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

by Faith Summers

  “Let go of me! Get your hands off me!” I cry, trying to free myself from his grasp.

  “No, I’m afraid I can’t do that. You’re needed as payment. Part of the grand plan. There’s one more contract for you to sign. Cross me, and you’ll end up like her,” he jeers, flipping me around.

  He forces me to walk around the counter. I scream when I see Priscilla lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Bullet holes riddle her body.

  I scream and cry, shaking my head.

  “No! How could you? How could you do this to her?”

  “Save your tears, Emelia D’Agostino. There’s worse to come. Wait until you see what I did to Massimo.”

  Terror claws its way through me when he laughs, crude and hard.

  I’m taken away, taken off the property, and no one says anything. Of course, they wouldn’t. I’m with Andreas. Massimo’s brother, one of the most trusted people who could come and go as they please.

  Vlad disguises himself with a large pair of Oakleys and a hooded sweatshirt. He slips into the back of the black Sedan quite comfortably. Any of the guards or soldiers who saw him wouldn’t have seen his face properly, but again, they wouldn’t dare question Andreas.

  When Andreas tells the men at the gate that Massimo asked him to take me to see him, no one questions him. It makes sense that I would be with his brother. That he got his older brother to escort me with his guard.

  I keep wondering where the guards on surveillance are. Who’s watching? Then it hits me that Andreas could have easily done something to the stop anyone from seeing what he was up to. That’s the only thing that makes sense. It will only be when someone discovers Priscilla’s body in the kitchen that they’ll know. Even then, they’ll never guess that Andreas could have killed her. I’m still in shock. People I get close to keep dying. I can’t take it anymore. What will I do if something happens to Massimo?

  That’s why I keep quiet as Andreas leads me out. I’m too afraid to breathe. The leverage they have over me is death. Not to me. No, they have plans for little old me, so I mustn’t die. They’re threatening to kill Massimo. I don’t know if they even have him, but I comply because I can’t go on what I don’t know. I have to take this risk, throw myself in harm’s way to make sure nothing happens to him.

  We drive off the property easily. I’m quiet for the whole journey, trembling under Vlad’s stare as he looks at me the whole time.

  I endure two hours of his leer. Him looking at me, licking his lips as he stares at my breasts, undressing me with his eyes. He says nothing the whole time. It’s when we pull up outside the entrance of an old mine shaft when he suddenly grabs my arm and pulls me to him so he can smell my hair.

  “I’m going to have so much fun with you, my pretty,” he says, licking my ear. “I will fuck you all six ways to Sunday on your knees. I’ll fuck every hole in your body and make sure that pretty little mouth of yours is always full of my cock, and whoever else I tell you to suck.”

  I shake and try to hold back tears.

  It’s him who practically drags me out of the car. We’re near the mountains, but I don’t know exactly where we are. There’s a sign ahead saying Danger Keep Out, yet they both usher me inside the mouth of the cave.

  While the outside of the cave looks like it should be deserted, I see that a whole operation is set up inside once we move deeper inside. We walk through a metal door. There are men everywhere. Some sitting at computers, others milling about. Everything so organized. They look like they’ve been in this hideout for months.

  I’m led up a set of stairs and into an office space. The man who wears the face of my father stands by a bookcase and turns around to look at me.

  He smiles. I shake my head at him.

  “Welcome, my daughter. I told you I was working on a way to get you back. Good news, here you are,” he declares.

  “You evil bastard!” I scream. “I can’t believe this is you. What happened to you?”

  He laughs. “Nothing, my child. Nothing happened to me. I haven’t changed one bit. I guess maybe I was different when it came to you. But needs must. Being successful means knowing when you have to make certain sacrifices to increase wealth,” he explains, as if that’s a good enough explanation.

  “So, you wanted to sell me to this madman,” I snap. Vlad tightens his hold on me.

