Dark Betrayal (Famiglia Book 2)

by A. J. Daniels

  It wasn’t until hours later that I would come to learn the truth. My wife. My beautiful, intelligent, full-of-life wife, had stage four ovarian cancer. I was stunned. There was no way. The doctor had it wrong. It was a mistake. She was thirty-eight years old, surely they were mistaken. They had to be. I could not be losing my wife.

  For the next few months, I dragged her to doctor after doctor seeking out different opinions. If one told me that she did indeed have cancer, I went to another and another and another. I forced her to sit through test after test, doctor after doctor telling us what she already had to hear countless times before. I was a bastard. An asshole to the highest standard, but I had refused to accept what was staring me right in the face. That my wife was dying.

  Em agreed to chemo but after ending up in hospital again after the last treatment, her doctor admitted that her body hadn’t responded well to the treatment. I, again, refused to accept that, but Em had turned to me with a small reassuring smile on her face, put her small hand on my arm and told me that it was going to be okay.

  My wife, who lay dying in that hospital bed had comforted me when it should’ve been me comforting her.

  It’s been five years since she died, and I still see her everywhere. In the kitchen when I get home from a long day at the office. Sitting in her favourite chair in the corner of the library that looks out into the backyard. Her coffee mug still sits next to mine beside the coffee maker. The housekeeper still fills the glass vase in the center of the kitchen island with wild flowers… the same ones Em filled them with every Sunday morning after church, because I can’t bring myself to tell her to stop. Her clothes still hang next to mine in the closet because boxing them up would mean that I would have to face reality. A reality that I don’t… can’t bring myself to face. It would mean that she is really gone. Em spent years getting this house the way she wanted it, and I couldn’t bring myself to pack it all up. I knew I would eventually have to sell it. It was too much house for one person. But I needed to hold on to the feeling of her being close for a little longer. I needed to hold on to the scent of her as I step into our closet every morning a little longer.

  I needed to hold onto her a little longer.

  The one other thing I refused to do was allow another person to share the same bed I shared with Em. The hotel down the street from the firm suited my needs just fine. I would pick my conquests up at the bar located across the street and take them back to the room. The hotel staff knew enough to always have the room on permanent reservation, meaning it was always available for me whenever I needed it. Not sure why since I never stayed the night. If they fell asleep, I was never there to greet them good morning. If not, I made sure to let them know in no uncertain terms that I would not be seeing them again. I was not one of those dark, brooding, and broken men they thought they could fix and put back together. Broken? Yes. But beyond fixable.

  After Emily died I used sex and alcohol as a way to forget. To numb the pain of losing the only person I’ve ever loved. The only person who ever loved me unconditionally. Sex served one function, and one function only. Well, two functions; to relieve my most basic urges and to make me forget.

  And it had worked… until now. I could feel the tension is still coiled tight in my core and none of my usual vices were working.

  “Get out,” I murmured, gazing down at the swirling liquid in the glass between my fingers.

  The moans coming from the bed instantly stopped. A few seconds later I heard the squeak of the bed as one or both women got up. I almost breathed a sigh of relief that they heard my near silent demand and left, but stilled as a small body straddled my thighs.

  “Don’t you want to taste her, baby?” The red head drawled. I gripped her wrist in my palm, haltering her movements before she could attempt to bring the fingers she just had buried deep in the brunette to my mouth. Any other night, I would’ve eagerly licked the juices from her fingers and bent her over the bed, curled her hair around my fist as she ate the brunette’s pussy while I fucked her from behind. Any other night but tonight.

  “Get. Out,” I seethed, not caring that a little whimper passed her lips as my gripped tightened for a brief second before I shoved her arm away, causing her to stumble back off me and almost fall to the floor.

  I’ve never once put my hand on a woman. In fact, I despise any man who puts his hands on a woman, but I don’t recognize the person I am anymore. The red head mutters something about me being an asshole as the other one tries to soothe her and they gather their clothes. I don’t bother trying to defend myself because she’s right. I am an asshole.

