by Bethany-Kris
Mae shrugged. “You sure?”
“I might make a bit of a mess.”
Probably would.
Aria had her taste for violence, after all.
She couldn’t change.
Mae nodded. “Okay, then.”
Aria waited for her sister-in-law to leave the kitchen through the back entrance, and then she grabbed the paring knife she had been using to peel potatoes on the island. Slipping the blade up the sleeve of her blouse where it couldn’t be seen, she moved to the main entryway, and listened to the conversation happening just beyond the threshold.
“And she has no guards,” Simone barked.
“She has me, and Mae,” Nico returned. “One of us is always with her.”
“Always?”
“Are you questioning my intent with Aria? Or Mae’s standing? I don’t take kindly to that, Simone. Watch your step.”
“She acts like a free woman!”
“Because she is,” Nico snapped back.
“She may be a widow, but Camorra still expects—”
“Too much,” Aria said, stepping out from the entryway so that the rest of the room could see her. This dinner was far smaller than it might have been, but she only extended the invitation to a select few. Unfortunately for him, Simone had been one. “Camorra expects too much from a woman—we give and give and give, but you only take. When do you give back to me, Simone?”
The man’s eyes blazed. “You know very well what is expected of you, Aria.”
Yes.
For her to be perfect.
Unsullied.
Reputable.
Everything.
And it was too much.
“Look at all I have done for this clan,” Aria murmured, waving a hand at the room. “We have the territory we fought for, and the money to do whatever we want with it. We have control, and power. Everything men didn’t give you. A woman did. And what do you give me in return, Simone?”
“I—”
“You give me disrespect, and hatefulness. You shame me behind my back, and dirty my name. My name. The one and only thing I was allowed to keep in this fucking life, and you dishonor it every single time you open your mouth.”
Simone didn’t move from his chair even as Aria came closer. After all that she had done, and every move she had made, these men still thought to underestimate her. For no other reason than she was a woman, and they were men.
Stupid men.
“Since you like my name so much,” Aria said, stopping just two feet away from Simone’s seat when he turned to face her properly, “then you won’t mind saying it.”
“Wha—”
“Say it.”
Simone’s jaw clenched. “Aria—there, happy?”
“My last name. Say it. You do it every day. The De Rose bitch. The De Rose whore. Say it, Simone. It’s your mantra now, isn’t it? Don’t open your mouth again unless you’re going to say what I want you to, otherwise, I will really make this hurt.”
He stayed quiet.
But it didn’t last long.
“De Rose,” he uttered.
That paring knife slid down from her sleeve, and the handle fit perfectly into her palm. She struck out with a fast swipe of her arm, and the blade came across Simone’s throat with a deep slice as she said, “And you can die with my name in your mouth, too.”
Blood arched.
Hit the ceiling.
Her.
Jesus.
She really did hate the mess.
Aria let out a sigh, and tossed the paring knife to the table even as Simone continued bleeding out, and gurgling in a morbid way. She was done with him, and moving on to the rest of the foolish idiots at her table. “Anyone else?”
Silence answered her back.
She was so damn tired.
This work was exhausting.
They exhausted her.
Aria waved a hand at the mess. “Someone clean this—I have far better things to do.”
She was back in the kitchen, and staring out the large windows when Nico finally came after her. He said nothing as he slid in beside her, and watched the birds pecking at the seeds she had left out for them the day before.
“You usually have more patience than that for Simone,” he noted.
Aria shrugged. “He had to go.”
“Fair enough, but in a way that ruined the rug I know you went to the Maldives to buy?”
She made a noise under her breath. “So, I’m a little touchy.”
“Is this still about him?”
Caesar, Nico meant.
“It’s always about him now,” she admitted.
Even when his name wasn’t on her lips …
Even when he wasn’t there …
Even when she was alone …
It was still about him, and how empty she was now.
“I waited—it’s been a week since he buried his father,” she said. “He’s made no effort to contact me, Nico. I think … everything I did was just too much.”
Maybe she’d lost her chance.
Another sacrifice to add to the growing pile.
“Or maybe it’s time for you to make another move,” her friend suggested.
“I don’t—”
“Anything can be fixed, Aria. You just have to hit restart.”
She did like that idea.
“Restart it is, then.”
Aria never once considered that she would return to Lucifer’s Den, and yet, here she was. Right back at the beginning again—trying to find her magical do-over. The restart button that would fix all of her wrongs … or some of them, anyway.
His eyes were on her the moment she stepped through the doors that led into what the patrons affectionally dubbed Hell. The private area for anything and everything. The very place where she had approached Caesar the first time.
She didn’t wear gold this time around.
She wore red.
Her curls were up instead of down.
Her makeup was simple.
Her heels still sky-high.
And yes, she could feel Caesar staring.
She found him easily enough in his usual spot, and her men trailed behind at a safe distance to give her the illusion of privacy. She had no choice but to bring them along considering how fine of a line she was still walking with them.
