Toxic Love: A Dark Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance

“This is beyond obscene.”

It’s Alistair who breaks the silence first, his tone lethal and menacing in the stately living room.

Usually, the honor of breaking the silence would just about always go to me and my big mouth. Because I have a tendency to “speak my mind”, as Gabriel puts it, which is…charitable of him.

The more realistic, blunter way of putting it would be that I have lots of opinions, not much of a filter, and little to no impulse control when it comes to voicing those opinions. But in this case, I’m too busy staring at Charles with my jaw on the floor to speak. And Gabriel is obviously too busy marshaling his thoughts into neat, organized lines, like mounted cavalry waiting for the choreographed attack on a battlefield.

It’s my brother Gabriel’s ability to word his arguments and keep his thoughts in those tidy little lines that make him one of the best lawyers in New York. And it’s my other brother Alistair’s ability to scare and intimidate the living shit out of people that makes him equally as formidable a legal presence.

Unfortunately, if my grandfather Charles is intimidated by Alistair and his menacing tone, he hides it well. He merely rolls his eyes as he drums his fingers on the leather armrest of his chair. His other hand raises a crystal tumbler of whiskey to the bored line of his lips. It’s barely ten in the morning, but I doubt a pesky thing like an appropriate time of day has ever once come between Charles Black and a drink.

“Precisely how would you categorize this as obsc⁠—”

“How about the fact that she’s fucking eighteen!”

Me and my mouth finally join the fray. My grandfather’s mouth and jaw tighten at my profanity, which just pisses me off even more. It’s not the fact that one of his grandchildren has just sworn in front of him—my two brothers do that all the goddamn time. It’s the fact that I’m a woman and I’ve just sworn at all, period.

Because in the world of Charles Black, we all still live in 1910. Maybe even earlier. I’m not sure he even thinks women should have the right to vote, for fuck’s sakes.

“Tempest—”

“She’s eighteen fucking years⁠—”

“I’m going to ask you once, and only once,” he snaps coldly, “to stop interrupting me.”

I almost explode at the irony of him interrupting me to tell me to stop interrupting him. When my angry eyes dart to the side and meet Gabriel’s, though, he gives me just the briefest and faintest shake of his head.

Pick your battles, kiddo, I can almost hear him saying.

Except a battle is clearly what Charles wanted in summoning us all here today. He could have easily told us all of this over the phone, or let us hear it directly from Maeve.

But no. Charles wanted to witness our helpless fury in person. Relish it.

Because he’s a prick like that.

“Your aunt is eighteen years old,” Charles drones, glaring at me before he sighs and pulls his gaze over first to Gabriel and then Alistair. “And I am well within my rights to make a suitable…arrangement for her that benefits both her and the rest of this family.”

It’s a little Jerry Springer, yes, but Maeve, who is technically our aunt, just turned eighteen, making her a full six years younger than me and seventeen years younger than my brothers. Weird? Yeah. But that’s what happens when your at-the-time fifty-seven-year-old grandfather gets remarried to a twenty-year-old gold digger who in the single smartest career move of her life, almost immediately pops out a kid. And now here I am with a seventy-five-year-old grandfather, a thirty-eight-year-old step-grandmother, and an aunt who just finished high school.

Jer-ry. Jer-ry. Jer-ry…

“Might I remind you, Charles,” Gabriel murmurs quietly in that way he has. He sometimes comes across as reserved, but his quietness is never soft or weak. It’s more like the soft rattle of the wind in the branches right before the thundercloud breaks. He might take his time lining up those arguments and thoughts of his in neat little lines. But when they charge, they mean business.

“That we live firmly in twenty-first century America. And you’re honestly sitting here talking about arranged marriages.”

A small hint of a smile curls the corners of our grandfather’s lips and lifts the edges of his silvered mustache and goatee. Most people consider Charles Black a handsome, distinguished man—a man who shakes hands with governors and state senators. A man to whom the heads of the ironworkers’ and police unions owe favors. A powerbroker, of sorts.

