It Ruins Me: A Forbidden Dark Romance (Betrayal Book 3)

1. Axel

It was a cold night, the fog flooding the cities and the streets. It pressed up against my window and masked the views of the Duomo lit up in the distance. The fire was in the hearth, hot like a summer desert that was unwelcome when my temperature already ran so high. My elbow was propped on the armrest, and I stared at nothing in particular, ignoring both my cigar and the drink on the table.

Theo sat with me, his cheek against his closed knuckles, his eyes on the fire.

I wasn’t in the mood for conversation, so silence was fine by me.

Several days had passed, and Scarlett’s bruising had started to fade. It had been the worst the next day, all the signs of trauma amplified in the morning. It was hard to look at her, not because she wasn’t beautiful, but because I knew how hard they’d hit her.

If she hadn’t been smart enough to drop her location, she’d be dead right now.

I’d be a fucking widower.

Theo turned his head slightly and looked at me.

My eyes shifted to meet his.

“We can cancel.”

I gave a slight shake of my head. “No. Life goes on.”

“I can just meet with him.”

“I’m not going to kill him.”

“You sure?”

My stare hardened. “Why do you think you’re here?”

“I’ll keep you on your best behavior.” The corner of his mouth rose in a smile. “How is she?”

“She’s fine.” She didn’t complain about the pain. Did her best to cover it with makeup for my benefit—so I wouldn’t have to look at it. But the air between us had been tense, not just because of the shit that had gone down, but because I’d told her I loved her and forced her to acknowledge it. “She’s a tough woman.”

“I’m sure it gave her a reality check.”

“Yes…it did.” A single moment had changed her attitude about this world, given her a bitter taste of reality. While I was relieved she took it seriously, it also hurt to see the defeated look in her eyes. Her ambition was snuffed out like a low-burning candle…and now all that remained was the smoke.

Aldo entered the parlor. “Dante is here to see you, sir.”

I sucked in a slow breath. “Show him in.”

Aldo left to fetch my favorite person.

Theo grabbed his glass, shook the ice, and took a drink.

Dante entered a moment later, his face still discolored from the hits he’d taken. I hit him the hardest, making him slam against the wall and crumple to the floor like a rag doll. We hadn’t gotten along since the night he’d threatened me to stay away from his daughter, but that dislike had intensified into the strongest form of hate. He’d be dead right now if I didn’t love his daughter.

He looked at Theo longer than necessary as he took a seat. He unbuttoned his jacket before his eyes shifted to me. It was a simple look across the table, but the moment our eyes locked, there was a fiery exchange of rage.

Silence stretched, and so did the stare.

Theo broke the tension. “There will be no bloodshed tonight.” He grabbed a cigar and lit up. “Not when we have too much shit to do.” He puffed on the end a couple seconds, getting the ashes to burn at the tip and start to produce the flavorful smoke. “I’ve halted upcoming orders because production has stopped, so we need to mitigate this before it turns into a serious problem. You know how upset people get when they’re denied what they want.” He shifted his look back and forth between us.

I was slumped in the armchair, wearing my sweatpants and a long-sleeved tee, my wife upstairs and unaware that her father had come for a visit. These meetings used to take place on his turf, but now that he was my bitch, they took place on mine.

Dante finally withdrew his gaze. “We’ll need to find another supplier. The Colombians won’t do business with us after we killed their men.”

I wanted to wring his fucking neck for what he’d done, for nearly getting my baby killed. It was hard to sit in the same room with him, even if we were only discussing business. “You don’t know that.”

His eyes came back to me. “In fact, we should prepare for retaliation.”

“The Colombians are going to come all the way over here to start shit?” Theo asked incredulously. “I find that unlikely.”

“You never heard of hit men?” Dante asked. “We should have just given them what they wanted.” His accusation turned back to me, potent and throbbing. “But you had to have a fucking ego?—”

“I’d rather have an ego than be a fucking liar and a fucking psychopath.”

Dante moved both of his arms to the armrests as he stared at me.

“She’ll see your true colors.” I relished the day he was no longer in our lives, either because he was dead or ostracized. “You’ll learn.”

“I sincerely hope not,” he said calmly. “Because you know what those consequences will be.”

I cocked my head. “Did you just threaten me?”

“I’m simply reminding you?—”

“Not to tell her how worthless you are. But I can’t control her figuring it out on her own, and with the way you’ve been conducting yourself, she’s going to figure that out real quick.”

Theo enjoyed his cigar as we went back and forth. “Gentlemen, let’s focus on business.” He held the cigar between his loose fingers as his arm rested over the back of the couch. “We need to arrange a meeting with the Colombians. I agree with Axel that we shouldn’t make assumptions about the state of that relationship. Second to the US, we’re their biggest client. We need them as much as they need us.”

