Ruthless Enemy: A Dark Mafia Forced Marriage Romance, page 1
Ruthless Enemy
Dark Enemies series Book 3
Zoe Delaney
Contents
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
About the Author
Books by Zoe Delaney
Ruthless Enemy (Dark Enemies)
Copyright © 2024 Zoe Delaney (Jen Katemi)
All rights reserved
eBook Edition
Published by Flourish Books
Edited by Lindsey Loucks
Cover design by Covers by Combs
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Author’s Note
This is a dark Mafia romantic suspense book, and as such, there will be triggers for some readers, including kidnapping, use of guns, death, and a morally gray hero and heroine. This book and series are suitable for readers 18+.
To my readers—thank you. Without readers, this series would not have come to life, and I am grateful for each and every one of you.
1
“I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side.”
Maya Angelou
Bianca
When did my descent into darkness begin? Was it the moment Rio’s goons kidnapped me off the street? Was it the moment I fell in love with my kidnapper? Or was it more recent than that? Was it last night when Rio put a Glock 19 in my hand, and I used it on another human being?
It doesn’t matter when it started. I’m already here, in the murky waters of Mafia madness, with death on my hands and vengeance boiling in my blood like acid.
Turns out I will consider anything to get my daughter back.
Even if it means I have to kill my mother.
Rio forced me to head up here to bed for at least a little rest after everyone cleared out post-gun battle, but it’s impossible to find sleep. My baby girl is missing, most likely being held by a madwoman, and even if the madwoman is related to me by blood, there is no way in hell I can relax enough to sink into the oblivion of slumber.
Instead, I lie here in our marital bed, as rigid as a plank of wood, my heart doing weird stress palpitations and my jaw and neck muscles clenched so tightly I have a permanent headache. At some point Rio joins me in bed, and at least then I manage to unclench my body slightly as his warmth and proximity wrap around me and coax my muscles into releasing some of their tautness.
I still don’t sleep.
Neither does he. Rio’s breathing remains even and quiet, but every so often his fingers clutch at my flesh, and then he strokes me gently as if he didn’t mean to grab me so hard and wants to soothe any hurt his convulsive grip may have caused.
He was shot last night but refused to take pain medication. Yes, it only turned out to be a graze, in the end, but I’m assuming he still must be in a lot of pain.
Somewhere just past dawn, Rio releases a muted sigh and then slides out of bed with a muffled grunt before heading into the bathroom. I roll from my side onto my back and listen to the sound of the shower.
I’ve wracked my brain trying to figure out what to do next, but maybe I don’t need to plan any action other than to wait. Penn made it clear from her comments that “they” will be in touch with details about how I can get Emilia back.
“They” being Rossi or my mother, presumably.
So, instead of trying to figure out how to find them, I just need to wait for them to get in touch, and then Rio and I can rush in and retrieve our daughter. Alongside Danelli and the various members of the crew who support the Agosti organization.
Yeah, sure. It’s going to go as smoothly as that.
On the plus side of this awful situation, everyone in Rio’s employ has shown themselves to be firmly in our corner. Our daughter may only be six months old, but Emilia is the heir to the Carlotti-Agosti empire, and as such, she may as well be made of pure gold as far as they’re concerned.
I know they will all do whatever it takes to bring her home safely to Rio and me.
I release a sigh that mirrors the one Rio let out a short time ago, then look again toward the closed bathroom door. It’s been several minutes, and the shower is still running, which is unusual for Rio. He’s such a busy man he doesn’t normally linger.
A sudden yearning fills me, to feel his arms around me, to lose myself in his heat and his strength, and before I have a chance to overanalyze my motives, I’m out of bed and across the room.
I knock quietly, then enter without waiting for an answer. He’s leaning forward in the shower cubicle, both arms raised with his palms flat on the tiled wall. His head is hanging down, and the water cascades onto his back, making rivulets down his muscled form and over the dressing covering his ribs.
The dressing must be waterproof. Either that, or he’ll change it when he gets out.
When I enter, his head comes up, and I meet his haunted gaze through the steamy glass. He’s hurting, and I suspect not only physically. Rio is a man used to being in control, and with our daughter gone, the control has shifted to someone else.
He hates that, I’m sure.
He removes one hand from the wall and holds it out to me, and I know I’ve made the right decision coming in here. For both of us. I whip off the oversized T-shirt of Rio’s that I chose to wear last night and slip into the generously proportioned cubicle alongside him.
His arms wrap tightly and pull me close, and I don’t even have the chance to take a breath before his mouth crushes down on mine with a mix of need and barely restrained fury.
