A ring bearing my family’s crest.
I slid it off his finger, swapping it out for the ring I always kept on my person as a reminder of my brother’s death.
Then, I held up the offending piece of jewelry so she could see my enemy’s insignia. “He’s a Bruno. Fighting with the in-laws so soon, Lily?”
Her face went slack with shock before she straightened her shoulders and zipped her lips closed to conceal it.
“How did you know about the engagement? You don’t strike me as the type to read the local gossip rags.”
“Oh, I’m not. The woman I fucked last night on the other hand…” I shrugged a shoulder and tried not to chuckle at her expression of faint disgust and lustful curiosity. “Or was it the one I fucked this morning?”
“Is that supposed to impress me?” She cocked her hip to the side, gun held loosely by her thighs like it was some designer bag and not a deadly weapon.
I stood up, stuck my hands in my pockets, and rocked back on my heels as I considered her. “The better question, delicate Lily, is whether the murder of this Bruno goon should impress me?”
“Why would I want to impress you?” she countered. “Besides, we don’t know he’s a Bruno.”
I tossed her the ring. “He’s wearing their insignia. It’s not exactly the ring you were expecting from your husband, was it?”
“He’s not my husband.”
“Yet,” I agreed.
She rolled her lips under her teeth, probably an effort to restrain herself from saying something a good Vitali daughter should not.
I nudged my toe against the body and whistled. “To think I believed the rumors…”
“Rumors?”
I smiled as she slid so prettily into my trap. “They say you’re a good girl, but I think this proves otherwise. I think you’re just begging for someone to corrupt you.”
“This was self-defense,” she argued, but her breath hitched when I stepped closer. The air between us went static with electricity. “Not some perverted cry for help.”
I reached out and caught a loose curl that had fallen over her cheek. The strand was soft as satin between my fingers. I wanted to know what all that silken hair would feel like wrapped around my fist while I broke in her virgin pussy from behind.
“Can’t it be both?” I asked softly. Intimately.
She blinked those huge golden-brown eyes up at me, lips parted in a plea her body understood, even though her mind rebelled against it.
“But really,” I continued and released her lock of hair to skirt the backs of my knuckles down the soft slope of her cheek. “Why would a man with more important things to do follow boring little you?”
Instantly, her eyes flashed. She stepped away from me, her lips twisted with hatred. “I’m not little or boring. He was threatening me!”
“Mhmm. I saw the whole thing, poisonous Lily. The poor man was just taking a post-dinner stroll to digest, and then bang! You turn around and shoot him dead.”
“He was stalking me,” she insisted with a stubborn tilt of her chin. “Would you rather see me raped or abducted?”
I clucked my tongue at her. “You’re marrying into the Bruno family. This man was probably sent to protect you.” I watched as the color drained out of her face. In this world, blood could only be repaid with blood, and she knew it. “Now what will you do? Your future husband cares for you so much he sent a man to look out for your welfare, and you kill him? Not exactly an auspicious start to your union.”
“He didn’t identify himself when he had the chance.”
“His orders were most likely to trail you silently and avoid detection. Pretty standard stuff.”
“What the fuck is this?” she demanded, tossing her hair like an angry mare. “An Amato defending a Bruno?”
“Ah, but you see, I’m an opportunist, sweet Lily.” I smiled, leaning so close to her mouth she swiped her tongue along her bottom lip in an unconscious quest to taste my own. “There are consequences to murder, even for a mafia princess like yourself. Especially when a marriage pact is on the line.”
Panic flashed bright as a lightning strike in her eyes. “What do you want?” Her hiss sent amusement through me.
Hook. Line. And sinker.
She was proving herself to be a smart girl and knew this conversation was leading toward a very specific end. Liliana Vitali had killed a man before my very eyes. If she wanted to get away with murder, I was the answer to that prize.
I wrapped my hand around her fragile wrist and brought it up between us, so I could pluck the Bruno ring from her palm.
“I’ll keep my mouth shut and help you dispose of the body,” I offered as if it was no big thing.
“For what price?” The wariness in her tone contrasted with the hint of an excited flush in her cheeks.
Perhaps there was a dirty girl under all that good girl class, just aching to be beholden to a man who would exploit all those naughty inclinations she secretly harbored at night with her hand between her untouched thighs.
“A date.”
Her eyes blew wide open. “Are you serious? You’d hide a body and cover up a murder that could probably serve you well with your family for a date?”
“Don’t be naïve, Lily.” I captured her chin between my fingers and leaned down to speak against the corner of her pink mouth. “It won’t be at all like the farce of a date you just endured with Tommy. In fact, it will be so much more than just bland conversation.”
She swayed forward, almost subconsciously, her mouth blooming open, breath hot across my skin as she panted softly, desperate for my kiss.
Instead, I angled my head and bit firmly into her bottom lip. She gasped when I drew blood, but I held her still with my hand on her face.
“Do we have a deal?” My cock swelled between us, blood heating at the sight of the blood pooling on her lower lip.
She swallowed hard. “I can clean this up myself.”
“Oh really?” My soft laughter brought ire within her eyes. “How?”
