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

by Caroline Peckham

  “Why is it sitting at the table?” she asked dismissively, not looking me in the eye.

  I gazed right at her, trying to work out if I knew who she was. I had a hundred Romero names stashed in my mind, but I didn’t always have faces attached to them.

  “She has to eat somewhere, Aunt Clarissa,” Frankie said and my heart squeezed in recognition.

  Clarissa Romero was a ruthless witch who had a fondness for slitting throats. She’d killed two of my distant cousins in cold blood just months ago and the brutality of their deaths had left a chill in my bones ever since. But what was worse than that was her strange son, Guido, who must have been the guy lurking by Martello. He was a sick bastard, often used to torture information out of their enemies. If a Calabresi ended up in Guido’s hands, they were in for utter hell before he let them die.

  “Come sit down, Papa,” Enzo said.

  “I will not sit at a table with a Calabresi and it insults me that my sons would do so. Is she sleeping in one of your Mamma’s beds too?” he snarled and fear daggered into my heart.

  I looked to Rocco but he avoided my eye.

  “Of course not,” he said simply.

  “She sleeps tied up in the living room,” Frankie added quickly.

  Martello tutted. “The cellar is the only place fit for the spawn of Guiseppe Calabresi.”

  “It’s too cold,” Rocco said firmly. “She’d be dead within a day.”

  “Nonsense,” Martello snapped then marched from the room, leaving my heart rattling in my chest.

  “I’ll go calm him down,” Clarissa said before rising and heading across the room. She lingered in the doorway, glancing back at the brothers. “I suggest you take that little whore where your father wants her before he returns.” She disappeared and I shifted in my seat, my hands curling around the edge of the table as acid built in my throat.

  Guido moved deeper into the room, dropping down into the seat next to me and sweeping a hand into his unruly hair. He moved in far too close to me, taking a breath and disgust rippled through to my core.

  Rocco rested his hands on the table, glaring at Guido with intent.

  “So just between us guys, what’s she like?” Guido asked, speaking as if I wasn’t there. “That tight little virgin pussy must have been fun to break in.”

  My stomach turned into an icy ball and bile pushed against my tongue.

  “We haven’t fucking raped her because we’re not the scum of the earth,” Rocco said simply, but there was a deadly undercurrent to his tone and his knuckles were turning white as he curled them into fists.

  “Hey now, no one said anything about rape,” Guido said with a low chuckle. “I bet she was gagging for it.”

  His hand immediately landed on my knee under the table and I jerked it violently, slamming it into the wood above.

  “Ah!” he yelped, wrenching his fingers back. In the next second, he slapped me so hard my head wheeled sideways. Pain flared up my cheek and my hair fell over my face as I breathed heavily through the shock of it.

  A crash sounded and a tremor ran through my seat. I pushed my hair back, finding Rocco pinning Guido to the floor.

  “She’s not yours to touch,” Rocco spat in his face and Guido’s eyes lit with a manic gleam.

  “Share,” he begged. “I’m your cousin.”

  “More’s the pity,” Rocco hissed, getting up and looking to me with an ache in his eyes.

  He took my arm, guiding me to my feet while Guido scrambled upright and Frankie and Enzo looked to their cousin in rage. Both of them were on their feet and I barely had a second to process that all three Romeros had jumped to my aid.

  “Cellar,” Rocco announced and panic swept through me.

  “No,” I gasped as he hauled me out of the room. I stared up at him, desperate for him to meet my gaze, but he just clenched his jaw and glared forward as he dragged me into the hallway.

  “Don’t do this,” I gasped as he shoved me through the cellar door and slammed it in my face. “Rocco!” I screamed, hammering my fists on the wood as the cold enveloped me.

  “What a good boy,” Clarissa’s voice reached me beyond the wood. “Martello will be pleased.”

  Rocco grunted and their footsteps carried away. I pressed my forehead to the door, my heart seizing in my chest.

