Sleeping With Vengeance

  Dark & Twisted Tales

  Penelope Wylde

  Contents

  In the know…

  Sleeping with Vengeance

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Dark and Twisted Tales

  Coming next from Penelope

  Sons of Bratva Savages

  Brand new series coming!

  Newsletter + Free Book

  Also by Penelope Wylde

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2023 Penelope Wylde.

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by Em Petrova

  Proofread by Charity Chimni

  Cover Design: Bookin’ It Designs www.bookinitdesigns.com/

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email to authorpenelopewylde@gmail.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Visit my website at: www.penelopewylde.com

  Sleeping with Vengeance is set in my Sons of Bratva Savages Universe. You hear about the Savages and the men of Genesis in Sleeping with Vengeance. You can find their stories and additional connected books below.

  Sons of Bratva Savages:

  Savage Justice - Ares & Nova

  Savage Thief - Dragon and Asena

  Savage Chaos - Riot and Lilith

  Savage Sin - Rage and Persephone

  Savage Hunter - Wolfe and Avery

  SAVAGE UNIVERSE:

  Room Eight - Sapphire Constantine

  Reign of Villains - Harlon, Cassius & Santi’s duet

  Room Seven - Aster Constantine

  Room Six - Magnolia LaFleur

  Sleeping with Vengeance - Briar, and her men

  MORE FROM THE SAVAGE UNIVERSE:

  Reaper, Room Two, Room Seventeen, Their Dark Reign

  SAVAGE LOVE:

  Mercy for Three, Honor for Three, Justice for Three

  Sleeping with Vengeance

  All three of my betrotheds are cold, vengeful killers.

  I’m told the only way to dissolve the poisonous thorn thrust between our two families is to give myself over to the three older men.

  Only then will the curse be lifted from my family.

  Gold, diamonds, money…

  No amount of treasures will sate their hunger.

  The three seductive and charming mafia men want nothing less than my heart and soul.

  But vengeance is all I’m after. I have no business sleeping with the enemy. But our fates are entwined with an arranged marriage I didn’t agree to. If I break the promise everyone I love dies.

  They swear on their blood they will never let me go.

  Want to know a secret? I hope they try to keep that promise.

  Prologue

  Briar

  Pastel pink is my favorite color. It reminds me of the innocent days I lived with my eyes glued wide shut. Back when I slept through the heinous crimes my father committed against our community and city. I loved him blindly then. He swore it was to provide me with a crown worth wearing as his sweet beauty. His priceless treasure.

  I grew up believing his vile lie.

  All the way until the day he turned wicked. Rotten. Despicable to the core.

  I lost the meaning of being the Erose beauty when he revealed the depths of his treachery and greed.

  On my eighteenth birthday, my innocence ended.

  I’ll never be that sinless again.

  Before, they came into my life.

  Before my father bartered me off to save his precious Erose kingdom. The day I found out my true worth to him.

  Before they killed my parents and hunted me like savage animals.

  My life is about to shatter into a million jagged remnants of the dreams I once craved.

  In their place, nightmares thrive. Each one is laced with the thirst for vengeance.

  Blood and curses.

  The pureness of a daughter’s love and the dreams of a happily ever after with Prince Charming are the start to all my fairy tale dreams.

  What a fucking joke.

  Dutiful little princesses don’t always end up with the good guy.

  Sometimes the perverse villain shows up on your doorstep with brothers and they all share the same warped sense of possessiveness your momma warned would end with someone’s death.

  One slip of paper and a scrawled signature in blood is all it takes for the villains to possess my life.

  I’m not priceless after all.

  Nothing in my life will ever be the same again.

  In this kingdom, the king doesn’t protect his princess. He takes the price tag off, kisses her on the forehead and hands her over to the villains.

  Sleeping Beauty is about to wake up and I know how to use a gun.

  One

  Briar

  The deafening sound of silence has my palms sweating. Usually at this hour the house is lively with my parents preparing for guests.

  I never wanted to be a princess, but I see no other option than to play my part in tonight’s dinner party. Or rehearsed skit, as I like to call them. Just another chance for my father to flaunt his wealth and power. Everyone around him must play their part—my mother, the doting, obedient wife. The young maids in their cute uniforms serve the guests and let the men smack their asses while my father gloats about taking three of them in the pool house while my mother cries herself to sleep. Nightly.

  And then there is me. The dutiful daughter who never steps out of place and knows never to speak unless spoken to.

  It’s tiresome after eighteen years.

