Shattered Prince: A Dark Mafia Romance Read online

  Shattered Prince

  BB Hamel

  Contents

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  Trigger Warning

  1. Jules

  2. Carmine

  3. Jules

  4. Carmine

  5. Jules

  6. Jules

  7. Jules

  8. Carmine

  9. Jules

  10. Carmine

  11. Jules

  12. Carmine

  13. Jules

  14. Carmine

  15. Jules

  16. Carmine

  17. Jules

  18. Jules

  19. Jules

  20. Carmine

  21. Jules

  22. Carmine

  23. Jules

  24. Carmine

  25. Jules

  26. Carmine

  27. Jules

  Preview: Perfect Monster

  Also by BB Hamel

  Copyright © 2021 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

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  Trigger Warning

  This book contains graphic descriptions of sexual content, explicit violence, some mild 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

  Jules

  Pills are better in baggies.

  They’re quieter. Everyone pictures pills in orange prescription bottles, but those make too much noise. They rattle and shake, and they’re easy to find if you know what you’re looking for.

  Baggies are better. They’re discreet and simpler to hide. You can wrap them up tight and slip them just about anywhere, and they’re waterproof. Hide them in a toilet tank. Tuck them somewhere outside. Bury them in the garden.

  I unzipped my backpack on the sink of a quiet bathroom in a back corner of the English Department building near a few abandoned classrooms and shoved my hand into the laptop pouch. I pulled out a small plastic baggie, unzipped the top, and poured two pills onto the beige counter.

  I stared at them for a long time.

  My leg ached. It was a bone-deep ache like someone stood on my thigh and bounced. On good days, it was more like a dull throb, easily ignored, no big deal—but when I got stressed, or if I walked around too much, or if the freaking weather was bad, my leg felt like it was about to explode.

  I picked up a pill and held it close to my nose.

  It was a small thing. Pale white. Marked on both sides. I ran my finger down the familiar shape. It brought back horrible memories. The scream of broken glass. A gurgle and a gasp for air.

  The bathroom door jolted open. A girl rushed in, frowned at me, and disappeared into the stall. I stood there utterly motionless wondering if she noticed what I was doing, but it didn’t matter. The pill was still in my hand, staring at me, waiting for me to give in.

  I didn’t want to swallow it, but I did anyway.

  It tasted bitter. I didn’t need to wash it down with water. I took it dry, frowned at the second one, and tossed it back into the baggie.

  I needed to be careful with my supply. It hadn’t been easy, sneaking as much as I had with me. Papa didn’t know I took them and I had no intention of ever letting him find out. It helped that he was oblivious to everything but his business and his own self-preservation.

  I threw my backpack over my shoulders and hustled out of there into the hallway. I was late for the first class of my college career, which was already a bad sign. My stomach fluttered, and as I waited for the elevator that’d take me to the top floor of the building, I felt the pill kick in.

  Like heaven spreading in my bloodstream.

  My leg went from a nuclear blast radiating pain up and down my spine and morphed into a soft whisper of discomfort. It was incredible how easily I could turn it off, if I really needed to. The ease was terrible though.

  Too many of those pills and I’d end up an addicted wreck.

  The doors dinged open and I stepped inside.

  I wasn’t there yet. I hadn’t gone that far. I wasn’t dependent on them, not yet at least. I’d been careful, so careful. No more than necessary. Never for fun. Some days, I took nothing at all—but those days were rare.

  I didn’t rely on the pills. But I needed something to help me get through the days. I rubbed absently at my leg and ignored the other kids shoved into the tiny elevator with me. These comfortable, pampered kids had no clue what it was like trying to exist with a wrecked and broken body.

  College was overwhelming. I’d never been around so many strangers in my life. Back in Mexico, living in my father’s house, I was surrounded by guards and house staff but never people I didn’t recognize. My father carefully hand-selected and vetted the people he let anywhere near our home, and he made sure I was introduced to them all. Every face was familiar, known, and quantified.

  But out here, I was alone in a sea of strangers and it set my heart racing. My skin was clammy and pale, and I was worried I might have a panic attack before I even sat in my seat.

  When I stepped off the elevator, I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I wanted this. I let the other students flow around me like water in a stream and I centered myself. I took long, slow breaths, like Luca had taught me all those years ago. Thinking of him used to be painful, but it wasn’t so bad anymore. I only felt a slight pang of longing in my chest that was there and gone in moments, like a flutter of a butterfly’s wings.

  I begged my father to let me leave the family compound to attend school in America. I argued that it would be safer, that his enemies wouldn’t dare hurt me on Texan soil, and he’d agreed. It was easier to find and kill people in Mexico, but they’d have much more trouble up north. None of them wanted to piss off the FBI or the CIA or something like that, which meant they wouldn’t resort to outright violence.

