His To Claim: An Instalove Possessive Age Gap Romance Read online

  CONTENTS

  His To Claim

  NEWSLETTER

  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

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  NEWSLETTER

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS

  BRATVA BEAR SHIFTERS

  LAIRDS & LADIES

  RUSSIAN UNDERWORLD

  IRISH WOLF SHIFTERS

  Collaborations

  About the Author

  HIS TO CLAIM

  AN OLDER MAN YOUNGER WOMAN ROMANCE

  _______________________

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS, 225

  FLORA FERRARI

  Copyright © 2020 by Flora Ferrari

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.

  HIS TO CLAIM

  Arturo Amato is a man who takes what he wants. The seven foot silver haired forty-one year old giant drips confidence and experience.

  He never takes no for an answer. He destroys his enemies. And he’s set his sights on me.

  His worst enemy is my father, the head of a rival mafia organization. I think it’s just about business at first.

  I’m just a nineteen year old mafia princess who’s spent too long living a lie, never knowing what my family really does. But then Arturo kidnaps me, and my whole world changes.

  “You belong to me now. You do what I say when I say it. You’re my property. Rule number one—you never look at another man.”

  I know I should fear this man, but when he lays his hands on me I let my secret romance fantasy life come out to play. I’ve often read and dreamed of doing the things he asks of me, but the truth is I’m a virgin.

  What if I can’t give this possessive, jealous man what he wants? What happens when Dad finds out about me and his arch-rival … and onetime best friend?

  Dad and Arturo grew up together, but somewhere along the way, things went south.

  And now bodies have been dropped, men dead on both sides of the mafia war.

  I might have to confront some cruel truths about my family… and maybe even about my new lover, as we fall deeper and deeper into our obsession.

  Maybe I can make this a good thing. Maybe I can live up to Arturo’s savage expectations. Maybe I can juggle Dad and Arturo and their resentment. Maybe I can even fulfill my dreams of becoming a singer.

  Or maybe everything’s just going to go very very wrong.

  *His To Claim is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with a HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Aida

  I stare out of the window and watch the countryside roll by as we make our way back to my father’s estate. The visit to see Lacy was a short one, just like all my approved visits are these days.

  I’ve never been told explicitly that my dad is involved in the criminal world, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what all this extra security is about.

  We’re at war.

  It’s the only explanation as to why I wasn’t allowed to see Lacy for more than half an hour before my father’s men started pounding on the door, yelling to see if I was okay.

  Lacy’s face pinched up as though in discomfort at the noise, my old friend’s features becoming taut and anxious. I felt guilt niggling at me as I rose to my feet with a sigh.

  She didn’t need me bringing this trouble to her door.

  Whatever this trouble is, exactly.

  Hazy late-winter sunlight dances across the fields, glinting as it melts yesterday’s snow, the whole landscape covered in its winking light.

  The driver is one of my father’s men, his face fixed firmly on the road. I remember when I was a little girl how these men would make a fuss over me, talk to me openly and let me share in on their jokes to some extent.

  But these last few years, all of them have receded, as though the moment I started to become a woman they knew better than to risk a laugh or a smile.

  Now that I am a nineteen year old woman, they barely even look at me, probably scared that Dad won’t take too kindly to them ogling his daughter.

  I hate it, not because I want to flirt or anything like that – I don’t, and anyway, I’m terrible at that sort of thing – but because it’s just so isolating and lonely.

  I sigh again, wondering if that’s the fifteenth of sixteenth time, and then let out a few notes from between my lips. I used to be self-conscious about practicing my singing in front of Dad’s men, but I soon realized that it doesn’t make any difference.

  It’s not like they’re paying attention, anyway.

  Another sedan drives ahead of us, packed window to window with my father’s men, all of them ready to leap out and protect me at a moment’s notice.

  This doesn’t make me feel safe like maybe it should.

  Instead, I just feel trapped, even if the bars of my cage are gilded like the cliché.

  But hey, maybe cliché’s exist for a reason sometimes.

  I sing softly, wordlessly, trying to let myself believe that I sound good, not terrible, not embarrassing.

  But self-esteem has never been my forte.

  Perhaps it would be easier if I knew what I was being protected from, but Mom and Dad are always intent on keeping me ignorant where Dad’s business is concerned. It’s like they still think I’m a little kid, scared of the dark, scared of reality. The truth is I’d much rather know just what the heck’s going on than live in this in-between space, constantly wondering, constantly questioning.

  “What the fuck?” the driver murmurs.

  I flinch, my gaze snapping to him as shock recoils through me.

  Dad’s men never swear in front of me.

