Ruthless Temptation: An Enemies-to-Lovers Mafia Romance Read online

  “My sister all good?” Callum asked, his hand still grasping mine tightly.

  “A handful, but fine. I left her with Jason.” Callum frowned but nodded as his father interjected,

  “That man’s a kiss ass if I ever met one. Wouldn’t believe the amount of bitching I had to put up with when I told him he had to watch my Emma.” Anthony shook his head as he spoke before tutting and waving for everyone to follow him into the restaurant.

  It was eerily quiet inside, left totally empty except for a few waiters. Luciano’s was small and poorly lit, light pouring over individual tables and leaving the rest of the room in a gloomy darkness. I’d never seen the two waiters before, but it was neutral ground and disrespectful to question the validity of the staff. Anthony sat first and the rest of us followed suit. He looked around the table at each man, before taking his time to speak.

  “There can be no mistakes today. Understand? You all know what you’re doing, and I trust you more than anyone else associated with the family. Don’t let the family down.” Everyone nodded, and that was all he said, he’d never been a man of many words. The room descended into a horrible silence. It was like the air was straining to catch what was being thought. The room felt hot as the men around me did their best to appear as unbothered by the uncomfortable silence as possible. We all waited with bated breath, our ears pricked up, listening for the tires of a Russian car. But what broke the silence was Callum Flynn standing, his chair screeching against the stone floor. We all snapped our heads at him, only for him to smile and hold up his hands in mock shock.

  “What? Can’t a guy get a drink?” I smirked as his father shook his head and Callum walked over to the bar and got the waiter to pour him a drink. I could feel the collar of my shirt, almost as if it were tightening against my neck. As the golden-brown liquor pooled in Callum’s glass, the sound of tires faintly floated into the room. Everyone stiffened bar Callum and me, ears and eyes all focused on the door. It opened slowly as five members of the Russian mafia entered the room. At the head of them were the notorious brother and sister duo Victor and Anastasia Zhirkov. Victor was sadistic, he was cold, and he was not to be messed with. Stories of Victor’s brutality stretched far and wide, but if you asked me, every good story had some form of exaggeration. Victor had a short temper and was more like a child in a giant’s body than a real player in this game. He’d managed to garner the nickname ‘the Monster of Moscow’ back in his home country. Brutality was a part of this walk of life, but Victor took pleasure in going to the extremes and somehow managed to stand out like a monster in a world of monsters. Tall and built like a heavyweight boxer, he strutted into the room, his sister Anastasia walking gracefully at his side. While Victor always made the noise, we all knew she was the brains of the operation, it was she who pulled the strings. Anastasia wasn’t supposed to be as powerful as she was, unlike her brother she’d had to earn her place and her respect. Victor might have the louder bark, but if any of the Russians were to be feared it was her. Victor would attack you in the middle of the street for a brawl while Anastasia would make sure that when you went to sleep you never woke up. The Russians nodded, and the Irish nodded back as they joined us at the table. Anastasia was tall, slim, and undeniably beautiful. Victor spoke first, his words directed straight to Anthony Flynn.

  “Mr. Flynn, I’m glad we could finally reach this moment. Things had gotten-”

  “Out of hand.” Interjected his sister.

  “Yes, out of hand.” Victor agreed, the two of them spoke calmly, as if this were any other meeting on any other day. Anthony remained silent for a moment before Callum spoke up in his place from where he stood at the bar.

  “It’s a part of this business of ours, but so is making peace. I think we can all agree enough blood has been spilled.” Anastasia turned her head towards him, her long dark hair trailing after her. She smiled at Callum suggestively.

  “Callum Flynn! You look… older than I remember. I see you still have your bodyguard to protect you from the big bad Russians.” She smiled patronizingly at Callum before looking over at me.

  “Some of us weren’t blessed with a brute for a brother,” I replied calmly, her smile dampening and her eyes squinting. Victor merely snorted out a laugh before Callum slowly walked over and rejoined the table, sitting next to me.

