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

Last night with Dante was…well, it was a night I’ll never forget. But no matter how great it was, it’s been pushed to the back burner today.

“You look gorgeous in pink,” Dante tells me, referring to one of the dresses he bought me weeks ago.

“Thanks,” I reply absently, flashing him a smile before my fingernails go back to drumming on the passenger door panel. The frantic rhythm keeps pace with how fast my heart is beating as I think of all the shit that could go wrong. What if I screw this up? What if Dante is walking into a trap?

“Vanessa, you know you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” Sensing my hesitation, he reaches for my twitching left hand, raising it to his lips to kiss my knuckles above my new ring. He twists the band up and off to slide it onto my right hand instead. “In fact, I would prefer if you didn’t do it. We could turn around right now…”

“I can do this. I need to do it,” I tell him with a heavy sigh. “As long as you’re certain that Cole is safe?”

“He and my girls are now all safe and sound on a private island with his friends. Nobody gets on or off the island without the guards knowing.”

“Good. That’s good. He’s probably having fun, doesn’t have a clue what’s going on here…”

“I’m sure he is having fun,” Dante agrees with a smirk.

Narrowing my eyes at him, I have to ask, “What does that mean?”

“I sent them some company, you know, to keep the boys occupied and distracted from my daughters.”

Now my jaw drops to the floorboard. “Oh my god. You sent my son whores?”

“No, not whores. Island staff, a few housekeepers, waitresses, some masseuses, even a couple of lifeguards who just so happen to all be young, beautiful, and up for a good time.”

“Right,” I mutter with a roll of my eyes.

“Your son isn’t an angel, and you can bet your ass he’s not a virgin.”

“I know that!” I huff. “I would just rather not know about any of…that. You could’ve kept those details to yourself.”

“I refuse to keep any secrets from you from now on, no matter how uncomfortable they might be.”

“Well, at least I’m not as sad about leaving you now. I can’t believe you paid women to…to…”

When I turn my head toward the window, Dante lifts my hair from my neck to leave a scruffy kiss on it. “Are you sore from last night?”

Shaking my head at his sudden change of topic, I tell him, “Oh, I think you know I’m sore, just as you intended, right? So, I can’t help but think about you and remember all the dirty details.” Grabbing the top of his hair, I pull his mouth away from my skin. “And you better stop that before you leave a beard rash.”

“Like the one between your thighs?”

“Yes, like that one, but one on my neck would be visible for everyone to see.”

“You didn’t mind all the people who saw the beard rash I gave you last night? How many was it? Two dozen or so?”

“That’s a good guess. I still can’t believe you did that,” I tell him with a chuckle, unable to help my lingering smile.

“Do you regret it?” he asks softly, seriously.

“No. Do you?” I ask, watching his face.

“Never.” Grabbing my chin, he rubs his thumb over my bottom lip. “Don’t forget that when I have to act like an asshole in a few minutes.”

“I won’t,” I assure him.

He gives me a soft kiss on the lips, then releases my chin. “We’re almost there.”

“Okay. I’m ready.” At least that’s what I tell him and myself. “Are you sure the location is safe? What if he tries to shoot at you?”

“We’re in the middle of the flat desert in broad daylight. There’s nowhere a sniper could hide. My men have had their eyes on the location since before I even gave the coordinates to Yuri. He sent a crew to check it out, but they drove by and left without getting out of the vehicle.”

“Good, but…”

“He knows I could put a bullet in his head too. That’s how this works. He’ll accept the truce. Even if it’s just for today so he can get you back.” Pulling out his phone from his suit jacket, Dante adds, “He arrived two minutes ago, and we’re running late on purpose.”

“Right. Power play and all that. He’ll also be pissed you kept him waiting.”

“That’s exactly why I did it.”

Staring out the window, I ask the question I’ve wondered for years. “Do you think he killed my mother?”

Squeezing my hand, he asks, “Do you?”

