Blood and Secrets 3: Mateo: The Calvetti Crime Familia, #3

By Rose Harper

Wanna know a secret?
Skeletons don't like to stay buried.
They wait; they watch; then they strike while you're at your most vulnerable.
As it turns out, my skeleton is the deadliest of them all, and they seriously pissed him off.

For a little over thirteen years, I mourned the death of Luca.

The only man I loved and trusted,
But the one they forced me to kill.

My brother.

But if the man sitting in front of me now is right,
He's the skeleton in my closet I didn't know I had,
And he's come with a few secrets of his own.

Secrets that rival mine.

I just hope he realizes what he walked into,
Because I'm not the little girl he ambled out on years ago.
Now, I'm the perfect weapon with only one mission in mind,
And it's not the contract resting over my head.

No;
My mission is to keep my King safe,
while he unravels the mysteries looming over our heads.

I'll be damned if I fail this task.
Be damned if I fail him.

Mateo is the only one I care about right now,
And if my brother makes one false move, I'll kill him for real.

Only this time … I'll enjoy every second of it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.M. Roberts
• Release date: Feb 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386978619

Book preview

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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COPYRIGHT

SYNOPSIS

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

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COPYRIGHT

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Copyright © 2018 by Rose Harper, All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations within critical reviews and otherwise as permitted by copyright law.

NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance to real life is purely coincidental. All characters in this story are 18 or older.

Copyright © 2018, Rose Harper Publishing. All rights reserved. www.authorroseharper.wixsite.com/books/

Edited by Mitzi Pummer Carroll

Mitzi Carroll: Editor

Proofread by Marisa Nichols

Marisa Nichols: Proofreader

Cover Art by Mae’s Wicked Grafix

Mae’s Wicked Grafix

SYNOPSIS

––––––––

Wanna know a secret?

Skeletons don’t like to stay buried.

They wait; they watch; then they strike while you’re at your most vulnerable.

As it turns out, my skeleton is the deadliest of them all, and they seriously pissed him off.

For a little over thirteen years, I mourned the death of Luca.

The only man I loved and trusted,

But the one they forced me to kill.

My brother.

But if the man sitting in front of me now is right,

He’s the skeleton in my closet I didn’t know I had,

And he’s come with a few secrets of his own.

Secrets that rival mine.

I just hope he realizes what he walked into,

Because I’m not the little girl he ambled out on years ago.

Now, I’m the perfect weapon with only one mission in mind,

And it’s not the contract resting over my head.

No;

My mission is to keep my King safe,

while he unravels the mysteries looming over our heads.

I’ll be damned if I fail this task.

Be damned if I fail him.

Mateo is the only one I care about right now,

And if my brother makes one false move, I’ll kill him for real.

Only this time ... I’ll enjoy every second of it.

Blood and Secrets:3

The Calvetti Crime Family

1

CARINA

Jerking awake, I’m confused, bewildered as I choke back a scream, furiously rubbing the goosebumps pebbling along the tops of my naked arms. Feeling the plush carpet beneath me, I push myself into a seated position, confused as to how I got onto the floor in the first place. A mixture of perspiration and desperation cling to every facet of my being as my eyes snap over toward the chair in the corner, expecting to see the menacing figure of my brother reclining in it.

To see his eyes, stolen of any warmth. To see his smirk, deadly pegged as seductive when it’s anything but. To see that picture resting at his feet on the plush, velvety carpet.

Only he’s not there. Even though it felt so real, he’s nowhere to be found.

The only inhabitant is Mateo’s suit jacket he divested himself of earlier when we made our way in here. It’s haphazardly thrown over the back, the tail just skimming the floor, as if it’s fighting for purchase to keep from falling the rest of the way.

My chest feels like a two-ton anvil is sitting right on top of it, causing my breathing to release in choppy, forceful increments. My mind is everywhere at this possible second, trying to separate reality from fantasy.

Was that all just a dream? A figment of my overactive imagination? Did I finally pass over the threshold of crazy town, becoming one of its newest residents?

The sights, sounds, aromas, and frostiness that caressed my body like a lover felt too real for it to be anything but. Yet, the longer my gaze stays steadfast on that lone, ornamental chair reclining in the corner—seemingly forgotten—the more something doesn’t sit right with me. I just don’t know what it is.

After all this time, I dream about my brother. After years upon years of never thinking of him, one slip of the tongue and I have a dream that feels too real to be ignored. A man I had to kill with my own two hands to keep my father from lingering around to finish the job himself.

Why?

Why is my mind playing tricks on me when it knows I’m already so close to slipping into the vast nothingness I had to claw my way out of?

It doesn’t make any sense. The dream. The realness of it bouncing around inside my head as if it was never a fictional reverie, but a prophesy of the future.

In the flesh, baby sis. Did you miss me?

If anything, it should be professed as a nightmare. And that nightmare felt like it was trying to tell me something I know can’t be true. There’s no way, because I made sure of that when I was a little girl. Even to this day, I can still feel the thick, warm, coppery sweetness of his blood as it slid down my fingers, ending its raining torment on the floor in a puddle at my feet.

Ugh. I hate all this uncertainty. Hate the unknown. At least before coming to Mateo’s house I knew what my purpose was. I was trained to maim, torture, and kill. Now, I feel like I’m the little goddamn housewife who waits on her husband to get home from work. The one who makes brownies, cleans the home, and runs after their little children with glee.

That’s not who I am; it’s never who I was made to become. The only way I would cook anything for anyone is if the recipe called for poison. The only thing I will clean is the blade of my knife after I take out a mark.

The only children ... I’ll never have any children. The agony of the past is too much to bear with the thought of children. Never again. Never will I yearn for something I don’t deserve.

And now, thanks to all this crap, my body is fighting with my mind. It’s conjuring up shit that can’t possibly be real. No matter how much I will it with every bone in my body to be otherwise, my brother is dead and he’s never coming back.

The faint rays of impending sunlight stream through the half open blinds. I feel its warm caress surrounding me, trying its best to settle me. I’m too unstable for shit like this to continue—too fucked up to allow my thoughts and feelings of the past to rule me.

Inhaling a shuddering breath, I rise from my seated position. Grabbing the robe off the decorative bench at the foot of the bed, I wrap it around my body and cinch the tie at my waist. The warmth and silkiness of the wrap does nothing to relax me, make me feel calm and collected. If anything, the plush richness of the housecoat puts me more on edge the longer I’m awake.

No matter how hard it’s going to be, I need to get that dream out of my mind. It’s simply that. A dream. There are no ghosts from my past about to walk through the door, and no skeletons about to fall from my makeshift closet.

Instead, I need to focus on the here and now. Focus on finding out who thought they could attack this home and get away with it, leaving Vinny cold and lifeless before all of us. They may think they got away with it now, but they’re in for a rude awakening when I get through with them.

The hell has only just begun, and I’m going to be the devil who plucks at their dancing strings.

A quick glance over my shoulder shows me Mateo still sleeping off our night together, and I don’t know why, but the sight brings a smile to my weary face. Just knowing he isn’t rising with the sun—that because of me he’s in a deep, restful sleep—makes me feel all warm and toasty inside.

I didn’t know what to expect when we first came up here after he sent his father away. Sure, sex had crossed my mind. But I didn’t expect both of our obscure, desolate souls to connect the way they had. It felt extremely different than it ever had with Rossi. More raw, primal—earth-shattering. It’s everything consensual sex is supposed to feel like, yet the