  “Bold of you to assume Bellamy is protecting me from you. Even a tad narcissistic, I’d say.” Anastasia flitted her eyes from Callum to me and seemed to think over her words carefully before finally changing the subject,

  “I was under the impression you had a sister… Where is she?” Callum flashed me a look that said what has that got to do with anything, before replying,

  “We Irish don’t include the women of our family in the business.” She raised an eyebrow at that,

  “Well, you don’t anymore.” She replied smugly. Callum and Anthony stiffened as Anastasia kept her eyes fixed on Callum. Callum gulped down his drink in one go. Callum had become like a brother to me over the last few years, and I could feel the rage seething inside of him. His father was cold and calculated, but his children took after their mother, who was as fiery as the look in Callum’s eyes. Before he could respond, Anthony finally spoke up.

  “If you want this to work respect is necessary.” Anthony glared at Anastasia before she paused for a moment and nodded,

  “My apologies.” Said Anastasia. Anthony rubbed his wedding band, masking whatever turmoil of emotion that was rumbling inside of him. My eyes hadn’t left Callum, I could see it in him, if he were a few more drinks along the table we were all sitting at would have been tossed into the air and all hell would have broken loose. The room seemed to reach a level of calm, the place where an agreement for peace might be brokered.

  “Now that the pleasantries are over, let-” Anthony’s words were interrupted by the doors of the restaurant flying open and Emma Flynn bursting into the room.

  “Looks like I spoke too soon.” Anastasia half muttered, half mused. Anthony and Callum shot me a look of it was your job to make sure she didn’t know, to which I could only sit and curse the name of Jason O’Shea. Emma flew across the room, the ball of fury which Callum had only just managed to restrain alive in her.

  “How could you!? How could you speak to these savages!?” She pointed over at the Russians.

  “Emma! This is not the place for this.” Anthony looked at his daughter furiously, hissing his words.

  “After what they did! After what they did to mom!” No one had an answer to that. The room fell into a tense, shameful silence. Anthony couldn’t look his daughter in the eye as Callum seemed to tense up even more. The silence only lasted for a moment, as Anastasia Zhirkov began to laugh.

  Chapter 3

  Emma Flynn

  My heart was pumping in my chest so loudly I could barely hear my own thoughts. The world seemed to be spinning around me as the adrenaline pumped through my body, I’d always been independent and fiery but standing up to my dad like this in a public place was a step I’d never dared take. This was the type of action that if I weren’t his daughter I’d be killed for, and I knew it.

  As the words ‘what they did to mom,’ echoed around the room, I saw a million emotions racing across his face at once. Rage, shame, guilt, despair. I could see my father battling feelings he’d been trying to bury for 3 years. And then he dropped his eyes. He couldn’t even look at me, he couldn’t stomach facing me because he knew I was right. He knew that the moment that bullet left a Russian gun and buried itself in my mother, his wife, a moment like this was unacceptable. A sit down with the Russians was out of the question, even if it did make sense for the business. Sometimes there is too much pain in your heart to be the bigger person. Dad opened his mouth as if he were about to convince me, to say,

  “She would have wanted the bloodshed to end,” or “There comes a time when revenge satisfies no one.” But he never got to speak those words. Those words were left hanging in his throat as the room was filled with the laughter of Anastasia Zhirkov.

  At that moment, I’ll be honest, I lost control. I felt 3 years of pain and heartache build up and explode inside of me. I turned to see that bitch laughing and before my logical brain could stop me, the laughter had stopped and been replaced with the sound of my fist cracking against her pretty little, stuck up, Russian jaw. Every eye in the room fixed itself squarely on me as Anastasia’s face erupted in anger.

  “How dare you? Dirty little Irish brat.” Victor jumped to his feet, his huge 6’4 frame towering over my 5’4 one. I looked up at this monster of a man, but only for a moment, as in a few seconds my view was blocked by Bellamy Temple. He threw himself between me and the Monster of Moscow, pushing me back behind him while never dropping his eyes from Victor.