  If I hadn’t been so hell bent on having the perfect career first before giving Em the only thing she ever dreamt about then maybe she would still be here. If I even bothered to take the time and ask her what she wanted or how she wanted to go about seeking treatment for the cancer, then maybe she would’ve fought harder. If I had just been a better husband…

  The list goes on and on, but none of it will bring her back to me.

  “Fuck!” I roar over the sound of glass shattering against the far wall.

  I don’t stop to clean it up, knowing the staff will just add it to my bill, and grab my jacket from the back of the couch in the living room of the suite, the door slamming shut behind me as I make my way to the elevator.

  I don’t remember how I got home that night. Or even if I drove, which I suspect I didn’t because I was soaked from head to toe. The only thing I remember is it was pouring down rain when I stepped out the lobby of the hotel and then suddenly I was in our bedroom stripping out of my wet clothes before collapsing on top of the comforter, not bothering to put on a pair of dry pajama pants.

  I spent hours with my head turned to the side, staring out the double sliding doors that lead out to the backyard. Watching the way rain drops fell and ran down the glass. I was still watching the rain when the sun started rising and when the alarm clock by the bed went off, reminding me that I had yet another day of defending criminals to endure. My phone rang about an hour later and I suspected it was one of the other partners of the firm and my best friend calling it find out where the fuck I was.

  I ignored it. All of it.

  Chapter Two

  “Jesus, Mace. What the fuck!”

  I crane my neck slightly to see Corey, my best friend and business partner, standing in the door way to the bedroom. Somewhere in the fog that’s clouded my brain, I remember I’m laying naked save for a pair of boxer-briefs in the middle of the big bed but I don’t give a shit. Serves him right for showing up at my house uninvited and barging his way into our bedroom. My bedroom. God dammit, it stopped being Em and I’s bedroom the day she died. The day she left me.

  I groan and try to push myself up. My muscles protesting the change in position after being forced to stay in the same awkward position for most of the night. I hadn’t even noticed that the heat never kicked on in the middle of the night as a shiver races down my back.

  “The fuck do you want?” I grit out, sitting on the edge of the mattress, my eyes roaming the floor around the bed searching out the pair of pants I wore yesterday.

  “You didn’t show up at the office this morning. You’re always the first one in in the mornings. Came to make sure you were still alive.”

  Something gets flung at me and it’s not until my fingers wrap around the material and I unfold it do I realize that Corey must have opened the dresser drawer and pulled out a pair of pajama bottoms for me.

  “Clean yourself up. I’ll have coffee ready downstairs.” He leaves no room for argument when he turns and shuts the bedroom door behind him. Moments later I hear him bound down the stairs then his steps are faltering followed by a loud curse.

  If my muscles weren’t aching with every movement and I wasn’t sporting a hangover from hell I would’ve chuckled at the likelihood that Corey almost tripped over Bowser. The big dog had made a habit of wedging himself right up against the bottom step and falling asleep. His dark fur blend
ed in with the dark carpet on the stairs so you don’t know he’s there until you’re almost on top of him or he shifts. Damn dog has gotten me good a night or two when I’d been so drunk I’d had to stumble up the stairs.

  Five minutes later, I’m showered and dressed but not in my standard three-piece suit attire. I’d already decided that work could fuck off today. If any of my clients really needed me, I could take care of it from home, but I needed a day away from the hum drum of the office and criminals who counted on me to get them off the hook. I got paid the big bucks to look the other way and bend the law to my will to get them off scotch free.

  Corey eyes my casual outfit but doesn’t comment on it as he shoves a mug of steaming coffee at me and nods to the other side of the kitchen island with the bar stools. I heed his unspoken command and sit down. The smell of omelets cooking has my stomach growling, making me wonder when exactly was the last time I ate. If the massive hangover was any indication then it was at least twenty-four hours ago, maybe longer. Fuck if I know.

