Tears like acid, p.1
Tears Like Acid, page 1
Tears Like Acid
Corsican Crime Lord, Book Three
Charmaine Pauls
Published by Charmaine Pauls
Montpellier, 34090, France
www.charmainepauls.com
Published in France
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Copyright © 2023 by Charmaine Pauls
All rights reserved.
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Photography by Wander Aguiar Photography LLC
Cover design by Book Cover By Design Ltd
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ISBN: 9782491833220 (eBook)
ISBN: 9798857581377 (Paperback)
Created with Vellum
Contents
Foreword
Previously in Hate Like Honey
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
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Afterword
Sneak Peek of Kisses Like Rain
What to read while you wait
Also by Charmaine Pauls
About the Author
Foreword
Tears Like Acid is the third book in the Corsican Crime Lord series. You must read Love Like Poison (Book One) and Hate Like Honey (Book Two) first. Sabella and Angelo's story concludes in Kisses Like Rain (Book Four). The story includes violence, a hate relationship, an unredeemable alpha-hole, and scenes not recommended for sensitive readers. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
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Trigger Warnings
Triggers include but are not limited to abuse, torture, asssault, blood (gore), death, guns, graphic violence, graphic sexual scenes, punishment, spanking, branding, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, kidnapping, substance abuse, non-con/dubcon.
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Read Love Like Poison Now
Read Hate Like Honey Now
Previously in Hate Like Honey
Corsican Crime Lord, Book Two
After the tragic car accident that claimed the lives of Angelo’s mother and sister, Angelo learns that Benjamin Edwards, Sabella’s father, paid their mechanic to cut the brake cables. Ben’s target was Angelo and his father, Santino. Santino and Angelo swear revenge.
Roch, the bodyguard Angelo employed to protect Sabella, shares the shocking news of the tragic deaths of Angelo’s family with Sabella. When she asks her brother, Ryan, about it, he tells her to mind her own business.
Growing increasingly concerned about her father’s withdrawal and absent-minded behavior, Sabella pays him a surprise visit at the office, only to walk in on a gruesome scene. Santino Russo stands over the body of her father, and Angelo is crouched next to him, holding a gun in his gloved hand.
After rendering her unconscious, Angelo informs Ryan of the turn of events. Sabella wakes up to find Ryan on the murder scene. When she urges him to call the authorities, he tells her that they can’t involve the police. Their father commissioned the hit on Santino and Angelo, which by an unforeseen turn of events claimed the lives of the mother and sister. They have to stage their father’s death as a suicide.
Sabella faints as a result of the shock. During the next two days, Ryan bribes a doctor to keep her in an induced coma for her body and brain to recover from the trauma. Santino returns to Corsica, but Angelo remains in South Africa in case damage control is necessary. When he learns that Sabella has been admitted to hospital, he slips into her room at night.
Angelo’s visits to take care of Sabella manifests in her dreams. When she wakes up, her family is present. Ryan confesses the true nature of their illegal business. Unable to share the terrible truth with anyone, the burden and guilt weigh her down. In an effort to expel the emotions torturing her, she swims out far to sea.
Roch saves her from almost drowning. In a fight that ensues, Angelo orders Roch to return to Corsica for verbally assaulting and pushing Sabella. The confrontation between Sabella and Angelo turns violent, and in the heated argument that follows, their passion gets out of hand.
Sabella hates herself for succumbing to her desire for Angelo again, especially after what had happened. While her family is arranging the funeral, they learn more devastating news. Sabella’s father had a second family that he kept secret from them. At the reading of his will, they meet his mistress and their half-sister. The betrayal cuts Sabella deep. She starts doubting her relationship with her father, not sure what was real.
Concern about Sabella’s near-drowning drives Angelo to seek her doctor’s advice. Could the incident be seen as an attempted suicide? The doctor advises Angelo not to submit Sabella to more stress. He declares that it won’t be conducive to her mental state to move her to Corsica so soon. Eager to finally claim his betrothed and marry her, Angelo is faced with a dilemma. In the midst of having to make a decision, his uncle calls with bad news. Santino had a heart attack. Angelo returns home, leaving Sabella behind once more.
Ryan takes over the business in George. He moves back into the big house with Celeste, his wife, and their son, Brad, to be close to his mother after the ordeal. As Sabella can no longer board with Ryan and Celeste while attending university in Cape Town, Ryan rents her a beautiful villa in Camps Bay.
In the meantime, Angelo is slowly unraveling. At his father’s funeral, he fires Roch for assaulting his future bride. The construction of the new house on his property is complete. He makes arrangements to have his late mother’s poor family moved into the luxurious dwelling. While biding his time to bring Sabella home, he ruthlessly grows the business into a global empire.
