by Lylah James
And that was my vow.
My Angel had wanted a fairy tale. I had given her that. I was her salvation. She was my redemption. Except as much as our fairy tale was beautiful and mesmerizing, it had a sick, twisted ending.
Angels deserve happily ever after.
Monsters like me don’t. My darkness became hers, and our life became tainted.
We didn’t live happily ever after.
I touched the portrait and traced her beautiful, smiling lips.
But when I did have her in my arms…when we had each other, when we were together, we were happy. Love stories like ours didn’t have endings.
It lived on forever. As beautiful and as flawed as it was.
Until we meet again, Angel.
THE END
Or is it?
You can turn the next page for an excerpt of the next book in the Tainted Hearts Series.
***Sneak Peek***
The Mafia and His Obsession: Part 1
(Tainted Hearts, #4)
HIM
Some say we were cruel. Disgusting human beings. Heartless. Ruthless.
I would agree.
But I liked the word barbaric better. Unsympathetic. Sadistic. Vicious.
After all, we were killers.
We were born into this life. Since the very beginning, we breathed it.
From first breath…till our last.
His whimpers snapped me out of my thoughts. Was that piss I smelled?
Most probably. They always turned into disgusting carcasses when their death flashed in front of their eyes. Too bad for them it was always too late.
He opened his mouth to speak, but I never gave him a chance. My fingers tightened around the knife before I drove it down, right in the middle of his throat.
The man gurgled his last breath as his blood poured around him…and on me. Shaking my head in disgust, I spat on him.
“Foolish. They know the consequences, but they still try and play us,” I sneered at him.
His chest expanded as he took his last breath…and then silence. Nobody spoke a word as we stared at the dead man, his eyes still open. Still staring into mine.
The only difference was that his were empty, while mine were still very much alive, glowing with power.
I heard Phoenix talking over the phone while I stood up. My handkerchief was already out of my pocket, and I cleaned my hands, trying to remove the blood. My face was next. It felt sticky where the blood had splattered.
Disgusting filth. I need a fucking shower now.
Why didn’t Alessio do it himself?
Oh, wait…because he didn’t want to get his hands dirty this time. His Angel was waiting for him at home.
Like that made him the lesser evil.
He was just as fucked up.
We were all fucked.
But we had her to bring us some light. A little bit of happiness. Some smiles…some occasional laughter. Some scraps of love.
She gave it all to us, without expecting anything in return. She loved so much and so hard that sometimes our hearts were not big enough to take it all.
Someone swore behind me. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I was brought back to the present.
Annoyingly, I had been lost in my thoughts too much lately. Very bad.
I’m going to get killed if I don’t get my shit together.
“Boss,” I heard Phoenix warn.
What the fuck was he warning Alessio about? I turned around, facing the others.
Only to come face to face with Alessio pointing his gun at me.
“Seriously? We don’t have time for this,” I said, my eyes on the gun. He cocked his head to the side, his eyebrows lifted in amusement.
“Can we do this later? After we have disposed of the body? C’mon, man.”
I rolled my eyes, knowing Alessio wasn’t going to do something stupid. He wouldn’t. Not after everything.
Turning my back to him again, I put my life…everything in his hands. I gave him my full trust.
That was my first mistake.
I heard the gunshot first. It rang so loud in the silent alley. My heart thumped in response.
Then I felt it. The indescribable pain and burn that came after the bullet pierced my body.
He shot me.
He actually shot me.
In the ass.
What the ever-loving fuck?
He did not just fucking shoot me.
I swiveled around to face him, ignoring the pain. Trying so hard to ignore the fact that I had just been shot in the ass. I had a hole in my ass cheek!
This wasn’t some Deadpool bullshit. And I sure as hell wasn’t some super mutant who could pop bullets out of his ass.
Yeah…he’s a dead man.
“Ayla’s going to be pissed when we get back home and she finds both of us shot,” I drawled, reaching behind me.
I never got a chance to get my gun. He was now aiming at my chest, right over my heart.
I froze. My muscles locked as I stared at Alessio in surprise. He wouldn’t…
Raising my hands in surrender, I took a step back. “Alessio, we can talk about this.”
At least not my heart. He could shoot anywhere but the heart. Or my dick.
“No. We can’t,” he simply replied. His eyes appeared darker than usual, anger glistening in them. Alessio was a madman when he turned angry.
He would blur the lines between right or wrong. Nothing mattered to him except his revenge. He would do anything and…everything.
In that moment, I was on the other side. Not beside him. But against him. For the first time since I had known him.
Instead of our guns pointing at some other bastards, his gun was pointed at me. And only one reason made sense.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” he hissed. I saw his fingers tightening around the gun. His index fingers laid on the trigger, waiting for the right moment, dragging out the suspense.
