SAVAGE POET: A Dark, New Adult and College Romance Read online

  SAVAGE POET

  The Complete Salvatore Syndicate Series

  ROQUE SALVATORE

  JAX HART

  Contents

  Glossary

  Foreword

  The Real Prologue

  How it all began…

  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

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  REQUIEM

  WATERMARK

  FOREWORD

  Chloe & Roque

  1. The Past

  2. Romina

  3. Romina

  4. Roque

  5. Romina

  6. Roque

  7. Romina

  8. Roque

  9. CHLOE and ROQUE

  10. Chloe

  I. REDEMPTION

  Prologue

  11. Romina

  12. Romina

  13. Roque

  14. Romina

  15. Roque

  16. Romina

  17. Roque

  18. Roque & Chloe

  19. Chloe

  20. CHLOE & ROMINA, then ROQUE

  21. Roque

  22. Romina

  23. Epilogue Romina

  THE COLLECTION

  Blurb

  Prologue

  Prologue

  24. Johnny

  25. Johnny

  26. Christine

  27. Johnny

  28. Christine

  29. Johnny

  30. Christine

  31. Johnny

  32. Christine

  33. Johnny

  34. Christine

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Captured by the Billionaire

  Glossary

  Zio- Uncle in Italian

  Zia- Aunt in Italian

  Cara- Darling

  Mi familigia- My family

  il sovrano- the ruler

  Don- Mafia boss

  Bella- beautiful

  The Outfit- slang for mob

  Foreword

  “HE’S SO DEAD! ARGH!” My hand grips the handle of the knife. It sings through the air and lands dead smack in the middle of his sexy face. He’s all over the tabloids. His cousin’s wedding to some schoolteacher was hardly newsworthy. But him? Roque Salvatore, mob king extraordinaire dancing the night away with a mystery brunette? That was big news.

  He’s a recluse.

  Private.

  Heavily guarded.

  The dark king’s rule is absolute.

  “And who in the hell is she?”

  My blood heats as I pluck the knife from the board where I pinned up their tabloid pic. His eyes. Those damn mesmerizing, hypnotizing bedroom eyes stare down at the woman in his arms. His face is all angular planes, with a classic Roman nose and full lips for a man. His perfect teeth gleam.

  He’s a shark.

  A demon.

  A damn nuisance.

  A splinter festering under my skin that I just can’t get out.

  A man I loathed and loved for a heartbeat. A stupid, foolish moment in time where I deluded myself into thinking he changed.

  I was seventeen and he was brutally sexy and dark. Everything a high school girl should run from instead of run to. And yet I still hoped he didn’t grow up to be the monster I glimpsed one night a lifetime ago.

  “I’m going to destroy you like I always said I would. Right after I make that black heart of yours beat only for me. You’ll only look at me like that. Want. Breathe. Live. All for me. Then I’m going to burn your empire to the ground and end your reign.”

  My hair the color of a burning sunset in autumn flies around me as I use my anger to fuel my plans. On bare feet, wearing black leggings, I’m as swift and graceful as a prima ballerina. My feet are light, but my hits are hard when I make them.

  And I’m saving the hardest one for Romeo Roque. While he slowly built up his empire, I’ve been watching and waiting from a distance making contacts with those who want to see him burn just as much as I do.

  “Ugh. I can’t believe I kissed him. Let him touch me!” I scream out loud to my empty walls. I check the Internet, seeing more pics of him and some woman named Lucille. So, she has a name. These new photos are from a club. Her bed hair is perfect. Her dreamy eyes give her away. Maybe I’ll cut her ass up too, if it hurts him even slightly. Fuck him and his crazy, exotic sea-blue break-your-heart eyes of his.

  Slapping my laptop closed, I get busy packing up my few possessions, drop a rent check for six months in the mail and leave the lights of Vegas behind.

  I’ll live right under his nose. I’ll silently stalk my prey and when it’s time, I’ll move in for the kill.

  The Real Prologue

  Can a character in an author’s story, write their own? I’ve had to triple my security. I’m not sure who is more dangerous, my enemies that always lurk in the shadows or my new sex-crazed, over-worked fans…?

  “We’re live in three, two, one…”

  “And we’re live on Bratva TV. I’m your host Alexi. We are here with none other than the king himself, the man of the moment ROQUE SALVATORE!!!!

  Women scream. The bright lights makes me wince. I turn, face camera and give my smuggest smile with a special wink, knowing she’s on the other side of the lens, watching me. “It’s a pleasure to be here in Russia.”

  “Tell us, is there really a Viktor, “The Russian?”

