A debt so ruthless, p.1
A Debt So Ruthless, page 1
A Debt So Ruthless
A Dark Mafia Romance
Titans and Tyrants
Book 1
Vero Heath
NOTICES
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, used, transmitted, or shared via any means without express authorization from the author, except for small passages and quotations used for review and marketing purposes.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and incidents in this novel are fictitious and not to be construed as reality or fact.
A Debt So Ruthless Copyright © 2023 Peace Weaver Press Inc. President Veronica Doran
Cover Design by Sylvia Frost at The Book Brander Boutique
Created with Vellum
Contents
Content Notes
1. Elio
2. Deirdre
3. Deirdre
4. Elio
5. Elio
6. Deirdre
7. Deirdre
8. Elio
9. Deirdre
10. Elio
11. Deirdre
12. Elio
13. Deirdre
14. Elio
15. Deirdre
16. Elio
17. Deirdre
18. Deirdre
19. Elio
20. Deirdre
21. Elio
22. Deirdre
23. Deirdre
24. Elio
25. Deirdre
26. Deirdre
27. Deirdre
28. Elio
29. Deirdre
30. Deirdre
31. Elio
32. Deirdre
33. Deirdre
34. Elio
35. Deirdre
36. Elio
37. Deirdre
38. Elio
39. Deirdre
40. Elio
41. Deirdre
Content Notes
This is a dark age-gap mafia romance with themes that may disturb some readers. The hero, Elio Titone, is not a good man. Nor is he a particularly reasonable man, especially when it comes to getting what he wants – namely the heroine Deirdre. If you would like content warnings, please visit my website.
Chapter 1
Elio
“What about collateral? There’s the house.”
“I don’t care about your fucking house.” I don’t care about this deal at all really. O’Malley’s in deep with one of the three most powerful Camorra clans in Toronto and he needs money, fast. Clearly, he thinks he can try to play one Italian crime organization against another, begging on his knees to La Cosa Nostra to bail him out when Severu Serpico’s soldiers come knocking, which they will.
But the Titones aren’t in the business of bailing people out. We’re in the business of making money. By any means necessary. And even this sprawling gingerbread house of a Thornhill mansion behind us now isn’t enough temptation. Everyone knows the Irish bastard is sinking fast.
A bead of sweat rolls down from O’Malley’s temple, dampening his thinning hair. His hair still has the slightest sheen of rust, a memory of red beneath the grey. Another bead of sweat follows the first, and he swallows noticeably, his ruddy throat bobbing.
Despite the August sun beating down, I know the heat isn’t why he’s sweating.
He’s sweating because he’s come to me – the last and most ruthless resort.
And I’ve turned him down.
No more options, O’Malley.
I stand, doing up the button of my suit jacket. The sun drenches my black-clad shoulders and the leather of my gloves, heating my skin beneath the fabric.
Fuck. I can’t wait for winter.
“Sell the house if you need money,” I say. “You’re not that old yet. Sell a kidney. I know someone who’ll pay.”
O’Malley jumps to his feet, his cushioned monstrosity of a patio chair clattering over backwards to the perfectly landscaped stone.
He starts blabbering, half angry, half desperate. Telling me about how he’s good for the money. How this is just a temporary blip. How we could…
I lose track of it all. All the words. All the bullshit flying like spittle from his mouth.
That isn’t like me. To lose track of anything. I haven’t gotten to where I am today, helping my uncle Vincenzo turn the Titones into one of the richest and most feared crime families in the country, by tuning out the details.
I got here by paying attention. Relentlessly.
That, and a whole lot of blood.
But something else has cut into the conversation. A scattered drift of notes.
Music. Violin?
The notes grow louder. Become almost solid. Like if I squint hard enough, I can see them catching the summer light.
Ignoring O’Malley completely now, I start walking, leaving the stone patio area. My black shoes crush the springy, well-watered blades of grass as I stalk over the lawn.
I scan the broad back of the brick house, searching for the source. I can’t say exactly why I need to find it. I just do. The music is somehow both sharp and sweet. It pricks at my skin. Hooks into my ribs and makes my teeth grind.
Near the top of the back wall, I find the second-floor balcony. And on that balcony…
An angel.
I blink stinging sweat from my eyes, dragging my hand through my hair and slicking it back. I don’t believe in angels. Never have.
A glossy mane of red hair tumbles down a slender back, the curling ends brushing the slightly flared skirt of a yellow sundress. Two pale arms float in the air, one still, the other sawing back and forth over what has to be a violin I can’t see from down here. Every time she moves, the sunlight catches on her hair, setting it ablaze, a glittering inferno. My scars burn under my gloves, the ruined skin on my neck tingling. The scent of smoke from nineteen years ago fills my nose while screams echo in my head, and I’m reminded why I can’t fucking stand red hair.
