Broken Beginnings: A Dark Stalker Mafia Romance Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Claire

  2. Lucca

  3. Claire

  4. Lucca

  5. Claire

  6. Lucca

  7. Claire

  8. Lucca

  9. Claire

  10. Lucca

  11. Claire

  12. Lucca

  13. Claire

  14. Lucca

  15. Claire

  16. Lucca

  17. Claire

  18. Lucca

  19. Claire

  20. Lucca

  21. Claire

  22. Lucca

  23. Claire

  24. Lucca

  25. Claire

  26. Lucca

  27. Claire

  28. Lucca

  29. Claire

  30. Lucca

  31. Claire

  32. Lucca

  33. Claire

  34. Lucca

  35. Claire

  36. Lucca

  37. Claire

  38. Lucca

  39. Claire

  40. Lucca

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  Coming Soon

  About the Authors

  Also by the Authors

  Prologue

  Claire

  6 Years Ago

  Pain. I feel it in every cell of my body.

  It’s all I can feel while I lie on the floor, unable to get up. I try to make sense of what is happening. Why is my dad so angry? Why is he hurting me? Is he going to kill me?

  All the questions swirl in my head, but the pain won’t let me conjure up an answer.

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Who he is?” my father spits, confusing me even more. “He’s going to tell his boss where I am. He’s going to kill me because I can’t pay back the money. Is that what you want, Claire? Do you want me dead?”

  The feeble attempt I make to shake my head and tell him no sends a sharp pain shooting down my neck. I open my mouth to speak, but my throat is so raw from crying for help. My lips are dry and cracked, and I taste the coppery tinge of blood on my tongue.

  “This is all your fault. Everything was great before you were born. Your mother loved me. We were happy, and then you had to come along.” He says it like I chose to be here.

  He paces through the room, a beer bottle in his hand. I follow him with my eyes since that’s the only part of my body I can actually move without causing more pain.

  I want to tell him I’m sorry, beg him to forgive me and stop hurting me, but my body is so weak that I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone speak.

  Everything hurts, and all I want to do is close my eyes and sleep.

  “You destroyed my life!” he yells.

  My eyes fly back open just in time to see the beer bottle fly my way. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to turn away, but I’m too slow. The bottle hits me in the side of the head, the glass shattering around me.

  Agonizing pain erupts, like a million little bombs going off, crushing my skull, and turning my brain to shreds. The room spins around me, and all I can hear is a loud ringing in my ear.

  My vision blurs, and I feel myself fading. Something in the back of my mind tells me to hold on, to keep fighting. Forcing myself to blink and keep my eyes open, I stare at the ceiling and try to think of anything but the pain. There’s a loud pop in my ear, and the pressure is so great, it feels like my head will explode.

  Above me, my father slams his fist against my head. Saliva clings to my skin as he spits words of hate at me. Something warm and wet trickles down the side of my face. One more punch, and I can’t contain the scream that’s lodged in my throat.

  Fracturing like a piece of glass, I don’t even recognize the sound that escapes me. I let my eyes drift closed then, and the darkness becomes a comforting balm.

  Please, make it stop! I repeat over and over in my mind.

  Then, as if God can hear my unspoken prayers, the weight against my body lifts. I force my eyes open, even though it feels impossible to do. The pain in my face is overwhelming, but for a moment, it becomes background noise when I see Lucca hovering over my father.

  The world around me is silent, there is no sound, and all I can do is watch in horror as Lucca transforms right before my eyes, becoming someone else entirely.

  Fear replaces any happy thoughts I ever had about him.

  There is a darkness in his eyes that makes it hard for me to breathe. Terror reignites in my veins as I lie helplessly on the floor and watch my father’s head bounce against the ground, over and over again like a basketball.

  Lucca’s lips move, pulling back into a sinister grin as he speaks, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. I’m drowning in the chaos. My eyes drift to a dark spot forming on the floor beneath my father’s head.

  Blood. The puddle grows bigger and bigger, and it seems like forever before Lucca stops. I can’t look away from his hands. They’re coated in blood—so much blood. I shake when his eyes find mine. His penetrating stare submerges me into icy water. I’m afraid. I want to move, to run before he hurts me too, but I can’t make my limbs work.

  Pain blankets every inch of my body.

  The darkness in Lucca’s eyes fades slowly, and he looks down at my father and back at me as if he’s trying to piece the puzzle of what he’s done together.

  The person I thought he was all along, the white knight, a friend, reappears.

  In a flash, he crosses the room, fear overtaking his features while his gaze sweeps over my body. I struggle to move, trying to scoot away from him, but any type of movement makes the throbbing in my head worse. I’d rather die than attempt to move right now.

