He is poison, p.1
He is Poison, page 1
He is Poison - Book 1
K.A. Merikan
Acerbi & Villani ltd.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living, dead, or undead, events, places or names is purely coincidental.
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Text copyright © 2014 K.A. Merikan
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Guns n’ Boys
K.A. Merikan
— Love is sour like a Sicilian lemon. —
The Family is always right.
The Family doesn’t forget.
The Family pays for blood in blood.
Domenico Acerbi grew up in the shade of Sicilian lemon trees ready to give his life for the Family. Ready to follow orders and exceed expectations. A proud man of honor.
When Seth, the younger son of the Don is kidnapped, it’s Domenico who is sent to get him back. The man he finds though, is not the boy he knew all those years ago. Lazy, annoying, spoiled, and as hot as a Sicilian summer.
Seth Villani wants nothing to do with the mafia. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get a say when the Family pulls him right back into its fold after his mother’s death. Thrown into a den of serpents otherwise known as the Villani Family, Seth has to find a way to navigate in the maze of lies. But when Domenico Acerbi, the most vicious snake of them all, sinks his fangs into Seth, the venom changes into an aphrodisiac that courses through Seth’s veins.
Domenico knows his life is about to change when he gets the order to train Seth up to the role of future Don. Seth isn’t made for it. He isn’t even made. But a man Domenico knows he would never have to fear might just be someone he’s always needed.
If Seth is doomed to follow in his father’s footsteps, he might as well enjoy himself—with the most intoxicating man he’s ever met. Maybe he can even fool himself into believing that Domenico isn’t a handsome sociopath who kills for a living.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS:
Themes: Enemies to lovers, mafia, homophobia, assassin, organized crime
Genre: Dark, twisted erotic romance / crime thriller
Erotic content: Explicit gay sex, coercion
WARNING: Adult content. If you are easily offended, this book is not for you.
Guns n’ Boys is a gritty story of extreme violence, offensive language, abuse, and morally ambiguous protagonists. Behind the morbid facade, there is a splash of inappropriate dark humor, and a love story that will crawl under your skin.
We want to thank our Polish readers, whose love for these characters kept us writing relentlessly and improving the story to make it what it is now. Without that support, writing wouldn’t have been the same.
Dorota, for beta-reading and fangirling.
Serena Yates, for being so generous with your time and proofreading for us.
Aleks Voinov, for all the chats that encouraged us to break rules and write the story that keeps us up at night. Not to mention lending one of your characters to us and supervising him so we wouldn’t get hurt.
Kat and Agnes (K.A. Merikan)
Foreword
Guns n’ Boys is a mafia homoerotic series.
The first book is divided into two parts due to its length, each around 100,000 words, so it is a long journey with these boys. Their relationship is rocky to say the least. We want to take you on a rollercoaster ride with no safety belts. There will be blood, violence, abuse, jealousy, and scorching hot sexual chemistry. We’re planning to have the next part out within a month, so the pace will be fast and furious :).
We started writing this book in 2007, and now, seven years on, we decided to give it a new, better life. It is a story close to our hearts, and we hope readers fall in love with our anti-heroes as much as we have. While this isn't a traditional kind of romance, we can promise that when the whole story is finished in the far off future, the ending will be a satisfying one.
Chapter 1
Pain at the back of Seth’s skull was making him want to throw up the lasagne he had just… how long ago? He had no idea and was just as clueless about where he was. The smell of curry from the bag over his head was making him more nauseated with every breath he took. Sensation rushed back to him and assaulted nerve endings all over his body. Everywhere apart from his hands. He could barely feel his fingertips, arms tied behind the chair he was sitting on and numb from the rope digging into the skin of his wrists.
His breathing sped up, making the bag over his head cling to his face every time he tried to inhale deeply. Seth didn’t know where he was, who had abducted him, or what his future was to be here, but he wasn’t as ignorant as to state he didn’t know what was happening at all. Even if there was no personal fault of his, he could be sure that being tied to a chair with a bag over his head had a lot to do with being a Villani.
A crunch of dirt under someone’s shoes snatched all his focus, and he stopped trying to move his numb fingers. “Who’s there?” He hardly recognized his own voice, now shaky and with a higher pitch than usual.
Instead of answering, his captor slowly walked around the room, extending Seth’s anxiety into an eternity of imagined future torture.
“What’s happening?” Seth groaned, this time in Italian.
Light blinded him for a split-second when someone pulled the bag off his head. As soon as his eyes started adjusting to the dim illumination of the single lightbulb, he looked up at the man in front of him. He was a chubby, short Asian, but with the confident way he was holding a gun in his hand, Seth wouldn’t dare underestimate him. In the dark, empty room, with Seth unable to defend himself, this situation could quickly take a turn for the worse.
Seth swallowed and quickly glanced around the room. No windows.
“Who are you?” he moaned in English again.
The stranger squinted and cocked his head to the side. “Seth Villani,” he said with a strong Mandarin accent.
