Gilded Agony Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 - Seth

  Chapter 2 - Domenico

  Chapter 3 - Mark

  Chapter 4 - Seth

  Chapter 5 - Mark

  Chapter 6 - Seth

  Chapter 7 - Domenico

  Chapter 8 - Domenico

  Chapter 9 - Seth

  Chapter 10 - Domenico

  Chapter 11 - Seth

  Chapter 12 - Domenico

  Chapter 13 - Mark

  Chapter 14 - Seth

  Chapter 15 - Domenico

  Chapter 16 - Seth

  Chapter 17 - Domenico

  Chapter 18 - Seth

  Chapter 19 - Domenico

  Chapter 20 - Domenico

  Chapter 21 - Domenico

  Chapter 22 - Seth

  Epilogue

  Guns n’ Boys: Gilded Agony (Book 7)

  K.A. Merikan

  “We are two halves of the same rotten apple.”

  Deep in the Amazonian jungle, there is a mansion with a rose garden and a hen house where juicy tomatoes are the perfect shade of red, and marble countertops glisten.

  Inside, where even the shadows don’t reach, something is rotting, and the perfect facade can only hold the stench for so long.

  Domenico promised his husband that he would keep him safe, keep him away from the bloodshed and the brutal world of cartel violence. But when a guest arrives to help retrieve a stolen transport of guns, something sinister sneaks into his home, something more dangerous than his enemies. Or has it been there all along, and he just hasn’t noticed?

  Seth’s life is what others dream of. Endless leisure time filled with cocktails, a kitchen stocked with anything he wishes for, and a private pool in the sunshine. What’s missing is the man he shares it with, the man he fell in love with. If being cut off from the mafia business was what he wanted, then why is it so painfully lonely in paradise?

  Desperate to be the supportive husband Domenico needs, Seth buries his rage, his violent urges, and the anger that simmers inside of him. But he can only hide in plain sight for so long, and when a guest invites him to play with fire, one misstep, one wrong move, could burn their safe haven to the ground.

  POSSIBLE SPOILERS:

  Themes: mafia, cartel, assassin, organized crime, family ties, domestic violence, inequality, betrayal, revenge

  Genre: Dark, twisted M/M romance / crime thriller

  Length: ~92,000 words (Book 7 in the series)

  WARNING: Adult content. If you are easily offended, this book is not for you.

  ‘Guns n’ Boys’ is a gritty story of extreme violence, offensive language, abuse, and morally ambiguous protagonists as well as scorching hot, explicit love scenes. Behind the morbid facade, there is a splash of inappropriate dark humor, and a love story that will crawl under your skin.

  Gilded Agony - Book 7

  K.A. Merikan

  Acerbi & Villani Ltd.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living, dead, or undead, events, places or names is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transferred in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without a permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

  Text copyright © 2018 K.A. Merikan

  All Rights Reserved

  http://kamerikan.com

  Editing by

  No Stone Unturned

  https://www.facebook.com/NoStoneUnturnedEditingServices/

  Cover Design by

  Natasha Snow

  http://natashasnow.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 - Seth

  Chapter 2 - Domenico

  Chapter 3 - Mark

  Chapter 4 - Seth

  Chapter 5 - Mark

  Chapter 6 - Seth

  Chapter 7 - Domenico

  Chapter 8 - Domenico

  Chapter 9 - Seth

  Chapter 10 - Domenico

  Chapter 11 - Seth

  Chapter 12 - Domenico

  Chapter 13 - Mark

  Chapter 14 - Seth

  Chapter 15 - Domenico

  Chapter 16 - Seth

  Chapter 17 - Domenico

  Chapter 18 - Seth

  Chapter 19 - Domenico

  Chapter 20 - Domenico

  Chapter 21 - Domenico

  Chapter 22 - Seth

  Epilogue

  PATREON

  NEWSLETTER

  About the author

  Post-Credits Scene (Charlotte)

  Chapter 1 - Seth

  “Dom?” Seth whispered into the darkness, but hearing no answer, he leaned closer and rubbed his hand up Domenico’s shoulder. “Dom? Are you still asleep?”

