by Sam Crescent
EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2020 Sam Crescent
ISBN: 978-0-3695-0231-5
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Audrey Bobak
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
CLAIMED BY HER MAFIA MAN
Sam Crescent
Copyright © 2020
Prologue
Isabella Drago cried out as she landed on her back. Something had broken, she just knew it.
“Get up.”
“I can’t, Daddy. It hurts.”
“And men will make sure it keeps on hurting. Get up.”
She stared at her father through her hair, sweating. His men stood around waiting, but not giving their opinion. No one stopped him. Not that she imagined they would. They were all just waiting for the right set of instructions and if it was for them to kill her, again, they’d do it. This was exactly what they would all do. They followed orders, her father’s to be exact.
At one time, they had also followed her brother’s, but she didn’t dare bring him up, not at this moment
Slamming her palm to the ground, she got up. Pain shot through her young body and she couldn’t contain the whimper that slipped past her lips. She needed to learn to keep her head, especially now.
Standing up, she faced her father. Blood dripped from her lip, and she knew why he’d taken her out of boarding school. She was taught at home, under his supervision.
“You need to learn to focus. To keep me in your sights at all times.” He moved across the mat and she watched each and every footstep, wanting nothing more than to run. Her father wasn’t a cruel man.
In all the time she’d been with him, he’d never once raised a hand to her, until this very week, that was. When she was attacked from behind, not expecting it.
“Fight back,” the words were said softly against her ear.
She knew without a doubt it was Randy, one of her father’s loyal soldiers who hadn’t been part of the Family. He wasn’t blood-related, but she’d heard he was the bastard of one of the capos, and it was one of the reasons her father wasn’t liked much. He was known for taking in strays, and it pissed off the rest of the Families that he didn’t care if they were pureblood.
She hated the Family.
Hated being a Drago.
But her father had always been different behind closed doors. If they were at a party or social gathering, she must play the part of a submissive, young girl, turning into a woman who would be married off one day. She stood with all of the other girls, waiting, terrified, watching as the men leered or drank too much. Her father never did. No, he was always about control.
When they were alone, she was his princess. She could talk to him about anything, read, study, and explore. She wore dungarees as she played in the garden or ate hot dogs, getting mustard all over her mouth.
Where was that man?
She knew.
He’d died when her brother had.
This new world she was part of terrified her.
Thrown to the ground, she curled up in a ball, and she heard him shout, “Enough,” as Randy hit her in the stomach.
Immediately, the man stepped back, and her father was there.
“We’ll go to sparring.” He pulled her up to her feet, even as her stomach repelled the action.
This was all too much. She couldn’t take it. “Daddy, please.”
“I’m going to get you strong. I promise.”
And so, it continued, her torture. She had no choice but to learn and try to defend herself.
If not, she truly believed her father would kill her.
****
Later that night, nursing her wounds, wanting to do nothing more than cry, Isabella tensed when her bedroom door opened up and her father stepped inside.
All day, he’d looked mean, fierce, scary. Right that very second, he looked anything but.
He was broken.
He cleared his throat. “I know you’re not asleep.”
She didn’t say a word as he moved toward the bed. He knelt down on the floor and ran his fingers through his hair, resting his elbows on the bed.
“I know you’re confused right now. You’re in pain, and I’m sorry. I know that everything I’m doing is probably scaring you half to death. That’s not my intention and I hope you know that.”
She licked her dry lips, feeling the tears as they slipped from her eyes.
“I promised your mother, the love of my life, that you would have a better one. That you would find a man you loved and I’d protect you from the Family at every single turn.” He sighed. “You know I disobey the Family each time I don’t take a woman?”
She nodded. It was an issue with many of the capos as well as the Boss, that he continued to mourn his dead wife, her mother, the love of his life. “I could keep my promise to her. When your brother died…” He stopped and even she had to gasp.
Her brother, Philip, had died at twenty-one, in a shoot-out with a rival MC. He’d been killed instantly, a single bullet to the head. No pain. Nothing.
“Philip’s passing changes everything, Isabella.” Her father never shortened her name. He didn’t do it for anyone, it was always their full name.
“What does it change?” she asked.
“You’re my only heir. This, one day, will all be yours, or passed onto whomever you’re supposed to marry. The vultures are already circling, wanting to know who I’d pick for my daughter who isn’t even a teenager yet.” He ran a hand down his face and she realized he was crying. “I wanted to give you the world, but this life now, it won’t let me. All I can do is make you strong. The men here will eat you up and spit you back out. They will hurt you. I’m not a fool. I know some of the women are in nightmarish situations where their men hurt them. I don’t want that for you. I want you to be able to sit at that table when I die, and to control it. To be a force to be reckoned with.”
