Given to Madness Read online

  Winter Fox

  Given to Madness

  A Dark Romance

  First published by Winter Fox 2019

  Copyright © 2019 by Winter Fox

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Winter Fox asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  First edition

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  For H & J

  Contents

  Liss

  Liss

  The Lieutenant

  Liss

  Ilya

  Liss

  Ilya

  Liss

  Ilya

  Liss

  Ilya

  Liss

  Ilya

  Liss

  Ilya

  Liss

  Ilya

  Liss

  Liss

  Liss

  Liss

  Ilya

  Liss

  Liss

  Liss

  Liss

  Ilya

  Liss

  Ilya

  Ilya

  Liss

  Ilya

  Liss

  Liss

  Ilya

  Liss

  About the Author

  1

  Liss

  “Please, Alessio. Don’t make me go today. Just a few days longer. Please?” My voice sounded pathetic even to my own ears, and I knew exactly how weak it must have sounded to my older brother. But right now, I didn’t give a shit. He was about to break our already annihilated family unit apart, even more.

  He turned angry, dark Italian eyes on me. But when he looked over at my tear-stained face—I never usually cried, I had too good a handle on my emotions—his eyes softened a little.

  “What else can I do, Liss? You know the deal. You’re promised, and if I don’t make good on that promise…” He didn’t finish—he didn’t have to.

  If my brother didn’t hand me over to “Mad” Mariusz Sokolov, then there would be a civil war in our home city. And the biggest problem with that wasn’t the war part. It was the fact that the Russians would take us the fuck apart.

  I would die, Alessio would die, and so would my baby brother, Matteo. There really was no hope for me. But there still was for them.

  I met my brother’s eyes with my own. My eyes were a strange amber color which didn’t match either of my siblings. I had inherited my unusual coloring from my English mother, while they had both had the good fortune to inherit their soft, brown eye color from our Italian father. We all had the same rich, chocolate colored hair and bronze skin however.

  I was also the only child in our family who didn’t have an Italian first name. Apparently, my mother had battled with my father, to be able give her little girl a name which she had loved her whole life long. My father eventually gave in—standard practice in our household. And that was the story of how I came to be called Liselle Marchesi.

  My name was ridiculous. It had no origins, no meaning, and it was about as pretentious as a name could be. Which was why I always opted for the shortened version of “Liss.” Unless I was forced to use my full title in a more formal situation.

  My mother had hated my choice of nickname. But she had been dead for six years—there was nobody left to tell me what I should call myself. So, now I was always Liss.

  Alessio shook his head sadly as he spoke. “Liss, if I could tell him to fuck off, or go to hell, I would. You know I would. But the only way we can secure our place as the second family in this city, is if you marry him.”

  “I know,” I whispered resignedly.

  Alessio crossed the room, and wrapped his arms around me, hugging me tightly against his three-thousand-dollar suit.

  “I love you, sorella.”

  I hugged him back with equal ferocity. It was a rare moment of softness from Alessio He was usually stern, and cold. Wearing a mask which he’d first had to adopt when Mariusz Sokolov broke into our home and murdered our parents, six years ago.

  The problem was, Alessio’s mask came off less and less these days. My big brother had had to be the strong one, to ensure the remainder of our family survived the decimation by the Russians. He had been twenty when my mother and father died. I had been fifteen, and our baby brother had been just six-years old.

  Alessio had bent the knee to Mariusz on that night—just a room away from where the bodies of my mother, and father lay. My brother had pledged his allegiance—and the allegiance of the Marchesi empire—to the Sokolov empire.

  But Mariusz had wanted more.

  Mariusz had wanted me.

  “Your sister. How old is she, Alessio?” Mariusz had gestured toward me with a blood-stained hand. The blood of my mother and father.

  I was cowering in a corner of the room, holding my sobbing baby brother against my hip. I met Mariusz’s eyes, and quickly looked away again. I saw it then. The madness which everyone talked about. He laughed while he tortured and killed people, if you believed the rumors. And I did believe the rumors about Mad Mariusz.

  “She is only fifteen-years old, Mariusz,” Alessio answered tensely.

  I trembled in fear as the Russian man’s cold, blue eyes returned to my face, and started to trace their way slowly down my body. I knew my brother was more than capable in a fight. But he couldn’t fight Mariusz and hope to survive. And he sure as shit couldn’t fight Mariusz, and the men who were standing in the room with us, quietly watching the scene unfold.

  The four men who had accompanied Mariusz on his murderous mission to our home were all members of his personal guard. There were actually five men who made up Mariusz’s elite protection team. But on that night, one had obviously been dealing with business elsewhere. Although four had been more than enough to have taken out sixteen of our live-in security detail—and both of my parents.

  When their missing member was present, the men were collectively known as the “Five”—name innovation at its pinnacle. And they were each as cold, hard, and ruthless as the other. It was said that Mariusz wouldn’t allow a man to join his Five unless the man had killed at least a hundred times.