The closer her nineteenth birthday gets, the increasingly anxious Sabella grows. On the dreaded day, she locks herself in her secure villa, only to discover Angelo in her bedroom. When she confronts him, he confesses that he not only pays for her rent but also for her studies and living expenses. He puts a ring on her finger and gives her a day to come to terms with their pending marriage and her move to Corsica.
Devastated, Sabella drives to Great Brak River to confront her family. Ryan admits the truth, for the first time coming clean about the marriage contract their father made with the Russo family but refused to honor. Sabella finally understands why Angelo stole incriminating evidence to blackmail her father to sign over his business. Angelo’s end-goal was forcing her father to honor the marriage contract.
In a desperate attempt to escape, Sabella plots to marry her best friend, Colin. Angelo is furious when the security company staff he hired to follow Sabella and her family inform him that the Edwards family disappeared without a trace. With the help of street surveillance cameras, Angelo locates them at a church.
Just as Sabella and Colin are about to get married, Angelo and an army of men burst through the doors. After marrying Sabella at gunpoint, Angelo whisks her off to France in a private plane.
The start of their marriage is turbulent. Angelo punishes her for her betrayal. In the confrontation that follows, Sabella points a gun at him, earning yet another punishment when they board Angelo’s yacht in France.
Before Angelo can depart for Corsica, Lieutenant Lavigne from the French gendarmerie boards the yacht under the pretense of investigating a domestic disturbance complaint. Instead, he plants drugs on Sabella and arrests her. Angelo watches helplessly as the armed men who outnumber him drive his wife to the police station.
A furious Angelo calls his lawyer to arrange for bail. In the meantime, Lieutenant Lavigne submits Sabella to a humiliating full-body search and uncomfortable conditions to try and break her before offering her a deal. He promises her freedom in exchange for information and evidence that will enable him to put Angelo behind bars.
After the lieutenant drops the charges against Sabella, Angelo takes her to a hotel for the night. At first light, they leave for Corsica. He contacts his informant in the bureau to get a copy of the video recording of Sabella’s interrogation. To his dismay, he learns that the tape has been wiped clean. It can only mean one thing. Lavigne offered Sabella a deal. Angelo knows that he can’t trust his new wife.
Things only get more complicated when the newlyweds are met by Angelo’s uncles and cousins in Corsica. Uncle Nico and Enzo urge Angelo to kill Sabella, not only because she’s a threat to their family, most likely working with the police, but also to honor his father’s dying wish.
When the housekeeper, Heidi, shows Sabella the wedding dress Angelo’s mother had made for her, Angelo walks in on the scene. The dress triggers his grief and vengeance. Even though he doesn’t hold Sabella accountable for her father’s sins, he blames her for everything that happened. Everything that transpired was because of her. For her. His grief compels him to punish Sabella, who stubbornly refuses to beg for the very air she breathes.
Unable to sleep, Sabella sneaks to the kitchen and makes a cup of tea. On her way back to her room, a strange pull draws her to Angelo’s late family’s quarters. Angelo discovers her in his sister’s room. In her fright, Sabella accidentally knocks down his sister’s jewelry box and breaks both the box and a Venetian glass bead necklace.
Believing that she was looking for evidence to use against him, Angelo is consumed with rage. Making good on his promise to whip her, he drags her to the cellar, but finds himself unable to go through with it. Instead, he banishes Sabella from his house, driving her in the middle of the night to an unknown destination.
Tears Like Acid
Chapter
One
Sabella
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Newlyweds.
We tied the knot not a day ago.
And my husband already banished me.
He hates me so much that he dragged me into the cellar and took a whip from the wall after he found me trespassing in his late sister’s room.
I suppose it’s something that he didn’t bring that whip down on my back. My feet are cut, my knees are bleeding, and in the late hour of the winter night, wearing nothing but his shirt, I’m freezing. Yet it could’ve been worse. As well as I came to know him, it could’ve been a lot worse.
We’re speeding in his car over a gravel road in the middle of nowhere. After his violent explosion of anger, we’re quiet, each of us digesting our thoughts. I’m huddled in my corner, trying to get my fear under control.
We’ve been driving for at least twenty minutes. Nothing except darkness and a deserted landscape stretch out around us. The road is in bad shape. I’m jostled in my seat, my hip bumping against the door.
My anxiety flares when he slows the car down. Up ahead in the distance, a house rises in the light of the moon. The dwelling is smaller than the castle in which Angelo lives. At a glance, it looks to be built from the same yellow stone. As we near, the headlights of the car illuminate a handsome, modern structure with big windows.
