Toxic Love: A Dark Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance
Toxic Love: Chapter 13

What exactly are you supposed to feel on your wedding day? I have zero idea.

I was never one of those girls that thought about that—dreaming of Ken or Prince Charming, and poofy white princess weddings, even when I was little. Maybe it started with losing our parents. Maybe it got worse when Layla died.

Or maybe I was just born without that gene that yearns for a fairytale.

As of a few months ago, I definitely stopped believing in fairytales. That included dreaming about a wedding day I knew was never going to come.

And yet, here I am, and it’s the whole fucking shebang.

The ridiculously huge white dress. The church. The guests. The white flowers fucking everywhere.

It’s all so real.

Except it isn’t.

What is real, though, is the dark, murky, throbbing mess of thoughts swirling through my head. And at the very epicenter is the skin-tingling memory of what happened two nights ago at Dante’s penthouse.

I shiver in spite of myself, my face turning pink in the dressing room vanity mirror in front of me.

The idea really did start as getting Bianca home. She wasn’t the only one who’d had too much. Even the three glasses of champagne I had were way more than my usual intake. Taylor and Fumi were definitely feeling the vodka, and Elsa was comically drunk, to the point that her husband Hades had to come get her as we were all leaving the club and throw her, giggling, over his broad shoulder before carrying her to quite possibly the world’s coolest vintage muscle car.

But since I was the least drunk of the whole crew, I got in a taxi with Bianca. That’s when she mentioned in between hiccups that Dante kept a penthouse in the city, which was half the distance compared to her apartment on the Upper West Side. So after fumbling her way through the key code…finally…that’s where we ended up.

The plan initially was to put her to bed and leave. But then she crashed hard on the couch while I was peeing. And after that, the little worm of an idea buried deep in my head came to life as I flashed back to what she’d told me at the ladies’ luncheon.

Dante collects rings.

Part of me was terrified to even go looking, for fear of what I might find. Which ended up being nothing, because there were no rings in his office—at least, none that I found.

But I did find something else.

Heat. Pleasure. Excitement.

Intimacy, when I was sure that part of me was long dead and buried.

I haven’t let anyone come close to touching me like that since that awful night. There’s even been times where I had to stop things when it was just me and my own fingers, because the resulting sensation brought back terror. When Dante first grabbed me, it was pure fear that exploded through my system.

And then it melted away, leaving only fire and need.

Want and desire.

A hunger I thought I’d lost.

When he touched me, I didn’t go cold. I didn’t retreat in on myself.

I came alive. I craved more; ached for it. He could have told me to do anything in that moment—anything—and I’d have done it, willingly.

…Thank God it was just making me explode all over his fingers.

Everything after that thunderous orgasm is a blur. I vaguely remember realizing I was kissing him. I remember tasting his lips and wanting more and more before he pulled away. Then I have hazy, embarrassing memories of putting my dress back on and blushing fiercely as he licked his fingers clean.

The next thing I knew, I was in a cab heading home, the window down and my head hung halfway out of it, positively inhaling the night around me.

I felt like I was finally living again that night. And I’m not sure what to make of that, or how it fits into my plan for the short remainder of my life.

I stand, smoothing down the supremely overdone white wedding gown. The sound of people pulls me to the window of Dante’s Hamptons estate, where the wedding is being held today. It’s not a huge crowd gathering in the rows of white chairs outside in the gardens, but it’s not small, either. I spot my brothers. Maeve isn’t here, for obvious reasons, and although I think he was invited, Charles isn’t coming either.

I spot Taylor, Fumi, Elsa and Hades, and Elsa’s little sister Nora. Bianca is sitting with an older man I recognize as Vito Barone, who I’ve now heard via my brothers sort of raised Dante and his sisters.

Guess I’m not the only one who lost their parents young.

The string quartet outside continues to play as more guests take their seats. And suddenly, this whole thing becomes very, very real.

Holy-fuck-I’m-getting-MARRIED-today.

