Bend: A Dark Mafia Romance Read online

  He hustled inside and I shut the door behind him. “You got the girl?”

  I nodded at the couch. “Yeah. She’s still out.”

  “Good. We have some work to do.”

  “Work?”

  “Yeah, man. Some fucking work.”

  “Shit,” I said as he walked toward the guest room. I looked at the wood and at the tools and knew exactly what he wanted to do.

  This was getting more and more fucked up by the minute.

  Chapter 3

  Jodie

  I woke up with a splitting headache, disoriented and confused. I groaned and rolled onto my side. For a second, I thought I might puke, but the world quickly stabilized.

  I was lying on a thin mattress on the floor. I didn’t recognize the room at all and it looked completely empty except for a metal bucket in one corner. I tried to sit up, but I started spinning again.

  “Help!” I croaked, but my voice sounded like dust.

  The memory of my family lying slaughtered in my living room came back to me then like a knife to the gut. I curled up into a little ball and started to sob, not sure what else I could do. I watched my own mother die right before my eyes, and I realized horribly that I was alone, completely and utterly alone. I was the last Walsh living as far as I knew.

  I let myself sob like that for a while until the tears finally stopped themselves. I got myself together and took some deep breaths before finally sitting upright. My head swam but I managed to stay up.

  I got a better look at the room. There was what looked like a closet without its door against one wall and a window to my left, but the window was covered over with wood. The entry door was heavy-looking with a slit around eye-height that was covered by a black piece of plastic or wood or something.

  It looked like a jail cell, or at least like it was a normal bedroom that was turned into a jail cell. I wasn’t tied up, so I tried to get to my feet.

  It took me ten minutes before I was finally standing. I felt weak and dizzy, and could feel a nasty welt on my head where that bastard had hit me. I knew I was concussed and would probably be dealing with that for the rest of my life, but at least I was alive for the time being. I didn’t know when that would change, though.

  I didn’t know who these people were. I got a good look at the men that took me, but I didn’t recognize any of them. They weren’t part of my father’s organization, and so I had to assume that they were enemies of his.

  I felt so much anger well up through me suddenly. My stupid fucking father did this to us, got everyone murdered. He brought my brothers into his business, and his business got them all killed. My youngest brother was only twenty-two, two years older than I was.

  He was dead now, just like everyone else I loved.

  Why couldn’t my father be a normal man? I was so stupid and naïve that I never realized what he did until it was way too late to do anything. Even when I did figure it all out, I just ignored it and kept living my life as if my father weren’t a dangerous mobster. Now all of that caught up with us, and I was alone in the world locked in some fucking prison.

  “Hello?” I called out, and this time my voice seemed to work. “Anyone? Please?”

  I paused and walked over toward the door. There was no knob on my side of the room but I tried to open it anyway, prying at it, knocking into it. I got dizzy and had to stop pretty fast, but after a minute I walked over to the window and gave that a try. I yanked at the wood, but nothing budged.

  I balled my fists and screamed in frustration. I screamed as loudly as I could, hoping that someone would hear me and help me. They couldn’t just keep me captive in some room for the rest of my life, and I could already guess how this was going to end for me.

  After a minute, I heard a sound at the door. I stopped screaming as the black piece slid across and a pair of icy blue eyes stared in at me.

  “Stop screaming,” a man said.

  I stared at him. “Where am I?”

  “You’re safe, for now. But if you continue screaming, you won’t be safe anymore.”

  I stared back at him defiantly and then began to scream again. Clearly, he didn’t like me making too much noise, and that meant people might actually be able to hear me.

  The man sighed and shut the peephole. He opened the door and stepped inside.

  I stopped screaming as soon as I got a good look at him. He wasn’t the older man or the man that hit me, but one of the other two. I didn’t get a good look at him then, and now I was surprised at how handsome he was.

  He was tall and muscular with icy blue eyes and a handsome, chiseled face. Tattoos snaked up his arms and I could see ripped, intense muscles under his tight t-shirt. He sighed and glared at me, crossing his arms.

  “Stop screaming,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ll gag you and tie you up if you don’t.”

  I stared him down. “Who are you?”

  “You can call me Dante.”

  “Let me go, Dante. I’m not involved in my father’s business. Please, just let me go.”

  “No,” he said simply. “Be quiet or I’ll make you be quiet.”

  “You can’t do this,” I said softly.

  He stepped toward me suddenly, moving faster than his large frame would suggest. I sucked in a breath of air as he backed me up against the back wall.

  “Listen to me, Jodie Walsh,” he said, his voice intense and smooth. “You’re mine now. Do you understand that?”

  My heart was racing in my chest. Dante was gorgeous and intense, and although I hated him, I couldn’t help but breathe deeply and fast with him so close to me.

  “Nobody owns me,” I said.

  “I own you,” he answered. “The sooner you understand that, the better things will go for you.”

  He reached out and took my chin in his rough hand. Chills ran down my spine and I felt a strange excitement run through me. I couldn’t understand it, because I hated this man, but he was something I’d never experienced before.

