Vicious pleasure dark ma.., p.1
Vicious Pleasure: Dark Mafia Romance (The MacCarrick Mafia Book 1), page 1
Contents
LOOK FOR THESE TITLES BY KAT LOGAN
VICIOUS PLEASURE
COPYRIGHT WARNING
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COMING SOON
ALSO BY KAT LOGAN
LOOK FOR THESE TITLES BY KAT LOGAN
MAFIA ROMANCE
The MacCarrick Mafia
Vicious Pleasure (Book One)
Book Two (Coming Soon!)
Book Three (Coming Soon!)
MMF MENAGE ROMANCE
Playing it Out
Striking a Chord
Healing Their Hearts
Rocking the House
Riding High
Her Perfect Mistake
Biker’s Paradise
Dangerous Obsession
Getting Off
Running Hot
Double or Nothing
Moonlight Menage
VICIOUS PLEASURE
Dark Mafia Romance
The MacCarrick Mafia Book One
KAT LOGAN
COPYRIGHT WARNING
EBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/).
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Published By
Wolf Hill Publishing
Vicious Pleasure
Copyright © 2023 by Kat Logan
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Wolf Hill electronic publication: January 2023
DEDICATION
A special thanks to Katie, who not only introduced me to her mafia romance obsession, she encouraged me to write one. Thanks, love! I know I’m a newbie, but you got me hooked!
CHAPTER ONE
LEON
Everything went wrong the night I came face to face with Sofia Accardo.
Let me back up and explain why a mob princess’s first impression of me was a pistol aimed at her pretty face. First off, I wasn’t a nice guy. I went to the penthouse in Manhattan as a hired gun, paid to kill. I wasn’t humble, either. The name was Leon MacCarrick, third-generation American Irish, born and bred in New York City and proud of it. I was the best independent wet-work guy for the Sartini Family. An assassin, if you needed a fancier word than “hitman.” A killer, to put it bluntly. And I didn’t like to mince words.
My arrangement with the Sartini Family was simple. They hired me when they needed rivals offed and problems fixed with untraceable solutions. Or at least untraceable back to them. I always dealt with one of their capos in particular—a made guy named Freddy Russo. I wasn’t a made man and never would be. You had to be Italian to go full omertà. And the Irish mafia? They don’t do things that way, with secret ceremonies and making your bones and all that noise. Besides, New York wasn’t Boston, and the Italians ruled New York City. Always had. Probably always would.
I kept to the code all the same. Keep secrets; never snitch. Don’t kill civilians—which meant anyone not involved in the life was off limits—and especially important: never hurt women and children.
That was a problem because Sofia Accardo was very much a woman and very much inside the Manhattan penthouse where I’d been paid to assassinate everyone inside. So, yeah, everything went wrong the instant I kicked in her bedroom door and found myself aiming down the gunsights into the warm brown eyes of Sofia Accardo.
Accardo. I knew the name all too well. And I hated it.
The Accardo Family was one of the five mafia families of New York. According to rumors, they were even richer than the Sartini syndicate. Years back, the boss of the family, Giovanni Accardo, sent down orders to have my older brother killed.
Cal had been in the ground for almost a decade, but I hadn’t forgotten him or forgiven the man who’d ordered his death. None of the surviving MacCarrick clan had forgotten. Now I had a gun aimed in the pretty face of Sofia Accardo, the daughter of the man who’d had my big brother whacked.
“Who are you?” Her voice trembled, but there was no screaming, no crying. The shock on her face and the fear in those gorgeous eyes was easy to read, but she stared right at me. Looked straight into my eyes, not at the barrel of the gun in her face.
Slowly, I lowered the gun. She was unarmed and no threat. I glanced around the room before replying to make certain she was alone.
The penthouse master bedroom was luxurious and feminine. The open blinds gave a stunning view of the lights and buildings of West New York across the Hudson River.
No one else was in the room. That was good. It meant Sofia was the last person alive in the penthouse. I’d already killed the two men with silenced shots to the head as they ate in the kitchen. They were Accardo soldiers acting as bodyguards, both of them armed. These made guys or associates—I wasn’t sure which—made sloppy bodyguards. They’d never seen me coming.
I turned my attention back to Sofia. She was a few years younger than me. Maybe twenty-five, twenty-six. High cheekbones. Delicate eyebrows. Brown eyes a shade darker than the hair pulled back in a pony tail. Olive complexion. She looked a little like an Italian Audrey Hepburn. Prettier than I wanted to deal with, anyway. Attractive women who knew how beautiful they were always turned out to be a royal pain in the ass. Sofia had full lips, which I liked, but none of that Botox stuff that never turned me on. Too exaggerated. Like fake boobs. And what the fuck was I thinking of right now, in the middle of a job? Fake boobs? Shit, I needed to get myself squared away and focus on what was important.
