Savage Vow : A Dark Forced Marriage Mafia Romance (Dark Lies Book 4) Read online

  Copyright © 2022 by Bleeding Heart Press

  Cover Design: C. Hallman

  Editing: Kelly Allenby

  Proofread: Editing for Indies

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  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  CONTENTS

  Blurb

  1. Alicia

  2. Enzo

  3. Alicia

  4. Enzo

  5. Alicia

  6. Enzo

  7. Alicia

  8. Enzo

  9. Alicia

  10. Enzo

  11. Alicia

  12. Enzo

  13. Alicia

  14. Enzo

  15. Alicia

  16. Enzo

  17. Alicia

  18. Enzo

  19. Alicia

  20. Enzo

  21. Alicia

  22. Enzo

  23. Alicia

  24. Enzo

  25. Alicia

  26. Enzo

  27. Alicia

  28. Enzo

  29. Alicia

  30. Enzo

  31. Alicia

  32. Enzo

  33. Alicia

  34. Enzo

  35. Alicia

  36. Enzo

  Epilogue

  About J.L. Beck

  About S. Rena

  BLURB

  They say the truth will set you free.

  That’s a lie.

  The truth got me locked in an ivory tower, a victim to my new husbands rage.

  If I’m going to survive I’m going to have to make Enzo fall back in love with me.

  1

  ALICIA

  What am I supposed to do?

  Where do I go from here?

  Probably no more than an hour ago, I was about to kiss my husband for the first time. I was dazed and shaken, but I made it through the ceremony—what little ceremony there was. I knew what I had to do to make it out of this alive, even if I was sure the entire time that my supposed father was going to spill the beans and ruin everything.

  He did, too. Just not in the way I imagined.

  Now, here I am. Locked up again in the same room as when I first got here. The difference is I’m wearing a bloodstained wedding dress. And a band around my ring finger, a symbol of the mockery of a union I’m now a part of.

  I’m waiting for my husband to decide what he’s going to do with me.

  A heartbroken sob tears itself from my chest before I can fight it back. I don’t understand what happened. Like things weren’t bad enough as they were. Forced into the wedding, having to pretend those people were my parents. I’ve told so many lies and half-truths that I can’t keep track of any of it.

  All I know now is that there is no lying my way out of this one. That Alvarez guy told Enzo I’m not who he thinks I am. He’s just as disgusting and cruel as the rest of them.

  I thought Enzo was better than that. In fact, deep down, I know he is. I didn’t mean to blurt out my feelings for him, but they’re real. I love him. I was terrified for those brief moments when I didn’t know if he was hit by a bullet. The idea of being without him… Even now, it’s not something I want to imagine. Even though he’s locked me up again. Even when I know there is a high chance he will kill me.

  The click of the lock makes my head snap up. My eyes are on the door. My heart starts to race, and a sickening wave of nausea ripples through me. This is it. I honestly didn’t think it would take this long for him to come up here and take his rage out on me. I hold my breath, ready to face my fate, but it isn’t Enzo who comes into the room. I blink, confused for a moment, when I realize it’s a guard instead.

  He glares at me for a split second before leaving a tray of food on the floor. I don’t have time to take a breath and ask what’s happening before he closes the door again, clicking the lock into place.

  “Please, somebody, talk to me!” I rush from the bed and knock on the door when what I want to do is pound my fists, but I know that won’t get me anywhere. The best thing I can do right now is play it cool. As cool as a person can play it in a situation like this.

  I have to settle for picking up the tray covered in food we were supposed to be enjoying as part of our wedding dinner. Yet another symbol of what this day was supposed to be and what it eventually evolved into. It’s kind of cold now, the wine sauce coating the chicken somewhat congealed, but I have no idea the next time someone will think to feed me, so I doubt I should look a gift horse in the mouth. Even though I’m about as far away from hungry as I can remember ever being, I force myself through it, eating potatoes and sauteed vegetables without really tasting much of it.

  If it wasn’t all so stressful, I might have to laugh. Could this entire situation be any further from what I would have imagined my wedding to be like one day? All my youthful illusions, gone at once. I’m sitting alone in a locked room with only a tiny window through which to see the outside world. My dress—one I didn’t get to choose for myself—is covered in blood and grass stains. I’m eating cold food from a tray, forcing myself to swallow every bite even though it tastes like sawdust. Waiting for my husband to barge in here and make good on his promise of killing me.

  And all the while, my brain is churning. What am I supposed to do here? What should I say? I doubt he’ll believe anything I come up with, but I have to try, don’t I? I can’t roll over and die without at least trying to save myself.

  I hate the sense of returning to where we started, especially when it seemed Enzo was starting to come around. He was actually sweet toward me, tender. I’m not fooling myself by remembering the concern etched all over his face and dripping from his voice when he checked me over to make sure I was okay. He could have protected himself alone but threw himself over me instead. That has to mean something.