  “You’ll submit,” he said softly. “You’ll learn.”

  I didn’t say a word. He released me after a moment then turned away and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

  I collapsed onto the ground, breathing deeply, tears in my eyes. Dante was sexy and awful and I hated him, but my pussy was dripping wet and I wanted nothing more than to do exactly what he said. I was so frustrated, so angry with my pathetic self that I could only curl up on the thin mattress and cry until I fell asleep.

  Chapter 4

  Dante

  I sat on the couch, sweating from the work of putting together that fucking jail cell, sipping a beer and wishing I didn’t have some sexy as fuck girl locked up in my apartment.

  I didn’t back down from messed up shit. I was a mobster and a killer, I did this sort of thing for a living. But I didn’t need some fucking girl in my apartment who was probably wanted by the Irish mob. I just didn’t want anything to do with this poor fucking girl’s ordeal.

  I wished they had just put a fucking bullet in her head and been done with it. That would have been a kind of mercy for her at least.

  Except if that had happened, I never would have seen her. I mean, I saw her earlier, but not like I did back in the room. I took a swig of beer and shook my head, not sure what the fuck to think.

  She was gorgeous and defiant. She was in bad shape, definitely concussed and barely holding herself together, and yet she looked like she was going to attack me at any second and fight me off. I almost wanted her to do it, just to give me an excuse to put my hands on her fucking sexy body.

  I was hard as hell as I thought about what I wanted to do. I groaned, shaking my head. The poor fucking girl. I wasn’t a lowlife rapist, and I wasn’t going to put my hands on her, but if she begged . . . I couldn’t turn that down.

  I sighed, shaking my head. She was actually lucky that Gennaro gave her to me. Forced her on me was probably a better way to put it, but anyway. Most of the scumbag
s in the mafia wouldn’t be as fucking nice as me. They would have beat her ass for looking defiant even for a second, and probably raped her for good measure. Frankly, shit could be much worse with some of those other sick bastards.

  The least I could do was treat her like a human being. Sure, she had to shit and piss in a bucket in her room, which was fucked up enough. I couldn’t let her have access to my apartment, though, so she was stuck in there. At the very least I wouldn’t beat her, abuse her, treat her like an animal. I’d feed her regularly and not some fucking slop, either. I’d treat her as well as I could.

  Probably wouldn’t matter in the end. I had no clue what the bosses were going to want to do with her, and I really didn’t want to know. The whole thing was messed up but at least it was above my pay grade. I wasn’t in charge of making these decisions.

  That was a fucking copout and I knew it. She was in my apartment. She was my fucking responsibility.

  With a sigh, I finished my beer and went into the kitchen. I put together a simple meal of water and a sandwich for her then went over to the door.

  I slid open the eye slit. She was lying on the mattress, curled in a little ball.

  I closed the slit and unlocked the door. I opened it and stepped inside.

  She charged at me like a fucking madwoman.

  I dropped the plate and glass as her nails dug at my face. She was screaming wildly as I grabbed her and threw her back down onto the mattress. She was up and came at me again, but I subdued her easily, holding her down on the mattress.

  “You fucking bastard,” she screamed. “You sick bastard. Let me go!”

  “Stop,” I said simply. “If you don’t, I’ll tie you up and gag you.”

  She struggled more. “Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.”

  “Stop,” I said again, staring into her eyes. I kept her pinned to the mattress.

  Slowly, she calmed down. She broke down into tears again, curling back up on the mattress. I stood up and got the sandwich, putting it back together the best I could, and placed it down at her feet.

  “You’re stuck here,” I said to her. “You’re not going anywhere. You need to understand that. The more you struggle, the worse this will be.”

  “I just want to go home,” she said.

  “There is no more home for you. You’re mine now. Accept it.”

  She looked up at me with those gorgeous emerald eyes ringed with red, defiant and angry and sad all at once.

  “Never,” she said.

  “Eat.” I nodded at the sandwich.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “I told you already. I’m Dante.”

  “No. Who are you? Why are you doing this?”

  I glanced down, not sure what I should tell her. I didn’t know what my bosses wanted her to know. The safe bet was to just tell her nothing and keep her tied up, but I couldn’t do that shit.

  “I work for the Gotti Family.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  I frowned at her. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I’m serious.”

  “We’re the Italian mafia. We’re the biggest crime family in the city.”

  She looked away. “I guess my father pissed you guys off.”

  I laughed, shaking my head. That was a fucking understatement.

  “Eat,” I said. “Calm down. If you scream or come at me again, I won’t be so nice next time. This is your one warning.”

  “Just let me go,” she begged. “I’ll leave town. You’ll never hear from me again. I’ll run and never look back.”

  “Eat,” I repeated and left the room.

  “Fuck you, Dante,” she called after me.

  I shut the door and locked it, shaking my head.

  She didn’t seem to know anything about her father’s business, and didn’t recognize my organization’s name when I said it. Could the daughter of the infamous Shamus Walsh really not know about the Gotti Family? That seemed like fucking madness to me, but it was possible. Women in these organizations tended to be pushed to the fringes and only vaguely knew about what the men were doing.

