Ruthless Prince : A Dark Mafia Arranged Marriage Romance (Dark Syndicate Book 1)

by Faith Summers

  Andreas is a man like me though—he doesn’t care about money. He cares about power.

  “And I will. You can trust me. I’m proud of you, kid.” The light comes returns to his eyes.

  I ball my fist to bump his. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”

  He nods and gives me the first real smile he’s given me since Pa announced I’d be taking over. “She’d be proud too. Ma. I know she would. You’re like him. More than me.” He chuckles. “Now, get the fuck out of here. I need to get back to my women.”

  I smirk. “Okay. See you later.”

  He tips his head, and I make my way out. I understand him and understand where he’s coming from. The only guy who worked as hard as I did for the position was him. I’d feel like shit too if I didn’t get it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Massimo

  By the time I got back home from work, two things arrived for Emelia.

  The ring I’d ordered and her things. Both arrived. Her stuff was sent with one of her father’s lackeys, and the jeweler I commissioned to sort out her ring for me on short notice was waiting for me in my living room.

  The ring is beautiful and actually looks like her.

  It’s the kind of ring I’d get if this were real between us and she were my doll. My girl. I put it in my back pocket and head to the hall where all her stuff is. I’m going to go through it personally. Never can tell what that old fucker might have put in here. I was surprised when he agreed to have everything sent over.

  It’s everything she packed up for Florence. It was already packed, so I don’t know why that fucker took four days to send it when I requested it the day after the meeting.

  There were over twenty suitcases and five smaller bags she was supposed to carry on her flight, plus four large boxes that were supposed to be shipped over.

  Typical princess with too many bags. Ironic how she packed up to move to a different country and ended up with me.

  It takes me a little over an hour to go through her stuff. I sorted through her clothes first. Then got lost in her art. She’d packed up all her art supplies and ten paintings that I have to admit are breathtaking. She’s good. She’s really good and definitely right to call herself an artist. She was going to the Accademia in Florence. I know they don’t take any old person there. You have to be good. And because of who runs it, money can’t buy you a place with them. You have to earn your place.

  She seems to do a mixture of landscape and dark fantasy. Ma was a landscape person, and she liked doing portraits too. She loved painting people and did many paintings of us.

  When I checked out Emelia, I had to admit that the first thing to strike me about her was her talent. Now I’ve seen it.

  It’s after seven. Dinner is being made. I have plans to change things up a little bit with Emelia. Now that I have the ring, I think it’s time. I look at the elegant little black dress she wore to the ball resting on the arm of the sofa and nod to myself. She will wear this tonight. For me

  I grab it and some of her underwear, then head to my room to get showered and changed. I throw on a black long-sleeved dress shirt and black slacks, then trim my beard just to clean it up. Once I’m done, I make my way to Emelia’s room with the little dress and the bag with her panties, knowing she’s going to bitch at me for going through her things.

  She’s sitting by the window when I walk in, still wrapped in that sheet.

  She sits up and gives me that look a lot of women give me that I’ve grown used to. On her, though, it piques my interest, especially when the fire of fury fills her eyes. I love that she tries to stand up to me. She thinks it’s courageous, but all it does is turn me on.

  “Do you plan to leave me locked up in here for the rest of my life with no clothes?” she snaps, returning to her former stance of defiance.

  “Do you want to be locked up naked in here? You look comfortable sitting over there, and maybe I like the idea of having a naked woman in my room.”

  “Find a different one. The blonde you were with the other day seemed eager to please,” she hisses.

  Good comeback. I know she’s jealous of Gabriella. She shouldn’t be, but I like her jealousy. It makes her look prettier, and when her lips pout like that, I imagine them around my cock.

  “Come here,” I say. She tenses.

  “Why?”

  “Fucking come here now, Princesca. If you make me get you, you won’t like it.” Or maybe she will.

  Maybe another spanking is in order, although I hope the next time I do that, it will be more for pleasure than punishment. I think of how she yielded to me last night. My mouth waters. I want her just like that again, but next time, I want inside her.

  She likes me. She likes me and doesn’t know what to do with the attraction that ripples between us any more than I do.

  She gets off the window seat and makes her way over. She smells nice, just like yesterday. I know Priscilla got her some stuff. I’m glad she did. That sweetness compliments her natural fragrance.

  When she reaches me, I hold out her dress. Her eyes widen when she realizes it’s hers.

  “My dress. My things are here?” Her eyes search mine. I almost feel like a prick for depriving her.

  “Yes. Your things are here.”

  “Can I have them?” She raises her brows.

  “Eventually.” I smile.

  “Ugh.” Her shoulders slump. “Why? Why can’t I have them now? Do you know how weird that is?”

  “There are a few things I need you to do for me.” It’s time to lay down the law.

  “What? What more do I need to do than I’ve already done?”

  “Aww, so much more, Princesca. I want your obedience.” I spell it out because I haven’t said anything of the sort yet.

  “Obedience? What the hell do you think I am?”

  “Like fuck. You better understand me and agree, or you’ll stay locked up in here naked until the wedding. Hit me or strike back in any way, and you’ll know what being locked up means. Do you understand me?” I ask, holding her gaze.