  “Watch it, girlie. You don’t know who the fuck you’re dealing with. I’ll cut out your tongue and feed it to you,” Vlad threatens.

  Andreas chuckles and walks inside to grab a drink of scotch.

  “Emelia, you will do as I say. I’m lucky to have found a buyer for you who won’t mind that you’ve been defiled by that scum,” Dad says, and my heart squeezes. “I trust you’ve met your brother,” he adds, as if we’re talking about the weather.

  Andreas tips his head and knocks back his drink.

  When I don’t answer, Dad pulls out a contract from an envelope on the desk and holds it up. When Vlad marches me over to him, I see it’s a copy of the contract I saw the other night.

  “I’m not signing anything,” I bark. Disgust churns my stomach as I recall the contract’s wording.

  “You will sign it,” Dad says with confidence.

  I’ve wondered how he thought he was going to get me to sign it in the first place. That was what was supposed to happen to me if Massimo hadn’t come along.

  “No, I won’t. You can’t do this to me. I’m not a thing.” Déjà vu. I’ve said this before several times. It’s happening again. “I’m married.”

  “We’ll see about that. Give her to me. We’ll see what she says after she sees what I’ve done to her husband,” Dad states.

  There’s a difference about him that’s terrifying. Even his voice sounds different.

  Vlad hands me over to my father, who takes hold of my arm roughly. We walk through another door, and I see an open space that looks like an area where people used to work in the mines.

  There’s a pit. Dad takes me to the steps leading into the pit, and I gasp when I see what’s down below. It’s Massimo. He’s attached to two metal poles with chains around his wrists. He’s shirtless, but there’s so much blood on his chest that it covers all his tattoos. He looks like he’s been beaten near death. His face is battered and bruised.

  “He said I had to tie him up to beat him. That’s true,” Dad states. “I did, but I did it in a more clever way. Everyone has a price, my girl. I got a man he trusted with his life and his empire to betray him. His own brother, who was so neglected and overlooked. That is the only way you can get to a man like that. Full of hate and rage it almost makes him invincible. Almost and never. You will sign the contract because he is your price.”

  I turn my head and look at Dad. He nods, and I burst into tears.

  “If you don’t sign, I’ll kill him. Sign, and he might have a chance if we let him go.”

  He releases me, and I run down to Massimo.

  “Massimo!” I cry.

  He lifts his bloodied head. His eyes widen at the sight of me.

  “No, you can’t be here,” he manages.

  I touch his face. Blood stains my hands. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you, Princess. I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I breathe. I didn’t know that when he left this morning, it going to be the last morning we’d spend together. I won’t let him die. I won’t allow him to suffer if I can do anything about it.

  “I—” he cries out when a whip lands hard across his back.

  I scream, shaking my head, when I look up and see Vlad behind him getting ready to strike him again.

  Another powerful blow lands on Massimo’s back, causing his knees to buckle. Dad laughs and comes closer.

  Vlad strikes Massimo again, and again, and again.

  My breath stills. I feel like I might fade away.

  “Want it to stop?” Dad asks. “He’s strong, but even he has a limit.”

  “I’ll sign,” I answer wea
kly.

  Dad makes a mockery of me when he places his hand to his ear and leans in closer, pretending he can’t hear me.

  Massimo gets another hit and cries out loud.

  “What was that, Emelia?” Dad says.

  “I’ll sign!” I scream. Dad takes my arm again.

  With a bright smile on his face, he takes me away from my love. I look back at Massimo.

  That’s the last time I’ll see him. The last time I’ll tell him I love him.

  The last time I’ll feel love for anybody.

  My father leads me away to the fate that awaits. Death.

  It can only be that. I’ll be sold to a madman who will kill me when he decides he wants my life to be over.

  Chapter Forty

  Massimo

  At least I got to see her again.

  One more time.

  I’ll take that as my final memory. Her beautiful face. Her beautiful tear-stained face and whiskey-colored eyes. Love filling those eyes for me as she told me she loved me. I can’t believe I fought so hard not to fall for her. I tried my best not to love her.

