Kiss & Control: A Mafia Romance Read online

  He’s baiting me, and as much as I want to run over and kick him square in the dick, I don’t. Instead, I bite my tongue—literally—and think of all the ways I’d wipe that cocky smirk off his face with a nail gun.

  “I suppose you don’t have to get married,” he says, tapping his fingers in a fanning rhythm on his thighs. “You don’t seem like the type to listen to anyone. I have a feeling if Antonio told you to marry someone, you’d tell him to eat a bag of ass.”

  That gets a laugh out of me, and I can’t resist. “My father would knock my teeth out if I said that.”

  “As would mine,” he breathes. “My brother told him to eat shit once, and he lost six teeth. If it weren’t for implants, he’d be a toothless wonder.”

  “Mine would make me go without the implants,” I mutter, desperate to keep him talking. This is a glimpse behind the scenes—the first he’s given me. I want to see more of what makes him tick. Learn more about the man who’s keeping me in a log cage. “And he’d threaten anyone who tries to help me.”

  “That’s not very nice.”

  I eye him with a slow smile. “In case you haven’t noticed, my father isn’t a very nice man.”

  He nods before hooking my gaze with his, gifting me with a look into his gray-blue smokescreen. They hide everything he’s feeling unless he’s mad. I bet he’s kick-ass at poker. “You’ve got his eyes.”

  I groan. That is not a compliment.

  “Yours are warm, though,” he clarifies, laughing. “Almost friendly when you’re not attacking people that are trying to help you.”

  “I only did that once.” I scoff, wishing I’d tried a little harder that time. But then again, if I’d escaped, someone could’ve cashed in on that two-million and I wouldn’t have gotten to gorge myself on chicken piccata.

  His eyes narrow, but his lips still show a hint of a smile. “One time too many.”

  “Keep it up, old man. I’ll make you scream the alphabet in French.” I should be terrified of him. He carries a gun in his waistband. He carries a knife, too. But I know he won’t use either on me, regardless of what he says. He’s having too much fun playing with me. Like his friend, he treats me like a ball on a string. I’m nothing more than a toy he has to babysit.

  He ignores my threat, still smiling. “I don’t know French.”

  I assess him from the tips of his fire-tinged hair to the thick soles of his boots. “You’ll learn.”

  He pushes off the cabinet and breezes over, stopping in front of me, blocking the warmth from the fire and replacing it with his own. “Well? Let’s go, tough girl.”

  I ignore the urge to kick his legs out from under him and slide my legs out of the sleeping bag, but remain wrapped tight in the blanket like a burrito. “Where? To your demise?”

  He laughs, his cologne drifting over as he towers above. “You talk a lot of shit for someone in handcuffs.”

  Any normal person would stand down when they’re nose to knee with a man who’s killed before, but I’m not a normal person. At this point, I’m not even an abnormal person. I’m likely borderline insane from a trash diet and lack of sunlight. So I don’t stand down.

  I pounce.

  Rather, I charge.

  I connect my shoulder with his waist, plowing into him. It’s ridiculous, but it’s ridiculous enough to catch him by surprise. I have no idea what I’m doing or what I plan on doing if I get the upper hand. But I do it anyway. I have to. He practically challenged me. Not doing something would look like I’m afraid of him, and while I am, it’s not as much as I should be. But he doesn’t need to know that.

  He laughs, catching himself easily against the impact, but grunts when my handcuffed fists connect with his groin. I put everything I have behind the swing, knowing I have one chance at it. And it pays off. He falls to the floor, bringing me with him, landing in the middle of his chest in a heap.

  We’re close to the fire, too close. A roll or two over and we’ll both be in the flames. It’s too hot against my skin. Hurting more than helping.

  I know I don’t stand a chance if I run, so I grip the front of the black t-shirt peeking from beneath his jacket and get in his face. “Told ya.”

  “Your breath smells,” he complains, grinning rather than admitting defeat.

  I blow a mouthful of it directly at his nose, ensuring he gets another whiff of garlic. “You’re welcome.”

  He’s hard and hot beneath me. Hotter than the fire burning steps away. And rather than feel the urge to flee, I crave more of it. More of him.

