BWWM Dark Mafia Romance | Forced To Marry | The Amalfi Coast Brotherhood Book #2
A darker male hero than Book #1.
Enzo/Grace’s story has everything I love about dark romance — a brooding, lonely bad boy covered in sexy tattoos who falls hard and fast for a black woman he’s never met. Enzo’s plan to get the woman he loves? Kill her boyfriend. Of course.
I couldn’t resist writing the youngest of the Doukas brothers next. If you love snarky, bull-headed and extremely sensual alpha heroes, you’ll fall instantly for Enzo right from the first chapter.
Take your time here reading the first preview chapter, but if you’re ready to dive right in, you can order the story right now, even before the release date. Click here to order.
Keep reading for the first chapter…
Romance Novel Excerpts | Forced To Marry (BWWM Dark Mafia Romance) | Book #2
LORENZO DOUKAS
The night I properly meet Grace West, everything changes. I stop being a man and turn into a beast, propelled forward by a powerful urge to claim something that isn’t mine. From a distance, she always looked beautiful. She has nice full hips, a gorgeous butt, and she walks like a supermodel.
Grace West— my tenant. She’s a woman I shouldn’t touch, a woman I shouldn’t want, but the moment I lay eyes on her silky smooth hazelnut skin up close, I want her so fucking bad.
Women. I’ve never been smitten with a woman before. I skipped the Italian penchant for romance. Most women fail to intrigue my interest past a single night, especially on the Amalfi Coast where we only have tourists and bloodsuckers hoping for a taste of Doukas money, Doukas power, and the mob life.
Italian women only want the prestige of the Doukas family name. They crave our money. They crave status. I refuse to give freely what women want. I’m too proud, too fiercely unlike my father.
Business titillates me more than women. I love money, capisce? I own apartment complexes and many, many women need a place to live. That’s how I prefer my dealings with women. Some have money, some have pussy — all find a way to pay me. I might just be the underboss in my family, but in my apartment buildings, I’m the king.
Outside of the women who come to me for assistance, I have no need for a woman in my life. Not a wife. Not a girlfriend. I don’t need a woman. Unlike my brother, Giovanni, papa makes no offers to have children. How would I benefit, eh? Papa wants the opposite, anyway. He pays me monthly as long as I don’t father bastard children. Simple.
Keeping my distance from women has been entirely too simple. I have work to do and I’ll have even more with Eddie in Long Island and the Albanians banging at our door to bring their trafficking ring into Italy.
I have no distractions, nothing to destroy my focus on our family’s singular goal — until Grace.
One slight problem with beautiful, beautiful Grace. She has a secret.
I know I have an Albanian tenant, hiding his identity under the lease by putting it in her name. She’s American, this Grace woman, and harboring an Albanian man who unbeknownst to her, has made enemies of the Doukas family. I need more information about her boyfriend. Before I meet her, I watch them for a few days, soaking in her physical appearance, allowing my obsession to grow and hating the man who freely puts his hands on her.
He’s a liar, a scumbag piece of shit with the Albanian mob and he’s making her fall in love with him. I hate him for lying to her. I hate him for thinking he can hide behind a woman and make a fool of a Doukas. I hate him more with each passing day and I fall for a woman who has only met me once, who never notices me watching her from the balcony with a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of wine in another. I even go shirtless, hoping she’ll look up. She never does.
That doesn’t matter. She doesn’t have to see me yet. When I meet her, when I finally meet Grace West for the first time, I will do everything to ensure that she never looks away from me, never leaves me. She will belong to me forever.
I don’t bother telling Van about my growing fixation with my tenant when he asks me to track down the Albanian and find his reason for hunkering down on the Amalfi Coast.
I check with my Albanian contacts while I conduct surveillance. Luan doesn’t recognize the name I give him, or the description, but he warns me that the Dervishaj family contains several layers of cousins and bastards. He could be Luan’s second cousin and an utter stranger. The message remains the same— don’t fucking trust him.
I dress professionally for house calls like this one — white shirt, black trousers, Gucci belt, snakeskin loafers, a cigarette of course and a spare in my pocket. Okay, I’m not exactly dressed just for her. I have a wedding reception to attend. My brother Giovanni, new boss of the Doukas family, married Jodi earlier in the day andI have five hours before the wedding reception begins. Plenty of time for me to make a house call and do my due diligence with the Albanian.
This Albanian man may suspect my personal connection to the Doukas mob, but I own my properties all under my mother’s maiden name for my family’s security. Even if this man suspects who I am, or suspects my connection to the Amalfi Coast mob, which he must if he remains anonymous, he doesn’t suspect that I’m also dangerous — if not more dangerous than the boss, my brother, Giovanni.
