Toxic Love: A Dark Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance
Toxic Love: Chapter 4

“It’s just marriage, Dante.”

A low grumble escapes my throat as I glance across my study to where Carmy’s younger brother Nico is sprawled across one of my couches. He shrugs.

“I mean, in this world, it’s just what you do. It’s the next step. I mean, look at what you’ve built, man.” He raises his brows to the high, gilded ceilings, the tastefully elegant furniture, and the frankly eye-popping view of the Long Island Sound past the sandy beach outside.

Yeah, I treated myself a bit when I purchased this place five years ago. I’m a single, thirty-four-year-old man who’s never married, had children, or had the slightest desire to do either of those. In a rational world, I would have no use for a ten thousand square foot, six-bedroom house on the ocean that I live in alone.

But I also have zero regrets. Nico’s right: I’ve built quite an empire for myself, especially considering I started life in as a tailor’s son.

“The next step?,” I parrot with a grunt, my mood sour.

It’s D-day. Soon, Maeve and her father will be arriving for her and me to jointly sign the blood marker that will cement our engagement. And more importantly, cement my place at the head of my empire.

I’ve met with all the dons who collectively make up The Commission: Luciano Amato. Michael Genovisi, who runs the Scaliami family. My distant cousin, Massimo, who is now running the Carveli family like the privileged, pampered, psycho little Napoleonic tyrant that he is. Even Cesare Marchetti, who has assured me that his capo, Angelo, won’t be coming after my dick with garden shears after all, now that I’m “settling down”.

They’re all for this marriage, and the “peace, connections, and understanding” it brings.

Too bad I still fucking hate the idea with every fiber of my being.

“Yes, the next step,” Nico shrugs, taking a sip of the whiskey in his hand, courtesy of my bar cart. “We’re mafia, Dante. Us by birth, you by circumstance and association. Arranged marriages are to be expected.”

“Yeah?” I snap. “Then how about you marry the fucking high school kid.”

Carmy chuckles from where he’s sitting by one of my half-open windows, blowing smoke from his cigarette out into the sea air.

“She’s eighteen, Dante.”

“And?” I mutter.

“And…” He exhales with a huff. “Look I’m not endorsing sleeping with eighteen-year-old girls…”

“So glad you’re clearing that up for us, bro.”

Carmy ignores Nico, flipping him off as he keeps his gaze focused on me.

“I’m just saying, you could, and it’s not like you’d replace yourself on an episode of To Catch A Predator.”

I roll my eyes. “There are several things I could do that I have absolute zero interest in doing, dumbass.” I swivel my gaze to Nico. “And if you’re so gung-ho on arranged marriages, where the fuck is your fake wife? Either of you?”

Nico spreads his arms. “Privilege of being second born, man. I’m not a priority for dad. And if you’ll remember, Carmy had a few arranged engagements…”

“Yeah,” Carmine grins. “And then their fathers actually met me.”

I shake my head. “I’m pretty sure your tendency to shove your dick in said arranged fiancées before actually marrying them didn’t make for good first impressions with the future in-laws.”

Carmine frowns as he drags on his smoke. “What? Like you’d buy a car without test-driving it first? And, might I add, these cars were literally begging yours truly to be test-driven.”

“You could always try something novel like, I don’t know, restraining yourself,” I sigh.

“There are several things I could do that I have absolute zero interest in doing, dumbass,” he tosses back to me in a goofy-ass voice, parroting what I just said to him.

“It’s just business, Dante,” Nico shrugs, giving me his best attempt at a sympathetic look. “You know The Commission is old-school. So, you play their game. Marry this chick, get them off your fucking back, and then live your life. Hell, set her up with a place in the city, let her do what she wants…with discretion, duhh…and you do the same. This doesn’t have to change a damn thing in your life.”

Yeah. It’s a nice thought. But I know myself too well.

The difference between my two friends and I is our upbringings. Of course Carmy and Nico have next to zero regard for the gravitas of marriage; their parents, Vito and Giada, were at their happiest when they weren’t anywhere near each other. But they were also old-school Catholic, which meant that even as miserable as they made each other, divorce was off the table. Instead, they spent probably ninety percent of their marriage sleeping in separate, and often times other people’s, beds.

But I was raised in a different kind of home. My parents were crazy in love with each other until they day they were taken from us. Marriage meant something to them, and it’s—unfortunately, given my present circumstances—a value they instilled in my sisters and me.