It might not be real, but it is happening. And it might have an expiration date, but it’s not tomorrow. Suddenly, the realization that for the foreseeable future, I will be MRS. Dante Sartorre, and that I will be living with him, hits me like a brick to the face.

I stagger back from the window, my throat closing as I claw at the bodice of my gown.

I need to breathe.

I yank the door open and go tumbling into the hallway. One of Dante’s men is right outside, and he frowns as he jumps to his feet.

“Ms. Black⁠—”

“I need some air.”

I shove past him, ignoring him blurting something about the ceremony starting soon. I plow down one giant, gilded hallway of Dante’s massive estate after another. I almost trip on my train and my heels when I go rushing down a curved staircase, when suddenly, a wall of a man steps quietly in front of me.

Lorenzo, Dante’s head of security.

He frowns deeply. “Ms. Black, is everything⁠—”

“I just…I…I need—” My head starts to spin, my breath becoming ragged as my eyes dart around. “I just…I need to⁠—”

“Come with me,” he says gently. He doesn’t touch me at all, just sort of gestures, and herds me down a side hallway and through a door into a large, room full of bookcases with a vaulted ceiling and big, airy windows.

Okay, it’s not outside, but it’s pretty close. It’s so airy and bright in here that it feels like the noose around my neck is loosening.

I turn to smile weakly at Lorenzo. “Thank you,” I murmur quietly.

He nods with a small, understanding smile. “Not a problem, ma’am. The ceremony will be starting soon, but I’ll let Mr. Sartorre know that you need a minute.”

After he exits and closes the door behind him, I look around. Then it hits me: I’m in Dante’s office. My eyes slide across the very masculine and tastefully decorated room—a mix of old money wealth, midcentury rat-pack style complete with framed pictures of Sammy Davis Junior and Frank Sinatra on the walls, and modern chic.

I mean, the man has killer taste, that’s for sure.

I prowl the perimeter of the room, tracing my fingers over the pristine shelves of leather books and trinkets. Suddenly, I stop cold when my eyes land on something sitting on the shelf.

A small, sad smile creeps over my lips as I take in the pack of American Spirit cigarettes.

“I knew you’d come.”

I’m not religious, and not very spiritual, either. But sometimes, I like to think I see signs from Nina. A bluebird—her favorite—outside my window on my birthday. Her favorite song, Velvet Guillotine’s Exorcise My Love, playing on the radio when I’m having a bad day.

Or this: the pack of American Spirits—light blues, of course—on my wedding day.

Nina wasn’t even really a smoker. But sometimes when we were together she’d have one, probably just because she thought she looked cool. And I mean, she did. And sometimes, I’d take a puff or two, probably also to look cool, even though I’m sure I didn’t.

I grin as I pick the pack up off Dante’s shelf, curious about why this is even here. He doesn’t smoke, does he? It’s open, and I take one out and bring it to my nose.

Holy shit, even though these are a little stale, sometimes I love the smell of tobacco. I bite my lip, thinking it over for a second before I shrug.

Fuck it.

I slip the cigarette between my lips with a giggle. “This is for you, Nina.”

Then I frown. Crap, I don’t have anything to light this dumb thing with. I glance around the shelves, but there’s nothing. The bar cart is the same, not even matches.

I am not asking Lorenzo for a light. Frowning, I head over to Dante’s desk and start pawing around. The top of it, like his desk in the city, is immaculately neat and tidy. It’s also devoid of a lighter. So I start poking around in the drawers.

File folders. Legal documents. An ancient, dead iPhone. Suddenly, I pause as I push aside a stack of papers and see a wooden box. It looks like the kind of thing you’d keep cigars in, and cigars mean a lighter, or at least matches. I haul it out and lay it on the desk.

Grinning with anticipation, I flip the lid open.

…And my whole universe stills.

Oh God.

My skin turns to ice as my heart crawls in on itself and the bile rises in my throat. There, on individual holders in neat little rows, is the collection Bianca mentioned at lunch.

Rings.

