Savage Lover: A Dark Mafia Romance (Brutal Birthright Book 3)

“You’re late,” Vanessa says sweetly when I pull out my chair to join her and my three daughters already seated at the second-floor dinner table.

“Perhaps because I didn’t request a sit-down dinner tonight.”

“No, but we did,” she replies.

“We?”

“I made the salad,” Madison announces proudly, smiling and looking happier than she has in probably months.

“A monkey could literally make a salad,” Cass informs her sister with a roll of her eyes. “It’s just tearing up vegetables and throwing them all in a bowl.”

“I cut the vegetables into tiny pieces without chopping off my finger, fuck you very much,” Madison replies.

I look pointedly at Vanessa, whom I assume is the one who demanded dinner, and also somehow, talked my oldest into helping prepare the meal.

“Madison wanted to learn how to cook. We had to start somewhere,” she replies.

“I want to learn how to cook too,” Sophie chimes in.

“Fine. I don’t want to be the only one at the table who can’t chop shit up without cutting a finger off,” Cass says with a huff.

“It can’t hurt for them to learn a few tricks, right? In case the chef is sick, and they need to eat.”

I have no clue what she’s up to, but I don’t like it. Still, I keep my mouth shut for the rest of the meal, while Madison tells us all about her kitchen experience down in the casino.

Once we all adjourn from the dining table, I head for my office since I’m not ready for bed. I’m not ready for the torture of wanting Vanessa and being unable to have her either.

The woman doesn’t get the hint and follows me inside, shutting the door behind her.

“I have work to do,” I tell her.

“Dante, wait.” She grabs my elbow to stop me in front of my desk. “I’m not sure what I did to piss you off last night, but you’re not really angry about me showing Madison around the kitchen are you?”

“I don’t know why you bothered. She’ll always have staff to wait on her and cater to her every need.”

“Did you not see her face tonight? Being able to do things for herself makes her feel good, like she’s capable of anything she puts her mind to.”

She’s right. Madison did seem happier tonight. I’m just not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

“Don’t go putting ideas in their heads, making them think they would last a day on their own in the real world.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t ever want them to have to work twelve-hour shifts serving cocktails to assholes who slap their asses or getting beat for dating the wrong men.”

My beautiful butterfly scoffs indignantly at me, and I know I just fucked up.

“You think my life is one big failure, and that it somehow proves you’re better than me? Just because you have endless amounts of money, doesn’t mean shit, Dante! At least I’m free do to what I want, when I want, without worrying about who may have a target on my head. You should want your daughters to escape this world as fast as possible before they become victims of it.”

“Watch it,” I warn her through clenched teeth.

My message is ignored since Vanessa then has the nerve to say, “You’re not actually going to make Madison marry someone she doesn’t even know, are you?”

Wow. How did she know about Lochlan? I guess she and Madison had girl talk during their cooking lesson.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but arranged marriages are part of this life.”

“This life? Being a mob boss?” She scoffs. “Don’t force your daughter into a marriage with someone she doesn’t want just to elevate territory disputes or bolster your business connections with other mobster families!”

“It’s about more than the mobster families. The only way to protect my girls is to make sure they end up with someone who has the money, and the means, to keep them safe.”

“Did you even ask them if they would rather be what you consider safe or if they want to find husbands they love?”

“It’s more complicated than that. And they don’t know what’s best for them yet. Trust me, when I was their age, I hated the fucking idea of taking some Russian child bride; it’s why I flat out refused.”

“You refused, but they can’t?”

“My situation was different. She was an actual child.”

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

“My father wanted me to marry a sixteen-year-old virgin when I was twenty-four. By then I was fucking my way through Vegas, popping any and every pill made, and killing any chance I could get just to make my father proud. Could you imagine me with a teenage virgin?”

“So, you didn’t want to be with someone who was young and innocent?”

“Hell, no. I didn’t even know the shit was even arranged until it was done, and he told me. My father thought a wedding would be enough to create an alliance between the Italians and Russians and help get me to settle down.”

“Again, you refused, but Madison can’t?”

“My refusal came with a lot of fucking consequences. It nearly started a war when I backed out. Yuri Petrov took it as an insult to him, his family, and his daughter who I never even fucking met. He threatened to kill me if I didn’t agree to go through with the wedding when she turned eighteen.”

“You’re obviously still alive, so it was an empty threat.”

“No, he meant it. But thankfully it eventually blew over. A few weeks after the death threat, Petrov told my father to forget the marriage, that I wasn’t good enough for his only daughter anyway. I’m pretty sure he still holds a grudge, though. As long as he and the Russians stay on their side of town, I ignore them. Or at least I try to.”

“And then instead of marrying who you were told to marry, you married the girls’ mothers?”

“No. I got them all pregnant, so they became my responsibility.”

“Did you love any of them?” she asks.

“Does it matter now? They’re all dead. I finally grew up, learned from my mistakes, and made sure I couldn’t knock up anyone else after the third time.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

Ignoring her sympathy, I tell her the truth. “None of my girls are cut out for this world, and I don’t have any sons. Titus is loyal, but he’s not capable of running shit. I had hoped that one of the girls’ husbands could take over for me when I’m gone. I won’t force them down the aisle until they’re ready, but they will remain sheltered here until they marry who they need to marry to stay alive.”

