Black Skies Riviera: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance Page 7

  “Merci.” She catches my eye, brushing her palm against her hip as if she’s brushing his wickedness away. “I find color to be an emotional blanket. It can offer us comfort when life seems dull and desperate.” She shoots me a look.

  This is bad.

  She’s the epitome of good manners and refinement. If her mask is slipping in Aiden’s company, I really must have fallen down amongst the sinners.

  “Whiskey makes me feel the same way.”

  “Then your ‘profession’ is an excellent choice, monsieur.” This time there’s no disguising the caustic notes in her voice.

  I need to know more. I need to know everything.

  Grabbing a couple of Pucci-inspired silk dresses from the nearest rail, and not even bothering to check their sizes, I walk quickly toward the changing room at the back of the shop. Eloise flies in after me, ripping the curtain across so fast the sound of screeching metal makes us both wince.

  “Turn around,” she urges, and I do as she says, standing silently as she rips apart the delicate beaded buttons. Soon enough, the despised wedding dress is pooling at my feet.

  “You know who he is, don’t you?” I whisper.

  She sighs. “Everyone on the Côte d'Azur knows who he is, Issa. What troubles your pretty soul, ma chérie? You don't come waltzing into my shop after all this time in the company of Le Corbeau unless your skies are falling down.”

  “Le Corbeau?”

  “Oui, The Raven. Like the poem.” She spins me around and takes my hand, rubbing soothing circles into the dip between my forefingers and thumb. “He is the man who cannot let go of his past.”

  “What poem? What past?” I search her face for answers in her gentle lines.

  “He is an ocean of blood, ma chérie.”

  “I know what he is, Eloise. He’s mafia—”

  “Mafia, Bratva… He works for them all. He works for none. He is the most dangerous man in these parts...” Her gaze drops to my nakedness, and her face crumples in horror at the mess of red and purple marking my skin. “Oh mon dieu. What has happened to you?”

  “My horse threw me.” I slap my arm across my chest to conceal the worst of it, but I can tell from her expression that she doesn’t believe me.

  “Issa?”

  “Aiden didn’t do this.”

  “Then your father?”

  “Please. I don’t… I can’t.”

  “Hush, bebe.” She pulls me into her soft arms again. “Forgive me for jumping to conclusions. Le Corbeau’s past has many cracks that bleed into his present.”

  “How do you know all this?” I mutter into her hair.

  “I have lived here for a long time, Issa. I have seen many men like Aiden come and go, but he is the most…” She stops and blows out a troubled breath. “If I have spoken out of turn—”

  “You haven’t, but I need to—”

  “Not here,” she says firmly.

  “Then I’ll find a way to come back. I promise.” Breaking her embrace, I reach for the nearest dress. The print is a livid swirl of reds and pinks, and it’s going to clash like hell with his crimson necktie.

  Good.

  Losing the hanger, I shimmy the silky material over my head. By some miracle it fits perfectly, with the high neckline covering up the bruises.

  Le Corbeau…

  Broken pasts…

  I shouldn't care about her revelations. I shouldn't care that they’re pricking my interest and binding me closer to him than a ring and a false promise.

  “Beautiful,” murmurs Eloise, smiling her approval before it fades again. “Tell me, what business do you have with that man, child?”

  “The business of weddings,” I say tightly. “In a couple of hours I’ll be standing on the steps of the Town Hall as his wife.”

  Her face crumples in on itself like a soufflé. “No, ma chérie! You mustn’t! I won’t allow it!”

  “I have no choice. My father arranged it.”

  “Karina?”

  “She ran away.” There’s no malice when I say it, just pain and sadness.

  “Oh, Issa.” The tears in her voice make it thick, oozy and dangerously contagious.

  “Silver linings,” I say, forcing some cheer into mine. “I’ll be living on the Riviera now so I get to come visit my favorite store every day.”

  “If you need anything, ma chérie. Anything at all…” she trails off in resignation. She knows there’s no way out of this for me. Not unless I run, too.

  “Right now, I need your strength and I need your dress.”