Five of them. Little golden rings with carved lions’ faces in them, set with blueish-white diamonds for eyes. And right there in the middle of the row is the worst of them: the ring I watched from barely two feet away as the hand wearing it tightened around Nina’s neck. As it squeezed and squeezed as she tried to get him off her.

My whole body goes cold as I lift it from the case and stare at it, transfixed. This one is slightly different from the others from that night. Maybe that’s why I remember it the sharpest. Instead of two blueish-white diamond eyes, one eye of this ring is a blood red rub, as if its owner lost one of the eyes and decided to replace it with something sinister.

Part of me wants to scream until my throat bleeds. Part of me wants to hit something until I feel nothing at all.

But then, the biggest part of me turns to stone.

Dante rubs shoulders with dangerous men daily, and has the criminal underworld at his fingertips. His entire circle is men who are used to getting what they want regardless of who says no. Or who screams at them to stop.

I’ve been an idiot. I was hoping for access when I inserted myself into Dante’s world, but now that I’m in…

…I might be in a hell of a lot deeper than I ever wanted to be.

A knock on the door has me leaping out of my skin and dropping the ring onto the closed lid of the box.

“Ms. Black?” Lorenzo calls through the door. “It’s time.”

My heart hammers against my chest as I back away from the box.

“Ms. Black?”

“One second!”

Holy shit.

Dante is connected to the men who hurt me and killed my best friend. Fucking hell, he may even be the leader of those men, given how many of these fucking rings he’s got in this box. And now, I’m about to marry the motherfucker? I’m about to spend what little time I have left chained to one of the monsters who destroyed me?

I’m going to be sick.

“Ms. Black, I’m sorry, but⁠—”

“Be right there.”

My voice is cold and sharp, my eyes laser focused on something sitting on Dante’s desk: a display case with a wooden base and a crystal clear, domed glass lid.

…And an ancient-looking metal dagger carved with runic letters sitting on a stand under that lid, labeled “Norse, 1107 AD” on a small brass plaque beneath it.

The door to the office starts to creak open. And by the time Lorenzo steps inside, the glass case is empty, and there’s something cold and metallic hidden in the folds of my wedding dress.

Lorenzo smiles a small smile at me. “Time to go, Ms. Black.”

All I can do is nod, numb, as I follow him out.

Alistair and Gabriel floated walking me down the aisle in lieu of our father. But I opted for a solo walk. My heart thuds with every step as I move down the aisle on autopilot. I don’t even see the faces of friends and families. All I can do is stare straight ahead, my eyes locked ono the man waiting for me.

The devil who I’ve just realized is even more a demon than I ever imagined.

But there’s an out here. There’s one play I, and I alone, can make.

Because I have nothing to lose.

I’m numb as I stand facing Dante, listening to the priest drone on. The man in front of me with the lethal blue eyes and the sharp jaw frowns slightly at my silence. The priest has him recite his vows. Somehow I manage to recite my own, in a fog, the fingers of my right hand curling around the hilt of the dagger in my gown.

“And now, by the power vested in me by God and the State of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

There are polite golf claps as the crowd rises from their chairs.

Time to play the last card I have.

For what was taken from me.

For what was done to me.

For Nina.

“You may kiss the bride!”

We never discussed this part. If we had, I’d have laughed in his face and told him it wasn’t going to happen. Maybe I’d have changed my mind after the other night. Maybe I did, in a dark, secret part of me.

But that was before I found that box just now.

Before I learned the truth.

I jolt when his one hand lands on my waist, and the other cups my face. His piercing blue eyes stab into me, flickering with venomous fire as I feel the etched cool hilt of the dagger solid and comforting in my palm.

Dante leans in as the cameras flash and the crowd applauds.

…And my arm stabs forward.

But just as it does, the hand on my waist grabs my wrist with frightening speed, yanking and wrenching it aside. I hear him grunt as the blade slips past his hip, but he’s not groaning in pain. He’s not falling to his knees with his life bleeding out of him.

He’s still kissing me.

“Smile for the fucking cameras,” he hisses against my lips, nipping at the bottom one so hard that I yelp when the taste of copper explodes in my mouth. “Dear.”