I mean, of course I’m going to do what I have to do, because I’m a big boy and I understand how the world in which I operate works.

Doesn’t mean I have to fucking like it.

“You’ll have to excuse my brother,” Carmy sighs. “He has no respect for the sanctity of marriage.”

Nico frowns. “That’s not what I fucking said.”

“I didn’t say you said shit. I was talking about your preference for married women. As in, ones married to dudes who aren’t you.”

Nico lifts his shoulders helplessly. “Hey, the heart wants what the heart wants.”

“That’s heart spelled D-I-C-K⁠—”

They both shut up when I clear my throat and glance significantly at my Rolex.

“’Bout that time, huh?”

I nod at Carmine. Yup, Maeve and her father should be here soon to sign that fucking blood marker.

“Well, we’d love to stick around for emotional support, as in getting you drunk as fuck after it’s over, but we have a meeting we need to get to back in the city.”

I frown. “Drazen?”

“Yessir,” Nico nods.

Drazen Krylov is the Serbian-Russian head of the Krylov Bratva family and a newly minted New Yorker. A few months ago, he managed to make friends with Carmine, and through him, weaseled his way into a guest pass to Venom in a thinly veiled maneuver to meet me and pitch me on him becoming an investor in Club Venom.

Thinly veiled, but as much of a fucking lunatic as Drazen is, he’s grown on me. So much so that he is an investor in Venom now, too.

I also know he, Carmine and Nico have their own dealings going on together. But whatever they are, I’m smart enough to know I probably want fuck-all to do with them. I know where my line is. My game is Venom and the information trade. Whatever clandestine criminal shit these two and that psycho are up to, I’m sure I don’t want to know the details.

After the Barone brothers take off, I pour myself a heavy splash of scotch and sink into my favorite chair by the window of my study, overlooking the ocean. The afternoon is getting late, and I glance at my watch again.

Fuck. It’s almost time.

I exhale and turn to look through the window at the waves lapping lazily at the shore. This whole situation is a shit show. And that was before the hurricane herself slammed into me. Literally.

Tempest.

Tempest, with the jet black hair and thick, heavy eyeliner. Tempest with the poisonous tongue and defiant energy radiating off her pale skin that makes you not sure if you want to throttle her or fuck her into next Tuesday.

Or both, at the same time. It might take both to wipe that smug smirk off her pretty lips. Though I suppose stretching those lips around my cock…for the sake of argument…might have the same effect.

I growl to myself again as I slug back half my glass.

I’ve crossed paths with plenty of people who make it clear they don’t like me.

Not one of them has ever phased me, or even warranted a second thought from me. But when it comes to Tempest, I can’t seem to hold to my usual modus operandum of not giving a shit. With her, in fact, it’s the opposite.

I can’t stop thinking about her.

Not in a moony, sappy way. Fuck no. But I can’t stop fantasizing about her—her and those deep hazel-green eyes. The snidely pursed lips. The whole princess-of-darkness, Marilyn Manson groupie vibe dripping off of her shoulders like a toxin.

I haven’t the slightest idea why anything about this woman is hitting me like this. Worse, I have no idea how to flush it out of my system.

It’s been two days since she stormed out of Charles’ office and barreled into my chest.

I’ve stroked my cock until cum exploded from the swollen head no less than three times since then. And each of those times, it was black eyeliner, sneery, pouty lips, and stabby, angry eyes I was picturing.

Tempest. Otherwise known as the niece of the woman—girl—I’m supposed to marry.

This is…highly problematic.

A knock at the study door pulls my attention.

“Yes?”

The door opens, and Lorenzo, my head of security, pokes his head in.

“She’s here, Mr. Sartorre.”

My lips thin to a grimace.

Perfect timing.

“Okay. You can escort them in.”

Lorenzo’s brow furrows. “She’s actually alone, sir.”

Interesting. Part of me wonders for half a second if Charles sending Maeve on her own is some sort of power move. But then I realize I don’t really give a shit if it is or not. Maeve’s here, which means I can sign this fucking blood marker and get it over with.

“Well, then escort⁠—”

“She, uh…” Lorenzo looks unsure if he’s worried or amused to tell me. “She won’t get out of the car, sir. Point blank refused.”

I exhale with a groan, reaching up to pinch the bridge of my nose. Right. I forgot I’m marrying an almost literal child.