They gave her room to breathe.
But not too much.
Lest she get cocky with it.
As handsome as ever, and dangerous for her heart, Caesar looked like every woman’s walking wet dream in his dark, three-piece suit, gold rings on every finger, and one loafer resting on his bent knee. He seemed relaxed on the velvet couch with his arm tossed over the back, but those stormy-blue eyes of his showed all the emotions he felt as he stared at her.
She saw what he didn’t show to others.
“Have you found someone interesting?” she asked as she sat across from him.
For the first time since she entered the club, Caesar’s gaze drifted away from her to survey the floor. Quietly, he replied, “No, I haven’t.”
Curiosity got the better of her.
“At all?”
His stare was back on her—heavy and hot—in a blink. “If you’re asking me if I’ve found a woman who is interesting enough to make me want to fuck her and kill her; or if I’ve found one that looks and sounds like an angel, but fucks and kills like a devil; or if a woman could even remotely make me as crazy, and hard, and irritated as you do—no, I have not.”
Aria smiled a bit.
She didn’t even hide it.
“That’s a shame,” she murmured.
“It really is. I can’t even try to fuck my way out of this mood. I can’t get hard.”
“Ouch.”
Caesar’s gaze darted to her men fifteen feet away. “Why are they here?”
“They have to be—business, that’s all.”
“Oh, you’re here for business?”
“Is that what you want me to be here for, Caesar?”
His calm expression was gone, then, and replaced by something far darker and dangerous. “Haven’t I given you everything you wanted? The streets, and territory—all of that. You have it. What business is left, donna?”
He had done all of that.
“You forgot one thing,” she said.
“And what is that?”
“Us.”
Caesar stiffened a bit, and let out a long exhale. “I haven’t forgotten anything.”
She heard the heat in his words.
The ache.
“Do you really love me?” she asked softly.
It was only the subtle turn of his head that let her know he was staring at her again—that, and the way her skin tingled. “How can I not—you didn’t give me a choice, and I don’t know whether to love you for that, or hate you. And it’s not even your fault. It’s me. It’ll always be me, Aria.”
He thought he was broken.
She knew he was just … bent.
“I miss you,” Aria said, offering the words freely.
Caesar’s head did snap to the side that time—he didn’t even try to hide his staring. “Do you?”
“Every day.”
“Say it again.”
Aria grinned, and gave him a look. “Mi manchi, il mio tiranno.”
I miss you, my tyrant.
She found comfort and warmth and a strangely familiar love in the blues of his eyes when they finally met hers. She found something she hadn’t even been looking for—he was not the only one who walked into this with one thing on their mind, and walked away with something else entirely in their heart.
“I’ve done everything I needed, and I have everything I wanted,” Aria said. “Everything to be free, and to have my life back. And somehow, I’m alone now because I’m not with you.”
Caesar set his foot to the floor, and leaned closer as he hooked a finger for her to come nearer to him, too. He didn’t speak again until their lips were just a breath apart, and the only thing she could see was him.
Here’s that restart you wanted.
“I could fix that for you,” he murmured.
“My loneliness?”
“I could fix it … on one condition.”
“And what is that?”
“That you won’t ever leave.”
Aria stilled, taking in his words.
He’d been wounded so much; left behind far too many times. The forgotten one; his life nothing more than a throwaway.
Trouble and bad and awful they called him.
And worse were the people who could be blamed for that abandonment and fear he had about loving someone, or wanting to keep her with him. People who should have loved him, and yet, they either hurt him, or overlooked what was hurting him.
A shame, really.
“I will always stay, but …”
“Mmm, what?”
She smiled. “I keep my last name no matter what.”
Caesar chuckled darkly. “Donna, I will take your fucking last name if you want me to. I don’t care.”
So be it.
“Deal,” she whispered.
His mouth—that searing kiss she adored—was on hers before the word even passed her lips. And it was everything she had hoped for.
She learned then that hope was not always for the weak. Sometimes, hope was what came through when faith failed.
EPILOGUE
Six months later …
ARIA WAS ALWAYS on her best behavior when Caesar had her bent over something, and filled full of his cock, fingers, or any one of her favorite toys. Like a cat being stroked just the right way, her body trembled, her claws retracted, and she was terribly sweet.
From the way her come tasted in his mouth.
To the heat of her skin.
And even her cries.
Like this?
She was at her best.
Caesar tightened the leather belt around her throat just a fraction of a millimeter, and felt her pussy clench just the way he liked around his dick. Should anyone else get too close to her throat, and Aria was quick to strike them down no matter the reason. She wouldn’t even let someone put a necklace around her throat.
Him, though?
She woke him up with his belt in her hands like an offering, and a pretty little smile that said she was ready for fun. And her kind of fun was always worth getting up early for.
“Oh, my God … please.”
