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The Hartwell name would not be lost, and I would keep their memory alive. The name would be synonymous with power.
My dreams had been realized to an incredible extent, due to some smart business moves and connecting with the right people. I had been able to keep my mother comfortable until the day she peacefully passed. I had made her proud regardless if it was crime money that paid the bills. It’s all she ever knew, and she never once judged me for it.
The only thing that had been missing in my life was a special woman. I wanted an equal partner.
I wanted a strong woman—strong enough to submit and allow me to protect her at all costs. To fully trust that her man would do what was right and always have his woman’s best interest at heart.
I would also dominate the woman I loved and then fuck her brains out after—although this wasn’t something that I revealed to every woman I dated, and there were definitely some whocould have used a good session with my belt. I had let those ladies go with absolutely no regrets. I didn’t want a bratty woman. I didn’t want a woman to act submissive.
No. I wanted a woman who craved it.
I was into some kinky shit when it came to sex, and the right woman had yet to come along to feed my desires.
I was an alpha asshole and had no shame in admitting it.
That wasn’t to say that I hadn’t had a lot of women in my life. I had. Ever since I’d gotten smacked upside the head with the load of testosterone that was puberty, I’d had almost more women hanging around me than I could deal with. In high school, the girls would practically stalk me. And the older they got, the subtler they became, but there were no fewer of them. And when they knew I was connected to the mafia, assassins, thieves, and just overall bad guys, they should have been smart and run away.
They had done the complete opposite. And then of course, owning The Vault had only fueled my desire more. I owned a playground where every fantasy could be met with parties and people like me could quench our every thirst.
Sometimes I didn’t mind a casual fuck. Sometimes I wanted to be left alone. It was a balance that I’d been happy with as long as I’d had Gabriel and his daughter as my surrogate family to ground me. To keep my ego in check and remind me that I was a human being who still enjoyed meatloaf and watching a Sunday night football game with a buddy. But now that he was dead… things seemed darker, and I wasn’t rebounding as I should.
I worked around death used as consequences for deals gone bad. I had lost more friends than I could count. You couldn’t be where I was in the circle I frequented and expect to grow old or have friends who did the same. Not unless you were dying old behind bars.
But my friendship with Gabriel had been different.
Gabriel had been my normal.
Now I just felt like a dark motherfucker again. Alone.
Work helped—the length of my work weeks was getting to be ridiculous. They were the things of which legends were made. But the solace was empty. Beyond the isolation, there were miles and miles of nothingness, and I considered walking away from the dark world altogether. I knew that my partners at The Vault would shit themselves if I left. But I was growing weary of being there every night. I had no desire to take part in the parties. I wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on, but the dynamic of our club was changing and it no longer had the same appeal to me that it once had. Even though the club was packed on most nights, I was over smoking cigars and drinking whiskey with men who didn’t measure up to Gabriel.
It was getting old, or I was getting lonely. Or I just needed a fucking attitude check.
I wasn’t sure what the fuck to do, but I was tired and sick of just about everything. I needed to get my shit together.
The one bright spot in my life was the only social engagement I cared to keep—my twice a month lunches with Storee.
She’d been a rock for me when Gabriel died, even though I was supposed to comfort her as she grieved for her father, and I wasn’t about to forget that. I’d always liked Storee, although I knew that she was completely off limits. She was much younger than me and the daughter of my best friend.
Was she fucking beautiful? Hell, yes.
But the answer was no. No fucking way would I even consider her.
Was I lying to myself? Hell, yes.
I considered. Fuck me, I had considered every time I jacked off after a dinner with them.
She was of age… barely.
But I was a total shithead and an absolute creep for doing so.
I owned it. I owned just how fucked up I was.
In a perfect world, and if I were a good man, I would have never considered plunging my cock deep inside of her.
But the world was far from perfect, and I most certainly wasn’t a good man.
But I’d hidden my lustful thoughts from Gabriel, and for that, I was proud.