“Fuck it,” I sigh, rising from my chair and crossing to my desk. I punch in the code for the built-in safe underneath and pull out the blood marker, the Dickensian quill, and the small silver disk with the two wells and two little pinpricks set into it. With Lorenzo watching, I stab my thumb over one side of the disk, spilling my blood into the little well before dipping the quill into it.

I sign quickly, then press my bloody thumbprint to the page.

So be it. My club is everything, and I’ll do anything to keep it.

I’ve got a dark glare etched into my face as I storm out of the front door of my estate. There’s a black SUV parked on the white stone driveway, the engine running. My eyes narrow at my own reflection in the tinted black windows. I’m about to bang on the glass with my knuckles so we get this shit over with when the back seat window cracks open just a few inches.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

“Are we seriously doing it like this?” I mutter through clenched teeth.

No response from inside the car.

“Maeve,” I growl. “Understand that neither of us wants this, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happ⁠—”

A small, dainty hand pokes through the crack in the window, palm up. My back teeth grind.

“Look, when we’re married, you can hide all you want,” I mutter. “So long as you smile and obey me in public, and at the wedding. Do we understand each other?”

Silence from inside interior of the car.

“Do we understand each⁠—”

The hand curls into a thumbs-up.

Oh. My. God. This is why no one does arranged marriages anymore. Marriage itself is enough of a cage. This kind of marriage? Ridiculous.

But fuck it. If this is the way she wants to do this, so be it.

I hold up the contract, the quill, and the little metal disc. “Do you know how this work⁠—”

Her hand curls into another thumbs-up. With a roll of my eyes, I pass my high school soon-to-be-bride the fucking contract and the apparatus to sign it with her blood. She takes it, slipping her hand back into the shadows of the car as I stand there glaring at my own reflection in the tint of the windows, shaking my head.

I smirk a little when I hear the quick hiss of pain from inside, presumably from pricking her thumb. A second later, the hand slips back out, holding the signed contract, quill, and disc.

“Well, I’m glad we could do this face-to-face like grownups,” I mutter sarcastically. “Your father and I will talk, but you and I will meet privately next week to go over the details for the wedding and the…” I clear my throat. “The provisions of this arrangem⁠—”

I’m not even finished my sentence when the window rolls back up.

“Really?” I mutter as the SUV shifts into drive and starts to pull away. I stand there glaring at its rear fender, rubbing my sore thumb on the palm of my hand.

Suddenly, I frown as I glance past Maeve’s car. There’s a silver Bentley town car pulled up at the gate to my estate, the driver leaning out the window to speak with my security. Security nods, the gate opens, and the Bentley starts to roll in. The two cars pass each other, and my brow furrows as the Bentley stops in front of me and cuts the engine.

The back doors open, and Charles Black steps out…

With Maeve.

I whirl, firing my gaze down the driveway to where the SUV has suddenly started to speed up. I drop my gaze to the contract in my fist and my heart drops. The signature is sloppy and barely legible, but it sure as shit doesn’t say “Maeve Black” on the signature line.

Oh, fuck.

“Close the gate!!” I roar, waving my arms in the air at the security guards. “CLOSE THE FUCKING GATE!”

My men are the best of the best. Instantly, they bolt into action, slamming the gate shut and stepping between it and the approaching SUV, guns drawn. The brake lights glow red as the black Escalade comes to a quick halt and my men approach the driver’s side.

“What the hell is going on, Dante?!” Charles demands, storming over to me. He jabs an angry finger at the SUV. “Who the fuck is that?!”

He snatches the blood marker out of my hand.

“Who the hell signed the fucking⁠—”

The backdoor of the SUV opens, and someone steps out.

Black boots. Black fishnets. A black miniskirt and a striped Freddy-fucking-Kruger sweater, with too-black hair, too-pale skin, and too much goddamn eyeliner.

No. Fucking. Way.

Tempest stands tall, proud, and smug next to the SUV, staring right at me with a shit-eating grin on her face.

Our eyes lock, mine stabbing right into hers as my pulse roars in my ears. My thumb throbs from where I just let out the blood to ink my name on an unbreakable oath.

Right next to hers.

A ringing sound fills my ears as the full gravity of the situation hits me.

Slowly, still smirking at me, the little witch raises a black manicured middle finger and flips me off.

Fuck. Me.