  Behind the thick grey curtains, the sun wasn’t yet up, but Seth’s mind had been spinning for over an hour now, and the wait was killing him.

  Domenico let out a raspy hum, acknowledging that he was aware of Seth speaking to him, but his naked back didn’t even stir. Seth smiled at the sight and pulled the covers that bit lower. Black silk was the perfect embellishment for Dom’s skin.

  “I want a crossbow,” Seth whispered and put his leg over Domenico’s, running a finger down Dom’s spine. He loved every imperfection on that body. Every scar was there to remind him how much they’d survived together. Seth circled the one on the back of Domenico’s shoulder, the one that Dino Villani created when he’d shot an eleven year old boy and left him to bleed for hours. Seth leaned down to kiss the ugly, twisted scar that had set Domenico on the path to becoming who he was now, set him on a path that had eventually brought them together.

  This time, Dom raised his head off the pillow and looked Seth’s way through a curtain of long, tangled locks. “W-what the hell are you talking about?”

  “Is it too early? Maybe it’s still a dream…” Seth wrapped his arms around Domenico’s waist and pulled him close, enjoying how sturdy his husband was. The smooth hair licked his skin, and he smiled when Domenico didn’t fight him and let himself be held, melting into Seth’s embrace in the lazy way he only would in the mornings.

  “Goodnight.”

  Seth smelled the long hair he loved so much and let his hand settle on Domenico’s stomach. “Seth is asleep, but he’s there, right next to you, and his subconscious is trying to tell you something.” He bit back a grin and kissed Dom’s ear.

  Domenico groaned and blindly reached for his pillow, which he stuffed into Seth’s face. “Jesus Christ, go to sleep.”

  Seth withdrew, but he wouldn’t stop stroking Dom’s arm. Maybe this wasn’t the best of times, but day was dawning behind the curtains, and he couldn’t get this new idea out of his head. What if Domenico was too busy to talk about it over breakfast? And they’d be around other people too, so getting his point across would be that much harder.

  Several heartbeats later, Domenico twisted out of his embrace like an eel, ending up on his knees, completely naked in front of Seth. With his black hair in a wild halo as he took deep breaths, he stiffened his muscles like the embodiment of Tarzan.

  “What? What? What? What the fuck do you want? I’m working today!”

  Seth inched away. “Okay, go back to sleep, I didn’t want to annoy you.”

  Domenico stared back at him in the dark, only to drop back to the mattress and pull the sheet over himself in a desperate gesture. He twisted to face the other way, and that was that.

  Seth waited a few more seconds. “It’s just that… I can’t sleep. I want a crossbow. What do you think?”

  “Shut up.”

  It wasn’t Seth’s fault that after a marathon of The Walking Dead it was all he could think about. “But if, for
example, in twenty years, the world runs out of oil, there will be riots, and who knows where that leads us. The world will change, and ammo might be hard to come by. If I had a crossbow and learned to use it now, learned to make my own bolts, we’d have the upper hand.”

  The silence was disturbed by a loud snort. Domenico rolled Seth’s way, wrapping himself in the sheet like a mummy. “Come on, Seth. It took me just weeks to establish us as the local royalty. Drying oil would be nothing to me. If that happens, I’m gonna take over alternative power sources and get so loaded you’re gonna bathe in mineral water.”

  Seth groaned but didn’t look away from Domenico’s bright eyes. Of course. He didn’t need to do anything, because Dom would take care of it. “But wouldn’t it be a useful skill? In case of other emergencies? Like, I’m not saying I know what’s gonna happen, but what if there was a deadly illness spreading through the world, and we had to fight our way through it before you managed to establish us anywhere?” He wasn’t exactly comfortable saying ‘zombie apocalypse’ to his already disgruntled husband.

