Beautiful Carnage: A Dark Mafia Bully Romance (The Boys of Sinners Bay Book 1)

by Caroline Peckham

  Sloan glared at me for a moment longer before letting her mouth fall open.

  I stepped closer, looking down at her on her knees in my t-shirt with those full lips parted hungrily and my dick twitched with the kinds of ideas I really didn’t want it to be getting about a Calabresi. But fuck she looked hot like that. My fingers tingled with the ache to grip her hair and drive the full length of me into her mouth.

  I banished the thoughts with a grunt of irritation and pushed the toast between her lips instead. She took a savage bite which had me feeling glad it hadn’t been my dick after all and I stood over her as I continued to feed her the rest.

  When she’d eaten the final mouthful, I reached out and swiped my thumb across those full lips, brushing crumbs from them and savouring the way they felt against my skin. Fuck, this girl was going to be trouble if I let myself keep thinking about her like that.

  “See you at lunch time,” I said, placing the water bottle down beside her and turning away.

  “No! P-please!” she called after me and a twisted satisfaction poured through me at the desperate tone to her voice.

  “What?” I asked, looking back at her with about as much interest as I might take in reading my horoscope.

  “You c-can’t leave m-me down h-here. I’m g-going to f-f-freeze.” She gave me those big eyes again and some deceitful little prick deep down inside me squirmed uncomfortably at the desperation in her gaze. I kicked him back down hard enough to silence him permanently, my gaze trailing over her cold, dank surroundings like I couldn’t really see what the problem was.

  “Well try not to,” I said casually. “If you die before we’re ready, you won’t be much use for blackmailing daddy now, will you?”

  Her lips parted in horror as I turned and jogged back up the stairs, flipping the lights off again and plunging her into darkness.

  A soft whimper of fear reached me just before I pulled the door shut on her and that sympathetic asshole I thought I’d just killed raised his battered head again.

  For fuck’s sake.

  I headed back into the living room and found Frankie and Enzo both sat eating their breakfast before the fire.

  “What’s up, fratello?” Frankie asked as I stalked into the room and moved to stand before the fireplace to warm myself. The cold of the cellar clung to me like the touch of frozen fingers and I’d only been down there ten minutes.

  “Our prisoner is going to die if we leave her down in that fucking cellar,” I said darkly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s got hypothermia already.”

  “Shit,” Frankie replied, placing his coffee down on the table.

  “Good,” Enzo cut in. “She’s a fucking liability anyway. I say we let her die then toss her in the woods for the wolves to eat…after we cut off a finger for her papa of course.”

  “Quit it with that finger shit,” I snapped. “But if we don’t make an alternative plan for her soon they might all freeze off anyway.”

  “Well she’ll have to come up into the house then,” Frankie said like that was just so fucking simple.

  “We can’t possibly keep her secured in the house, every room has windows with old shitty catches securing them. She’d escape as soon as we went to sleep,” I said, rubbing a palm down my face in frustration.

  “So we sleep in shifts and watch her,” Frankie suggested.

  “You know I’m no good at staying up late,” Enzo interrupted. “What if I fall asleep and she runs off?”

  I sighed irritably. “Then we’ll have to chain her to the bed.”

  “Which bed?” Enzo asked. “Everything in this house is antique, she’d be able to break it without much trouble and if we’re in another room then we might not hear her.”

  “So what do you suggest then?” I asked, growing tired of this back and forth.

  “She’ll have to sleep in a bed with one of us,” he replied with a dirty as fuck smile.

  “You turning into a rapist now, Enzo?” I growled and he blanched like I’d struck him.

  “Fuck off. I’m not offering to have her in with me. I’m not the one who snatched her up like the prize pig at the fair and stole her back here. You made your bed so you can lie in it.” He grinned tauntingly as he pushed his chin length hair away from his face. He usually tied it in a top knot, but I was guessing that was pretty hard with a bullet hole through your bicep.

  “I can’t have her in my bed,” I protested weakly though the set of Frankie’s jaw told me he wasn’t going to volunteer either.

