Vicious Hearts: A Dark Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance

It’s been five days. I think. Maybe four. Six? I don’t know. I’ve stopped keeping track.

Finn is dead. It’s not a nightmare. It’s not a trick of the mind. It’s my bleak reality.

My twin—the other half of me—isn’t here anymore.

When I collapsed in Cillian’s living room, I vaguely remember screaming that it wasn’t true. That it couldn’t be true. And I wanted to believe—so badly—that Cillian really would stoop so low as to make me think Finn was gone when he wasn’t.

Until he called the halfway house on speakerphone and let me talk to Sister Angela—one of the nuns who worked there. An older-sounding woman whose voice filled with compassion when I told her, yes, I was Finn’s sister.

A Finn they knew as Finn Smith, a sweet but severely troubled addict who couldn’t ever shake his demons.

Finn Smith had Finn O’Conor’s same eyes. The same hair. The same birthmark in the shape of a triangle on his upper left arm, and the same “Unbroken” tattoo on his forearm that I vividly remember watching him get done in a tattoo shop in Venice Beach.

Finn Smith, who died eighteen months ago from a shot of heroin cut with fentanyl.

In a way, the pain is diminished. Dulled. Because in a lot of ways, I lost him years ago. We’d been living on the streets in Los Angeles when he started to get deeper into heroin—something I tried once with him, and personally couldn’t stomach.

But heroin was how Finn covered up his pain. It’s how he managed to make it through each day. Yes, I hated that he used it, and tried so many times to pull him away from that life. But I understood why he did it, because I of all people knew the demons and the horrors that kept him up at night.

Except something went wrong with a dealer he owed money to, and we both had to get out of town, fast. The plan was to go north to Seattle. But then, at the bus station, Finn told me I’d be safer if he rode out the heat away from me.

Getting on the bus that day, without him, was the worst moment in a life full of terrible moments. It was like losing a piece of myself. I’d been with him my entire life, through so much.

And just like that, our cord was cut.

I got a postcard from Phoenix, then some calls on a prepaid phone when he moved to Chicago. When that line went dead, I wrote to the PO box he’d given me as his address there, only to get a reply from him from Nashville when that letter was forwarded to his new post box.

And those were the last few times we were in touch. It wasn’t as often as I wanted, and I kept asking him when I could just hop on a bus and at least visit him, if not stay. But Finn was convinced the dealer from LA was still looking for him, and he said he wouldn’t let me put myself in that kind of danger.

Now, I wonder how much of that fear was real, and how much of it was drug-induced paranoia.

Just under two years ago, we talked for the last time. He told me he was moving to New York, and I pretended not to be freaked out at how erratic and unstable he sounded.

I got one postcard from New York once he landed here.

Then nothing.

Eventually, danger or not, I hopped on a bus and came across the country to find him.

And all for nothing, it would seem. Just like I’ve done all of these horrible things for Apostle, for nothing.

There was no gun pointed at Finn’s head, ready to end his life.

He’d already done it himself with a needle.

All this is to say that yes, in many ways, I lost my brother years ago. But it still hurts to hear that he’s dead. And I still can’t do anything but wallow in the guest room Cillian’s left me in.

Or rather, that he’s locked me in.

On a somewhat regular schedule, food arrives at my door, or sometimes he brings it in. There are new, clean, clothes that are my size in the dresser. Toiletries in the ensuite bathroom. But I’ve still barely moved from the bed.

One afternoon, on day number who-even-knows, the door opens a crack. My back is turned to it, lying on the bed, and I wait for the sound of him putting food on the table by the window and telling me to eat it in that firm, authoritarian, tyrant way he has.

But there’s nothing. Suddenly, I hear a tiny pattering sound. Then I startle as a light weight lands on the bed.

Something warm and furry nuzzles at the back of my head, and my heart jumps into my throat.

“Bones!”

I scream so loud that I almost scare him away before I manage to snatch him up and pull him into a huge hug, just as the door to the room shuts softly.

Tears fill my eyes as I hold the cat, nuzzling him for a good few seconds before pulling away to check him out. After all, I’ve been gone for days. The poor guy must be starving—

My brow furrows. Or…not.

Because he looks well fed…actually, he looks plumper than perhaps I’ve ever seen him. And when I peer closer and sniff, I can literally smell cat food on his breath—the good kind, too. The fancy expensive kind.

“Sooo… You’re doing well, I see.”

Bones meows, squirming out of my arms and meandering over to the other pillow, which he proceeds to knead.

“Well, at least I’ve got you here.”

