AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s not until I sit down to look over my lines that I realize I left my script behind at the audition. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I say out loud, exasperated with myself for being so careless and already making a bad impression. If the director had any concerns about hiring someone brand-new to Broadway, then this is certainly not going to bode well. I need to get back to the theatre and grab my script before anyone notices I left it there.
I don’t even bother to change out of my messy-casual comfortable outfit. I just grab my keys, phone, and the black leather jacket I’ve had since high school, and race out the door. Maybe no one noticed. Maybe I can slide in and out of the theatre to grab my script without even being seen. I can be stealthy. I’m an actress, for fuck’s sake, so I should be able to do this without drawing attention to the fact that I made a critical error on day zero.
When I get back to the audition hall, I head straight toward the wing of the stage where I remember setting my script down. Thankfully, it’s still laying on top of the stool where I placed it, undisturbed. I snatch it up and make my way toward the door, but before I can skate outside, I hear people coming. Shit, it’s the director. It sounds like he’s talking to someone important too, something about the production budget and performance timeline. I need to get out of here now, before I make a complete ass of myself. It’s not too late for him to give my part to someone else, and I don’t want to tempt fate.
I start to fret as I look for a different way out of the building that doesn’t take me right past where he’s talking, making me not pay any attention at all to where I’m going. With my script tightly clutched in one hand, I feel around on the wall with my other hand until my fingers touch on a door handle. With a fast turn, I open the door and burst into the outside hallway, one step closer to getting out of here unnoticed. But in my carelessness, I bump right into someone—someone holding a full cup of coffee. It takes all of a split second for me to see what happens, even though it feels like the event is moving in slow motion.
I stand there staring at the man with the giant coffee stain now gracing the front of his designer pants. But my shock isn’t caused by the mishap itself, but rather realizing the identity of the man now staring back at me with a raised brow.Vari Roberto.Vari and I haven’t seen each other in years. We dated in high school and things ended badly. That alone would be reason enough for me to shirk away, and I suddenly wish I could disappear right here into thin air. But not only is Vari the man I once thought I would love forever, until he broke my heart and stomped on it to the point of mashing my emotions into the gravel, he’s also one of the theatre world’s most prominent benefactors, and a very powerful, very dangerous mafiacapo.
Vari Roberto is the kind of man my mother always warned me about—in fact, he’s literally the man my mother always warned me about. Guess my mom’s worrying over the production being bad news has just been upstaged by the appearance of an actual danger. And by the look in his eyes as he stands there covered in coffee and glancing over my every curve, Vari is even more predatorial now.
2
VARI
I would normally lash out at someone spilling coffee on my thousand-dollar suit, but not with Dahlia. Who knew that my meeting with the theatre’s director would wind up bringing me face-to-face with the woman I walked away from years ago? “Dahlia,” I say as I raise a brow at her. It’s an unusual feeling to have hot coffee soaking the front of my pants and warming my cock at the exact moment I find myself tracing my eyes over the body of a woman who was once mine.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” she gushes. She reaches a hand out toward my pants in a knee-jerk reaction, as if she’s going to somehow be able to fix coffee saturating into my designer pants with a wave of her hand, and then quickly withdraws it when she realizes that her fingers are dangerously close to something forbidden. “I didn’t see you there and I was trying to leave quickly and—”
“Why were you trying to leave quickly?” I interrupt, cutting straight through her nervous chattering. There aren’t many reasons for trying to make a fast exit from a theatre in the dark. Making a fool out of yourself during a failed audition, or running away from a covert attack on your life hidden within the wings of the stage, are the only two scenarios that come immediately to my head.
“I forgot my script,” she says innocently as she waves the crumpled paper in her hand around in the air between us. Only a woman like Dahlia, someone so nice they don’t even realize their own innocence, would come up with an answer like that. “I didn’t want the director to think I was being irresponsible, so I snuck in to grab it and was trying to get back out when—”
“When you decided to play a game of tag with my coffee and the front of my pants?”
“Something like that.” She frowns with embarrassment. “Wait, what are you doing here?”
“I have a meeting.” Normally I don’t present myself in-person at the theatre, but this new play the director’s been hinting at putting on here in this venue has warranted a face-to-face meeting. I’m here to do everything in my power to dissuade the director from going through with the production, and I can be very persuasive. Having a Broadway show that highlights the mafia in the middle of New York City is a bad idea. Our entire crime syndicate likes to stay under the radar, not have a spotlight shined right into the dark crevices of our illegal operations. Granted, the play is fiction and my family’sborgataowns most of the Theatre District in Midtown Manhattan. But I still don’t need any extra eyes watching the activities of the most well-known crime families in New York.
