Monstrous Urges: A Dark Mafia Enemies To Lovers Romance

About those strings, and pulling them…

My string is the cheap black flip phone that Kenzo Mori pressed into my hand at the Moscow gala. That night, with guilt flowing through my veins like fire, I hid it away in my little evening bag. Back here at the house, I’ve kept it in a box of tampons under the sink in my bathroom.

Out of sight. But not out of mind.

“Answers to all the things you can’t explain, Ms. Crown.”

I don’t know why I haven’t told Drazen about meeting Kenzo. It’s not just because he told me not to. It just feels…

Well, like I shouldn’t. Like it will set fires that can’t be put out. There’s also a little fear in the back of my mind of it blowing over onto Fumi, just for being Kenzo’s half-sister. And they’re not even close, her having just learned of his existence recently.

Yet, the longer that goddamn thing stays under the bathroom sink, the guiltier I feel. It’s as if the mere presence of that phone means I’m cheating on Drazen.

At the same time, I don’t know if even fucking another guy, given whatever Drazen’s and my arrangement is, would be considered cheating. Not that I want to fuck anyone else.

What the hell are we? A couple? It sometimes feels like it, in a weird way. Other times, not so much. Technicalities of us being married aside, it feels…undefined. Probably because it is. I mean I’m stuck here on his island. And it’s not like I’ve got opportunities to—or any remote interest in—sleeping with any other man on this island, like any of the guards, or that gruff guy, Milos, who always looks like he’s annoyed at me.

But Drazen leaves. Not often, but every now and then. I know he’s off the island. Sometimes he tells me he’s leaving, other times he doesn’t. Either way, God only knows where he goes.

Or who he sees…

My brow furrows as my gaze slips from the book in my hand to my bathroom door.

“Hide this. When you’re ready for answers, use it.”

It’s been three weeks since the ball. For all I know, Kenzo’s offer was an exploding, time-limited one. He could’ve meant “when you’re ready for answers tomorrow” or “in the next few days.”

Not “almost a month from now.”

Then again… There’s only one way to know for sure.

I’m off the bed before I can stop myself. My hand rifles through the box of tampons until I find the little phone, a tingling feeling clawing up my neck as I pull it out.

This feels wrong. I haven’t even done anything yet, and it still feels like I’m doing something wrong.

But while the box of photos Drazen gave me has become one of the most precious objects I’ve ever owned, and even though I spend almost every night looking through them, it’s still not enough.

I need more.

I need more answers to questions I’m almost scared to ask.

Who am I.

You’re Annika Brancovich AND Taylor Crown.

But what if I’m not? What if I’m only one of them?

And what if Kenzo Mori has the answers to those hard questions?

I’ve kept the phone off since he gave it to me—one, I wouldn’t want it to ring. Two, I don’t have a charger for it, and I have no idea where on Drazen’s little island fortress I’d find a charger for what looks like a flip phone from twenty years ago.

When I turn it on and flip to the contacts, I see only one there. There’s no name, but it’s clear who it is.

ME

I might be ready for answers

Surprisingly, the reply comes within seconds.

UNKNOWN

When can you meet?

I shiver, frowning at the screen.

ME

When can YOU meet?

UNKNOWN

Tonight. Now.

My eyes widen. What?

ME

I’m not in Moscow

UNKNOWN

I’m aware of where you are. If you’re able to sneak out, meet me at the rowboat moored off the northern edge of the island in two hours. I’ll wait ten minutes. After that, this number will disappear

Something finger-walks up my back. I was looking for answers. I’m not so sure about a cloak-and-dagger James Bond night out.

Answers. He has answers.

I chew on my lip as I nervously open and close the little phone. Finally, I flip it back open.

ME

See you there

Sneaking out of the house isn’t hard. I mean nothing is locked, and at this point, I have total free rein. What’s harder is avoiding Drazen’s men that patrol the immediate vicinity of the house itself.

I end up having to duck behind a tree once, and then crouching in some scratchy bushes for a full ten minutes when two of his men stop to smoke cigarettes and chat in what I assume is Serbian five feet from my hiding spot.

After that, though, I’m out into the darkness of the lightly wooded island and running toward the northern side.

At the water’s edge, I stop to quickly change into a bathing suit I’ve brought. The idea of swimming through a completely dark, black ocean to a boat I can’t even really see right now since the moon is so dim sounds completely fucking terrifying.

So does trying to sneak back to my room in dripping wet clothes.

So with a final breath and a pep talk to my own frayed nerves, I leave my clothes and the towel I brought on the rocky beach and step into the quiet surf.

The water is relatively warm. But I made the mistake of googling “sharks Elba” a few weeks ago just for kicks.

Spoiler: they live in this very ocean. Blue sharks mostly, but the occasional white, mako, and hammerhead has been spotted around these waters as well.

So that’s got me half-petrified as I slip into the water, set my eyes on the dark rowboat moored offshore, and start swimming.