“Even if they want to marry boring, strait-laced men who don’t want anything to do with the mafia?”

“Those kinds of men won’t be able to protect them!”

“I think they would be safer with the boring guy. Boring guys don’t have enemies. If you give them to another mob boss, then it’s just more of the same, lethal feuds for power for the rest of their lives, and their children’s lives.”

“Is that why you don’t want to be with me?” I ask as understanding finally dawns on me. Does she hate me because of the violence that constantly surrounds me? I thought she agreed that some people deserve to die.

“What?” Vanessa asks softly.

“You don’t think I can protect you.”

“I didn’t…that’s not what I said. I just said that boring men don’t have the kind of rivals who may try to kill them.”

“My daughters are mafia princesses now and forever, whether they like it or not. Just because they leave my household to go live with the boring guy doesn’t mean someone won’t hurt them to get to me. I can’t allow them to be with someone who doesn’t have guards constantly watching over them.”

“They don’t like the guards.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because Madison told me she wants to be normal, to go where she wants, to be able to live life without someone looking over her shoulder.”

“Someone keeping her alive? I don’t care what kind of fucking hardship it is for them to be followed. The guards stay.”

“The guards, the house arrest, it’s about more than safety and you know it. It’s about control. You only let them go where you approve, and you want to know everyone they talk to, right? Do you ask the guards what they do every day?”

“I have to know what they’re doing to keep them safe. And this fucking discussion is over, Vanessa. They’re my daughters. I’m not going to let anyone hurt them.”

“No one except for you is allowed that privilege, right, Dante?”

I don’t know why, but those words from Vanessa’s mouth flip some kind of switch inside my head. Vanessa turns to leave, and before I realize what I’m doing, my fingers are wrapped around the back of her neck. A second later I have her pinned to the wall, her cheek pressed to it along with the front of her body.

“Don’t you ever disrespect me like that again,” I growl into her ear. “I have never laid a finger on a single one of them. You don’t have a fucking clue what this life is really like, how vulnerable they are in this world. I do. Madison’s mother, Maria, was gunned down in the street in broad daylight while Madison cried in her stroller. Cassandra’s mother, Charlotte, I don’t even know what happened to her because she went missing, and her body was never found. I would not survive burying one of my daughters.”

Vanessa closes her eyes and whispers, “I’m…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. And it’s going to take more than a few measly words from your mouth for me to forgive you.”

Having her restrained under me like this, her fine ass against my lap, I still get hard even though I’m fucking furious with her.

I want to punish her. No, I need to punish her.

“This fucking mouth of yours…” Reaching up with my free hand, I press two long fingers between her parted lips, shoving them down her throat until she gags. “It’s going to greedily take whatever I give it in apology, isn’t it?” I pull my fingers free to spin Vanessa around by her shoulders.

Her emerald eyes are wide, worried, as I push her down to her knees.

While my trembling fingers work to undo my pants, I warn her, “If you bite my dick, I’ll make you watch me remove Mitch and Gavin’s with a rusty saw.”

Now there’s absolute fear in her eyes. She’s finally scared of me because she knows I’ll fucking do it. Maybe she doesn’t give a shit about Mitch, but the stripper is one pretty bastard. I would still cut off his dick to keep it away from Vanessa. All I need is a good reason.

And I hate myself for losing my temper with her, showing her this ruthless side of me.

Does that stop me from pulling my hard cock out, and guiding the head of it to her lips, forcing them apart? Hell no.

It doesn’t stop me from cupping the back of her beautiful head in one hand and shoving my cock down her throat either. Her first gag nearly makes me come undone. Vanessa’s palms press on my thighs, trying to push me away, urging me to back off. I pull back, bracing my other palm on the wall as I guide her mouth down my shaft a little slower, not as deep. At least not at first. Her mouth is so hot and wet. So perfect.

Vanessa moans or whimpers, the sound vibrating through me. I’m already so close my hips slam forward and back, chasing the release until I feel Vanessa’s fingernails digging into my thighs.

How fucking long have I wanted this, needed her to be the one pleasuring me? So damn long. The past few weeks have been agonizing. And for a few moments of overwhelming ecstasy, it’s worth the torture.

Having Vanessa kneeling before me, my dick stretching her lips apart as she moans, struggling to take all of me, she’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen or heard in my entire life.

“Goddamn perfect,” I groan as I press her face to my body and unload the pulsing seed down the back of her throat.

When I hear her choke and splutter, I finally pull my dick all the way free of her mouth, then tug on her hair to make her look up at me. Her mascara is running down her cheeks and my cum mixed with her saliva is dripping from her chin.

I wait for her to call me an asshole, a bastard, a son of a bitch. To tell me she’s done with me and leaving…

Her palm swipes over her mouth to wipe up some of the wetness before she finally speaks. “I deserved that.”

I don’t let the surprise show on my face. “Yes, you did. Are we good now?” I hold my breath, waiting for her response.

She nods, wiping the dampness from her cheeks, smearing the black eye makeup even more.

“Are you sure about that?”

Lowering her face to the floor, she quietly says, “Yes.”

I wish I could fucking believe her.