  “I understand.”

  “The only way you leave this property is if I say so. And when I buy you something, you wear it. When I tell you to do something, you do it.”

  “Why didn’t you just get a dog?” she throws back. “There’s a reason they’re a man’s best friend.”

  I catch her face and pull her close. She gasps. “That smart mouth of yours is something else. So pretty I want to kiss it, and so hot I want to fuck it. You don’t talk back to me. Baby, if I wanted a fucking dog, I’d have one.”

  I release her. She catches her breath. Bites back a whimper and looks at me, disappointed. “You’re like two different people.”

  I know what she means, but it has to be this way.

  “This is what you get. Now, put the dress on, come to dinner with me, and we’ll talk about you getting your things.”

  “Dinner?” she says. I smile. “You want me to have dinner with you?”

  “I want you to have dinner with me.”

  “And you want me to wear the dress I wore to the ball?” she notes and looks me over curiously.

  I bite down hard on my back teeth at being caught but smile that she was so observant.

  “I do,” I answer. “What can I say? I liked the way you looked in it.”

  It represents a time when I couldn’t have her. She was untouchable, just like her father. I was the boy again, poor in a different sort of way, looking on at something I couldn’t have. I’ll admit it.

  If circumstances were different and she weren’t who she is, and her fucking father weren’t who he is, I would have bid on her. I would have bid on her and made sure I got her.

  But look at me now.

  “Why didn’t you talk to me at the ball?” she asks. The question completely throws me.

  I chuckle, deep and low. “No…” I shake my head at her.

  “No to what.”

  “We’re not those people. I’m not a man w
ho will fight for you, Emelia Balesteri. Your father kept you in the dark. But you are just as evil as he is to me, which makes you nothing. Do not make the mistake of thinking we’re anything more than what we are. We are not. You are not.”

  Her eyes brim with tears. I feel like shit, but needs must.

  “Take off the sheet and put on the dress,” I instruct, and for the first time, she listens and doesn’t argue.

  She allows the sheet to fall from her, revealing her nakedness to me. I look her up and down. My cock hardens. I’ve never seen a more perfect woman. Everything about her is perfect. Everything. Including her soul. I don’t know how Riccardo created a such a being. She must take after her mother.

  I smile when she looks at me. Her cheeks flush. Her nipples turn hard, and the heft of her breasts bounces as she bends down to put her panties on.

  She puts on the bra and then her dress. Then the shoes. Her hair is in a ponytail though. I want it down, just like it was at the ball.

  “Take your hair down,” I say. Again, she does as she’s told.

  The tumble of dark locks flows down her shoulders. She tucks a lock behind her ear. I thought that was the style, but it seems to be something she does out of habit.

  I put out my hand to her, and she takes it. My hands swallow hers right up. She feels small next to me.

  We leave the room. I realize this is the first time we walk together in this hall. Manni brought her here on Saturday night, and the only interaction we’ve had is in that room.

  Despite the hold I have on her, the dullness in her mood, and the way I tainted anything we shared last night, she seems taken with the place.

  She looks at the design and the décor of the corridor. On this side of the house, I have a balcony that overlooks the ground floor, and the entire ceiling is made of glass.

  The floor is marble throughout the whole house but changes to stone when we step out to the terrace.

  As we step into the night, the cool night air lifts her hair, and it caresses her skin.

  The long dinner table by the fountain is set. Both Priscilla and Candace are standing by, waiting to serve us.

  The feast on the table looks amazing. It’s all my favorites. I hope Emelia doesn’t give me any hassle tonight.

  Priscilla smiles when we approach, and Emelia does too. It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile. It’s a pretty sight.

  “Wow, look at you,” Priscilla beams. “You look absolutely stunning,” she adds. Candace nods her agreement.

  “Thank you,” Emelia replies.

  They both look like they want to continue conversation with my bride-to-be, but when they see the stern expression on my face, they know they mustn’t. The mood shifts instantly as they both look at me.

  “Well, if there’s nothing more you need, we’ll go,” Candace says.

  “There’s nothing more I need. You may take your leave,” I dismiss them, and they leave us.

  I pull out a chair for Emelia to sit. She does. I won’t give her the ring yet.

  “Thank you,” she says but doesn’t look at me.

  I sit at the head of the table right across from her. It’s too far away, but it works. I want to look her right in the eye when I talk to her and tell her what’s happening next.

  She scans her surroundings and gazes over the sea. In the moonlight it looks like one of her paintings. I wonder what it is she sees when she looks at it. Ma used to say that a real artists see the world through different eyes.

  “What is it?” I ask, startling her.

  She returns her focus to me and shakes her head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

  “No? You look like you saw something.”

  “I did. I just don’t wish to share my vision with you,” she answers and sits back in her chair.

  “Eat.”

  She starts to serve herself food. It’s not a lot, but at least she’s taking it.

  When her plate is full, she sets down her fork and looks to me, her lips parted, readying to ask me a question I know I probably won’t answer.

  “What did my father do to you?” she says.

  I was right. I won’t answer that question. “That’s a matter for another night.”