  With his powerful arms, he picks me up off the floor and holds me to his chest. I push with all my strength, trying to escape him, but I’m in too much pain. Too far gone to care what happens next. The coppery tang of blood is all I can smell as I breathe through my nose. Lucca peers down at me, his eyes liquid pools of amber.

  “Call an… ambulance,” I croak, afraid that my father may be dead before they arrive.

  “Everything is going to be okay. He’ll never hurt you again. I swear on it. No one will, not as long as I’m breathing.”

  I want to cry, but the tears aren’t there.

  I’m broken. The man I thought would never hurt me, that would save me from everything, just took my entire life and crushed it into a million pieces.

  1

  Claire

  Present

  I keep my eyes trained to the floor, walking down the long hallway that leads to the double doors ahead. All I have to do is get outside, and I’ll be free of this building, and the people inside of it, for the rest of the day.

  The dull sound of footsteps and chatter echo around me as the hallway fills with students being released from their last class of the day.

  Everything I do is to limit the amount of attention I bring on myself. Today, however, there is no avoiding Cinderella’s three wicked stepsisters.

  I look up just in time to see the three witches leaning against a nearby locker. My gut tightens like a knot being pulled tight. I hate them. Hate how they make me feel. How they bully me. Making fun of me because I can’t hear properly. Because the teacher always makes me sit up front because I have to ask people to repeat questions or look at me so I can read their lips.

  They don’t like me because I’m different. If only they knew what made me this way, what caused me to lose my hearing. Maybe then they would be a little more compassionate.

  Or maybe not.

  Arabella sticks her heeled foot out at the last moment, an
d before I can stop, I trip over it, barely catching myself with my hands; my face nearly collides with the linoleum. Pain ripples up my arms from hitting the floor, and I grit my teeth, holding back a curse.

  “Looks like Claire can’t walk any better than she can hear.” Bethany sniggers, tucking a strand of silky blonde hair behind her ear.

  Popular. Gorgeous. Perfect in every way.

  Bethany is mean, but nothing compared to the ringleader, Arabella. I shake my head and reach for the book I had clutched to my chest. My fingers graze the cover just as Arabella’s pointed heel comes into view.

  Like the bitch she is, she presses it against my hand. My jaw quakes with how hard I’m clenching it.

  “Oops,” she sneers and pulls her foot back a second later.

  I bite my tongue, holding back the insult that’s building at the tip of my tongue. Nothing I say to them will change how they act. They want to hurt me, and I’m not giving them that type of satisfaction. I grab my book and scurry off the floor and out of the school before they try to do something else to me.

  I don’t stop running until I reach the bus stop, and my heart doesn’t stop racing until I take my seat. My phone vibrates to life in my pocket, and I reach inside my tight jeans to pull it out. Hope flashes across the screen.

  My best friend. My one and only friend. My lips turn up at the sides, and I answer the phone.

  “Hey!” I hold the sleek device to my good ear.

  “Jesus, I thought someone kidnapped you. Usually, you wait, and we walk together. Did something happen today?” Her words come out in a rush, and it sounds like she just got done running. Shit! It completely escaped my mind to wait for her. Arabella and her posse didn’t really help matters, but now I feel like an asshole.

  “Sorry. It escaped my mind.”

  “Are you sure?” Hope doesn’t sound convinced. “It’s something. I know it. Is someone following you again? I’ll kick their ass if they are.” At that moment, an image of a five-foot, freckled-faced, Hope, with zero muscle mass and two left feet, appears in my mind. The idea of her kicking anyone’s ass is laughable, but it’s the thought that counts. The real seriousness lies in the fact that someone is following me, always, wherever I go.

  “Someone is always following me, you know that.”

  “Yeah… I forgot for a hot second, sue me.”

  A bubble of laughter passes my lips. Hope is everything I am not, and I think that’s why we’re such good friends. She brings out the best in me, pushing me to do things I wouldn’t do without her.

  “It’s fine. Nothing happened. I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you.” I lay the apology on thick.

  “You better be.”

  “I am. There is no one I would rather walk home with…”

  “Right, other than the stalker that is always following you.” She snorts. “When are you going to go to the police, Claire?”

  Never. Hope doesn’t know the complete story of how I got here. I’ve told her what I wanted her to know. Still, she’s the only person who knows even a sliver about my past.

  The police wouldn’t help me, not when Lucca and whoever he works for have control over this city. I mean, how else did he get away with killing my father? He knows people, and those people are so much bigger and powerful than the police.

  I know I might not visibly see Lucca, but he is always there. Watching. Waiting.

  “It’s not a big deal. I’m fine, and nothing has happened to me. I’ve told you…”

  “Not yet,” she interjects. “Nothing has happened to you yet. You need to tell this guy to get lost.”

  Ha, I wish it was that easy.