  Trembling in terror, and desolation, I had looked at each of the four men in turn. They stood as still as statues. They were all huge, muscled hulks, and covered in tattoos from head to toe. Each man had closely shaved hair, and none of them was under six-three in height.

  But the thing that really made them alike was the cold, dark emptiness behind those four sets of eyes. It was as though they were completely, unchangeably dead inside.

  And they were all loyal to the death, to Mariusz.

  Mariusz’s words dragged my attention back to him. “Hmm. Fifteen is too young.”

  Alessio visibly slumped in relief. But I remained as tense as ever. The mad man hadn’t finished, I could sense it.

  Making his way to a drinks cabinet in the corner of the elaborate reception room of our hillside mansion, Mariusz poured two glasses of vodka. Turning back to my brother, he offered him one of the glasses, and Alessio accepted it with only the slightest shaking of his hands.

  Mariusz lifted his own glass, and quickly poured the clear liquid down his throat. And In one quick swallow it
was done. Alessio copied the other man, downing his vodka in one. But he couldn’t hide the grimace of displeasure which flickered across his tanned face, as the drink burned its way into his body.

  Mariusz laughed loudly—but every one of his men remained silent. Cold. Dead inside.

  “I want her.” Mariusz spoke matter-of-factly, as he crossed back to the drinks cabinet, and snatched up the vodka bottle again.

  “What?” Alessio stammered.

  Mariusz filled his own glass to the top; before crossing back to my brother and pouring another shot of the vodka into his empty glass. His eyes mockingly meeting Alessio’s confused gaze.

  “I want your sister, Alessio. She’s beautiful. She’ll be fucking exquisite by the time she becomes a woman.”

  “She’s only a kid,” Alessio’s rasping voice betrayed his rage, only ever so slightly.

  Mariusz stepped back from my brother, just sipping at his vodka this time. “I don’t fuck children, Marchesi. I don’t want,” he paused to look at me now. “What’s your name?”

  I might have been young, and I might have been afraid of this man, and his cold, dead warriors. But I was also the daughter of one of the most infamous, organized crime lords in the country. I was born into Italian mafia royalty. Even if this man had just torn our castle down, brick by brick—I had been raised to fear no one. I’d never had to kill like I knew my brother had. And I’d never had to fight. But I had watched men die.

  I could be cold too.

  Raising my chin defiantly, I straightened my back a little more—difficult with Matteo in my arms—and I met “Mad” Mariusz’s eyes with my own. I answered him in my hardest voice.

  “My name is Liselle Marchesi.”

  It was such a tiny movement, I might have missed it. But out of the corner of my eye, I just caught sight of the slightest shake of my brother’s head.

  Mariusz barked laughter. And in that moment, as I glared boldly into his eyes, I realized the Russian wasn’t mad in the way that people thought he was.

  His eyes were filled with a darkly superior intelligence. He was smart in the same way a tiger was smart—stalking his prey until it was weak from blood-loss, and desperately limping away in an attempt to escape him. Then. Only then. Would he strike, and take his time in tearing you apart. Piece by piece.

  Mariusz wasn’t mad. He was a perfectly developed psychopath.

  “I like your spirit, little one.” Mariusz’s stare increased in its intensity. He narrowed his eyes almost imperceptibly, and continued to gaze at me.

  I stared back. Knowing that I was an idiot. All I was doing was drawing attention to myself. But I hated him for killing my parents, and I wanted him to know it.

  Finally, he looked away, and I breathed out a long sigh of relief. The Russian raised his glass toward my brother.

  “You need to prove your new unwavering allegiance to the Sokolov family, Alessio. And I want proof that your family won’t rise up, and try to do the same dumb shit that your parents did. So, I will make you an offer that you cannot refuse.”

  Alessio stared at Mariusz in mute silence—his knuckles were white around his glass. In hindsight, I think he’d had a much better idea about what was coming than I had.

  The Russian continued speaking. “We will unite our families. We will be one great family, with an unstoppable power behind us. Your family is weak now. Broken by me. You’re fair game to all of those vultures, and gutter rats who are currently circling the streets—hoping to get a taste of the fallen Marchesi family’s blood.”

  Alessio sipped at his vodka, and nodded. It was all he could do.

  “I am ten years older than your little sister, Alessio. It wouldn’t be right to do anything for a little while. But once the beautiful Liselle Marchesi is twenty-one. You will hand her over to me, and she will become Liselle Sokolov. Our families will be bound by the blood of mine and your sister’s children. And you will never try to usurp my fucking position in this city, again.”

  Mariusz raised his glass to Alessio in a toast; before throwing the whole glass of vodka down his throat, and slamming the glass down violently on the table.

  “Mariusz, please? Not that,” Alessio begged.

  The atmosphere shifted. “It wasn’t a fucking request. You should be honored that I want the daughter of a traitorous piece of shit like your father, in my bed.”

