Bratva Sinner (A Possessive Mafia Romance)

Because it wasn’t just about me anymore. It was about Cara and keeping her alive, and I planned on doing exactly that.

12

Cara

A cool breeze rolled through Luke’s back yard. He wanted me to stay inside—said Maher might still be watching—but I couldn’t stay cooped up in that house forever when he got to leave whenever he wanted. Luke had a crew to run and I understood he couldn’t sit around with me all day, but that still didn’t mean I wanted to spend my days bored out of my mind watching the same TV shows over and over again.

So I sat outside on his tiny patio on a black metal chair and kicked my feet up on the table. It was nice out, and the wind made the file folder in my hands flutter a bit as I paged through the images.

The dossier was fascinating. The more I went through it, the more I understood that it was a work of art as much as it was a tool. I noticed the same girls appeared in the pictures over and over again: one woman with thick, dark hair always stared into the camera with a vicious smile, like she enjoyed the fact that the Lionettis were capturing these men in the act; another, a pale woman with blonde hair, always seemed embarrassed. I wondered what went through their heads during, if they were afraid or excited, if it felt good to have sex in front of a camera knowing that these powerful men would be ruined if the photographs ever got out, or if it was simply a part of their job. It couldn’t be a good thing, that much was obvious—there was something desperate about all of them.

The men didn’t interest me as much. They were powerful in their own fields and while I only recognized a few of them, I could imagine what the others were all about. Businessmen, entrepreneurs, public figures, media personalities, law enforcement, judges, politicians, anyone that had something to lose if their reputation was tarnished. And yet all of these men fell for the Lionettis’ trap.

I didn’t know what that said about the state of our world. Probably nothing good.

The sort of people that went into politics, or obsessed about business enough to succeed, or hustled to the top of any industry were not necessarily the nicest human beings. They were driven, maybe smart, but definitely ruthless. Power drew those sorts of humans like moths to a flame, and I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad for these bastards.

Some of them deserved it, and I wanted to see them all burn.

It was strange. My father died for this dossier, and now it sat in my lap on a cool, breezy day, the sun shining through the trees, and I felt calmer than I ever had in a long time. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt good—probably before my mother died, when I was a little girl. My dad had relentlessly destroyed everything nice in my life and made sure I was left with nothing more than the house and barely the means to feed and clothe myself. Now that he was gone, I should’ve been sad, and I should’ve hated Luke for killing him.

I only felt sorry that he hadn’t died sooner.

I pulled out on particular photograph. It was the dark-haired woman again, grinning fiercely into the camera lens. Behind her, a hairy-chested man gripped her hips and was fucking her from behind with his hilariously awful face. He had short, salt and pepper hair, square jaw, blue eyes, good teeth, and a birthmark on his chest the shape of an acorn. Staring at him, I tried to picture what he’d do to keep this photo from ever being released—

And the idea hit me like a lightning storm.

I jumped up and paced around with the dossier under my arm. I felt manic and all I wanted to do was hunt down Luke and jabber at him. Instead, I tried to think it through, tried to picture what it would be like if we actually went through with this, and the more I considered it, the more I actually wanted to follow through.

Luke came home a couple hours later. I practically jumped his bones, shoving the dossier at him like it was a magic talisman. “We have to talk.”

He stared at me and took the file from my hands. “Uh, all right. Were you reading this?”

“All day.” I paced around, waving my hands in the air. “I was looking at them and thinking about what we could do with this stuff, and I realized something.”

He slipped past me and went into the kitchen. I followed, buzzing like I was high.

“What did you realize?” He took a beer from the fridge, cracked it open, and drank half of it back.