  Can I make that work in my favor now?

  One thing is obvious: Josef Alvarez was lying when he said he wasn’t responsible for this shooting. Who else would be?

  The more I think about it, the more I wonder if all of this isn’t partly my fault. I could have told him the truth from the beginning or at any point during this whole ordeal. Clearly, all Alvarez ever cared about was the drugs. Now I understand a lot of things I didn’t before. The shooting at the airplane hangar—obviously, he figured they were bringing the drugs to the meeting and wanted them back, no strings attached. Meaning killing the people who brought them back to him.

  Meanwhile, Enzo thought it was me he was looking for. I guess it’s easy to look back now and see all the mistakes and all the ways this could have been avoided. At the time, they only thought I was doing my best to survive. I never meant to get anybody killed, not even that wicked old man.

  I have no doubt Enzo is going to put that together sooner rather than later. Maybe I can somehow get ahead of him. I’ll tell him the full truth, all of it. I might be able to get through to him, especially if I tell him what Alvarez was really looking for all along. If all he wants is the drugs, it’s a simple matter of returning them.

  Or… if Enzo still has the drugs, which I have no doubt he would, maybe he can use them in some other way. If Alvarez is that desperate to get them back, they must be something special. I don’t know anything about that, but I remember Enzo’s reaction when he tested them. He tried to hide it, but when I look back, it’s clear something about them intrigued him. Maybe he could sell them himself or find
out how they were manufactured. He could still come out of this having gained something.

  No, that won’t bring his grandfather back, but it might put Enzo in a better position to get his revenge. I have no doubt that’s what sits at the forefront of his mind since it’s what I would want if the only father figure I had was suddenly assassinated in front of me. How he’s going to get vengeance for the old man.

  Even though he couldn’t have been a very nice man, and he certainly made me feel like a cheap piece of trash. I’ll never forget how pitifully Enzo reacted when he knew there was nothing to be done. That the man who had raised him was gone. Just remembering it now stirs pain in my chest. It’s dangerous to think of him as a lost little boy, but I can’t help it. That’s exactly who he was at that moment.

  One thing I know for sure. There’s no way he’s going to be thinking clearly. I know he’ll hate it if I try to talk sense to him, but that’s what I have to do. I have to get through to him somehow. I have to make sure he sees the big picture and doesn’t get lost in his pain and rage. Not even only for my sake but for his own. He was dangerously close to losing it out there. People don’t make smart decisions when they’re in that state of mind.

  And even though he’s got me locked in here, I still care. Probably too much. I don’t want to see him hurting any worse than he already is, and I wish there was a way I could take it away. Since I know that’s not possible, all I can do is try to keep things from getting any worse.

  I have no idea how much time passes. I only know the light outside the little window changes as the sun moves across the sky and the day progresses. There isn’t even that much noise coming from the rest of the house, which strikes me as odd. I imagine Enzo throwing things around, screaming, threatening to burn the whole place down unless somebody starts giving him the answers he wants. Somehow, the silence is even more frightening than what I just imagined. Too many ugly possibilities exist in that silence.

  The lock clicks. My heart is going to explode. My stomach feels like I’m on my way down the first big hill of a roller coaster.

  The door opens, and the sensation only intensifies when Enzo steps through it. He’s wild, his eyes blazing, hair mussed like he’s been running his hands through it. His normally healthy color has drained away—now he’s gray, drawn. But I don’t get a sense of illness or weakness from him, far from it. He looks like he’s ready to kill.

  And he’s glaring at me.

  I force myself to stand but can’t hide the way I’m shaking. It isn’t weakness. Anybody in their right mind would shake if a man like him was looking at them the way he’s looking at me. Like he wants to slaughter me and watch the blood drip out on the floor.

  Is he waiting for me to speak? I lick my lips to moisten them. “Enzo. You might not believe this, but I’m so sorry about your grandfather. If there was anything I could have done, I would have.”

  That’s as much as he lets me get out before crossing the room and grabbing me. A squeak escapes my lips as his fingers dig into my cheeks while he backs me against the wall. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, just like I shouldn’t let it hurt me. But it does. It hurts my heart. I’m looking into the eyes of a stranger when I was so sure things between us had changed.

  “Let me give you a piece of advice.” He hardly even sounds like himself, more like a wild animal with its teeth bared, and it’s clear from the smell of his breath that he’s had at least one drink already. “You are never, ever to speak of my grandfather again. I don’t want you to mention him. I don’t want your sympathy. All I’ll ever get from you is lies and more lies, anyway. So don’t waste your breath or my time.”

  “I wasn’t—” I suck in a pained breath when his fingers dig deeper into my flesh. Pain ignites in my cheeks. Much more pressure, and he’ll break my cheekbones. I’m sure he’d like that.

