AUCTIONED TO HER DAD’S MAFIA ENEMIES: A MAFIA AGE-GAP REVERSE HAREM ROMANCE (AUCTIONED SERIES Book 4)

MONSTERS AND MEN

I don’t know how much time has passed since they took the video. Minutes? Hours? Time feels strange here suspended between terror and exhaustion, blurred by the dull ache in my arms from being tied up too long. My wrists burn from the zip tie, my shoulders stiff from the forced stillness.

They sent my face out like a calling card. Aemelia Lambretti, bound and helpless. A message to a ghost—a father who vanished without a trace, leaving nothing behind but a last name and a target on my back.

I should be furious. I should be screaming. But I just feel hollow.

Eventually, I have to call out. I can’t use the bathroom like this, and I’ve held out for so long, I’m in danger of peeing myself. Alexis is the one who turns the lock and appears by my bed, his hazel eyes hungry and amused as he stares down at me.

“Can you remove the zip ties? I need to pee.”

“No, gattina. You didn’t do what you were told.”

“I did.” My voice is a whine that makes me wince. I sound desperate, pathetic, like a teenager asking for more money to go out with her friends.

“Not until you were forced, right? Not until my brother made you.”

“So you want me to piss all over this expensive bed?”

“No.” He takes me by the elbow, his fingers punishing. “Come with me.”

I’m half-dragged to the bathroom which leads from my room. It’s spacious and marble with a double vanity and a walk-in shower with a rainfall head that must feel like heaven. It’s a joke how much nicer this place is than my actual home. There’s no mold in this bathroom, no cracked tiles or broken flush. And yet, I’d do anything to get out of here.

Anything.

The word taunts me. What would I do? Let Luca touch me, fuck me? What about his brothers? Would they want that, too? I’ve seen the way they look at me like they’re imagining my naked body and all the filthy, corrupt things they want to do to me. How far would I go for my safety and freedom?

I don’t know. I really don’t know. And that’s what scares me.

Alexis nudges me back towards the toilet with his colorful inked arms, the flames raging dangerously across his body, then he shoves his hand beneath my skirt and begins to tug my panties down.

“No,” I say, but he doesn’t listen.

“Do you want to pee through your panties?” he asks instead, shaking his head. “This fucking girl.”

I flush hot with mortification when my panties drop around my ankles. Alexis pulls up the back of my dress and pushes me until I’m sitting. My cheeks burn as the pee drops out of me with urgency and Alexis watches with amusement lighting up his devastatingly handsome face. His eyes focus on my panties and my embarrassment increases a hundredfold because I know they’re damp. When Luca touched me, my body reacted like a traitor.

What kind of sick person am I that his finger forced between my legs turned me on?

I close my eyes, wishing that the blackness between my eyelids could swallow me whole. I wish I could disappear into it, like the ocean at night, and escape this captivity.

The sound of the toilet paper roll unfurling makes my heart stop. I can’t wipe myself with my hands behind my back. Is he going to do it for me?

“Spread your legs.” Alexis crouches in front of me, so we’re eye to eye. The dress is covering my bare pussy but for how long. I ease my legs open, watching him watch me. With his eyes downcast, his eyelashes seem impossibly long, his nose, which is slightly crooked, refined, his mouth which seems to carry sly happiness at its corners at all times, twitching. He’s enjoying this and I hate him for it. I close my eyes when he dips his hand between my legs, and shudder as he draws the paper over my sex. A distressed whimper leaves my lips and his smile broadens. He thinks I like this.

Jesus, help me. This man is sick.

He releases the paper and stands, helping me to my feet, then he drops to his haunches again and begins to drag the stupid panties up my legs. It’s not easy. Whoever shopped for me only bought white lace thongs that stick to my skin and twist around themselves. He works slowly, pushing under the fabric of my skirt but he struggles.

“Fuck this,” he mutters, yanking the skirt higher so he can see what he’s doing. I want to die as this stranger looks at my most private place, fumbling with my underwear.

I keep my gaze fixed to the corner of the room, where the marble tile meets the brilliant white of the ceiling, as Alexis Venturi, youngest of the ruthless mafia brothers, settles the edges of my panties over my hips and then reaches behind to position the string correctly between the cheeks of my ass. His fingers aren’t sensual or soft, but it doesn’t matter because I’m a woman with a very warped mind, it seems, and every touch sends heat pooling between my legs. He lingers a few seconds longer than is necessary, and when I look down, I catch him inhaling.

Motherfucker. Is he trying to smell me?

When he stands, he seems unsteady on his feet. And without any shame, he adjusts his pants, hefting a very thick, very erect cock to the side to ease his discomfort.

I gulp as the size of him makes my pussy clench inexplicably.

“You’re seriously turned on by watching me pee?”

He laughs and it’s a little manic sounding. “You say it like you’re surprised.” He heads to the vanity to wash his hands and when he returns, he pushes a lock of my hair behind my ear.

“You’re a very beautiful woman, my little cat. And beautiful women turn men on with just a flick of their head or the sound of their laugh.”

“And piss?”

He shrugs. “Some men like piss. Some men like worse. Me, I just like power.”

“Men are weak,” I say, and he grins.

“Yes, we are. For all the pleasures in life.”

“Can you take me back to the bedroom?”

His hand on my elbow is warm. “You’re not enjoying our conversation.”

“If you keep me tied up, I’ll enjoy nothing.”

“Oh, gattina. I beg to differ.”

But even with ominous words hanging between us, he waits while I settle onto my side on the bed, and leaves, locking the door behind him.