“Daddy, I’m a girl.”
“And one day, you’re going to be a woman. I will train you. I’ll prepare you. Every single day we have together, it will be for you. If there is one thing I can do now before I die, it is to make sure you will never be at the mercy of men. Please, Isabella, I know you will hate me, but don’t let them win.”
“I won’t, Daddy, I promise.”
Chapter One
Ten years later
“Tears are weakness. Never let them see you cry.”
Isabella didn’t cry as her father’s casket was lowered into the ground. She watched, broken inside, but to everyone watching, she showed no emotion. It had taken her years to learn to lock her feelings inside. There were times when her father was alive that he admitted he wished he’d never taught her because he wasn’t able to read her.
Through hours of his countless training, she’d become the perfect son, or daughter. Most of the men here would hate who she was. None of them would believe that she’d killed to save her father, how she was faster than most of her guards, and once she realized her father’s reason for training her, she never failed him. Whenever she was slammed to the ground, she got right back up and asked for more.
There was no stopping her.
Of course, with training also came the need to keep her a woman, and so she’d been fed constantly as
well. Even though she was a strong woman, fit, she hadn’t lost any curves.
She looked around the graveyard. Everyone was dressed in black. All of the capos were in one place, but their soldiers were not too far behind. They all had enemies, all of them were wanted dead.
She didn’t give a fuck who wanted them dead.
If she could, she’d kill them all, but Randy, her father’s trusted advisor and the man who’d been by her side for the past ten years, advised her against it. She and Randy, they were both outcasts.
During her training, whenever she didn’t have bruises, her father kept her close by his side, making the men talk shop in front of her. The men hated her and women were afraid. Let them all be. She knew three of the capos had sons who they wanted to settle down, and to possess the Drago name, well, that would mean something to them. Not to her, though. Hell no.
Before he died, her father told her of the Families who’d asked for her hand in marriage. The one he highly recommended was Damon Romano. Thirty-four years old. No wife, no child, not down to a lack of trying either. All of his potential wives had ended up dead or killed themselves.
Damon himself was present at the graveyard. He stood out from the crowd, at least from the rest of his family. He was a monster in comparison. Tall, over six feet and several inches. Wide as well, but pure muscle. She’d heard the rumors about him, how he could snap a man’s neck with his bare hand, crush skulls in his palm, and with one blow to the face, he could kill people instantly.
Of course, they were all rumors, or were they? Randy hadn’t been able to deny any of them. Whenever there was an attack, Damon came out the bloodiest with the highest death count.
Women were afraid of him, but according to his father, there were some who considered him a trophy. To be able to tame the beast was a big deal.
Not to her.
She had no desire to marry a man who was … a monster or even cursed.
Five women, all dead. There was no way someone could be that unlucky.
The time came for her to place a flower onto the casket. She took a single white rose and she wanted to mar it with blood. All from this Family were evil and deserved to be punished. Still, she played her part, stepping back.
Randy placed a hand on her arm, comforting her.
She wanted to leave, but of course, there was the reception. Her cook had been ordered to serve only the best. She’d have waiters and waitresses who would know the score and wouldn’t run their mouths off about who they worked for.
After a long enough time had passed, men and women started to step back. She didn’t.
“Bella, we’re going to have to go,” Randy said.
“I will leave when I want to.” She stayed at her father’s graveside. He was laid next to her mother and brother.
She imagined he was finally at peace, meeting them, if he was even allowed to join them. Maybe her mother was all alone up there, and her brother and father were in hell. That was where she’d join them.
Unlike her mother, she had blood on her hands. Killing had become easy to her. She wasn’t alone.
Damon, the monster, still stood by the graveside. Her father had said that he was a cold man, and to be wary around him.
She’d never let her guard down. Not after the last time, when she thought she could trust a young soldier and instead, she’d ended up slicing his throat.
Hands clasped together, Randy took a step back, keeping his distance.
Seconds passed and she wanted Damon to be gone. To leave. To let her mourn her father’s loss in peace. He seemed determined to do whatever the hell he wanted, and she hated him for it. He didn’t leave. Instead, the nerve of the man, he moved closer as if he had a right to.
Ignoring him, she stared at her father’s name, wondering what it was like to not care, to not think, to not feel, to just simply be gone, to not exist at all. All the pain and loneliness would be gone.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Damon said.
She turned to the man who wouldn’t respect proper protocol. “And you couldn’t wait until the reception?”
“I’m not going to bore you when everyone will want to know who you’re going to pick as a husband, Isabella.”
“Miss Drago.”
