Vicious Hearts: A Dark Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance

Fear, as they say, is the mind killer.

That particular nugget’s not from my father, though. That’s Frank Herbert. My father’s version was more “if you freeze up and get scared like a baby, I’ll hurt you.”

I think I was nine when he taught me that particular lesson.

But, bastard that he was, that lesson—all of his lessons—are still lodged in my brain.

Like cancer.

For a split second, I consider fighting Cillian off. But that plan flies out the window the second his grip tightens on my wrist. The hand on my mouth drops, curling around my throat and sending electric fire through my nerves.

I can’t possibly fight back. He’s way too big, and too strong. And even worse, I’m already pinned.

Trapped.

So I switch tactics: I start to fake cry.

“Please!” I sob, choking violently, my throat hitching. “Please! They forced me!”

Cillian chuckles, his firm chest rumbling against my back. “Try again, little girl.”

“You don’t understand! Please! They were going to kill…” I gulp. “Me! They were going to kill me unless I came after you! I swear!”

He sighs, unmoved. “That’s a nice little fairytale.”

“Please!” I sob even louder, forcing real tears down my cheeks. “I’m just a girl! Please don’t kill me!”

There. There it is.

It’s not much, but suddenly, I realize I have the slightest opening. He pauses, his grip loosening. It’s just a fraction, for only a millisecond. But it’s my chance, and I’m not going to waste it.

In one motion, I raise my foot and then stomp down hard on the arch of his. Cillian grunts, and his hand on my throat loosens by a hair.

It’s all I need.

Hissing, I jam my elbows back, hard—first the right, square into his ribs, and then the left. That one, I aim higher, and when I feel my elbow connect with something soft beneath his clothes that sure as shit feels like gauze and bandages, I know I’ve hit my mark.

His agonized grunt of pain sort of gives it away, too.

I jam my elbow against his knife wound again, and then a third time for good measure before his grip loosens on me.

Then I’m bolting.

I rush across the room blindly in the dark, wincing in pain when my thigh slams into a side table. But I lurch forward for the door, because if I can just get out there, I can run. Or call for the police. Or—

A scream bursts from my lips as he slams into me from behind, taking us both crashing to the floor. I choke, clawing and reaching for the door in front of me. With his weight still pinning me to the ground, Cillian’s arm flies past mine, his fingers catching the edge of the door and sending it slamming firmly shut.

“That was a fucking mistake,” he rasps harshly into my ear.

I jam my heel back and up. Cillian snarls, lunging to the side to avoid getting hit in the balls. I surge to my hands and knees, scrambling across the floor before I suddenly get slammed back down under his weight.

I cry out as my hip smacks the floor, and something harsh pinches my breasts. With horror, I look down and realize one of my fucking tits has slipped out of the top of the dress, and my nipple’s just dragged painfully across the wooden floor.

I try to kick back again, but this time, he’s ready for me.

And fucking pissed.

He catches my foot, twisting it just enough to make me choke in pain before dropping it to the floor. He pins me down, his hand grabbing a fist of my hair by the scalp and tugging. Hard.

I fucking hate myself for the way my body reacts to that.

I don’t shut down. I don’t cry.

I get fucking wet.

Because of course I do. Because I’m insane, and broken, and severely, severely fucked up inside.

I can feel Cillian’s muscled body pinning me, his hips grinding into my ass—which somehow makes this whole mortifying experience even worse-by-which-I-mean-better, dammit. He leans over me, and my eyes bulge as his other hand suddenly slides under me to brutally cup and squeeze my exposed breast. His fingers roughly pinch the nipple.

And I moan.

Sweet Jesus kill me now, I fucking moan.

“You’d like this, wouldn’t you?”

I tremble, biting back a whimper when his lips and voice brush my ear. His hand tightens in my hair, his fingers pinching roughly as his hips dig into my ass, letting me feel…him.

All of him.

Hard.

Oh God.

“You’d like for me to fuck you,” he rasps darkly into my ear. “Whether you wanted it or not.”

My eyes bulge again, my pulse roaring in my ears.

“You’d like it if I just took this little pussy and fucked it raw.”

I whimper. Cillian chuckles darkly, and I cry out as his fingers pinch and twist my nipple just as his teeth bite down hard on the soft flesh of my neck.

“Well. Maybe later, if you ask me nicely.”

My pulse thunders.

“Let’s go.”

He suddenly yanks me up. Something wraps around my head, sliding between my lips and teeth. A gag. He’s fucking gagged me.