Then again, most people don’t look past the charming mask bought with wealth and power to see the uncaring, heartless ghoul behind it.

The kind of ghoul who’s actually about to sell his own eighteen-year-old daughter to the fucking mob: probably for something like first dibs on a new development project, or a cut of sanitation contract kickbacks.

Knowing Charles, it could just as easily be for box seats at a Yankees game, if he’s feeling particularly evil this week.

Whatever the reason, the reality of what he’s just told us feels like a punch to the throat. To be marrying Maeve into the Italian mafia would be horrendous enough on its own to warrant Alistair’s “obscene” comment, especially given the age difference between Maeve and her intended.

But it’s not just any mafioso he’s marrying her off to. It’s to him: to⁠—

“Dante goddamn Sartorre?! Have you gone fucking senile?!”

Alistair’s outburst garners a slight raise of an eyebrow, but not the same stern look that I got for swearing. Jackass.

“He’s an ideal⁠—”

“He’s a fucking sociopath and a monster,” Alistair snarls, shoving a hand through his dirty-blond hair as he paces the floor. “And after what that piece of shit did to Layla, if you had a single fucking ounce of honor or family loyalty, you’d have⁠—”

“What, killed him?” Charles drones in a bored tone.

The room goes quiet, all three of us glaring at our grandfather: two sets of greenish-hazel eyes from Gabriel and I, and one set of icy cold blues from Alistair.

“Tell me, Alistair,” Charles says with a sneering smile on his face. “If you’ve already passed judgment and sentence here, why haven’t you taken care of Dante yourself?”

“Because I’m a goddamn attorney, Charles,” Alistair hisses. “Not…”

“Not what?” Our grandfather’s lips curl deeper and his tone grows colder, his eyes narrowing.

“Not…you,” Gabriel mutters.

Our grandfather isn’t technically mafia; the kind who rigs poker games, or runs drugs and arms, or fights street wars for territory. He’s the more dangerous kind of mafioso. He’s the kind of criminal people elect, not realizing who they’re voting for. The kind who’s learned not to fight the system or even hide from it, but to embrace it and become “the system.”

Charles built his kingdom out of favors, leverage, greased palms, and probably some blackmail here and there. He’s friends with politicians, union leaders, and yes, the mafia as well. And it’s that last one he’s about to cement his relationship to, when he marries young Maeve off.

To the devil himself.

Dante Sartorre also isn’t technically a “made” man in the mafia. But he might as well be, even more so than Charles. Raised by the very powerful Barone mafia family, Dante—like Charles—built himself a nice little empire in the gray area between the dark and the light. Except while my grandfather deals in favors, Dante deals in hedonism.

Pleasure. Darkness. Depravity.

Dante owns and runs Club Venom—an exclusive, secret, members-only kink club that caters to the city’s most powerful, twisted, and dangerous. Honestly, it’s a place someone like me shouldn’t even know about.

Except I do.

But that’s beside the point. Owning a sex club for mafiosos to get freaky at is not the reason my brothers and I hate Dante Sartorre.

It’s because of what he did to our sister fifteen years ago.

“Does she know yet?”

Charles raises a hard glance my way. “Beg pardon?”

“Maeve,” I hiss. “Does she know you’re selling her to a man twice her age for—” My brow furrows. “Sorry, what exactly are you getting out of this, anyway?”

Our grandfather lifts his glass and takes another drink. “Stability, Tempest. We all get⁠—”

“Why don’t you just fuck off already with the savior complex bullshit, Charles,” Alistair growls. “Do not include us in this as if you give a fuck about anyone in this room but yourself. You’re selling your own flesh and fucking blood to the very monster who had a hand in Layla’s death⁠—”

“Oh, step outside your little glass tower and open your goddamn eyes!” Charles roars, lurching to his feet with surprising agility for a man his age. He levels a withering gaze at my brother, then Gabriel, then me.