“You won’t be that for long. You know that, and so did your father.”
“Do not speak about him.”
“I liked your father, Isabella. I respected him. It’s why I saw him several weeks before his death.”
She frowned. She was aware of her father taking meetings, just not with who. Glancing behind her, she noticed Randy nodding his head, confirming this man wasn’t lying. “What would my father have to talk about with a Romano?”
Damon smiled. There was a scar down his right cheek. She’d heard tales that he’d gotten it during his first fight where he killed three men, where all of them were sliced and diced. He’d chopped them up with a single cleaver. Again, she never listened to rumors and would believe it when she saw it, not that she was hoping to see something so awful any time soon. Far from it.
The only thing she wanted right now was to be left alone. Her father had left her a file, all of which had the necessary information for her to take his place.
“You’re twenty-two years old.”
“Well done, you know my age,” she said.
“I love your cocky attitude, but to many, they will see it as a personal threat to their manhood. I know what your father did to you, how you’re not like many. But I also know to a lot of the Family, you’re no longer a prize catch. Your virginity is of course intact, and that is still of high value to them, but you’re not young. Your father has damaged your reputation.”
“Will you spare me the doom-on-you speech? My father is dead. I’m aware of a great many things. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got matters to attend to, and it’s not listening to you tell me just how little of a prize I am.”
She turned on her heel and left. What she really wanted to do was kill him, to hit out, to hurt, to annihilate. Her father had left her alone in a world she wanted nothing to do with. She’d rather burn it all to the ground, but now, she was going to have to play all their games.
Finding a husband would be at the top of the list, she had no doubt.
“Are you okay?” Randy asked.
“Yes.” Deep down inside, she was screaming at him to take her away, to stop her from feeling this. Her father was gone. She was all that was left of her family and she couldn’t break down. People were always watching, checking for weakness and she’d be damned if she let any of them take what was rightly hers.
****
Damon entered Drago’s insanely large mansion. The last time he’d seen the old man, he’d boasted of the place having twenty-five rooms, all with an en-suite, separate serving quarters, and several gardens, as well as a swimming pool, a gym, and of course a basement for all torturing needs.
His father, the desperate bastard, nodded toward him.
The Romano name was one to be feared, but like most men, his father craved power. Uniting the Drago and Romano Families would put them on top. Everyone here knew Philip Drago was the wealthiest, most respected man among the capos. He was the only one close to the Boss, and so was Isabella. Now with her being the only remaining heir, his father had begged him to speak with her father, which he had done.
He liked Philip Drago Sr. Always had. A fierce leader and fair.
Glancing around the room, he spotted Isabella and wasn’t surprised to see Randy there as well. The outcast soldier was like a loyal dog.
Philip had told him everything. Quite shocking for the elderly, dying man to entrust his plan with him, but also his desire to see his daughter married to him. It would seem Philip had been keeping a keen eye on him for the past ten years. When he’d refused to offer his hand in marriage to Isabella, he’d learned the truth about this woman.
Five women had died, two of whom committed suicide rather than be married to him, a monster or a beast.
Both nicknames followed him everywhere, and he’d earned those titles. He’d decided against marriage. There were whores out there to satisfy his needs, and well, at the time he didn’t need to worry about an heir.
Of course, all his life, he’d been ordered to pay attention, to consider an heir, a male who would need to be trained. His father’s demands were increasing, day by day, driving him mad with it.
He watched Isabella now, her cold glare sending every single male off who dared try to talk to her. The ice queen. He smiled.
Her father had shown him the tapes of her training, of exactly what she was capable of. The men here had no idea of the killing machine standing in a simple black designer dress and killer heels.
She didn’t have his body count, but her father had put her on his radar. Isabella was a beautiful woman. Long raven hair, soft pale skin, ocean-blue eyes. Her nose wasn’t perfect, from being broken. He’d been made aware she had a nasty fall during training that had snapped it. He believed one of her sparring lessons had gotten out of hand.
Watching her now, those curves… Some might say she was fat, but not him. The black dress didn’t hide those hips, the shape of her ass, or the full tits. He wanted her.
In fact, ever since her father had shown him every little detail, he’d found his obsession with her rivaled everything else going on in his life.
He wanted her. Simple as that.
The only way to have her was to put a ring on her finger. The minutes ticked by, turning into hours. One by one, people left, and he allowed himself to walk through the shadows, going undetected.
Even though he was large and tall, he’d learned the trick of hiding. It had saved his neck so many times, it was like second nature.
With the door finally shut, he watched her shoulders slump. Randy took a step toward her.
“No,” she said. Her voice sounding a little broken.