Toxic Love: A Dark Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance
Toxic Love: Chapter 31

“I’ll stay.”

I shake my head, looking up into Tempest’s eyes as she sits perched on the edge of my hospital bed. “I’ll be sprung within an hour.”

A scowl comes over her face. “Says who?”

“The doctors.”

“Which doctors?” she blurts, her tone suspicious.

I smile. “I’m fine, little hurricane.”

Her cheeks flush a little pinker, like they always do when I call her that. Which always makes me want to keep saying it.

“Besides, I think I need to have a chat with your brothers.”

We turn to see Alistair and Gabriel, each in their own hospital bed, glaring at us from beyond the glass partition separating my room from theirs.

“I’m a grown woman,” Tempest mutters under her breath. “Neither of us needs to explain a thing to them about our…”

Relationship. Say relationship.

“Arrangement.”

I grit my teeth a little.

We live together. We share a bed every night. We fuck in that bed—and several other places—on a very, very regular basis.

We’re married, for Christ’s sake.

But we both stop short of calling this what most people would. Despite how close we’ve gotten, and opening up to each other, we’ve both still kept our defenses up a little.

Because we both know this has a time limit, and calling this anything but an “arrangement” hurts too much.

“Tempest, Lorenzo’s waiting for you downstairs. Take Maeve with you and head back to my place. I’ll meet you there as soon as I get out of here.”

She frowns uncertainly. “We’re not…I mean, do you think we’re in danger⁠—”

“No,” I quickly shake my head.

“But Dante, arsenic poisoning?”

That’s what made the four of us fall down puking all over the place before blacking out. We were fucking poisoned by arsenic.

“It can happen with old bottles of wine,” I lie, smiling at her.

It wasn’t the food. That became obvious because Tempest and Maeve, who ate it, were fine. But they didn’t have any wine. It was just Gabriel, Alistair, Charles, and I who did, and ended up in hospital hooked up to IV drips. Even Pam had to get checked out by the paramedics when they arrived at Gabriel’s house, because of the tiny sip of the outrageously expensive wine she blushingly admitted she’d snuck for herself.

“You don’t think it’s…deliberate?”

“No.”

Of course I do. But I’m sure as fuck not going to freak her out with that little tidbit right now when she’s clearly at her wits’ end after everything that’s happened tonight. Right now, I just need her to get to my place, where Lorenzo and some more of my men can discreetly watch over her and keep her and Maeve safe.

Tempest sighs and nods. “Okay. I’ll grab Maeve from Charles’ room downstairs and go replace Lorenzo.”

“Perfect. I’ll see you soon.”

She smiles a little, her cheeks blushing as she leans down…

And kisses me.

On the mouth. Tenderly. With her brothers glaring at us through the glass.

Fuck it. My hand comes up to caress her face as I kiss her back a little harder. When she pulls away, her lips are swollen and her face is pink.

“Was that for me?” I growl. “Or them?”

“You. My brothers can mind their own fucking business.”

I grin as she turns and sashays out of the room, turning to give me a wink in the doorway before she slips out. After she’s gone, I swivel my gaze to Gabriel and Alistair, who both just sit there glaring at me.

Well, guess I’m the one traveling for this meeting.

Being poisoned by arsenic sucks. It fucks with your concentration, your balance, makes your stomach go nuts, and can cause all sorts of mayhem to various organs. Short version, getting up out of bed and making my way to the room next door is the opposite of fun.

I grit my teeth as I step into Alistair and Gabriel’s room, pulling my IV drips behind me. I sink into a chair by the window, inhaling deeply as nausea washes over me.

“Thanks for the wine, Gabriel,” I grunt. “Think I’ll pass next time.”

Neither of them laughs. Alistair’s brow only furrows deeper at me. “What the fuck was that?” he snarls.

“Arsenic. The doctors said it at least five times, Alistair⁠—”

“With our sister, asshole,” he snaps.

“Well, Alistair,” I smile thinly. “When two adults decide to get married⁠—”

“Fuck off, Dante,” he spits. “What you and Tempest have is an obscene business arrangement, nothing more. I’m still looking as hard as I can for a way to cancel it. So don’t even joke about being in love with her, you fuck.”

I don’t realize I’m clenching my jaw until it twinges with pain.

“Alistair.” Gabriel shoots his brother a warning look. Then he glances at me. “What did Tempest make of all this?”

“I told her old wine bottles can sometimes be tainted with arsenic.”

Alister scowls. “You’re in the habit of lying to our sister?”

“I’m in the habit of protecting her!” I snap.

“Enough!” Gabriel thunders. He glares at his brother, then his gaze swivels to me. “Can we agree to not talk about Tempest right now?”

“Fine,” I shrug. Then I peer at him closer. “Where the hell did that bottle come from?”

He exhales. “It was a gift from a client about two months ago.”

“What client.”

He shakes his head. “Not one who’d want me dead. Margret Worthington.”

“The socialite?”

When he nods, I blow air through my lips.

Margret Worthington is an eighty-four-year-old society lady whose father was a telecommunications tycoon. She’s used his money to fund hospitals, women’s shelters, and orphanages across New York for decades.

The woman is a fucking saint.

“I was helping her with some estate planning,” Gabriel says. “Her will, how her trusts are structured, how to keep the money flowing to all those charities after her death. That sort of thing.” He lifts a brow. “My billable hours were a bit more than perhaps she expected, but I doubt she’d try and kill me over that.”