  “Why? Don’t you think I should know why I’m here? I think I deserve to know why my life was stolen from me and why I deserve this. You know stuff about me, don’t you? You know who I am and what I am. You know who my friends are. Heck, you knew I was heading to Italy last Sunday and stopped me in my tracks. I worked so hard to get into the Accademia. I worked so hard… and the best thing happened to me when they accepted me. You took it all away. I want to know why.”

  As the words fall from her lips, I ask myself that question again. Of who I am and what I’ve become. What kind of man have I become to do this to an innocent?

  As I look at her, though, as I take in her beauty, I remind myself of the mission and the plan. That same beauty is part and parcel of all Riccardo Balesteri owned. The beautiful woman before me is indeed an asset.

  “What did he do to you?” she asks again, her voice demanding.

  “He took everything from me and made sure my family had nothing,” I answer, speaking words I’ve never had to share with anyone. Anybody who knows us already had a good idea of what happened, even if they didn’t know the gory details.

  “So, that’s my fault, and I have to suffer for what he did?” she retorts.

  “Art of war. Sometimes things happen and the good have to suffer for the bad.”

  “That’s bullshit. How dare you say such a thing to me? Look at this place. You have so much. You took so much, and now you’ve taken me to screw with my father. How could you be so wicked? You have so much money.”

  “Money is not everything, Princesca. It can’t bring the dead back.” She swallows her words. “Enough. We aren’t talking about this anymore.”

  I don’t want to, not with her. Not with anyone.

  I stand up, walk back to her, and pull out the box with her ring inside it. She winces when she sees it, but I don’t miss the way her eyes sparkle with surprise when I pop the box open and she looks at the ring inside.

  It’s the beauty of it. Even she can’t resist looking at it for what it is.

  “Give me your left hand.” Her features become stony. “Emelia, don’t make me ask again.”

  She puts out her hand. I take the ring and slip it on her ring finger, feeling the tremble in her hand.

  She stares at the ring, closes her eyes tightly, and when she opens them, tears again stream down her cheeks.

  “I don’t understand why you’d get something so beautiful for someone you think is nothing,” she states. I grit my teeth pushing aside the emotion that’s threatening to break free and crack the wall around my heart. “Can I go back to my room, please?”

  “You haven’t eaten.”

  “I’m not hungry,” she breathes. “Can I go?”

  “Yes.”

  She stands, readying herself to flee, but I catch her wrist and hold her in place.

  “You’ll pick your dress tomorrow. The seamstress will be here at midday. Make sure you’re ready.”

  I release her. She doesn’t answer. She just walks away, and I stare after her.

  I wanted to be firm with her tonight, but I feel like the ruthless, heartless bastard I’ve trained so hard to be. I should congratulate myself. I made it.

  I should be proud.

  I just don’t feel it because I like her too.

  Chapter Twelve

  Massimo

  Tristan walks into my office with a stern expression on his face.

  He messaged an hour ago requesting we meet as soon as possible. I had a meeting with some of our top investors, which I rearranged because I know when my brother requests to meet like this, it’s serious.

  He skips past pleasantries and stalks to my desk. From the inside of his black biker jacket he takes out a white envelope and sets it down before me.

  “You need to see this,
” he states with a firm nod and an etch in his jaw.

  I open the envelope straightaway and pull out a picture. My hands tense up when I see who’s on it.

  It’s a man called Vlad Kuznetsov. He’s a Brava assassin who belongs to a group of assassins called the Circle of Shadows. More importantly, he’s supposed to be dead. I should know. I helped killed him, or so I thought.

  “Where did you get this?” I ask.

  Tristan pulls up a chair and sits. I expect the ashen look on his face. It was him who pulled the trigger. One lone bullet to the heart that should have killed the bastard who murdered his wife. Why am I looking at a picture of this man? A very recent photo, given the fucking date.

  “Dominic,” Tristan says, running a hand over his beard.

  The one-word answer is enough because Dominic can find shit you don’t even know is happening. Like this.

  Tristan sighs and straightens up. “Our guys found Pierbo’s stuff in a dumpster near the docks. Some burned some not. A camera was amongst them. Smashed and burnt to a fucking crisp. Dominic was able to get the image from the chip. Massimo, look at the date when the picture was taken.”

  I do again. My eyes snap wide when I realize it was Saturday. The date Pierbo supposedly killed himself.

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  Vlad and his band of assassins are known enemies to anyone in the Italian Mafia and those in the Bratva who don’t fall part of his circle. Those of the Bratva who link up with them are few and far between.

  “If he’s here, someone hired him,” I point out.

  “Don’t I fucking know it. Fucking hell, Massimo. This knocked me for six. I thought I got this guy. I thought I killed his ass, yet here he is. I already felt like shit because he was the hand that dealt the blow to my Alyssa. But I never got the man who ordered the hit on her.”

  I feel his pain as he speaks. Five years have passed, but I know he still feels the pain. Alyssa’s head was delivered to him in a box.

  Mortimer Viggo is the elusive leader of the Shadows. None of us have ever seen him, and nobody knows how to find him. If Vlad is here, alive and well, Mortimer sent him. Just like he did when he sent him to kill Alyssa.