Perhaps one day you’ll be able to forgive me when you realise that everything I’ve done is with you in mind. Or maybe that’s just the punishment I’ll have to live with. Loving you and knowing you’re the one thing I can never have.
The car door opened, and I frowned up at the face of Enzo’s housekeeper, Basille.
“Consigliere Rossetti,” he greeted, a tight smile on his face. “We’ve been expecting you. Your prisoner is in the cellars. Please follow me.”
I climbed out of the car, keeping my phone in my hand, and peered around at Enzo’s dimly lit yet grand estate. It was quiet. Most of the soldiers were off duty, since their boss was in Sicily, but a few overnight staff were scattered around, guns slung overtheir shoulders. I followed Basille inside the modern house and towards a steel door with high-security access. A laser scanned his face, and the door opened to reveal a well-lit staircase.
Most of the cells were empty, but I heard whimpering from the last one. I narrowed my eyes at the large, hunched man tied to a chair in the middle of it. His clothes were torn, and his body was already battered and bruised, with dried blood covering his arms and legs. Basille handed me the code to open the cell door, then turned and walked away, leaving me with the prisoner.
He still hadn’t raised his head from where he was blubbering incoherently against his chest. His thinning brown hair was sweaty and damp, and he had a bald patch on his crown. Who the hell was this?
I typed in the code, and the click of the cell door opening made him finally look up. Soulless, pleading eyes fixed on mine, a dirty rag in his mouth muffling his screams. I froze. All my past trauma, all the pain and abuse I’d endured for years under this man’s ‘care’, flooded through me, buckling my knees. I thought he was dead. I’d tried searching for him a few years earlier, but I’d heard he was already dead.
Ettore Grimaldi. The boys had called him the Grim Reaper. Grim. My devil on Earth.
How many dreams, how many fantasies over how many years had I had of ending this man’s life so that he could never harm another boy again? Too many to count.
My phone buzzed in my hand. I glanced down and read the text through blurry eyes.
I love you, Finn. In every wrong way a man can love. But I won’t love you quietly any longer. I’ll love you with every dark corner of my soul that no one else can ever touch. Just believe that, even if nothing else.
Chapter twelve
The Past
With my back against the leather headboard, I checked the time, the screen of my phone lighting up the dark room. Three forty-two a.m. I felt restless—too alive. My body was alert and wouldn’t relax. I had too many thoughts, but only one kept me awake.
The moonlight filtered through the apartment window as if searching for the man sleeping beside me, drinking in his perfect form. Finn lay sprawled on his stomach, one tattooed arm draped over my waist as if he were claiming me, even in his sleep. The long, hard lines of his body were barely concealed by the white sheet that clung dangerously low around his waist. He breathed deeply, his face half pressed into his pillow, his dark eyelashes fanned across his cheeks. My gaze traced each ridgeof his spine, following the deep slope downward until the sheet concealed the rise of his muscular, firm ass. I swallowed as my dick stirred to life again.
Merda,I couldn’t get enough of this man. I could stare at him for eternity and never tire of the view. I’d never been so drawn, so attracted, so obsessed with another person in my life. What was it about him that had me risking everything? I knew what was at stake. Yet I couldn’t stay away from him. I couldn’t turn off these desires, stop myself from beaming like an idiot at every text he sent. I was losing sleep just to speak for hours on the phone so no one else would hear us.
I found excuses to visit the Buccini mansion whenever Elenora was home for the weekend, so I could catch glimpses of him from afar. I lived for those secret smirks and stolen glances when no one else was watching, for the subtle brush of our shoulders or fingers as we passed each other in the hallways. It was like the most intense foreplay until we could both escape to my apartment block in Verona. Then we’d rip our clothes off as soon as we locked the world out.
Under moonlight, we’d spend hours exploring each other’s bodies. We’d kiss, caress, lick, and bite every inch of our skin until the sun came up. I’d straddle his thighs, and we’d grind and dry-hump until we came together in our boxers like teenagers, or we’d take turns pleasuring each other with our mouths and hands until we were panting each other’s names. Then he’d flip us over, sliding his cock against mine as our sweaty bodies rutted and ground together, our cocks heavy, hot, and throbbing between us as we kissed like there was no tomorrow. We’d been doing this for months. Six months, to be exact, but we still hadn’t gone all the way.