Her begging was raspy, now.
She was almost out of air.
Nearly ready to come again.
She was sweat-slicked, exhausted, and shaking like a leaf. Nothing turned her on more than the red handprints currently painting her ass, or the streaks of his come already sprayed across her back.
Filthy.
Wild.
Wonderful.
He was just about ready to blow again, too.
Shit.
“If you keep tightening those muscles like that,” he warned.
Aria laughed.
High.
Breathless.
Spun.
“Just fucking do it already,” she goaded. “Make me come, Caesar.”
They called him the tyrant.
She was just as bad.
He loved it.
His thrusts came harder then—a brutal pace he knew she was going to feel for the rest of the day. And Jesus … he wanted her to feel it. As she slipped on white lingerie that he would tear off later, and had her face painted and her hair done in soft curls. As her gown was slipped over her body, and she was waiting behind Cathedral doors for them to open to their forever.
He wanted her to feel him.
Her words—still airless and struggling from the belt tight around her throat—melted together in a slur of bliss as she came harder than before.
Please, and fuck, and love you, love you.
She’d feel him.
He’d hear her.
“Still resentful about this, I see,” the woman across the room noted.
Caesar eyed the pencil skirt—modest with only a slit to her knee—and the pale pink silk blouse his therapist was wearing today. Unlike him in his flashy Rolex, Italian leather loafers, and a custom fit Armani suit, she dressed in a simple, understated way. As though she didn’t want to draw attention to herself, but especially not when she was in a session with a patient. She didn’t want to be a distraction. Even her pinned back hair and face clean fresh, sparingly-applied makeup was minimalist, and easy.
Over the rim of her thin-framed pink glasses, she asked, “Do you have something to share, Caesar?”
“Yes.”
“Do tell.”
“Why did Aria pick you for me, Amber?”
The therapist smiled a bit—not a lot, mind, but just enough to let him know there was a reason his wife-to-be had picked this woman when she made her demand for this whole shit-show.
So, yeah, maybe he was a little resentful.
Still.
Caesar kept his end of the bargain, though. He came when he was supposed to, and never missed an appointment. He would clear his schedule for two days every week just to make sure he was here like he needed to be.
He did it.
Because Aria asked him to—wanted him to.
And fucking really … because he needed to.
Resentful, sure.
It was still good for him.
“Why do you think your fiancée picked me out of the hundreds of capable therapists in this city, Caesar?”
“I hate when people answer a question with another question,” he muttered.
Amber cocked a single brow high, and smiled in that condescending way of hers. “And yet, when you are on that couch and in this office, you wield very little power, Caesar. You are the patient, and I am the therapist. I don’t answer to you—that’
s not how this works.”
That right there.
“That’s why she picked you,” Caesar murmured.
His therapist nodded. “I thought you might say something else, actually. Considering …”
“Like what?”
“Like maybe she picked me because you think she doesn’t trust you.”
Caesar tipped his head to the side, and narrowed his eyes. “Why, because you’re a beautiful woman that I might notice, and so, I wouldn’t be able to control my need to manipulate and abuse the situation with sex like I usually do?”
“That is your typical style, isn’t it?”
Is, he noticed.
Not was.
Caesar’s jaw clenched, but he checked the urge to lash out with something that would cut the woman down. She hadn’t said directly that was why, simply that it would make sense if that’s what he thought was the reason why.
“Aria trusts me,” he finally said.
Tightly.
Roughly.
Strained.
Amber didn’t miss it. “But do you? Do you trust yourself? Do you find yourself wanting to strike out at those around you in a familiar, comforting way because it’s how you have always handled situations? Do you still want to hurt and manipulate with sex because that’s what your step-mother taught you sex was best used for—to cause pain, or to control? To be your weapon, Caesar? Do you?”
Jesus.
“Getting right to the point today, aren’t you?” he asked thickly.
“I think today is the best time for it.”
His lips flattened into a grim line. It was the only way he thought he might be able to keep himself from talking. It didn’t matter, because in typical Caesar fashion, his words slipped out anyway right along with his anger.
“You thought that on my wedding day it would be best to talk about how my step-mother sexually abused me for years?” It was slightly easier to say those words, now. He didn’t feel the same sting of shame that he once had, but he wasn’t going to tell every fucker that crossed his path, either. Leaning forward in the chair, Caesar steepled his fingers, and stared hard at the woman ten feet away with her legs crossed, and her face an impassive mask of calm. “Why today, of all days, would I want to dig into that again?”
“Because don’t you deserve to know—and Aria, too—whether or not you still go into every intimate moment with her believing sex is tainted, Caesar? That sex is not about relief, or connection, or a baser need, but rather, an action you use to sedate the shame your step-mother made you feel, or even the weapon you can use to hurt someone else with? Don’t you deserve to know that? Wasn’t that the agreement between you and her—to talk about this?”