Merciless Prince: A Dark Mafia Romance (Brutal Reign Book 1)

Aiden’s hand drops from around my chin and his fingers linger over my throat for a moment before he continues.

“Where is he?”

My heart is racing so fast it almost hurts. “Who?”

Aiden doesn’t like that answer. The tips of his hot fingers cradle the tender flesh of my neck. “Don’t play dumb with me, princess.”

I struggle to think of who he could be asking about. He must know just how little I know. My father didn’t train me to take over his criminal empire. He trained me to be quiet and obedient.

“Felix?” The name just slips out. For some reason, the image of my protector struggling against Aiden’s men as I was dragged away from the only home that I’ve ever known is suddenly front and center in my mind. I’d never seen Felix look so worried. He was fighting against five men just to try and get to me. Some of those men even belonged to Father. But he was outnumbered.

He was also the only one who cared enough to try and save me from this fate.

Felix.

Where are you Felix?

“Who the fuck is Felix?” Aiden’s growl makes it immediately clear that I’ve made a huge mistake. That wasn’t who he was looking for, but the obsessive fire glowing in his eyes has now turned onto a new subject. “Who the fuck is Felix?” he repeats, his fingers closing in on my throat.

“He is my body guard,” I yelp. Aiden’s fingers stop their approach.

“I’ve never heard of a Felix,” he says.

“He works for my father.”

“You don’t belong to your father. You belong to me. Felix isn’t your body guard anymore. No one will protect you, little flower.” His words slash through my heart. “Why did you say his name? Felix. Why bring up a simple body guard… Unless he’s more than just a bodyguard to you.”

Aiden’s grip starts to tighten again.

I want to explain that Felix is like a protective Uncle to me. But I’m not an idiot. I know what Aiden is getting at. He’s jealous.

“It’s not like that,” I rasp. But a new energy has appeared beneath my fear. Aiden is jealous. What does that mean? What can I do with it?

“I said, don’t play dumb with me, little flower.”

A gust of unexpected anger lashes across my heart.

“I wouldn’t dare,” I sneer. Like a lightbulb turning on, it hits me. I realize who Aiden must really be asking about.

“Then tell me where he is,” my captor growls.

The ray of hope that Aiden crushed last night reawakens. But before I can latch onto it, a red-hot river of shame carves through my cheeks at the memory of how he made my body beg for him.

Along with that shame returns the pressure in my core. My legs clench together, trying to suffocate it, but the touch of my thighs only fans the fire. I desperately try to ignore it.

“My father is missing?”

Aiden’s reaction is all I need to know that I’ve guessed right. He’s furious. I’m terrified. But at least there is hope again. They’ve lost track of my father. Little flames of defiance rise up inside of me and battle against the pressure of arousal that is being stoked under Aiden’s hard body.

“I shouldn’t have let him live,” Aiden says, his fingers crawling up my neck until they clench at my jaw like spider legs. “I should have known he doesn’t really care about you. Princess. No. More like a pawn. Your father isn’t stupid. He knows what I’ll do to you if he disobeys me. And he’s disobeyed me.”

My flames flicker against the raging winds of Aiden’s fury. Death stares me in the eye. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be raped. But my fate isn’t up to me. It never has been. Whatever Aiden chooses is what will happen. But at least I can choose to fight. Maybe, if I fight, I’ll survive long enough to be rescued. Or maybe fighting will just get me killed quicker.

No. Aiden needs me for something. He isn’t marrying me just for kicks. Like he said, I’m a pawn. But a pawn in what game? What move is he making with me?

“If you tell me where he is, I will be gentle. Otherwise…” Aiden draws out that last words as his free hand wanders up my thigh. I’m fully aware of just how exposed I am. This nightgown may be comfortable, but it is far too revealing to be wearing around such a carnal beast.

“How would I know where he is?” I snap. “Aren’t you the expert on my father?” In reality, I hardly know anything about the man who ‘raised’ me. I thought I knew that he was a powerful mafia don, but how powerful could he really have been to fall so easily? Or is Aiden just that strong?