Such as how this woman had said only three words to me and already she was a fucking problem.
I locked eyes with her again. She stared back with fear bordering on panic in those big, dark eyes… I’d never admit it, but seeing that terror in her eyes made me feel like a monster, and I didn’t like it.
“Who else is here?” I had to be certain I hadn’t missed anyone or that someone wasn’t on the way back from a trip to the nearest mini-market. I had an ulterior motive too. I wanted to see if she would lie to me.
“Just me, Jimmy, and Anthony,” she answered with a tremble in her voice that I didn’t blame her for.
No lies, then. Good. That would keep things simple if she kept it up. I’d already cleared the rest of the penthouse rooms and killed her two guards. Unless someone was hiding in her closet, the two of us were the last here.
“What do you want?” she asked when I took too long to say anything else. Her voice had gained a little strength. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“I should.” The cold menace in my tone made her flinch. She took a step back from me, but she didn’t run for the door. That was also good. I didn’t want to hurt her, even to keep her under control.
Shit. Why hadn’t I worn a mask? That way, she couldn’t have identified me even if I strolled out of here and left her breathing. If Freddy Russo had been in front of me right now, I would’ve punched that son of a bitch in the face for keeping this key info from me. It didn’t matter if Freddy was a Sartini capo or not. After I extricated myself from this fucking mess, the two of us were going to have words.
Sofia looked at the gun in my hand. The pistol was a HK45 Compact Tactical with a sound suppressor screwed onto the barrel. It fired .45 ACP rounds. I wasn’t aiming at her anymore, but a muscle in her cheek twitched as she swallowed hard. Her throat made a clicking noise, and her hands were clenched. I was sure she was trying to hide them from me because they were shaking.
She was a hell of a lot braver than I’d expected any spoiled rich spawn of a mob boss to be. Her eyes were intelligent, no matter how afraid she might be, and she clearly realized this wasn’t a good situation.
But she had no damn idea just how bad it was.
Two days ago, Freddy Russo met me in a bowling alley in Newark and gave me this job. Freddy handed over the penthouse address and told me that word had come down from on high. Everyone in the place needed to be silenced. Twenty grand was my cut. A third upfront, everything else after the job was done.
Since the pay was better than usual, I figured this was something the Sartinis didn’t want connected to them. Either that or they didn’t believe their usual triggermen could pull off.
Now I knew which
There was clearly more to this I didn’t know, but the sweet money offer had been honey to lure me in. I knew who Sofia was, and someone in the Sartini Family was betting I’d gun her down because of the bad blood between my family and hers.
But I couldn’t escape the feeling Freddy was setting me up to be the fall guy on this. If I broke my code and killed the daughter of Giovanni Accardo—and if it got out that one of the MacCarrick boys was involved—I was going to end up on everyone’s target list. Was vengeance for my brother worth that?
Yeah. I’d put a target on my back to balance the scales.
But was vengeance for my brother worth killing some innocent woman, even if I hated her father?
No. Cal wouldn’t have approved of that, and I didn’t either.
That said, I couldn’t leave her here to call the cops or call her father and bring down the wrath of the entire Accardo Syndicate on my head. I’d painted myself into a corner, and now I had precious few options.
I needed to get out of here. I’d wasted too much time already. The clock was ticking, and things were getting worse with each passing minute.
“Are you going to kill me?”
I heard the note of fear in her voice. Some assholes got off on being feared. It made me feel like shit. I didn’t let it show. If she was afraid, she would be less of a problem, and I had problems enough.
“I can’t leave you here, Princess,” I growled. “You’ve seen my face.”
She paled. “I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before.”
“I know who you are. Too many people can connect the dots with a simple description from you.”
“This is…” Her voice gave out. She tried again, forcing the words. “This is about my dad?”
It was jarring to imagine anyone calling Don Giovanni Accardo “dad,” but she had the right, I suppose. I was just as much in the dark about the reason I’d been hired to kill her. Omertà—the code of silence—strikes again.
She was waiting for me to answer. I stared at her, wondering how much she might know about any of this. I’d called her pretty, but I had to admit that she was closer to beautiful. Not that this was the right time to be thinking about that kind of thing—and she definitely wasn’t the right person. All the same, I couldn’t help but admire her a little. She was doing her best to hold it together after a strange man stepped into her bedroom and pointed a pistol in her face.
It was best to keep her guessing and keep her close until I could find out exactly how sideways things had gone.
“You’re coming with me,” I said instead of answering her question about her dad. “Don’t be a problem.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere else.”