***

It’s Antonio who removes the zip tie from my wrists when it’s time to eat. I don’t get to join them in the dining room. Instead, he brings me a bowl of pasta and some grapes and sits in a chair to watch me eat. The pasta is really good. Spaghetti coated in a delicious garlicky tangy tomato sauce infused with basil and a little lemon., topped with pungently strong parmesan, just the way I like it. I wolf it down with little finesse, even though my shoulders are screaming, and my hands barely work.

“Slowly,” Antionio says. “I know it’s good, but I don’t want you to choke.”

“Who made it?” I lick my lips like a wolf. “Maybe I should ask for the recipe.”

“I did,” he says.

I stare at the brute of a man who makes the normal sized chair he’s sitting in look like something from a kid’s playhouse. His hands are scarred, his expression always dark like he’s loaded up with a weight of sin too heavy for any one man to carry. He’s the Venturi enforcer. The one who handles the problems with only one option left. My mother told me the stories of these brothers. How Mario was the lover, Luca the ruler, Alexis the joker and Antonio the assassin.

Except he doesn’t seem like an assassin. He’s too big to be stealthy, too stoic to be cunning. It’s stupid to believe that a man who can create such delicious food shouldn’t be able to destroy life like it’s nothing, but I was never top of my class. Too distracted by my life to concentrate.

“Do you share your recipes?” I ask.

“No one has ever asked me to.”

“Well, maybe, when you let me go, you can write it down for me. Every time I make it, I’ll think of you.”

His face remains impassive but his cold steel eyes flicker, and I look away, my heart making a painful thud in my chest. Maybe they won’t ever let me go. If my father fails to respond to my begging plea, they won’t just release me. Everything is riding on my father, a man who didn’t have a reliable bone in his body and who hated a defenseless child. I lower my fork and drop it in the bowl, my appetite lost.

I push away the tray and curl on my side in the bed, burying my face in the pillow. Tears scorch a trail of fire in my throat, but I don’t let them win. I swallow them down and wait.

“Aemelia,” Antonio says in a voice that’s soft, coaxing.

“I thought I wasn’t Aemelia anymore. I thought I was nameless. A kitten. Stupid gattina. Nothing else.”

“I’ll give you my mother’s recipe,” he says as he lifts the tray from the bed. When he leaves the room, I let the tears flood out of me until I’m wrung out and I slip into a fitful sleep.

***

I wake with a gasp, heart hammering, the nightmare still clinging to me like cobwebs. Fire, the sound of screaming, of gunfire, of my mother crying out my name—

I bolt upright, breath coming fast and ragged, fingers clutching the comforter like it’s the only thing keeping me grounded. My throat is tight, and my skin is damp with sweat.

And then I realize I’m not alone.

Antonio is sitting at the edge of the bed, watching me.

For a second, I can’t move. He’s too close, the shadows cloaking him in unreadable darkness. His hands rest on his knees, broad and strong, fingers curled loosely. He doesn’t look surprised that I woke up.

“What—” My voice cracks. I swallow hard. “What are you doing here?”

His eyes flick over my face, and then, to my shock, he reaches out, fingertips brushing against my hair, smoothing it away from my damp forehead. It’s such a small, unexpectedly gentle gesture that I freeze completely.

“I used to have nightmares,” he says, his voice low, almost thoughtful. “When I was a kid. My mother used to sit with me until they passed.”

I stare at him, still caught between fear and something else, something softer.

Antonio’s mother.

I remember her. When I knew her, she was a sweet woman who didn’t say much but smiled a lot. She was proud of her sons and her daughter was the light of her life. I wonder what she’d think of them now, tying up a helpless woman and sending her pictures into the world like a maggot on a hook.

Would she be proud that they’re set on avenging their brother? Would she respect the means they were taking?

Women in this underground world play mixed roles. Ambivalence is common. They ignore their husbands’ criminal activities, sometimes even their infidelity. Sometimes, they’re open in their support and vicious in their attitudes. I can’t imagine marrying into this world. I think of the sweet all-American boys I grew up with, and how distant that life feels to me now. Even when I was there, living an ordinary life—trips to the mall with friends, going to the movies, bowling, working shitty low paid jobs—I felt like a fish out of water.

In the dim glow of the bedside lamp, Antonio doesn’t look like a bad man. It’s not that he’s kind—none of them are. But he doesn’t gloat, doesn’t sneer, doesn’t treat me like a problem to be solved or a prize to be bartered. He just watches me. He looks… human. And somehow, that unsettles me more than anything.noveldrama

“What kind of nightmares?” I ask, my voice quieter now, afraid speaking too loudly will shatter this strange moment between us.

His fingers pause in my hair. He exhales slowly, as if debating whether to answer.

“Monsters,” he finally says.

A humorless laugh escapes me. “And now you are one.”

His gaze sharpens, but he doesn’t deny it. “Maybe.” A beat of silence, then: “But monsters don’t comfort scared little girls in the dark.”

I don’t know why that sentence makes something ache in my chest.

I turn my head slightly, just enough to see his face more clearly. There’s a softness in his expression, a quiet understanding, like he knows what it’s like to wake up drowning in fear. Like he recognizes something in me that he doesn’t want to name, the same as I’m starting to with him. His eyes are so light grey that it gives him an otherworldly air that makes it harder for me to read him, but staring into them makes me lose myself just a little.

I should push his hand away. I should tell him I don’t need his comfort, that I don’t want it.

But instead, I let him stroke my hair, let the warmth of his palm against my temple lull me back down from the edge of panic.

He doesn’t say anything else.

And somehow, it’s enough.