  The driver – a man everyone calls Snaps – is a short man with a flat face and a twice-broken nose. He glances at me in the rearview, frowning.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he says, as he brings the car to a slow stop.

  The car in front of us has slowed, forcing the stop.

  Snaps lowers his window and sticks his head out.

  “What’s going on?” he calls.

  “Body in the road,” another man calls back.

  Ice water moves through my veins, making me cold and shivery as the words collide into me with their heavy impact.

  Body in the road.

  What does that mean, a human body, roadkill, what?

  I lean forward to try and get a better
look, but the car in front is obscuring my view of the country road.

  To the left of us, trees try to creep onto the tarmac, the forest shadowy and dark within. I didn’t think about how creepily dark the underbrush was as we were driving up, but sitting here with that coldness shooting through me, it seems hyperreal.

  “What sort of body?” I mutter, stunned at how calm my voice sounds.

  “It’s fine,” Snaps says. “We’ll be moving in a minute.”

  “That’s not what I asked,” I tell him firmly.

  He sighs and glances at me briefly. “I don’t know, ma’am.”

  “Could you check?”

  He shakes his head. “Afraid I can’t leave you.”

  “I’ll check then,” I say, as if all the puppeteering has suddenly and violently become too much, all the go there, go here, stay here, do nothing.

  It just explodes inside of me and I reach for the door handle.

  Snaps moves quickly, locking my door. I tug on the handle but there’s no give. I sit back, already letting out a sigh of defeat.

  I’ve tried to outfox Dad’s men a few times, and it always ends this way, with a locked door and an implacable expression.

  I know I’m not going to convince Snaps to open the door, so my only choice is to wait.

  “Come on,” he murmurs under his breath.

  He sticks his head out of the window again.

  “Fellas, what the fuck is—Oh, shit.”

  He quickly darts back into the car and puts it into reverse.

  It takes me a second to realize what’s going on.

  A gruff-looking man with a shock of tangled black hair – covered in blood as though to pretend he’s a corpse – is circling three of my father’s men.

  He has the fourth man pressed close to him as a human shield, a gun aimed at his head.

  My heart drums loudly in my chest.

  My first instinct is to flee, but when I grab the handle, of course, it’s locked.

  The car starts to back up—

  Pop-pop-pop-pop.

  Four gunshots ring out, surprisingly quiet. I scan the surrounding area – the otherwise quiet road, the rolling hills, the trees, and the darkness – and finally, I spot two men emerging from the forest and one man climbing out from behind a bush on the other side of the road.

  “They’ve blown our fucking tires,” Snaps growls. “Jesus Christ.”

  “What do we do?” I say shakily, struggling to hear Snaps or myself or even my thoughts over the incessant drumming of my heart.

  Snaps glances at me in the rearview, his frowning wavering. His expression tells me everything I need to know. There’s nothing we can do, not when they already have one of our men hostage and three men are approaching, two of them pinning their sights on the car ahead and the last one – a grinning balding man wearing a dirty leather jacket and holding a gun with a silencer – stalks toward our car.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them, pal,” he grins at Snaps, tapping the silencer of his gun against the glass, tap-tap-tap, like rain.

  I almost laugh at the thought.

  It’s raining gunmen.

  I try to bring my thoughts into some sort of order, but they scatter and strangle me in panic.

  All I can do is stare as the balding man turns his leer to me, wisps of damp hair spiraling, making him look old and oddly babyish at the same time.

  “I think it’s time you climbed from the car, little lady,” the man grins.

  Up ahead, the two gunmen who got the drop on my father’s men are already corralling them near the trunk of the car. The one with the human shield strips him of his weapon and shoves him roughly so that the three of them can surround our men. Then, as the two aim their guns, the third quickly searches them for weapons and starts tossing them into the forest.

  “And you,” the man goes on, nodding to Snaps. “We’ve done this nice’n clean, but I’m ready to make things ugly if you want it to go like that.”

  “You’re just going to shoot us the second we get out of the car,” Snaps says, shaking his head. “So that’d be a fuck no.”

  “I can shoot you when you’re in the car just as easy, pal,” the man snarls.

  Snaps and the man stare at each other for a moment, and then the man laughs grimly.

  “Motherfuckers,” he growls. “Bulletproof, eh? Fair enough.”

  He turns his gaze to me, his beady eyes roaming over my body. I find myself leaning back and pulling the sleeves of my hoodie down, feeling as if I’ve slipped into some warped nightmare.

  I want the hoodie to swallow me and let me disappear.