  “Of course, there must be millions.” The audience laughs. My rivals seethe. I’ve turned the mob, the cartels, every crime organization on its head with my defense. I’ve fictionalized them all while they go between admiring me and hating me more. I’ve exposed our dirty, dark underworld in five hundred plus pages that smell freshly printed. I’m a number one bestselling author in ten countries. My movie is set to premiere in six months. I’m no longer a suspected mafia Don but a beloved bestseller. “Savage Poet” made the NYT and USA Today. I can’t wait until it smashes the box office.

  “Where is your leading lady? We all want to know!”

  “Watching this show, of course!”

  More laughter rings out. I’m killing this interview. “What inspired you? How did you come up with this crazy story?”

  I school my face into a mix of pain and sadness. Looking down, I perfect the perfect tortured look and hunch forward as if I’m about spill the biggest secret on the planet… the audience bends forward toward me and holds its breath. “My family was the mob. The Salvatore’s and The Fiorelli’s have been blood enemies for generations. My father did order me to kill the girl and avenge my family.” Shocked gasps echo around the studio. “But I couldn’t do it. I fell in love at fifteen and that was it. She was it for me from the moment we met…”

  The gasps turn to sighs as all the women’s eyes glaze over wanting that HEA for themselves.

  “Some say it’s not fiction. A few anonymous sources have called major news networks claiming they have proof your book is a memoir not a ‘dark romance.’ What do you say?”

  “Please,” I laugh. “No one could get away with a fraction of that shit. Of course it’s fiction.” But I wink at the audience, grinning my ass off.

  “When is your next book c
oming out?”

  “I’m focusing on my poetry right now. Would you like me to read one of my latest pieces?”

  Everyone starts clapping. I reach inside my Tom Ford suit, finding my new leather journal hidden inside the inside pocket. I clear my throat as I flip open the pages until I find the one poem that I keep going back to… the one that haunts my own soul. “It’s called Sub Rosa. That means ‘happening or done in secret’ in Latin.” My fingers still on the page, tracing the title she penned in in that loopy cursive of hers. I wrote the poem, but I wanted her ink on the title.

  “I betrayed the dead when I gave you back your life. The scent of your fear was the sweetest perfume. Your skin blushed like the fairest pink rose.

  Just like that my dark soul was exposed. I purged you in ink but the pages bled. Over and over like a song on repeat, you were in my head.

  So I tried something else, taking you to bed. In the dark hours you came for me. Cried out for the one who took and gave everything in return. Over and over we burned. Was it real or just a dream? Only you and I know the truth of every dark deed.

  Sub rosa my love, under the rose; sealed with poisoned lips doth do I pledge my last kiss.”

  I finish to silence. “Doth wasn’t a typo. It was a nod to old Shakespearean language. Its the artist in me to mix one word from that time in my modern poem.”

  The audience stands. “A standing ovation for Roque Salvatore! Stay tuned, hot kitty is up next and more from the contestants from sink or swim!” The lights fade. “And we’re off.”

  I deftly unclip the mic from the lapel of my jacket. I’m such a fucking good actor. The darkest new golden boy in Hollywood. I’m only doing all this publicity to keep myself and my woman out of jail. It’s already been polled. It won’t look good for the current administration to lock up the couple every one on the planet is rooting for.

  I wave as I exit the stage and practically run into my hired car. “Where to Mr. Salvatore?”

  “The airport. I have a plane to Switzerland to catch.” I take out my bestseller with my own face on the cover. It’s vain as fuck but the publisher felt my face and body could outsell every other book if I agreed to do it. Hell, the ludicrous fans are right. This isn’t a romance but a memoir. A real-life story… and I’m guilty as hell for every crime I wrote down… I open the first chapter and lose myself in my own words. Maybe I truly am a narcissistic ass after all but the story is damn good. Everyone agrees…

  How it all began…

  “DO YOU EVER SLEEP?”

  Pausing, I lift my pen from paper as the girl I saved from certain ruin crosses my penthouse toward me.

  “You don’t sleep much either.”

  “That’s because I keep having nightmares of what would’ve happened to me if you hadn’t saved me and Freddie that night before Christmas.” She tried to give me a hug, but I stepped away. She’s too good. Too kind. Too trusting for a monster like me to ever get close.

  “I don’t bite.”

  “I do.”

  “Gross. TMI.”

  I shrug, “Don’t get any ideas. I’m—”

  “Blah, blah, blah. I know. You’re an evil monster… the Grim Reaper who sucks blood and chops body parts… You’ve said it a million times and yet I sleep safer in your home than any home I’ve ever known.”

  “Don’t get too comfortable. I’m sending you away.”

  Her face pales to the color of the moon glowing over the city I rule. The city I’ve made mine—Chicago. “No, please. I-I’ve lived too many places, slept in too many strange beds.”

