Kiss Of Death: A Dark Mafia Romance

Una

I feel the warm, solid chest beneath my cheek and listen to the strong, rhythmic heartbeat pounding like a steady drumbeat. Safety, familiarity, warmth…things I crave. Things I will never again have other than here, in my dreams with the boy I loved. It’s been a long time since I dreamt of him. The weight shifts beneath me and my semi-dreamlike state starts to shatter. I don’t want it to. Desperately, I try to cling to it, but the morning always comes eventually.

“Alex?” I croak, wrapping my arm more tightly around him.

“Guess again.”

I jolt awake and the second I realise there’s a body in the bed with me, I’m on the defensive. Reaching under my pillow, I grab my knife, before throwing myself on top of the hard body beside me. Nero doesn’t even open his eyes but a wide grin works over his lips as I run the blade along his jawline. He slept in my bed! Anger has never been a problem for me. Emotions are simply a forced response born of attempting to appear normal to the outside world. But ever since he brought up Anna, I’ve been out of control. I feel too much. I would say it’s just her, but I don’t think it is. He has the ability to rile me where no one else ever has. He brings things out in me that I didn’t even think existed. I feel like a ball of thread and Nero is just pulling and pulling, unravelling me. And eventually, all that will be left is a tangled mess, impossible to put back together again. He scares me, and I long for my cold indifference, my dark hole where nothing and no one can possibly touch me. His eyes flash open, ensnaring me instantly.

“Careful, Morte.”

“Or what?”

He grips my hips and his body rolls beneath me, pressing his hard dick right into the apex of my thighs. Warmth unfurls low in my stomach, and I frown. One of his hands wraps around the back of my neck and he wrenches me forward until we’re face-to-face, the blade between us. My heart pounds in my chest and I close my eyes for a second, listening to that rhythmic pulse hammering in my ears. Life. Electricity.

“Look at me,” he demands. I meet that dark gaze of his, normally so calculating. The whisky colour of his irises swirl, morphing into a honey gold. Wrapping his fingers around my wrist, he squeezes hard and forces the blade away from his throat. I swallow heavily, dragging in much needed oxygen. It’s like he’s vacuuming all the air from the room with just a look. My mind flashes to that kiss yesterday. I only wanted to render him weak, but the brutal brush of his tongue, the way he takes without apology…I’ve never felt so out of control, and I’ve never wanted that lack of control so much.

His thumb brushes over the side of my neck just as I feel the sharp scratch of the blade over my collar bone. Perhaps I should feel threatened, but I don’t. Everything slows and I smile as I stop thinking, and just feel. I feel the frantic rush of adrenaline and desire swirling and mixing into something so potent, it cripples me.

My entire being focuses on the exact point where his hot skin presses against the insides of my thighs, where the blade ominously lingers. His free hand glides over my thigh and I grit my teeth, fighting my quickening breaths. I tell myself to pull away, because part of me wants to walk this line with him. A gasp tears past my lips when his fingertips brush the seam of my underwear. His gaze brands me as he studies my every move, every tremble, every desperate breath. When his fingers slip beneath the thin material, my hand darts out, grabbing his arm and forcing him to pause. Cocking a brow at me, he twists my wrist, causing the blade, still clutched in my fingers, to drag over my chest in a burning line. My breath hitches and blood wells before spilling slowly over my skin. My grip on him softens enough that he brushes over my wet pussy, leaving me physically shaking as the opposing voices in my head reach a crescendo. The moonlight spilling through the windows plays over the smirk on his lips before he roughly presses two fingers inside me. My eyelids shutter on a ragged breath.

"Fucking look at me." His voice rumbles through the darkness and my eyes snap open.

He holds me hostage, watching me as he pulls his fingers out and then thrusts back in. My mouth falls open on a silent moan that hitches in my throat and everything slips away. Logic and reason cease to exist and all that matters is that he makes me feel this need; he makes me want him in this all-consuming way. Nero is danger and lust, rage and desire and I shouldn’t like it, but I do. Our eyes lock as his fingers move inside me, sending me hurtling towards a precipice. The knife digs into a point in the centre of my sternum and heat tears through me as the thrusting becomes more aggressive. My core tenses just as a moan slips past my lips.

"Come for me, Morte." He groans and the intensity presses in on me until I fall apart, feeling his eyes on me and moaning incoherently as my nails claw over his skin.

I remain there, on my knees, my hands braced against his solid chest as I attempt to catch my breath. I’ve never felt anything like that, never felt so completely owned by someone. The knife disappears and he brings his fingers to his lips, smearing moisture over them before sliding them in his mouth. My heart stutters over itself, and I’m caught between being embarrassed and consumed with a debilitating want. I can’t take my eyes off his mouth as his tongue flashes out over his lips. Then he pushes up off the mattress until our faces are a mere breath apart, his lips brushing over mine teasingly. His tongue strokes over my bottom lip until all I can taste is myself. His cock is pressing against me and it has me faltering, the trance slipping.