He loved the chase, the adrenaline in making others shake and whimper in fear. Except I wasn’t shaking or whimpering.
That probably pissed him off more.
“I was going to tell you,” I answered.
Lies. I wasn’t.
Because there was nothing to tell. Nothing was what it seemed to be. Every action, every word, had a meaning behind it.
Nothing in our world was the perfect image. Everything was in pieces, and we had to put all of them together to find the truth. A piece in the puzzle to get the whole vision.
Everything was a lie.
Everyone was a lie.
Every fucking day was a game to play. A game we had mastered.
Believe nothing. Whatever you see or hear is a lie.
That was one of the lessons learned and a lesson to remember.
“Let me explain,” I tried to convince him. Anything but another bullet in my body.
“You know damn well that I never give anyone a chance to explain,” he snapped. Thrusting his gun toward my chest, his lips curled in disgust. “And you aren’t any different.”
“Boss,” I heard someone say. There was a warning in his tone. Maybe he was trying to save me? We were a brotherhood after all.
Alessio smirked, just the corner of his lips turning up, and I just knew. My death had just been signed, and I had no choice over it.
The veins in my neck throbbed. Blood rushed to my ears until the only thing I could hear was the pounding of my heart.
Their voices sounded like they were underwater as my dreadful life flashed in front of my eyes. This was it.
The end.
BANG!
I closed my eyes as the gun went off, sounding so loud, so evil to my ears. The connection of the metal and my skin was quick. So quick that I could have missed it.
But when the pain came later…there was no escaping it.
Sweat dripped down my forehead as my blood dripped down my body. The cold bullet penetrated my chest, and I prayed it didn’t hit my heart.
A laughabl
e thought that was.
Alessio had perfect aim. If he wanted me dead, shot in the heart, there was no escaping death.
He was death.
My eyes fluttered open as I regarded my boss for one final time. His hand dropped to his side, still holding the gun.
The anger in his eyes was gone, replaced with hurt and pain. His expression changed to one of regret. “I didn’t want to do this, but you gave me no choice. You fucked up. And you fucked up bad.”
I knew that!
I wanted to scream, but my lips felt numb. My throat grew tighter as the pain spread across my body. It felt like I was burning from the inside as the ground turned darker with the red shade of blood.
Through blurry vision, I saw Alessio pointing the gun at me again. I closed my eyes, waiting for him to end this. Waiting for this indescribable pain to finally end.
The fired round seemed to float through fragile air, my ears barely registering the gunshot. It pierced my chest without consideration, without real meaning or relevance.
A sacrifice made from my part. A sacrifice I was willing to make. For my family. For her.
The small wounds leaked blood similar to how crying eyes leaked tears.
I sank to my knees, my body too weak to hold myself strong any longer. I gasped for breath, pleading for air.
Maybe I heard him whisper sorry. Maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me, but there was no mistaking the anguish in his voice.
I wanted to open my eyes, to give them a final look. A final goodbye. But my weakness won over.
“The only reason why I can regret this is because Ayla will be hurt. She is going to cry, and I won’t be able to do anything,” Alessio said. His voice sounded nearer but still so far away.
I was drifting. Falling deeper and deeper into the dark abyss.
Suddenly everything went completely silent. All movement around me slowed down to an excruciating pace. I could feel my pulse pounding through me as visions flashed behind my closed eyes.
The images swirled before me right until the end, leaving that last scene of her imprinted upon my mind without the oxygen to sustain it.
Her smile. Her laughter. The look of love as she gazed up at him. Never me. Always him.
I bled out, losing consciousness faster…falling faster…until I hit hard ground.
I was jostled, and pain racked through me. It felt like my unbeating heart just started again, pumping blood through my body.
I died. I knew I died…then the voices…
What’s happening?
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words found their way out. The burning sensation in my chest never ended. It hurt more and more every second.
“He’s flat lining!”
The noises grew louder over the pounding of my heart.
“Don’t let him die!”
New voices. They didn’t belong to Alessio or any of our men.
“Fuck! I need him alive, damn it!”
No. I was dead.
“He needs to live,” the voice hissed.
“You need to live. Do you hear me, son?” It sounded nearer now.
Was he talking to me?
My body was moved, pushed, pulled, and I bore down on the agony.
What the fuck was happening?
Leave me alone, I wanted to scream. I was with her…at least in my death moment, she loved me.
But now some stupid bastards were taking me away. I could see her fading…turning away from me.
I reached for her, but it was too late. She was gone, fading into the darkness. She left me alone again.
“This is what happens when you choose the wrong side.”
Huh?
“Fucking Ivanshov. They would pay for this. All of them.”
No.
“I told you to join us, but you didn’t listen. Now bear the pain of being betrayed by your brother. Over whom? Some fucked up Italian blyad.”
Don’t fucking call her a whore.