I swear to God, every stroke has me wondering when something is going to surge out of the darkness and bite me. But sooner than I would have expected, the boat itself looms out of the dim moonlight.

I gasp, choking on a mouthful of seawater as a face suddenly appears above me, dark eyes piercing into mine.

“Take my hand,” Kenzo murmurs quietly, extending his arm.

I take it, surprised by his strength as he easily lifts me out of the water and into the boat. My wet skin prickles with the sudden chill of the air. But then Kenzo offers me a towel from a black waterproof bag, like something a Navy SEAL would use.

“Thanks,” I mumble, taking it and wrapping it around myself. I’ve had my glasses tucked into the top of my one-piece during the swim. Awkwardly, I reach into the suit and pull them out, drying them with the towel before I slip them on and look up at him.

Oh…okay.

I don’t know why I’m surprised to find that Kenzo has also swum out to the boat in a swimsuit. He’s sitting across from me in the stern of the boat, the soft moonlight glinting off the hard, chiseled lines of his lean, muscled frame. Scars, from cut marks, run over his chest, his grooved abs, and one shoulder. One of his arms and what I think might be all his back is covered with breathtakingly intricate and beautiful Yakuza tattoos.

Parts of him look so much like his half-sister, Fumi, that it’s freaky. And yet other parts look entirely his own.

“Well, here we are,” he growls with a tense smile.

I suck on my teeth as we both size each other up. It feels like he’s looking at me with the same kind of curiosity with which I’m regarding him.

“You told me you had answers,” I say, my voice low so it doesn’t carry over the water. Drazen’s men patrol around the island. At night, their boats would definitely have their lights on.

“You have to ask the questions first.”

I swallow, digging deep for the courage to ask him what is burning a hole in my heart.

“Who am I?”

His lips curl.

“I think we both know you know who you are, Taylor.”

Taylor, not Annika.

It’s been a few weeks since anyone’s called me that, and it sounds alien to my ears.

“You know what I mean,” I fire back.

He gazes at me steadily. “What do you remember from before your accident. Before the amnesia.”

“Nothing,” I say quietly. “I’ve even seen pictures of my childhood and my parents. There’s still nothing coming back.”

“Nothing at all?” he presses, peering through the darkness at me. “No little insignificant details, nothing big picture?”

I shake my head. My heart sinks. Fuck, I really thought he’d have answers, not just more questions.

“What about friends.”

My jaw grits as I shake my head. “Sorry, but I thought you said⁠—”

“Does the term invisible friend mean anything to you?”

It’s like getting dunked into ice water. My body tenses up, my breath leaving my body in a whoosh as my vision fades away.

“Come play, Annika.”

“Play with me.”

“That’s my invisible friend…”

I jolt back to reality with Kenzo’s hands on my shoulders, shaking me. When I blink and my vision refocuses, the look in his eye is…concern.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” he growls.

I shudder, hugging the towel around myself as I try to catch my breath and slow my racing heart.

What the fuck was that.

My eyes lift to his. “What do you know,” I whisper, shaking.

Kenzo’s chiseled jaw ripples as his teeth grind.

“I know you’re not Annika.”

I swallow, still shaking. “Because she died on this island, at the bridge?”

His head slowly shakes side to side.

“No,” he murmurs.

“How do you know that?”

Kenzo pushes his wet hair back from his face.

“Because I met Annika in Kyoto,” he rasps through clenched teeth. “Five years ago.”

My body stiffens. My brain tries to put together the pieces as I stare at him.

“I—I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either,” he murmurs. “But I do know that⁠—”

Suddenly, a light flickers in the darkness.

“Fuck,” Kenzo hisses, whipping around. “Get in the water. Now.”

My pulse spikes as he grabs the towel from me and stuffs it into his bag, along with something I didn’t see before that was in the bottom of the boat by his feet.

A gun.

Wordlessly, he zips up the bag, and we slip over the side quietly into the water. The sound of a low boat engine rumbles closer. A light sweeps over the rowboat from the other side of it as we both push ourselves low to the waterline, treading water. Men’s voices quietly talk to one another before they go silent and the light goes out.

The barely audible engine putters away. Kenzo peeks around the side of the rowboat we’re hidden behind. Then he turns to look at me, his face lined with concern.

“Get back to the house,” he hisses. “Now.”

Fear stabs through me. “Why the urgency?”

“Those men on the boat were speaking Russian.”

A creeping sensation skitters over my skin.

“You need to get the fuck back into that fortress of a house, Taylor,” Kenzo growls. “Drazen’s men all speak Serbian. Those weren’t Drazen’s men.”

Holy shit.

“Crush the phone and hide the pieces when you get back,” he says rapidly. “I’ll try to get in touch another way later when I can.” He slips the strap of the bag around his chest and turns to face me, the dim moonlight barely illuminating his sharp features. “What I was going to say before,” he murmurs, “is that Annika Brancovich didn’t die on Drazen Krylov’s island. And I know for damn sure that you’re not her.”

A ghostly chill ripples up my spine.