  Instinctively, my eyes drop to his lips. He catches me, trailing my eyes with his before moving to push me off.

  But I grip his shirt and kiss him instead.

  19

  Fallon

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  A tornado siren blasts in my brain, but I pull the plug, ignoring the warning of imminent destruction to sink my hands in Eva’s hair. This is worth the damage.

  She tastes like lemon, lust, and poor decisions, and I can’t get enough.

  One brush of her lips against mine, and I’m done.

  Her body flattens over mine in soft, delicious heat, a round of play wrestling dissolving into my worst nightmare. But I can’t resist wandering down the rabbit hole. I’m in too deep now.

  I claim her mouth, parting her full lips, swooping in for what I’ve had only in fantasies. Her tiny gasps and mews take it to heights my brain hadn’t imagined.

  This is a terrible idea.

  And I can’t stop.

  I grip the silky strands, giving gentle tugs as we learn one another. She’s nothing like the venomous snake she presents herself as. Delicate. Gentle. Womanly. Dancing her tongue around mine. Sampling me with nibbles.

  I take what she offers, moving my hands from her hair to her shoulders, skimming her sides and stirring a shiver through her sweatshirt-clad body. When they reach her hips, I angle her so she’s straddling me as I sit up.

  She’s so lost in me she doesn’t seem to notice, at least until her legs hook around my waist, locking me in place. My blood boils. Skin hums. Dick turns to fucking stone. This is a fucking kiss.

  We burn for one another. Burn with the intensity that only rivals can. It makes sense that we’d fuck as hard as we hate.

  Our bodies mesh, a mold meeting its mate. A perfect fit in a fucked up puzzle that suddenly doesn’t seem so complicated anymore.

  Eva. I can taste her name on my tongue, taste it as I taste her, drink in everything she has like a man on the brink of dehydration.

  I want this woman.

  I want her mind. Body. Spirit.

  And I don’t give a fuck about the consequences.

  Her hands twist the front of my shirt with need, and the jingle of the handcuffs hits me like a sledgehammer when she grinds herself against my cock, rolling her pussy over it with only a few layers of cloth between us.

  What the fuck am I doing?

  She’s a captive.

  Lombardi’s daughter.

  Evangelina Lombardi.

  My job is to keep her alive. Not fuck her.

  She isn’t mine to keep.

  I push her off like she’s infected, sending her tumbling back onto the blanket, taking the heat with her despite the fireplace blazing against my skin. It’s cold without her. Barren. Empty.

  “Mister…” she trails, looking up at me with wide eyes, her shackled hands trembling as she touches her lips. Seeing her bound twists my gut.

  For fuck’s sake.

  “My name is fucking Fallon, and this,” I say, waving wildly between us, not even caring that I just sealed my fucking fate if she blabs to daddy someday. I have nothing to lose anymore. I’m already one of them. I’m a villain. A man who takes what isn’t his. Who ignores unspoken rules that govern even the worst of the worst. “Isn’t a thing. I don’t want you.”

  I’m lying through my fucking teeth. I want her more than I want this all to be over. More than I want to get away from the disaster that is Philly,
where I spent the last week battering men who had no answers. Turning over stones with nothing under them. Watching the operation I bled to build sputter without Aidan.

  Pain flashes in her eyes. “Why don’t you want me?”

  “You’re a Lombardi,” I spit out, forcing a wedge where there desperately needs to be one. She’s losing sight of what I am. Of who I am. I’m not her savior. I’m nothing more than a babysitter, and let’s face it, if Torin hadn’t taken her from Minerva’s, she’d be long dead and I wouldn’t know any differently. I didn’t want her then. I shouldn’t want her now. “You can’t be trusted.”

  And I leave her.

  I leave her there in a pool of bedding in the middle of the floor, choking on tears.

  I leave the only person I look forward to seeing anymore broken and confused.

  But it’s for her own good.

  I want her to be free. I won’t stand in her way.

  Halfway across the Walt Whitman Bridge into the city, my phone rings.

