Twisted by Release: A Dark Mafia Romance (Iron and Lace), page 1
Twisted by Release
A Dark Mafia Romance
Iron and Lace
Book 5
BB Hamel
Copyright © 2022 by B. B. Hamel
All rights reserved.
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.
Cover design by Coverluv Book Designs
Contents
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Trigger Warning
1. Kaye
2. Emilio
3. Kaye
4. Kaye
5. Kaye
6. Kaye
7. Emilio
8. Kaye
9. Kaye
10. Emilio
11. Kaye
12. Emilio
13. Kaye
14. Emilio
15. Kaye
16. Emilio
17. Kaye
18. Emilio
19. Emilio
20. Kaye
21. Kaye
22. Emilio
23. Kaye
24. Emilio
25. Emilio
26. Kaye
27. Emilio
28. Kaye
29. Kaye
30. Kaye
Preview: Ice King
Also by BB Hamel
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Trigger Warning
This book contains graphic descriptions of sexual content, explicit violence, drug use, and past trauma. These scenes were written to create a more vivid, in-depth experience, but may be triggering for some readers.
Read at your own risk.
Chapter 1
Kaye
The island where my sister died looms out from the waves like a headstone draped in ivy.
The Pacific is choppy and dark as the sun begins to set, throwing long red slants through seasick clouds, and my stomach twists as the ferry rolls and lolls up and down, and the trees on the island shimmer like mirages, barely there at this distance. I glimpse buildings, a dock, something glowing on the beach. Signs of life, but so far away that they’re meaningless.
I grip the railing. The metal’s cold beneath my fingers and slick with saltwater. It sprays against my face but I don’t turn away.
Did my sister feel the same sense of dread when she first saw this place?
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Dom joins me at the railing, leaning forward as the wind blows through his dark hair. He’s tall and handsome with dark brown eyes, dark tan skin, and dimples on both cheeks. “I checked it out on Google Earth, but it’s way better in person.”
Saint Parras Island is barely a hunk of rock jutting out of the water off the coast of California, not far from the much larger Santa Catalina Island. I’d never heard of it until Lucy told me she was going to college there. Imagine it, Kaye, an entire island with only a single college and nothing else. It’s going to be paradise. I still smile when I think about the day she got her acceptance letter, how happy she was, how she thought this would be the beginning of a better life. She was practically bouncing off the walls with joy. I’m out of here, Kaye, and I’m never looking back. God, imagine real freedom.
She lasted less than a year.
“Pretty,” I murmur, not paying attention to Dom. His cousin Nathan appears at his elbow, slightly shorter, broader shoulders and chest, with curly dark hair and forest green eyes.
“I’ve heard all sorts of rumors about Saint Parras College,” Nathan says, leaning forward over the railing and balancing with his feet off the ground. My stomach twists—if he loses his balance too much, he’ll tumble down into that black ocean and we’ll never find him.
“Stop that,” Dom says, yanking his cousin back. “The rumors are all bullshit. The whole island thing is just a marketing and PR illusion. Saint Parras is just a fancy private school for rich assholes that happens to have nice beaches.”
“Rich assholes like you and me?” Nathan looks over and grins at me. “Dom pretends like we’re not from money, but we were born with that cliché silver spoon lodged firmly down our throats.”
“We work for what we have.” Dom glares at his cousin. “You know you shouldn’t talk like that.”
“Sure, right, we totally struggle, if that’s what you tell yourself, although I don’t think you’ve worked a day in your life.” Nathan sighs and drums his knuckles on the railing. “Seriously though, I’ve heard all sorts of stuff about that island. About pirates haunting the waves and secret coves filled with sunken ships and missing treasure. About how it was a base for smuggling during Prohibition and they say the old rum’s still hidden in barrels beneath the rocks. That sort of stuff.”
“Bullshit,” Dom says quietly, but both boys stare straight ahead as the island gets larger and larger, and I know what they’re seeing: mystery and excitement and four years of college on a remote tropical island with a few hundred other rich and bored kids. They see parties and drinking and bonfires on the beach and girls looking to sleep with boys like them.
I see my dead sister’s body broken on the rocks in the shallow water at the base of a steep cliff, her neck twisted, her limbs splayed out.
I tug at my blonds hair and let the cousins chatter on about Saint Parras and all the things they’d heard about it. I don’t know much about the school and never wanted to attend in the first place. The island thing seemed contrived and weird—like, why would someone build a college in the middle of the ocean, cut off from civilization? Parras was Lucy’s paradise, her chance to get away from our family and to begin fresh in a place even our father’s influence couldn’t follow her.
