Vicious Hearts: A Dark Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance

“I don’t understand.”

I can feel the wrath of his glare on both of us even before his hand lands heavily on Finn’s shoulder.

“What do you not understand, boy?”

Finn’s eyes lift to mine. His are so like mine—the same bright blue. But of course they are. We’re twins, born on the same day nine years ago. But there’s one important difference between us: I’ve learned to turn my eyes into walls, blocking prying eyes from peeking into what I hide inside my head.

My twin brother hasn’t figured out how to do that yet. His eyes reflect his heart so openly to the world that it breaks mine.

“I asked you a question, boy. Have you gone deaf?”

My hand curls into a fist. I hate when Papa does this. He’s hard on both of us. Really, really hard. Monstrous, even, like when he’s taken his belt—or worse, an actual whip—to us. But he’s downright cruel to Finn sometimes. Because he sees the softness in him. The kindness. The heart.

All of these are things our father would surgically remove from the world at large with a hatchet, if he could. Which is probably why he’s in prison.

That’s not where we visit him, though, of course. Twice a month, Dr. Thompson or one of her assistants picks us up from the group home in Denver and brings us here, to Coal Creek Hospital. It’s not that kind of hospital. It’s not for sick people. It’s for people like our father. People who are…angry, like him.

We’re not allowed to talk about coming here. Dr. Thompson says if we do, it will mess up her work and her book. Plus, she says it will mean we won’t be able to come visit our father anymore.

I’m not sure that’s really the horrible threat she thinks it is. But the thought of what he’d do if he knew we broke the rules is enough to keep us quiet.

Not that we have anyone else to tell, anyway.

The group home in Denver isn’t the worst place we’ve been since our father went to jail. But just the same, we’re outsiders there. Sometimes, I want to tell them all our real last name—that we’re O’Conors, not Blakelys, and that if they keep teasing Finn, I’m going to tell our father, The Executioner, about it. That would get their attention.

But I won’t. No one can know our real last name. They can’t know who our father is. They can’t know that we used to live in a big house in a really nice town in southern Connecticut, outside New York.

No one’s ever really known our last name anyway. In Connecticut, we were Una and Finn Murphy. Papa always told us it was to protect us. That he worked for dangerous people doing dangerous things, and no one could ever know what our real last name was.

“But you, Una, you will always know what you are, that you have the heart and the drive of an O’Conor.”

Our father never really lived in that big house. Eloise and Carla, our housekeeper and nanny, did. We’d see our father maybe four or five times a year, and that was it. Until the night when men who worked for him came and told us we had to leave. That we had to pack right away, that no, we couldn’t say goodbye to Eloise and Carla. And that our last name was now Blakely.

“Well?” Our father snaps coldly at my brother. “Are you deaf?”

“N-no, papa,” Finn stammers, staring at the rabbit in his hands. “I just…Mr. Fluffy is my friend.”

Please, no.

I know it’s coming, but I’m helpless to warn my brother. The back of our father’s hand cuffs his ear, sending him reeling down onto the grass. Mr. Fluffy—the speckled brown bunny, brother of the all-white rabbit in my hands, Snowball—starts to flee. But our father snatches him up quickly and shoves him back into Finn’s shaking hands.

“Do it.”

“Papa—”

I flinch when he whirls on me. “You’re next, Una.”

I go cold, my eyes widening.

“You want us to—”

“To kill them, yes.”

I stare at him in horror. “But…they’re our pets.”

Mr. Fluffy and Snowball live here, at Coal Creek. But we’ve seen them every other week for the last ten months. They might as well be ours.

“They’re pointless, inconvenient attachments, Una,” he growls. “They are not pets. They’re a lesson. Now…”

He pulls two small knives from the back of his pants. I watch in horror as he hands one to Finn, and the other to me.

“Do it. The neck will be fastest.”

Finn starts to cry. I glance around, looking for Dr. Thompson. But we’re alone out here in the grassy courtyard of the hospital. There’s not even any of Dr. Thompson’s assistants, or any orderlies. Nobody.

“Such a son I have,” Papa hisses viciously. “What a pussy.”

