Page 1 of Sweetest Sin (Tempting Love #1)

Dominick

“What did he do now?” I ask over the speakerphone as I wipe the blood splatter off my hands, checking to make sure I didn’t get any on my suit while I wait for my younger brother to tell me what our father did this time.

“He took a meeting with Rothschild behind our backs.”

That gets my attention. Joseph Rothschild and our father haven’t been anything more than business associates in many years, and everyone knows if it’s business-related, I’m the person they should contact.

It’s been that way for the past year, since our father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s—information only our immediate family is aware of—and he had no choice but to go into an early retirement, despite refusing to officially hand the title over to me until I either meet his absurd requirements or he dies. I’m banking on his death.

So, the fact that they’re meeting only means one thing …

The body on the floor groans, reminding me that I’m in the middle of something.

“Hey, Matteo, let me call you right back.”

He hangs up, and I pull my gun out of its holster, aiming it at the man who betrayed me … betrayed my family. His face is mangled, to the point that I can’t tell if he’s looking at me. But it doesn’t matter because, in a moment, he won’t be looking at anyone.

I glance at the gentlemen standing around the room—some with terrified expressions, others neutral.

“Take this as a warning,” I tell them. “When you steal from my family’s casino, you’re stealing from me, and there’s only one way it will end.” The bullet goes straight into the thief’s chest, and I look at the other employees. “Any questions?”

They all shake their heads.

“Good. Now, get back to work.”

They scurry back to wherever they belong, and I glance at Franco, who runs our underground casino. It’s invite-only, and only the most wealthy and influential are considered.

“You did good,” I tell him, reaching out to shake his hand. “Expect a bonus for your loyalty.”

When he contacted me to let me know he believed someone in the accounting department was stealing from the casino, I told him to handle it. It took a couple of weeks, but he figured out who it was and called me with proof.

Unfortunately, shit like this happens all too often.

And then Matteo or I have to step in.

People get greedy and try to get away with skimming off the top. They think because we have our hands in so many pots, we’re not watching. But you don’t get to where we are by being stupid.

“Thank you, sir.” Franco nods and then scurries out while I text my cleanup crew to let them know where they need to pick up the trash.

Once that’s handled, I head back to my office in downtown North Harbor Point, calling my brother back once I’m situated.

“Sorry about that,” I say when he answers. “Issue at the casino, but I handled it. Now, where were we?”

“Andrey meeting with Joseph.”

Ah, yes. I lean back in my seat. Our father took a meeting with Joseph Rothschild behind our backs.

“Let me guess. Joseph was asking when our sister would be ready for marriage.”

“Worse,” Matteo says, his tone laced with venom. “Anthony doesn’t want to wait. He wants to marry her now.”

“How do you know that?”

“I ran into him at Pasquale’s,” Matteo growls through the phone.

“He was bragging about how it won’t be long until we’re family.

That Dad agreed Brielle would marry him this spring.

Not fucking summer, Dominick. Spring! I think they know Dad’s health is declining, and they want it to happen before he dies. ”

I clench my fist around my phone, trying to tamp down my anger.

“I’ll talk to Joseph when I get back. He agreed to wait.

I don’t give a shit what deal our father made with his friends thirty-five fucking years ago.

It’s not supposed to happen until after she has graduated, and she still has five months to go. ”

Hopefully, by then, Dad will be dead, and I can renegotiate so our little sister isn’t forced to marry that dumbass Anthony. He wouldn’t know the first thing about keeping my sister safe, and the last thing I want is our family name tied to him.

“All right,” Matteo concedes. “But don’t prolong it. That asshole sounded like it was a sure thing.”

Of course Anthony did. Because he’s been counting down the days until he can claim our sister as his own.

The Rothschilds are practically champing at the bit to secure ties to the Antonov name.

He would’ve tried to make it happen sooner, but with the twelve-year age difference between them, Dad told him he had to wait until Brielle turned eighteen.

Then, thankfully, I convinced Joseph to make his son delay the wedding. It took some negotiating and sacrifices on our end, but he agreed.

“He can say whatever he wants,” I tell him. “But she’s not signing a marriage license until after she walks across the stage.”