  “You will only speak when you’re answering a direct question. I don’t want to hear anything else from you.” His voice shakes with barely restrained rage. “Nod if you understand.”

  My head bobs up and down as much as I can move it.

  “Now. Tell me who the hell you are,” he snarls. “Before I kill you.”

  2

  ENZO

  I probably shouldn’t be in this room with her. Not while I feel the way I do. Certainly not while I’m touching her this way when it would be so easy to hurt her. That’s all I want to do. Hurt her. Make her scream, make her beg, and watch her blood run through my fingers like a river.

  Focus, dammit. Why are you letting a woman rule your emotions?

  Maybe I am truly going insane. For a moment, I hear Grandfather’s voice in my head so sharp and clear, as if he were standing beside me.

  But that’s impossible. He’s dead—his life snuffed out right in front of me, his blood is on my clothes. This suit another symbol of the charade that went on here today. Another symbol of how easily I was led around, as well.

  My grip on her tightens, and I feel her delicate facial bones beneath my fingers. I could destroy her beauty in an instant, ruin her, break her.

  “By the time I’m finished with you,” I whisper, barely hanging on to the last threads of my control, “you won’t even recognize yourself. No one will.”

  She’s tough, I’ll give her that—or at least she’s attempting to be. She doesn’t blink. A tremble courses through her body as she sucks in a pained breath as I dig my fingers deeper into her flesh. But she won’t blink nor back down.

  “Well?” I growl, leaning in close. If she isn’t careful, she’ll hyperventilate, her rapid breaths short and shallow. “Start talking.”

  “Can’t,” she manages to whisper. She looks down at my hand, covering half her face.

  That’s all that’s stopping her? Fair enough. I take hold of her throat instead, pivot, and throw her onto the bed. She lands in an ungraceful heap, but instead of scrambling around, trying to sit upright to have a little dignity, she remains that way, gasping and coughing on her back.

  I don’t know what part of her I want to injure first. I have too. It’s the least she deserves. “It’s amazing you’re still breathing,” I whisper, and even my voice shakes with my barely controlled rage. I’m going to lose it completely, aren’t I? I hope I do. I hope I blackout from the rage and wake up covered in her blood.

  When I reach out and touch her ankle, it seems to stir her to life again. She attempts to pull herself away, to escape to the other side of the bed, but her legs get lost in the long dress, the heel of her shoe caught in the hem and tearing it. Her wedding dress, now stained and destroyed, is the perfect symbol of what was destroyed today. Thanks to her, all thanks to her. My grandfather’s life. Any hope of my family securing their place here.

  And somewhere deep in my chest, beyond family loyalty, is me. My wishes, the hopes I didn’t dare voice even to myself. And here it is, proof of the wisdom of my reticence. I knew there had to be a reason I couldn’t open myself fully to her. Why I couldn’t imagine a future for us. There was never going to be one because she was never going to be better than she is, more than she is. A liar, a nothing. No one. And certainly unworthy of the name De Luca.

  I reach down and grab her torn hem, laughing as I do, even though nothing about this is funny. “Look at you. The nerve of wearing a white dress. What a charade. What an absolute joke.”

  I take her by the ankle again and haul her across the bed until she’s close enough that I can reach the top of the dress, over her tits. “You don’t deserve to wear this.” One quick tug and the seams give way, but the sound of her anguished cries as I do touches the place deep inside me that needs to make her pay the most. I haven’t begun to take back what’s mine.

  “Please, please, Enzo…” Her words mean nothing to me. Now I take the dress in both hands and tear it, growling as I do.

  “A white dress. Innocence. I’m sure that was the biggest joke of all, wasn’t it?” It’s shredded now, hanging from her arms as she once again tries to crawl away from me. The ult
imate symbol of everything lost today. Hanging in tatters, ruined beyond repair.

  It’s a game, and I almost enjoy it. Pulling the dress from her, I leave her in nothing but a white thong and bra I suppose were meant to entice me somehow. And dammit, they would, too. If she were anyone else and my grandfather was still breathing, we would be having a much different encounter in this room. Wasn’t I only just beginning to entertain the idea before—

  No. I can’t think about that now. I won’t. I won’t put myself through it when there’s so much more to be done. This lying bitch? She’s nothing, a distraction, just as she always has been. The fault lies with me for allowing myself to lose perspective.

  I won’t make that mistake again.

  “Enzo, please, listen to me…” She lifts her head, her makeup smeared and running down her face, hair hanging in tear-dampened tangles on either side. This is how she deserves to look. Ruined. The way she’s ruined so much.

  “I would have listened to you. You had countless chances to speak up for yourself. To tell the truth. Instead, you chose to lie over and over.”

  “What choice did I have? You wouldn’t have killed me if I had told you the truth before now? Please, we both know that isn’t true. I was trying to save my own life!”

  “Then you wasted your time because your life isn’t worth saving.”