  “Back off.” Bellamy hissed through gritted teeth. Victor roared and was about to charge into us when Callum drew his gun from his holster and pointed it directly at Victor’s head.

  “I think you should do as my bodyguard says.” Victor glared at Callum and everything seemed as though it might stop for a moment. As if there was a chance we’d all get to walk out of this little room, in this little restaurant, alive. Bellamy reached into his suit and slowly produced his gun, the Russians and the Irish doing the same across both sides of the restaurant. The light pooled around Bellamy as if he stood in a spotlight, his high cheekbones and striking features even more defined than usual as he stood between me and the Russian mafia. Anastasia laughed again before catching my eye.

  “I should thank you, Emma Flynn, now we have a reason to crush your family once and for all.” I squinted back at her, my heart and my body racing ahead of my mind as the eloquent response of,

  “fuck you,” escaped from my mouth, only for it to be drowned out by
the explosion of gunfire. Men dived behind tables, looking for cover as all-out war erupted in Luciano’s. I noticed the waiters whip out guns and aim at the Irish. We’d been set up! They were ready for things to turn south all along.

  My body seemed to freeze for a second until I felt an arm wrap around my waist and force me into cover behind a flipped over table. The world spun around me as my head bounced against the hard floor, I felt a hand pinning me down by the chest and looked up to see Bellamy crouching over me. He held me down while firing shot after shot towards the Russians. The crossfire raged on for a while, until Bellamy grabbed me again and dragged me behind the bar into better cover, the two of us now crouching next to each other.

  “What were you thinking!?” He hissed at me. I stared at him in disbelief.

  “They killed my mother! Do you have any idea what that’s like?” He glanced at me, his perfect brows furrowed over wild green eyes.

  “More than you’d think.” Before shifting half his body out of the cover and firing three shots towards the other side of the restaurant. The gunfire went on for a while before everything stifled into an uneasy ceasefire. The two of us sat back against the bar and breathed out slowly. A few whispers could be heard around the restaurant as others joined in the momentary lull in the action. Bellamy looked over at me and smirked. What the hell? This, of all times, was not the moment to be breaking out his heartbreaker smirk.

  “What?” I half hissed, half whispered. His smirk widened before he locked eyes with me and whispered back,

  “That was incredibly stupid. It was reckless, and it endangered everyone. And I loved it.” I cocked my head at him, confused. One minute it’s ‘what were you thinking?’ and now he loves it.

  “You are a very strange man.” His smirk widened at that.

  “I just saved your life, Emeline.” I was about to tell him my name was Emma and that if he ever called me Emeline again, I would hit him even harder than I did Anastasia Zhirkov when there was the sound of a fight followed by a yelp from the other side of the bar. Bellamy switched from half relaxed to totally focused, his gun ready and his body tensed. I couldn’t help but notice the way his suit fit him so well, hardly covering his tensed biceps. It definitely wasn’t the time to be thinking about his biceps, or the fact that he smelled far too attractive for someone at a mafia sit down, but I couldn’t stop the thought from intruding into my mind.

  “Bellamy I-”

  “Shush.” Did he just shush me? Okay, never mind. If he’d stop calling me Emeline and actually treat me like an adult, I might have even entertained those thoughts a little more.

  Suddenly Anastasia’s voice broke through the whispers.

  “Hey! Whichever of the Flynn’s is alive, we’ve got Callum. But we want the girl. Pass her over and we won’t shoot him.” My eyes widened in shock and fear. No, no, no. Not Callum. I felt fear wrapping around my throat and choking me. They had my brother. I looked over at Bellamy, only to see him staring straight at me.

  “Do you trust me?” His voice was a gravelly whisper. I paused for a moment, not sure if I did.

  “Now!” Anastasia shouted from across the room, her tone deadly serious. I didn’t trust him, how could I? But I guess there was no other choice. I nodded quickly, squeezing my eyes shut.

  “Alright! You can have her.” What? What the hell!? They can have me? What was this guy thinking?

