Toxic Love: A Dark Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance
Toxic Love: Chapter 18

By any standard, Dante’s penthouse is huge.

That said, it’s not big enough that two people could live in it together and not cross paths with each other. But five days in, that’s what it feels like, because I’ve barely seen him.

It’s starting to feel deliberate. And his absence is so noticeable that by this point I’m actually wondering if he even is coming home. After all, we do sleep in separate rooms. We’re even on two different floors—my guest room is on the first, and he’s upstairs next to the home office that I snooped through the night I brought Bianca here. Also known as, the same home office where he pinned me to the desk and made me explode with his fingers.

Finally, though, I decide to replace out for sure about Dante’s nocturnal habits. And I go to sleep on that fifth night with a plan in place.

…Which pays off about an hour later.

I’m wakened by someone pounding on my bedroom door, and I’m still shaking off sleep when it flies open, and a drenched, furious Dante storms in.

“What the fuck!?”

The initial burst of him storming into my room has my pulse racing, and, shamefully, a throb aching in my core. But then, when he flicks the lights on, and I drink in the sight of him standing there in the doorway, dripping wet, I grin.

“Oh, so you do live here.”

It’s not—or at least, I’ve told myself as much—that he’s not here enough. It’s the principle of the thing. If I damn well have to be stuck here “living with” my husband, then he fucking should be, too.

So my idea tonight was to prop his bedroom door open and balance a paper cup full of milk on top of it, so when…or if…he opened it, he’d get drenched.

Looks like it worked.

“Milk?!” he seethes, looking disgusted.

In the five days I’ve been living here, I’ve noticed something: Dante doesn’t keep milk in the house. Or any dairy product, actually, except for butter. No milk, cheese, yogurt, nada. I actually had to go out and buy some from the bodega down the street to set my trap.

Why milk? Because getting drenched with water is an easy fix. You dry off and go on with your life. But getting drenched with milk, even if you like dairy, is objectively disgusting.

“Uh oh, are we going to need a lactose pill or something?” I grin smugly.

Dante glares at me. “I’m not lactose intolerant, Tempest. I just think dairy is fucking gross.”

I’m about to open my mouth to make some crude joke when he starts to yank off his shirt. My lip retreats between my teeth and my face flushes as I watch him peel his dress shirt off his insanely toned, muscled and grooved body.

There’s a chance my juvenile antics are at least half fueled by sexual frustration. And I hate admitting that, even to myself.

I’ve gone years without even having the slightest desire to have sex or do anything sexual, with anyone, anywhere. I’ve been fine using my own fingers and the occasional battery-operated assistance.

But then he shows up, pins me to the wall, rips my wedding dress off, and shows me what a real orgasm could feel like.

And now, fingers won’t do. But the real pisser is, in the seven days since I came harder than I’ve ever come in my life, Dante hasn’t made the slightest move to touch me again.

And now I feel like a junkie being denied her fix.

“Are you bored?” he grunts, glaring at me. “Is this fucking cabin fever? You’re not a prisoner here, Tempest. You can leave and do whatever you want.”

I shrug. “I know. But if I have to sleep here and live here, so do you.”

“Club Venom is open until six in the morning,” he seethes. “I keep late hours. That doesn’t give you the right to douse me in fucking milk!”

I swallow as he storms toward me. My pulse quickens, and my whole body tightens with need and anticipation.

But he still doesn’t touch me. He just grabs my favorite t-shirt—black, with a photoshopped picture of Dolly Parton wearing KISS makeup—off the bed.

“Hey!!”

Dante ignores me as he blots the milk out of his hair.

“That’s my favorite shirt!”

“Aww, really?” He hurls it back onto the bed. “Good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to shower.”

He turns and storms back to the doorway, where he pauses and glances back at me.

“No more fucking pranks, Tempest.”

“Fine.”

“Say it.”

“Nah. You need to go shower, you reek of milk.”