  “Ielena.” Aiden’s deep, mocking cadence invades the changing cubicle. “How long does it take to change into a dress? Time to go.”

  I can feel Eloise’s love filling the space between us again, making me feel a little less alone. She gives my hand a final squeeze, and then stands aside to let me pass, peeling back the curtain to reveal my fate.

  He’s idling by the cash register, the picture of brutal refinement and irritation. He glances down at my dress and says nothing. He just quirks a dark eyebrow and tosses some notes down on the counter.

  “No, monsieur.” Walking over and scooping up his money, I thrust it into his hard chest. “I’m paying for this, not you.”

  “What with?” he mocks. “Air? You have no purse on you, princess. Therefore, you have no money.”

  “I’ll earn it.” I turn to Eloise who is hovering by the changing cubicle. “How many days of working here will it take to pay off this dress?”

  Her eyes meet mine and she gives me a small smile of understanding. “At least two weeks, mademoiselle.”

  “Soon to be madame,” he clips back. “And no wife of mine is working in a fucking store.”

  “Would you like milk and sugar with that cup of hypocrisy,” I tell him sweetly. “You scorn me constantly for taking hand-outs from my father, but you won't let me earn it when the opportunity arises?”

  The next few beats are wrapped in open hostility, and then he’s pulling out his cell phone. “Camille,” he barks. “Cancel our appointments with Gucci. We’ve found something else.”

  This time when he hangs up, there’s no fruity endearment for her. I’ve backed him into a corner, and he’s far from happy about it.

  “One week.” He snatches one of the hundred euro notes from my fingers and tosses it back down on the counter. “And here’s a deposit, just in case you can’t hack it, half-measure. I’m betting a thousand more of those notes you’re a quitter, too.”

  It’s a dirty compromise, but I’m willing to take it and clean it, and make it my own.

  “I’ll see you on Monday, Issa,” trills Eloise as we exit the shop, and this time her voice is laced with admiration.

  Aiden marches me back down the side streets to the waiting Escalade, his security guys straggling in our wake.

  Stone cold reality is rushing up fast and curling around my toes. My mind is on overdrive. I’m thinking about all the stuff Eloise told me. I’m thinking about the dangerous game I’m playing. Most of all, I’m thinking about the cracks in the cobblestones, and how close I am to slipping in between them and losing Karina forever.

  Chapter Seven

  Aiden

  I hate surprises.

  I’m using the term ‘hate’ loosely here. If I could, I’d tie them to a chair and slowly dissect them, making them die a slow agonizing death until all that’s left is a ghost of a bad idea.

  It started the day I discovered my mother slumped over the kitchen sink, with the faucet running as cold as her body—chained in death to the same place she spent most of her life, courtesy of a twelve-hour case of rigor mortis. It was superseded, five minutes later, when I slipped on a crimson pool in the hallway and came crashing down next to my father’s severed head.

  Completing the top three of the Worst Surprises Hall of Fame was yesterday’s bombshell order to marry some Russian virgin because her sister messed up and her daddy’s too greedy to tell Tommaso Zaccaria to go fuck himself.

 
The truth is, I’m wary of them. No good ever comes of anything that smacks of life deconstruction. And that’s exactly what she is.

  Ielena Dubova.

  A five-foot sabotage. A ball-ache. A surprise.

  I don’t know if she chose the kitschy red and pink dress to spite me, or because she actually likes it, but three things become clear as I stand in an empty room saying empty vows to a woman who despises me. Correction: A woman whom I’ve gone out of my way to make sure despises me.

  I don’t like the way she manipulated herself a job.

  I don’t like the way I agreed to it.

  I don’t like the way my dick keeps twitching whenever she defies me.

  More.

  Damn

  Surprises.

  She’s not so much of a half-measure anymore. She’s a full-on disaster.

  “Vous pouvez maintenant embrasser la mariée.” You may now kiss the bride.

  Without waiting for an embossed invitation, I take her delicate jaw between my hands and slam twenty-four hours of frustration down onto that perfect rosebud. I do it because the urge to claim that mouth is now too much to resist.