  I kept seeing her as the enemy’s daughter. She was never that. Who she is and what she is was right there in front of me the whole time. The woman I love. The girl of my dreams. They’re the same person.

  And no more.

  That was it, the last. They will kill me here. No matter what shit they promise to her, they will kill me here.

  Why? Because they had to tie me up to beat me.

  I can’t begin to process Andreas’ betrayal. I won’t waste time on it. I knew he would be angry that Pa didn’t choose him to take over as boss, but I never expected this. He stood there and allowed Riccardo to kill Pa. And he would have known that the devil was responsible for our mother’s death.

  That makes him dead to me.

  A crude laugh makes me lift my head. I see Vlad’s face looming before me.

  “Motherfucker,” I hiss, and he laughs louder.

  “Look at you thinking you’re still king. You aren’t,” Vlad taunts. “Couldn’t kill me the first time, couldn’t get me on the boat, and you definitely won’t now.”

  “How the hell did you escape the first?” I can barely talk, but fuck, do I ever want the answer to that.

  He fell off a fucking train with a bullet in his chest. He would have gone down into the river. He should be dead.

  “We Russian men are tough. But sometimes you have to lose to gain,” he says, rolling up the sleeve on his left arm.

  My eyes narrow when he reveals a robotic arm and smiles. His hand looks normal, but the rest is a titanium similar to what you’d see in a Terminator movie.

  “In the Circle of Shadows, we never give up on our own. The brotherhood found me, patched me up, and turned me into a freaking cyborg. Making me stronger than ever before.” He laughs as he glares at me. “I’m going to have fun torturing you to death, then I’m going to have fun fucking your wife to death. Then I’m going to have fun with all the wealth we currently own. Diamonds and money. Power.”

  “Fuck you,” I snarl.

  He sends a kick to my midsection. I double over, lurking against the chains on my wrists.

  “I’d love to see you try and fuck me, bastard dog. Come and try it. Make my day,” he jeers. He moves forward and pulls a knife from his pocket. “You people can’t leave well enough alone. Always taking what isn’t yours. This is the second time you people have done it to me.”

  Again, he’s talking about Alyssa. Alyssa and Emelia, both angels. My brother’s love and then my girl. What will he do to her?

  Alyssa was promised to his leader’s son, but Vlad was obsessed with her. He wanted her for himself and was only too happy to accept a job to punish her for breaking a contract. That’s what happened. She married Tristan, and this demon waited until her wedding night to steal her soul.

  “Neither of them belonged to you. Not Alyssa, and not Emelia.”

  “Wrong, always wrong, and I’ll get to prove it to your dead body every time I fuck your girl. The same way I fucked Alyssa until she couldn’t even move.” Again, he laughs.

  He inches closer and lowers his head to me but stops short when something pierces through his chest.

  I look and see the silver tip of an arrow poking out with blood on it.

  Before he can grab his chest, another arrow pierces through him in the same spot, and when I lift my head, I see Tristan leaping down into the pit. He launches himself into the air, folding into a somersault, and as he comes out of it, he pulls two knives out at either side of his legs and stabs Vlad right in his heart.

  Seconds, that’s how long it took to have the fiend on his knees with blood pouring from his body. He looks up at my brother with the same disbelief I do because I can’t believe the stunt I just saw him pull off. I can’t believe he found me. He found me, and he brought company.

  Dominic and a team of men storm the platform above. My gaze lands on Manni, who I nearly killed only days ago and threw off my property. The soldiers rush in with them. I hear bullets flying as my brothers and my men take down the bastards who are working for Riccardo and Vlad.

  But my eyes are locked on the scene before me. Vlad bleeding out.

  “You fucker,” he says to Tristan.

