Kiss Of Death: A Dark Mafia Romance

Nero

I watch as her face goes completely blank and the card slips from her fingers to the floor. I narrow my eyes and wait for her to say something, but instead she just turns and walks out of the room.

“Una?” I go after her. When I round the doorway I see her walking down the hall, her hand reaching for the gun in the back of her jeans. Where the fuck did she get a gun from? She gets to the front door, and my men scramble to stop her, but there’s something about the way she’s moving, like a predator on the hunt, that has me lifting my hand and waving them away. I can’t afford to lose good men to her temper.

“Nero?” Gio asks from behind me.

“I’ve got this. Try and find out where that package came from. I want to know who delivered it,” I say without stopping.

I follow Una out the front door and she stalks towards the gate just replaced this morning, after her attempted escape. Again, I wave off my guys and they open the gate, allowing her out. She never breaks stride, never so much as acknowledges them as she walks out the gate and hooks left into the woods.

“Put the entire property on lock down. No one gets within a hundred yards of the gate,” I say to the guard.

“Yes, boss. Do you need help?” he asks, glancing after Una.

“No. Give me your gun.” He quickly places his gun in my waiting palm, and I follow her into the woods.

Losing sight of her for a moment, I panic, thinking that she’s run again, but then I hear a gun shot ahead of me. I take off at a sprint towards the sound of the shot and stop when I reach a small clearing in the woodland. Una stands in the middle, gun raised as she fires at a tree. What the fuck is she doing?

Slowly, I approach her as she fires off round after round, emptying the clip. Her hand drops to her side and silence descends, falling over us like a blanket. I move in front of her. She’s standing as still as a statue, even her breaths are barely distinguishable. Her eyes are closed and her expression almost serene.

“Morte?”

Her eyes flash open and there’s nothing there. She looks exactly as she did all those months ago: dead, inhuman, emotionless. She tilts her head to the side and it only adds to her animalistic quality. I’ve always had a healthy respect for this side of her, even as I’m attracted to it. This is the part of her that will sever a man’s head without blinking, and if that isn’t hot, then I don’t know what is. I stroke her cheek gently. Again, her eyes close and she leans into my touch, releasing a long breath. I pull her closer and she surprises me by pressing her lips to mine. Her tongue brushes my bottom lip, and that’s when I feel the barrel of her gun press into my stomach. Pulling back, my gaze locks with hers, our faces barely an inch apart.

“Are you going to shoot me, Morte?”

Her expression is blank again, completely indifferent. Damn, she’s good. “He’s coming,” she says, her eyes going distant.

“Who’s coming?”

She doesn’t answer, so I grab her face, forcing her to focus on me. She presses the gun harder into my stomach. “Who?”

“Nicholai. He knows. He’s coming for us.” She clenches her teeth and a deep frown etches into her features. “He’ll never stop now. There is nowhere I can hide, nowhere I can run. Even if I go to him, it won’t be enough. He will want the baby.”

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Her gaze drops to the ground. “All I wanted was to do something good. Just one good thing in a whole lifetime of bad. Have a baby. Give it to a family who would love it. And now…”

I stroke my thumb over her cheekbone. “Now nothing. He will not touch you, do you hear me? Never.”

She glances at me, and for the first time since I met Una, I see real, genuine fear in those violet eyes of hers. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“Why does he want a baby?”

“Because we bred him the perfect soldier,” she whispers. The words send a chill up my spine, and I really see the kind of life Una grew up in. I knew she was Elite. I knew she was trained from a young age, but I thought Nicholai cared about her in his sick way. This is more than that. This is insanity. “And now…I have no choice. I have to try and outrun him.” She takes a deep breath. “I have one bullet left. I don’t want to shoot you, Nero, so let me go.”

“So shoot me, but you’d better kill me, because if you leave, I will chase you to the ends of the earth.” Her jaw tenses and the gun twists in her hand, digging into my ribs. “When are you going to realize that you aren’t alone?”

She falters for a second, and steps back. Indecision plays over her features before she drops to a crouch, resting the hilt of the gun against her forehead. “I should have gotten rid of it,” she shakes her head. “I was so stupid, so selfish to think that I could do this.”

“Morte, you forget who you are, who we are. We don’t run. I will ask you one more time, do you trust me?” I hold my hand out to her and she glances at it for a second before her gaze meets mine.

“Promise me one thing. If he comes for me, don’t let him take me.”

“Never.”

“I mean it, Nero. If you have to kill me to keep me from him, then you do it.”