“I know your monstrous father better than you could even imagine, little flower. He’s evil and he deserves to be wiped from the face of the earth. But I don’t know what holes that rat scurries into when he’s afraid. You do. Tell me. Now!” With that last proclamation, Aiden rips off my nightgown.

The straps snap against my shoulders and the sharp pinch makes me react. Before I know it, I’ve slapped him across the cheek. But it’s more than that. My nails are long, and they scratch. Red claw lines swell on the savage’s beautiful face.

It feels like the whole world freezes over. For the first time since he took me, Aiden is shocked still. But that stillness doesn’t last long.

“My father may not be an angel,” I blurt out, trying to hold him back with my words, because I know I have no chance physically. “But he’s not like you. You’re the true monster. You’re evil. My father never kidnapped women and held them in cages!”

Slowly and without breaking eye contact, Aiden rips my nightgown to shreds with his bare hands. The thick material is like paper against his raw strength. The power evident in his bulging muscles makes me weak with fear and arousal. He can see my nipples now. They’re hard. I try to distract his greedy eyes with another slap, but he’s ready for me this time. He catches my wrist in midair.

“Don’t you ever compare me to your father,” he growls, more beast than man. His clamp tightens around my skin. Rage glazes over his stormy eyes. His inky black tattoos somehow seem to darken.

“You’re right,” I hiss. “You’re not half the man my father is.” That was the wrong thing to say, but all I can do now is fight back.

Aiden isn’t having it.

Before I can blink twice, he yanks me onto my belly. My tied hand twists painfully above my shoulder, but my yelp is muffled by the pillow that my face is shoved into.

I barely have time to process what’s happening. In an instant, a red-hot pain spreads up from my bare ass cheek. Another smack follows close behind. Then another. Aiden’s giant palm brands me over and over again as I shout into the pillow, each cry filled with more and more hate.

I hate that he can do this to me. I hate that I have no choice. I hate that I’m stuck. I hate Aiden for doing this. I hate my father for letting it happen. And above all, I hate that each smack sends a searing shockwave of pleasure rippling up my body.

I’m so sick of having no control. “Fuck you!” I manage to cry through my tears, tearing my head to the side so that my voice isn’t muffled by the pillow anymore.

The flurry of smacks suddenly stops. After a second of tensing my whole body waiting for the next one, I manage to crank my head around far enough to see Aiden.

His dark handsome face is smeared in red moonlight and mangled with conflict. His hand is frozen in the air, as though my cries stopped him halfway through his rampage.

Slowly, our eyes meet. “You should be thankful I got to you first,” he half-whispers.

“Bullshit,” I cry. “How dare you ask me to be thankful for this.”

Once more, Aiden’s hand descends onto my throbbing ass. But he takes his sweet time this go around. I flinch against his softer touch as he traces the outlines of his carnage.

“You have no idea what this world is really like,” he says, so low it rumbles my insides. “Your father did you no favors by locking you up and hiding you from the world. It was selfish. He just wanted to keep you pure, so that one day he could sell you to a man like me.”

“You’re a liar,” I accuse. My voice is so hoarse that the words shatter as they slip from my lips. “He wasn’t ever going to sell me.” But I’m the liar. My father may have hidden the world from me, but he never hid the truth of my future.

Maybe, at best, I’d be given a few years to play the role of an ordinary girl—go to nursing school, travel to eastern Europe, have hopes and dreams—but I was always a mafia princess. That meant that my maidenhood was to be used as a tool to consolidate power. From the moment I was born, my future was written in blood. But Father never told me it would be like this. The way he spoke of my inevitable arranged marriage, I thought I’d have some semblance of a choice. I’d be able to choose my prince. Date him. Explore love with him. Experience some semblance of happiness.

Sure, my prince would be from the same dark and violent world as my family, but I would be able to pick him out from a stable of studs who would vie for my hand. And I would pick a good one. A diamond in the rough. I would never fall for someone like Aiden. The devil himself.

But none of it happened the way I expected. Instead, I was sold. Almost immediately. To the most ruthless prince there is.