Liquor helps steel me for the house call, but what I really want is a cigarette. I want more than anything a fresh, hand-rolled cigarette that tastes spectacular. Ah.
I still have to be cautious, even with liquor firing me up and a time limit on my visit. I can’t be late for Van’s reception. I have to watch him fumble about as waitresses offer him pet chickens and old women beg him to find suitable husbands for their daughters.
Why the fuck did Eddie mess with the Albanians and get us into this? Thoughts of strangling my nephew whirl through my head as I approach the apartment door, walking through each hall of the building as I conduct a spontaneous check on the property.
Albanians are crazy motherfuckers who won’t hesitate to shove a pistol up your ass and pull the trigger. The Albanian fuck can’t find out what I’m up to. He might suspect I’m with the mob, but I won’t give him proof unless necessary.
All I need from the Albanian are his name and his purpose. I don’t need to bring a gun — not yet. I can’t kill without word from the boss. Van won’t allow me to kill for any reason he deems frivolous.
I don’t want to fuck up, but I console myself by saying that if I do screw up and kill the Albanian fuck, Van won’t find out shit unless I open my big fucking mouth and tell him myself. There’s no such thing as a secret kept between two people. I walk down to the apartment — 404A — a sweet little studio apartment with a king-sized bed and all the amenities you might expect in a luxury coastal apartment.
When I knock on the door, the Albanian doesn’t open it. Instead, there’s a vision before me with a scowl on her perfect little face. That’s the moment everything changes. That’s the moment I make a cruel choice, even before realizing it.
“Hello?”
My body responds the moment I hear her voice. She sounds like she’s singing, even if it’s just one word.
“It’s me, Mr. Pazzini. Your landlord.”
It’s the first time she’s meeting me in person and when she realizes who I am, her expression changes. A pretty smile replaces that scowl.
“Oh! I’m sorry, Mr. Pazzini. I didn’t expect you to stop by. The place is a mess and I—
“Don’t worry. I’m not coming in. I wanted to make sure you and… your boyfriend… enjoyed the amenities here.”
Her boyfriend who isn’t on the lease. Her mob boyfriend, potentially involved in some very dirty fucking business. Oh, Grace… what has she gotten herself into? Who has she wrapped herself up with?
“Shit,” she mutters. Yeah, the secret resident who she conveniently forgot to add to the lease. I know about that. I wonder what I could convince her to do in exchange for ignoring this offense... Stop it, Enzo. Focus.
I tilt my head to the side, using silence to coax her into saying more. The quieter you are, the more information you get. Fuck, this woman is stunning. Waiting for her to speak, I notice the subtleties of her features. Heart-shaped face. Long braids down to her waist. Large eyes with well-manicured brows and extremely full lips.
She babbles on with her explanation as I struggle to focus on anything but her tits. When did my tenants start getting so sexy? My cock jumps in my pants at the sight of her breasts pushed together by her top. Fuck, I feel like a teenager. I’m too old to get this hard for a woman. Luckily, she doesn’t notice and I shift my stance, enraptured again by her beautiful voice.
“I didn’t add him to the lease,” she says. “I admit. We just decided to move in together. Kinda fast… I only met him a couple months ago but… we’re in love! I’m so sorry. Let me know what I can do to rectify it.”
I smile and she does that thing women do whenever I smile. Fuck, she’s attracted to me. I don’t know why I find that surprising. It’s good. Perhaps her attraction to me will come in handy later.
“I’m happy for you,” I tell her.
She bites her lower lip like she’s thinking of what to say next and all I can think is that I wish I were the one biting down on those full, sensual lips. I give Giovanni shit for his tastes, but fuck aren’t women so much better when they’re foreign? Different? Who wants the same old thing all the time? Italian women. I’ve had every variation. But I’ve never had a woman like her…
“Really? Happy for me? You don’t seem like a romantic,” she teases.
American women. They’re so forward that it’s impossible to tell if it’s flirting or politeness. I consider her carefully, my eyes lingering on her figure as I decide. American ways take getting used to, but enough time around Jodi and Zara, and I’ve come to appreciate the differences.
My tenant, Grace, stands a few shades darker than Jodi and Zara. Her skin is a pretty, forbidden, delicate shade of brown, almost as dark as a delicious cup of espresso.
“I’m not,” I tell her. “But… I can still be happy that my tenants are enjoying the property. When your boyfriend returns, have him call me, yes? It’s only a matter of paperwork. In fact… it would help if you told me his name.”
“Oh,” she says. “That’s easy. Uksan Dervishaj. I’ll have him call you.”
“Thank you, Grace.”