She could’ve gone anywhere, but she chose this place, this island, her tomb. Straight As, debate club, field hockey, class president, valedictorian. Lucy was the model student, the sort of girl any institution would’ve gladly recruited, except all she wanted was exclusive, little-known Saint Parras. It was the only place she applied and nobody was surprise when she got in. Mom was over the moon, and even Dad showed a glimmer of pride—which is a lot from a man that never smiled.
I’m the opposite of my perfect, dead sister. My grades were fine, I can’t play sports, I’m not interested in debate or chess or clubs in general. I wanted to go to a state school or somewhere close to home back on the East Coast, but the second the call came about Lucy’s death, I knew I had to do whatever was necessary to get accepted to this place.
It became my mission, my obsession. I’ve done nothing but think about Saint Parras, obsess about the trails and the history, research the staff and the teachers and the students.
Because for all the stories the administration spun about what happened the night my sister fell off a cliff, I know it wasn’t an accident and Lucy wasn’t suicidal.
The island grows as we get closer. The ferry docks along a low jetty that juts out from a series of white-sand beaches. The glow I saw earlier is a bonfire with several students gathered around it, talking and laughing and roasting marshmallows. It looks like something from a movie. Beyond the trees lining the edge of the dunes, buildings appear against the darkening sky, whitewashed stone facades with red colonial roofs and old Spanish architecture. My future. Saint Parras College.
The dock hands tie the ferry off and the other students begin to disembark; several dozen filter down the gangway and onto the planks and toward the college that would be their life for the next few months.
“Once you’re on the island, there’s no leaving until semester break,” Nathan says, nudging me with his elbow. “We’re trapped out here, all alone. Kind of scary, right? What if some giant wave appears and just—” He gestures like he’s smashing a tiny village. “You know what I mean?” He grins, showing straight white teeth. I wonder if my sister ever felt trapped, or if this was her idea of freedom.
“He’s teasing you,” Dom says from my other side. “There are no waves like that out here. And the school gets shipments twice a week and they let students head to the mainland on weekends. There are at least another couple ferries with more students on their way over the next few days if you change your mind and want to run away.”
“Don’t spoil all the mystery,” Nathan says with a sigh. “I like to imagine we’re living in our own little society, totally disconnected from the rest of the world.”
“I’m not running away,” I say softly, but the boys don’t seem to hear. They’re too busy excitedly looking around.
“We have high-speed internet and cable TV.” Dom frowns at his cousin, head tilted to the side. “It’s not exactly a remote location. And anyway, it’s an accredited institution of higher learning, not some backwoods private party resort. We’re here to study.”
“Right, study.” Nathan rolls his eyes and both guys laugh.
I smile a little as the cousins banter back and forth and start to scan the people waiting to greet the new students. I drag my suitcase and heft my backpack, nerves jangling through my stomach. I wish I had more stuff, but the college only allows two bags and nothing else—everything necessary is provided, and other personal items can be shipped out over the c
As soon as I step onto the solid wood, the rolling ship left behind, I feel like a tether holding me back to my old life snaps. I wonder if Lucy experienced the same thing: I’m truly here, truly trapped, and even though Dom’s right, the students are allowed trips to the mainland for weekend excursions, I still feel like Nathan’s idea of this place is more accurate.
It’s a secluded, dark, mysterious, lonely world all alone out in the middle of the ocean, and there’s nobody coming to save me when I finally find the bastard that killed my sister.
“There he is,” Dom says, pointing toward a mass of waiting people. Some of them are students, and others are clearly teachers and staff directing the new arrivals toward a registration booth set up on the beach.
He catches my eye right away: taller than everyone around him, with the same dark olive skin as Nathan and Dom, but with intense blue eyes and tousled light brown hair, like a sun-bleached version of the cousins. He’s good looking, almost absurdly so, and I notice several of the girls nearby are also staring at him and whispering. For a second, I’m too engrossed by his good looks to think about who I’m staring at, like my mind short-circuits and overloads.
Nathan starts forward, grinning huge.
“Emilio!” he calls out, waiving. “Brother!”
I slow to a stop, my mouth falling open as I suddenly recognize the boy the cousins hurry forward to greet. That snaps me from my stupor.
Emilio Bruno. Son of the notorious Bruno mafia. I’ve spent hours and hours obsessing about him ever since Lucy died, and now there he is, straight ahead. The boy I came here to find, the boy I’ve hated quietly in my room for weeks and weeks. Everything comes down to him, that asshole.
It takes me a few seconds to process what Nathan said, and it suddenly clicks.
Nathan is a Bruno. Which means Dom is also a Bruno.