  She probably thought her brothers were a bunch of nice guys, too. I shook my head and poured a whisky before sitting down on my couch. Those Walsh boys were fucking murderers and scumbags. There were some pretty fucked up stories about them, such as the youngest boy gutting a guy for owing them two hundred dollars and making the guy watch as he pulled out his intestines right in front of him. That was one of many horrible, brutal stories.

  I didn’t feel bad for what we did to the Walsh family. Frankly, those bastards needed to be killed, and the city was going to be much better off without them. Shamus Walsh came into power of his own little slice of territory through sheer brute force. He used to be the Irish hitman, but they promoted him when he proved to be very capable. His sons were looking like they were just as bad as dear old dad.

  We couldn’t let him terrorize the city and hurt our people anymore. So we wiped them out in the middle of the day when they were least expecting it.

  Still, the girl had to know something. The Walsh clan was so fucked up and infamous, there was no way she lived in the same house as them and had no clue what they were like.

  I sighed and settled in to play babysitter for the fucking girl, not sure if she was a devil or an angel, or maybe a mix of both.

  Chapter 5

  Jodie

  Time moved slowly while I was locked up in that room. I watched the sun slowly set outside through the cracks in the boarded up window, and the light dimmed, dipped, and eventually went out.

  I could just hear the television on in the other room. He was watching some football game, something I couldn’t make out. I spent my time staring at the wall, trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do.

  Dante was interesting. He didn’t seem like he wanted to hurt me, and he had every right to slap me around earlier when I went at him. I wasn’t holding back and was really trying to hurt him, but instead of hurting me back, he just held me down until I stopped. His gorgeous eyes never left mine, and he only used as much force as was necessary.

  Still, I believed his threats. He was the kind of man that didn’t need to make threats more than once, because they always held the weight of truth. I knew he would tie me up and gag me the second I got out of control again, and I had to avoid that.

  I needed to be free to move around if I was going to break out of here.

  There was something . . . intense about Dante. I couldn’t really put my finger on it. I should have been terrified of him, since he was a dangerous man and helped kill my family, but I wasn’t. He didn’t seem scary or like he wanted to hurt me. In fact, he seemed almost gentle, which was strange. After I spilled the water he brought me during my attack, he came back not long later with a water bottle for me. He didn’t say anything, just left it on the floor, but it was a nice gesture.

  He didn’t have to be kind to me. He probably didn’t have to feed me or give me any water at all if he didn’t want to. Maybe they planned on keeping me alive for a while, but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe he was just trying to be a decent man, although we were well beyond decency.

  He seemed surprised when I didn’t know anything about the Gotti people. Maybe I should have, since I was the daughter of a mobster, but I had nothing to do with that business. He had to believe me, they all had to believe me. They were going to realize that I was just a normal person with no knowledge of any of this, and maybe I’d survive.

  That wasn’t likely, though. Now that I saw what I saw, they can never let me live. I know too much, saw too many faces for them to risk letting me go free. If they did, I could run right to the police, beg for their protection, and give the cops everything I had on them.

  I was screwed no matter which way I looked at it.

  My mind ran in circles like that. I stayed curled up on the mattress, a thin blanket pulled up over my shoulders, and eventually I fell asleep. I didn’t remember falling asleep, but
one second it was dark and I was thinking about my father, and the next second there was a knock at the door.

  I sat up, disoriented. The eyehole slid open and Dante’s intense blue gaze stared in at me. “Breakfast,” he said.

  I nodded. He opened the door and stepped inside, holding a plate and a mug. I could see steam rising from the mug, and I guessed it was coffee. My stomach rumbled with hunger as he put the plate down at the end of the mattress.

  It was bacon and eggs. He handed me the mug and I was right, it was coffee.

  I was so insanely grateful as I took a sip. I quickly put it down then grabbed the plate and dug in, realizing that I was absolutely starving.

  Dante didn’t leave. He watched me eat silently, leaning up against the door with his arms crossed.

  I looked up at him, balancing the fork in my hand. “I could stab you with this,” I said.

  He smirked at me. “Go ahead and try.”

  For a second, I wanted to, but I just shook my head. “You’ve never done this before, have you?”

  “No,” he admitted. “This is a first for me.”

  “And yet you have this weird rape room already set up?”

  “No,” he said. “We did that while you were unconscious.”

  “How long was I out for?”

  “Hours,” he said. “Hard to say exactly.”

  “I have a concussion.”

  He nodded but didn’t respond.

  I finished my meal in silence, angry at myself for engaging him, and angrier for staring at his cocky smile. Dante was handsome, gorgeous really, and it was pretty distracting. I was supposed to hate him, not thinking about all the ways he might undress me.

  When I finished, I put the plate back down and picked up my coffee. He took the plate and the fork and left the room. A couple minutes later, he returned.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked him.

  “I want you to submit to me.”

  “What does that mean?”