Sins That Find Us, page 1
Sins That Find Us
MADLY EVER AFTER
BOOK ONE
E.M. LINDSEY
Sins That Find Us
Copyright © 2023
E.M. Lindsey
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any events, places, or people portrayed in the book have been used in a manner of fiction and are not intended to represent reality. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.
Cover by: Cate Ashwood Designs
Editing: Sandra with One Love Editing
Content Warnings: This book is a dark romance that ends on a cliffhanger. It contains both mentions and on-page instances of kidnapping, torture, suicidal ideation, D/s dynamics, morally grey characters, and ableist language. Please take care if these issues are triggering for you.
Contents
Preface
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Sins That Bind Us
About the Author
My life is a series of near misses. Or, at least, it was. But the man who saved me at the bar from a guy who definitely didn’t have the best intentions, might have even worse ones.
And so do his friends. Knowing who my father is, I know better than to talk to strangers, and it’s just my luck that my four knights in shining armor have their own vendetta against him.
The next thing I know, I’m a damsel in distress—a pawn in their game against my father because I’m his one weak link. But the longer I stay on this little island of misfit toys, the more things start to become clear, and the people I thought were heroes might very well be the villains in my story.
Then again, I always did think Wendy might love Hook more, and that the Beauty wanted her Beast, that Ariel deserved a bit of revenge. And, last but not least, that Hades—the King—absolutely deserved his queen.
Sign up for EM Lindsey’s newsletter and get the free MMMM Madly Ever After Prequel on ProlificWorks.
Prologue
ALICE
“You move. You die.”
I think most people would be pissing in their pants if they heard that the second they stepped into their dorm room. Especially a five-foot-nothing college sophomore whose only weapon is the set of keys that look a few more turns away from crumbling to dust.
But I’m not most people. I never have been most people.
I’ve never been allowed to be most people.
I’m Alice Romano, and that name—unfortunately—means something to the people of this godforsaken city. That name means that I’ve been dealing with the owner of this voice for the better part of my life. It usually comes with being blindfolded and strapped to a chair with my hands duct-taped.
It comes with ugly taunts and the promise of what’s to come if I don’t get myself out by the time the buzzer goes off.
Because the asshole who’s currently pushing something hard and metal against my back is my cousin Leo. He’s the second-oldest nephew—that we know of that happens to live in the US. Leo’s older brother, Marco, is the current heir to the Romano family rule, and Leo is kind of his bitch-boy.
At least, that’s what I hear people whisper behind his back. It’s something I know he hears too, but he’s good at ignoring stuff like that. We all are. If we want to survive, we have to be.
Of course, this is basic training stuff. I know how to escape being tied up, but I don’t know how to fight. I can break duct tape handcuffs, and I know where to kick a man who’s holding me captive, but I couldn’t hold my own with some frat-boy asshole in a dark alley.
Not that I have much of a chance to meet guys like that. My father, Guido Romano, has been keeping me isolated from the evils of the world, as he likes to call them. He’s a former Catholic priest who fell in love with my mother and broke his vows for love.
So he says.
That was the fairy tale I grew up on, anyway. Sometimes I think that story’s meant to hurt me, though, because my mother’s dead, and my father’s a heartless monster who hasn’t looked me in the eye since I was eleven years old.
Of course, he has no problem dressing me up and parading me around his creepy friends at parties, and I can hear them whisper behind their glasses of single malt scotch all the ways I’d be a perfect, obedient little wife. And all the favors marrying me would earn them with my father.
It almost makes me laugh when I allow myself to think about my situation. How I became the single, surviving Romano child from a family who was a minor deal in Italy and a huge deal here in this city. How a tragic accident that took my mother and sister away from me left me shouldering the entire responsibility to keep the line going.
After all, Marco and Leo aren’t Romanos. They’re Riccis. So it’s up to me to produce the next line that will inherit, so long as my father can stay alive before it’s Marco’s turn to take over. That’s easier said than done since the two things I know about my father are that he doesn’t make friends easily and this city is full of his enemies.
I’ve never been allowed to know much about his dealings, but it doesn’t take a genius to understand that he’s got his fingers in weapons and drugs and other shit that’s above my head. And I know his biggest rivals are the Walshes.
I’ve never set eyes on any of them, but I’ve heard my father’s drunken rages about Kane—who took over sometime when I was away at boarding school and is now attempting to make my father’s life a living hell. At least, that’s how he tells it.
But he rarely lets this sort of thing bleed into my life.
Instead, he sends Leo to torment me a few times a year, and then he leaves me to my own devices. Sort of. And by that I mean he leaves me in this dorm room with so-called friends who are on his payroll and guards twenty-four seven.
What a life.