I hold my breath as he cuts the engine but leaves the lights on. Not giving him time to come around and pull me from the car, I jump out when he opens his door. In the stark lights that cut two broad paths across the yard, I spot destruction. Broken flowerpots litter the path. Pieces of debris are planted in the soil.
Locking his fingers around my bicep, he drags me across the muddy yard to the house. On the veranda, he pauses to take a key from underneath a broken terracotta pot. He unlocks the door and shoves me inside. I stumble, catching myself before I go down.
A light flicks on. The spacious room is unfurnished. The floor is swept, but it’s dirty. Smells of rot and mold hang in the air. A large window reflects the overhead light. The view beyond is obscured. Instead, the glass mirrors the inside, projecting an image of Angelo and me standing apart on the wooden floor with me in his shirt and him dressed in nothing but pajama bottoms. The cold doesn’t seem to bother him, but the disks of his nipples are contracted into flat, hard circles. The muscles in his chest bunch as he flexes his fingers.
“This is your new home,” he says to my back, addressing my reflection in the glass. “This is where you’ll stay from now on. You’ll present yourself to me if I grace you with my presence, naked and on your knees. Do you have a problem with that? Or must I remind you the only reason your family eat and has a roof over their heads is because I allow it?”
“No,” I bite out, hugging myself. “I don’t need reminding.”
He smiles. So cold. So detached. So inhumane. “Good.”
He turns and slams the door behind him.
I stand frozen to the spot, not only unable to move but also uncertain about what to do. The lights sweep over the room as he turns the car around, and then I’m buried beneath a dark night. The crunch of the tires on the gravel fades with the hum of the engine until silence cloaks me too.
I’m somewhere unknown, miles away from the main house in a foreign country. But I’m alive. My knees buckle under the weight of the relief. It’s not until now that I realize how certain I was of dying tonight. It only hits me when the crash after the adrenaline high leaves me weak and covered in a cold sweat.
I take a moment to gather myself before walking on shaky legs to the windows to find my bearings. In the far distance, lights flicker at the bottom of a valley. It must be a small village no more than ten kilometers away. Automatically, I categorize the information. However, my priority is getting warm. I’m shivering uncontrollably.
The house looks empty. I walk from the spacious room through the adjoining door into a kitchen, leaving bloody footprints in the film of sticky dirt covering the floor. I open a few cupboards. Save for plastic utensils, the shelves are empty. So are the drawers. I turn on the tap and am relieved when the water runs warm.
Switching on lights as I go, I make my way upstairs in search of a bathroom. There are five bedrooms upstairs, each with an en-suite bathroom. Like the rest of the house, the rooms are devoid of furniture, except for a king-size mattress that lies on the floor of the biggest room.
Choosing that bathroom, I turn on the shower and let the warm water cascade over me. Blood and mud run in rivulets over the mosaic floor, disappearing with a swirl down the drain. When the water runs clear, I turn off the tap.
Angelo’s shirt serves as a towel, but that leaves the garment wet and me completely naked in the icy coldness of the house. Now that I can more or less function again, I search for the central heating control and find a panel against the wall. When I turn on the thermostat, the red light comes on. Thank goodness. At least the heating works.
With nothing else to do, I sit on the mattress and inspect my feet. The soles are cut but not too deeply. My knee is bleeding again. I press the wet shirt on the wound and eventually settle for tying the shirt around my knee like a bandage. Then I curl into a ball on the mattress and close my eyes, imagining that I’m somewhere else, somewhere warm and happy, anywhere but here.
Chapter
Two
Angelo
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I’m so furious I can’t think straight. That’s what she does to me.
Sabella.
My wife.
I swear to God, she’s the only person who can drive me to such volatile violence. When I deal with any other enemy, I’m controlled. The fury is a weapon I use to fuel me. With her, it’s the reverse. The fury controls me. Yet the beast inside me that makes me more animal than man wouldn’t allow me to whip her. The monster that lives under my skin wanted to protect her. It wanted to save her from its own savage anger.
If I’d been rational and in control of myself, I would’ve punished her. I would’ve beaten the truth out of her, because if I had any doubts before, I now know without question that she’s untrustworthy. Why else would she snoop around my house in the dark, risking my wrath? Perhaps that’s why I’m pushing myself so hard to be unfeeling toward her. It’s the only way to protect myself. No matter how much I lie to myself, her betrayal will disappoint me. No, it’ll slay me.
I know what my uncles will say. That I should kill her. That I should shackle her in the basement and torture her. It’s only fair. That’s how we deal with traitors.