She shrugged with the attitude of a child. “I can roll up the body and throw it in the ocean.”
“Oh, the sweet idiocy of youth,” I taunted. “You weigh one hundred pounds soaking wet, little girl. How do you think you will lift his corpse? Even if you did get to the ocean, the tides will only carry the body back to the shore. Where will that leave you? No…” I smeared the blood over her lower lip with my thumb and watched as she trailed the path with her tongue. “You need me.”
“Just one date?” she inquired, breath shaky.
That’s all it would take.
“One date.” I sucked my thumb, slicked with her blood, into my mouth and watched her lids lower with desire.
The salt tang of her made me hungry for the taste of her untried pussy. The vicious lust this slip of a girl inspired in me gave me momentary pause.
I’d bedded dozens of women, tasted their sex and the blush of their desire, gorged myself on their bodies in ways this girl couldn’t even dream of. Yet, it was her who turned my blood to lava and my resolve to volcanic ash.
I moved away before that lust overtook my rationale and bent to deal with the poor man who’d been playing dead for the last twenty minutes, probably with bruised ribs beneath that bulletproof vest of his.
Because he was not, in fact, a Bruno.
He was an Amato.
My Amato.
A poor cousin of mine, who I’d roped into my nefarious plan to get the lovely Liliana in my debt.
A plan that had gone off now without a hitch.
If I didn’t know better, the fake blood pooling beneath his stomach would have fooled me. Lucky for us, she’d gone for center mass instead of a headshot.
“Do you regret killing him?” I asked her, my loud voice muting his soft, pained exhale as I threw his weight up over my shoulder and carried him toward my car.
“Regret is a useless emotion.”
And that response should have been my warning. The big red
flag that told me Liliana Vitali would be a bigger problem than I’d given her credit for. She possessed a spine of steel hidden in that petite body.
Liliana followed me to the Bugatti I’d parked at the mouth of the road earlier and watched me shove the body into the trunk and slam the door shut.
Her words echoed in the abandoned street.
Regret is a useless emotion.
I doubted she would feel that way when I was through with her.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lily
For all intents and purposes, my family appeared normal.
We went to church, watched every Juventus F.C. game that aired in the living room, and ate dinner together every night. The one flaw—the single loose thread among our designer lives—was the empty seat at the dinner table. One we set every night, food piled high on the plate.
With each bite, I felt Carlotta’s absence as if it had happened yesterday. It was sad, and depressing, and a reminder of what should be there but wasn’t.
But that wasn’t what bothered me tonight.
Neither was the threat of blackmail looming over my head.
It was my phone, empty except for a few needy texts from my husband-to-be. Frankie Amato had extorted a date from me, yet he hadn’t bothered to ask for my number or give me a place and time.
Was this what crushes felt like? Waiting for a call with baited breath like something out of a teenybopper love song? I was better than this.
“What’s wrong, Lily?” Papà’s eyes shot to the empty chair. “You’ve been silent all dinner.”
Everything is wrong. My husband-to-be is duller than an unsharpened pencil. I killed a fucking Bruno. I’m being blackmailed by a man I don’t trust not to kill me. A man who probably won’t stop at just a date with me, which given my sister’s death, is proof history repeats itself.
And, worst of all, I want him to call me.
It’s the only thing I’m looking forward to these days.
I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I picked at the food on my plate, moving the pasta around without bringing it to my lips. “Just exhausted. I don’t feel well. May I return to my room to rest?”
“Yes, darling.” Papà nodded to the glass beside my plate. “Take your water with you. You haven’t drunk any all day.”
“Yes, Papà.”
I squeezed my mom’s hand, grabbed my glass, and downed it on the way to my room, setting it on the floor just outside my doorway. Frankie Amato was the first thing I saw when I opened the door. The empty packet of Kinder Bueno I kept in my nightstand drawer was a close second.
He laid on my bed, feet crossed at the ankles, flicking through T.V. channels like they were pages in a textbook he never bothered reading. He wore his dark hair messy, brown eyes fixated on the screen. A fitted button-down and designer slacks cased his muscular six-two frame. The sheer size of him consumed my bed.
I wanted to lick the dimple on his cheek. Tie him down on the bed and explore in ways I’d never been allowed to. Or maybe run for my life. I hadn’t decided yet.
My pulse thrummed against my neck.
Thrill. Excitement… Fear.
Frankie popped the last of my chocolate in his mouth, turned off the T.V., and tossed the remote on my bed. “People can see you from the street when you leave your window open.”
My eyes flicked to the open window and back to him, piecing things together. “I know.”
Had he watched me? If so, when?
He sat up, a touch of intrigue unfurling across his features. “You like being watched.”
I didn’t answer.
He continued, his amusement not dimming for a second, “Why don’t you put on a show for me right now?”
I watched as he took his time standing, paraded across my room as if he owned it, and entered my closet. “Why the hell would I do that?”
Aside from the fact that the idea intrigued me.
The Vitalis had made it clear that they expected my virginity. If their demands hadn’t sealed it, Carlotta’s death did. They say abstinence is the best birth control, but it left me curious, voyeuristic, and perpetually fixated on sex.