Anger swirled inside of me before realization finally dawned.
They were speaking Russian.
Ah, fuck my life.
“Don’t worry. You will get your revenge. They all betrayed you. You will live and get your revenge.”
His words penetrated through my mind, and I held them close, wrapping myself around the words.
They all betrayed you.
Other words were mumbled, but I ignored them.
You will live and get your revenge.
I smiled internally. Oh, yes I will.
I was going to live…fuck death. It was not my time yet.
“Get him to the estate. When he wakes up, we will put our plans into action. The time has come for my heir to join me.”
The smile turned into a smirk. It was time.
Blood would be spilled, and only the strong would live. There can only be one conqueror. Everyone else was going to be ten feet under the cold, hard ground.
Deceit. Betrayal. Lies. Traitors. Hate. Revenge. Fraud.
We lived with them every day. We breathed them. We played them. And we welcomed them.
The game had begun.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Wow. I actually truly don’t know where to start this. I am so overwhelmed right now as I write this part of the book. When I first wrote The Mafia and His Angel, there was a small flashback of Maria and Lyov, where the meaning of Angel is explained. Since then, I felt the connection, the love, and the chemistry between these two characters. They became so much more than just characters to me. They breathed, they had feelings, they loved. Every time I wrote a scene of Lyov, I was left wondering…how was he when he was in love? And that was how Blood and Roses happened. Lyov started speaking to me. And Maria made her sweet innocent appearance in my head. I couldn’t stop myself from writing their story, and I truly believe they deserve their story to be told.
Lyov and Maria made me fall in love with them. And then, they obliterated me. Blood and Roses was meant to be a very short story, a novella of only about thirty thousand words. But it turned out much longer, and I believed this was how it was meant to happen. I can’t imagine trying to fit their love story in just a few words. They are worth so much more.
I wished I could have given them a happy ending, but even though I am a storyteller, their love story was not in my hands. Like Lyov said, it was fate, and this was how it was meant to be. It hurts, I know. It truly hurts.
This is just another part of the Tainted Hearts Series, and now we are moving on to the next. I can’t wait to write about the other couple, and I can’t wait for you read them.
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Acknowledgements
I think first and foremost, I want to thank Lyov and Maria. This story wouldn’t have been possible without their forever presence in my little head. They spoke, and I wrote. I am so sad to be ending their story now, for I wished I could write more of their sweet love story.
I want to thank Vivvi. My girl. My boobito. You are everything. Thank you for being there for me. Thank you for always pushing me up when I am falling down. Thank you for loving my characters, my babies, just as much as I do, if not more. Actually, saying thank you is not enough. I am so glad to have you in my life.
My parents, thank you for your never-ending support and love.
To Jessica and Chelsea, my girls. What would I do without you? Seriously, I would be drowning if it wasn’t for you two keeping me afloat. Thank you for being there and supporting me through all this craziness. It has been a wild ride, and you have stuck with me till now—thank you will never be enough. Cheers, to
so much more now.
The biggest thank you goes to my publisher. Thank you for giving Blood and Roses a chance. I am holding my book right now because you think it is worth it. So thank you.
To my editor, Toni—what would I do without you? Seriously. You are a life saver, and I am so glad you didn’t hunt me down, tie me to a chair, and make me write this book faster without procrastinating so much. Your patience has been so amazing. Thank you. I am so glad we worked together on this book. You truly did wonders.
Thank you to everyone else who had a hand in making this book—my proofreader, formatter…you guys are stars.
To Deranged Doctor Design—this cover is EVERYTHING. You painted my vision. Thank you.
To the bloggers and everyone who took their time to promote Blood and Roses, you are awesome! My big thanks to you.
And I wanted to leave this for the end, because this is the important part. A huge thank you to every single one of my readers. My lovelies. Your never-ending support and love has taken us on this path. From the first word to the last, you have been here with me. I am proud we took this journey together. You have loved Maria and Lyov as much as I have. I am so thankful for that. Thank you for standing with me, even through my craziness. To all the fan accounts and groups out there, thank you! All the beautiful edits and posters you have made, they are my inspiration and motivation. I am going to say it loud and clear. “You freaking rock!”
About the Author
Lylah James lives somewhere in Canada. She is usually pretty busy, but she uses all her spare time to write. If she is not studying, sleeping, writing, or working – she can be found with her nose buried in a good romance book, preferably with a hot alpha male.
Writing is her passion. The voices in her head won’t stop, and she believes they deserve to be heard and read. Lylah James writes about drool worthy and total alpha males, with strong and sweet heroines. She makes her readers cry – sob their eyes out, swoon, curse, rage, and fall in love. Mostly known as the Queen of Cliffhangers and the #evilauthorwithablacksoul, she likes to break her readers’ hearts and then mend them again.