  “Why the fuck not, stronzo?” Enzo demanded.

  “Because if she sleeps in my bed every night, she’ll end up falling in love with me,” I joked. “And that’ll be awkward as fuck when I have to kill her.”

  Frankie snorted a laugh. “You wish. That girl would sooner carve her own eyes out than stare lovingly into yours.”

  “Please. I could make her fall in love with me in the blink of an eye if I wanted to. Haven’t you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome?” I folded my arms across my chest and stared them down with my bullshit.

  Enzo barked a laugh. “I think he can do it,” he said, smirking at Frankie with the game. “Girls always buy into his asshole persona and his pretty face.”

  “I do have a pretty face,” I agreed.

  “Pretty doesn’t have stubble in my book,” Frankie said, rolling his eyes. “Besides, I’m the one with dimples so if anyone’s the pretty brother then it’s me.”

  “And it’s not an asshole persona,” I added. “I’m just a dick.”

  “Noted. Girls still seem to like that though for some reason,” Enzo said with a shrug.

  “Not enough to make up for the fact that he kidnapped her!” Frankie said in exasperation.

  “Wanna bet?” Enzo asked and I snorted a laugh.

  “Fine. A thousand dollars says he can’t do it,” Frankie said, holding out a hand.

  “A thousand says she’s parting her legs for him before we cut her pretty head off,” Enzo disagreed, slapping his palm into Frankie’s and shaking on it.

  “I thought the bet was that she’d fall in love with me, not fuck me?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at them. “A thousand says she says the three little words and means them.”

  “You think you can make Sloan Calabresi fall in love with you?” Frankie scoffed.

  “Yeah. And I’m not even gonna have to work hard at it.” I grinned cockily as my brothers laughed.

  “It’s a bet then,” Enzo said, raising his coffee at me and draining the whole cup.

  “Right. Then let’s get this house fit for a principessa, she’s gonna need a hot bath if we want her keeping her fingers and toes and someone’s gonna have to go into town and pick up some chains and shit to keep her contained,” I said.

  “I’m still recovering,” Enzo said with an innocent shrug.

  “Fine. I’ll go to town,” Frankie agreed. “I’ll pick up some pre-cooked meals from the diner while I’m there.”

  “Looks like I’m bathing a Calabresi then,” I said and I smirked to myself at that idea. First I’d tossed her in a freezing cold cellar and almost let her die, now she’d see me as the saviour who brought her back from the brink of death with a hot bath and a warm bed.

  Sloan Calabresi would be in love with me before the end of the week.

  The ice in my bones was burning. This wasn’t freezing to death, it was dying in a pit of flames that gnawed at me from the inside out.

  My throat was hoarse and my wrists rubbed raw from how hard I’d fought against the chains. I thought I’d have longer than this, more time to plan. But maybe this was all they’d wanted. Perhaps they had cameras in every corner, capturing my death at all angles.

  How much longer can I last in this cold?

  Another day at the most.

  I eyed the water Rocco had brought me with a heavy realisation pouring over me. No, they didn’t want me dead. The water was proof of that. But then they must have been idiots, because what use was I to them frozen into a l
ump of ice in their basement?

  Maybe the dog food was proof they had no idea how to look after a living thing. Where was the dog? I certainly hadn’t seen one.

  I thought of my little pup, Coco, wondering if he was being looked after okay. My father was useless with animals, so who would take care of him if I didn’t come home? He needed affection. He needed me. And he was the only creature I’d ever known who I could say that about.

  The cold was starting to do strange things to me. That and the sleepless night made my thoughts hazy, my breathing shallow. Every time the scent of dog food wafted under my nose, bile rose in my throat but nothing came up.

  I hadn’t done enough with my life. I wasn’t old enough to die. I hadn’t scratched the surface of all I wanted to do.

  All I could hear was the chattering of my teeth and the clinking of chains as I shivered in the dark. I started to lose track of my thoughts, grasping them for a second before losing the thread of them again. A haze was descending and the darkness left me disorientated. I settled on saying my name over and over again, the one solid thing I had to hold onto. The one, unchangeable thing in all my life.

