Page 28 of Dirty Mafia Torment

She never did.

My father made sure she wouldn’t.

Today went too smoothly. Too easily. I let myself believe I might escape this marriage, might carve out a future that’s mine. A dangerous lie I fed myself, one destined to fail.

But I do hope. I still have it in me.

I press my forehead to the steering wheel, so caught up in beating myself up, it takes a moment to realize Renzo’s dead silent.

“He beats you?”

I sit up, blinking in confusion. Not at his question—sadly—but at the assumption my father, with his anger management issues and violent nature, wouldn’t smack me around. My father’s notorious for his temper tantrums. “Well, yeah.”

Renzo makes a low, ominous sound deep within his throat, and my lips part in surprise. He never considered I’d be a punching bag? “Less now since I learned to be one step?—”

“Motherfucker.”

Violence rolls off him, thick, volatile, and impossible to ignore. I’m stunned, not just by its intensity, but by how wrong it feels coming from a man who lights every room with chaos and charm. The jokester. The reckless daredevil. The wild hell-raiser who bends rules like they’re toys. He’s the “kind” Beneventi. The one everyone whispers is the softest of the three. The least dangerous.

Some say the weak link.

I was raised as a mafioso’s daughter. Spent years assessing the merits of the men in the famiglie. Tracking who holds power, who issues it, and who makes others choke on it. I never considered Renzo weak—far from it. But the look in his eyes now unsettles me, and I almost laugh. Because I see the truth within the contradiction.

His darkness doesn’t just wound. It devours.

They’re wrong. All of them. His muscled body’s built for violence, like other mafiosi. But it’s the merciless sharpness of his mind that’s most lethal.

Holy hell. How do they not see the cold, calculated predator within him?

Because he hides it well.

Almost like he’d rather not be recognized.

“If I kill that fucker, all your problems are solved.”

I lunge at him, catching him off guard, arms thrown around his shoulders as I scatter kisses over his cheek. He’s on my side. He cares.

I don’t know when it shifts. When my nipples harden against his chest. When my mouth finds his. When his eyes turn black with promise.

All I know is suddenly I’m straddling him, lips crushed to his.

God, his kiss is aggressive, his tongue torment, his lips potent.

My whole world spins.

I shift my hips, then rub my crotch against the thick bulge in his jeans.

He curls my long hair around his fingers, immobilizing me while he devours me like he hasn’t kissed a woman in a long time. It’s a ridiculous notion; this man notoriously goes through women like dirty socks, dirty being the key word. I’ve had a few clumsy kisses in the high school hallway and one less-than-spectacular groping session beneath the stadium bleachers.

I try to tug away, to remind him I’m a virgin.

If anything, my resistance spurs him on.

His kiss deepens, his tongue violently tangling with mine until I’m lightheaded. Fingers squeeze a nipple, the brief sting melting into excitement.

I arch into him with a sharp gasp. “Again. Harder.”

His gaze locks with mine, those infamous baby-blue Beneventi eyes darkening to something dangerous. His palm drags slowly across my stomach, the heat of his touch searing a path upward until it claims my chest, his fingertips mapping me like a man carving out his territory. I bite my lip as he cups my breast over my bra, weighing its worth in his palm. A more ruthless pinch to my nipple sends a shock wave crackling down my spine, igniting my core until I’m trembling.