I’m not really in the mood to deal with Leo right now, though. My birthday just passed—the ripe old age of twenty, and yes, I’m older than most of the people in my year. It took a year to convince my father to even consider the idea of college, and by the time he relented, it was too late for him to bribe admissions to get me in.
I don’t really care about that, though. I’m here, and I’m slowly building dreams of what my life will be like when I can get out from under my father’s thumb. I just have to play nice and pretend like I’m willing to go along with whatever he wants.
And one day, I’ll just…go. It’s not like I can really be of use to him anyway, aside from some sort of walking womb, and at this point, I can’t even say I want kids ever.
But today kind of hurts. I woke up to one of my father’s sterile gifts—a silver necklace in a blue velvet box. It was sitting at the end of my bed alongside a single rose and a hardback copy of a book by my favorite author, which means one of his creepy guards broke in while I was asleep to leave it there.
It wouldn’t have even fazed me, considering that I’ve long since stopped expecting that man to actually care about me, but the flower is new. And so is the book. Both of those things are a surprise because they’re so…personal. It amazes me that anyone was paying close enough attention to get me something I might like.
The pathetic, sorry, abandoned little girl piece of my soul started to glow with hope that morning, and like the loser I am, I waited for a call. Or a text. Anything.
I sent him a message at noon thanking him for the gifts, and the most I got was that the message was read. Just like always.
It’s on me for thinking it meant anything different—that he was finally starting to see me as a person, as someone he could be proud of. The ache sat heavy in my chest for the rest of the day, and I managed to scrape by classes, then my study group at the café before I had to make my way home.
Now, to add insult to injury, I’m being attacked instead of wished a happy birthday.
It only takes me a second and a well-placed fist to Leo’s balls for him to step back and let go with a breathless laugh, and I can see amusement in his eyes as he holds up his hands in surrender. It’s not like him, though he has been the only person in this godforsaken family who has ever treated me with kindness, but it’s enough to throw me off.
My eyes narrow in suspicion. “That was too easy.”
He sighs. “It’s your birthday, little cousin. That’s my gift to you.”
That crawls under my skin and stings like fire ants. How fucking gracious. I turn away from him, catching a glimpse of my father’s hired guards out of the window as I drop my bag on my bed and stare around at the empty dorm. It stings even further that no one’s home to greet me, but I’ve come to expect as much.
Not even in boarding school, when I was finally away from my father’s chokehold, did anyone even acknowledge me on my birthday. All I ever got were the little trinkets he left—sterile and store-bought.
And now the rose. And the book.
“Doing anything to celebrate tonight?” Leo asks as he strolls to our half-fridge and starts to rummage around. The only thing in there right now is a little container of hard-boiled eggs that Emilia always has. She read some Miss America diet thing online last year, and she’s followed it religiously ever since.
“I hope you’re not looking for anything special,” I tell him blandly, kicking my shoes off.
“How are you not starving to death?”
Falling to the edge of my bed, I lean back on my hands and shrug. “Dining card. If you’re really hungry, I could treat you to some bland buffet food. It’s the only thing still open right now.”
He grimaces, and I don’t blame him. Not all of the Romanos eat well, but Leo does. I did once, but I’d take this college campus slop over sitting at my father’s table while he stares at me like I’m the world’s biggest disappointment.
With a sigh, Leo turns to me and props his shoulder against the wall. His eyes roam around the room for a second, and I track them to a dent on the wall. It’s a patch from some wiring work the maintenance guy had done a few weeks into the first semester. The guy had been creepy and hadn’t said a word to me. He was goddamn ripped, though, and made my mouth water, even if I couldn’t get a good look at his face under the low brim of his hat.
“You never answered my question,” Leo says, interrupting my thoughts.
“Because it was a stupid question,” I fire back. “How am I supposed to go anywhere with Flotsam and Jetsam tailing me?”
Leo scoffs. “By sneaking out. God, I should have come around a lot more.”
I blink. “Sneaking out. That’s hilarious. My father likely has me tracked—”
“He has two brainless trolls following you around at all times,” Leo corrects. “If Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum happen to think you’re snoozing in your bed like the good little girl they believe you are, they’ll report that back to your father. Won’t they?”
My mouth goes dry. “I wouldn’t have the first idea how to—”
“The fire escape,” he says. “Trust me, Alice, you’ve spent most of your life lulling these men into a false sense of security. It’s time to reap those benefits.”
I bite my lip. “You’re talking like I was playing them all along.”
At that, Leo straightens and tosses a wink my way. “Aren’t you?” He heads over toward the window and peers out before turning his back to it and heading for the door. “Your roommates pass out early, the bars close late, and those guys always grab dinner…”
“At eleven, at that shitty hot dog stand,” I finish for him. Maybe Leo’s not wrong. Maybe I have been paying attention. But maybe this is also a trap, and he’s just waiting to report me to my father so I’ll get kicked out of school and he’ll earn brownie points. I wouldn’t put it past him.