“The Greeks are in bed with the Irish, who are now also in bed with the Bratva. Meanwhile, the Italians are at each other’s throats like⁠—”

“Exactly when,” Gabriel mutters coldly, “is it going to click with you, Charles, that none of us is in the business of criminality! Alistair and I run the most prestigious law firm in the goddamn city, and Tempest⁠—”

“And exactly who pulled the strings to get you that law firm, hmm?” our grandfather fires back. “And besides, don’t try to look me in the eye and tell me your hands are clean, either of you. I know damn well who you happily represent, legally.”

He’s not exactly wrong. While my brothers might not be involved in any criminal enterprises themselves, their client roster has definitely started to, shall we say, trend a certain way in the last few years: the Drakos Greek mafia family. The Kildare Irish mafia. Elements of the Russian Bratva, too.

But still, we ourselves are not criminals. Or even criminally adjacent, like our grandfather. That was always the major rift in our family: that our dad went into law, instead of following Charles into lawlessness.

“This is fucking medieval, Charles,” Gabriel says coldly. “She’s your daughter, for God’s sake. And Dante is…” His face clouds with rage and he trails off. He doesn’t need to finish the thought. We all know what Dante Sartorre is.

A monster.

A purveyor of sex and hedonism.

One of the last people to have seen our sister alive, when he married, out of the blue, on her death bed.

He’s the devil that lurks over your shoulder, whispering poison into your ear as he slowly corrupts your soul. Like he did to Layla.

“I know precisely what Dante is,” Charles tosses back. “He’s connected, but not too connected. He’s powerful, yet in need of allies, and⁠—”

“For fuck’s sake, Charles!” Alistair roars, cutting our grandfather off. “How in the hell are you overlooking his obvious involvement in Layla’s⁠—”

“Well, I don’t see him in jail for it, counselor!” Charles volleys back, jabbing a finger at my brother. “So unless there’s a smoking gun you’ve had up your ass for the last fifteen⁠—”

“Does she know!?”

My shrill scream silences the room for a second. My pulse thuds in my ears, and for a second, as the too-familiar wave of dizziness washes over me, I’m terrified I’m going to faint again. I’m terrified that I’m going to give myself away, and if I do that right here in front of all of them, there’ll be no avoiding the question of why.

And right now, I don’t have time for the why.

I don’t have much time for anything at all, actually.

“Maeve is well aware of what her duty to this family entails—Tempest!”

I ignore Charles’ blustering as I storm across the room toward the closed double doors out to the main foyer of the house. One, because I need to talk to Maeve, now, and reassure her I’m going to get her out of this, even if I have no idea how. And two, because there’s a solid chance I’m going to faint unless I get the hell out of this room.

“Tempest, this is happening!” Charles roars at my back as I reach for the doorknobs. “And Maeve is⁠—”

“You can go to hell, Charles,” I spit over my shoulder as my fingers curl around the brass knobs. “You and that sick psychopath Dante!”

I fling open the doors and surge through them…

Until I slam directly into something hard, chiseled, and wrapped in three-piece linen and silk. My world goes upside down as I gasp sharply and tumble backward off my heels. Instantly, two strong, powerful, veined hands grab my wrists in their iron grip, yanking me back upright until I crash back into that firm, broad chest again.

My eyes drag up over the crisp, white dress shirt, the faint shine of a black silk tie, the bronzed, Mediterranean skin of a muscular neck and chiseled, perfect cheekbones. The slight cleft in the chin. The insidiously beautiful and kissable lips…

Yet it’s the eyes that capture my soul and bind it fast: sharp, icy-blue, and piercingly lethal beneath a shock of perfectly coifed dark hair.

“Speak of the devil…” Dante growls quietly.

My heart lurches into my throat. I flinch as if to move away from him. But Dante’s strong grip only tightens on my thin wrists, sending my pulse skyrocketing and my head swimming. His strong fingers clench even tighter, and those eyes of his don’t even blink as they zero in on mine.

“…And he shall appear,” he murmurs.

His lips curl dangerously into a darkly unsettling quasi-smile, his eyes glinting as they eviscerate me.

“Now: I do hope I haven’t missed the surprise?”