Seth swallowed hard. “Yes?” Only then he realized there was a barely audible breath somewhere behind him.
“I hope we didn’t snatch you away from any important assignments,” said the man in front of him as he took a step closer. Too close for Seth’s liking.
He tried to even out his breath, but he was hurting all over and wasn’t sure if he should play the tough guy act, or play nice. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“Unfortunately, we have unfinished business with your father.” The abductor ran his fingers through his short pitch-black hair. "You are quite an asset in the argument he and I are having."
“But I… I have nothing to do with it! I left Italy five years ago.” Seth slouched in his seat and for once, he wished he wasn’t a big guy. He wished he could be small enough to just disappear. Shrink into the chair. He knew all too well that talking to the man in front of him was like trying to eat clear soup with chopsticks. Any argument he might have would slip right through.
“I’m afraid, Mr. Villani, you have a lot to do with it.” His words had no emotional coloring to them whatsoever. He looked above Seth’s arm, to the faceless third person in the room, and gave a curt nod.
A sharp snap turned Seth’s blood into ice, and he tried to look back in panic. Why the fuck would they not understand he didn’t even talk to his father much? He was done with the Family. A glint of blade made Seth inhale deeply when he spotted it from the corner of his eye.
“Just tell me what you want!” he screamed, but the stranger shook his head, stepping back with a blank face.
Seth lost his breath when someone’s hands brushed against his, and even with the numbness, he could sense someone squeezing his little finger.
“He’ll give it to you! He will! Just let me go!” Seth squealed and tried to writhe away, but it turned out the chair was attached to the floor. Screwed to it like some freaky torture device.
A sharp pain exploded in the side of Seth’s hand, and the person behind him pulled on the finger, as if trying to rip it off. The blade cut through Seth’s skin without mercy, and Seth’s cries, his screams at the top of his lungs, couldn’t change a thing about his situation. He imagined the pain would have been even worse if his hands weren’t so numb, but nothing prepared him for this never ending ordeal. The butcher behind him got stuck on the bone, and Seth cried like a child, his arms shaking uncontrollably.
Losing consciousness was bliss.
Seth’s days and nights went by in a pitch-black room, with him falling in and out of sleep or walking in circles. If he stayed here for too long, he feared he would get heart arrhythmia. The only times he got a glimpse of light from the corridor was when someone brought him food, and he awaited those moments with both dread and excitement. He got used to the damp air, the smelly mattress he was given for sleeping on, the scant comfort of the thin blanket. Whenever someone entered his cave of solitude, change was imminent, and change could mean either a meal or another severed finger. There seemed to be a regularity to the visits, but Seth eventually lost track of time. Another thing he lost was his appetite. He ate because he knew he had to, but if he ever got out, he would never have another tikka masala in his life.
With all the time on his hands, he had more time for thinking than he ever wished to have. He followed orders and kept quiet, since he already knew the people who held him were capable of anything. Seth fantasized that he could take on one of them, but then what? Even if he stole the gun from the first guy, he was underground, God knew where, and there had to be at least a dozen more Triad scum out there.
Another thing he agonized about when he lay sleeplessly was his mother’s funeral. He’d learned about her death only hours before he was taken. She had been ill for a long time, he knew it was coming, yet the fact that he couldn’t even pay his last respects made him nauseated with guilt.
His boyfriend was probably worried sick, but as much as Seth felt sorry for Peter being left in the dark, thinking about him helped Seth focus on something other than the pain in his hand. He kept replaying the last weeks together in his head over and over.
The wait had no end. Days? Weeks? Without windows, Seth didn’t even know if it was day or night. He desperately tried to make out a pattern at first, but his captors seemed to randomly wake him up, whether just out of cruelty or to deliberately confuse him, he didn’t know. They would tear the blanket off him, scream in a language he didn’t understand, bang on the radiator with a baseball bat, breaking the silence and turning Seth into a pile of shaking goo.
The pain was less of an issue than that. Seth became so used to it, he forgot about it now and then, but the furious throbbing in his hand always came back with a vengeance. It took three beatings for Seth to realize questions would be met with violence, so he stopped talking to his captors altogether.
The day he got dragged out of the room started out like one of those horrible moments meant to confuse him, but there was no baseball bat, no unnecessary noise. Two men dragged him out, and the bright white lights of the corridor had him squint to shield his eyes from the painful glow. After a short cold shower, he got an ill-fitting suit that was a mockery of tailoring and shoes that were too large for his feet. He had no idea what was happening. Would he be shipped off to somewhere else? Surely they wouldn’t bother to let him bathe just to kill him? He dared to ask about it but was only told to dress faster. Maybe his family finally chose to act? As much as he didn’t want to have anything to do with them, he’d never had warmer thoughts about his father than now.
Seth was led down a narrow corridor with a low ceiling so full of cables and pipes it seemed to be adorned with industrial-themed Christmas decorations. They finally got to a door at the end of it, and bright light blinded Seth for a split-second when it opened.
