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Prologue
Salvatore
People say karma’s a bitch, but she’s been nothing but good to me. And it’s not because I’m a decent man. What I’ve done in my life, I’ve done for my own reasons. I’ve stolen, I’ve blackmailed, I’ve even killed people. There are a few areas I don’t fuck with, like women, children, or drugs, but for the most part my hands are covered in dirt. That’s the way it goes when you’re the boss.
With every dark deed, I knew the weight of my actions, but I never had to justify it to anyone. And now, for the first time in my life, I have to explain why. I have to look at her every night and tell this innocent angel why I’ve walked down the path I have.
But I’ll do it, because I have no other choice. Her eyes are the center of my world and somehow she’s become my angel. I will drop to my knees and confess my sins so that she can cleanse my soul. For her, I would fall on the sword, even if she was the one holding it.
I’m not a man who feels guilt or remorse, but I’ll spend a thousand years trying to repent if it means I can have her in my arms.
The night I first saw her was the night her life changed forever. Some might say it changed for the worse, but she says it’s for the better. All I know is, I plan on living until the end of time because this angel won’t go where I’ll go when my lights go out. She’s absolutely pure, and I’ve brought her into my world, into the underground mafia.
I should’ve let her go when I had the chance, but I’m an only child. What’s mine is mine.
Chapter 1
Thea
“Forty-seven dollars.” I could cry as I look down at the measly bills in my hands.
Instead I grit my teeth and shove the money back in my wallet and into my purse. Normally I wouldn’t count my money on the train, but it’s the last one and it’s nearly midnight. The entire car is deserted and has been this way since I got on.
Rita asked me to work the late shift again tonight and I couldn’t afford to turn it down. But now, after hours of being on my feet and busting my ass at the restaurant, it doesn’t feel like it was worth it.
My feet ache and I sit back in the seat, wishing with every fiber of my body that I had a tub to crawl into tonight. Instead, I’ll have a quick shower with lukewarm water, and I’ll have to be up in five hours to do it all over again.
During the day I work as a telemarketer for a research company. We tell people we are taking surveys but they still think we’re trying to sell them something. I get paid minimum wage for the hours I work, and then get bonuses for the number of calls I make. I get paid an additional bonus based on the surveys I convince people to complete, so I spend most of my day being nice to people who hang up on me. I clock in as soon as I can, which is five in the morning west coast time. We are allowed to start calls at eight east coast, so I get up with the birds.
The Los Angeles-based company gets hired by all kinds of companies trying to get people to answer questions based on what they like, who they vote for, and what types of meat they buy. Believe it or not, people have a strong opinion on meat.
With internet surveys taking over, the company is a dinosaur, but some people are still afraid of technology and have a landline. That’s where S&D Associates comes in. I don’t know who the owners are or how the company stays in business. All I know is a waitress I work nights with told me they were hiring and I got the job.
I’ve been working at Rita’s since I got out of high school. At first, I was only working at night because I was going to community college during the day. I got enough financial aid to help me out for the first year, but it was too hard to keep up the workload and try to pay the bills, so I decided to take some time off. That was three years ago.
Now I work a day job, and at nights trying to keep up. I had a roommate, but she got a boyfriend and moved out six months ago. I tried to find another one, but meeting new people isn’t my favorite thing and I don’t have many friends. My old roommate was someone I met in one of my classes, but I wouldn’t have considered us close. She paid her part of the rent on time, so I guess I was lucky in that aspect and stayed out of her way.
The lease isn’t up on my place for another four months, so I’ve somehow got to make it until then. I put everything I had down on the place for the deposit and I’m counting on getting it back so I can move out. I need something smaller I can afford on my own.
I rub my eyes, thinking of the pressure building up in my head and pray it’s not a mig
raine. Or if it is, I hope it waits until I get home to kick in. I just want to pass out, and the train isn’t the best place for that.
Rita’s was slammed, and I grind my teething thinking about how little I made in tips. Sometimes I can make a good chunk of change when the tips are coming my way, but tonight everyone was stiffing me. By the time I tipped out to the cooks and the busboys I was left with a sad amount of cash to show for all my hard work.
I keep waiting on a rich relative to show up and make all my dreams come true, but I know that’s wishful thinking. My mom died when I was a baby and I was raised by my aunt. She didn’t know who my dad was and had five kids of her own to worry about. We moved around a lot and I was shuffled between bedrooms and couches until I was old enough to get a job and make my own money. The last time I saw her, she was living in Las Vegas and I had my bag on my shoulder. She waved goodbye and went back to her TV show without a second glance. It’s not that she didn’t love me, she just didn’t have any energy left to care about another kid that wasn’t hers. It hurt that my cousins acted like I was a lost dog that nobody ever wanted, but I don’t really blame them either. None of us had what you’d call a stable childhood, and I think we all were looking for a way out. I came to Los Angeles thinking that a city this big would have enough opportunities for someone like me, but I was wrong.
The train begins to slow, and I look out to see my stop. It’s pitch black, and I groan. Sometimes the lights that are supposed to stay on twenty-four hours go off and we’re forced to walk through the station and onto the streets in the dark. Usually it’s not so bad if there are people with me, but this time I’m by myself.
“Great,” I mumble as I grab my bag and stand up as the train comes to a stop.
The doors open and I step onto the platform and walk quickly while tucking my bag under my arm. I have pepper spray in the side pocket, and I slip my hand inside, wrapping it around it. It’s not much, but it’s some kind of defense, and it makes me feel a little braver as I hurry to make it through the dark.
The train platform is long. There’s a station on the other end where you can buy tickets, but I always walk the back way because it saves me about a half a mile in walking. If I go toward the ticket building, I have to walk several blocks to get back to the other side, and even though this way is a little bit sketchy, my feet are killing me after tonight.