If everything goes according to plan, our father will be dead, and I can tell Joseph and his son to go fuck themselves. Dad’s deteriorating quickly on his own, but Matteo and I have already discussed ending him if we need to.

“Speaking of which,” Matteo says, the humor in his voice telling me exactly where this conversation is going.

“Don’t go there,” I warn, but my brother never fucking listens. I might be feared by damn near everyone who knows our family, but there’s one person they fear more—Matteo Antonov.

“Lorenzo went to visit Daniella at boarding school,” he taunts.

“I said, don’t go there.”

I don’t want to know anything about the seventeen-year-old I’ve been arranged to marry.

I’m not a good guy by any means. My family deals in drugs and weapons and has as many, if not more, illegal businesses as we do legal.

I sold my soul a long time ago. But even I have my limits, and pedophilia is a hard one.

Not too long ago, our men found out a few guys in South Harbor Point were selling underage sex tapes on the dark web from their basement.

We wiped them from the face of the earth and made an example out of them.

Nobody fucks with underage women in this city.

So, just the thought of marrying Daniella Russo, who’s fourteen years younger than me, makes my stomach churn.

It was supposed to happen when she turned eighteen, but when my father and I renegotiated the terms for Brielle, Giuseppe—Daniella’s father—insisted his daughter be allowed to go to college as well, thanks to me putting that bug in his ear.

While I did it for Brielle, a small part of me made the deal in hope of avoiding having to spend my life with a woman I have no desire to be with.

“You can live in denial all you want,” Matteo says, “but in four years?—”

“Anything can happen.”

Don’t get me wrong. She might be pretty—hell, she might even be beautiful, but I wouldn’t know since I haven’t seen her in years since her parents sent her off to boarding school when she was younger—but regardless of her age, I’ll always see Daniella Russo as the little girl with pigtails and braces, running around the backyard at our parents’ annual Fourth of July party.

Not that our fathers give a shit about that. Andrey Antonov, Giuseppe Russo, and Joseph Rothschild only care about three things: money, power, and control.

Even when they were younger, when most guys their age were fucking around, they were building their empires and strategizing how to make them stronger.

And I gotta give it to them—they succeeded in owning damn near the entire city we live in, as well as the surrounding area and the port that controls most of the import and export to major countries, like the Dominican Republic, Peru, and Colombia.

“Anything can happen,” Matteo agrees, “but you know they’re hell-bent on seeing their plan through.”

Their plan …

My thoughts go back to when I was a teenager and learned of my father’s ludicrous scheme.

“One day, this empire will rest on your shoulders, son,” Dad said in a tone that conveyed his seriousness. “And when that day comes, you’re going to have to do things to ensure our power and control remain.”

“Like what?” I asked curiously.

I was no stranger to the shady shit my father had done over the years.

While some dads tried to keep their children’s innocence for as long as possible, Andrey Antonov believed in tough love.

He might be rich and powerful now, but it hadn’t always been that way, and he thought that if he took it easy on us, he’d make us soft.

I had been five the first time I watched him slice a man’s neck for betraying him.

At ten, I’d witnessed him murder a city official because he was going to come between him and a development my dad was passionate about.

At twelve, I’d killed for the first time—a motel owner who had been lying to Dad about what he was up to.

He’d paid Dad for protection, and in doing so, Dad got a cut of the women he prostituted.

But he hadn’t been honest about how much he was bringing in, and Dad had said an example needed to be made out of him.

And when I’d been thirteen, he’d forced me to go with him to a sex club, where he got footage to blackmail a politician. While there, he insisted I lose my virginity so I would become a man—his words, not mine.

Up until that day, I’d thought my father loved my mother—despite how shitty he treated her—but when I saw him go into a room with a woman who wasn’t her, making her scream so loud that I could hear it through the walls, I’d realized my father wasn’t capable of loving anyone or anything that didn’t help push his agenda.

“For one,” Dad said, snapping me from my thoughts, “you know Daniella Russo?”

“Lorenzo’s baby sister?” I asked in confusion, unsure of what she had to do with anything.