“I don’t know. The memorial page I saw online twelve years ago said she died peacefully in her sleep. She would’ve only been fifty, ten years younger than my father. I guess it could’ve been natural. She did pop pills and drink a lot. But he was always getting caught with other women, giving my mom the same old excuse that he has to fuck younger women who can give him a son. I wouldn’t be surprised if he just got tired of having her around.”

“Do you miss her?” Dante asks.

“She wasn’t evil like my father, but I think that just makes her something worse,” I explain to him. “She stood by and watched him be so cruel, to me, to his men, to the house staff. She knew he would punish me for so-called slights to him by starving me for days or backhanding me across the room. Yet she never tried to stop him or sneak me something to eat. She didn’t do anything but sit there and watch it happen. I know she was scared of him too. Everyone was. Is. But she never even tried to stand up to him for me.”

“I’m sorry,” Dante says quietly. “I’m sorry I didn’t get you out of that hellhole when you were a teenager.”

“I wasn’t your responsibility, but I was hers.”

“I know, but looking back, I was a selfish asshole. If I had known, I would’ve taken you in, even if you were too young to marry.”

I don’t bother telling him that I’m glad he didn’t because I don’t want to hurt his feelings. The truth is, though, if he had taken me in, I never would’ve learned how to fend for myself, to work for an honest day’s pay. Most of all, I wouldn’t have become a mother. Having Cole gave me someone to love with all my heart for the first time in my life. A love that was good and pure that nobody, not even my father, could take away from me. And for that, I wouldn’t change a single thing. The struggle, living in poverty, it was worth it all for a chance to grow up and raise my son on my terms. The worst punishment I ever gave him was taking his phone away when he skipped school in the eighth grade with his friends. He didn’t speak a word to me for two weeks after that, but he never skipped school again. Maybe I got lucky, but I couldn’t have asked for a better son. He was nothing like my angry, manipulative father, despite shared genetics, which is what I worried about most throughout his teenage years.

“My father beat my mother to death,” Dante says, ripping me from my thoughts. “I found her body, her face so bruised…I could barely recognize her.”

Oh wow. No wonder Dante got so upset when he saw the bruises on my face, why he overreacted by killing those two men.

“I’m so sorry that he did that to her,” I tell him as I rub my thumb over the top of his hand, unsure what else to say. “How old were you?”

“Fourteen. She was a good mom.”

“That must have been so hard.”

“I wanted to kill him for it then,” Dante mutters as his fisted hand scrubs across his chest. “Eventually I did.”

“The, um, angel wings on your chest, are they for her?”

“Yes.”

I’m not sure why, but I’m glad they weren’t for one of the girls’ mothers.

Before I can ask anything else about her, about him killing his own father, Dante says, “We’re here,” just as the SUV slows down and pulls off the road.

I’m so ready to get this over with. All of it. But mostly ridding the world of my father.

Dante offers me a new cell phone, one that’s clean as we discussed. No contacts or search history. Nothing that my father can glean from it about my life or Cole’s.

The SUV slowly creeps up a little way further on the shoulder before coming to a complete stop. Through the windshield I can see what I assume are my father’s vehicles. The tires on all of them are angled toward the road, as if he’s planning to make a quick getaway.

“Keep me in front of your body,” I tell Dante, clutching the new phone in my hand. “He probably wouldn’t kill me to get to you.”

“I’m not using you as a shield,” he says, releasing my hand to grip my arm. “You’re supposed to be a reluctant hostage, remember?”

I nod my agreement. Yes, I do need to remind myself that I’m not supposed to like Dante.

“Be careful, butterfly. Call me if you need me or smash your ring.”

“I will,” I promise him. With one last shared look at each other, Dante opens his door to climb out, pulling me along with him, none too gently.

Once I stumble out of the SUV, not entirely acting, Dante releases my arm to grip the back of my neck harshly. His grip even pulls my hair harshly as he shoves me forward. Well, alongside him, but not in front of him. I try to swerve in that direction, but he hauls me back over to his left side.