Finn continues to sob and I flinch as our father stoops down suddenly in front of him, grabbing the front of his t-shirt and shaking him roughly.

“You are WEAK, boy!” he roars. Finn starts to cry harder, hugging Mr. Fluffy tightly.

“Stop it!” I yell. “You’re scaring him!”

I gasp, flinching when our father whirls on me with those terrifying blue eyes.

“I’ll do far worse than scare him if that goddamn rabbit isn’t dead in less than one minute.” He whips his terrifying gaze back to Finn, his teeth flashing. “So help me God, boy. I will turn you into a fucking O’Conor if it kills me. And you. That is MY blood you are squandering!”

He winds his hand back, cuffing my sobbing brother again.

“Stop it!” I scream, clutching Snowball in one hand as I try and grab my father’s shirt with the other. “Please! Stop!”

“Thirty seconds, boy,” he snarls at Finn, ignoring me. “You have thirty seconds to do as I command. And if that fucking animal isn’t dead by then, I can promise you the full wrath of the Lord—”

He looks stunned as I shove past him, grab Mr. Fluffy from Finn’s arms, and haul him back.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

The knife flashes. The rabbit jerks and flails in my hand. Quickly it goes still as its blood gushes onto the grass from the slash in its neck.

Finn starts to cry harder, turning away as he collapses onto the grass.

I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry.

Our father says nothing. He looks at the dead rabbit in my hand with an arched brow, then glances at Snowball, who was already dead before I snatched Mr. Fluffy.

Slowly, our father smiles.

“Now there is the blood of the O’Conors. You’ve done well, Una.”

I wake with a gasp, heart pounding, reaching for a brother who isn’t there. Looking around for a grassy courtyard I haven’t been to in years, and two innocent rabbits I killed sixteen years ago.

I exhale, trying to calm my racing heart and glancing at the clock on the rickety little table next to my bed.

Two in the morning. And I’m wide awake now.

Great.

I know from experience that waking from dreams involving my fucked-up childhood means I’m not getting back to sleep anytime soon. So I slip out of bed and head to the bathroom to get some water.

Bones greets me with a dull, yowling meow from his throne on top of the toilet tank. I’ve spent more time than I care to admit trying to get him to sleep in my bed. Like, at least on the end of it. But he has no interest.

After he yowls, he shimmies onto his back, showing me the white lines of his underside, contrasting sharply with his otherwise black coat. When I found him in an alley years ago, it was those stark white lines against the black, giving him the illusion of being a little skeleton, that inspired his name.

“Can’t sleep either?”

Bones’ only response is to close his eyes and immediately go back to sleep.

Dick.

Back in the other room, I sit on the edge of the bed for a moment before collapsing back across it. I glance at the trashcan, where the last burner phone I spoke with Apostle on is still lying in pieces.

I haven’t received a replacement yet. Clearly, Apostle isn’t pleased that I have not, in fact, managed to kill Cillian.

But his call letting me know I’d failed was two weeks ago. It’s been quiet ever since. That’s not like him.

For the hundredth time, I replay the way things went down at Club Venom that night. I critique my actions—maybe not quite as harshly as my father would have. But I don’t go easy on myself either. I think of all the ways I could have, and should have, made sure he was dead. Then I try to figure out why my strike didn’t actually kill him. It should have.

But eventually, just as I have the last few nights, I stop beating myself up about it.

What comes next? I need to figure out how the hell I’m going to get to him again.

Him.

The man who awoke something in me. Something dark and malevolent and…greedy. Something I’ve spent years trying to hide, even from myself.

Desires I shouldn’t have. Urges no one should feel.

Pain shouldn’t equal pleasure. It just shouldn’t. The insidious urge to be taken—hard, and with or without my consent—shouldn’t be the subject of every single fantasy I have.

“Such a messy little girl for me. I was going to take my fucking time with you. But I don’t think you or your greedy little wet pussy can wait, can you?”

I shiver at the memory.

My thighs clench.

Traitorous heat floods my core.

Fuck.

I have to stop this. Not just the toxically depraved desires. But even worse, having them about a man I’m supposed to kill.