Somewhere I could lie low until I figured out just what the fuck was going on and exactly how much shit I was in.
I glanced around the room, fighting against my increasing uneasiness about running out of time. I’d fired four shots since breaking into the penthouse. My pistol’s suppressor was why Sofia hadn’t heard me putting two bullets in each of the men eating in the kitchen. Neighbors wouldn’t have heard any gunshots, but I didn’t intend to push my luck. An assassin did his work and either got out or got caught.
A small carry-on suitcase sat open on the bed, filled with clothing. Two garment bags were lying next to it, and another, bigger suitcase sat open but empty on the floor nearby. Judging by the patterns, the suitcases and garment bags were all Gucci, surprise, surprise.
I pointed at the small suitcase on the bed. “Your luck’s in. Looks like you’re already packed. Where were you going?”
She crossed her arms and looked away from me, staring toward the bed. I tried not to notice how crossing her arms pushed up her breasts. Not that I had a problem looking…in the right situation.
Again, this wasn’t the right situation.
“Aruba,” she finally answered, sounding as if she wanted to be there right now. I couldn’t blame her. New York in winter could be bleak.
“You’re going to miss your plane. Grab your suitcase and your toothbrush, put on a coat, and leave your phone behind. Be good and this goes easy.”
A little of the tension went out of her. It took me a second to figure out why. It reassured her that I wanted her to bring along clothes, and even the throwaway toothbrush line reassured her that I wasn’t simply dragging her somewhere worse to kill her.
She did as ordered. It was easy to appreciate a person wise enough to know when not to bitch. Especially someone like her, used to getting her own way, judging by the luxury life she enjoyed.
I watched as she zipped up the suitcase. I’d check it later for weapons or any tech that could make a call or connect to the internet. It was sloppy to allow her to take the carry-on at all, but I was really feeling the time pressure, and my plans had already fallen apart. So here I was, letting the beautiful daughter of a man I hated bring along her toothbrush on a kidnapping.
Christ, was it clear that I was making it up as I went along? That was asking for an ass-kicking, but now I was all in. All in over my fucking head with my first-ever hostage.
I took a deep breath. Didn’t matter if I was making this shit up on the fly or not. Never let anyone see that you weren’t in control.
Sofia pulled out the extending handle on the small suitcase and looked at me. Her skin was still ashen, and her eyes frightened, but she was on her feet and moving. I wasn’t going to have to drag her out of here. She hadn’t done anything stupid, either, like running or screaming or going for a phone. Or a knife.
I motioned her to lead the way and followed her out of the room. The penthouse was fancy-as-hell, almost to the point of overkill. It had extravagant rugs, herringbone floors, huge windows, recessed lighting, and furniture that you definitely didn’t screw together yourself.
This was the twenty-fifth floor. Even a jaded bastard like me was impressed by the views of Manhattan, the Hudson, and Riverside Park. A place like this must cost three or four million easy. More than a hired gun like me would ever see. It pissed me off that I needed to get my hands bloody for everything I had while princess here lived it up in her pricey royal suite.
“Keep your eyes straight ahead,” I warned her as we approached the kitchen. “Don’t look around.”
The corpses of the two men I’d killed were in the swanky kitchen with dark granite counters and frosted glass cabinets. They’d been eating gnocchi and bread before I shot them.
At least they hadn’t died hungry.
But so much for Sophia being good at following orders because she immediately looked in that direction. She drew in a sharp breath as she spotted the two bodies sprawled on the tile. There was no mistaking the sight of blood. I’d ventilated their skulls with two .45 ACP rounds each. It made a mess.
“You killed them?”
“Don’t play dumb. You knew they were dead the moment I stepped through your door with a gun.”
Sofia didn’t reply. She knew I was right. For guys like me, this was business, not personal. Those two Accardo soldiers wouldn’t have blinked at putting two bullets in my head, either.
Then again, this was probably the first time a princess like her had ever been so close to death. Even though her “dad” was involved in murder incorporated up to the knot of his necktie.
In the penthouse foyer, I wheeled on her and leveled a finger in her face, giving her my hardest stare and using my coldest voice. “Listen to me, Princess. Don’t try anything out there. I took care of the security cameras, but I don’t want you to try running. I don’t want screams. I don’t want fucking problems. Because I’ll make my problems your problems. That clear?”
“You don’t have to do this,” she said. “You could leave me here. I won’t say anything—”
“You seem smarter than I expected,” I said, cutting her off. I kept my voice heavy with unspoken threat. “So don’t waste my time with bullshit. You’re coming with me. You don’t have a choice. So let’s both keep this professional.”
