Page 10 of The Casella Sin (The Casella Brothers #3)

The Beginnings of Obsession.

FIFTEEN YEARS EARLIER

I know I shouldn’t be here. Fuck, anyone could tell you this is probably a fucking suicide mission. Yet, here I am, staring at the blue lights shimmering in the night sky by the Hagia Sophia mosque.

I have nothing left.

No home.

No family.

No loyalties.

Some say a man is at his most dangerous when he doesn’t have anything left to lose.

I’m not afraid of what comes next because this either propels me forward or kills me. A man on death row has only one way to go and that is up. It’s either this or spend the rest of my years begging for food on the streets, taking the scraps of others. I’m sick of living off scraps, sick of pretending like I’m not fucking starving for food, not knowing where my next meal will be coming from.

No one is coming to save you.

The voice inside my head gives me the strength I need, and finally, my feet are moving.

The fleeting thought of moving to Istanbul enters my mind as the beauty of the harbour holds me in its trance.

“How did you find us?”

I stop in my tracks to a man dressed in a fine suit standing before me.

“From a friend .”

“And what do you want?” he questions, pulling out his phone.

“I want to speak to Erhan.”

The man laughs, dismissing my request. “You think Mr Kara meets any old straggler from the streets?”

“I know he came from the streets.”

Intrigued by my response, he pauses to take a look at me. “What’s your name?”

“Rafael.”

“And what do you have to offer, Rafael?” He waits for my answer, and the voice in my head warns me to turn away, a sixth sense cautioning me that something is about to change the course of my life forever.

Good. I hope it fucking does .

“My life.”

PRESENT

As the sun breaks the barriers of the horizon, I stare out into the restless sea. Strong, unforgiving, and temperamental today. On most days here, all the dark and sinister things that have taken place over the years loom in the air, and I’m no stranger to it. I’ve done most of those sinister things, and although I don’t regret it, a part of me wonders if this is truly who I am.

Am I meant to be the taker?

Am I meant to exploit the power given to me by Dante Senior for my own sick pleasure?

I curl my toes into the sand, waiting for an answer to the questions in my head that I know won’t come.

Not unless I look for the answers myself.

Stepping toward the shoreline, the icy water covers my toes, sending a shiver down my spine as I go deeper, until the water hovers beneath my chest. The sting in my side has me clenching my teeth as the water pierces my skin, into my muscles, and deep within my bones.

One thing I love about this island is that it doesn’t matter who you are here. You could be the most hated person in the world and the trees wouldn’t care. They wouldn’t judge you for what you’ve done in your past or what you continue to do. On the mainland, however, I am beyond redemption. But I know why Dante wants back in.

I know he wants glory, power, and all the humanly sadistic, self-satisfactory, baseless pleasures a human seeks, and I know I’ll help him get it because I owe him.

The revelry is two nights in a year that I can let go and truly release the toxic things I carry, stuffing it all into oblivion until they resurface the morning after. But this year, it’ll be different.

Because of her.

Nera Della Torre.

The woman I’ve become obsessed with. I think about the inexorable pleasure that will come with having my fingers inside her, ruining her. Despite the low temperatures of the water, my cock responds to my thoughts of her last night, in that dress. Fuck, it made me mad with lust to watch her pleasure herself through the glass. All I wanted was to break through it, just to get a small taste of her.

I close my eyes and will myself to focus on what I have planned for today. As my half-brothers, Ezra, Nicholas, and Jackson, are being hosted by Dante, I need to carry on like business as usual.

The work here at Falcon’s Keep waits for no one.

Stepping out of the water, I gather my things and head past the road that leads to the manor. Instead of taking the road left, leading to the large gates, I veer right and venture toward the stone path into the forest. It’s not that far of a walk, maybe a few minutes to reach the shack by the palm trees. Once inside, I find my working gear and step into the overalls covered with dried blood.

Locking the shack behind me, my feet sink into the muddy sand as I make my way into the forest. There are no signs on Falcon’s Keep, partly because we all know it like the palm of our hands, and also because we don’t want guests loitering on private property. Especially not in the bowels of the island. Walking up the steps, I grab the large padlock on the door of the old concrete structure and dig into my pocket for the keys, unlocking it. The stench of dried blood, rotting skin, and mould waft through the door, and anyone in their right mind would flinch at the smell, but I remain still. Unchanged.

It’s become mundane, almost like waking up to freshly ground coffee in the mornings.

I get to work without wasting too much time, gathering up some loose intestines from the floor, and shovelling them into the black buckets I grabbed on my way in. Pieces of skin stick to the concrete floor and I scrape them off with the end of a shovel, the grating sound echoing through the space.

This sort of job was left for the employees of Falcon’s Keep, but ever since we began to run dry, things needed tending to. I don’t mind, truly. I kind of feel at home here.

It’s dark, damp, and dirty.

I pick up the fresh human liver off the floor with my bare hand and study it. Funny how complex the human body is. If even the smallest part of the entity shuts down, the rest rots along with it. Like humans on the outside, really. The closer you are to the rotten, the more likely you’ll turn out the same.

Cleaning up the rest of the mess, I head out the door and lock it back up, carrying the bucket of organs up to the cliff’s edge. Normally, I’d say a prayer of some sort, you know, to honour those who are no longer with us, but I’m not feeling very spiritual today. Grunting, I lift the bucket and toss the contents over the edge, now permanently painted red from the years of use.

It takes me some time to make another trip back and forth to empty the second bucket, but once I’m done, I return the overalls to the shack and throw on a white button-up, along with some dark jeans. Lighting up a cigarette, I close the door behind me and head back to the manor. It’s no surprise Nicholas is the first to comment on my appearance when I approach the lounge.