  She tastes different to other women. Sweeter. Purer. The need to taint her with the rest of me is running rings around my self-control. Her mewls of resistance fuel the flame; her soft hands drumming against my chest make ‘consent’ that filthy, dirty word she spoke of earlier. Even the whole virgin thing doesn't seem like such a drag anymore.

  Is this her first kiss?

  Fuck me.

  I pull away sharply, keeping her jaw locked in my grasp, feeling the bloom of another of her epic blushes heating up my thumb pads. Her dark eyes are wide with shock. Her lips are wet and swollen. If it was, I just gave her one hell of an introduction.

  “Madame Knight,” I murmur, feeling her body go even more rigid at my words. “I do believe I’m looking forward to our wedding night, after all.”

  I say it partly to goad a reaction out of her, and partly to feel more heat in that blush, but I never get the chance. Jerking her head backward, she leaves my fingers suspended in mid-air.

  “I preferred it when you called me all those other things. Taking your name is the worst kind of insult.” I watch her cast a glance at the shadows where Maxim is lurking. “Are we done yet? I’d like to scrub this day from my skin.”

  “Not yet, sweetheart. The epic conclusion is coming right up.”

  Struggling to control my temper, I lead her into the side room to sign our lives away. She stumbles in her heels, clutching at my arm, even though I know it scalds her fingertips to do so. As for me, I need a whiskey. No, I need a whole damn bottle of the stuff. Too bad I have a plane to catch in a couple of hours and murder on my mind.

  Clucking with impatience, I hover over the glass table like a bad mood, watching her scrawl her name in black ink next to mine. Her hand is shaking so badly she litters her signature with muttered apologies. Meanwhile, our two witnesses won’t stop scowling at me. If looks could kill, Maxim would have happily lined me up against the Iron Curtain and not stopped firing until he was sure. Frankie’s pissed at me because I told him I’d play nice again today, and that kiss was anything but.

  Ignoring them both, I push Ielena out into the sunshine. The Place de la Mairie is spread out in front of us like a dark, gray lake. Our mutual hostility is peppered by the soft sound of flags flapping in the breeze overhead. I yank her to a stop at the bottom of the steps, restrained by the ghosts of tradition. This is what newlyweds are supposed to do, right? They stop and smile, and revel in their smugness.

  Not us.

  There’s no one here to take pictures or throw confetti, and for the first time it dawns on me how messed up this is for her. Dubov and Zaccaria have taken a sepia tone photograph of Ielena’s dreams, scribbled me in with devil horns and a goatee, and then set fire to the whole thing. She’s Bratva, born and bred, and right now my spirited little Russian doll is caught between duty and survival.

  “We’re leaving.” I go to guide her into the car, but she spins away from me like a leaf caught up in the breeze. Maxim has followed us out. I catch the desperate look she exchanges with him and my temper kicks up a gear. I don’t like it. It tallies too easily with what I felt when I tasted her. “Get in the car, Ielena.”

  She hesitates. “Can I have a minute to say goodbye?”

  “No.”

  For the first time, her perfect composure sheds its topmost layer. “How dare you dictate this to me!”

  “I can dictate anything I want to you, Ielena. Don’t make me ask again or you won’t like the result.”

  She acquiesces with a glare, and then I’m slamming the door on her so hard the Escalade rocks like a pimped-up Cadillac. There aren’t going to be many door hinges left around us at this rate.

  “Tell Dubov his daughter is no longer a Dubova,” I bark at a hovering Maxim.

  He spits a curse at my feet, and then something equally unpleasant in Russian.

  “Careful, Maxim,” I purr. “You’re perilously close to pissing me off.”

  “Show some respect, Knight. She’s your wife.”

  “In name only. What’s the history between you two anyway?”

  “Stop repeating yourself. She’s my Pakhan’s daughter, I’ve known her since she was a child.” He takes a step closer, so close I can count the strips of scarred skin that a long-ago fire got a lick to. “You’re acting like a jealous man, Aiden... I warned you she’d be more than a match for you.”