Of course, I don’t elaborate any of that to Dahlia, so I simply continue with, “And you? Are you auditioning for a role?”
“Already did,” she says. “I got the female lead in the new production,Blood Rose.”
I grimace and realize too late that I didn’t do a good job of hiding my reaction. “Blood Rose? The mafia-themed production?” I ask, already knowing full-well what it is.
“Yes,” she beams. “Can you believe it?!” For a moment, both of us seem to have forgotten about my stained pants. Dahlia is visibly over the moon about winning her audition, and I’m completely caught off-guard by how much her happiness seems to excite me. How in the world can I take it away from her? I may live up to my reputation as a violent, cruel monster a lot of the time, but I suddenly find that I don’t have the heart to deny Dahlia Limone her big break. What the hell is wrong with me?
“Congratulations,” I say with a cool, measured tone. The singular moment fills me with a rush of past memories that wash over me and flood my head. Dahlia and I dated in high school, and if I were to be honest with myself, she remains the biggest love of my life. I knew I was hers too. But we went our separate ways as I rose to leadership within myborgata, while Dahlia’s mother tried her best to keep her as far away from the mafia world as possible.
At first, I fought against her mother’s meddling, and I foughtforDahlia. I devoutly wanted to stay with her and bring her with me as I embarked on the wild ride I’ve had, ascending to the position ofcapofor the Robertoborgataat a younger age than usual. But then I realized that her mother was right. I was ascending to great power, which would only put Dahlia in danger and strain her relationship with her own mother. As much as I hated it, I knew her mom was looking out for her best interests, something I at the time couldn’t.
So, I let her go. I broke her heart, and I did it with as much callous coldness as I could, to make it a clean break that would stick. I quickly went on to sleep with other women, of course, because that was the way to heal the self-inflicted wound of my broken heart. And one of those women wound up pregnant and bearing me a son. But even that didn’t last long. She was killed during a hit that was intended to take out me instead, and that whole grisly incident left me with two permanent marks on my life. The first was that of being thrust into single fatherhood of a now five-year-old-boy. And the second was an intense personal vow to never get involved with a woman ever again.
Being acapois laden with both immense power and immeasurable risk, not just for me but for anyone I care about, and I simply won’t risk another woman again. After the hit that cost my son’s mother her life, I refused to allow myself to care about anyone other than those who were unfortunately already tied to me. My two brothers, my son, and myborgata—no women. Good and frequent fucks with women who mean absolutely nothing to me is the only way to push down feelings of anything more intense, feelings that I haven’t really thought about since Dahlia. And now, low and behold, here she fucking is.
“Thanks,” she smiles, careful not to look too happy to see me. I can read her like a book, always have been able to. It’s one of Dahlia’s weaknesses to wear her emotions on her sleeve, and I both admire her for it and hate that it makes her so vulnerable. Not all of the men in this city have as much self-restraint as I do. “I’m really sorry about your pants,” she says as she tries desperately not to look down at my crotch again.
I brush it off, as if these designer pants don’t cost more than the average person’s monthly mortgage. Being filthy rich means not having to worry about money—ever. “Don’t worry about it. I can afford to replace them,” I say cavalierly.
“But what about your meeting?” she asks. “You can’t go to a business meeting with soaked pants covered in coffee.” Little does she know I could go to a meeting completely bare-assed naked and still command the respect of everyone inside this theatre, but it’s been too long since Dahlia and I really knew each other, and she has no idea how powerful I’ve become. Scary powerful.
In this moment, I realize I can make a decision in two ways. I can say goodbye to Dahlia and continue on to my meeting, which is the smart thing to do and what I should be doing. Or I can go entirely against my better judgement, act recklessly, and do the stupidest thing possible. For a man well-known for his solid and substantial decisions, I’m about to really fuck things up.
“I was actually going to cancel my meeting anyway,” I say. I’ve always been a decent liar, but even this one sounds like it’s lacking credibility. “I wanted to have another coffee this morning before I launched into any business. Not on my pants, however.”
Dahlia blushes with scarlet embarrassment that floods her cheeks. Internally, I’m already scolding myself for making an emotional choice and letting a woman from my past cloud my judgement. I came here to the theatre for a meeting that needs to happen, one that will shut down this entire mafia-inspired play before it hits opening night. But not only do I have the insatiable urge to want to spend more time with Dahlia after having literally run into her, I also don’t want to be the man responsible for ruining her chances of an acting career on Broadway.
I’ll handle any fallout from the show myself. I mean, how bad could it be? It’s a play, not investigative journalism. If some of the other crime family bosses get their skins in a prickle, I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be settled with a wad of cash and a bottle of top-shelf liquor. That’s how things are settled between men.
