Bound by Lies: A Dark Mafia Romance Read online

  I shouldn’t, but I moan as the pressure builds inside me.

  “I just love you so fucking much. I would die if any other man ever touched you. You know that, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You love me, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So come for me, baby. Do it now.”

  His thumb vibrates across me and he leans back so he can thrust himself deeper inside me. Oh God. My insides shatter like broken bones and a heat ebbs through me like a bruise. My head hits the door and for a moment I’m lost amongst stars, among angels, far away from this man and this monster who are one in the same.

  As the gravity takes over and I descend into my body, my lower belly clenches with guilt. Bastard. I hate that he can still make me come.

  He wraps his fingers in my hair too tightly. I feel the pop of some of my hair from my scalp and I wince. I don’t dare tell him that he’s hurting me.

  He forces my eyes to his. “No one will be able to touch you the way I do. No one.”

  I hate that I believe him.

  Next Monday, I’m waiting in our usual spot in our lecture hall for our class to start. I have pulled all the hair over one side of my shoulder to cover the bandage on my neck. I frown when I notice that Winston isn’t here. Winston is usually one of the first of us to arrive.

  For a second I get a momentary flash of panic. What if Jacob…? But I shake it off before I dare finish the thought. I can’t think this way about the man I love. If I keep doubting our love, it will ruin me. It will ruin us.

  Winston’s probably just sick. Or maybe he slept in. Or he’s still recovering from Dee’s party on the weekend that I didn’t go to. Or got called into work. There are so many reasons why Winston wouldn’t be here.

  I try to ignore his empty seat and focus on the lecture.

  The niggling worry comes again when Winston isn’t here for lectures on Tuesday.

  Or Wednesday.

  “Does anyone know where Winston is?” I ask the other guys in our group. I’m met with shakes of their heads.

  “I think he’s sick,” one of the girls says.

  Sick. Poor Winston.

  I’m not being picked up by Jacob until later tonight and I have a few hours to spare after my last class. Winston also lives on campus, so I decide to stop in and see if he’s up for visitors.

  “Winston?” I knock softly on his dorm room door.

  “Who is it?” comes the tentative response.

  “It’s me.”

  There’s pause. “Go away.”

  “Winston, I was told you were sick. Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I mean, no, I’m really sick, so please just go away.”

  I frown. “Are you sure? Do you need anything? Meds? Food?”

  “I’m fine, please, I just need more sleep.”

  Something doesn’t feel right. But as the door is locked and I can’t get in, there isn’t much I can do. “Well, okay then. Send me a text if you need anything.”

  I hang around for a few seconds in case Winston changes his mind. I amble down the hall. I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t see Winston’s roommate walking my way until he calls my name.

  I look up. “Oh, hey, Rick.”

  “Did you just see Winston?” Rick says, transferring his groceries to his other hand so he can give me a one-armed hug. “Terrible isn’t it, what happened to him? I can’t believe anyone would do that.”

  My mouth suddenly tastes funny. I can’t believe anyone would do that. “Yeah, it’s terrible. I think he was either asleep or in the bathroom when I knocked. I didn’t get a chance to see him.” I look at Rick expectantly.

  He answers just how I want him to. “Come on. I’ll let you in.”

  I follow Rick back to his dorm room and hold my breath as he unlocks and opens the door for me. Inside, the dorm room has been turned into a kind of cave with curtains drawn and only a small lamp giving off a sickly glow by Winston’s bedside. Winston is curled up on top of his sheets with his back to me.

  “Winston,” Rick calls out. “Hey, buddy, I brought a friend home to see you.”

  Winston shifts, slowly and warily. Even before I see the grimace on his face I can tell he’s in pain. “Who is−?”

  He sees me and he freezes.

  The blood rushing to my head makes the sound of Rick saying something behind me sound muffled. Winston has a black eye, swollen shut. His lip and cheekbones are scabbed over. His right forearm is in a cast and the fingers of both his hands are bandaged. I’m sure that there are a lot more injuries that I can’t see.