  A second later, I have my arm around his neck and I’m crushing his half-pizza face against the tinted window of my jet-black Escalade, violence bursting like fire crackers behind my eyes. “This is my one and only warning to you, Lebedev,” I hiss, batting away his struggles and curses, and forcing him even harder into the glass. I was raised on whiskey and vengeance, and that makes me stronger than superman when I need to be. “Stay away from my wife. Don’t look at her. Don’t even talk to her. You want me to honor our deal? Then do as I say.” With that, I let go of him with a savage push, watching as he reels backward into a crowd of guidebook toting tourists, scattering them like frightened birds.

  Straightening up, he reaches for his gun, but Frankie gets there first. The Russian eases up on the dramatics when he feels the steel of Frankie’s Glock rammed against the base of his spine.

  “Calm the fuck down, everyone.” I lean against the hood of the vehicle like a slick bastard, with the heat still pooling in my fists. “If you keep on disgracing yourself at my wedding, Maxim, you won’t be invited to the anniversary ball.”

  “Is that compass finally spinning in one direction, Knight?”

  His taunts are unfounded. Ielena will never be anything more to me than a chore.

  “Do you want me as your enemy, Lebedev?”

  “You make an enemy of me, you make an enemy of all Bratva,” he growls, shrugging Frankie off before he remembers himself. He yanks his shirt down and smooths his hair. “Dubov is returning to Monte Carlo the day before the deal meeting. He wants a face-to-face with you.”

  “Tell him that Ielena and I would be delighted to host him for dinner,” I say, flashing him a brittle smile.

  “Not her. Just you. Your casino. Wednesday. Ten p.m.”

  “I’ll make sure the champagne’s on ice.”

  Maxim glares at me, his one good eye unblinking and focused. “Careful, Aiden. The Riviera doesn't forgive mistakes.”

  “I am the fucking Riviera,” I respond coldly. “And your presence at this wedding is no longer required.”

  He drives off soon after that, the tires on his Ferrari spinning like circular black blades.

  “That could have been handled better,” says Frankie, sliding his weapon back under his shirt as he wanders over to join me.

  “I wasn’t in the mood to be subtle. I’m still pissed he didn’t give me a warning about this deliriously happy event.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Maxim… What the hell are you playing at, R
aven?” He motions me onto the sidewalk and away from the car. “That wasn’t a kiss, it was a wrecking ball. Call a truce with her or we both end up losing.”

  “Who died and made you an expert on marriage?”

  His gray eyes turn to flint. “Do you want that second name, or not? She’s not going to tell you shit at this rate.”

  Sometimes I forget he’s as invested in this as I am. We share the same vengeance. We share the same burden of grief. My parents found him on the streets at eight years old and raised us as brothers until the day they died. We took that brotherhood and made it soul-deep.

  “Leave her to me.” I glance at the tinted windows. “She’s my problem, not yours. Has Zaccaria been in touch?”

  His expression loosens up a little. “Maybe I don’t have as much faith in your unicorn dick as you do.”

  “Concentrate on your own dick and I’ll concentrate on mine.”

  He laughs.

  I’m relieved.

  “The private jet is on standby at Nice Côte d’Azur Airport,” he says. “The name came through while you were signing the register.” He reaches into his back pocket and hands his cell to me.

  “Lorenzo Gambino,” I say, scanning the details.

  “He was the lookout guy.”

  “Connections?”

  “Quick trace points me in the direction of the Rossi Famiglia. They’re a faction of the 'Ndrangheta in New York. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll know more. The syndicate originates from Naples, but they're small fry compared to the Camorra.”

  “Fucking mafia.” I rip at my red necktie and loosen the top button of my dress shirt. “They breed like flea-infested rats. How did Gambino find himself in London fourteen years ago?”

  “The 'Ndrangheta supply cocaine to most of Europe. Maybe your father—”

  “Our father,” I correct him tersely.

  “Maybe he had some shady shit going down we didn't know about.”

  I shake my head. “He was a fulltime mechanic and a part-time crook. There’s no way he was dealing crack and smack on the down low. We lived on a council estate, not a lie. You remember the note... He was connected to Sicily, not Naples.”