  I will live.

  I am Sloan Calabresi.

  And I will live.

  Over the noise my teeth were making, I missed the footsteps on the stairs, but I heard them as they drew close. I willed my eyes to open, but they felt sealed shut as strong hands took hold of me. The chains came free and I was pulled against a warm chest which made me groan with need. I curled into their arms and hunted for bare flesh to rest my icy fingers against.

  “Fuck,” he hissed as I wrapped my hands around his neck.

  My eyelids unglued themselves and I gazed up at the devil himself. He has hellfire to spare so I’ll happily take it from him.

  He carried me from the cellar and even now my mind drifted to running, though I knew there wasn’t a hope in the world of me even escaping Rocco’s arms right then. And my body was in such desperate need of heat that I didn’t have any intention of leaving them.

  He took me through doors and long halls until we arrived in a steamy room. Heat seeped over my skin but it was like there was a barrier of ice shielding me from it.

  My gaze slid over the huge bathroom where a large, claw-foot bath sat at the centre of it. Steam plumed up from hot rocks on the other side of it where glass doors led into a steam room.

  Rocco held me over the bath and I suddenly clutched onto him with all my might as he tried to lower me into. “N-no,” I forced out.

  He paused, frowning at me and waiting for me to elaborate.

  I knew a little about hypothermia from the stories Royce had told me about his ex-army days. He’d been posted at a base in Russia for three years and a few of his fellow soldiers had succumbed to it after a storm had left them stranded out in the wilderness. It could set in within less than an hour and it was stupidly dangerous to heat up quickly once it had. I couldn’t be sure whether I was that far gone or not, but I wasn’t going to take the risk.

  “T-towels,” I said, pointing to them. “C-can’t heat up t-too fast.”

  Rocco placed me down on a wooden bench built into the wall beside the steam room, gathering up towels and moving toward me. The worst of the chill had started to ease, but I was a long way from being warm.

  I tried to lift my shaking hands to help but soon gave up, letting Rocco wrap me in towel after towel. Then he sat down and pulled me into his lap. My cheek touched his and I pushed eagerly against it, not giving a shit in that moment what he thought of me. It might have looked affectionate to anyone watching, but I was taking what I damn well needed from this bastard. I wasn’t going to escape this place in a body bag, I’d do it on my own two legs. Which meant I had to get better as soon as I could.

  He continued to say nothing and I was fine with that as my heart rate finally found a normal beat and feeling returned to my toes. It took over an hour, maybe longer, but I kept shutting my eyes and time would drift by so I couldn’t be sure how long I stayed wrapped in his arms. The shivers started to come in wracks instead of a constant vibration and my teeth eventually stopped chattering.

  Time continued to tick by, but Rocco simply sat there until my body came back to life then I pointed to the bath when my skin felt warm enough to face it and he pulled the towels off of me.

  He carried me over, lowering me into it and the heat enveloped me like an embrace. I sighed as I sank deeper, all the way down to just below my nose. I watched Rocco as he moved to the end of the bath, leaning his hands on the edge and staring at me.

  “Better?” he asked his first word in all this time and I nodded. “Good. We can’t have the principessa dying on us now, can we?”

  I lifted my chin so my mouth was freed from the water. “If you mean to keep me alive then you’ve done a terrible job so far.”

  “Well I’ll expect a bad review on TripAdvisor.” He smirked and I scowled.

  A knock came at the door and Frankie stepped in a second later.

  “You know you defeat the point of knocking if you walk in anyway?” Rocco said dryly.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Frankie said, his eyes falling on me. He frowned, glancing at Rocco. “Is she okay?” he asked like I wasn’t capable of answering that question.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Apart from the kidnap and the hypothermia, oh and the fact that I’ve barely eaten in over twenty four hours.”

  “You can’t please some people,” Rocco said with another cruel smile.

  I set my gaze on Frankie, ignoring his brother. He was clearly the kinder of the two, even though I sensed something deadly beneath his smile. “Any chance of some food?”