I smile at her again and enjoy the way she looks away. I want to enter the apartment with her. I want to play with her. Tease her.
Fuck’s sake, Enzo. She has a boyfriend. And she’s clearly in love with him.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come in for a glass of water or something, Mr. Pazzini?”
She doesn’t know how fucking tempting she is. If I take Grace up on that offer and close the door to the apartment behind us, I won’t be able to control myself. Papa’s allowance has addled my brain and it’s been ages since I’ve allowed myself to spill a drop of my seed inside a woman.
I’ve never faced any temptation before her. Never. Van would say it’s because I’ve fucked my way down the Amalfi Coast and halfway across the rest of Italy. I won’t confirm or deny my youthful activities, but the fact remains—I’ve tasted every available treat and find the pleasures of mindless unattached sex to diminish with each incidence.
I don’t want mindless sex anymore. I want a woman whose heart and body belongs completely to me. Grace has a boyfriend. She can’t ever fill that role. Unless I kill her boyfriend.
“I’m fine, thank you for the offer. If you need anything, Grace… let me know.”
“I will! Have a good night!”
Cheerful. American women are so fucking cheerful. She closes the door and I immediately regret not going in for a glass of water. Ah, well. I have a better idea.
I’m going to kill her fucking boyfriend.
I walk back to my apartment, finishing my cigarette before I get to the door. Van picks up and I enter my place as I greet him.
“Did you learn anything?” He growls.
He doesn’t like to be bothered and he hates it even more that he’s freshly married and wants to spend the entire night cuddled up against his wife, not dealing with me and my shit. Don’t worry. I don’t want Van paying too much attention either.
“Uksan Dervishaj. He’s one of them. I don’t know if he’s directly related to the boss.”
“You didn’t question him directly?” Van growls. He gets no fucking sleep because of the baby, and insists on punishing me because of it with his attitude. He should blame his own cock for following its desires through to the end. I won’t be stupid enough to have a child wantonly.
“He wasn’t there. Just the girlfriend,” I answer.
“I see.”
“Beautiful girlfriend.”
“That’s enough, Lorenzo.”
“I await your orders, boss.”
Van makes a sound halfway between a grunt and a huff.
“Don’t do anything that could get you killed.”
Very open ended instructions, if you ask me.
“Yes, boss. Ciao.”
I hang up on my brother, and kick my feet up.
Yes. I’m going to kill her fucking boyfriend. I need information from him anyway, and more importantly, I ought to wait for Giovanni’s orders. But I can’t. We have the reception soon and the longer this takes, the longer we’ll give the Albanians a chance to make a move. What I saw on their soil haunts me. Young girls dressed like that, all available for sale. Anyone involved in such cruel business deserves to die, especially Uksan for daring to bring such sickness near Grace, beautiful Grace.
Papa would have let me kill the man for my own purposes, but Van wants our family to return to the old way. We can’t kill for greed. We can’t kill women or children. We have a truce with the Jews.
Can I kill for love? Can I kill for lust? I won’t bother asking my brother for permission.
I run through a list of known hookers who frequently Jalousie in my mind. Perhaps one of them could scratch this itch and the devilish thought of murdering a man to steal his woman out of my head. No hookers appeal to me.
Unlike my brothers, I’m not a good man. I love cocaine, drinking, fucking and getting exactly what I want, including women. This woman’s impossible attachment to an Albanian boils my blood. I’m the youngest brother. The loose cannon. The wild card. The sick motherfucker who would kill just for a chance at a woman.
I wonder if she knows who she is. I wonder if Grace West knows she’s just that fucking beautiful that I would kill for her moments after laying eyes on her.
I wait for darkness before I move. I have cameras in all the hallways of the building and I watch the door to Grace’s apartment, staring at the silent feed as I finish one cigarette after another. No one enters or leaves the apartment for at least two hours. I finish another glass of whiskey and clean my short-barreled rifle for my work. Attach a silencer on the end and I can get the job done without alerting anyone.
Simple.
Half an hour passes after cleaning my gun before I see Uksan approach the door. He turns the key and I see Grace’s arm on the camera, dragging him into the apartment for a kiss. I hate him. My throat catches. If I leave now, I’ll probably catch them in the throes of lovemaking. The mere thought of Uksan rutting between Grace’s legs drives me crazy.
He doesn’t deserve her.
I don’t know exactly what the Albanian has done, but the mob there doesn’t distinguish between clean and dirty business. They sell women, children, crack, guns, whatever the fuck they can get their hands on. Money soaked in blood still works the same. Italians at least have honor.