  Whatever bond I’d thought Rocco and I had shared for half a second had been a lie. He didn’t care about me. He cared about his family. He cared about controlling me in front of them. About owning me. He might have jumped to my rescue, but only because Guido had laid on a hand on his toy. I was just a doll in his playhouse, but I wasn’t going to fall for the game anymore.

  I sat down on the top step, curling my knees to my chest and resting my head back against the wall. I hugged my arms around myself, shutting my eyes and trying to exorcise the fear that was possessing me like a demon.

  I had to be strong. Had to keep surviving until Nicoli found me. He’d tear them apart when he arrived. And when that happened, I had to be in one piece. Not broken or weakened.

  I would be me when I walked out of this house. If anything changed at all, it would be that I was stronger.

  The idea of Nicoli killing Rocco planted a dark seed into my head that grew shoots and stole my attention. Because the possibility of that happening made me ache. Like some part of me was attached to a Romero. A guy who had tried to kill me in the past and failed. I was his nightmare and he was mine. I could never let that change. I didn’t want it to.

  The door opened a crack and my lips parted in hope. I got to my feet, wondering if Rocco had changed his mind after all.

  I pushed against the wood and the door swung wider. As I stepped tentatively into the hall, a hand slammed over my mouth and panic gripped my heart.

  I was dragged back into the cellar, the door snapping shut behind us.

  Guido smelt like stale cigarettes and sweat, his greasy palm pressing forcefully against my mouth and making me gag.

  He held a knife to my neck as he guided me down to the bottom of the stairs, slowly releasing his hand from my mouth.

  “If you scream, I’ll gut you,” he whispered in my ear and I shuddered in terror.

  The sound of his zipper rolling down filled me with a sick kind of dread. I lurched forward but he pressed the knife to my throat more firmly and I was forced to retreat as it nicked my skin.

  He ground himself against my ass and my back arched in disgust.

  “Touch me and you’ll regret it,” I snarled, filling my voice with venom. Royce had taught me tactics to deal with rapists and my body was itching to employ them the second he let his guard down. But what if he doesn’t??

  Guido sniffed my hair as his hand slid around my waist and his fingers grazed my waistband. “Now let’s find out why Rocco’s so protective of his little Calabresi whore, hm?”

  “I don’t understand why she wasn’t chained down there in the first place,” Papa growled on the other side of the door and I steeled myself to face him.

  “She was,” I said in a firm voice as I stepped into the living room where he’d positioned himself in a chair by the fire. Aunt Clarissa was sitting close to him on the end of the couch while Guido was nowhere to be seen. “And then we found her half dead down there because it got too cold. A dead hostage won’t hold much sway over Giuseppe, will she?”

  Papa’s lip curled back in distaste, but the fact that he wasn’t openly contradicting me told me he reluctantly agreed with my reasoning.

  “And why exactly was she sitting with you in the kitchen, eating food like a house guest?” Aunt Clarissa asked, her nose upturned like she smelled something bad. Though that was the way her face always looked so it was hard to say if she was doing it intentionally now or not.

  “We thought it made sense to make her work for her food,” Frankie piped up. “We make her cook and clean the place for us.”

  “It’s not like we can bring a maid up to the house while she’s here, is it?” Enzo added in a bored to
ne as he dropped down onto the other end of the couch to our aunt and leaned back casually, looking like he was half tempted to take a nap.

  “Well I wouldn’t touch something cooked by a Calabresi,” Aunt Clarissa said with a shudder.

  “Then you might just go hungry during your stay, dear aunt,” I said as I took the other armchair and leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. “Because we can’t cook for shit and we thought it better to make a slave of our hostage than to run around after her ourselves. Why should we have to make meals for her or clean up after her if we can put her to work instead?”

  “And why exactly does she agree to do these things?” Papa asked.

  “Because I punish her if she doesn’t,” I replied darkly.

  The curt nod he gave in response was the closest thing I was going to get to praise on the way I was dealing with this, but I’d take it.