His eyes narrow dangerously at me. A thrill teases through my body.

Okay, I’m goading him now.

Sex withdrawal is real.

“Courtesy of Pam.”

I grin as Alistair sets a large cooler down on the desk between us, already knowing what’s inside.

“Oh my God, yessss.” I groan as I pop the cooler open to reveal the half dozen Tupperware juice containers filled with the creamy, greenish smoothies Pam makes for me.

She’s given me the recipe before. But they always turn out like crap when I’ve tried to make them myself, no idea why. Making them at Dante’s house has proven to be impossible anyway, what with his carpet ban on dairy products. The French vanilla yogurt in Pam’s recipe is crucial, and the tyrant king control freak I live with now threw out both containers of the stuff that I stuck in his fridge before I could even use them.

Asshole.

“Want one?”

Alistair makes a face as I pop one open right there in his office and take a big gulp. “Absolutely not.”

This morning, in a fit of, well, homesickness I guess, I texted both of my brothers about meeting up for lunch. Gabriel was in court all day, but Alistair said yes, as long as lunch could be delivered to the office.

People have often asked me why both of my brothers, with their looks and success, are still single. I’m sure most people assume it’s because they like playing the field. The reality is, they’re both married to their work.

Alistair opens the take-out containers from Wo Hop, aka the best Chinese food spot in all of New York City, and slides my pork fried rice toward me.

“So—”

“I’m fine, Alistair.”

He scowls. He hates when I cut him off like that, especially when it’s obviously he’s about to launch into a big speech.

That’s another thing people have asked me a lot over the years: if my relationship with Alistair is different from the one I have with Gabriel, because Alistair is adopted.

The answer to that asinine question is a quick and easy “no.” Well, quick and easy aside from the time I got suspended in the seventh grade for kicking Chrissy Klein in the shin for saying Alistair wasn’t my “real brother”.

I mean, my parents adopted him two years before I was even born. He’s literally always been my brother.

He watches me not touching my lunch—which I only ordered to avoid a lecture—as he absent-mindedly chews on a dumpling.

“I’ve been looking into the contract situation.”

He means the blood marker.

“Oh?”

The black look on his face tells me all I need to know about where this conversation is going.

“I made my choice, Alistair,” I say quietly, sipping my smoothie.

“We didn’t exactly have a course on mafia blood markers at school,” he grunts. “But I’ve reached out to a few of the more…colorful types I might know who know more about the politics and traditions of the mafia world.”

“And?”

Alistair just grunts again as he deftly plucks up another dumpling with his chopsticks and pops it into his mouth.

“You could annul the marriage provided the original intended bride stepped up to take your⁠—”

“Not fucking happening.”

Alistair cracks a wry smile. “Didn’t think so.” He frowns. “How’s fuck-face?”

I shrug. “He’s…Dante. We mostly avoid each other.”

Aside from that one time a week ago when he fucked me in ways I’ve never even known were possible, and now I’m fantasizing about him and craving it again, even though I know how fucked up and wrong that is.

My brows knit as I glance up at my brother. “Can I ask you something?”

He nods. “Sure.”

“It’s about Layla.”

Alistair stops chewing abruptly. Shit.

“We don’t have to⁠—”

He shakes his head. “No no, go ahead,” he murmurs darkly.

I take a small sip of my smoothie. “Why do you think she did it?”

A silence settles over the office as Alistair turns to gaze out the windows.

I was eleven when my sister died at Greenwich Hospital, near the Knightsblood University campus. There are three question marks surrounding that night.

One: despite never doing drugs in her life, the official cause of death was listed as a heroin overdose.

Two: Dante is the one who brought her to the hospital.

And of course, three: even though they weren’t even friends…and as far as I know, didn’t even know each other…Dante and my sister got married in that hospital, during the brief half-hour window where she regained consciousness before she died.

After that, of course, Dante lawyered up, sealed her medical records, and stonewalled the rest of us.