  “What!? That’s your plan? To give me over!? They’ll kill me!”

  “Shut up. Just trust me.” If looks could kill, Bellamy would be face down on the floor right now. How could I trust him? I barely knew him, and he was happily giving me over to the Russians. “I have a plan, just follow my lead.” He said gruffly.

  And then he looked at me. His head snapped towards me and our eyes locked. He looked at me with those wild green eyes and something inside me said ‘trust him’. I don’t know what caused that voice or why it was telling me to trust him, but it was. So despite how insufferable he’d been to me, despite the fact I hardly knew him, despite the fact this could get me killed, I played along. My life was in his hands. I nodded and his eyes said ‘thank you’.

  “Nobody shoot. You let Callum walk over to me and I’ll let her walk over to you. Understand?” Bellamy’s voice rumbled through the room, louder than I’d ever heard him speak before.

  “Okay, deal.” Victor’s voice emanated from the same area of the room as Anastasia’s. Bellamy looked over at me, he looked at me as if there was something on the tip of his tongue he couldn’t bring himself to say before nodding and moving out of the way so that I could stand up and walk over to the Russians.

  I took a deep breath and steadied myself as much as possible, I got us into this mess and I was gonna be the one to get us out of it. I stood up, holding my head high. I wouldn’t cower in front of those savages. Across from me was my brother Callum and upon seeing him I couldn’t help but yelp as I saw he’d been shot in the leg.

  “Now walk!” Commanded Anastasia from behind the cover of the other side of the bar. Callum looked as if he could barely hold himself up, never mind walk, he’d clearly already lost a lot of blood. As we walked past each other, I couldn’t help but notice his heavy breathing and the film of sweat covering his pale face. It’s crazy because most people in my situation would probably be terrified of what was about to happen to them, but I couldn’t take my mind away from my brother. I needed to help him. The only things distracting me were anger, anger at myself and at Anastasia, and strangest of all the thought of Bellamy. I was almost in shock at the trust I’d put in him, I had no reason to think this was anything other than the only way to get Callum back. He probably had no idea what to do, no plan to save me. Yet even with my mind telling me that, my body trusted him.

  I walked over to the Russians as Callum collapsed into the cover next to Bellamy. Anastasia smiled at me mockingly as I walked over, flashing her perfect set of white teeth.

  “Restrain her.” Victor nodded and produced a plastic tie from his pocket, which he quickly fastened around my wrists. “You will regret hitting me, girl.” Anastasia looked at me as if I were nothing more than dirt on the bottom of her shoe, just something that had bothered her and had to be wiped away.

  “Why? The bruise suits you.” She raised an eyebrow at my retort but said nothing, no doubt holding herself back for later. She waved at the remaining Russians who hadn’t been caught in the crossfire and they all left Luciano’s. Victor grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out with them, before dropping me into their car. I looked back towards the restaurant, hoping to see Bellamy storm out of the restaurant and help me. But the engine of the car switched on and the doors clicked shut and still nobody emerged from the restaurant. I felt that horrible sinking feeling in my stomach as I realized he wasn’t coming out of Luciano’s. He had just wanted to save the heir to the family. He didn’t care about me. His plan began and ended with saving Callum. He wasn’t going to save me… I was totally at the mercy of the Russian mafia, the Russian mafia I had just spent the last half hour antagonizing. I gulped down a fresh wave of fear and anxiety as the car began to pull away and still, nobody appeared out of Luciano’s to give chase.

  A million different emotions were racing through me, one part of me was busy cursing Bellamy and myself for believing him and his stupidly handsome face, another part was terrified, while my logical brain scanned the car for any possible method of escape.

  “What? No begging? No pleading for mercy?” Anastasia lounged in the passenger seat, casually gloating at me. I rolled my eyes, not even bothering to entertain her already inflated ego. My nerves kept on flaring up, so I closed my eyes and breathed. I breathed out as slowly and calmly as I could, doing everything possible to calm down and think straight.