“So someone snuck in,” I grunt. “I’m sure you both have enemies. Anyone stick out?”

Alistair rolls his eyes. “I handle some serious fucking criminal cases. There’s probably a hundred people on Ryker’s Island who’d want me dead. Probably just as many who jerk off fantasizing about shoving a gun down Gabriel’s throat.”

“Great, thanks for the visual,” his brother mutters.

Alistair shrugs. “I’m just saying, the list isn’t exactly short. And if we factor in you being there”—he points at me—“not to mention Charles, we may as well accuse half the fucking city.”

Shit.

I’ve been assuming this had to do with them. It very well could have been that I was the target. Or all three of us. A crazy idea comes to me.

“Do you know anything about Apex Club?”

They both instantly go quiet, and Alistair sits up in his hospital bed a little more, looking at me coldly.

“I’m going to ask you this once and only once, Dante,” he growls. “What the fuck do you know about Apex?”

“I know you were going to prosecute one of them after what he and some of his buddies did to Tempest and her friend Nina, before he hung himself in a holding cell.”

Gabriel starts to struggle out of bed, his teeth bared.

“You had no fucking right to dig into that⁠—”

“I didn’t dig,” I say quietly. “She told me.”

Gabriel pauses, staring at me in disbelief. He turns to his brother, then back to me.

“Tempest told you?”

I nod. “She did.”

Alistair frowns. “If any of Brett’s friends wanted us dead, they could have done something years ago.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that either of you were the target,” I growl.

Gabriel arches a curious brow. “You?”

I nod.

“And why exactly would Apex Club consider you an enemy?”

“Because they killed my sister, Claudia,” I hiss quietly. “So I’ve spent the last fifteen years hunting them down and killing them, one-by-one.”

The hospital room goes pin-drop silent. Gabriel’s looking at me with concern, his brow furrowed. Alistair almost looks like he’s holding back a smirk.

“There were seven of them, total,” I growl. “In their little club.”

“How do you know that?” Gabriel mutters.

I turn to him. “Because I caught number six not very long ago, when he tried to hurt Tempest. He told me.”

“And you believed him?” Alistair murmurs.

“People tend to tell the truth when they’re getting their fingers hacked off, Alistair.”

He and Gabriel glance at each other, then back at me.

“Did you do that to him for information, or because he tried to hurt Tempest?”

“Let’s just say the information was a nice bonus.”

Gabriel curls his lip.

“So, was he right?”

Gabriel frowns and doesn’t answer immediately.

“For fuck’s sake, Gabriel,” I snap. “This is about knowing if anyone else is coming after Tempest!”

He and his brother glance at each other again. When Alistair nods subtly, Gabriel draws in a breath and turns back to me.

“Seven’s the number we were told, too.”

I scowl. “From the little fuck who hanged himself?”

Alistair nods. “Yep. Brett Sinclair.” He all but spits the name. “Good fucking riddance.”

This time, he actually does turn his head and spit. I can’t say I blame him. But then, something occurs to me, and my eyes narrow.

“Forget his Apex buddies. Would his family want either of you⁠—”

“Nope,” Gabriel grunts with finality.

I frown. “You seem awfully sure about that.”

Alistair smirks. “There’s only one Sinclair left, and he sends us a Christmas card every year from one of his several mansions around the world.”

My brow arches. “Why the fuck would he do that?”

“After Brett offed himself in the holding cell, the Sinclair family went to shit. His parents got divorced when it turned out Mrs. Sinclair—Jacqueline—had been banging her tennis coach. Grant Sinclair, Brett’s dad, took everything and left Jacqueline with shit. A few years later, Grant and his new girlfriend died in a car crash and the entire fortune went to Grant’s weirdo slacker brother, Chris. I mean this guy was trying to start a fucking kombucha company and then woke up one morning to a dead brother and a bank account worth eight billion dollars. They hated each other, I think, but that was the only family Grant had left. So now Chris sends us Christmas cards, like a macabre thank you note.”

I frown. “And the ex-wife? Jacqueline?”

“Also dead,” Gabriel sighs. “She managed to hang on a few years by selling off her furs and jewelry. But she ended up broke and was found dead of a drug overdose in some hotel in Vegas a year or two ago.”

“Well, shit,” I mutter. “We’re back at square one.”

Alistair eyes me appraisingly. “You really killed six of those fuckers?”

I nod.

“So now they’re all dead,” he muses quietly. “Tempest know that?”

“She does.”

“Good,” he growls.

Just then, the door swings open and Lorenzo walks in briskly, a hard look on his face.

“What’s going on?” I growl. “Where’s⁠—”

“Mrs. Sartorre and Ms. Black are safely on their way to your place, sir, with some of my most trusted men. But you need to see this immediately.” He holds up a plastic bag marked “Evidence”. “From one of our boys on the NYPD.”

He passes the bag to me, and I frown at the cork inside.

“From your house,” Lorenzo says to Gabriel. “It’s from the bottle.”

“Did they test it for⁠—”

I stop cold when I flip the bag over, my eyes locking on the words written by hand, in ink, on the side of the cork.

Even a single lion can bring the savannah to its knees.

You missed one of us.

I’m yanking IV drip lines out of my arm in seconds, whirling to Lorenzo.

“Get me home, now.”

Then I turn to Gabriel. “I’m sending Maeve with you back to your place, along with ten men, just in case.”

Gabriel nods. “And Tempest?”

“I’m taking her out of the city, where she’ll be safe.”