  Instead of hearing the bustling feet of the hired help preparing for guests to arrive, it’s dead silent on the other side of my bedroom door.

  I peek out to find the hall, stairs and massive foyer void of anyone. Damn. Not even the dogs are moseying about.

  I see my aunts have also come and worked their birthday magic. An ocean of pink and white roses drape from every available space. Their sweet scent carries along the cold air whipping through the chilled Erose mansion and filters into my room as I prepare myself for the shit show to come. It’s the same every year. My three aunts, bless their sweet souls, gather my favorite flower and weave their dainty stems into intricate webs of beauty for my special day. But if you look closely all those beautiful petals hide sinister thorns underneath.

  That’s my life. Rosy and perfect on the outside and to everyone looking in, my crown glitters in the sunlight. To them, my opulent, privileged life is a dream they wish they could have. But they don’t know what I know. They can’t see past the glimmer of lies woven around the Erose kingdom. As they shouldn’t. My father has constructed the intricate web of deceit and deception over the course of a lifetime in crime. No one sees the lies because he doesn’t allow them to. But if you see past his cloak, one prick of an Erose thorn and your days are numbered. He’s got the scent of your blood and he won’t let you live.

  That is the truth. Sinister and vile, just like all the hidden thorns under those pretty petals I love so much.

  That is about as good as I can sum up my life. It’s not as pretty as it seems from the outside, right? Yeah, I’m disappointed too.

  And in an hour, I have to put on my best performance. I’ll have to dig deep to find the smile I’ll need to plaster on my face for my mother’s sake. I can’t say I am in the mood for the vanilla and buttercream birthday cake either. But the show stopper will come when I accept my father’s birthday hug in front of all his wealthy friends.

  I’ve lost count how many times my father has told me his enemies would kill to have what is his—wealth, influence and…me. That I should kiss his ring and come to heel or else.

  I smooth out the invisible creases in my dress with nervous strokes.

  When that doesn’t help, I grip my fingers into a small fist and release.

  Grip, release. Grip, release.

  But my hands still tremble when I hold them up in the lamplight. I wrap them around my middle and grip my elbows. It’s easier than looking in the mirror over my vanity table and telling myself I don’t share blood with a mafia killer. He might try to hide the truth of his lethal nature, but you can only hide the blood and the bodies for so long before the stench follows you home.

  My mother’s words echo in my head every time I close my eyes. She’s right. Blood stains my father’s hands and by association, it covers mine, too.

  I pull on my right glove and cover one p
alm and then the other.

  “Hello eighteen,” I mutter into the emptiness of my room. For one day I can hide the truth about my family and pretend I am like all my friends—a normal rich bratty girl who has it all. Tomorrow I can go back to loathing my life. If not for me then my mother and her three sisters. They deserve every shred of happiness they can find. Only a couple more years of this and I can escape the emotionless black hole my home has become. When I’m twenty, I’m gone and I will never look back. I made my mother that promise and I will honor it.

  Heavy feet thud on the enormous staircase. I crack my bedroom door open to find two hulking, blank-faced Erose enforcers outside my room a moment later. All that is missing are the black sunglasses, hand to God, and they would look like government men.

  “Yes?”

  Their lips curl up like I make them sick. “Your father wants to see you.”

  Two sets of black eyes hold mine captive. The chaotic energy around them and the fact they look like death in Armani screams for me to escape the first chance I get.

  Ha! Fat chance. These two brutes are big but I’ve seen how fast they can move in those leather-soled dress shoes. They are even faster drawing their weapons.

  Bullet holes don’t make great birthday presents. I reach for my diamond studs and slip one earring in and then the other, without giving the men much importance. They can’t kill the boss’s daughter without a reason. Being a pain in the ass isn’t cause for playing target practice like it’s a game of pin the tail on the donkey.

  Lefty grunts instead of using his words. Righty snaps his fingers like I should come to heel. I bet he’d get a kick out of seeing me on a leash and subdued on my knees like a good bitch.

  I pin them with fake indifference. “Father? About what? The dinner party isn’t for another forty-five minutes and the guests haven’t arrived yet.”

  I could fight them. Kick one in the balls and use the vase of flowers on the end of my vanity on the head of the other. But to what end? My father always gets what he wants. Where there are two enforcers, there is an entire army.

  They do nothing but stand there and wait for me to obey.

  “Fine. Where do I find him?”

  I brush past the brutes in suits with little earpieces sticking out of their ears and start down the stairs. Four-inch heels make my progress slow. Apparently neither of them is in the mood and take my arms in their unmerciful grip. With little care of bruising me, they drag me down the stairs. The second we are at the bottom, they release their hold. I stumble but don’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me fall face first into the gleaming marble floor.