But the music distracts me from the past, from pain. It’s deafening, yet somehow not loud enough. So soft it makes my throat go dry. So powerful it slugs me in the temple. Leaves me reeling.
Elio Titone. Fucking reeling.
Instincts jerk to life inside me. Instincts that have never once led me astray. Instincts telling me to cut and run. To leave, right fucking now, and never look back.
I ignore them.
I start walking again, circling around towards the left side of the house so that I can see her face.
From below on the lawn like this, I can only just see her profile. Thank fuck that’s the only glimpse I get. Because even that one sliver of her face ruins me.
It isn’t just her physical beauty. The high, round cheekbones or the shadows cast by thick, long lashes – I’ve seen it all before. I’ve been with women more alluring, more sensually appealing than her.
It’s the expression shaping those features that does me in.
An expression of pure, deeply human joy. Something I wasn’t entirely sure actually existed until now.
Her soft lips are drawn into a sublime half-smile. Her eyes are closed, her chin balanced delicately on the violin as her long, deft fingers spirit over the strings. Her other arm pushes the bow through the air with surprising force.
“What’s that song?” I mutter. I almost don’t want to speak. Don’t want to make a single noise. But I have to know. Her song is strangling me.
O’Malley comes to a stop beside me, huffing and puffing, having followed me across the lawn. I shoot him a brutal glance, wanting to wring his neck for breathing so fucking loudly.
He pants, bending to place his hands on his knees before straightening.
“It’s Irish. An Eala Bhàn. Was one of her mother’s favourites.”
My eyes crawl up the brick to the balcony once more. The girl’s smile has contracted. Her brows furrow slightly. Tension creeps into her jaw and neck as her fingers fly faster, grinding the notes out harder.
The joy in the song, in her, darkens. Becomes edged with pain. But even in that pain, there’s beauty. Beauty I want to peel back, layer by layer. To understand.
To own.
My fingers twitch at my sides, wanting to clench into fists around something. The bow. The violin’s neck. Hair the colour of fire I’d rather forget.
My next words come without thought and without hesitation.
“That’s it,” I say to O’Malley, my eyes glued to his daughter. “The collateral.”
“What?” O’Malley asks. “The violin? It was her mother’s. It’s worth a fair bit now, but it’s nothing like-”
“Not the violin.”
If not for the music, there would be a long beat of silence before he explodes. His Irish accent, dulled by years in Canada, grows suddenly sharper.
“You want my daughter?” he sputters. “What, that the only way ye can get a woman, ye ugly piece of shit?”
My pistol finds his forehead before he can even blink. His cheeks, so red with rage a moment before, drain of all colour, turning ashen.
“Watch yourself, O’Malley,” I murmur softly, already imagining the spray of blood and brains on the manicured lawn. I’ve killed men for less insult than this.
The music stops.
The softest tremor of sound, the call of, “Dad? Are you down there?” on the summer air has me hunching into myself, slipping the gun under my jacket. My breath shudders out of me. My guts burn with something I haven’t let myself feel in years.
Shame.
There’s something terrible about being a monster in front of a pure little songbird li ke that.
It almost makes me hate her.
“That’s the deal,” I hiss savagely, too quiet to be heard from the balcony above.
O’Malley scowls at me. But I can already see him cracking. Even his earlier rage didn’t come from the place of a protective father but was the irritation of a man who didn’t want to give up a prized possession.
“Fine,” he grunts. “But it won’t come to that,” he adds quickly. He turns away from me, running a hand down the back of his neck. His next words are so quiet I almost miss them. But that torturous music has stopped, so I catch them despite the whisper.
“God help me.”
My eyes dart up to the balcony.
But no one’s there.
There’s relief in that. No wide eyes watching me. No music clawing at the scar of something that might have once been called a soul.
“God can’t help you now, O’Malley,” I say, keeping my voice cold and steady. I mask the disgust I feel for him, so greedy and pathetic he’d offer up his daughter, a lamb to slaughter, to save his own skin. There’s repulsion, too, for my own unexpected weakness. For my wanting.
But stronger than any of that – the disgust, the loathing – is the beat of that fucking music in my blood.
And I already know without a shadow of a doubt that even if I slit my own throat and bleed to death right here on the grass…
I’ll never get it out.
Chapter 2
Deirdre
New Year’s Eve 1.5 years later
“You’re so lucky your birthday is on New Year’s. Always guaranteed an awesome party,” Willow says, grabbing a flute of champagne from the table beside us. “Welcome to your twenties, Dee!”
“It’s not midnight yet. Technically my birthday is tomorrow,” I remind her. “And I’m not sure I would call my dad’s usual New Year’s Eve bash an awesome party,” I add with a snort, grabbing my own glass of champagne and taking a fizzy sip.
“Bitch, how would you even know what a good party is? You never want to go out with me. I told you I’d take you clubbing for your birthday and you said no!”