I give up the fight when I see my father and several men in suits climb out of one of the waiting cars. He stands behind the open door, as if using it as a shield. Or like I’m not worth stepping foot into an open space to retrieve.

As soon as I see the perpetual scowl on his long face, I’m right back to being an awkward, shy sixteen-year-old girl again.

“Good-fucking-luck with her,” Dante mutters, yanking me out of my thoughts.

I’m not a teenager anymore. I’m a grown ass woman. And I’m going to kill that bastard for hurting me, for killing every innocent woman in Dante’s life, all the people at the poker tournament. He will never touch my son or try to kill Dante again.

“She’s been nothing but a pain in my ass.” Dante sounds legitimately annoyed with me when he shoves me forward so hard, I stagger. He still doesn’t let me get in front of him, stepping up beside me instead.

Steeling myself, I square my shoulders to glare at Dante, memorizing his face, his massive, muscular, powerful body before I have to leave him. I already miss him, and he’s still standing next to me. But I can’t let it show.

“You’re just pissed you confessed all your secrets to me before you figured out who I was, you greasy bastard. That’s what you get for being so distracted trying to get into my panties.”

For a second, Dante even looks shocked by my statement. Good. It’ll seem more authentic to my father.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. You don’t know shit about me, other than how big my cock is. Isn’t that right, princess?” Now he gives me that cocky smirk he used to try and get me to sleep with him for years. How I resisted for so long, I honestly don’t know.

My father, though, I hate to admit, looks pleased with me. His white brows are raised in interest as he watches me and Dante. Convincing him to trust me so I can get close enough to kill him won’t be easy. I need to make him think I can be useful to him, that I know Dante’s secrets.

“Katia,” the fucker says with a fake smile. He eyes me up and down, taking in my pale pink dress and high heels. I didn’t dress up for him. The heels are the only weapons I figured I could get away with having. They’re not much, but better than nothing. Other than the phone in my hand, and the ring on my finger, I don’t have any other belongings. “You’re all grown up. I barely recognize your face.”

Asshole. He just insulted me, called me old.

“I’ve had a long, hard life,” I admit to him with my own insincere smile.

“Well, let’s go catch up,” he says. Then to his men, “Search her.”

“Search me?” I huff as two large meatheads come ambling toward me. They remind me of the ones who kidnapped me, although I know it can’t be the same ones since those men are dead. My father is just like Kozlov. He would let his goons assault a woman before killing her.

Without anything more to do, I hold my arms up and let the bastards feel me up and down.

I don’t dare glance at Dante but see him standing stock still in the corner of my eye. I have no doubt that he’s struggling not to blow this whole lie when he sees another man’s hands patting my breasts and ass, sliding up between my thighs. I blow out a breath when the hands are off me, relieved Dante didn’t even flinch.

The other guy runs some little device over every inch of me from head to toe, most likely checking for wires or tracking devices. Neither pay any attention to my ring. The one with the scanner plucks my phone from my hand.

“Hey!”

“You’ll get it back once I’ve gone through it,” my father replies, already treating me like I’m a child again. He says something in Russian that I think translates to “filthy little whore” but I’m not entirely sure. Followed by, “Come, Katia.”

God, I hate that name. The way he says it especially, because it always makes me feel like I’m his dog he’s calling to heel.

But it’s now or never.

As I walk around to the other side of the car where a man holds open the back passenger door waiting, I glance back at Dante. His face is blank, giving nothing away as he turns to his SUV. I want him inside the bulletproof vehicle sooner rather than later. First, though, I raise my hand, flipping him off, certain he’ll take the “fuck you” middle-finger gesture exactly how I meant it—that I can’t wait until he’s literally inside of me again.

Inside the car, the door has barely closed behind me when my father asks without facing me, “Where’s my grandson?”