Corrupted Chaos: An Enemies to Lovers Forced Proximity Romance (Tarnished Empire)

I fought when the needle hit my arm. I’d survived opiate addiction, and I was sure whatever they had in that syringe, my body was going to suck it up and feel a high I never wanted to feel again.

So I fought. I fought hard.

It wasn’t the fear of experiencing a drug. I’d done that already. It was the fear of losing my sobriety, of losing to the addiction I’d fought so hard to overcome.

When two men had rushed into my apartment as I sat there decoding, my instincts kicked in immediately. I’d been trained years ago for undercover work. I knew the basics in self-defense.

I scrambled for my phone and hit record because it was the first thing I could reach before they knocked it from my hands. I kicked one of them in the balls and tried to shake the other free from my arms.

Two large men against me wasn’t really a fair fight, though. And I was out of practice.

I got a good claw across his face before he hit me hard in mine, and the other guy pulled my arms back and locked me there while his friend pulled a needle from his jacket.

Fear hadn’t really hit me until that point.

I’m not proud to say I begged. As I struggled in their arms, I hated how desperate I sounded. “Please. Please. I’ll go with you willingly. I’ve been sober nine years.” I choked on a sob. “Please.”

“It’ll be easier this way,” he murmured in my ear. He said it softly, like he was doing me a favor.

I screamed, I cried, I struggled.

I lost.

One prick of the needle, and it only took half a minute to feel it. The one I’d tried so long to avoid.

It was faster, stronger, and more potent than the last time.

I could lie and say it didn’t feel good. Hitting that high always felt good, though. It was a drug for a reason. Still, tears slid down my face at the loss before the weight of my head felt like too much.

“Fuck, dude. She’s not going to OD, right? If she’s sober, it’s going to hit her harder, right?” The man spoke English and then switched to Albanian. Back and forth, back and forth.

Nothing mattered anyway. I’d floated off.

I was gone.

Their questions faded away. The question of whether I would survive this faded away. My worries faded away.

Everything faded away.

The rough scrape of cement on my cheek wasn’t a welcoming wake-up call at all.

Even as my body woke, I didn’t move a muscle. My brain was foggy, my heartbeat erratic, and my concern for my well-being was on high alert.

It didn’t take long for the effects of the drug to roll through me. I dry-heaved and curled into myself as the shivering started. I’d promised myself I’d never go through this again. I’d believed it too.

What do you do when your choice is stolen from you and leaves you with nothing but the aftermath?

Tears wouldn’t help me now, but they still fell over my cheeks. I tried to shake off the turmoil I felt, but defeat could be suffocating. It held my breath and light and hope for another day hostage as it weighed down my soul.

But I wasn’t a victim of addiction. I was a survivor. Lucas always said it took him and the drug to succumb, not just the drug. I tried to remember that now.

It would take me giving up and not moving for me to surrender to the fate they wanted for me now.

I wiped my eyes and scoped out the space. I was on dirty cement, and they’d left me alone with four walls surrounding me and a metal door.

No windows. No light except what came from under the door. A toilet in the corner. And that was it.

As my stomach cramped and my body shook, I embraced the symptoms. Withdrawal was a bitch, but it meant the drug was leaving my system. It meant I’d survived the blackout.

Those moments on my own lasted for hours, maybe for a whole day. I know I went to the bathroom, that I crawled around the four walls to confirm my surroundings, that I moaned in pain as I rubbed at the injection site.

Still, I tried not to dwell. Coping with my failures gave my mind something I could control. I focused on the kidnapping, on how they spoke Albanian, on how they came for me. It proved I was close to something; it proved they were doing something illegal, and the only thing I’d found lately was what I’d dug into on my computer at work.

Albanians were rigging the election, and this confirmed it.

Now I had to determine exactly how they were doing it, then get the hell out of there before they killed me. I didn’t know which part would be harder.

Yet, when the first guy walked in hours later, I figured I might actually be able to pull it off.

Alteo wasn’t a very smart man, although he was massive. He smiled, showing crooked teeth, as he saw me sitting up in the corner. “Oh, good. You woke up, huh? My boss was very nervous you would die.”

I lifted an eyebrow. That was confirmation they didn’t want me dead. “Yes. You could have killed me. Why didn’t you?”

He waved away the question and brought me a plate of food. It was just chips and a hot dog, but even though my stomach growled, I didn’t take it.

“Oh, please eat.” He shoved the plate my way after he placed it on the ground. “If we wanted you dead, you would be, right? So what would I put in your food?”

