodded to the barrel of the gun. “If you were, you’d have that pointed here, instead of my gut.” I gestured to my chest. “I can do too much to you for blowing a hole in me, and you know it.”

  His mouth pulled into a flat line, but when David held out a hand for the weapon, he slapped it into his palm.

  “Where’s Anika?” I nodded to the inside of the house.

  “She took a shift at the hospital. She should be on her way here now.” He moved aside, looking like he’d rather slam the door in my face.

  So Anika was late. Privately, it became clear, my Anika would need a firm hand. Twice she’d made me wait since I’d met her.

  “We need to talk, Davros, preferably before she gets here. You’re not taking her.”

  Some primal urge tugged at me to tell him I’d already taken her, an animal need to stake my claim before the one man she obviously loved and respected. A proper man wouldn’t discuss such things with a girl’s daddy, but I’d never been a proper man, and besides, some warped part of me reveled in the chaos I would bring by telling him what I’d done to her.

  Instead, as if he hadn’t spoken, I stepped into the hall with David following, and glanced around the quaint little farmhouse. The warm hominess of the place made it hard not to smile. I’d grown up in a world of marble and gold, the smallest of many estates still four times as big as this one. Even with the smell of horse lingering on the air and the old, run down furniture, I’d have given anything for a week living here as a child, away from the cold, hard opulence of the uber rich. Or I would have if the cobwebs in the corners and th
e dust in the air didn’t make my OCD twitch.

  Behind me, David pushed the door shut and I turned in time to see him holster his gun, then take up position at the door with Montrose’s rifle held in both hands.

  “Jesus Christ, what, are you expecting an ambush?” Montrose shook his head.

  David only blinked at him, deadpan. He knew not to tell him what we were both likely thinking. We’d seen Dominic Gavini’s men tailing both he and Anika over the last two days. There was still a possibility they could show up anytime.

  “We’ll wait for your daughter, Mr. Montrose. There’s a lot to discuss, for her as much as you.”

  He scoffed. “I love it. You’re talking like we’ve both already accepted your terms. Typical Davros.”

  “She told you? That was delicate of her,” I muttered.

  “I find it difficult to believe of you care what I think of you, Davros.”

  “Look, let’s go into the living room and wait for her.”

  “Forget it. We aren’t taking your sick deal. My daughter is not becoming your slave.”

  I put my head back. Awkward didn’t begin to describe this conversation. Ironically, this situation is at least a small part of why I had a rule about allowing no attachments or commitments, no personal information when I’d slept with a woman. I didn’t like dealing with pissed off fathers when they found out what I’d done with their daughters. It bothered me that guilt squirmed in my gut for angering this one. My father had caused him enough pain, and some cursed part of me didn’t like that Anika’s father hated me.

  “I am not having this discussion with you, Montrose.” I walked toward his living room. “This is between your daughter and myself. I’m only discussing the ownership of the farm with you.”

  “I’m not signing my farm over to you.”

  “Yes, you are. And your daughter will accept my terms, too. You’re both out of options and you know it.”

  “Yeah, you like having us over a barrel don’t you? Manipulation is your fucking stock in trade, isn’t it?” He crossed his arms. “There are other options.”

  I couldn’t help a smirk at his spirit. So much like Anika. “Which are?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll work for you. Take care of your house, your finances, your fucking garden for all I care. Until my debt is paid, and then you leave us the fuck alone.”

  “That’s admirable of you, but—”

  “You’re not touching her, Davros, and that’s final. I’m not accepting your terms.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  Anika’s voice, low and even, drifted from the kitchen. My body temperature spiked instantly, humming with the drug that was her presence.

  Closing my eyes, I let the power of her voice wash over me, and at the same time, tamped down the guilt that twisted in my heart with what I heard there.

  I’d dealt with so many people who had been screwed over by my father, I knew that tone instantly. It was the distanced, matter of fact sound of a woman who knew she was out of options, trapped into doing something she’d rather die than do.

  When my heartbeat returned to normal, I turned to her. Sunlight that streamed in through the window made the dark auburn curls that framed her face look like a cloud of fire. That fire cascaded down her back, to her ass, I knew. So beautiful to look at, it hurt. Had her face always been that fair, or was it just the sunlight shining on her cheeks that made it look like that?

  “Anika.” I heard a low, angry sound from her father and my heart galloped with excitement. Noticing the time on the wall clock in the kitchen that read five after twelve, I suppressed the urge to point out her tardiness. Even I had enough class not to discuss punishing her in front of him.

  She shut the back door to the house closed behind her and set her purse on the counter beside her. She must have taken a cab, since she carried no keys, but how had David or I not heard the car pull up?

  “Anika, I will not allow this man to upend our lives,” her dad said, shooting me an accusatory look. “Not when I know what he’s capable of.”

  “You have to, Dad. There are no other options here.” She walked slowly into the hall where we stood, not taking her eyes off me.

  “The hell I do—”

  “And what about you?” I cut him off. “Have you accepted my terms, Anika?”