  I stab at the answer button on the steering wheel, so frustrated that I want to ram into the car in front of me, its bumper a testament to a life of running 5ks, going vegan, and yoga.

  What I’d give to see that driver in my shoes right now. My world would devour them. Gut them from the inside out. Shit inside their fucking heart.

  “What is it?” I bark.

  Let it be fucking Nolan. I’m ready to put his goddamn head through a window.

  The junkie’s hollowed head joins Aidan’s every time I blink, forming a reel of horrors that didn’t need to happen.

  “Where are you?” Torin croaks.

  “I-76.” I encourage the healthy living fuck to move out of my way, getting right on their bumper-stickered ass and laying on the horn to make my point loud and clear.

  “Road rage, much?” Tor seems annoyed, and there’s rustling on his end. “You have time to visit?”

  I speed by the car once the driver finally takes the hint. I’m touching eighty, but it can’t get me away from Eva fast enough. “Where?”

  I haven’t spoken to him since checking in outside of the hardware store after the snowed-in adventure with Eva. We’re overdue to compare notes, though mine include nothing useful. Nothing that’ll bring us any closer to putting a bullet in the asshole that kicked off this insanity. The one that paved the road for my self-destruction.

  “Cute little farm. I might retire and grow squash that look like cocks out here someday.” Tor’s bright and chipper, a far cry from the faint moan lingering in the background. One of suffering. Misery. Death.

  “Why the fuck are you out there? What is that sound?”

  I can’t handle anymore death today. The junkie filled my quota. I need to visit Aidan’s grave and chat with him. Ground the thoughts swimming in my head before they drown me.

  I shake my head at the thought. Poor bastard can’t even rest in peace. He’s still my sounding board. The wise older brother with all the answers, even if he doesn’t answer back.

  The city flies by, the rail yard and billboards mixing in a haze. I hit one-hundred with ease. No one’s holding me back now. I could skip my exit. Drive until I’m states away from the bullshit. Start over and never look back.

  “I found something that you need to see,” Torin insists. “Someone, actually. I’m not sure how long he has.”

  The address Torin gave isn’t one I recognize. I never venture this far west, leaving behind the gray bubble of suburbia and the city for the rolling green hills of Lancaster County.

  The sun’s setting when I pull into the gravel driveway. The stone farmhouse on top of a hill in the distance isn’t Torin’s usual backdrop, but halfway down the winding path I spot him stepping out of a barn, the weathered building’s red paint curling back like it smells the trouble surrounding it. Now this is Tor’s element.

  I park just outside the barn, noticing the blood smears on his gray jacket and jeans as soon as I step out of the vehicle. Something is wrong. He never goes out like this. He’s careful. Methodical. “What the fuck happened to you?”

  He slides the barn door open and waves me inside. The moaning I’d heard during our brief phone call comes rumbling out. “Nothing happened to me.”

  I follow him into the dimly lit barn, my fingers itching to grab my 9mm. This is Torin. I can trust him. But the instinct is still there. This scene screams mob hit. There isn’t another house nearby that’ll hear a gunshot, just pastures of roaming dairy cows. Pastures one could easily be buried in and lost forever under cow shit.

  Inside, a man lays in a lump of straw on the floor, his bloodied hands clutching at his abdomen. His red hair drips with sweat despite the bitter cold air, his face so smeared with blood that I almost miss the freckles. A lot of fucking freckles. On his nose. His cheeks. His forehead. Even his ears.

  He screams when he sees us. Screams like we’re coming to finish him with an ax. “Please, sir! I told you! I don’t know where she is!”

  Fuck. Torin didn’t have to do this. This kid is harmless. He’s short. Thin. Barely twenty-five by the looks of him. I can’t take much more of this shit. This isn’t how we operate.

  “Who the fuck is this?” I cock my head, keeping my distance so the redhead doesn’t leak on me.

  Torin nods his okay, and the man’s lips tremble before he speaks, his breathing strained. “Chuckie.”

  I ignore the heat in the pit of my stomach and the instinct to put this poor son of a bitch out of his misery. “The Chuckie from Minerva’s?” The one who disappeared with Perla after Aidan’s funeral. The one Tor thought someone kidnapped. Well, here he is. Bleeding. Dying. Lost and found.