“Well,” Dante said. “They were prepared to kill us for that ten percent?—”

“They were prepared to hijack the business,” Axel said. “And you were stupid enough to give them that chance. That’s the second time you’ve dropped your guard and made yourself vulnerable to your enemies. And you say I’m the one with the ego…”

Dante brought his hands together and cracked his knuckles, like he wanted to punch me until I flew into the window behind me. “When was the first?”

“You really don’t remember?” Theo turned to me. “Definitely didn’t learn his lesson.”

When Dante understood, his eyes dropped for a nanosecond.

“Had you by the fucking balls.” I grabbed my own cigar and lit up because I needed something to soothe my anger. Only booze and cigars could do that…and my wife. “Their mission failed. They don’t have the business, and now they don’t have the client. They’re probably sitting on pallets of product they can’t sell. Their production has probably already slowed because they’ve lost the demand. We need to set up a meeting.”

“It’s a family-run business,” Dante said. “They aren’t going to dismiss what happened?—”

“Never assume anything,” I snapped. “If they want to kill us, I’m sure they’ll make that very clear.”

Shaking his head in annoyance, Dante looked away. “I’ve been working with these guys for twenty years—and then you show up and that goes to shit.”

“I’ve been in love with your daughter from the moment I saw her, and you’ve fucked that up every step of the way,” I said. “So it looks like we’re even.”

As if my declaration of affection made him uncomfortable, he shifted his gaze to Theo.

Theo stared at the fire as he let the tension settle. “Then we’ll set up a meeting and see where they stand. In the meantime, we need to find a backup supplier?—”

“There is no one,” Dante said coldly. “No one who can make a quality product and make it in such vast quantities. Trust me, I’m the expert on this?—”

“We can do business with several suppliers,” Theo said. “That can make up for the quantity.”

“But the customers won’t always get the same product,” Dante argued. “They’ll get one of three options—and customers want consistency.”

“We’ll make our own product if we must,” I said. “That’s probably something we should consider anyway.”

“That’s not possible,” Dante said. “We can’t fulfill that demand?—”

“You’re awfully pessimistic,” Theo snapped. “I’m not sure how you built this business in the first place with an attitude like that.”

Dante paused, his expression hardening into annoyance. “The Colombians have the luxury of space and privacy. We don’t have that here. We can’t open a factory in Tuscany. We’re confined to what we have—which isn’t much. I’m being the voice of reason here. The Colombians were the best partners we would ever hope to have—and you shit on all of that.”

“You shit on your daughter when you brought her to that meeting?—”

“Here we go again.” Theo raised his voice. “Shut up—both of you.”

I was tempted to pick up my chair and throw it at him.

Theo let a couple seconds of silence pass before he continued. “I think there’s only one way to go about this. We meet the Colombians, tell them what happened, and offer the ten percent they originally asked for as a peace offering. If they’re receptive, and I think they will be, then we move on.”

Dante rolled his eyes. “If only we had just done that in the first place…”

“They obviously think you’re a pussy bitch if they crossed you to begin with,” Theo said. “And that’s on you.”

Dante snapped his neck as he turned to Theo.

“So, are we in agreement?” I asked. “If this doesn’t work, we’ll move to the next idea.”

“Even if they agree,” Dante said, “they’ll probably plot to kill us anyway.”

“I’m sure they will,” Theo said. “And we’ll be ready when they do.”

“And when that time comes, we take them all out and put new people in charge,” I said. “We’ll clean house. If they weren’t so far away, I would just take over their production altogether.”

When I entered my bedroom, she was on the couch in her pajamas, ready for bed, with her makeup gone. The purple color of the bruising was distinct when it wasn’t hidden under foundation and concealer. She did a remarkable job hiding it, but all that work went to waste when she washed it off before bed…and I had to look at it.

A blanket was pulled over her body, but she watched me with sharpness. Her eyes showed more than fatigue, a deeper level of defeat. It’d been that way the last couple of days, all of her personality and presence gone. “Where were you?”

“Downstairs with Theo.” I omitted her father’s presence on purpose.

She turned back to the TV.

“Why are you on the couch if you’re tired?”

“Wanted to wait up for you.”

She’d never done that before. “You don’t need to do that, baby.”

“I don’t really have much of a choice.” She looked at the TV before she rubbed the corner of her eye with her fingertip.

I turned off the TV before I approached her on the couch. “Come on.”

She gave a quiet groan, slouched into the couch like her body had stopped working.

I felt like a father trying to get his kids to bed. I scooped her into my arms and lifted her against my chest, like she was an extra blanket I was stealing from the couch to put on the bed. I felt her arms hook around my neck and her cheek rest against my chest, so tired that she didn’t voice a single protest.

I set her on the bed and tucked her in, seeing her sexy legs disappear underneath the crisp white sheet.

She gave a quiet sigh before her tired eyes looked at me.

I changed in the middle of the room, dropping my shirt and jeans on the floor and kicking off my boots underneath the armchair. The lamps were off, and the glasses of water were on the nightstands, placed by Aldo while Scarlett was crashed on the couch. I set my phone on the nightstand then got into bed beside her.