He turns in a circle three times and then sits on the pillow. Yep, that’s his now.

It’s maybe an hour or two later when the door opens again—without a knock, as per usual. I stiffen as Cillian steps in, those preternaturally green eyes of his sweeping over me.

As if I’m not dealing with enough, this is my other reality: I’m apparently marrying this man.

A powerful, wrathful tyrant. A lethally psychotic killer.

Part of me wants to say who fucking cares. What do I even have to live for anymore, anyway? But the fighter in me won’t let me. The fighter in me won’t let me capitulate and be his pawn.

His political puppet.

His fuck toy.

“You’re welcome, by the way.”

I frown.

“For the cat.”

I swallow, eying him warily, waiting for the trap to spring. “Thank you. His name is Bones.”

“Because he was skin and bones, due to lack of food?”

I glare at him. “Because his markings reminded me of a skeleton. And I fed him.”

“In the strictest definition of the word, yes, I suppose so.”

I squint at him. “I haven’t exactly been flush with cash.”

“Ah, right, you haven’t been gainfully employed.” He smiles thinly. “Now, why was that, Una? Your busy charity schedule? Were you off changing lives? Or, wait, were you compiling a fucking hit list of me and my fucking family and plotting to kill me?”

I swallow, avoiding his gaze.

“You’ll forgive my utter lack of sympathy, Una.”

“What do you want with me?”

Cillian leans against the doorframe, crossing his veined, muscled arms over his firm chest. As always, he’s in a black button-up shirt and black pants.

I mean Jesus Christ, he doesn’t have to dress like the Devil, does he? As if it’s not painfully obvious he is anyway?

“You haven’t been eating.”

It’s not a kindly, worried observation.

It’s a reprimand.

“I haven’t exactly been hungry.”

“You still need to eat.”

“I. Can’t.”

He doesn’t respond. He just lets those lethal eyes bore into me. Which should be unnerving. I know, logically, that a look this penetrating from this man should freak me right the fuck out.

Except it doesn’t. Instead, it’s weirdly…warming, which is insane given how cold a look it is. But it’s the same look he gave me when he told me he’d rip out all my secrets. That he’d pry out and expose every dark part of me. And now, seeing it again, that’s all I can think about.

Dark, illicit desires.

Stop that.

“So. Are you going to eat, or are we going to have to play it how we did before?”

My face burns hotly, remembering when he planted me on his lap and force fed me, while…torturing me.

Deliciously. Sinfully.

“I’m waiting for an answer, Una.”

Jesus Christ, the bossiness. The controlling tone and the arrogance to talk to me like I’m a wayward child who needs to be told what to do and when to do it.

“I’ll eat, okay?” I snap.

He smirks at me, lifting a brow at the untouched orange and a plate of toast from this morning.

“Soon.”

“Now.”

I glare at him.

“I’m more than happy to do it the other—”

“Okay, okay, Jesus,” I grumble, sliding from the bed.

I’m wearing one of the t-shirts and pairs of leggings that was left for me. But I still wrap the duvet around myself, shooting Cillian another withering stare as I trudge over to the table by the window.

I still don’t have an appetite. But I’ll admit that my stomach knots and groans at the mere sight of food. He’s right. I haven’t really eaten anything in days, and I can feel it in the weakness of my body.

Cillian watches like a hawk as I devour the piece of toast. When I leave the orange and turn back to the bed, he shakes his head.

“You’re not finished yet.”

I roll my eyes. “Are you joking?”

“Do I come off to you like a jokey individual?”

“You come off like an asshole, actually.”

His shoulder lifts as he nods at the plate. “Eat it.”

“It’s not peeled.”

“Are you seven?”

My mouth purses.

I had a job once, years ago, at a fancy, overpriced grocery store in LA, in the prepared food section. Twice a week, I had to peel oranges so the segments could be packaged up and sold to rich idiots willing to pay five times a much than they would for a whole orange because they didn’t want to wreck their manicure.

My cuticles felt like fire for months.

“For fuck’s sake,” Cillian hisses under his breath. I jump as he surges toward me. When the knife flicks out of his jacket, my mouth falls open. Is the guy really crazy enough to kill me over an orange?

Actually, yes.

“Okay! Okay! I’ll eat the fucking—”

Cillian blasts past me, grabs the orange, and deftly and surgically slices the skin from it with his blade. He smirks and sets it on the plate.

“There we go, princess.”

I glower at him. But I pick up the orange, doing my best to hold back a sigh of contentment as I bite into it. It’s delicious.

Cillian watches me eat the entire thing. When I’m done, I shrug, giving him a sneering look.