  Domenico let his head drop to the pillow and ignored him.

  Seth rolled out of bed. That was that, then. Maybe he’d broached the subject too soon. For a moment, he hesitated about saying something like ‘see you downstairs’ or ‘I’ll go feed the chickens’, but Domenico wasn’t pleased with having his sleep disturbed, so maybe it was better if he stayed silent.

  He pulled on a pair of jeans and walked out, leaving Domenico in the darkness of the room. As soon as he stepped into the corridor, artificial light was no longer needed as the soft brightness of the rising sun poured through the large windows.

  Their home was spacious enough for the needs of their little family. In the months that had followed the brutal takeover of Toro’s business, Domenico had the separate guest house they’d lived at when they’d first arrived, renovated. The lower floor had been mostly remade into an open-plan living space, with the exception of an extension dedicated to little Angelica.

  The living room smelled of Seth’s childhood. With Christmas Eve only two days away, the elaborate decorations he’d worked on throughout December were already in place. The tree—a pine shipped to their corner of the jungle from Bogotá—reached the ceiling and scented the whole room. Seth had ordered a set of baubles made of Murano glass for the occasion, but he’d made most of the ornaments himself, decorating the tree with dried lemon slices adorned with red bows, little cookies and candy, as well as long garlands made of gold paint-sprayed farfalle pasta.

  One of the smaller windows had been transformed into a traditional nativity scene, complete with tiny figures of saints inside the wooden shed Seth had made himself, animals and artificial trees set up under a huge star that could be lit up in the evenings.

  No place remained untouched by the upcoming holidays. Inspired by pictures found online, Seth had recreated various decorative setups until the house became the perfect embodiment of Christmas spirit. It made his longing for home that bit more bearable, but what really counted was the appreciation on his family’s faces whenever they entered. They made all that work worthwhile.

  He glanced at the clock. It was almost six, so instead of going straight outside, he opened the door to the nursery area with a code. Dom insisted ‘their baby’ needed additional protection at night, and as silly as it seemed, Seth couldn’t argue with the fact that even the tall walls built around their private garden were not impenetrable. And at times when Angelica was there alone with her nanny, the thick walls, the separate ventilation system and locks that could withstand simple explosives gave Seth peace of mind.

  Giulia looked out of her bedroom when Seth entered the corridor decorated with butterflies and flowers painted on the walls. The nanny’s round, somewhat wrinkled face relaxed when she spotted him. She emerged in her usual outfit of knee-length shorts and a T-shirt, short gray hair still in a mess, but the thinly rimmed glasses were already in place, completing the image of a sporty grandmom.

  “You’re up early,” Giulia said, combing her unruly hair with one hand. The permanently reddened cheeks and attentive eyes reminded Seth of his own mother. With her flat nose and small eyes, Giulia wasn’t exactly a beauty, but the folds of skin around her mouth had been left behind by smiles. She also had a secret weapon, effective both against Angelica’s and Domenico’s moods—the patience of a saint. Maybe because she used to be a Sister.

  “I couldn’t sleep, and I bet Angelica’s up.”

  At least she was no longer up at random times of day and night as she’d been in the first few months. No matter how much Seth had grown to love the new addition to the family, he was glad Giulia had agreed to join them so far from her home in Italy. Choosing a nanny Domenico would approve had been an ordeal Seth didn’t want to go through again any time soon.

  It had taken some time before they adjusted to her presence, but they needed all the help they could get, because Domenico was often busy, regardless of how much he enjoyed spending time with their little princess. Seth hadn’t known much about babies back then either. And Dana? Dana was annoyed whenever Angelica was around, as if the little girl’s existence were a personal insult to her.

  “She’s been up for a while,” Giulia said with a smile and led Seth to the nursery.

