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I hold my stare on his before turning forward. Maybe he’s jealous. Maybe all the bickering he’s doing with Lucy is a redirection for his true feelings for her. Then again, maybe he’s just being a dick. I wouldn’t put it past him.
Lucy shakes her head and leans into me tighter. “Is he always like this?”
“Like what? An adrenaline junky?”
“No, an asshole.”
I laugh. “Pretty much. But when he’s focused on a task, the guy’s a machine. No one looks at him sideways. They know better.”
“I get the feeling you are too. A machine, I mean.”
I shake my head. “Not like Saint. We’re brothers, but he comes from different blood than me. Demarco blood is the darkest there is. I’m just lucky to be on this side of the tracks.”
The wind blows and she leans in closer to hear over the rain and whipping wind. “So you guys really do kill people? You’re the real mob? Why do you guys live in Miami then?”
“Miami is a shipping hub. Saint was stationed here when he turned eighteen. He brought me with him, and Luca came a few years later.”
“So you’re all the same then? You kill people for money?” Her voice shakes when she talks. “Do you want to, or—”
“We kill people because we have to, not because we want to. I think we’re all in agreement that this is kill or be killed. Saint’s father passed away a few years ago, and he took over operations. Technically, we should be safer at the top, but sometimes I think it’s more dangerous.”
“Wait, so he runs the entire Sicilian mob? I figured he led a part of it, but not the entire thing.”
“All of it.Second in command is his younger brother, Alec. He stays overseas, while we handle things here.”
There are many times in my life that I wish I were a better man, but never more than right now. The look in Lucy’s eyes as I tell her point-blank what we do, is disappointing to say the least.
The small boat shifts and cracks over another dozen waves, before she speaks again. Thankfully, there’s land in sight.
“I’ve probably told you too much,” I say, rubbing her shoulder warm with my hand. “I don’t want to scare you.”
She doesn’t blink. She only keeps asking questions. “You seem like a decent guy; how did you get mixed up in all this?”
I guess I should be flattered by the termdecent.It’s more than I deserve for the things I’ve done. “I’m not sure how much you want to know. It’s pretty gruesome.”
Her eyes widen as she looks toward me, her hand resting on my leg, her voice softer than it’s been as she says, “I want to know everything about you. Besides, it’s a nice distraction from all the stuff going on around us.” Her eyes dart to the splashing water surrounding us and I figure I might actually be doing her a favor by continuing, so I do.
“When I was ten,” I start, sucking in a deep breath, “my father sent me to work for the Finnegans. They owned an Irish bar in town. Normally, we’d all steer clear of the Irish, but this place was the kind where tourists gathered, and drinks were had in good fun. Besides, the Finnegans were good friends of my father. They’d gone to school together and raised their children together. I was friends with their eldest son, Bo, and my sisters were good friends with Rebecca and Elise.”
“That sounds nice,” she says, narrowing her brows. I can tell she’s waiting for the gruesome part, the part that changed my life forever.
“It was,” I say, “until the business started to fail, and Bo joined the Irish mob to help pay the bills. In order to prove his loyalty, he was sent to kill three people close to him. The three he chose belonged to me, my father and both of my sisters. He’d have taken my mother too, I’m sure of it, but she passed the year before of cancer.” I clear my throat. “I watched it happen from the gelato shop across the street. I was nine at the time.” She squeezes my hand in comfort as I stare out at the dark horizon. “Saint’s family took me in when there was no one else and promised me revenge.”
“Did you get it?”
“I did. I made my first kill at ten years old over the watch of Felix Demarco, Saint’s father.”
Her eyes widen, but her voice stays soft. “Ten years old?”
I nod. “He taught me how to stalk, how to kill, and how to dispose of the bodies.”
“Bodies?”She stares at me long and hard as the boat slows and Wolf guides us to the dock.
“Bodies,” I repeat, solemnly as though I still have remorse for those I’ve killed, and I do… every single person.
The boat jolts to a stop and the ocean hugs us close as the water recalibrates our floatation. We’re at the dock, and I wonder if I’ll get the time to tell her more, time to tell her I’m not a cold-blooded killer, time to tell her that I have a code, time to tell her that I’d never hurt her.
Luca hops out onto the dark dock and ties us into port against the wind as a suited man waits on shore for us. He doesn’t smile or react much at all, but he never does. He’s there for transport only, and Saint requires professionalism.