“Well? Happy now?”

I gasp as he leans right into me, bending down to let his lips brush my ear.

“Not till we work on that attitude.”

Heat traitorously floods my core.

Goddammit, self.

“Come with me.”

I shiver as he grabs my arm, pulling me into the ensuite bathroom—not as lavish as the one in his room, so, just the second-most glamorous bathroom I’ve ever seen.

When he starts to fill the tub, I stiffen.

“What are you doing?”

“Running a bath.”

“Thanks,” I mutter. “But I really can bathe myself.”

“I’m confident you can.” He turns to smile thinly at me. “Now, you know how this goes. Strip.”

Heat shivers down my back.

“No.”

“Una, Una. You keep imagining these question marks at the ends of my sentences. It wasn’t a question, or a suggestion. Strip.”

I swallow, hugging the duvet around me as the tub fills with steamy water and scented bubbles.

“I’m happy to cut your clothes off again if that’s what you’re angling for, little rabbit.”

My core clenches.

Little rabbit.

It’s what he called me in the club.

As he undressed me.

Unraveled me.

Undid me.

When the knife flicks open with a schnick sound, my mind jolts out of my filthy replay.

“Okay! Okay! Jesus Christ, are you always this much of a demanding asshole?”

“Usually.”

I roll my eyes, turning away and grumbling as I let the duvet drop to the floor. “No wonder you have to force someone to marry you.”

I start to pull the hem of the t-shirt up, when I stop and glance at him.

“I can do this myself, you know.”

“Again, yes, I’m well aware that you’ve most likely mastered the delicate art of taking a bath, Una,” he sneers. “But given that it’s been five days, I’m going to make sure it gets done.”

Tyrant, I think to myself.

“Correct.”

I spin around, my face white as I stare at him. “What?”

“I said correct. As in, whatever creative insult or label for me you just thought, assume it’s correct. Now take your fucking clothes off, or I will.”

Heat tingles over my skin.

“Fine.”

I turn away again, pulling the t-shirt off and then peeling down my leggings. I flush, covering my chest as I turn to him.

“Normal people don’t take baths in their panties, I hate to break it to you.”

“Do you want me to even approach the list of ways you or anything about you is the furthest thing from normal?” I spit back.

Cillian lifts a bored brow. “Take them off; get in.”

I purse my lips defiantly.

His knife flicks out again, and my body shivers—nipples hardening as my skin tingles.

“Okay! Jesus!”

My face heats as I turn away again, dropping the panties and then bringing a hand down to cover myself. Moving at an angle, away from him, I step into the tub, holding back a groan as the hot water and fragrant bubbles envelop me.

“Okay, I’m in,” I mutter. “You can go now.”

Cillian rolls up his sleeves as he kneels next to the big marble tub.

“Uh, what are you doing?”

He grabs the bodywash and loofah sitting on a shelf built into the tub.

“Seriously? This again?”

“Seriously. Lift your arms.”

I shoot daggers at him.

“Lift your arms or I’ll tie you up spread-eagled in my shower and we’ll do it that way instead.”

Heat simmers in my face as I purse my lips.

“Maybe I like showers,” I mutter under my breath as I look away and limply lift an arm.

“Keep up the attitude, and I’m more than happy to oblige.”

I shiver as he soaps me up just like before—washing every single part of my body, slowly. I pretend to hate how much I hate it when he moves up my thighs beneath the bubbles.

But I don’t. And my body doesn’t lie. There’s no stopping the ripple of heat that ignites through me when he slides the loofah over my pussy, or the eager way my pulse races.

Just like before, my hair is next. I shiver, almost freaking purring like Bones as he shampoos and conditions my hair, slowly. Gently.

Sensually.

I cross my arms over my chest as my nipples harden, closing my eyes as he rinses my hair.

And then, suddenly, he’s done.

I blink in surprise when he drops the loofah into the tub, dries his strong hands on a towel, and stands resolutely.

“You can fight this all you want, Una. But as much fun as this back and forth is, I’m out of fucking time. This marriage is happening.”

The marriage. As if I could forget.

I turn and lift my head to look at him. I feel so small and vulnerable in this enormous tub with him towering over me. And yet, there’s something weirdly comforting about it, too.

A feeling of protection, unlike anything I’ve felt in more than fifteen years.

Maybe ever.

“There’s food out there when you’re done. Eat it.”

Then, with that final tyrannical and yet bizarrely nurturing decree, he’s gone, leaving me to my jasmine-scented bubbles and black-tinged thoughts.