Rival
1339 Words
An involuntary little whimper escaped my lips at Mr. Bellavore’s words, a pathetic sound I hated myself for making. The reaction was instant — both men’s heads snapped toward me like wolves catching the sound of a wounded animal.
I dropped my gaze to the floor so fast it was like my neck was on a hinge.
“Levanta la puta mirada,” the younger man growled, his voice deep and rough enough to scrape bone. It wasn’t even that loud, but it hit like a gunshot. I had to stop myself from flinching. Slowly, like pulling a bandage off too slow, I lifted my eyes.
He was already looking right at me. Not just looking , pinning me there, like he could hold me in place with his stare alone.
Danger radiated off him. It wasn’t in the way he stood, though he looked like he could break someone in half without trying. It was in his eyes, in the lazy cruelty of the smirk threatening the corner of his mouth. The tattoos snaking up his arms and crawling up his neck weren’t art for art’s sake , they were marks of pain, earned or given. I wondered how much it hurt to get them, whether he’d sat there stone-faced while the needle dug into skin.
I almost got a tattoo once. I chickened out. No shame in admitting it. But this guy? This guy probably got his ink done while laughing.
Not that it mattered. I wasn’t here to wonder which of these men would be “better” to stay with. I wasn’t even given the f*****g luxury of that choice.
Our eyes stayed locked far longer than felt safe. I couldn’t breathe right, couldn’t pull away. He didn’t blink, didn’t move. His tongue pressed against the inside of his cheek like he was weighing something in his head. Then, without warning, he looked away and faced his father again.
“La tomaré.” The words came sharp, in Spanish, and I didn’t understand them.
I just stared, feeling stupid and small.
The smile that spread across his father’s face made me wish I could rewind the last thirty seconds and disappear. “Of course you will. You’re going to ruin my fun, eh? After I was done with her, I would’ve passed her on to your brother. I wouldn’t keep her.”
My stomach churned.
I grew up in this kind of world , where women were treated like whores, trophies, disposable things. But hearing it said about me, so casually, like I wasn’t even a person, made my skin crawl.
I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted blood.
“Stop f*****g doing that.” His voice cracked through the air, and I let my lip go immediately.
The younger Bellavore , Dante, though I didn’t know it yet , sighed like I’d already disappointed him. “Well, it’s my one million you blew through, so you can scurry off.”
“Your one million?” his father shot back.
“I run the f*****g mafia, don’t I?” Dante’s eyebrow lifted in challenge.
It wasn’t just posturing. There was something jagged between them , not pure hate, not love, just… bad blood that never healed.
I told myself to hope, to pray, that the younger one wasn’t as vile as his father. But he was the head of the Mexican mob. Hoping for morality here was like hoping a loaded gun wouldn’t go off if you pulled the trigger.
Still, he had said he wasn’t going to r**e me. Pathetic as it was, I counted that as a f*****g win.
“Are we done here? I’ve got s**t to do.”
“Your guys told me it’s your day off.”
“Well, I’d rather not waste it arguing with you. If you’ll excuse me.”
Dante didn’t wait for an answer. He turned on his heel and walked out, no hesitation, just gone , leaving me alone with the creep that sired him.
“You’ve been quiet so far. Keep it up. But seduce him or something. Dante’s too goddamn uptight sometimes.”
Uptight? Was he talking about the same man who just bragged about having women whenever he wanted?
“Remember, he might own you now, but if I have a complaint, the Italians will work on you.”
Whatever “work on you” meant, I didn’t want to find out. “Yes, sir,” I murmured.
He gave me one last measuring look before leaving too.
I stayed frozen, my feet heavy, my brain empty. Eventually, I sank onto the couch. Footsteps moved around somewhere else in the house, never close, just the ghost of movement in the distance.
I’d just started looking around, trying to figure out where the hell I even was, when the front door opened.
An American man walked in , tall, blond hair, bright blue eyes that looked like they belonged on someone in a beach town, not in this world.
But when he spoke, the accent was pure Russian. “Christ. You’re jumpy.”
I managed a weak, nervous smile.
“When I heard what Dante’s little present was, I had to see for myself.” His eyes traveled over me, not exactly gentle but not disgusting like the old man’s. “Damn. Despite how gorgeous you are, he didn’t look thrilled.”
I kept quiet.
He laughed, shaking his head, running a hand through his hair. Then he held that same hand out toward me.
“I’m James. You?”
“Olivia,” I said softly, letting him shake my hand.
“Olivia?”
“Olivia Maine.”
He paused, his eyebrows shooting up. “Olivia Maine? As in that Maine? Eden Maine’s daughter?”
I nodded once.
“f**k me. Dante’s old man is a twisted son of a b***h. How the hell did you end up here?”
The answer stung. My own father sold me out like I was furniture he didn’t want anymore. That betrayal was a fresh wound I didn’t know how to stop bleeding.
Tears pricked my eyes before I could stop them, and I blinked hard.
“s**t,” James said quickly. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m sorry.”
The apology almost made me laugh. In my world, men didn’t apologize. They f****d up and expected you to deal with it.
“There’s a smile,” he said, noticing. “Don’t you talk?” He facepalmed a second later. “Of course you do, you just told me your name. Dante left you here alone?”
I nodded.
“Come on, then.”
He walked fast, but slowed when he saw I was struggling to keep up. The hallway twisted and turned; I knew I’d never be able to retrace the path.
James threw open a door, and there was Dante, a knife in his hand, his arm moving in precise, lethal arcs.
“Her name’s Olivia Maine,” James said, his voice tinged with amusement.
Dante froze. Slowly, he turned to face us. “I’m going to kill my father.”
I had no idea what he meant or whether he was serious, so I asked, “Why?”
Dante barely glanced at me before returning to his knives. James answered for him. “Because Dante here f*****g hates your father.”
“Dante,” the man himself corrected sharply.
“Dante,” James said, rolling his eyes. “Basically hates your whole damn family. His father pulled this s**t just to f**k with him.”
I bit my lip again, nerves crawling under my skin. Of course my luck would dump me with someone my father had made enemies with. God only knew what he’d do to me now.
“Stop f*****g doing that,” Dante snapped without looking at me.
The tone in his voice this time had ice in it.
I swallowed hard. If he kept me, what the hell was going to happen next?
- Writer