  “Oh my God. What happened to you?”

  His face twists. “Didn’t I tell you to go away?”

  “Who did this to you?” I step forward to touch him, but he flinches away from me and I can see fear in his eyes. He’s scared of me.

  “Leave me the fuck alone!” As he screams his voice cracks, and he withdraws back into himself on his bed.

  I feel a hand on my shoulder. Rick’s face is stern when I look back. “I think you should go.”

  I nod. And I leave.

  I know.

  I know who did this. And why.

  I stand dressed in black, my arms twisted across my chest as the limo pulls up to the foot of my building. Jacob isn’t inside. I glare at Garfield, my escort, when he gets out of the limo sent to pick me up to take me to Jacob’s apartment.

  “Aw, miss. You look beautiful. But why are you mad?” His face drops as I continue to glare at him. Did he help do that to Winston?

  Inside the limo we’re both silent for a time. I can see Garfield fidgeting out of the corner of my eye as I fume looking out of the tinted windows. I can sense his discomfort. He’s not sure how to handle my anger.

  “Are you mad at me, miss?” he finally asks. “I don’t know what I’ve done.”

  I snap my face towards him and study his features for a second. “Tell me the truth, Garfield. Did you hurt Winston?”

  He frowns and I only see confusion on his face. “Winston? I’m not so good with names.”

  “Winston is my friend from university. He was beaten up by someone recently.”

  Garfield shakes his head. “I didn’t hurt Winston.”

  I have come to know Garfield as a simple man with very little ability to manipulate or lie. I believe him when he says that he didn’t hurt Winston. I sigh and reach over to give him a hug. His large hands are remarkably soft for a man his size. They close around me, eclipsing my shoulders.

  “I’m sorry, Garfield. You’re a good man. I should have known better than to believe that you would actually hurt someone just because Jacob ordered you to.”

  I feel his hands tense against me. I pull back and I catch the snippet of some emotion on his face. We pull up at the front of Jacob’s building and I don’t have an opportunity to ask him what that look meant.

  As I ride the elevator up to the top floor, Snake’s face comes to mind. It must have been Snake. Hurting Winston would have taken someone whose moral compass was as messed up as Snake’s. I can see Snake doing something like that. Maybe it was just Snake. Maybe Jacob had nothing to do with it.

  Maybe I’m just making excuses for my boyfriend…

  “Did you have anything to do with what happened to Winston?” I demand.

  Jacob stops crossing the living room of his luxury apartment towards me and stares at me coldly. “Is that any way to greet the love of your life?”

  The ice in his voice coats my skin and makes me want to shiver. All I think is that he didn’t deny it. I know that he was involved, if not the physical cause of Winston’s injuries.

  “I can’t believe that you would do that to another living person.”

  Jacob shrugs his shoulders, looking like he’s trying to relax his body, but I can see his jaw twitching. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  Jacob looks up at Snake and Garfield and another one of his goons, all of whom I�
��m vaguely aware are standing about the room in an awkward silence.

  “Get out,” he commands them. Jacob glares at me when he continues, “I want to speak to my woman, alone.”

  I try to keep my breath steady as I watch the three men slip out of the room. This is Jacob, I remind myself. My Jacob. I shouldn’t be scared of him.

  So why is my heart hammering like a crazed beast against the cage of my ribs? Why is every muscle in my body screaming for me to run?

  Jacob’s eyes are black pits as he stares at me. He makes no move to comfort me. “That fucker needed to learn who you belong to.”

  My next inhale gets stuck in my throat, choking me. Jacob had Winston hurt. Because of me.

  “Oh my God,” I hear myself gasp. I wait to wake up. This has to be some sort of messed up dream.

  “I did it for you.”

  This isn’t a dream. I shake my head and I start to back away from him as he approaches, stalking me like I’m prey.

  “No. No, you didn’t do it for me. I would have never, ever asked you to do something as horrible as to beat the living shit out of someone for me. I saw him, Jacob. I saw what you did.”