  “Here’s how it’s gonna go, little lady,” he says. “For every thirty seconds you stay in that car, I’m going to kill one of your daddy’s men. If your driver or you tries to call anyone, I’m gonna kill one of your daddy’s men. Sound good? Good. And by the way, the timer’s already started. I’d say we’re at about ten seconds. So make up your mind quickly.”

  I stare at the men, huddled together, looking weak and far more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen them. I remember laughing and joking with them when I was younger. I remember all the times Mom and Dad would have them around for dinner, and how they smiled and laughed with their wives and their children.

  I can’t be responsible for their deaths.

  I won’t.

  “Snaps, open the door,” I say shakily.

  “No fucking way—”

  “Open the door,” I yell, smacking the back of his seat with the heel of my hand.

  “I can’t do that, Aida,” he snaps.

  “Twenty-five seconds, Aida,” the man says, the way he says my name making my skin crawl. “Better make up your mind …”

  I dart my hand out to the window switch and press the button to lower it.

  Snap reacts quickly, slamming his hand down on the override to send it buzzing back up.

  But the balding man reacts quicker, shoving the tip of his gun into the gap so that the mechanism jams and whines.

  “I’d stop doing that, if I were you,” the man snarls, voice louder now without the glass separating us. Cold wind rushes in. “Or maybe I’ll start unloading into the car.”

  “Snap, we don’t have a choice,” I whisper. “We have to get out.”

  “Don’t worry,” the man grins. “We’re not interested in you. Just the girl. She’s coming on a little trip with us.”

  My chest seizes and Snaps gaze meets mine in the rearview mirror.

  I feel like he’s trying to tell me he’s sorry with his eyes. He reaches across and presses the unlock button.

  Immediately, the man’s hand is on me, the butt of the gun pressed coldly into the small of my back.

  He marches me into the forest, every step making me flinch at the notion of a bullet tearing through my spine and exploding out of my belly.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” I gasp as the soaked underbrush rises up around my chins, drenching my sneakers and sweatpants.

  “Just keep walking,” the man says. “We’re not going to hurt you. Don’t worry. You’re with the good guys now.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Arturo

  “What the fuck did you do, Elmo?” I snarl, pacing up and down my office with my fists clenched.

  Elmo flinches every time I come close to him, as though any second I’m going to wrap my hands around his throat and crush it until all the life drains out of him.

  He’s wearing his leather jacket and spirals of sweat-damp hair hang at the sides of his head like he’s in the process of being electrocuted.

  Elmo stands at about five foot ten, so when I move across the room to stand over him, I’m staring across over a foot of space, my hulking body filled with rage and fire pumping through my veins. Jackal looks up from his sleeping place in the corner, the jet black Great Dane eyeing us curiously, letting out a soft rumble when he realizes how pissed I am.

  “You said we needed to make a statement against Franco,” Elmo murmurs.
>
  “I said I needed to make a statement,” I snarl. “At no fucking point did I tell you to gather a team and kidnap his daughter. What the hell’s gotten into you?”

  His lips shudder and I fight the urge to punch him across the jaw for showing such weakness.

  More and more lately, my consigliere has been making a fool of himself.

  But it’s one thing to whore your way across the city and take any woman to bed who’ll have you – and being my second, there are plenty who will – and quite another to make Family moves without my say-so.

  “I was just trying to help,” he says.

  “You’re on some shit, aren’t you?” I growl.

  He flinches, eyes flitting around the room as though looking for an escape.

  “Don’t lie to me,” I go on, thunder in my voice. “I can forgive a lot of things, old friend, but we both know that lying isn’t one of them.”

  Elmo shifts sideways and walks around me, over to my wide oak desk. He reaches out and idly prods at the world globe there, causing it to spin around and around in its gold-gilded bracket.

  Beyond him, the window frames the yawning length of my estate’s garden, the afternoon sun dappling the icy water in the fountain.

  I was just thinking I was going to take Jackal for a run around the grounds when I learned about this shit.

  Elmo is really starting to push his luck.

  “It’s funny, ain’t it, how we were all friends once?” he murmurs. “Me, you, and Franco. We were going to conquer the world together. Where did that bastard go wrong?”

  I sigh, grinding my teeth together.

  “This isn’t a therapy session,” I snap. “What drugs are you taking? That’s the last time I will ask you.”

  Elmo turns slowly, lips juddering some more. The weakness makes me want to beat seven shades of shit out of him, but giving in to my primal urges – for violence, sex, or anything – isn’t what got me to this position.

  The Don of a family like mine has to use his head as well as his fists.

  “Speed, a little coke, a little weed,” Elmo murmurs.

  “Fuck me,” I growl. “You’re going into isolation until all that shit’s out of your system. I’ll work out what to do then—”