  “Look, everything is fine. I’m not scared, which means you have no reason to be.” The bus turns onto the street where my stop is. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Fine, but we’re going to get rid of this stalker guy,” Hope mutters.

  “Sure.” I smile and shake my head.

  First, we would have to find Lucca, and that in itself would be a mission.

  I pop my earbuds into my ears. The bus pulls to the curb, and I’m out of my seat, heading for the front of the bus before it’s even stopped. Harold, the bus driver, gives me a tight-lipped smile as I descend the stairs. The air is cooler now, and the chill of it smacks me in the face as I step off the bus. Like clockwork, I do the same thing I do every day.

  I adjust my earbuds and pretend I’m fiddling with my cell phone in my pocket, trying to find a song even though I’m not listening to music.

  Call it what you will, but I hate making people repeat themselves or them thinking I didn’t hear them if they try to talk to me. Plus, I read in a magazine once that people are less likely to talk to you if you have earbuds in.

  My adopted parents’ house is only two blocks from here, but the same paranoia I feel every day skates up my spine. You would think since I go through this five days a week that I would be used to being watched and followed, but it seems I’m not.

  Glancing over my shoulder, left and then right, I find no one there.

  Annoyance nags at the back of my mind. Even after all these years, he has never stopped watching me. There is always someone there, being his eyes and ears. In my mind, he’s never too far away. I should be grateful, and I am. Lucca helped me get into a nice foster home, which helped me get adopted by two of the kindest people I’ve ever met, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten what he did. If it wasn’t for Lucca, I wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.

  No, you’d still be unloved and beaten. Probably starving and near death somewhere.

  I shake the thought away. Before that night, I saw Lucca as a white knight, a man who could do no wrong. The memory of him with blood on his hands refuses to leave my mind.

  It haunts me day and night, repeating over and over like a nightmare. He was a savage beast who would not stop until there was nothing left of his prey, and I got to see him unravel. So while he might be my protector, I know he’s also capable of terrible things, and for all the good he’s done, there is always some type of bad that counteracts it.

  Sadly, I haven’t seen him in six years, and somehow, I can still recall his features.

  Those liquid pools of blue that shined like jewels in the light. I imagine he’s even more of a man now, taller and leaner, maybe even fitter with bulging muscles.

  Even thinking about him makes my heart race. When I was a little girl, I never would’ve thought of him in such a scandalizing way.

  He was like a brother to me, but the more time that’s passed, the more curious I’ve become. It’s probably because of all the romance novels I’ve been reading.

  I remind myself of how wrong it is to think of him in any way that doesn’t include hate. A long time ago, I feared him. Now I’m just annoyed and angry. He killed my father, right in front of me, took my entire life, and shook it like it was a snow globe scattering all the broken pieces before I could catch them.

  At the end of the day, my father was abusive; he hurt me, but he was still my dad, and I’ve learned over the years that you can’t choose your parents. I watched Lucca beat him to death that night, and there was nothing I could do to forget the absent look that appeared in his eyes. Nothing that would ever make me see him as the white knight again.

  He became a different person that night, and I want nothing to do with that man.

  The fact he still watches and protects me after all these years is surprising enough, but I don’t understand why. I’m not his problem anymore, so why does it always feel like his eyes are on me even when I can’t see him?

  2

  Lucca

  I want to both strangle and hug Markus at the same time. A week ago, the bastard got a hair up his ass and bought some girl at an auction. I don’t know all the details, but he took her and dragged her to one of Julian’s safe houses.

  It wasn’t a common occurrence for made men to take time off, but what the hell was Julian going to do? Killing Markus
would be more harmful to him than good.

  It didn’t change the fact that I wanted to sucker punch him in the throat for leaving out of the blue, but it would be a lie to say I wasn’t thankful as well. Julian let me take Markus’ place in line, which is not only an immense responsibility but also a huge honor.

  At twenty-four, I’m younger than most of the men I oversee now. Still, I’m given the same respect that Markus had. Julian has always treated me well, but having him take me as his second in command is a whole new level of trust.

  By the time I get to my apartment, it’s after two in the morning, and all I want to do is take a shower and hit the hay, but first, there is something else I need to do. The same thing I do every day when I walk into my place.

  I open my laptop and type in my password. The screen comes to life, but I have to type in yet another code before my email opens up. Mike has sent me his normal daily update, and I scroll through it to see what Claire has been up to.

  Before I read a single word, I pull up the attached pictures. Through the window of the cafeteria, I see her sitting at the table, her best friend occupying the chair next to her as they share some kind of dessert. She smiles, her green eyes shine bright even in the picture.

  The second photo is a closeup shot outside in front of her house. Her hair shimmers like fire, the sun reflecting a million different shades of red and orange. Freckles cover the skin around her cheeks and nose, almost as if a painter has put them there artfully, each tiny freckle placed with a purpose.