  “And she really doesn’t like the way you punish her, does she, Rocco?” Enzo asked with a dirty as fuck look on his face which Papa and Aunt Clarissa couldn’t see.

  I rolled my eyes without bothering to answer him.

  I glanced around, wondering where Guido had gotten to. If he wasn’t family, I would have killed that fucker a long time ago. I was all for destroying our enemies, but the things he enjoyed doing to people went way beyond the call of what was necessary.

  Worse than that, he’d somehow decided that I was his rival. He went out of his way to try and compete with me and take things that were mine. I hardly even tolerated him at large functions with plenty of people to put between us. Being in a group this small with him present was about as fun as the idea of swallowing a cup of nails and shitting them out again.

  In fact, if someone gave me the nails right now I’d be tempted to take that trade.

  One time he pushed me far enough to make me snap. I’d beaten him half to death with a length of pipe and given him that scar on his mangled nose. Of course, Papa had dragged me off of him before I could finish him off and because Guido was the most fucked up creature I knew, his infatuation with me had only increased following his near death at my hand.

  I’d changed my cell number three times before giving up and blocking him. And I didn’t answer unknown numbers anymore either. A few years of that treatment had gone a long way to making him back off, but I still preferred to avoid his company when I could.

  “I still think she’d be best kept in the cellar when she’s not working,” Aunt Clarissa said, inspecting her nails.

  My hackles rose at the challenge she presented me with. I didn’t like to be told how to keep my hostage and I was more than happy with our current situation which involved Sloan’s ass pressed right up against my dick all night. Not that I could say that out loud, but why the fuck was she coming up here getting involved in my business anyway? As Papa’s eldest son I was his second in command, though as his only sibling, Clarissa liked to think of herself as equal to me.

  My gaze shifted to Papa as I wondered whether he might tell her to leave my hostage to me, but he seemed to be more interested in something on his cellphone than the turn of our conversation.

  “I’m not going to let her freeze,” I snapped. “She’ll be worthless if she’s dead.”

  “Just leave her down there between work. Bring her up often enough for her toes and fingers to survive and there won’t be an issue,” Papa said, his voice disinterested but final.

  I clucked my tongue to let him know I was pissed, but didn’t speak out against him. Not on this. I wasn’t going to stand against my father in defence of a Calabresi. It would only make him take further action against Sloan anyway. He might even assign someone else to watch over her. Someone like Guido.

  At that thought I looked around again for our unwelcome cousin and frowned as I didn’t spot him.

  “Where’s Guido?” I asked, sitting up straighter as a prickle of warning ran down my spine.

  It didn’t take that long to take a piss and I had the horrible feeling he wasn’t having a shit either.

  “Oh you know Guidy,” Aunt Clarissa chuckled. “He’s always up to something.”

  Frankie caught my eye with a startled expression and I leapt to my feet as panic gripped me.

  Enzo got up too and my brothers strode after me as I stormed from the room.

  “Guido!” I yelled, my heart pounding unevenly as a feeling of pure dread slid through my veins.

  He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. I made it out into the hall and I could see the cellar door ajar from here. I’d left the fucking key in the lock and it still sat there taunting me as I broke into a run.

  The lights were on as I raced to the top of the stairs and muffled grunts and whimpers came from somewhere within the depths of the cellar.

  I spotted him crouched over Sloan as he pinned her to the ground with a blade pressed to her throat.

  A roar of pure rage left me as I leapt off of the stairs and raced towards him.

  Guido looked around, the blade moving an inch away from Sloan’s neck as he spotted me and a fucked up psycho smile lit his face.

  I collided with him a second later, knocking him clean off of her and tumbling across the cold ground with him.

  Guido scrambled away from me as I threw a punch into his side.

  “C’mon Rocco,” he begged. “Share her with me!” He lurched towards her again and Sloan screamed as he caught her arm.

  My heart leapt with fear for her and I grabbed Guido by the scruff of his neck, heaving him backwards with all my might and launching him across the room.