She’d been distant ever since that night, and while I wanted her every night, I let her be. But it was hard to sleep in that bed beside her, thinking about her sexy legs in those little shorts, and not do a damn thing about it. I was in love with this woman, from head to toe, and I wanted to make her mine at every opportunity.

She lay on the other side of the bed, her back to me, the sheets to her shoulder.

I stared at her silhouette in the dark, the outline of her petite waistline in the moonlight poking through the closed curtains. “Baby.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m tired of this.”

She remained quiet.

“I’m trying to be patient, but I’ve never been the patient type.”

Nothing.

I shifted to her side of the bed, pressing my chest against her back and pulling her tight against me. My face was against her hair, smelling her shampoo and perfume mixed together in a floral scent. With that perky ass pressed against me, my dick hardened, wanting to dive between her folds and explore her wet paradise. My arm hooked over her chest to anchor her against me, to keep her secured tightly like she was light enough to float away. My lips brushed away the strap of her shirt so I could kiss her shoulder.

She remained still.

“Talk to me, baby.”

There was a long stretch of silence, so long that it seemed like she would ignore me. “I’m still shaken up.”

“There’s nothing to be scared of.”

“If you hadn’t gotten there…” The sentence was never finished because she couldn’t find the words…or didn’t want to say them.

The implications were heavy in her voice. “But I did get there. Don’t waste your heart worrying about what-ifs.”

“It’s more than that…”

“Then tell me.”

She lay there for a moment before she rolled over, bringing her body toward mine so we were face-to-face.

I hooked her thigh over my hip and made her little shorts ride up until they fit like underwear. I squeezed one of her ass cheeks, feeling that perkiness right in the palm of my hand. I cared about her feelings, but it was hard to focus on her emotions when she was the sexiest little thing I’d ever laid eyes on. Ever since I’d manned up and told her I loved her, the steel bars that had restricted me had been shattered. I felt free, and all I wanted to do with that freedom was make love to her.

“I don’t know who I am anymore.” Her eyes carried a sadness so heavy even I couldn’t lift it.

My desire suddenly evaporated. “Occupation and identity aren’t the same thing. Your career is a part of who you are—but not all of who you are.”

“But it’s all I wanted for so long.”

“You’ll find something else to be passionate about. Like raising our children. When we have our babies, you aren’t going to care about anything else anyway.”

Her eyes dropped, moving to my chest. “I want to be more than just a mother.”

“Then you’ll find another passion.”

“I’m just not sure how my father is going to take this.”

That should be the least of her concerns, and the fact that she was pinned so hard under his thumb just pissed me off. “If he’s anything but understanding, he’s a fucking asshole. You value his opinion far more than you should. What do you want, baby?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“You can still have an empire, but it’ll be a different kind of empire, one that’s above the table rather than below it, that operates in the light of day instead of the shadows of midnight. I’ve always told you how much I love your cooking.”

“You only like my cooking because it comes after sex.”

I smirked. “I’m sure that helps, but I would eat your cooking at any time. I like your stuff better than my own chef’s.”

“I have the opposite opinion.”

“I’d fire him and hire you in a heartbeat, but if you’re too busy cooking, then you’ll be too busy to fuck me, so that’s not in my best interest.”

A slight smile pulled at her lips, the light in her eyes masking the bruises that marked her beautiful skin.

I loved when she smiled. Did the strangest things to me. “What if we opened a restaurant?”

“I don’t know…”

“You could build the menu from scratch. Teach the chefs how to make the dishes so they’re the ones slaving away in the kitchen instead of you. Then you can work on the specials and do the books in the morning. It could be your business and have nothing to do with me at all.”

“Well…I don’t have the money for that sort of thing.”

“Yes, you do.” I tugged her closer to me, the two of us sharing a single pillow. “You know you do.”

“I suggested this to my father, but he wasn’t interested.”

“Because he’d have no control over the situation, and all he cares about is—” I stopped at the annoyed look on her face. It was hard to mention her father without a tirade of ridicule, and it was something I seemed to get worse at—not better. “Just because he’s not interested doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.”

“A restaurant is a big investment?—”

“I told you we’re billionaires.”

“You’re a billionaire. You earned that, not me.”

“Baby, what’s mine is yours.”

“If I use your money to build my empire, then it’s not my empire.”

“Then pay me back.” The idea of keeping receipts in a marriage seemed ridiculous, but I needed to give her a reason to get started, to feel better about herself rather than indebted to me.

“What if I can’t?”

“Then you can pay me back in other ways…” I squeezed her ass.

“You know I do that for free every night.”

“But it’ll be fun for me to watch you work for it. Come on, let’s do it.”

“I don’t know…”

“Baby, please.”

“I know how upset my father will be.”

“He’s a grown-ass man,” I said. “He’ll get over it.”

Her eyes dropped back to my chest. “I’ll think about it.”