I keep watching the cameras until something happens. Grace. Leaving. Only a few seconds of footage of her excites me more than anything. She’s only wearing sweatpants and a tight top that hugs her breasts together. She carries her purse and wears some silky thing on her head. I hear her over the hallway camera calling to Uksan.
“I’ll be back in thirty minutes!”
He must respond because she replies with, “I love you.”
Then she leaves and my heart nearly leaps into my throat. Thirty minutes. I couldn’t have been more blessed by opportunity. I have enough time to question Uksan and then wash Grace’s floor with his blood. Technically, my floor.
Without permission, aware of the consequences, but smitten entirely, I get my gun, my balaclava and I turn off my apartment building’s security system—just in case the police get off their ass for once and investigate something other than a tourist robbery.
Killing doesn’t fuck with my nerves. It’s the aftermath I don’t like. Rigor mortis. Getting rid of the body. The gore. I don’t mind the killing or the questioning. It’s just work. Papa trained us well how to steel our nerves with liquor and drugs and whatever we need to serve our highest good.
Killing a woman’s boyfriend isn’t your highest good, Lorenzo.
I quiet that small voice in my mind and sneak my way through the halls until I get to the apartment. I don’t need to burst through the door. It’s so safe here that hardly anyone locks their doors. I hear a television on the other side as I slowly crack Uksan’s door open.
I check my watch for a split second. Thirty minutes. More like twenty. I have to make this quick, get answers from the Albanian and finish him off before the reception and before Grace returns to watch the scene unfold. He doesn’t see me coming and with the loud television, he doesn’t hear me. I turn the corner of the half wall and cock my gun as the Albanian shoots straight up in bed, naked except for his boxer briefs and totally unarmed.
“Fuck,” he says. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Get out of bed.”
“Italian,” he says. “Fuck.”
He’s better not make me repeat myself.
“Hands up,” I snarl. “Sit at your dining table. We need to talk.”
“My girlfriend’s around the corner. She’ll come back in five minutes. I don’t care if you take the TV.”
“I’m not here for a fucking television. Now sit.”
Liar. I appreciate his efforts, but I know that his girlfriend won’t be back for long and when she comes back, she’ll find her boyfriend’s brains all over the floor. She’ll need comfort. She’ll need someone to protect her.
Uksan gives up his pretense that he has any choice but to obey my orders and he lumbers out of bed half naked, plopping down with frustration at the table.
“You’re mob.”
“I ask the questions.”
“Which family? Pagonis? Doukas?”
“Why are you here?” I ask.
Uksan realizes that he isn’t dealing with an amateur.
“I don’t know as much as you think,” he says, cleverly attempting to bait me into revealing why I’m here. I pull out a chair and sit across from him. I don’t have to get rough with him yet.
“You don’t know what I think,” I respond calmly, tapping my fingers on the table and allowing my heavy rings to beat out an unnerving tattoo against the hardwood. “Tell me why you’re in Italy and everything you know about the Dervishaj business here. You don’t have much time so please… be efficient.”
I flash Uksan a smile, which doesn’t warm him to me.
“Please… I’m not here working. I swear. I don’t involve myself in the dirty business and—
I’ve killed enough people to know that dead men lie around ten times more than average men, which considering how often the average man lies, proves to be a substantial amount of fiction.
“Shut the fuck up,” I interrupt him before he finishes whatever lie slithers through his fucked up Albanian mind. “I was at the last auction. I saw what your family does, Uksan Dervishaj.”
Everyone knows what happened at the auction. I’ve never felt better about having blood on my hands.
“A fucking Doukas,” he says with painful recognition that he has entirely fucked shit up. “Oh fuck…”
He starts stammering in Albanian. I assume it’s a prayer, but the big fuck looks like he’s just cursing himself for being such an idiot as to stumble into my trap.
See, this is why I do business under my mother’s name. It makes my work for papa so much easier. I have the element of surprise and a veneer of privacy, so I can lure sick fucks like this one into my trap. He knows about the auction, that means he knows his family business, which as far as I’m concerned, deserves a death sentence.
“Stop talking,” I growl. “Tell me why you’re here. You aren’t tracking anyone, you aren’t establishing a business, so I assume you’re here for surveillance? Who are you watching and what do you people want here?”
“I can’t tell you that. I have a family back home… If I talk…”
“You’ll be dead anyway, Uksan,” I point out. “Talk or not, I kill you tonight.”
“But Grace… What about Grace? You can’t hurt her. I won’t let you.”
Her name on his tongue tightens my chest with rage. I want to kill him for daring to mention her. By the end of the night, Grace will belong to me.
“Is it surveillance or something else? Answer, Uksan. Prove your value to me unless you want to end your life a little faster.”