There’s an alley at the end and it runs along a fence with a junkyard on the other side of it. I usually sneak down this path, walking for a few yards before it opens up into the street and to some shops that are open late. It’s gated up, and I don’t think most people know about this back entrance, because otherwise people could sneak on the train if they wanted to. I have been known to do it a time or two when money was tight and I needed to get to work. But I try my best to do it the right way now and only use this way for getting home as fast as possible.
I get to the edge of the fence and breathe a sigh of relief. My biggest fear was getting away from the train stop, and now that I’m back here, I feel much safer. I check behind me and then look ahead, seeing light in the far distance. Just a little longer and I’ll be fine. Just a few blocks from home and then I can crawl into bed.
Thoughts of tomorrow and how early I have to get up flow through my head, so when I hear the noise on the other side of the fence, it startles me. It sounded like an animal, and I stop dead in my tracks, paralyzed by confusion and fear.
I’ve heard a dog once or twice from that side, but not for a long time. I had actually assumed the dog died or something, because the one time I saw it, it looked really old.
I hear another sound, and this time it sounds like a grunt. I take a step toward the fence and squint my eyes to see through. A long tarp is draped over it, hiding whatever is on the other side, but there’s a slit in it and I peek through. The light from the moon offers just enough illumination to make out someone standing in the distance.
A chill runs down my spine as I watch him. There are junk cars all around, and in between two of them I see this guy’s back. But he might as well be a giant for as big as he is. His shoulders are almost double the width of mine, and he towers over the hoods of the cars. His hair looks black in the moonlight and hangs down a little long. He’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt that’s pulled tight across his muscled back, and for someone who never really liked bulky guys, I’m feeling weak in the knees. My eyes travel down his jeans and to his tight ass. How can a guy who looks so menacing from behind look so hot at the same time?
He turns to the side, and then I hear the noise again. It’s then I notice someone at his feet. There’s a man on the ground, with his hands covering his face, and just as I realize what’s happening, the moonlight reflects off the gun in the big guy’s hand.
My hands go to my mouth to muffle my scream as the gun goes off. I stumble back in terror. Everything in me is telling me to run, but I’m stuck standing here in shock.
Tears prick my eyes, my heartbeat pounds in my ears, and just when I think I’m going to stand in this place forever, the big man turns and looks directly at me.
Chapter 2
Salvatore
I pull the trigger, and a rush of satisfaction runs through me as I watch Joey’s body go limp. I knew when I brought him out here he wouldn’t be leaving alive. I could have done it fast, but I had to give him one last beating before he left this earth. He’d earned it after all.
The silencer muffles the sound of the gun, and the snip of the bullet going through his head is followed by the quiet of the night. Normally I would’ve had my men handle something like this, but I’d known Joey for years. He owned a deli in the city where I ate every so often. I just didn’t know that he liked beating on his wife and kids. I’d given him a warning a month ago when I saw the evidence. Then I’d given him a beating so he knew what it felt like. He didn’t appreciate someone bigger than him laying down the punishment. He found out quick what it felt like to be powerless. It was a lesson he needed, and I thought that would be the end of it. It happened after I saw his wife shuffling around the deli with a black eye, her daughter sporting one just like her mother. I couldn’t believe it had been going on under my nose and I never saw it before then.
It had enraged me that I’d been giving his place of business protection when really it was his family that needed it from him. I hated that I hadn’t seen it sooner. Normally I’m good with reading people, so it only pissed me off more that I’d missed it.
Then today, I came into the deli to check on things, and the little girl had a split lip. I felt it was my responsibility to handle it then and not just give out the order. I was partly responsible for the little girl’s busted lip. When her young innocent eyes met mine and I saw the misery in them, Joey’s fate was sealed. He’d never lay his hands on them again.
I’ll still give the deli protection, but as a penance, it will be for free and for life. As long as Joey’s family owns the place, I’ll make it right for them. It’s only right after not acting sooner.
A muffled cry snaps my eyes away from the body on the ground, and I turn to see someone standing in the dark alley behind the junkyard. The sight takes me by surprise because it’s the middle of the night and this place is always deserted.
I can barely make out the shape of the person on the other side of the fence, but I can tell they are small. They could even be a child. My eyes focus in, and the moonlight picks up the shadow. It’s then I can see it’s a woman. Just as I open my mouth, she turns and takes off running.
“Fuck,” I mutter, jamming my gun back into its holster and taking off after her.
I race toward the fence and jump up, my foot connecting with the center of the chain-link fence as my hands go to the top. I push myself over the top, landing on my feet in a quick, smooth motion. My legs are longer than hers, and she’s not far ahead of me. I don’t even really need to full-out run to keep up with her, but the closer I get, I can’t help my eyes going to the sway of her ass.
My cock jerks, taking me by surprise. I almost trip over my own fucking feet as I stare at her lush, round ass trying to get away from me. What the fuck? My cock hasn’t shown interest in anything for a long while, and now just watching an ass sway as it runs has it coming to life. This is not what I need right now. I can’t even remember the last time I had an interest in jacking off, let alone the last time I wanted a woman.
I’m distracted by her body as I keep pace with her and watch as she runs toward a run-down apartment building. I grit my teeth, wondering why she would think running into this place is a good idea. A woman with a body like hers isn’t safe in a neighborhood like this. What was she even doing in the alley? And why am I having all these thoughts? I can’t concentrate because I’m too busy wondering if her tits are bouncing in the front and I can’t see them.
She gets closer to the building, and I can see trash bags litter the entryway because people are too lazy to walk the extra ten feet to throw them in the dumpster. All of the windows have air conditioners in them, telling me the building doesn’t have any sort of cooling system. The ones that don’t have them stuck in have bars on them.