  “No, it’s you. This time, I’m going to make sure I kill you fucking dead. This is for my wife. You will not do the same to Emelia,” Tristan cries, and with that, he uses those same knives plunged deep in Alexei’s body and cuts his head off his miserable body.

  Both head and body fall to the ground in a bloody heap.

  Tristan spares him no time. He comes straight to me and shoots off the chains binding my wrists.

  Dominic joins him, and together they steady me as I stubble upon release.

  “Guys,” I rasp, feeling the deepest gratitude. “Thank you.” I look from one to the other.

  Tristan nods. Dominic looks worried at my appearance.

  “How the hell did you find me?” I ask.

  “The ring,” Dominic says. “There’s a tracker on it. Pa had it installed for safety. The guards alerted us after…” His voice trails off.

  “After what?” I ask

  “Priscilla… she’s… dead. And we think something’s going on with Andreas. He’s being used. He took Emelia. And there was a man with him.”

  I don’t know how I can tell them this truth, but I have to.

  “No, he’s working with them.”

  Both look shocked.

  “What?” Tristan says, shaking his head.

  “He’s working with them.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Where’s Pa, Massimo?” Dominic asks, ignoring what I confirmed about Andreas.

  It’s then that Tristan focuses on me.

  I shake my head. “Riccardo killed him. There’s a lot to tell you, but I have to get Emelia.”

  Riccardo has her.

  “Can you walk?” Tristan asks.

  “I can walk,” I answer, baring my teeth. I will walk.

  I can’t allow that bastard to walk out of this place with my girl and sell her to the next bidder. She’s my wife.

  I will die trying to get her back. Then I’m going after Andreas.

  He has a lot to answer for.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Emelia

  I signed the contract.

  One more contract of sale. This time as I sign, all traces of humanity leave me.

  Dad watches in excitement. Of course, he would. He’s going to be a rich man.

  He must be on cloud nine.

  Thirty million just for selling me, and all the syndicate’s wealth. I heard him talking to someone on the phone. I don’t know who it was, but they sounded like they were in on it. On this grand scheme of shit.

  “Wonderful. My dear girl. I never knew you’d be such an asset to me,” Dad says.

  “I don’t know how you could do this to me. How were you going to get me to sign this before? I was supposed to go to Flor
ence. What would have happened there?” I really want to know.

  “Your uncle was going to take care of it.”

  “How?” I push.

  “By threatening to kill you. Getting you to Florence was the easy part. You were so excited to go and fit right in. At least you would have gotten to go to school.” He raises his palms and shrugs.

  “My God. You are truly despicable. I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are. What else did you do, Dad?” I ask, narrowing my eyes. I have questions. Questions I want answers to before I’m taken away and there’s no one left to give them to me.

  “I did many things, Emelia.”

  “Were you responsible for Jacob’s death?” I ask outright. That’s the most important question on my mind. “Did you know he was going to die?”

  “Emelia, Jacob always had a habit of sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. I think he was my toughest kill,” he reveals. A cry falls from my lips.

  I’m so stupid. There I am, asking him if he knew Jacob was going to die when he was the one who killed him.

  Fuck… fucking hell.

  “You killed Jacob! Dad, you? It was you?”

  He actually looks a little sad.

  “I prayed at the wedding that he’d keep his mouth shut. I prayed he’d keep his nose out of shit it didn’t belong, but when it comes to you, that kid couldn’t see straight. Friendship and love. That was what he had for you. Even when he was warned by your beloved husband to keep out of trouble, that very same night, he went hurtling himself back into trouble’s arms. He heard too much. Saw too much when he saw me talking to Vlad. He knew about my plans to wipe out the syndicate. He had to die.”

  “You shot him. You killed Jacob.”

  “I did. Sad but true.”

  The door flies open, and Andreas rushes in.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” he urges in a hurried voice. “My brothers are here with a team of men. Think we might be outnumbered. Backup won’t get here on time.”

  “Fuck!” Dad snarls. “Where is Vlad?”