“Una…”

“You have no idea what he will do to me, what he will do with this baby.” She looks so desolate, as though this is her only option, a resigned fate. “I…I will never get out of that place.”

Can I promise her that? Could I kill her and my child to save them from that crazy Russian fuck? I see how much she needs me to say I’ll do this. “Okay,” I say and she nods, slipping her hand into mine as I pull her to her feet. She steps closer to me, pressing her cheek against my chest. I wrap my arms around her slowly, holding her to me for long minutes. “Were you really going to shoot me?”

She pulls away and I release her. “You shouldn’t ask questions you already know the answer to.” I cock a brow and she rolls her eyes. “It wouldn’t have been fatal.”

“Reassuring,” I mumble, leading her back through the woods.

As soon as we break the treeline, Gio, Tommy, and two soldiers are standing there, guns in hand and waiting. Gio glares at Una and she gives him a one fingered salute before strutting past him, her hips swinging with every step. Tommy peels off and follows her. God knows he’s the safest around her.

“Could you stop staring at her ass long enough to tell me what the fuck is going on?” Gio says impatiently.

“The Russian is coming. I want all our best men to be ready to leave in an hour.”

“Where are we going?”

“The penthouse. It’s impossible to breach, and that makes it the safest place we have.” Part of me wants to take Una and run, but I’ve never run from anything. I feel as though I’m being torn in two. The more primitive part of me, is warring with this new part, this instinct that needs to protect that baby at any cost. But the fact is, Una and I are feared for a reason. She’s told me that we can’t do this, that our world is dangerous. The irony is that in order to protect that baby, we need to be exactly what we are: formidable, feared and powerful. That, I can do.

Una hasn’t said a word, the entire ride from the Hamptons. The second we get into the penthouse, she heads for the stairs. I can tell she’s scared. That in and of itself should frighten me. I discuss a few things with the guys. Security, shifts, intelligence on the ground, and then I climb the stairs and push the bedroom door ajar. Light from the hallway spills into the dark room, and I can just make out Una on the bed. George lays beside her, his head resting on her chest as she runs her fingers over the top of his head.

I walk in, and my would be guard dog leaps up, running out of the room. I swear that dog turns into a total rebel when she’s around.

I strip out of my suit, and go take a shower. The hot water pummels my tense muscles, but does nothing to help. I’m wound so damn tight. I need to either fight or fuck. When I walk back into the bedroom, Una is lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. Her lips are pressed together in a tight line and she has that determined look in her eye that she sometimes gets. She doesn’t move when I get in bed beside her.

“What’s going through that mind of yours, Morte?”

“It was all so pointless.” She turns her head to the side. “I was willing to sacrifice anything for this baby.”

“You would have left,” I say, remembering our conversation, her telling me she didn’t want to be a mother. Something about it didn’t sit right with me. No one goes to that much effort for a life they would happily walk away from.

“As long as Nicholai didn’t think it was mine, it would have been safe. So yes, I would have stayed away.”

I release a heavy breath. “Una…”

“But the time for selfless acts has passed. He just brought a war to our doorstep.” Her eyes lock with mine and she rolls over, dragging her nails over my jaw as she brushes her lips across mine. “I don’t know that we can win, but I need you. We kill them all, or we die trying.” There’s my queen, bloodstained crown in place.

I smile and roll on top of her. “I live for war, Morte.”

“Then we slaughter everyone that would do us harm.”

Fuck, she’s hot when she’s violent. I wrench the button of her jeans so hard that it pops off, and then, I’m tugging the material down her legs along with her underwear. Sliding my hands under her ass, I wrench her up and press my mouth over her pussy. A staggered moan leaves her lips as she threads her fingers though my hair, pulling me closer. She rolls her hips, pushing against my mouth as I thrust my tongue inside her. One leg around the back of my neck, and squeezes, choke holding me as she flips me onto my back. Her thighs now straddle my face, her pussy on my lips. I drag my tongue up the length of her as she fucks my face. It’s not long before her entire body stills and tenses, long moans slipping past her lips. I love watching her break for me, because I know Una doesn’t break. Not for anyone. This right here, is a rarity, a gift that she bestows upon me because she knows I’m strong enough to take it from her.

Her body goes limp and I toss her to the side, getting to my knees and flipping her onto her front. She pants heavily and her skin is coated in a fine mist of sweat.

“I fucking want you, Morte.” Gripping a handful of her hair, I pull her up onto her hands and knees, wrenching her head to the side. I kiss up the side of her neck and she trembles. “You’re mine,” I breathe against her ear. Gripping her hip tightly, I slide into her in one thrust.