  Unfortunately, college came at a cost. There was always a price to pay with my father. Always a blood oath and a promise. Nothing was given out of love.

  Always, whatever I had was repaid tenfold.

  But I needed this. If I didn’t come to school here, I’d stay in that house for the rest of my life until the day he married me off to some stranger. He’d sell me like a horse and expect me to pump out babies like a good, obedient cartel woman.

  American college was my escape. It was my chance at freedom and a normal life, and I craved it so badly my chest hurt thinking about what my existence would be like if I hadn’t come.

  Price be damned. Strangers be damned. I could do this.

  I had to do this.

  There was no other choice.

  I raised my chin and limped off to school.

  At the end of a long day of classes, I was absolutely exhausted. My leg ached already. The pill should’ve lasted all day, but it wore off after a few hours of sitting on uncomfortable chairs and walking between the buildings to get to my classes. I’d loaded up my Tuesdays and Thursdays so I could work a few days a week and earn my spending money. Nothing was ever free.

  I spotted him leaning against the hood of a pitch-black Mercedes wearing a suit like he’d been born in it and a smile on his
lips. Black sunglasses covered his eyes, but I knew them all the same—dark blue, like ancient ice. His hair was messy and carelessly styled, and I couldn’t tell if he did it on purpose or if he truly wasn’t interested in what he looked like. He was tall and wiry, muscular but not overly built, and far too handsome for a dangerous man like him.

  For a damn gangster.

  Carmine waved. I noticed a group of girls standing at a bench nearby, gawking at him. I rolled my eyes. Stupid kids had no clue what this man was. All they saw was a pretty face and an expensive car. They didn’t understand that beneath the suit, he was a starving shark looking for his next meal.

  “How was your first day of school, darling?” he asked as I approached.

  “Don’t be a dick,” I said, glaring at him. My right hand dropped to my leg and kneaded the muscle at the top of my thigh. I tried not to be too obvious about it, but that was my comfort move. Whenever I got stressed or felt something too intensely, I always touched my wrecked leg.

  “I’m not being a dick. I’m just truly interested in how my ward’s day has been.”

  “I’m not your ward.” I stopped and glared. “I’m staying with you while I go to school and you’re making sure nobody kills me. That’s the extent of—” I gestured between us. “Whatever this is.”

  He grinned and dropped his sunglasses. I felt a little spark between my legs. There was something about his look that always made me shiver with desire, and a wave of resentment flooded through me. Carmine wasn’t supposed to make me feel this way. Nobody was—but especially not a man like him.

  I hated mafioso. I hated the cartel men, the bratva assholes, all the stupid gangsters that ruled the world from the shadows and thought they owned everyone and everything. I despised Carmine, and wished I didn’t have this stupid reaction every time he looked in my direction.

  It was physical. Purely carnal. Which meant it could be ignored.

  I learned a long time ago that I was not my body. Me and my body, we were at odds. It wanted to ache and hurt and complain, but I wanted nothing to do with any of that.

  Right now, my body wanted something from Carmine. Something I wasn’t willing to give in to.

  It wanted him to pin me against the hood of that ridiculous car and fuck me until I screamed.

  No, stupid, stupid body. I tensed my fingers into the flesh of my leg.

  “Look, Jules, I get you’re not happy about this arrangement, and let me be perfectly clear—I’m not either.” His eyes stared into mine then drifted down my body. I clenched my jaw. He stared at my lips, and my throat, and my breasts, and back up again. He wasn’t trying to be subtle about it. “But we’re in this situation together, so we might as well make the best of it.”

  “Then how about you act like I don’t exist and I act like you don’t. Mutually beneficial ignoring.”

  “All right, princess. If that’s what you want.”

  “Stop calling me princess.”

  “Then stop acting like one.” He pushed off the car. “Now get in. You’ve got to be at the Lowdown in an hour.”

  “Working me to the bone,” I said, limping over. He frowned slightly at my uneven gait, but I didn’t care. Lots of people stared and wondered. I got tons of pitying frowns. Poor girl, walks around like she’s eighty years old, but can’t be more than nineteen.

  “You signed up for it, princess.” He got in behind the wheel.

  I got in the back. I tossed my bag on the seat and buckled in. He frowned in the rearview mirror and I flashed him a smile.

  “Take me home, driver.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I don’t work for you.”

  “Actually, I think you do. My father left me in your care. Don’t you think he’d want you to extend every courtesy possible?”

  “Careful,” he said, his voice a low growl. “You’re only useful so long as you don’t piss me off too much. But there are other cartels. I won’t respond well if you keep dangling your daddy over my head.”