A psychopath. A monster.

My forbidden fantasy.

But slowly, like it’s been for the past two weeks, the poison sinks in deep the second it gets a chance to.

I get up and close the bathroom door, making sure Bones stays there, away from my monstrousness. Back in my bedroom, I strip and lie back on the bed, shuddering in the dark as my fingers trace my skin.

The edge calls to me. The place I’ve told myself a thousand times never to go back to. Never glance down over into the abyss again. But when the darkness inside of me needs sating, it’s impossible to resist.

I shudder as my hand cups my breast, fingers pinching and twisting the nipple hard until a gasp jolts from my throat. My other hand delves lower, moving over my stomach and my hips before my fingers brush over my silken wetness.

The moan lodges in my chest, a deep humming sound as I start to roll my clit between my fingertips. I add more pressure, feeling the warmth begin to spread through my core. I pinch my nipples until they ache and cry out when I sink two fingers into myself. My hips rise, grinding my clit against my palm as the pleasure blooms.

It’s not enough. Not tonight. Not with the edge calling to me like it is.

My pulse roars like a hungry demon as my hand leaves my breasts to reach over to the bedside table. My eyes are closed, but my fingers know exactly where to find the little metal box with the ballerina painted on it, and curl around it. It opens easily, and a shiver creeps up my spine when I touch the tiny little razor blade tucked inside.

This is so fucked.

You’re fucking broken, Una.

But not even my own psyche or inner monologue will stop me now.

The metal slicing across my skin makes me inhale sharply. There’s a sensualness to it—vicious and yet alluring, like standing on your tiptoes at the edge of cliff or tall building and closing your eyes.

Waiting to see if gravity pulls you over.

My fingers plunge deeper, harder. My palm grinds against my clit. And my other hand brings the edge of the blade against the delicate, sensitive skin of my inner thigh.

Oh God, yes.

The first cut sends me reeling, my back arching as I twist my head to scream into the pillow. My muscles coil. My throat tightens. My entire sense of being reels.

The second cut sends me hurtling toward the edge. It’s a lethal combination: my fingers bringing me to release, and the sharp, explosive, and dangerously erotic feeling of the blade opening my skin.

That, and the face of the man that enters my thoughts just as I start to fall.

Vicious. Lethal. Venomous green eyes…

My entire body twists and writhes, lifting from the bed as my thighs clamp tight together. I scream into the mattress, shaking and pressing my fingers against my clit as the waves crash over me.

I lie there panting, a sheen of sweat across my skin as my muscles spasm.

Fuck.

I hate how good this feels. I hate that I’ve flown so close to the sun, exploiting my pain kink in this way to take masturbation from “great” to “fucking incredible”. It’s turned that pain—and the blade I use—into a drug. One I keep craving, even though I know it’s lethal.

My face flushes as I roll onto my back again. Not so much from the aftershocks, or the feeling of electricity still throbbing through my body.

But from the face I saw in my mind’s eye of the man, snarling and psychotic, his green eyes lancing into mine just as I exploded.

Shivering, I groan and slip my legs over the edge of the bed. I stand, but then I frown and glance down.

Shit.

I sit again, reaching back into the metal box and pulling out a band-aid. I pour a bit of peroxide from the little bottle onto a tissue and clean the few drops of blood from the second cut. I went a bit deeper than I should have.

Then the band-aid covers it, and my sin.

I clean the blade with more peroxide, then tuck everything back into the case before putting it back in the drawer in my bedside table.

I stand again, walking over to the wall of photographs and chewing on my lip.

He’s ready for me now. He knows I’m out here.

It’ll be even harder next time.

I groan, hugging my nakedness in the darkness of my room. Suddenly I stiffen, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

It feels like I’m being watched.

I whirl, heart climbing into my throat. But of course, I’m alone. And when I check it, the door to my studio is still locked and bolted. So are the windows.

I shiver, pulling on some panties and a t-shirt. Then I walk back over to the windows and lean against the wall, staring out into the New York night.

There’s no one here. Nobody was watching me.

Maybe I’m even more fucked up than I think I am.