Finn didn’t want to pressure me. He wanted me to be certain before we took that step. He told me it was a big deal to be that vulnerable with someone, to give another person completecontrol over your body and pleasure, and he didn’t want me to have any regrets. Deep down, we both knew what he wasn’t saying. He thought that if we did it too soon and I wasn’t ready, I’d spiral. That it would send me into a tailspin of shame, anxiety, and fear about my sexuality. I’d push him away and shut him out.
Perhaps a few months ago, that would have been a valid reason, but things had changed. When I was with Finn, I felt the most alive and like the truest version of myself. I couldn’t keep my hands off him, and I wanted him so badly it was messing with my head. I’d been telling him I was ready for the past month, but he still hadn’t made a move to take it further. I didn’t know what he was waiting for.
Finn shifted and murmured something into his pillow. His hand gave my hip a brief squeeze, as if checking I was still there. I looked down at his face, at the dark stubble along his jaw and his parted lips. A thin scar cut through his stubble, one you’d never notice unless you looked closely. But I couldn’t help but study him.
He was beautiful. Not flawless, but real. Strong. Not only because his body was built with solid muscle that could break you open and still leave you thanking him for it, but because his mind and heart were the strongest I’d ever encountered.
He never talked much about his past, but the little he had shared with me—things he’d never revealed to anyone before—was enough to destroy a person. But there he was: strong, steady, capable, loving, and affectionate. A man the world had tried to crush again and again, yet he had always found a way to rise every damn time. And he was so authentically himself. He was so sure of who he was. I admired him, but I also envied that about him.
He was far too good for me, in every way. I couldn’t understand why he was wasting his time on me. Perhaps he’deventually get bored and find a more experienced man who was proud of who he was. Someone who could kiss him in public without the fear of being killed for it. Or maybe it was my innocence he liked. Perhaps that’s why he wasn’t fucking me because once he’d achieved the challenge of taking my ass virginity, he’d be done with me. I knew they were my own insecurities talking, but the longer he denied me, the more I spiralled.
Even the thought of him with another man twisted my guts. He was mine, and I wouldn’t let him go. In the dark, Finn Rossetti was all mine, and I was his. We could be happy like this. The sneaking around was exciting, thrilling. The nights we spent together were sacred. What we had was special and ours. No one could take it away or ruin it as long as we kept it to ourselves.
Fuck it. If he wouldn’t listen, I’d just have to show him how ready I was. I reached into my drawer and pulled out the large square velvet box, flipping the lid open. The silver chain, encrusted with tiny diamonds and costing more than my newest gun, shimmered in the pale light. I’d had it for a month, waiting to give it to him at the right moment to give it to him. I wanted to give him something that showed him what he meant to me, and something he could wear when we were apart. Since meeting Finn, I’d quickly realised I was a possessive man. Or maybe I was just possessive of him. The thought of seeing him walking around wearing this like a claim made me hard and giddy.
Twisting out from under his arm, I crawled over him, naked, the chain in one hand. With my hands and knees on either side of his body, I lowered my face to his cheek and breathed in his masculine scent. Just that smell had my dick hardening to a painful state as I ran the tip of my nose down his temple. He didn’t stir, so I brushed my lips against the shell of his ear, gliding them down the thick column of his neck, kissing tenderly between the hard planes of his shoulder blades. My tonguelicked up his spine, and he let out a low, blissful moan as he slowly came round.
“Enzo,” he husked sleepily, his hand slapping the mattress in search of me. I smiled against his shoulder, letting my hips drop and brushing the tip of my cock against his ass over the sheet. He groaned, his fingers curling into the bedsheet as his eyes fluttered open.
I thrust against him again, letting the length of my cock glide along the cleft of his ass cheeks, and bit his shoulder hard. He jerked awake, lifting his head off the pillow, his hair tousled from sleep and his lips parted in a gasp. I seized the moment to slip the chain around his neck and fasten it.
“I want you to fuck me like this, Finn. I want you to be the first and only man who’s ever been inside me. Pin me down and take me.”