Lust and violence swirl between us, mixing with a mutual need to protect the same thing. For the first time, Una and I are completely on the same team and I can feel the power of that. We are one, and we will be unstoppable.

She twists her head to the side and kisses me. She feels like heaven and I will never get enough of her, never grow tired. Everything about her challenges and pushes me, and I crave her. I need her at my side.

My name falls from her lips, and then she’s moaning, her back bowing as she pushes back against me. I love seeing her like this, completely vulnerable just for me. She clenches around me and I groan as pleasure fires through my body. I tell her she’s mine, but as I come, I know without a doubt, that she owns part of me.

“Fuck!” A groan slips from my lips. We both pitch forward, and I rest my face between her shoulder blades, breathing hard over her damp skin. Eventually, she rolls onto her back. She looks so damn innocent, hair messy, cheeks flushed, and her body swollen with the baby I put in her. I press my lips to hers and work down her chest, sucking one nipple into my mouth as I go. And then, I press a kiss against the taught skin of her stomach. “No baby will ever be more protected,” I murmur, glancing up at Una.

She arches a brow. “I think most people just buy a minivan and tape up the electrical sockets.”

“We aren’t most people, Morte.”

Her brows pull together and a small line sinks between them. “Is this what fear feels like?”

“Maybe.”

She rubs at her chest. “I feel like I’m unravelling and everything I’ve ever known is being picked apart a thread at a time. Maybe I’m just not meant for this?”

“No one was ever more suited.” She’s vicious and dangerous, and I pity anyone who ever tries to hurt her child. She may not be classic mother material, but you only have to look at the animal kingdom to see that the best mothers are also the most lethal ones.

When I wake up in the morning, Una is gone and, as per usual, I have to go in search of her. I find her in the kitchen, standing in front of Gio with a glare on her face. “I’m going to count to three, and then I’m going to snap your neck and leave your body right here for Nero to find.”

“I’m not--” Gio starts.

“One.” I walk up behind her and kiss her neck before moving past the pair of them in search of coffee. “Two.”

“Why are you counting him down?” I squint at her.

She glares over Gio’s shoulder. “I want my guns, and he won’t give them to me.”

I sigh and brace my hands on the kitchen side, waiting for the black nectar to brew. “Gio, I’ve got this.”

He walks away, shaking his head as he goes. He puts up with way more shit than I have any right to ask of him.

“No, you have not got this,” Una strides up to me, the look on her face promising pain.

“Morte, you and guns…”

She points at me. “Don’t you fucking dare. I’m a better shot than any of your shit soldiers. I’m a better shot than you. So how is this going to go, Nero? Are you going to treat me like a prisoner? Your own personal incubator?” She scowls at me, her jaw set into a hard line. “I do not need you, remember that.”

She always has to push. I grab her around the throat, pulling her face close to mine, “Don’t fucking push me, before I’ve had coffee.” She continues to glare, but makes no effort to get out of my hold. “You are not a prisoner. You are my equal.” I shove her away and hand her the key to the armory.

She turns away before throwing over her shoulder. “Actually, I’m The Kiss of Death. No one is my equal.”

Damn, she makes me want to hurt her and fuck her. I swear to god, the second that baby is out of her… By the time I’ve had my coffee, Una is coming down the stairs wearing her yoga pants and a sports bra, with her earphones in. Her hair is pulled into a high ponytail and her hands are wrapped.

“Fancy a round?” she flashes me a wry smile.

“I’m not fighting with you.” My eyes drop to her stomach and judging by the look on her face it pisses her off.

“You can just be my punch bag then.”

“Anyone would think you just want to ruin my pretty face.” I smirk.

“You are far too pretty to be a mafia boss. Sure you don’t want me to give you a few scars? Make you look more badass?”

She passes me and swipes her finger over the still healing cut on my neck from last week.

“I have plenty of scars courtesy of you, thanks.” Namely the fucking great ugly hole she put in my shoulder. “But just think of it this way, if you ever decide to kill me, my head will make a much prettier trophy than Arnaldo’s.”

“True.” A satisfied grin plays across her lips. Just the memory of Arnaldo’s decapitated head is enough to make me hard for her. He found out the tough way what happens when you piss Una off. She’s merciless.

I take a step towards her as she backs towards the gym.

“Did I ever tell you how hot I find your extreme bouts of violence?”

She shrugs one shoulder and backs away from me. “Hormones.”

“Still hot.”

“You’re sick,” she says as she pushes open the basement door and closes it behind her.

“Says the woman whose hormonal outbursts include blowing up a house and killing eighteen men,” I mumble to myself before heading to the office.