  Jacob lunges for me. My instincts take over and I turn to run. He grabs me before I can reach the door. “Nobody touches you except for me. No-fucking-body, you hear me?”

  “You’re crazy,” I say, and my voice is breaking along with my heart and my faith in our love. “You’re fucking crazy.”

  The slap across my cheek burns like fire. I curl away, holding my cheek. The man I love has just hit me.

  “Take that back,” he demands.

  “Take it back? I’ll take it back. I can’t be with you anymore.” I know that these were the wrong words to say as soon as I’ve said them. I can almost hear his heart crackling like ice as it freezes over.

  “No.” His fingers snake into my hair and pull my head back so I am forced to face him. “You are mine. You’ll always be mine.”

  He shoves me towards the center of the living room. I trip on the rug and almost fall. He opens the door a slip and says something to the guys outside. When I turn Jacob is standing at the door like he’s guarding it. His face is stone and I don’t recognize this man who is staring back at me with a scowl marking his face. I realize with a shudder that he doesn’t plan on letting me leave.

  I could beg. Every instinct inside me urges me to beg him.

  I don’t. It’s useless to beg, but even worse, begging will make me seem weak in Jacob’s eyes. The last thing I want to do is appear weak. Jacob will chew “weak” up and spit it out. I have to find some other way out of here.

  Behind him the door opens and Snake and Garfield come back in. The third goon I know as Salt appears holding a wooden box in his hands and wearing rubber gloves. Oh fuck. My eyes dart around the room. There’s the balcony, but the only way out of here that way is down. Maybe I could bluff them?

  I run for the glass door that separates the living room from the balcony. Jacob doesn’t even move when I start to run. I just hear him sigh, an impatient sigh of someone who is waiting for me to learn my lesson. I understand when I reach the door and grab at the handle. It’s locked. The goddamn thing is locked. I have no way out.

  I turn and press against the glass. Jacob glares at me with disapproval marking his face. Snake looks amused and I can see him licking his thin lips as if he is tasting my fear. Salt places the wooden box on the table and opens it. The lid is blocking my view of whatever is inside. Only Garfield looks distressed.

  “Sorry, princess. It looks like you need to learn to.”

  “Jacob, whatever you are going to do, you don’t need to do it. I’m yours. I know that. You know that.”

  He shakes his head. “You just tried to run away from me, little lamb. It has to be done. Hold her,” he commands Snake. Snake grins as he lunges for me. I dart aside and slam into Garfield’s large body. His hands close gently around my shoulders.

  It’s Garfield. Garfield will help me. I look up at him and plead with my eyes. Garfield won’t look at me. He won’t look at me, which means he’s already feeling guilty about what is going to happen to me.

  Jacob’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt.”

  My body goes cold. I feel almost like my limbs don’t belong to me anymore. They feel detached and they are moving of their own accord, struggling and pushing at the unmovable mountain of a man who is holding me. Jacob’s words are muffled in my ears when he orders Garfield to hold me down, face down over the arm of the couch.

  “No, Garfield, please.” I plead with the large man with my eyes and my tears. They are falling like rain down my cheeks and staining my dress. He still won’t look at me. I can see the conflict flashing in Garfield’s eyes. If I can just get through to him. If only…

  “Now, Garfield.” Jacob’s voice is a warning. At the sound, the softness in Garfield’s eyes falters.

  “I’m sorry,” Garfield whispers in my ear as he pulls at my arms and hoists me over to the couch.

  I pull back and my heels scratch across the wooden floor, but it doesn’t slow me down. I feel my body being tipped over and the sensation of losing firm ground is too much, it tips my mind over the edge along with my body. With my ass in the air I feel so exposed. The first scream tears from my lungs. Someone pushes my face into the couch to muffle the noise. The cushions smell freshly laundered and it makes me feel sick.

  I struggle to push myself up, but Garfield is too strong. “Just relax, miss, and it won’t have to hurt as much,” he says quietly, almost kindly, in my ear. His pity makes my already twisted stomach tighten.