I feel sick as the implication weighs me down. The two boys I’ve spent the last few hours chatting with, getting to know, almost beginning to think of as possible new friends, are related to the guy I came here to murder.
“Kaye, come on,” Nathan says, waving at me, and I nearly gag. Emilio stands with his arm around his younger brother’s shoulders, smirking with a confident grin and wearing a dark linen shirt unbuttoned down his chest, revealing a muscular torso and strong arms. His pants are lightweight and rolled up to his calves, and tattoos peek out beneath the edges of his clothes. He’s handsome, even more attractive up close and in person than he is in photos, and it’s like the world briefly revolves around this man, this young man standing at the end of a dock on a beach on a remote island in the middle of the ocean not all that far from where my sister fell to her death, and I want to scream in terror. I’m not ready for this, I’m not ready for it at all—
“Kaye!” Nathan says again and I make my legs move.
“We met on the ferry over,” Dom explains as I sheepishly approach, staring at Emilio the whole time. He looks back, head tilted with a dubious smile. It’s a gesture I recognize from Nathan, except Emilio makes it seem piercing while Nathan feels more care-free and joyous.
“Welcome to Saint Parras,” Emilio says to me with a nod. “I hope my brother and cousin didn’t make your trip a living hell.”
“No, they were, uh, they were nice.”
“I was nice, Dom was a gloomy asshole,” Nathan says, squeezing his brother’s shoulder. “Hey, bro, show me to the Calico House. I’ve been fucking dying to see the place for years.”
“We’ll get there,” Emilio says, still staring at me intently, his smile slipping. “What did you say your name was again?”
“Kaye,” I answer, forcing myself to meet his gaze. I even try to smile, but my brain is screaming at me to run. This is the grin of a predator, the stare of a killer, the bloody hands of a psychopath and a bastard. I need to turn around, get back on that ferry, and get as far from Saint Parras as I possibly can.
Under no circumstances should I let myself be trapped on an island with that monster.
“Kaye,” he repeats like he’s rolling the word around on his tongue. “Well, Kaye, it’s very nice to meet you. I’m going to take my little brother and cousin here to my place, but once you’re settled, you should come visit.”
“I’d like that.” I sound small, mousy. Since when did my voice quaver so much?
“There’ll be a party in a few days,” Dom says, finally loosening up. He runs a hand through his hair and breathes the salty air deep. “Calico House is amazing. I’ve only seen pictures, but still. You should see it, Emilio here runs—”
“She doesn’t care about all that,” Emilio says quickly, interrupting his cousin with an easy smirk. “Come on, boys. Let’s get you two settled. Kaye, I’ll be seeing you soon.”
Nathan and Dom both wave as the three young men turn and begin walking up the beach, lugging their bags along and ignoring the registration booth like they can’t be bothered, and laughing about something I can’t hear. A nice woman with gray eyes and frizzy hair comes over and gently directs me to the registration table, but all I can do is stare at Emilio’s retreating form as they reach a path that winds into the trees. Before they disappear into the dark, Emilio turns back, and our eyes lock.
He smiles and I swear something sharp and bright glints off his teeth. And then he’s gone, melting away into the night.
My heart’s racing and my hands shake as I sign in. I barely understand anything the welcoming party says as leaflets, pamphlets, maps, and more paperwork are shoved into my hands.
He was right there. Barely five feet away.
And I did nothing.
Emilio Bruno was the last person to see my sister alive, and I’m determined to find out what really happened the night she died. That’s the reason I’m at Saint Parras, that’s the reason I’m still moving forward. One step and another step, getting closer and closer to the truth.
Without this plan, I would’ve curled up and wasted away after losing the only person that ever gave a damn about me.
I turn back to the ferry and watch it pull away from the dock, chugging back toward the mainland, my final lifeline to the real world receding into the distance.
But right now, my mind’s elsewhere.
Obsessing about Emilio.
I’m trapped on this island with that animal, and if I’m not careful then I might be the next dead girl to wash up on the sand.
Chapter 2
Emilio
Bottles in a large gray case rattle together as big, hulking Terrence hefts first one, then a second onto his shoulders. “Careful with those,” I say as I glance back and up the LED-torch-lit tunnel toward the cave entrance. “That’s all we have until the next shipment.”
“I still don’t know why we don’t do more runs,” Jayson says with a dramatic sigh as he lugs another case after Terrence, heading up the path that leads from the water below toward the cliffs beyond the cave entrance.
“Do you want to take the risk?” I stare after him, eyes narrowed. “You can take that on if you want. It’s not just the administration, remember. It’s the fucking Coast Guard, the cops, the goddamn crime families that run the beaches, and a dozen other jealous dickheads that want to steal our secrets. You down for that?”