  Her eyes held mine, expression cool, and I could tell she was trying to play it all businesslike, but the slightest flicker of her eyes to her father, the flinch in her frame, gave her away. Revulsion pulsed from her, while her green eyes burned with suppressed attraction. Both prospects exited me, made me imagine a long, wild fuck in my bed, the kind that left her weak and begging for me.

  “I haven’t decided yet.” Her voice lost a little of its confidence. “You said you’d go over…things.”

  “Anika, you can’t do this—” Her father stomped across the kitchen and reached for her, or tried to. I grabbed his arm. He tensed, fists tight like he was barely holding back the urge to slug me, but he stopped when his daughter shook her head at him.

  “You will tell me everything I need to know, Kane.” Only the slightest hint of a tremble in her voice betrayed her. “I want full disclosure, or no deal.”

  “Daniella—Anika—no!”

  “Do you understand me, Kane?”

  Why did I detect more than a little desperation in her voice? What had happened to her that shook her so deeply, enough that she was all but ready to accept terms that, last night, she’d fought tooth and nail to avoid?

  The anxiety in her compelled me to let her lack of submission slide. “Yes. I understand. I won’t blindside you.” I’d worked too hard to make her mine only to ruin it by toying with her.

  “Fine.” She stopped right in front of me, so close I could smell the faint scent of vanilla soap and something warm, something wholesome. Like apples. I wanted to take that wholesomeness and burn it away. “We’re not having this discussion anywhere near my dad. Take me somewhere where we can talk. Then I’ll give you my answer.”

  “Fair enough.” She headed for the door and when her father tried to follow, I easily stepped between them, holding him back with a hand on his chest.

  “Dad.” Anika shook her head. “This nightmare with the Gavinis has to end.”

  Her father tried to toss my hand aside and I looked at him just in time to see his fist aimed for my face. I drew mine back and caught him hard in the jaw. Montrose yelled and sprawled across the floor, clutching a jaw already starting to swell.

  “You are a son of a bitch, Davros.”

  Why Anika didn’t lose it on me for hitting her father, I didn’t know. But without another word, she waited for David to move aside, then opened the door and looked at me. “Let’s get this over with, Davros.”

  In spite of myself, I almost grinned. There was a pattern with her. When she was angry or consumed with that hatred she held for what I was, she called me Davros, reminding me loud and clear why she hated me. When she gave me her submission, she called me Sir, as I expected of her, while any other time she called me Kane. Her and I would have to have a discussion about who was in charge. I’d have to remind her it was me, always me, and unless the situation made it inappropriate, I was always Sir. But there was something exciting, thrilling when she got uppity. It made my palms itch with the need to turn every inch of her sweet, heart-shaped ass red until she acknowledged me as boss.

  No, to hell with that. No way would I ruin the fun by never allowing her to use my name.

  Since now was hardly the time to lay down the law with her father looking lividly on, I followed her out of the house without a word. I could wait a little longer to remind her of her place. After all, if I had my way, I’d have half a year to do anything I wanted to her.

  And I would have my way. Because, like any self respecting Davros, I always get what I want.

  2

  All the way from my dad’s front door to Kane’s limo, my thoughts spun with the same thing, repeating like a mantra over and over
. This was a mistake. Conceding to anything Kane wanted was no better than signing myself over to the devil. I couldn’t help thinking that allowing my father to do so was to do the same with him. And yet, what choice was there? None, if I didn’t want the mob to put bullets in our brains.

  Yes, it was my father’s debt, but he was my family, the man who’d protected me all my life. He’d gotten himself into debt because of me, so as far as I was concerned, the debts were mine as much as his.

  Kane walked a pace behind me, and as he set his hand on my shoulder, my muscles tensed. He’d punched my dad, hard enough to send him sprawling. My nails dug into my palms. His actions bought us time, allowed me to leave with him, but had it been necessary to hit him that hard? And had I imagined the smile on Kane’s lips when we left?

  How had I once reveled in his touch, burning with desire just from his closeness? Now revulsion snaked through me like a poison, the same revulsion I felt for anything associated with the name Davros. At least his apparent enjoyment of violence, in hurting my father, wiped away the fierce desire I usually felt being near him.

  Clenching my teeth, I let my anger over the situation burn away any lingering desire for him. Unless I came up with an alternative, I’d soon be starting a six-month long sentence of servitude to him, allowing him to do whatever twisted things he pleased to me. Last night, he’d made his offer sound like it was all passion and pleasure, but everything I knew about the Davros family warned me not to be fooled by his seduction. Kane loved his control. He seemed to thrive on it. He’d make our arrangement into something warped and twisted, reducing me to little more than a slave. I just knew it.

  “Anika. Wait a second. Let me ask you something.” He took my shoulder and I spun on him. A smirk twisted his lips at my anger. “What made you agree to talk to me?”

  How long before the Gavinis come for us? “Because. My father would never tell you this, but he’s too old to run anymore, to play hide and seek with mobsters. And I’m tired of having to give up everything just to stay alive. I put a lot of money and hard work into becoming a nurse, and I refuse to lose that. If a few months as your sex slave is what it takes to get the mark off our backs, I’ll consider it, once I hear your terms.”