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ONE HOUR AFTER THAT
“Fuck Christian Delacroix,” I grunted into the phone after twisting the cap off a bottle of bourbon.
“I wish it was that easy. Don’t you think I’d blow the bastard off if I could? This isn’t some rumor on the grapevine, Gabriel. He’s up to something, but I don’t know what... yet.”
I sneered at that. “You’re telling me the federal government’s intelligence is that incompetent?”
“I’m telling you I have connections, but there’s a limit to what I legally can do.”
I rubbed the tip of the bottle against my temple. “As your friend, I have to advise you - any threat against Dante is a threat against me - against all of us.”
“Why the fuck do you think I’m calling you? Listen, Gabriel, I’ll keep working this from every angle I can. But there will come a point when my hands are tied.”
I sat forward in my chair. Usually, I chose my words carefully. After the day I’d had, I no longer cared who the hell was on the other end of the line.
“Understand this, Senator - don’t start taking the moral high ground now. I know what you can do, but I also know you’re not above bending the rules when the situation calls for it. My brother’s life may be expendable to the US government, but it’s not to me-”
“Don’t make threats, Don Calegari,” he said evenly. “This won’t end well for you if you do.”
“Senator Petrafuso, if anything happens to my brother, I no longer give a fuck what happens to me. I don’t care who hired him, whose reputation gets shredded, or whose fucking career ends up in the toilet... I won’t even care if anyone is left breathing. Either you find a way to deal with Christian Delacroix, or I will.”
My hand trembled when I hung up, not from fear but from fury. We usually had these rare conversations in person, but this one couldn’t wait, and I was in no mood to drive to New York. It was the one place I needed to avoid. I didn’t care if they lived on opposite sides of the city. I’d find a way to her.
But I promised myself I wouldn’t. I promised myself I’d save her.
I threw back a swallow of bourbon straight out of the fucking bottle and followed it quickly with another. I couldn’t burn enough. The afternoon and evening had been one fucked up meeting or phone call after the other - like the last week hadn’t already been hell.
I was haunted by the images of the sweetest woman I had ever met, tempted...so sorely tempted...to find a way to force her into my world even though I spent the last few hours dealing with the constant reminders of exactlywhyshe didn’t belong there.
My mother’s illness...she would need as much of my attention as I could give her. It wouldn’t be fair to bring someone else into our lives when I couldn’t give them one hundred percent, and what the fuck did that even matter? Suzanne was no one - an experiment, a breathing source of information, nothing more.
Powerful men in the underworld had decided my brother needed to die. Every secret he had would be exposed unless I stepped in to stop them. But I needed time. There were people involved, high stake players who were virtually untouchable. But I had to find a way. I had to flush them out and hold them accountable without burning the world down around us.
Time. I had to focus on keeping my brother alive without him knowing I was involved. I had to respect who and what he was. I didn’t have time to let a woman distract me. Had to stay away. Had to forget her smiling brown eyes, those wide, luscious lips, and the way she felt, soft and warm against my hard body as I pushed her against the door.
She made me laugh; she made me smile; she made me wish I was a different man, that I didn’t have a group of ruthless men depending on me to deliver software that meant none of them would ever have to lift a finger again - including myself. Software that recently had experienced one too many setbacks.
I sat in my cave, waiting for the announcement that a man with an alcohol problem, who had said something he thought would get him off the hook for his actions, would never get the chance to sober up. All because I was stillhim, still the head of a mafia organization that didn’t leave loose ends.
I slammed my fist on the table, taking the stinging in stride. This was why we -I- needed this damn software to work. No more collateral damage. No more people dying because they couldn’t keep their stupid mouth shut. With this software, I could earn a lifetime of money in just a few weeks. No one else had to die. I wouldn’t need an army - just a few computer nerds to split the profit. I could take a page out of Romano’s book and just fucking disappear. I could have the life I would have had if I hadn’t inherited a legacy that meant the people I loved jumped every time someone knocked on the door when I wasn’t home to reassure them I was still breathing. Every phone call was a potential message from the grave.
I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palm and then I still didn’t let go.
Would I ever see her smile light up when I walked through the door? Or would I spend the rest of my life wishing it weren’t just relief that flooded her features when she was reassured I had lived to die another day? Would I ever hold my children close and know they were safe, not because their father would murder any bastard who threatened them, but because no one had an investment in making sure they didn’t take their next breath?
My gut ached with how much I wanted that dream. How much I’d always wanted that life, but until recently, hadn’t considered it was even a possibility. Yet now it consumed me. It wasn’t just an impossible dream, the wisps of it wafted into my reality with technology that could make it reality.
And then I met her... a woman who made me swallow with heady anticipation and fear...the fear that I didn’t deserve the realization of the heaven she had to offer.
I could have it.I could fucking have it all. The most beautiful soul I’d ever met, the woman who’d keep me exhausted trying to keep her happy because I couldn’t live with myself if she wasn’t. I could see Suzanne’s welcoming smile greeting me each morning. I could spend every night knowing what it’d be like to feel her hot and writhing beneath me. I could forget I was half monster and be the man who earned the hugs of his children and his wife’s respect.
If I was a different sort of man, I’d blame the universe for my problems and move on. But that never was, and never would be, the kind of man I am. Someone, or several someones, was playing with things they should have left alone. I had suspicions about who was behind the attempts to manipulate my life. With each of today’s phone calls, the list of likely suspects grew. Two names bubbled to the surface. Christian Delacroix and Sebastian St. Valentine.
Sebastian’s interest in my downfall was a matter of record though, if I thought about it long enough, I couldn’t remember why the two of us were at odds. It happened gradually, over a period of years, with no specific catalyst for our hatred of one another – at least, none that I was aware of.
I had no idea what I’d done to piss off Delacroix, but I suspected his sudden disdain for the Calegari name was about more than wanting my brother out of his way. Why? They were professionals - not really rivals. My brother had surpassed Delacroix long ago and Delacroix was too preoccupied with his life to know he was operating about ten years behind the times. So why? What was it about the name Calegari that suddenly made us the scourge of the earth in the eyes of men who were no damn better than we were?
Delacroix was currently out of my reach, but with the good senator’s help, I’d narrow the distance between us until I could wrap my hands around his neck.