There was never any choice.

I’m still angry at Aiden, but suddenly, I’m furious at my father. He locked me away all my life in the name of protection just to give me up when things got tough? And not only that, the second he gives me away, he runs for cover, tail between his legs, leaving me to suffer the consequences of his actions, of his failures.

The bastard.

A hot tear streams down my cheek.

“Now. Now. Princess.” Aiden bends over and plants his hot lips against the red hand marks he’s left on my ass. His kisses prick my skin. Wetness builds in my core. Swirling. Growing. For him. “I understand. You don’t know where he is. You don’t know anything.”

It feels like I’m being torn apart.

What the hell do I want? Do I even know?

No one’s ever touched me like this before. Made my skin tingle and burn. No one’s ever even been allowed close. Why the hell do I seem to like it? Crave it.

Am I just as dirty as Aiden appears to want to make me? Am I so easily corrupted? Was I ever really a good girl or did I just do as I was told?

“Why are you doing this to me?” I ask, hoping beyond hope that Aiden will shed some light on my hopeless situation. My legs wash over his thighs and the hardness of his cock pushes up through his pants. That’s his answer and I know it. But I need to ask.

“Because I can. Because I want to. What do you want, princess?” Aiden cups my wet pussy and he has his answer too.

I thought I knew what I wanted in life. Freedom. But now, my body screams to be taken. To be trapped under this cruel prince’s savage body.

“I want to be free,” I whisper. My heavy head falls back into the pillow and I let the pleasure from Aiden’s working hand sizzle its way up from between my legs.

“There’s a kind of freedom I can offer you,” Aiden says. “But first, you need to give yourself completely to me. Do you want to give yourself completely to me?”

With every stroke, Aiden collects more of my dew with his fingers. It’s obvious. My cherry wants to be popped. My fragile flower plucked and ravaged. My pussy wants to be fucked. By him. Only by him.

“I…” the strength to say what needs to be said just isn’t there. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do,” Aiden says, but he doesn’t push any further. Instead, he releases my pussy and gently pushes me away. “You just don’t know it yet. My naïve, innocent little princess. Maybe you need to be kissed first. Maybe you need to be wined and dined. Maybe I will do that for you. Or maybe, next time, I won’t be so merciful.”

There’s no room to breathe a sigh of relief. Aiden’s words are not merciful, they’re ruthless. Next time. He’s only reminding me that I’m still trapped. That, while he has only plucked a few of my petals so far, it is only a matter of time before he yanks me from my virgin soil and desecrates me with his desire. With the desire he has also awakened in me. I’m being teased. Tortured. Corrupted.

Why?

He’s not going to tell me the real reason. I may never know. And, unless I take matters into my own hands, I’ll never be free either. My father isn’t coming for me. The coward.

Before Aiden leaves the bed, he unties me from my restraint. On his way out, he pauses by the window for a moment, as if contemplating whether or not he should shut the opening at the top.

I watch his dark silhouette as it’s soaked in the blood red moonlight. How can I marry this man? How can he marry me? We hate each other. Even if I give in to his power, to my lust, what next?

What will he do after I’ve satisfied his greed?

Kill me?

Love me?

No. A man like this doesn’t have the capacity for love. He will never love me and I will never love him.

Without another word, Aiden turns from the bedroom window, allowing it to remain half open, and strolls to the door. Still shirtless, he leaves, locking me into my cage. Alone.

I don’t sit around listening to him leave. Through the soreness of my still throbbing ass and the exhaustion of the encounter, I manage to sit up in bed and gaze out of the open slit of my cage. The moon glows brilliantly in a black sky full of stars.

I want to be free.

But my treacherous body wants to be taken.

Time drags on. The moon disappears. My eyelids are heavy, but by the time my head hits the pillow, I’ve made up my mind.

I’m going to try to escape. I have to.

But Aiden isn’t going to make it easy. This is his castle and those are his woods outside. How do I trick the devil into letting me out of hell?

The answer is simple.

By any means necessary.