He was overwhelmed by the sharpness of the air that filled his lungs and the sun coming in freely through the sides of the building. He tried to understand where he was, but the space looked like an oddly empty parking garage.
He squinted for better focus as his captors pushed him forward. Seth’s lips parted at the sight of two groups of men gathered close to a few expensive cars. Asians on one side, white men on the other, most with tanned, olive skin and dark hair.
Sicilians.
Seth opened his eyes wider, and his heart beat furiously. Was it all going to be okay? Would they buy him out?
His gaze instantly darted to a man who took a step forward, moving ahead of his group. Partially because he held a black suitcase, which hopefully contained a ransom that would get Seth out, partially because the man was so freakishly handsome. Seth’s mind was sent into a parallel reality for a few seconds.
A snap of the suitcase opening brought him crashing back to reality, and what he saw were neat stacks of hundred dollar bills. The handsome Sicilian looked sleek like a panther, with his long black hair tied back into a tight ponytail. His moves were confident, as if he were born to keep calm under pressure. The way he stood straight in his tar-black suit brought out the pride in Seth and made him straighten his back despite the pain in his muscles and joints. In a battle of suits though, Seth’s would lose before the fight even started. The immaculate tailoring on the black piece of art created an angular silhouette from the man’s wide shoulders to the slim waistline. Even looking at the dark perfection had Seth itching to take off his blue insult to fashion. The man’s tie was elegant and slim, while Seth didn’t even wear one.
One of the Asians stepped forward, took the suitcase, and brought it back to their leader. Seth didn’t follow him, remaining captured by the Sicilian, who looked up at him with a pair of amber eyes. Their gazes met, and Seth stopped breathing. It was like being watched by a puma, the man’s eyes never blinking and intense. Seth wasn’t sure if he wanted to take a step forward or run away. Those eyes were cold and scrutinized Seth as if he were a piece of merchandise worth much less than what was being paid for it. But maybe that wasn’t what hid in that perfect skull? Maybe it was Seth’s bruised ego talking, since he was mad at himself for having to be rescued like a baby. In the end, Seth’s insecurity won, and he looked away, trying not to think of the shrubbery of a beard on his own face and how it compared to the smooth-shaven skin of the handsome mafioso.
The Chinese boss must have confirmed that he was happy with the amount of money because the man behind Seth removed the cuffs that held back his hands. Freedom came as such a surprise that Seth didn’t move right away, taking a second to look at the red marks on his wrists, but the moment he realized he could, his legs moved on their own, carrying him forward in a frantic jog. The tiny smirks on a few faces made him regret acting so hastily, but what was done was done.
All the Sicilians backed away to their cars, including their leader, whose rich cologne whispered, “Follow me and fuck me on the backseat”. So Seth followed, keeping close behind him. He noted, not without satisfaction, that he had about an inch on the guy.
“What happened? Why was I taken?” he asked everyone and no one, still aware of a nervous overtone in his voice. He gripped the wrist of his left hand when a stab of pain reminded him of the missing finger.
The handsome stranger stopped and looked at Seth over his shoulder. “You shouldn’t have tried to get a hen house on Craigslist,” he said and snapped open a lighter.
Seth just watched him, dumbstruck by the answer. He did get ambushed on the way to pick up the item. From an anonymous seller. Fuck.
The mafioso lit a cigarette as he gave orders to the other men. His profile was like an actor’s, with a straight nose and lips of the most perfect proportions. For a moment, Seth thought that maybe the guy was an actor, employed for some unknown reason, but there was something familiar about him that Seth couldn’t pinpoint yet.
“Take him where he tells you to, and I’ll pick him up in an hour and a half,” the man said in a voice so deep that it sent a shiver down Seth’s spine. Seth was beginning to feel annoyed by this visceral reaction. This was just some hot guy. It was time to shake it off since homosexuality was non-existent where he was going.
A gay mafioso was a dead mafioso.
Seth’s lips parted as he watched the man adjust the lapels of his suit with his long fingers, decorated with three different signets. “What’s the day today?” he finally choked out. He felt so rugged and beat-up in comparison to this beautiful man. Even if the man himself couldn’t care less, Seth couldn’t stand the unsaid competition, and it sparked a yearning for grooming and nice clothes that he couldn’t yet satisfy.
“September tenth,” said one of the men who stayed with Seth when his wet dream left without paying him further attention.
“Who was that, anyway?” Seth tried to sound like he didn’t care all that much, but that man was the one thing he could talk and think about without pain and shame after two weeks in captivity.
“That’s Domenico Acerbi.” The driver of a sleek black Maserati opened the door for him.
“What?” Seth frowned and got into the car, thrown off balance by the new information. The Domenico Acerbi? The scrawny boy with whom he used to play as a kid? “Why did Father send him? Never mind, I’ll talk to him myself,” he added before he got an answer. The fact that he let himself be thrown off balance by someone like Domenico Acerbi was just getting him aggravated.