  I catch myself, and don’t bother flipping them off. One day they will get what is coming to them. I won’t have to lift a finger.

  “Briar!” Aunt Emerald steps out of my father’s office with my other two aunts on either side. My mother’s younger sisters are inseparable and tonight’s no different.

  Three sets of violet-gray eyes sweep across the marble to find me. All of them are in elegant dresses with their hair swept up in various styles of twists. Round glasses sit on elegantly shaped noses and they all have the poise that comes from growing up in a wealthy family. They are in their mid-forties and only a few years younger than my mother.

  “Oh, no! Are you okay, sweetie? You two should be careful with the princess. What are you? Animals?”

  That is Aunt Pearlyn. Bless her heart she can’t stand to see a single soul—good or otherwise—hurt. She presses a hand to her lips and hisses in a sharp breath.

  For whatever reason, I think it’s a good idea to answer the question with a sarcastic chuckle when they grunt like boars.

  That earns me another shove and this time I think I might eat marble after all. I stumble and my hip comes in contact with a large table in the center of the foyer. The vase wobbles along with me.

  Aunt Jade crosses the foyer, ready to lash into the enforcer. She’s more of the act, don’t speak of the three.

  I hold a hand up. The brutes won’t hesitate to hurt any of them if they interfere with their orders to deliver me to my father.

  “I’m okay. Truly.” I straighten my dress and find my balance. “Let’s get on with whatever this summoning is about.” Storm clouds roll over my aunts’ expressions, but they turn on their heels and head toward the kitchen.

  I huff. Behind us a clock chimes. It won’t be long before the guests arrive. Night is nearly here. The chandelier gives off a soft glow, but it will take more than a few watts to beat back the cloak of gloominess suffocating the space. A part of me wants to ask who died, but I’m afraid of the answer I might get back.

  Thinking better of it, I seal my lips and brush at the invisible electricity crawling over my exposed shoulders and arms instead. I can’t shake the feeling something bad is about to happen.

  Cool air filters through the large entryway to the Erose mansion. To the left is a parlor. That is where we will receive guests in less than an hour. More roses litter the space brightening it with fake merriment.

  To my left is a private library where my father will retire with his friends before we’ve gotten to the cake portion of the night.

  But what lies twenty paces ahead is what has my heart seizing. A familiar orange glow of light bleeds from beneath two large oak doors.

  Ugh. My stomach rebels. I press my palm over my midriff to help with the queasiness, but it’s not working. My father’s office is where people go in and sometimes don’t come out. I know because I’ve watched from the stairs in the late hours of many nights and witnessed a side of my father I wish I didn’t know.

  Those same stone balustrades I hide behind are now covered in more draping flowers. Each floral piece clings along the fringes of the sloping limestone like it desperately wants nothing to do with the horror show about to unfold below.

  Same. I rather not be here either.

  My handlers’ large shoulders bust through the delicate decorations causing the hanging pieces to sway. They stop a few paces away from my father’s office no more than robots waiting to receive direct orders.

  Roses snag in my hair. I brush them away, but a sharp point scrapes along my cheek. Damn things. Droplets of blood form along the shallow scrape. It feels like an omen, but I never was one for reading into signs.

  Righty flings his free hand at the roses, causing pieces to fall over my loose hair. Pink and white petals brush against my face, their gentle touches mocking me.

  After tonight, you will never be as pure as us again.

  Two

  Briar

  I fiddle with the lace edges of my glove. The cute white design matches the lace along the bottom of my dress. Focusing on the worthless details of a silly dress is easier than waiting for my life to fall to pieces.

  “Bring the girl in.”

  Heat scorches my face. Truth be told, it’s eating me up from the inside out.

  The girl. As if I wasn’t his beautiful little princess at one time. My father might as well drive a blade into my heart. I rub at the stab of pain. Or at least I try. The two lifeless brutes carting me around like I don’t have feet and the ability to walk grip my arms so tight, my fingers tingle with the loss of circulation.

  It feels like I cross an ocean of marble before they push open the door to my father’s private study and drop me unceremoniously in the middle.

  “Fuckers,” I seethe. Their soulless eyes meet mine. A voice in my head says to back down, but I square my shoulders like an idiot. My chin goes up and I drill holes into their skulls with a glare I know I can never deliver on. Karma will take care of them. Sometimes I don’t know if I am brave or stupid. Maybe I’m just tired of being pushed around.