  He hit one of the wine racks with a cry of pain and the wood splintered around him and he fell to the floor in a heap.

  Sloan’s big brown eyes locked with mine and for a moment I could have sworn relief spilled through her gaze. She was looking at me like I was her saviour instead of her captor. Like I was the kind of man who might protect her from the worst things in this world and not one of the monsters who inhabited it. And for some reason, I found myself wanting to be that man for her. I wanted to ride in wearing my shining armour on a gallant steed and beat the living shit out of the motherfucker who’d dared to lay his hands on her. It might not have been poetic but it was pure, animalistic nature. I was a beast unlike any other in the depths of the woods and she was mine. I’d sooner tear the flesh from my own skin than let Guido have her.

  I assessed her briefly, hoping I hadn’t been too late to stop him from doing his worst. Her shirt was torn, her bottom lip split and her fly undone.

  I saw red. Rage unlike anything I’d ever felt before filled me as I turned my back on her and violence burned like red hot magma through my veins.

  I’d always hated this piece of shit. He had no code, no morals, no fucking respect for the laws we created. And now he’d gone too fucking far. He’d gone against me, flouted the rules I’d laid out in my house. And worse than that, he’d laid a hand on Sloan. She was my hostage. Mine. And he was about to find out what happened to people who tried to take my things.

  I ran at him as he made it back to his feet and he raised his knife defensively just before I collided with him.

  Burning pain seared across my ribs but I ignored it in favour of dolling out punishment on this piece of shit. I punched him squarely in the face, slamming my knuckles into him three times before he cut me again with that fucking knife, this time catching me across my bicep.

  “Fight like a man, stronzo!” I roared at him, rearing my head back and driving my forehead down straight against the bridge of his nose.

  Something cracked, blood poured and Guido staggered back, hitting the shattered wine rack behind him.

  I didn’t let the space between us last, closing the gap again and grabbing his wrist before he could cut me a third time.

  I caught his elbow with my other hand and twisted so hard that he shrieked in pain, the knife falling from his grip with a clatter.

  I shoved him away from me so that he fell back to the ground again.

  I stalked
after him, blood dripping from my knuckles as he shuffled backwards on his elbows.

  “Alright, cugino,” he gasped through the blood that poured from his shattered nose into his mouth. “She’s yours. Point taken.”

  I snarled at him as he scrambled to his feet, my gaze narrowing on his throat as I envisioned myself squeezing the pathetic life right out of him.

  There was a ringing in my ears as the bloodlust in me sharpened, my whole being locked in on the desire to rid the world of this fucking cretin once and for all.

  “That’s enough, Rocco!” Papa barked just as I reached my prey.

  I almost ignored him. Almost took the final step to finish what I’d started, but a sharp inhale made me pause.

  I stilled, glancing over my shoulder to the corner where Sloan had backed up. She was clutching her torn shirt over her chest and wielding Guido’s blade before her like she thought she might fight her way past all four Romero men with it alone.

  “Oh, my baby!” Aunt Clarissa gasped as she raced down the stairs, rushing past my brothers to retrieve her miserable son.

  My lip peeled back as she ushered him out of the cellar and my blood finally began to cool.

  “Sort out this mess and meet me back upstairs once you’re decent,” Papa muttered like I was boring him, but the slight upturn at the corner of his mouth told me he was secretly pleased. He’d wanted Guido put in his place for a long time, but without an excuse to punish him it was hard to do so. Now that I’d beaten him within an inch of his life for a second time, he might remember what it was like to invoke the wrath of a true Romero.

  Papa turned and headed out of the cellar after my aunt and Guido and I was left with Sloan and my brothers.

  Silence hung heavily as I slowly turned to look at her.

  “We’ll go get her some clothes,” Frankie muttered. “You get that knife off of her.”

  “Don’t forget who just saved your virtue, carina,” Enzo added to Sloan as he followed Frankie out.

  They closed the door behind them and suddenly we were alone.

  I stalked toward her slowly. A wolf with a doe in his gaze.