He roughly shoves me forward, out the door into the dark hallway. But any hopes I have of him being insane enough to drag me past a ballroom full of cops evaporates when we turn and head the other way down the hall.

By the time we’ve reached the stairwell, I’ve started to thrash and kick. Cillian stops that cold by lifting me like I weigh less than nothing and tossing me—the asshole fucking tosses me—over his goddamn shoulder. I squirm and yell and buck even harder…

…until his palm comes down with a blisteringly sharp smack against my ass.

My jaw goes slack. My blood turns to fire.

For a horrifying moment, I think I’m about to stain the shoulder of his jacket with my arousal. Especially when he does it again, this time lifting my skirt first so that his palm hits bare flesh. My face floods with heat as his hand lingers for a moment on the stinging skin of my ass cheek, rubbing briefly across it and the back of my thong before dropping away.

Down another hallway, Cillian kicks open a back service door. I shiver as the cool night air hits my bare thighs when we step out into the alley behind the Ritz.

Where there’s a waiting black car.

“PLEASE!” I scream. But it’s more like a “PUHHEESH!” around the gag stuffed in my mouth.

Cillian’s only response is yet another smack on my ass.

Then he’s suddenly yanking me off his shoulder. I gasp as he slams me into the side of the car and leans in close, sucking the air from my lungs. “I’m through playing fucking games with you, Una.”

I whimper as he suddenly spins me, pins my arms behind my back, and wraps a strong, veined hand around my throat.

“And now you’re coming with me.”

Adrenaline roars through my veins. Terror floods my heart. Because for all my forbidden and horrible fantasies involving this man, this is still Cillian Kildare.

Certified psychopath.

Vicious killer.

And a man who’s looking at me like he’s deciding right here, on this very spot, whether to fuck me or kill me.

Or maybe even both, in who knows which order.

I’m not waiting around to let him figure it out. In one move, I stomp down hard on his foot and twist, using a bastardized version of jiu-jitsu to twist out of his grasp. My forearm slams out, catching him by surprise in the throat before I whirl and bolt.

I make it all of two steps before a hand grabs a vicious, painful fist of my hair. I cry out through the gag still in my mouth, choking and gasping as he yanks me back. A firm, muscled arm wraps around my neck, and I scream into the gag as I feel the cold metal of handcuffs securing my wrists behind my back.

“I do so enjoy it when you choose the hard way.”

I scream as a bag goes over my head. Then, all I know is being lifted and unceremoniously dumped into what is clearly the trunk, which then shuts before the car starts.

And then we’re off, to God only knows where.

I gasp, wincing when the bag is yanked from my head. I shiver, and as my eyes adjust to the bright white light, they scan the room.

My heart crawls up into my throat.

Where the fuck am I?

It’s a room that may very well have once literally been a slaughterhouse, or a meat locker. Or at least, I can only hope it “once” was and isn’t “currently”.

I’m in a metal chair in the center of the fluorescent-lit room. The walls and ceiling are clad in metal. The floor is concrete, with a drain in the middle.

And there are chains with fucking hooks on them dangling from the ceiling.

He’s going to fucking kill me. He’s actually going to fucking kill me, right here.

“Welcome to your new accommodations, Ms. O’Conor,” he growls from behind me, startling me. I whirl, shivering as he smiles icily. I flinch when he reaches for me, sure he’s going to strike. But he only uses a finger to snag the gag still in my mouth and yank it free.

I sputter, gasping for clean air as I tremble. When my eyes focus on his hand, I flush.

The gag is a pair of my panties—the blue ones, with the black palm trees. The pair I thought the dryer had eaten, or that Bones had hidden under the bed or something.

If they’re in Cillian’s hand, it can only mean one thing.

He’s been in my apartment.

I swallow as my eyes drag up to his, and a shiver ripples down my spine.

“What do you want with me?”

Cillian laughs coldly. “What do I want with you? With the little psycho who tried to kill me not once but twice?”

I gasp as he lunges forward into my face, his smile dissolving into a harsh, vicious look of vengeance.

“I. Fucking. Wonder.”

Naked fear shivers through me.

“I…” I stammer. “I didn’t, I mean I wasn’t—”

“I know you’ve only been taking orders from someone on those burner phones. Someone who’s smart enough to use them only once, and to tell you to break them in half when you’re done with them.”

I can’t tear my eyes away from his.

“What I want with you, Una, is to know who that fucking person is.”

It’s an easy choice to make. If I tell Cillian about Apostle, Finn is as good as dead. If I don’t, Cillian may kill me, but it may save Finn. I mean what would be the point in killing Finn if I’m already dead?

My stomach knots.