I pointed to the injection site on my arm. And a wave of sadness hit. Nine years was a long time to earn back. No one knew how proud I was of it, but I did. It was a painful thing to think about. Painful and unfair. I’d thought about relapsing before, but at least then it would have been my own choice.

“So.” He cleared his throat like he was embarrassed. “That was to help. To calm you down, huh? My friend shouldn’t have done that. Let’s forget about it.”

The man looked ashamed, and I instantly wanted to smack him. “Forget about it? Do you know it took me nine years to get clean?”

He winced and curled up in a big meaty, muscle ball, like he was more wounded than I was. “Look, don’t tell my dad. If you do, we’re going to get into serious trouble, okay? We’re already getting too many questions.”

So, he was reporting to his father. I was back in undercover mode, back to surviving, even if I had to bury every emotion I felt right then.

He sighed. “Can you just tell me—are you an Untouchable? We weren’t given that information. And we’ve received a call. We thought you were merely a Stonewood employee and it would be a quick fix to get rid of you.”

An Untouchable. It was a high status within the mob. In the Armanelli family. When a woman married in, no other family—Albanian, Russian, Italian, Serbian—could touch them. It meant death. It meant war and pain and wrath from every other family.

I chewed on my cheek and rubbed at the injection site. I needed a plan, and the plan was going to be what he’d just given me. “You know my sister became an Untouchable not too long ago. She’s my twin. You must have known that. And you must know how quickly things happen when families are intertwined . . .”

His eyes widened. “I don’t keep track. This was my first big job. I needed to eliminate election threats, and we’ve been doing that all over the country. And now we got someone hacking our systems—I can’t be responsible for that.” He looked panicked, like he’d been saddled with the worst luck.

Hope blossomed when he said there was hacking going on. Cade had to know I was here. But was I worth the risk? I shrugged at the man sitting next to me, not willing to give anything away.

“Damn it,” he grumbled before leaving the room. The door slammed shut, and I stared at the food.

My hand twisted over the bracelet Cade had bought me, still clean and shiny on my wrist. Did he care for me enough to come? To look for me? I felt a desperation for him then that I hadn’t before. I wanted to see him one last time, tell him how I cared for him, how it wasn’t just fun. Life and death situations would do that to a person.

I wanted to be reckless even if I was afraid to be. Recklessness had got me in trouble before. It was how I got my first taste of drugs. And then, because with them, my mind didn’t worry, didn’t stray into feeling like I was doing anything wrong. Then Vincent found me and told me he loved me.

So, I found myself doing anything and everything for him. Therapy would show me later that I was young, easily coerced, easily preyed upon. So many young girls had suffered the same fate, but it didn’t mean we were to blame, it didn’t mean I had to let my relationship with Vincent define me.

Guilt and shame can envelope and suffocate a soul, but we don’t have to let it. Cade showed me that. He let me breathe, let me be who I truly was. I promised myself if I got out of here, I’d thank him for that.

I growled in frustration at my predicament and grabbed the water they’d given me with the food. I chugged half of it, and my body rejoiced at getting something.

Another man walked in and I scrambled up to face him. He’d been the one who’d stuck me with a needle. His dirty jeans and ripped shirt showed how well he took care of himself. He hadn’t even washed his face where I’d scratched him because the blood was still caked under it.

“My boss isn’t sure what to do with you.” His meaty hand dragged across my jawline as he got within a few feet of me. “I told him I could get answers out of you quick.”

“I’m not sure what answers you want.” I shrugged, not shrinking back at his touch.

“You intercepted data, and we need to know what you found, little girl. We need to make sure you don’t talk.”

Hate is ugly and unkind, boiling in a soul for years and years—like hell itself is heating it. It can be endless and toxic, but it can keep someone going. I hated this man for taking my sobriety, and I felt the hate bubble out of me when I spoke to him. “How do you intend to keep me from talking? I’m an Untouchable, after all.”

He narrowed his eyes and searched my hand for a ring. They were all confused. And I confused them more with my fake admission. Yet, if acting like I was tied to Cade kept me alive, I was going to do that.

“Living alone, without Armanelli? That doesn’t sound like an Untouchable to me.”

“Want to find out?” I lifted a brow, taunting him.

“You’re so brave, huh?” He didn’t like me testing him. I saw it in the way his neck flexed. Then he stomped over to the door and yelled out of it, “Alteo, bring in the bucket.”

His friend heaved in a white plastic bucket filled with water sloshing from it with each step he took. There was a look of anguish on his face. “Dion, I don’t think we should do anything to—”

“Tie her hands behind her back,” Dion commanded.