  I feel the air swirl around my thighs as my skirt is pushed up to my waist. I scream out again but only manage to choke myself on the couch cushion. I bite down as my underwear is shoved aside to bare my ass. My cheeks heat as I feel all those eyes on my private places. I taste blood in my mouth and I realize I have bitten down on my tongue. No. No. This can’t be happening.

  How could Jacob do this to me? How? He loves me. He’s supposed to love me. This is wrong. So wrong. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to block out as much of myself as possible. I try to hide within myself. I brace and my muscles lock as if it could keep everything out.

  I sense someone behind me. Hands on my ass send a burning flush across my skin, holding me, crushing my integrity, marking my flesh forever. He can’t just take it. It’s supposed to be mine to give. Mine. If he takes that too, I’ll have nothing left. Nothing.

  Just relax and it won’t have to hurt as much.

  I can’t relax. I can’t. If I relax it means that I have accepted what is about to happen. I won’t accept it. Never. No fucking way.

  One last surge of energy rushes through me and I scream and thrash and buck against the hands that hold me down. For a second my body feels the hands relenting against my movements. I get the splinter of hope that I might have gotten myself free. Until the hands regain their grip on me. All hope is dashed as I’m buried back into these pillows as soft and suffocating as sand.

  “Stop moving.” I recognize Salt’s voice. “Or the tat will look like shit.”

  Tat?

  There is a cold feeling of something being swabbed on my skin and I smell alcohol. I flinch as something pointed begins to draw on me.

  I’m not about to be raped. I’m going to be tattooed. Jacob is having me tattooed. I already know what the tattoo is. It’s the crest that Jacob has tattooed on his shoulder blade. His crest, which I have seen on his stationary and the napkins on his nightclub and the sign above the doors of the businesses he owns. Because he owns me too.

  I hear a buzzing noise and the feel of gloved fingers against my ass. Then it begins. It stings, but it’s nothing like the squeezing pain in my chest. Jacob is marking me. Branding me. Like cattle. My chest squeezes with pain. How can someone who loves me do this? How can I love someone who could do this to me? How? What is wrong with me?

  I don’t know how long I lie t
here, but the sting turns to a numbness after a while. I can smell the thick cloy of cigar smoke. I know it’s Jacob and his stupid smelly cigars. He’s sitting there smoking, no doubt paired with an expensive cognac, while his goons are branding my naked ass like a fucking animal. I’m out of tears now. The hot anger that swirls in my belly has dried them up.

  Finally the buzzing shuts off. My ass is cleaned off.

  “Good,” I hear Jacob say from behind me. A bandage is applied and my skirt pulled back down. “Now, get the fuck out. And stop looking at my girlfriend’s ass, all of you. Your job here is done.”

  All the hands leave me and I’m freed. I crawl over the arm of the couch and curl into a ball on the cushions. I hear the door click shut and I feel the room devoid of all other presence, except for Jacob. I feel the cushion near my head depress.

  “Sit up,” he commands. I almost stay in my ball just to spite him, but Jacob speaks again. “Don’t make me tell you again.”

  I shudder at the coldness of his voice. With lead arms I push myself to sitting and I back up as far as possible away from this stranger wearing Jacob’s skin. Who is this man? What has he done with the man that I love? Where is Jacob?

  This is Jacob. This is the real Jacob. I know it. I can sense the way this persona fits him better than the sexy, charming Jacob who seduced me. His eyes were always soulless black vortexes like they are now, they were just dressed up in charm and a wicked smile.

  Jacob lashes out faster than I can comprehend, grabbing my face before I can turn away. He leans in, his breath stinking of smoke, the scent mixing with the odor of alcohol and blood coming from my body like a sickly perfume. His fingers are hard claws digging into my jaw, but his voice… his voice is soft and tender.

  “You understand, don’t you, baby? Why I have to mark you. So that everybody knows. So that everybody knows that you’re mine and if they fuck with you then they fuck with me. It’s for your protection.” Soft and tender. It terrifies me. “Because I love you, you know that, don’t you?”