I set my gun on the table. The pungent scent of piss fills the room. They all do it sooner or later. It’s one of the least unsavory parts of killing but the pungent smell always forces me to suppress my nausea.
“Please… I can’t tell you why I’m here but I can give you other information you want. Please… I’m begging you for mercy.”
Mercy? Does his family show mercy when they auction off little girls?
“You aren’t exactly in a position to make demands.”
He buries his head in his hands, a crop of blond hair falling over his severe face and square shaped forehead. Fuck the Albanians.
“I just want you to protect Grace. Please, just don’t kill her. Promise to protect Grace, and I’ll talk.”
That’s it? A promise I can make… I don’t plan on letting Grace West out of my sight once I lay my hands on her.
I smile at him.
“We have a deal. Tell me what I want to know and I’ll spare your beautiful girlfriend.”
And can you believe it? The man fucking talks.
He’s here to scout our territory and establish the likelihood that they’ll have successful business here. I ascertain his lineage and connect Uksan to the boss of the Albanian mob. He’s the underboss’s son, nephew to the boss, and apparently a colossal idiot of little importance to his relatives since they sent him straight into the jaws of our family.
“What about Grace?” I ask him. “Why involve her?”
I don’t want to find out she’s guilty of this. Some women can be sick too and they can hurt children. My fingers tense around the trigger as I wait for his anger. Please, let this goddess be innocent.
Uksan confirms my suspicions that Grace remains ignorant of his actions.
“I needed someone here. For cover. She doesn’t know who I really am and she doesn’t deserve to die. Please, spare her. She’s not involved in the mob. Please…”
Grace… Trust me, she’ll be spared. It’s almost romantic the way Uksan cares for her. Unfortunately, that won’t save him. I have more important questions.
“Which other brothers do you have here?”
“None of my brothers.”
This shit again?
“Talk…”
I acquire a list of names from the Albanian — Hamza, Kazim, Verush. These three are all spread in apartments along the coast, scouting our territory and taking notes about our captains, enforcers and made men in our territory. They’re gearing up for a war they don’t want. To be fair, Van doesn’t want a war either.
He wants a new way of life, where we exist only to protect what’s ours, not to expand, not to kill for the sake of it. My brother aims for a time when we had more respect, and I can’t say I disagree, despite my current actions.
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?’
My prisoner sounds exhausted and I’m running out of time to kill him. Still, if I have to tell Van I killed outside his orders, I’d better come up with some fucking good information so he doesn’t beat my ass to a pulp or worse, order a bullet between my eyes.
“No.”
Jesus, fuck. He wants to buy time. He wants to stall so there can be a witness to this, but he can’t get around my interrogations so easily.
“Speak, Uksan. Tell me.”
“They’re taking a girl tonight.”
“What?”
“She’s close with your family. She works at Jalousie. A tiny slip of a thing with dark skin…”
“Zara?”
“I don’t know her name.”
“Large eyes? Air-headed?”
He nods. So he’s met her. Shit. I have to get this information to my brother. Soon.
“Where have they taken here? What are their plans?”
Mercifully, I don’t have to torture the information out of him to get it. They have a halfway house in Rome and after that, they’ll take her to Albania. When I ask him why Zara, he doesn’t have an answer. I’m running out of time. I need to finish the job.
“Do you have any last words?”
“No,” he whispers. “I don’t.”
“No prayers?”
“Finish the job, Doukas.”
“Si. Padre Nostro, che sei nei cieli…”
I pray silently for the Albanian since he has no prayers for himself and put two bullets in his chest and another in his head before I slip out the front door, leaving his door ajar and walk back to my apartment to prepare for hell. I have anonymity, a guarantee there won’t be DNA left, and no witnesses.
An easy kill. But I’m still left uneasy. I have to get to Jalousie. I call, but they tell me that everything’s fine and they even allow me to talk to Zara. I have to go to the reception and then return to the apartment. Grace will have returned by then and when she stumbles upon the awful scene here… She’ll need me.
Once I have Grace secure, I’ll stop by Jalousie. Zara will make it, right? I warned her to be careful, that Albanians had plans. She can’t screw this up.
Becoming Giovanni’s underboss has been hard work and that work will only get harder when I tell him the fucked up thing I’ve done.
Dear brother, please understand… I only did this because I fell in love at first sight with an impossible foreign woman who belonged to someone else. I didn’t mean to kill him, but my wild stallion heart got the better of me. Forgive me, brother. Don’t order me to my death.
I want to live. I want Grace West.
After my brother’s wedding, I’ll have her. Forever.
Let me know your thoughts on the first chapter. Throw a little comment in down below!