  “I didn’t hurt her. I swear. I told Antonio everything. She vanished. Perlie and I…” He shatters, dissolving into high-pitched sobs. “You didn’t have to hurt Perlie.”

  I look to Torin, who’s propped himself against the wall of the barn, frowning. “What the fuck is he talking about?”

  “Perla. Evangelina’s friend. He says someone killed her.”

  The news sinks into my chest like a blade. The friend Eva asked me about. The one I insisted was safe. She’s dead.

  “He killed her!” Chuckie accuses, pointing his blood-soaked finger at me. “Shot her in the head and threw her in the garbage like trash!”

  “I didn’t fucking kill her!” I take a step toward the bloody bastard, furious he’d lie on his deathbed. Did no one have honor anymore?

  Chuckie’s not done, clutching his side and hollering like it’ll make the words he says come true. “You shot me like you shot her!”

  Torin pushes off the wall and stops me before I can grab the bastard and give him a shake. “Where’s Nolan?”

  Fuck Nolan. He doesn’t matter. All I can focus on is Eva finding out her friend is dead when I said she was fine. I can’t tell her. It’ll destroy her.

  I cross my arms, suppressing the urge to shove Tor aside and punch the lying motherfucker in the mouth. No wonder someone shot him. “He was at the docks the last I saw him. I left him there this morning and went to check on Eva. I was on my way back into Philly when you called.”

  Nevermind the part where I shoved my tongue in her mouth and felt her pussy rubbing on my cock. Or that I was fully prepared to fuck her on the cabin floor if it weren’t for her handcuffs.

  “She’s alive?” Chuckie chokes out, looking over at me with wide eyes.

  Oops. The guy is halfway to death, anyway, so I nod. Might as well answer his dying questions.

  “Nolan shot him,” Torin informs, flicking his head toward Chuckie. “Dumped on Lombardi turf. I got a call and picked him up with the girl’s body before Antonio got to them. And you’re fucking lucky I did. Nolan is out of line, Fal. Explain, or shit is going to get ugly. I trusted you.”

  I stare at Chuckie; the life draining out of him with every breath. Nolan did this? “Why would Nole shoot him?” If he was a Lombardi crew member, I’d understand, but he’s a little redhead. A bouncer at a bar. And Perla…
I can’t consider that. Nole wouldn’t kill a woman.

  “You tell me,” Torin pushes in a deathly calm. He isn’t fucking around. Nolan really shot this kid. He shot the girl. He dumped them both on Lombardi turf. And I don’t know why.

  “We need to take him to a hospital.” I swallow the shame, studying the man who’s nearly dead because of my twin. The person I’m supposed to know better than anyone. “I didn’t know about this. I swear, Tor.”

  Torin shakes his head, and I meet hard eyes. The ones everyone else sees. “Chuckie’s a dead man there, Fal. Just like, what did you call her? Eva? What did you do? Choke the life out of her today after sweetening her up and getting chatty? Was this your plan all along? Or has she been dead this entire fucking time?”

  “She’s at the cabin. I brought her chicken piccata and firewood.” It sounds stupid when I say it out loud, but it’s the truth.

  The bizarre answer throws Tor off, who shakes his head. “What? Why?”

  “That’s a headache we can talk about over a beer another time.” It’s not important given his update. Hell, she could be pregnant with my kid and it wouldn’t stack up against this shit. “Why would Nole shoot them?”

  Nole isn’t someone that runs around collecting bodies. He collects bottles of booze and notches in his belt. The junkie was one thing; he claimed he was babbling about Aidan and the Lombardis.

  “He’s your twin! You’re supposed to know him!” Torin runs an exasperated hand through his hair, the tumble of darkness standing every which way.

  “He wants to know where Eva is,” Chuckie grunts, his breaths coming in short, pained bursts. “He was so damn mad that we didn’t know.”

  “He wants Antonio’s reward,” I say, the truth dawning on me.

  Two million dollars.

  Two million reasons to shoot this kid.