He takes one look at my face and sighs, shaking his head like he can read my thoughts. “I wouldn’t have fought so hard for you to be here right now, Alice, if I didn’t want you to live a little. Take some chances. These nasty little lessons weren’t just trying to show you how to get out of duct tape and zip ties.”
“Could have fooled me,” I say. I rub my left wrist where I still have a scar from the night Marco was a little too rough with the ties.
Leo holds my gaze. “I guess I’ve fooled a lot of people over the years, but I didn’t mean one of those people to be you. Go out and fucking live, Alice. Buy a drink, make bad choices, suck a dick.”
It sounds like it should be an insult—and maybe it is. Maybe it’s a dig at the fact that no one has ever gotten close enough to me to touch me. But his eyes seem sincere, and that’s terrifying. “Leo…”
“Just think about it,” he says. “You know the routine, and you know the way out—and the way back in without any of them seeing you. You deserve better than what you were born into. We all do, and we all have to figure out how to survive it without losing our minds.”
He’s not wrong, but I don’t tell him that I’m just biding my time until I can escape. My father thinks I’ll have some marriage value to him, but in reality, I know that the minute I’m gone, he’ll forget about me. I’m pretty damn sure that’s what he’s been trying to get me to do my whole life.
So maybe Leo’s right about that too. Maybe it’s time to prove to both Guido Romano and myself that I am brave enough to take that step. Tonight might just be a drink at some bar, and tomorrow might not be anything at all.
But the second I have a chance to free myself from the crooked man who likes to call himself king, I have to believe I’ll be ready to take the leap. And hell, that might just start tonight.
Chapter 1
KANE
The light from my office window is enough to cast a glare on the tablet, so I turn, making the body behind me huff with quiet annoyance. That huff might as well have been a shout, though, as it’s the only sound Ariel can make with his ruined throat. I know he’s been watching the feed as intently as I have, and I tilt my head up, reaching for him to stroke the back of my knuckles over his scars.
“I have a meeting in ten.”
He glances down at me and with a lazy hand signs, ‘Do you want me to stay?’
I shake my head and set the tablet down, for the moment obscuring our target. She’s not doing anything particularly interesting, which is par for the course. Alice Romano might be our way to taking Guido Romano down to his knees, but I’m still working on exactly how I want to use her for it.
She’s not dull, but she’s certainly not interesting, either.
In fact, last night was the first sign of any backbone I’ve seen in her since Ari installed the security cameras. It was obvious by the look on her face that she was scared when her cousin approached her, but something about their interactions told me it wasn’t the first time he’d done that to her.
And by their conversation, I realized I wasn’t wrong. Leo Ricci—a smarmy little fuck who I’ve had the misfortune of meeting half a dozen times—has done that before. From the sound of it, it’s something he’s paid to do by Alice’s father.
Even as he taunted her last night, though, I had very few expectations. He left her, and she spent a little while reading some of the book we left her and stroking the flower petals with delicate brushes of her fingers. It was enough to drive a weaker man wild, though for me, it was merely a case in study.
I needed to understand her better so I could use her.
James, of course, was riveted. He helped Phoenix choose the book after painstakingly going through all of her belongings and finding her stash of alien erotica under her bed, so I think he took her enjoyment of the gift personally. Phoenix sat at his tablet and listened to the description of her touching the rose he’d gifted, and he showed no signs of emotions, but he did take James to his room later that night, so I know they were affected.
The only one who hadn’t bothered was my sweet little psychopath, but I hadn’t expected anything out of Ari except maybe him plotting ways he could torment her if he ever got her in his playroom.
Which, if my plan went off without a hitch, he would.
I just need to figure out how that makes me feel. I’ve seen what my silent lunatic does to people once he has them in my chair, and I have a hard time picturing Alice there. She’s too…
Fuck.
I don’t know.
Something I’m entirely unused to.
My gaze flickers to the scattered photos on my desk. The oldest one—my most treasured one—is a young girl. Light hair, dark eyes, skin tan from a long holiday in Majorca. It was the last photo of her that wasn’t from the crime scene where they found her battered, bloody, a shell of the girl she once was.
I remember the look on my father’s face when he told me what had happened. He waited until he had all of the information about her. Alianna was a late-in-life surprise. My mother thought she was reaching that age where she couldn’t have more children. I wasn’t even sure how to feel, but I fell in love with her the second I set eyes on her in the hospital. I didn’t think I was capable of loving something so much. I was young and reckless and stupid, but I was also going to be her protector.