  I only smiled and shrugged. I didn’t care what he thought, so long as he left me alone and drove.

  Which fortunately, that was exactly what he did.

  I needed to ease off. Carmine was a mafia bastard and he drove me absolutely wild, but he wasn’t wrong. He hadn’t chosen this. Neither of us wanted our current situation. But my father forced me on him, and there wasn’t much he could do about it. If Carmine wanted to continue doing business with the Suarez cartel—which, despite what he said, he absolutely did—then he’d have to keep me safe while I was in his care.

  Shoving my father in his face wasn’t smart. Carmine wasn’t the kind of man to respond well to threats. It worked this time, but sooner or later he’d call my bluff, and then I’d be in trouble.

  Because I’d never go to my father. I’d never ask for that man’s help, no matter how bad things got. Not now, not when I was finally free.

  But there was something about Carmine I couldn’t place. I’d been living in his massive penthouse apartment for the past two weeks and he still felt like a stranger. He was barely ever home, and when he was, he spent all his time stomping around the living room on his phone, yelling at his men, drinking too much whiskey, and staring out the big windows. He was like a vicious, depressed bear or something, and I wondered when he’d finally snap.

  Not that it was my problem. He had a mafia war to fight, and all I wanted to do was get a degree, graduate with honors, and get into medical school. Then I could move out on my own and not have to rely on men like Carmine or my father anymore.

  Then I could help people for real.

  Carmine slid into his spot in the underground parking structure and we rode the elevator up in silence. I watched the numbers flit past as Carmine loomed behind me. He was big, and his presence was like a shadow threatening to crush me.

  We were two stops away when he spoke up. “How bad is it today?”

  I flinched, surprised, and looked back. “Excuse me?”

  He nodded, his eyes on my leg. “How bad?”

  “None of your business.” I looked away, my cheeks red. “I didn’t think you’d even notice.”

  “Hard not to when you’re walking like you need crutches.”

  My hands balled into fists. “Asshole. Is this how you talk to everyone?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, did you want me to go easy on you? Come on, princess. You can take it.”

  I looked back, fuming, but he was smiling that charming grin. Some of my anger dissipated, and we reached the apartment. The doors slid open and I walked into a beautiful, modern space, with glossy gray tile floors and a massive bank of windows overlooking San Antonio.

  The city was a rush. Even still, even after two weeks of staring and exploring, it felt fresh and amazing. I was from the Mexican countryside, and all I knew were cacti, desert flowers, and dust. But here there were more buildings than people, and it was incredible.

  Carmine poured himself a drink in the kitchen while I dropped my backpack on the table. I had studying and homework already, and I was itching to bury my nose in my books, but I had a shift tending bar at the Lowdown soon. He’d drive us both over. Another awkward car trip. But I needed the money, and the work was easy enough, although I’d only worked a couple of shifts, and spending all that time on my feet inevitably ended in agony. But I could handle the pain. I was used to hurting all the damn time.

  And at least I liked the owners, Mal and Cap. Two more mafia bastards—but Cap was okay. She was this pretty girl with auburn hair and a big smile, and Mal was this massive beast of a man with tons of tattoos and a constant glare. He and Carmine and Cap were best friends as far as I could tell. Their relationship seemed complicated, and I did my best to stay out of it. I wasn’t here to get sucked into their drama.

  Carmine watched me closely. I sat down with a sigh, trying not to let him see how much I needed to get off my feet. I grabbed a nearby remote and used it to ignite the gas fireplace. The flames trickled up and danced in slow, undulating waves.


  “We should talk about something,” Carmine said.

  “Want to pry into my personal life some more?”

  He tilted his head. “You’re always so defensive. Why is that?”

  I looked away, out the windows. Because I’m always in pain. “What do you need?”

  He watched a moment longer, like he was trying to read me. That stare sent another shiver down my spine.

  “Things are heating up with Mauro Balestra. Your father told you about that?”

  I shrugged. “He gave me the basics. You two hate each other. You’re in a war for San Antonio. The usual mafia drama.”

  His eyes narrowed. “It’s more than that,” he said, his voice low. He sounded more serious that I’d ever heard him before. “He killed my parents. He stole my crime syndicate. He thought I was dead, but I’ve been biding my time, preparing to strike. He survived my first attempt, but he won’t survive forever.”

  I blinked a few times. “He killed your parents? I didn’t know that.”

  “It was a coup. The bastard was a trusted ally.” His fingers gripped a glass hard. “Now he’s going to bleed.”

  I chewed my lip. Carmine was normally all smiles and teasing. But this was an interesting side of him. Darker and more intense. I saw the hate behind his pretty eyes and it was startling.

  It reminded me so much of the way I looked in the mirror.

  “I’m sorry about your parents,” I said quietly.