Fighting would do me no good. So, instead, I aided Alteo by placing my wrists behind me. If I worked with at least Alteo, I might get out of this alive.

“I say we wait for my dad to get here and—”

Dion shoved Alteo away from me and took his place behind me. He whispered in my ear, “Get on your knees.”

My stomach curdled at him this close, at how he said the words with a slimy innuendo. But I listened. I couldn’t do anything else but that at this point.

His hand grabbed my hair and dunked me fast, holding me under long enough for my body to have survival instinct kick in. I inhaled. I choked. I coughed. And I fought. I pulled my arms as far apart as I could, fighting the zip tie to no avail.

He pulled me up and whispered in my ear, “Want to talk now?”

I either embraced the rage or the helplessness or the defeat. All my emotions were there, though. Bright. Powerful. And vengeful.

“Talk to you, Dion? I’d rather die,” I murmured, and turned to look over my shoulder, catching his gaze.

He roared before he dunked me again.

I fought him again, and he held me under until I thought I might pass out, might die from drowning.

I crumbled to the floor, choking, as he let me go while he laughed. His laughter was enough to show me I could kill, that I would relish taking his life. A new hatred grew in me right then, and I embraced it. Embraced that my emotions could bring pain, could bring destruction, could ruin someone. A life-and-death situation that does that makes you accept who you are.

I pulled myself up from the ground. As his smile widened and he dragged his gaze up and down my body, I lifted my chin. He wouldn’t make me cower, even if his eyes hovered at the edge of my baggy T-shirt. I was so thankful I wore shorts, but I knew they wouldn’t hold anyone off for long if they wanted me.

“Are you really an Untouchable? What do you know?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“You won’t get any answers without letting me speak with your boss.”

He struck me hard across the face, and I tasted blood in my mouth as I fell to the cement floor.

“Man, we’re supposed to give her good accommodations,” Alteo grumbled.

“Sure. Sure.” Dion shrugged. “You both realize I get her after your dad meets her, though. I’m going to teach you some manners too.” He bent over me. “I will start by telling you I like a nice woman, one who doesn’t talk back. Until then, you don’t eat.”

He took the food off the ground, like he’d won.

“Wouldn’t have taken the food you offered anyway,” I grumbled. It was petty, dumb, and asking for a beating.

He didn’t disappoint. His boot hit me right in the stomach. The second kick I was ready for, but the wind had already been knocked out of me. I wheezed for air, for life, and scrambled on the floor as he tried to land a few more blows.

When he finally had me cowering in a corner, he chortled. “Good. I see the fear in you now. Next time”—he leaned close, and I smelled stale tobacco on his breath—“don’t make me work for that fear, and it’ll be a lot nicer in here.”

Before he left, he cut my zip ties, pulled a needle from his pocket and dropped it on the floor.

The clink of the metal door sounded like the metal of my own personal jail in hell closing.

“Maybe, she’s rethought that sobriety, huh, Alteo?” He waved at his friend in the corner who looked disgusted by what he had witnessed. “And look, I accidentally dropped this on the way out. That’ll help you make all our lives less miserable. Maybe just another hit. It’s even stronger than the dose I gave you. Then I’ll come check on you.”

He turned away, and Alteo walked out after him, eyebrows scrunched together like he felt some sort of guilt. I ran my hands along the dirt of the floor, avoiding that capsule of death.

Ending my life now would have been an easy out. Vincent had shown me that. Succumbing to any sort of anguish by wiping yourself out is less painful than having to live through it. I knew that. It was like going through the coldest winter in the hopes you’d see summer on the other side, drowning but still clawing to the surface in the hopes you’d make it to the sunlight, to air, to living.

I wanted to live. I wanted to unstrap the burden of my addiction and throw it out.

But I grabbed that needle after an hour of sitting there and finally faced it. I held it in my hands the way I used to; I held it to my arm the way I used to.

I teetered on the edge.

I lay down on that dirty cement floor and stared at it. I wondered if Lucas would have told me to fuck it and go for one last high or if he would have told me to fight.

I knew the answer. He believed in my fight.

Still, there in that room, I came to terms with death, I think. I let the dirt mix with my hair and my tears as I struggled with the fact that I wasn’t solving anything locked in a room. I wasn’t going to get to see Lucas.

I wasn’t going to get to tell Cade I loved him.

I wasn’t going to solve any election rigging and make my family proud.

And that’s how he found me.