  Domenico had gone into a frenzy of researching child rearing once things had settled after the horrors of two years ago. He insisted they all spoke to Angelica in different languages so that she would grow up quadrilingual. This meant that, even though Seth had the comfort of talking Italian to Giulia, most times he didn’t understand what she spoke about with Angelica, since the nanny’s designated language was Spanish. Seth wasn’t entirely sure of this system, but he was done with arguing over this topic and went with it.

  “Hey there, sunshine,” Seth said in Italian when Angelica spotted him through the open door to her room and waved at him with a wide smile, causing a warm tingle in Seth’s chest.

  He’d never thought that much about having children, but Angelica’s presence in their life quickly became something as obvious as the fact that Domenico slept in the same bed as Seth. Every bit of progress Angelica made, every step that brought her closer to becoming a child rather than a toddler left Seth fascinated by the speedy development in the kid who not that long ago couldn’t even walk. Each of those moments drove home the point that he’d become a father. Angelica, the beautiful, cheerful girl with dark locks and wide brown eyes, was his and Domenico’s from the moment she was born almost two years back.

  “Papà,” she squealed and ran toward him in her pink pajamas, smiling as if nothing could have made her happier than seeing Seth at the door.

  “Good morning, Princess. Wanna feed the Borgias with me?” Seth asked, lifting her small body high above his head.

  Angelica gave a fervent nod, squeezing Seth’s neck as soon as he pulled her closer to his chest. “Eggs!”

  “Yes, there will be smiling eggs for breakfast, if you want,” Seth said, walking past Giulia, who winked at him before retreating to her room.

  It was their little tradition to feed the chickens together. Seth had made the enclosure for the birds himself, including their henhouse. Painted red and green, it was his pride and joy. There was nothing like knowing where your food came from and nourishing your loved ones with homegrown vegetables and eggs.

  When they’d first moved in, he’d reclaimed a large section of the lawn around their new house to start a garden. It wasn’t much, but thanks to his hard work they did have their own herbs, tomatoes, and even a small lemon tree. Enclosed by a tall wall, with a pool near the terrace, it served as a secure paradise for their little family. Within those walls they were safe, even with so many guns stored in the underground vaults of the main.

  Angelica excitedly threw some grain for the chickens, and Seth let her have fun with it before he topped up the feeders. Their little girl was soaking up information like a sponge, and even though she sometimes jumbled all the languages
, making Seth worry whether Domenico’s plan was a good idea after all, she knew all the chickens by their Borgia family-inspired names, and was eager to learn any new skills. Just last week, she’d helped Seth make some of the Christmas ornaments for the tree. Granted, they were not as pretty as those done by an adult, but he was still amazed Angelica’s tiny fingers could produce anything that precise.

  With Angelica following him wherever he went, Seth collected the day’s eggs and made his way to the garden where they sourced veg and fruit for breakfast. After eating a colorful plate of food laid out in the shape of a smiling face, Angelica went back to her own room to play with Giulia while Seth contemplated the sunshine with a Bloody Mary and then prepared breakfast for everyone else.

  While technically a chore, it was pleasant to give Mark and Domenico a tasty start for the day. Both men were perfectly capable of making themselves toast and coffee, but they often came home at different times, so dinner together wasn’t always an option. In the unstable world they lived in, holding on to little traditions grounded Seth, and he wanted to offer that experience to the rest of his chosen family. Lively conversation and love expressed on a plate to start each day.

  In the mornings he also felt most refreshed. It was when he tested the craziest recipe ideas and experimented. He baked pastries, all types of breads, made his own jams and pesto. After a failed delivery some time ago, he’d even learned to make his own ricotta—all in the peaceful morning hours when there was nothing to disturb him.

  The kitchen was his space, and he’d decorated it very much the way his late mother had set up her own—with pans hanging off hooks, wooden baskets for produce, and warm hues everywhere. On the wall close to the dining table were family photos. Domenico, him, Angelica, Mark, Giulia. Even Dana was in one of the pictures, though sitting notably separate from everyone else.