“What happened to you?” He laughs. “Looks like you got mugged.”

Ignoring him, I nod to Dante, confirming the work for the day is done. Scanning the room, I find Ezra eyeing out a skull figurine from one of Dante’s shelves.

“Let me guess…” Holding up the skull, he smiles at Dante. “Female, aged twenty-seven, maybe one hundred and forty or one hundred and forty-five pounds?”

“It’s a fucking figurine,” Nicholas deadpans and Ezra chuckles. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I like guessing games.” He steps toward me, crossing his arms, analysing me. “Sweat, probably day-old blood, and…” He pauses, his gaze running down to my bare feet. “Enjoyment?”

“I’m not a sadist,” I retort.

“Have you tried it?” A sickening smile spreads across his face and the sheer evil that emanates from him is something I will never get used to.

“The Fortress will be ready in a few days,” I say to Dante, ignoring Ezra. “With the extension we’ve built, we can fit up to two hundred guests.”

“Wonderful.” Dante toys with the thick rings on his fingers at his desk by the window, his stare fixed on whatever is in front of him.

“Now, even though I could not give a fuck about your safety,” I look at Nicholas, a permanent fucking smirk on his lips, “make sure Darcy is safe at all times.”

Dante stands and walks over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “And I want you to implore that same fiery protectiveness you have for Darcy over Nera during the revelry.”

I stare at him, wondering if he knows about the sinful thoughts that bounce around in my head every time she’s near. I nod, aware that whatever happens to her during the revelry won’t be by anyone’s hands but mine.

The rest of the afternoon goes by quickly, filled with me packing whatever I needed to bring with me to the mainland. Usually, it would be Nino, Santi, and me travelling across Italy to gather the funds for the revelry, but this time, I’m on my own.

And now, it needs to be quick, because I need to get back to Falcon’s Keep to make sure things don’t begin to get fucked up with too many cooks in the kitchen. It wouldn’t bode well for the others to find out how Dante and I have kept Falcon’s Keep afloat all these years, especially not for Nera. But none of that will matter if we can secure some sort of alliance with the Lucchese family.

Shutting the door to my car, I step out onto the front of the ferry boat, watching the waves splash as Giuseppe releases the ropes docking the ferry to the wharf. Pulling out my gun, I check to make sure it’s loaded before we head off. Along with collection, sometimes there are those who want to make a name for themselves, to bargain or get their way, one way or another. Can’t be seen as weak when you don’t have an entourage of men on your side like the Casellas do. The last of our men that helped in London did it out of goodwill to Dante Senior, so I guess he must’ve done something right in his days as their don.

There’s a creak and a clunk that hits the floor of the ferry just as it moves away from the wharf, gathering speed as it heads to the mainland. When I look back, I know I may have gotten more than I bargained for when I see the raven-haired woman before me.

“Going somewhere?” She smiles, straightening her cropped shirt.

Sighing, I run a hand through my hair, wondering what the fuck Dante will say when he finds out.

“Giuseppe!” I call out but he doesn’t respond.

“Don’t bother, I already bribed him,” she shoots back.

“What are you doing, Nera?”

“Following you, of course.” Climbing onto the bonnet of my Camaro, she slips a cigarette from the packet she’s holding, my packet, and places one between her perfect lips. “I want to see what all the fuss about the mainland is about.”

“Just another city riddled with wannabe rich boys, clawing at their fathers’ pockets, snorting cocaine, and lost so deep in pussy, they become one.” My toes flex, the itch to be near her becoming stronger the longer I stare at her hair whirling in the wind.

She chuckles. “You can’t tell me that wasn’t you at some stage.”

“Interested in my past, Principessa ?”

“Never.” She gives me a sly smile, the twinkle in her eyes giving away every secret she tries to keep from me.

Securing my gun at my back, between my belt and pants, I inch closer to her, leaning on the bonnet of my car. Holding out my hand, I ask for a puff, and instead of placing the cigarette between my fingers, she places it directly between my lips as she leans in closer, her face just inches from mine. The grey in her eyes swirls manically, pulling me in, rendering me powerless.

“But if I was…” she whispers, licking her lips, “would you tell me?”

“What happens if you find things you might not like?”

She pauses, her eyes drifting down toward my lips as I take a drag. “Onions.”

“What?” I ask, confused by her response.

She removes the cigarette from my lips, holding it between her delicate fingers.

“We don’t acquire a taste for something like onions until our taste buds mature and we take a liking to them.” Sliding off the bonnet, she stands beside me, her gaze never leaving mine. “The things I might have considered a sin years ago may not become a good deed today, but I don’t think things are black and white anymore. So, no matter what you say, I don’t think I could judge it.”

She surprises me with her answer. There might just be more to this twenty-three-year-old woman than I originally thought.

“So?” she pushes on, and I smile at her courage.

“Maybe after we’ve had a few drinks.”

“Drinks?” Her white teeth shine in the dim lighting of the late afternoon sun when she smiles. “Are we going to a club?”

“Club?” I scoff. “You’re still thinking in black and white.”

Her expression changes, wondering where I could possibly be taking her.

“There’ll be music. There’ll be dancing.” Taking the cigarette from her fingers, I place it between my lips and take a drag, blowing the smoke into her face. “But this is an exclusive invitation, so stay close.” Leaning in, I take a breath of her perfume. My eyes trace her delicate collarbones, stray droplets of water from the sea clinging to her skin, mocking me. I wish for a moment that it could be my tongue on her skin instead. “And maybe we can explore what it means to dance in the grey together .”