  “Sure,” Frankie said and hope shone through me. “You can get dressed too. I brought you some clothes.”

  Rocco snatched the bag from his hand and peered into it, muttering something under his breath.

  “There’s more upstairs,” Frankie told his brother and I sat upright, my brows lifting.

  “Is that where I’ll be staying?” Oh please Lord if you ever loved me let me stay upstairs away from that freezing cellar.

  “Yeah,” Rocco said, shooting me a look that said I wasn’t going to be happy about that fact for long. “In my room. With me.”

  “No,” I said immediately, almost choking on the word in horror. “No way.”

  “You don’t get a choice,” Rocco snarled.

  I looked to Frankie, my heart pounding desperately in my chest. “Can’t I stay with you?” God, was I really asking that? Anyone was better than Rocco though, even the bloodthirsty Enzo.

  “You’re with me or you’re back in the cellar,” Rocco growled and the threat in his voice was clear. He would put me back there and no matter how much I despised the idea of having to spend the night in his company, it had to be better than going down there again.

  I wondered what I had to negotiate with here, but it wasn’t a whole lot. “I want more freedom,” I blurted. “A shower every day and human food.” It was embarrassing that I had to bargain for things that were my right to have anyway.

  Frankie smiled. “Done.”

  “You don’t get to answer,” Rocco snapped at him, glaring at me and silence rang out.

  “Well…I suppose Sloan will just hate your guts forever,” Frankie said with a shrug and Rocco seemed to get even angrier at that.

  “Get out of the bath,” Rocco commanded. “Get dressed. You can have your daily shower but only so my bed doesn’t smell like dog piss.” He strode from the room, slamming the door and Frankie frowned.

  “Do you need any help?” he asked.

  I shook my head and he slipped out of the door, leaving me alone. My limbs felt like lead as I climbed out of the water, peeling off the soaking T-shirt and men’s underwear, tossing them across the room without care before drying myself on a soft towel.

  I moved to the bag Frankie had brought and found a thick white pair of winter pyjamas inside. I pulled them on, followed by the fluffy pair of socks in t
he bottom of the bag then started towel drying my hair.

  My mood had brightened by the time I was dry. Because if I was out of that cellar, I would get a chance to observe the brothers, figure out their habits, their weaknesses. And when I found a chink in their armour, I was going to strike for my freedom.

  ***

  I glanced at the window across the living room. Night had fallen and snow was fluttering down beyond the pane, coming to rest on the sill.

  I’d been in here all day while the brothers watched Netflix and ate takeout food from the diner Frankie had been to earlier. They didn’t offer me any. Despite my current company, my eyes kept fluttering closed. My body felt weak and as much as I didn’t want to sleep in front of these assholes, I knew I needed to rest soon. Though how I was going to share a bed with Rocco Romero and get any sleep at all was yet to be seen.

  Frankie passed out on the couch around eleven and by midnight my head was lolling. Rocco suddenly beckoned me toward him across the room, curling a finger at me. I almost didn’t go to him, but then I saw the pizza sitting on a plate in his hand. I wet my mouth, practically drooling as he smiled at me like he was enjoying having something to control me with.

  “Come with me upstairs and you can have this. Fight, and it goes in the trash. Your call.”

  I got to my feet and moved toward him, too hungry to complain and he took my arm with a look of satisfaction, leading me to the staircase that led to the balcony above.

  “Have fun.” Enzo smirked.

  I glanced at Rocco’s left hand holding the plate, wondering if this asshole had a wife, but I hadn’t heard of any Romero weddings recently.

  “What are you looking at?” he growled as we arrived up on the balcony.

  “I was just wondering if there’s a beat down housewife hiding around here somewhere like a frightened mouse. It seems like you like women chained.”

  “I like Calabresis chained and begging at my feet. But women tend to beg me to tie them up.”

  I tsked, but the light in his gaze didn’t fade.

  “You probably have only one sweet memory of a man to hold onto, don’t you principessa? I bet your Nicoli kept you nice and virginal for his pea-sized cock.”