Bound by Vengeance (Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles, #5)

by Cora Reilly

Hope; it made people foolish, made them believe in something beyond reality. I’d got out of the habit of hoping a long time ago. I knew what I was capable of. She had hoped she could kill me. I knew I could kill her, no doubt about it.

I liked things that hurt. I liked hurting others. Maybe even loved it; if I were capable of that kind of emotion. I leaned down until my nose was inches from the skin below her ear and breathed in. She smelled flowery with a hint of sweat. Fear. I could smell that too. I couldn’t resist and I didn’t have to, not anymore, not ever again with her. Mine. She was mine.

How did he feel surrounded by people he had hardly anything in common with? He was one of them and yet not really; a man of the shadows, because nobody wanted him in the light.

In this world, a woman is nothing without a good reputation. A man, that’s a different matter. They can do as they please and it’ll even help their reputation, but we are bound to different standards. We need to be everything they’re not. We need to make up for their failures. That’s what we’re meant for. We, you need to be gentle and docile and virtuous. Men want everything they see. We should keep our desires firmly locked away, even if men can’t.”

She was someone I wasn’t meant to have. Someone I shouldn’t even imagine having. She was someone to admire from afar. And it was for the best.

‘A weapon you can’t control is another advantage for your enemy.’

Now there was no mistaking who or what he truly was: the best soldier in the ranks of the Las Vegas Camorra, and a monster. That’s what people always said behind his back and now I saw it too. He was a fighting machine without emotions, a brutal hand of Benedetto Falcone.

The worthless son of a whore. The bastard. The boy who never spoke. I was meant for the gutter.

Cara, a name fit for someone like her, someone too beautiful for a place like this, too beautiful for someone like me. A princess and a monster, that’s what we were.

Hope— it made people foolish, made them believe in something beyond reality. I’d got out of the habit of hoping a long time ago.

I hated feeling. Hated the sharpness and intensity of it. Hated being reminded that I was still human in that regard. I needed to be the monster everyone expected of me, I wanted to be that monster.

I’d fought so hard to be something, anything, more than the bastard and the scar around my throat, more than the son of a whore— I wanted to be more. Always more.

I wasn’t a smart man; not even close to being as smart as her. I knew it, and maybe that made me smarter than most of Falcone’s men. I knew my limitations, felt them every day and accepted them, but never let them stop me.

Perhaps Falcone hadn’t just meant me as a punishment for Cara. Perhaps he’d also hoped to put me in my place, to show me that despite my years of service, I still wasn’t worthy.

I curled my hands to fists and stared up at the night sky. I’d never found the sight calming or even inspiring. For me it had always looked too vast, too uncertain. Something I couldn’t control or comprehend, not even begin to.

Cara, she, too, was like the night sky. As beautiful, there was no doubt about it. I could control her, at least physically, but what went on behind that perfect face, that was completely out of my grasp. Her brain worked in ways mine would never be able to. I liked things simple. Uncomplicated. She was anything but. Comprehending her? That was something I would never manage.

‘I shall bathe in the blood of my enemies and feast on their fear.’

My dogs didn’t like humans. Even I had to fight a long time for them to trust me. But Cara, they seemed to love her. If dogs were even capable of that kind of emotion. I was certain that the majority of humans weren’t either. They liked the idea of love, but never reached that level with someone.

Love. A silly notion. And dangerous. Horrible things had been done in the name of love. Or the idea of it.

She made me want to treat her right. She made me want to be better. She made me want so many things I shouldn’t want. She was dangerous to me, to the life I’d built, to the person I’d become.

I was like a moth drawn to her light. The only light that had ever penetrated the darkness that was me and my life.

I was a monster. Would always be. But I could appreciate something precious, something as valuable as Cara, and I would never destroy it. I wasn’t good, there was nothing gray about me. I was all black but I was trying to be good to her. Never as good as she deserved but as good as I was capable of. It wasn’t enough, I realized it every day. I would never be enough.

“Animals don’t fear me, only humans do. I’m a man-made monster, perhaps that’s why.” He took in our surroundings again. “Monsters aren’t meant for a palace like this.”

I’d never felt anything like it before. I’d had crushes, had felt butterflies, but this was something else, something stronger and darker. I desired him, perhaps even…loved him. I couldn’t be sure. Not now, not when my life was in upheaval and my choices weren’t my own. Could love be born out of captivity? Wasn’t it something that could only thrive in freedom?