“I…” I start, but I have no words. Climbing off him, I rush for the bathroom, seeking some space, some clarity. I go to slam the bathroom door but he’s there, blocking it.

“Don’t do that shit,” he says calmly, the desire I saw in his eyes only seconds ago replaced with a simmering anger.

“Get the fuck out, Nero,” I snap.

“Who’s Alex?” he asks.

What the fuck? The mention of his name has memories flashing through my mind in a burst of images. Brown eyes, an easy smile, safety, warmth, love, and then horror and heartbreak, death and destruction.

“Someone I killed.”

Nero watches me through narrowed eyes and his jaw sets in a hard line. I don’t want to talk to him about Alex, because in a strange way he reminds me of him. It’s the eyes; they have the exact same colored eyes. That’s where the similarity ends though. Alex was kind and good. Nero is bad and cruel. Alex was the light to my dark. Nero would be the pitch-black shadows that linger even in the darkness, calling to me, enticing me.

We stare at each other for a few seconds before I cock a brow at him. “I need to shower.” The numbers on the bedside clock glow, showing that it’s only five thirty in the morning, but I don’t care. I’ll take any excuse to get away from him.

“Tommy’s busy today, so I’m taking you to a meeting with me,” he says out of the blue.

I want to tell him to stick it, because I’m not one of his soldiers, but honestly, the thought of getting out of this apartment is far too good to pass up.

“Fine. Now, get out.” He drags his eyes over my body without an ounce of shame and then turns and leaves. Sighing, I brace my hands against the vanity, staring at my reflection in the mirror. I jagged line runs from my collar bone to the centre of my chest, just above my tank top. It’s just a scratch, and it’s nearly stopped bleeding already.

I don’t want to think about Nero and what just happened in there. It’s more concerning to me that I thought he was Alex. That’s disturbing on so many levels, but mostly because Alex was the only person who ever made me feel safe, an instinctual bone-deep safety, an implicit level of trust. Nero made me feel that same safety for just a few seconds, and I don’t like it because it feels like he’s taking something from Alex, something he has no right to take. Alex may be long gone, but he will always be that boy for me, he has always been ‘the one’. Some people have a past, demons…mine ride on my shoulder constantly waiting for an opportunity to take a bite. I’ve done awful things, and truthfully, I tell myself that I did them to survive, because I had to, but there is no such thing as having to. There is always a choice. I chose to survive, whatever the cost, even when it cost Alex’s life. What is the price of one human soul? Because I’m sure by now I don’t have one. Any soul I do have left I’m willingly selling to Nero. If the devil were a person then it would undoubtedly be him.

I spend a couple of hours in my room, avoiding Nero. He’s waiting in the kitchen with an espresso in his hand, wearing a suit that hugs every graceful line of his body. I wonder if anyone actually falls for his sophisticated façade. Don’t get me wrong, he’s intelligent and a shrewd negotiator, not to mention manipulative, but beneath all the cunning civilities he’s feral and blood thirsty, the most basic of animal qualities. I’ve never felt that more than when his eyes were on me and his fingers in me, his name on the tip of my tongue. I want to be appalled by him, but the worse his is, the more captivated by him I seem to become. His eyes flick up briefly and he studies me while sipping on his coffee. A small frown line sets between his brows.

“If you even think about asking me to dress like that…” I point at him. “I’m going to cut you.” His lips twitch and he wisely keeps his mouth shut. Pulling the clip out of my gun, I place it on the breakfast bar, loading three more bullets into it then clicking it back into place. I can feel his eyes on me.

“What?” I growl without looking up.

“This isn’t really a gun kind of meeting.”

Placing my gun in my holster, I lift my gaze to him. “It’s that kind of attitude that will get you killed.”

When we get to the parking garage, Tommy is leaning against a black Range Rover. He grins at me. “Una, you are looking ravishing today.”

“Fuck off.”

Laughing, he opens the back door of the SUV, but Nero places his hand on the small of my back, leading me away. I quickly shrug off his touch, glancing over my shoulder to see the dogs jump in the SUV.

“First babysitting me, now you have him chauffeuring your dogs.” I snort. “What did he do to piss you off?” The lights on a black Maserati flash and I go to the passenger door.

Nero glances at me over the top of the car, his expression its usual unreadable mask. “It keeps him out of trouble.”

I get in the car as he slides behind the wheel. “Better to find trouble than be driving dogs around.”