“Like I said, Taylor,” Kenzo says darkly. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but there’s another you out there.”

I shiver as I step out of the surf back onto the rocky shore. My heart is racing—partly from the black nightmare that was the swim back from the boat. Partly from Kenzo’s ominous warning about the men patrolling the waters off Drazen’s island.

Partly from his parting words: there’s another you out there.

I change quickly, stripping off my swimsuit and stashing it behind some rocks along with the towel after I dry off as best I can. I can come for the evidence tomorrow. Right now is all about sneaking back in without getting caught.

Dressed, my pulse still racing, I quickly scramble back up the embankment. I stick to the shadows, my ears humming with adrenaline and the thud of my heartbeat as I race back to the house.

Movement near me catches my eye. I flinch, whipping my head to the side.

Only shadows. Only darkness.

I’m losing it.

I keep speed-walking, then upgrade to a light jog. Again, movement has me yanking my gaze from in front of me to peer into the shadows.

My heart lurches.

There’s something there.

I don’t think, I just turn and run. I bolt through the dark, almost moonless night, racing in the direction of the house. The snap of twigs behind me has my pulse jangling. The gruff snarl of a man’s voice has my heart climbing into my throat.

Chancing a glance behind me, my eyes go wide when I see a man in black, a balaclava over his face, charging through the trees toward me. The scream curdles in my throat as I whirl and start running again. More movement catches my eye to the side.

Holy fucking God.

For one brief, exhilarating second, I was wondering if it was Drazen. I was hoping it was him, even if he’d be pissed to know I’d snuck out.

But it’s not. There are two men in black chasing me through the night.

My foot catches, and I scream as I go tumbling to the ground. My pulse shrieks like a train whistle in my ear as I scrabble for purchase, getting up again. I keep running, but I can hear them right behind me. I can feel the wind as one of their hands almost grabs me, and the heat of their breath as they close in.

The house lights are up ahead. Veering to my left, I run as fast as I can to the broken stone wall that runs along the cliffs here. There’s no trees there. I can run faster.

I’ll make it.

A hand grabs the back of my shirt. My heart explodes into my throat, choking me as I get yanked backward off my feet. My back slams to the ground as they pile onto me. Sheer, mad terror sirens through my entire existence as one of them yanks out a vicious blade, leering down at me as he lifts it.

His head snaps back in a violent jerk. A red circle appears in his forehead as he slumps to the side. The other guy leaps up, gun in hand. Instantly, he’s gurgling as a hole explodes through his throat.

My hand flies to my mouth and my eyes bulge in horror as he drops like a stone. I scramble to my feet, spinning around, my heart still trying to claw its way out of my chest.

Terror grips me as I lock eyes with the man in the black devil mask and black suit, a smoking gun in his hand and his piercing blue eyes cutting into my very soul.

Holy fuck.

It’s Drazen.

Just as I’m about to stagger toward him in sheer elation, the look in his eyes stops me. It honestly scares me, and the snarl on his lips under the edge of his devil mask turns my heart to ice.

“I—”

“You’re in fucking trouble,” he hisses. He starts to walk toward me with a black, malevolent energy swirling around him like smoke. I shiver, backing away as my heart begins to speed up again.

“Drazen—”

“You fucking disobeyed me.”

I shiver as the backs of my legs hit the crumbled wall overlooking the cliffs down to the waves below. He keeps advancing on me, teeth bared, a venomous glint in his eyes and a primal look etched across his face.

“I—those men,” I choke. “They came out of⁠—”

“You think I give a fuck about two dead men?” Drazen snarls.

I shudder, and something wicked and deviant and disturbingly aggressive uncurls and lodges itself deep in my core.

“No, my little fucking slut,” he hisses as he storms up to me. “No, I am far angrier about the fucking man you just met, in the dark, alone, in a fucking bathing suit.”

He grabs me by the throat and violently spins me around. In one motion, he’s shoving me hard against the rock wall and knocking the backs of my knees with his. I shudder as my legs give out, dropping me to my knees and he grabs the back of my neck and bends me over the wall.

He grabs the back of my shorts and yanks them down. I bite down hard on my lip, shivering in explosive fear of what this man in his sheer wrath might do to me.

…And trembling in anticipation for the very same reason.

Drazen yanks my panties down, letting them tangle at my knees before he smacks the fuck out of my ass. I yelp loudly, scrambling and squirming against the rocks and the ground as he does it again.

Hie belt jangles.

His zipper yanks down.

“You fucked up, my little cumslut,” he snarls viciously in a tone that chills my blood. “And now you’re going to learn what happens to bad little sluts who decide to meet other men in the dark.”

His gun cocks.

My face goes white as something utterly primal sinks its claws into the darkest, most depraved, most shameful hidden corners of my psyche.

“You thought we were playing dark before, slut?” he hisses in my ear.

The warm metal of the recently fired gun presses between my lips and rubs against my pussy, turning my soul black.

“Think. A. Gain.”