Frankie exited the closet, holding up the skimpiest dress I owned. One of Carlotta’s dresses, which she’d discarded in my closet and swapped for pajamas after sneaking into my room one night. I couldn’t bring myself to toss it or return it to her room.
He toyed with the lace strap. “Or I could go downstairs, join your family for dinner, and tell your dad how great it is that he’s passed down his murderous tendencies to his daughter. What’s for dinner?” He sniffed the air. “Pasta con le sarde? My favorite.”
“Liar.” I didn’t bother hiding my frown. “No one likes sardines.”
“Willing to bet on it?” He dangled the dress between us, getting beneath my skin like only he could.
I snatched it from his fingers, trying to control my errant heartbeat.
Fucking hell, calm down, Liliana.
I was half-convinced Frankie could see my heartbeat as I let my dress straps fall off my shoulders. The fabric pooled to the ground, revealing my braless chest. He stared at my nipples, fingers tapping at his side like he wanted to touch them.
Do it. I dare you.
Disappointment unfurled across my stomach when his hands remained by his sides.
Maybe I should have hurried and tossed the dress he’d chosen over my body, but I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to. Not when he’d issued a challenge, his arrogant tone suggesting he didn’t think I had the nerve to go through with it.
I did.
Proving that to him shouldn’t have mattered to me, but here I was, putting on a slow, teasing strip show for him.
I edged closer until my bare chest brushed against his clothed one. Turning around, I gave him my back, bent slowly to pick up the fallen dress, and pretended I didn’t notice my ass rubbing against his erection.
When I stood upright again, the heat of his breath met my nape. I tossed the worn dinner dress into my hamper by the door, turned, and pulled the scanty dress over my head and down my body.
Pretending I wasn’t affected was, perhaps, the greatest feat of acting ever performed. I tossed my hair over my shoulder and asked, “What are you doing here?”
His lips curved into a half-smile, just one corner, like he couldn’t be bothered with the effort to give me an actual smile. And just when I thought he’d respond—when a normal, polite person would respond—he gave me his back and left out my window without a word, as if he knew I’d follow.
What an ass.
I waited for him to reach the ground before I climbed down the trellis. He hadn’t extended me the same courtesy of waiting, so I ended up jogging across my yard and into his car, noting he hadn’t even opened the door for me.
There were flowers on my seat. It was such an unexpected gesture, I forgot to hide my smile.
He took one glance at me and said, “They’re not for you.”
I rolled my eyes, sat, and lifted the flowers to smell.
He tutted again, his habit of treating me like a dog rearing its ugly head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you… Unless you’d prefer death over marrying a Bruno…”
I lowered the flowers to my lap. “Excuse me?”
Would you judge me if I admitted that I was alone in a car with my blackmailer, afraid of him, yet in love with the thrill of it all?
Frankie started his car and took off, one hand on the wheel and another on the stick like something out of a James Dean movie. “They’re poisonous.”
“They look innocent.”
“So do you, but the body I cremated would argue otherwise. If he could speak, that is.”
I didn’t dignify that with a response. “Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer me, not like I expected anything different. He could be driving to a deserted area to kill me for all I knew.
When he stopped the car, he grabbed shot glasses and a bottle of Amaretto from the backseat, swung
his door open, and got out. “Bring the flowers.”
Hidden from his view, I plucked a bud from the cluster, pocketed it, and exited the car with the poisonous flowers clutched in my palm.
Only then did I realize where we were.
A cemetery.
CHAPTER FIVE
Frankie
I could feel her fear like a tangible thing, cool and diaphanous as the fog blanketing the tombstones in the family cemetery at the outskirts of town.
Her profile was a study in perfect proportions. She stared at the poisonous flowers and swallowed thickly. Once again, I had to bite back my smile.
There was something about the contrast of her. The sweetly naïve and the sassy stubbornness. The purity contrasted to the dark gleam of desire in her eyes when I took liberties with her.
She was complicated as a well-rounded Chianti. My curiosity to know if she tasted just as complex was beginning to overtake my better judgement.
Before I could reach out, pry her legs apart, and dip my hand beneath that scandalously short dress, I exited the car and barked at her to grab the flowers. I moved quickly through the tombstones lining the hill before the crypts began, not once looking over my shoulder to see if Liliana followed.
When I reached the door to my immediate family’s crypt, I turned only enough to snatch the lilies from her hand before unlocking and opening the heavy stone door.
She followed me into the dark, dank crypt, only the heavy, stuttering sound of her breath giving away her apprehension.
I continued to ignore her, kneeled, reverently brushed the cobwebs away from the face of my brother’s tombstone, and placed the flowers at its base.
Manuel Amato
1990-2018
My hand threatened to shake. I unscrewed the cap on the Amaretto and poured out two shots. I plucked a smooth white petal from the bouquet and set it atop the shot glass I placed in front of Manuel’s grave marker.
“I thought you said the flower was poisonous?” Lily finally asked, her voice timid under the press of fear and gloom of the tomb. “What if a groundskeeper or someone from your family comes to visit and drinks that?”
Tales of Darkness & Sin: An Anthology Page 9