  I turned wide, terrified eyes to my brother. I was not going to marry this man. I couldn’t—I’d die before I’d give myself to him.

  Alessio took two steps toward the Russian, his hand reaching for his gun, which I knew was tucked into his belt at his back.

  He got no further than those two steps. One of the cold, dead men who waited patiently while we talked suddenly unfroze. In a single movement—which was far too quick and elegant for a man of his size—he stepped forward and lashed out with his elbow; splitting my brother’s nose apart in a gush of crimson agony.

  The Five were rumored to have been trained in hand to hand combat in training camps in Siberia. And it was said that they preferred to fight without weapons, due to their unstoppable strength and ruthless ability. All of the men were carrying, but the one who had stopped Alessio hadn’t touched his gun, and neither had any of the other three.

  They weren’t worried about my brother in the least.

  Mariusz stepped forward, until the toes of his expensive leather shoes were only inches from my brother’s kneeling form. And Alessio stared up at our tormentor through fingers which were knitted in front of his nose. Unsuccessfully trying to stem the flow of blood.

  “You can keep you sister until she’s twenty-one, when you’ll give her to me as a gesture of good faith between us. Then I will know for sure that you won’t betray me again. Because if you do, I’ll take a knife to her myself.”

  Alessio didn’t speak, he couldn’t manage it through all of the blood which was cascading down his face. But he did manage to dip his head into the tiniest nod.

  And just like that, I no longer belonged to the fallen Marchesi family. I belonged to the Sokolov empire now.

  2

  Liss

  Alessio stepped back from our embrace. Holding me by my shoulders—at arms’ length—he smiled. “Mariusz was right about one thing.”

  “What?” I wondered if that was the last time that I’d ever hug my brother.

  “You did grow up to become an exquisite woman.” He smiled sadly at me.

  I gave him a small tilt of my lips in response. “Exquisite enough to be sold off to a Russian drug lord.”

  Alessio bowed his head ashamedly. “You aren’t being sold, Liss.”

  “No,” I snapped. “I’m being given, and somehow that’s worse.”

  I closed my eyes tightly. Trying to remember my parents faces—they were, after all was said and done, the reason we were here today. But I hadn’t been able to properly envisage them for the last four years. Their images had just sort of faded from my memory the longer the days grew between when they lived, and them being gone. I loved my mother and father, and I missed them every day. But I also hated them a little for what they did. For what they had done.

  Our family had ruled over every aspect of organized crime in this city for the last seventy years. We were an old family. And although we were criminals, we were old school. Everything was done by the rules, and the only people who ever died, were people who knew exactly what they were getting themselves into.

  I was relatively sure that I wasn’t a truly good person. You couldn’t truly be good if you were a Marchesi. And although I’d never really been involved in the family business—I’d sure as hell profited from it. My shoe collection alone probably cost more than most people’s houses.

  Our home was a sixteen bed, nine bath fortress. Which sat half way up an isolated hillside overlooking the city below. The city which we had owned up until the Russians showed up.

  Over the last twenty years our empire had grown increasingly smaller, as we were gradually squeezed on a
ll sides by ever increasing new-blood. Pockets of organized crime sprang up across the city, and they began to chip away at the Marchesi legacy. It seemed that all of a sudden, everybody wanted to have a shot at being a gangster.

  So, by the time “Mad” Mariusz Sokolov was sent from Russia by his father, to overthrow our family, we were already well and truly fucked.

  My mother and father had called in every favor they were owed, and I’m sure they did a lot of threatening too. But it was too late. The petty criminals had gone over to the other side. Mariusz owned the city, and he tore it from my family’s grasp on the night that he killed them.

  Now Mariusz’s father was dead, and so was his older brother, who had operated a third Sokolov stronghold in Tallinn. With no family left of his own, the Russian had decided that he liked the USA so much he was going to make our city his home. And now we lived on the scraps he sent our way—which was still just about enough to maintain the façade of a rich empire.

  If we hadn’t declared loyalty to him on the night that he won the war, we would all be in the ground by now. And truthfully, as things stood, Alessio would probably make much more money once I was Mariusz’s wife.

  Alessio broke through my thoughts. His voice was pitchy. “You know if it was just me that we had to worry about, I’d kill him. You think I want to whore my sister out to that prick?”

  I shook my head and the curls in my freshly washed hair bounced. I knew I was an attractive woman. My long dark hair fell to my waist in a cascade of soft curls, my skin was a smooth bronze color, and I had cheekbones that tons of people had told me they would kill for.

  For some strange reason, my amber eyes seemed to appeal to other people, even though I though they made me look strange—unearthly even.

  But I hated my face. My face was the reason that I was waiting to be collected by my fiancé today.

  “Everything is for Matteo,” I said firmly.

  And that was true. If it was just me and Alessio then we probably would have told Mariusz to go fuck himself a long time ago. But my baby brother was an innocent in all of this—just as I had once been—and I would see the dark side of hell before I’d let Mariusz lay a finger on Matteo.