  I expect Corey to start reaming my ass out for ditching out of work today once I’ve taken the first sip of coffee so I’m surprised when the next words out of his mouth are,

  “How bad?”

  “How bad what?”

  He plates the first omelet, placing it in front of me before turning back to make a second. Once he has everything set up in the pan, he leans against the counter arms crossed over his chest. “How bad did it get this weekend, Mace?”

  My headache intensifies and I’m not entirely sure if it’s because of the copious amounts of alcohol I consumed over a two day period… on what I’m now pretty sure was an empty stomach, or if it’s because of the force with which I’m clenching my jaw.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I shrug, picking at the egg, ham, and cheese concoction on my plate.

  Corey doesn’t respond while he plates his own breakfast and maneuvers to sit beside me. If he wasn’t my best friend I would’ve kicked him out long ago. Business partners be damned. But Corey picked me up in the months following Emily’s death. During the first week I thought I had my shit together, thought I could hide my grief and bury myself in heaps of paperwork and cases, it quickly became apparent to me and everyone else that I wasn’t coping with her death. That’s when I started drinking, figured losing myself at the bottom of a bottle or two every day would help ease the pain and the guilt I felt around her death. It didn’t. Corey found me at my worst, order a house cleaning service to clean my house while he cartered me back to his place and him and his wife, Melanie, took care of my sorry ass.

  I didn’t want to admit that my wife’s death hit me harder than I thought. Real men weren’t supposed to feel emotions. Isn’t that the bullshit we’re all fed as kids? Real men don’t cry. Real men are tough. We’re supposed to take it on the chin and move on. Well, fuck that. My wife died from cancer. The woman I’ve loved since we were thirteen-fucking-years old. What kind of man would I be if losing her didn’t faze me? A cold-hearted monster, that’s what. I lost the love of my life and I wasn’t ready to move on without her yet.

  It’s not until we’re both done eating and I’ve refilled our coffee mugs does he say, “Mace, you can’t keep punishing yourself every year. She wouldn’t’ve wanted to see you like this.”

  He’s right of course. Em would’ve hated seeing me like this. Losing myself at the bottle or two of bourbon, using women in my own personal endeavor to forget. It doesn’t make hearing it any less painful.

  Without a word, I grab my coffee mug and bring it with me in a silent dismissal for Corey to see himself out, and head back upstairs but when I pass the open door to her library I physically can’t pull myself away. Instead, I find myself walking into the bright room and sitting down in her favorite chair.

  Hunched over with elbows braced on my knees and my head in my hands, I beg my wife to forgive me. I ask her to forgive me for not giving her what she wanted, for not fighting harder to find her the best doctors.

  ∞

  Hours pass before I can’t take the near constant growl from my stomach and make my way back downstairs. I heard Corey leave shortly after I turned my back on him and walked out of my kitchen, but not before I heard the telltale sign of the dishwasher starting up. The man couldn’t stand a thing out of place which led to my making up a game shortly after we met for my personal enjoyment, and to see him nearly lose his mind trying to figure out what was different. Every time I went over to his house, I moved something. Just one thing and not necessarily move it so that it was obvious. Sometimes just an inch or two to the right or left, other times I’d just rotate it slightly. It drove Corey nuts, but hey if your best friend can’t mess with you like that then who can.

  Before I can sit down with my sandwich and another glass of bourbon, my computer pings with an incoming email from my office just down the hall. I’m usually not able to hear it unless I have my phone but I must have left the office door open and not shut down the computer after the last use.

  Sitting down in the black leather chair, I curse as I see the email that just came in and who the sender is. So much for telling work to fuck off for the day because the sender of the email is not one you can tell to fuck off unless you have a death wish. Because when the De Luca family come calling, you better be ready to answer.

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  EPILOGUE

  BONUS