The engine purrs to life. “In this city, there is nothing more dangerous than being Irish and Italian,” he says quietly.

“You care about him.”

“In order to lead you must be loyal to those who follow you. My guys work for me, and I protect them.” He reverses the car out and puts it back in gear. “That’s the mafia.”

There’s something about him that has me perplexed. The mafia would never truly accept Tommy. Like I said, they’re all about bloodlines. And from what I know of Nero, he’s not exactly popular in the mafia himself. Respected? Yes. Feared? Certainly. Liked? No. I still haven’t worked out what his play on this entire situation is, and with my sister in the balance, I want to know.

“Is that what all this is about, the mafia?” I ask, feigning only vague interest. “Your loyalty to them?” The muscles in his jaw tighten and then spasm beneath his skin. He says nothing, so I ramp up the pressure. “You’ve managed to climb pretty high…for a bastard.” The second I speak the words I feel the air shift, like the crackle of electricity in the atmosphere before a storm. Outwardly, he doesn’t move. His gaze remains fixed on the road, but his posture tenses, his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.

“Stop talking, Una,” he says on a low growl.

I’m close. “I want to know what a bastard enforcer is doing with the underboss of the Italian mob. I want to know how someone of your stature was able to dig up my sister. How is it that you have your own brother killed and manage to walk into being capo?” The car slams to a halt before we even exit the parking garage, thrusting me forward against my seatbelt. We sit for a second, the engine idling, and neither of us saying anything. He turns that icy glare on me, pinning me to the spot.

“If I wanted you to know anything, I would have told you. I don’t trust you, Morte.”

“And you’re not telling me anything, so I don’t trust you.”

He smirks. "Just remember that this situation is mutually beneficial. I don’t give a fuck if you trust me, I don’t need you to, you don’t need me to. Simply trust in the fact that I have something you want and you have something I need."

"Lies. You don't need me. My bullet or yours, they both end the same way. You need someone to blame. I'm not sure whether I should be offended or flattered that I'm the one whose back you've decided to put a target on."

His eyes trace over my face, my lips, my throat. I feel like a rabbit caught in a trap, waiting for the big bad wolf to take a bite. "You're everyone's exception," he says simply.

"What?"

"Arnaldo, Nicholai, the cartel...they all turn a blind eye to you."

I lift my chin defiantly. "Because I'm neutral. I told you, I don't take sides."

"You're not taking sides now."

Oh, but I am. For Anna. And for all of me saying I don't trust Nero, weirdly, I think I do. Every rational fiber of me knows he's dangerous. Every ingrained piece of training is screaming that I know better. And yet...aren’t we already allies in a twisted way? I killed his brother and essentially made him capo. He found my sister where I never could, and now we’re here, bartering, tentatively trying to outmaneuver each other. The thing is, I trust him more because he’s blackmailing me. I may not understand his motivations, but I know that he wants something and is prepared to give in exchange. It’s a simple concept.

"And now my sister is in hell, but you won’t help her until I kill your list, all of whom are practically untouchable.”

“If there is one thing I have witnessed in this world, it’s the lengths people will go to for love. Even death herself is affected by its illness,” he says coldly.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing to get Anna back?”

“No, just know that I can pull strings and reach people that you couldn’t hope to yourself.” He leans in, stroking a finger down my cheek. I tear my face away from him but he grips my jaw, dragging my face towards him. If I wanted to, I could break his wrist, but I don't. All I should feel is hate, and loathe his touch, but I don’t, because when he touches me like this, I don’t feel the usual ingrained instinct to kill. It’s as though all my conditioning can be overridden by his cruelty. It’s a strange thing, to never be able to tolerate human touch. And the second that I can, I crave it, no matter its form. Nero is this warped exception to everything I know, as though he is above the law of physics themselves.

“And now I’m your Russian dog, chained and leashed, doing your bidding," I whisper.

He drags me to him, brushing his lips over mine. "You're not a dog, Una. You're a dragon, a thing of myth and whispers." His teeth graze my bottom lip and a ragged breath falls from my lips. "You ask me what I want. It’s simple. I want power. With you, I will burn everything to the ground." A maniacal smile works over his lips and that darkness of his calls to me on every level, to the monster that I am. His fingers squeeze harder, forcing my head back. I relish in the touch because it's hard and angry, passion laced with hate.

“How?”

“Power is nothing more than a game of strategy, a chessboard. You are my queen, Morte, the most valuable piece on the board.”

“Queen protects king,” I whisper. Or in this case, the queen is a body shield for the king.

“Queen takes all.” His fingers dig into my cheeks before his lips press against mine, rough and brief before he shoves me away from him like an unwanted toy.