Over the years, my imagination has run wild speculating about what might have happened that night. I’m sure Alistair’s and Gabriel’s have, too; wondering how their straight-A, non-drug-using sister found herself overdosing on heroin and marrying Dante.

“Which ‘it’ do you mean: the drugs, or him.”

“Him,” I murmur.

Alistair exhales slowly. “I don’t know, Tempest,” he growls quietly. I’ve looked at all the potential angles: financial gain would be the big one. But…”

“But he never tried to use the marriage to get anything from us,” I finish. “Did you ever think that…I mean…he had something to do with it?”

My brother’s jaw clenches.

I know we all had, maybe still have, hunches about Dante and his involvement with Layla’s death. Maybe it’s part of our grieving process, but we’ve never voiced those hunches out loud to each other, though.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “We don’t have to⁠—”

“No, we should,” he grunts. “I mean, you’re living with the guy now.” He exhales slowly. “Honestly? Please, don’t ever repeat this to Gabriel, but…I doubt it.”

I frown. “Really? But you hate him.”

“I hate him because he’s a conniving fuck who hides behind the Barone family and the rest of his mafia buddies. I hate him because he fucking wouldn’t talk to any of us about any of it after Layla⁠—”

Alistair stops and collects himself.

“Look: I’ve known men who are capable of things like that—I mean really bad, evil motherfuckers. If you look, you can see the monster in them—it’s right there in their eyes.” Alistair lifts his shoulders as he gazes at nothing on the desk in front of him. “As much as I don’t like the guy, I don’t see that evil in Dante. Nor do I see him being a heroin user. But even if he had nothing to do with whatever happened that night, the fact that he so pointedly shut us out and sealed her records looks suspicious as fuck, and honestly, yeah, it makes me fucking hate him.”

He frowns, leaning across the desk to peer at me. “Where is this coming from, T? Is Dante doing or saying anything⁠—”

“No, nothing like that.” I shrug and laugh dryly. “He basically just ignores and avoids me.”

Alistair’s lips thin. “Good. Best case scenario, honestly.”

We both exhale in the ensuing silence before he nods at my to-go container. “You gonna eat that fried rice, or…?”

The man is built like a movie superhero and still manages to eat like a total pig.

“All yours.” I slide it his way. “I filled up on smoothie.”

Alistair looks like he’s going to say something, but he takes a bite of my fried rice instead. As he’s chewing, his eyes land on my hand. He squints.

“Did you get your nails done?”

My face heats. “I…yes?”

“Pink?”

“Please. It’s rosé blush.” My face gets pinker than my nails. “Is that a problem?”

“No, just…confusing. I haven’t seen you wear anything except black nail polish, much less rosé blush, since you were in high school.” His eyes snap to mine. “Is this Dante? Did he make you⁠—”

“Did he make me…” I gasp dramatically, clutching my hand to a string of imaginary pearls. “Get a manicure?!”

My brother gives me a cool stare. “It’s just completely unlike you. I’m worried, Tempest.”

“Well, I’m fine, Alistair. You don’t have to be worried. I can guarantee it.”

“And why is that, exactly?”

I take a beat before breaking out in a smug grin. “Because Dante needs me. He wasn’t just going after Maeve because of whatever business dealings he and Charles were cooking up. He needed a wife to appease the dons over his ownership of Club Venom.”

Alistair raises a brow. “Single guy running a sex club,” he grins. “I was wondering when they were going to start getting iffy about that.” He smiles darkly at me. “Dante knows you know about all this?”

“Oh-yes-he-does.”

He chuckles. “I know I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you’d make one hell of a lawyer, Tempest. I mean, if you ever decide to take Columbia up on that deferred enrollment in their pre-law program, I can make sure⁠—”

“Thanks, Alistair,” I blurt sharply. “I’ll let you know.”

He smiles, nodding. “Only when you’re ready. You’ve got all the time in the world to conquer it, T.”

All the time in the world.

Something like that…