I open my lips and let him in, knowing the fury is not directed at me and welcoming his blistering passion in whatever form he wants to deliver it.
His fury matches mine. It is my birth mother—and my family’s so-called “old friend” Rossi—who has ripped our lives apart.
While Rio has the might of his family organization behind him, guaranteeing an army whenever he needs it, I have nothing to call upon except myself and my still-fledgling connection to this man.
I mirror him in the frenzied kiss, biting at his lower lip and moaning deep down in my throat when his fingers slide into my loose hair and grip hard to tilt my head farther back.
His erection needs no coaxing. He is hard and ready from the moment he lowers his hands and drags my hips in close. The heat generated between us from his cock, evident even with the cascade of warm water coating our bodies, turns my belly to molten desire, and I break off the kiss and release a whimper.
“I need you.” I breathe the words against his chest and then inhale his seductive male scent, enjoying the rumble that vibrates through him when I lift exploring fingers and flick at one of his nipples.
“No time for foreplay, little bird. Not today.” His tone is rough, sounding like he’s only just hanging on to control.
I know the feeling. It’s the same for me.
“No. No time.” My voice shakes so much I can barely speak.
He grabs me around the butt and lifts me up, my thighs resting on his powerful forearms, and I automatically wrap my legs around his hips before I remember.
“Wait! Your ribs!”
“I’m good. The pain is…necessary.”
What does that mean? Then he smashes my back against the tiled wall of the shower, and my breath leaves me in a whoosh. My brain stops formulating questions. The action is more violent than I was expecting, but I don’t care. The ache in my back mingles with the need clawing between my legs.
The hot water still flowing over both of us washes anything negative down the drain. Here, cocooned by steam and the scent of desire, the outside world disappears. I like it that way. I need it that way. A temporary reprieve from the horror waiting out there. Time for us both to just…succumb to instinct.
I need my husband to fuck me. And I need him now.
He lowers me until the head of his cock is seated at my entrance, and my whimpers turn to moans instead. I arch my back, rocking my hips and wriggling in his hold to try and push downward. I want his waiting flesh in me. Not teasing at my entrance. I want to wrap my vagina around him, suck him in deep, and let him fill my channel with everything he is.
I need to forget. I want us both to forget…
“You’re fucking gorgeous, Bianca. La mia bella moglie.” His voice is hoarse, his eyes shining with strong emotion.
I
We are powered in this coupling by rage and an intense need to obliterate the fear for our future.
I smile up at him, aware there is likely no humor in my expression. Only hunger. He understands. There is no answering humor in his features, either, even though his lips are also drawn wide in a semblance of a smile.
He is the only one to truly understand the terror that lies beneath my every half-panicked breath…
“Fuck me, Rio. Please. Make me forget.”
Finally, he complies, shoving up and into me at the same time as he lowers me down. The action is hard and fast, and it hurts just a little. Too much. Too full. I gasp as his ready flesh leaves no room inside me for anything else except need. He fills me right to my core, deep, deep inside.
My body adjusts to the invasion, and pleasure spirals outward as I grip him with my internal muscles. Want. Need. I will never let him go…
“Oh, God, that feels so good, so right. Oh, Rio…”
“Bianca, little bird, I will never get enough of you.” He thrusts so hard my whole body involuntarily jerks upward in his arms. “I can never. Get. Enough.” He punctuates each of his words with a vicious thrust in which I sense all the pent-up fury he’s been trying so hard to rein in.
“Yes.” I meet each of his thrusts with urgent movements. “Fuck me hard.”
I lose myself to sensation, writhing against him as he continues to pump hard into my body, over and over. Water gushes down from the shower head above us, the sound a sweet background for the moans and groans and gasps coming from both of us.
He lowers his head and takes one of my breasts in his mouth, suckling at the flesh before worrying the nipple with his teeth and tongue in an action that causes ripples to extend out from that sensitive point until it mingles with the ache in my core, and my whole body craves release.
I am so close to orgasm, teetering right on the edge. When he growls and nips hard at my breast, I can’t hold in the barrage any longer. My insides begin to clench around his cock, and I become rigid in his arms before my body shatters in a violent climax that pulls a scream out of my throat as I ride him.
He follows me instantly over the edge, his roar muted against my breast as he jerks and shudders and releases deep inside me.
Eventually, the sensations begin to ebb, and he slips out of me and lowers me back to the cubicle floor. His fingers trace my belly, then up between my breasts to my neck, where he encircles my throat in a grip not punishing, but firm enough to hold me in place against the wall.
I keep my chin high, allowing his touch. No, reveling in his touch, as his thumb strokes gently up and down one side of my neck.