Or maybe Apostle still would kill my brother. But that’s only a maybe. It’s a definite yes if I tell Cillian anything. It’s that simple. I stay silent as I stare right back at him.

His brow lifts, dark amusement creeping over his chiseled face and into his piercing emerald eyes.

“Well?”

I purse my lips, staring right back at him, still saying nothing. Cillian’s brow furrows deeply and he sighs.

“We can help each other out, Una. Or do I really need to trot out the easy-way, hard-way pep talk again? Because I’m fairly sure you know which option I will always prefer in that scenario.”

“Why would I help you?” I spit.

He smiles grimly. “Because you know who I am. And you know what I’m capable of.” I shiver as he moves even closer to me. “And you might even know how much I enjoy doing what I’m capable of.”

I glare levelly at him.

“You’re a monster.”

I gasp as he surges into me, one hand wrapping around my throat. His mouth drops to my neck, and his teeth drag over my tender skin.

And my body traitorously and shamefully reacts to it.

“Am I…?” he rasps thickly into my ear. His hand tightens, and a throb of heat sizzles through my core.

Which is exactly when his hand drops right between my legs. My eyes bulge from my head as he boldly lifts my dress and cups my pussy though my panties. And before I can do or even try to do a thing, he suddenly drags a thick finger up my fucking seam.

I melt.

“Tell me, Una,” he growls quietly, so close that I shiver at the heat of his lips against my ear. “If I’m such a monster, then why do you get so fucking wet for me?”

My whole world is spinning. My lungs feel like the air is too thick and heavy to breathe. Electricity spasms and jolts through my body, all coming from where he’s touching me.

“I—no—”

“You say that word quite a lot for a bad little girl whose pussy turns into a fucking mess whenever I touch you.”

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

“Now,” he growls, suddenly, pulling away.

God, do I hate how fucking disappointed I feel when he does that.

“I know who you are, and I really should kill you.”

I try my best to erase the heat and desire from my face as I drag my gaze to his. “Then why don’t—”

“Because you’re going to help me, Una.”

My lips purse. “If you think for one second—”

“I don’t recall asking a question that needed a response.”

My eyes narrow. Cillian’s are unblinking.

“Now, make yourself at home. There’s water, and a bucket here you can piss in.”

He kicks a metal pail out from under the chair with two bottles of water in it. And suddenly, it occurs to me that this room is my prison.

“Wait, you’re not going to leave me—”

“Clever girl. That is, in fact, exactly what I’m going to do.”

A chill creeps up my spine as I glance at the ominous hooks hanging from the ceiling.

“I’ll scream.”

“And you’re most welcome to. But I can guarantee not a fucking soul will hear you. This place is soundproofed.”

Of course it is.

I don’t want to know why.

“Enjoy your stay at Hotel Kildare, Ms. O’Conor. Try not to have too much fun while I’m gone.”

And without another word, he turns and strides to the door, locking it behind him.

I’m alone.

I shiver and make a move to stand. Then I wince when the chain connecting one of my wrists to the chair—which is, of course, bolted to the floor—stops me fast.

Bastard.

I can move off the chair just enough to use my free hand to grab the water. And I can reach the fucking bucket, should I need to…use it.

That’s it.

This is very much a prison.

But suddenly, I stiffen. I sit back in the chair, my hand trembling as it reaches up to my necklace.

Still there.

I take a shaky breath as I pull it off, setting it in my lap and twisting at the pendant. It slowly comes in two. My heart races as I quickly pull the Bluetooth earbud away and stick it in my ear. I push the little button engraved in the pendant, like Apostle told me to.

Then…I wait.

I have no idea if this will even work in here. Or how long it will take for Apostle to respond to—

“Una.”

I yelp when the voice immediately grates mechanically in my ear through the little earpiece. Then I catch my breath and clear my throat.

“Yes, it’s me.”

Silence for a moment.

“I can assume this means you’ve been caught?”

I swallow, nodding. “Yes.”

“By Cillian?”

“Yes.”

“You’re his prisoner?”

I shiver as I glance around the room. “I am.”

“Good.”

I’m sorry what?

“I’m not sure I can escape—”

“I don’t want you to.”

My teeth drag over my lip.

“Finn—”

“He’s fine,” Apostle raps out brusquely. “Stay the course, Una.”

“But how is my broth—”

“I said he’s fine. And he’ll stay fine, so long as you stay the course.”

Tears well up in the corners of my eyes. “I will.”

“I know you will.” Apostle sighs heavily. “Your father would be very proud of you, Una. Now, do what must be done.”

The line goes dead.