I smirk and roll my eyes at her. For my best friend, “bitch” is a term of endearment. Her name may be Willow, but there’s nothing willowy about her. The only things sharper than her tongue are her cheekbones and the piercing crystal green of her eyes. Tonight, her jet-black hair is tied in a high ponytail, accentuating her bare neck and the plunging neckline of her curve-hugging black dress. She’s actually a year younger than me, only just turned nineteen, but no one would ever guess that I was the older one between us.
She takes another sip of champagne and then tosses her ponytail over her shoulder.
“Fine. I’ll grant you that this isn’t the coolest New Year’s party I’ve ever been to. It isn’t even one of your dad’s best, to be honest. Weren’t there a lot more people last year?”
She’s right. The crowd is thin this year, mostly comprised of my dad’s clients and their wives milling around our large living room, picking away at the fancy cheese and pastries the catering company brought. Willow’s dad, Paddy Callahan, is among them. He runs an Irish pub, Briar and Boar, in downtown Toronto. My dad is his business accountant.
“For a room full of mobsters it’s actually kind of boring, to be honest. And they’re all at least thirty years older than us. Which wouldn’t normally be a problem, except none of them are hot.”
My gaze cuts back to Willow, my lips pursing. I ignore her comment about older men – that’s pretty much par for the course with my best friend – instead snagging on the other thing. The thing about the mobsters.
She raises her brows questioningly at me over the rim of her champagne flute, and I blow out a sigh. I can’t even argue with her because it’s true. My dad’s an accountant. It’s easy to pretend that he runs a normal firm and that his clients are all upstanding citizens. But the reality is that he helps clean money for businesses that funnel funds to the Irish mob.
It’s something I don’t like to think about and that I’ve largely been protected from. Willow, on the other hand, doesn’t give a shit. She embraces the life Paddy’s a part of, taking everything in high-heeled stride. But even so, neither of us have any real standing. We aren’t part of the ruling Gowan family. Our dads are at the bottom of the mafia ladder, and so are the other guests here. No one truly important to Toronto’s crime scene has come tonight, and that’s just fine with me. Willow’s right – I don’t care about parties, and I care even less about having some of the city’s most lethal men in my living room.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I say with a laugh. “You can still hit up the club after this and get laid.”
“Oh, you know I will, Dee. But I was more thinking about you.”
“Me?”
“Yes! How am I supposed to act as a wing woman and get my best friend’s sweet little cherry licked, sucked, and popped if there’s no one here good-looking enough to qualify?”
Mr. Byrne, who runs Byrne’s Butcher Shop, nearly chokes on a macaron beside us. Mrs. Byrne pats his back then glares at us while Willow smiles innocently back.
“Jesus, Willow,” I mutter before taking a huge swig of my drink. Willow is my ride-or-die, but sometimes being around her requires vast amounts of alcohol.
“What? Someone’s gotta do it properly now that Brian turned out to be a giant asshole.”
I cringe at his name. The name of my very recently ex-boyfriend.
“Ugh, don’t remind me. At least he’s been gone all Christmas break. He’s back in Ottawa with his family.”
“Good,” Willow says, nodding with satisfaction, eyes crackling. “Because if he keeps up this stalker boy routine, I’m going to have to sic Ronan on his ass.”
Ronan looks like a dishwasher at the pub, but he’s actually there as security, one of Darragh Gowan’s enforcers. He’s a brooding, tattooed mountain of a man, and I can’t help but picture him punching Brian in the face with his meaty hammer of a fist.
I dated Brian for the first half of this school year, from September until right before December exams. He’s a law student at the University of Toronto where I study music. I thought he might actually be the one I’d lose my virginity to.
Until he tried to take it before I was ready.
I clench my teeth, my stomach twisting when I remember that night in his apartment. The beer on his breath as he caged me in with his body and told me he’d waited long enough. The hunted, animal fear that made me freeze, that left me unable to move, unable to fight back, unable to say a single fucking word. It was only when he clumsily undid his belt and knocked a glass from his bedside table to the floor, stepping on the broken pieces and stumbling, that I could move again. I bolted from his apartment and completely ghosted him after that.
Only problem is that he’s developed an infuriating habit of turning up everywhere I go, begging for forgiveness and promising to be better. I’ve found him lingering outside classrooms and exam halls and even, once, outside the small music school where I teach violin to kids. In all honesty, I’m kind of surprised he went back home for Christmas at all. I thought he’d stick around just to keep following and pressuring me, and I’m beyond grateful for the distance his absence has created.
Willow must be sensing my mood, because her expression softens.
“Hey, I’m sorry, Dee.” She draws me into a perfumed hug. “I’m not trying to be insensitive. What happened with Brian was fucking shit, and if he ever crosses my path, he better fucking watch himself. I just want your first time to be good. To be on your terms.” She pulls back, staring at me steadily with serious green eyes. “If you give something away, no one can take it from you.”