“You will have bruises, little bird,” he murmurs, and I manage a tiny nod despite the prison of his hold.
“I know. I feel them forming already.” My butt and thighs ache from where his fingers squeezed my flesh so hard. “And a bite mark, I think.”
His gaze drops to my breast, and his lips twist slightly, as if he didn’t realize until this moment what he did in the heat of his passion. “The flesh looks unbroken, but I will arrange for a salve anyway.”
His hand drops away from my neck and he flicks my nipple with the very tip of a finger. Even sated, the action causes me to shiver, as if my body would be up for more, should he choose it.
“I did not mean to hurt you, Bianca. Not today.”
“I know.” I wind my hands up over his chest and clasp them around the back of his neck, pulling him down so I can plant a gentle kiss on his still-twisted lips. “It’s all right,” I add when he draws back. “I needed the escape. You did, too.”
I let go of his warmth before leaning over to flick off the taps. The sudden silence is cloying.
“What did you mean, the pain of this is necessary?” I stroke the waterproof covering over his gunshot wound, careful to only press lightly.
Though with what we just did, I suspect if it was going to pop open and start bleeding again, it would already have done so.
Rio’s brows draw together. “It gives me motivation and sharpens my mind. A reminder that our enemy is dangerous, and one wrong move will result in injury or death. I underestimated Rossi once. The pain helps me focus. I cannot allow him to best me again.”
“That’s it? It’s not…”
How do I ask a man as powerful as Rio if he sees the pain as his due because he feels that he let his family down?
His eyes narrow, as if he can sense what I’m afraid to put into words. “That’s it.” His tone is dismissive.
He steps out of the shower, effectively ending the moment of intimacy, and reaches for a couple of large white towels from the stack on the countertop nearby. He hands one of them to me.
“We will get our daughter back, my beautiful wife,” he says. “I promise you that.”
Suddenly, I want to snap at him, to tell him not to promise something he may not be able to deliver. But what happened isn’t his fault, and he doesn’t deserve my misplaced rage. And out of everyone I know, he is by far the one best placed to ensure we do get our baby girl back, safe and unharmed, where she belongs. With us.
So, instead of ranting at him, or rushing over and pummeling him with my now-clenched fists, I nod quietly and bury my face in the fluffy towel, scrubbing hard at my eyes and trying not to imagine the worst.
Our daughter’s maimed—or even worse, her tiny, dead body—flung onto the scrapheap known in this twisted crime-ridden world as collateral damage.
2
“Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice.”
Samuel Johnson
Rio
My enemy has shown his face at last, and I will destroy him.
I stare out the window of my office on the ground floor of my riverside estate and concentrate on keeping my breathing slow and steady. I have to dispel some of this anger or it will affect my ability to focus.
A memory flashes into my mind as I study the once-again pristine grounds of the estate, where only last night the bloody battle took place.
My father stood over me as I lay on the mat of the boxing ring in his gym, Nicky in the corner looking bloodied but somehow triumphant. “You had the win, Gregorio. And then you lost focus, and your brother took advantage. You are a loser today, and you will always be a loser in life, unless you maintain control over that temper of yours. Rein in your anger, boy.”
He held out a hand to pull me to my feet, and as soon as I was upright and steady, his ungloved fist came at me so fast I barely saw it. The blow knocked me straight back to the ground. I lost consciousness that time. When I came back to awareness, Nicky and my father were gone, and my mother’s doctor was waving some kind of bottle under my nose.
Old-fashioned smelling salts, I found out later, but at the time, all he said was, “If you keep disappointing your father, he’s going to kill you one day, young man. I can only do so much to keep putting you back together.”
Losing control is not an option, I remind myself. I must keep the dark beast that lurks within me contained. Or Bianca and Emilia will suffer.
Self-doubt has crept in for the first time since I assumed the mantle as head of the family. It is neither welcome nor useful, and I push the recalcitrant thoughts and old memories down, imagining crushing them in my fist as thoroughly as I will crush Rossi when I find him.
I promised Bianca I would get Emilia back safely, and I intend to fulfill that promise.
Still, the inner voice continues to taunt me. Will we get her back? Clearly, I have misjudged Rossi for much of my life, and it has cost almost everything I hold dear.
What does it say about me—about my ability to run the Agosti empire, that I could have been so easily duped by another?
I begin to pace as I wait for Danelli to arrive, running through my actions and decisions so far.
There was no point moving us all to one of my other properties, or one of my safe houses, or hiding out on my boat. They already came for us, and they took what is mine.
And I will kill every last fucking one of them for daring to go up against me and my precious family.