  “There’s no other choice. The life I live… there’s no place for a girl like you in it.”

  She rolls her eyes and it shoots me back in time to the last girl who loved doing that to me.

  My heart sneezes. I’m allergic to love. Never again. Never will I ever, let myself get close to that flame. The burn was hotter than even I ever imagined.

  “You should go back to bed, Chloe.”

  She huffs and before I can stop her, the little shit has the poem I was working on in her little hands.

  “Give that back.” My voice is soft thunder rolling over hills. It’s the voice I use on my enemies right before they’re dropped. You’d think it would scare the fuck out of a teenage girl.

  Nope.

  She clears her throat, pauses dramatically and spills my darkest secrets. My innermost thoughts…:

  Blood falls like rain.

  It drips from the cut in my heart.

  The one you made.

  First it was small. A tiny tear.

  But now it’s jagged. Goes from corner to corner.

  You left me standing in the rain.

  It was cold and dark.

  Just like you.

  Just like me.

  I was always the dark one. The sinner.

  While you pretended to be what I thought I wanted. The opposite of myself.

  But under your layers of silk and satin you are just as ugly as I am.

  We are both twisted. Wearing crowns of thorns and lies. We entered the world with these crowns on our heads.

  I foolishly thought it was a sign. That the two of us could rule together. Fuse the sins of the past and let our union be the answer.

  But you wanted vengeance instead of peace.

  So be it, baby.

  My love is now a weapon. I’ll use it to destroy you.

  Just as you’ve destroyed me.

  “Wow, who was she?”

  “No one.”

  “Come on, spill! Who knew the baddest mob king who ever lived is a closet poetic genius!”

  Now I roll my eyes and stick out my palm. “I’ve killed people for less than what you just did.”

  She hops up on the window ledge, crosses her slim ankles, cocks her head and snorts, “doubtful.”

  My eyes move past her to the night beyond and the skyscrapers keeping it lit. Sometimes I wonder if it was real at all… the things I felt when I was with her. So, I kept journals, started writing it all down and buried all the notes full of ink that told our story inside my vault with my guns and blood money.

  “It’s nothing. Just words on a page.”

  She glances down at my bared soul in her hands. “This is everything. Come on, Roque. I need a good bedtime story. No one’s ever told me one.”

  “Never?”

  “Ever. My mom was hooked on drugs. The state took me over at seven. I’ve bounced from place to place never landing anywhere good until now.”

  Chloe.

  The little blonde’s best days are ahead of her. I’m going to make sure of it. I found her and Freddie, another warden of the state minutes before a pack of wanna be thugs were ready to hand them over to human trafficker. I killed the bastard and freed all the girls he held.

  I might be a monster. But I don’t trade souls. I take them for myself instead. A business acquaintance, Dare, “Darren” Prescott adopted Freddie and found himself a girlfriend shortly after. I’m the only damn bachelor left. I deserve it too. Afterall, the devil has no mistress; no one to love him.

  Her private school in Switzerland is already expecting her. She’ll want for nothing ever again. At least she’s one soul I can save because well… all I’ve done is damned everyone else to hell with me.

  I stand from my seat at the club chair and cross to where she’s perched.

  “Give.”

  “Okay, fine. But I’m not letting you send me away,” her chin wobbles.

  “Chloe. This was never permanent. I was always upfront about that.”

  “…but Dare took Freddie. She got her happy ever after. What about me? I’m no trouble. Am I?”

  “No, you aren’t. It’s not you, it’s me.”

  She rolls her eyes… “I can’t believe you just said that. That’s cheesy as all hell.”

  “I’m sorry. But it’s for the best. You’ll be safe where you’re going.”

  “And where might that be?”

  “The best boarding schoo
l in Europe. You can study whatever you want. Be whomever you want to be. Few get that chance.”

  “Who were you told to be?”

  I grimace. “Many things, but the dark truth is Chloe, I’m exactly who I wanted to be.”

  “The most powerful man in the world?”

  “Hardly, but I’m working on that.”

  “I’ve seen how they all look at you.”

  “Who?”

  “The women. When you took me shopping, they all cooed over me and made a fuss. But it was all fake. All they wanted was dirt on you and if you were single…”

  “They all want the power. The money.”

  “No, Roque. I might only be fifteen, but I already see it too. They want you. Just you. You’re sexy and dark, all broody but cocky. Trust me—even nuns would swoon in your presence,”

  I wince, “Please, Chloe. Don’t crush on me.”

  “As if. That’s gross. You’re what like twice my age?”

  “Just about.”

  “Don’t worry. I see you as my fairy-god-uncle.”

  “Drop the fairy part, squirt and get to bed.”