“Could they lose it?”
“You’re asking if I could lose money,” I observe. “And the answer is every investment, no matter how secure, is risky in our world, but it is offset by my belief that Jas Torrente with a certain someone’s assistance can cinch up the purse strings before all the coins roll away.”
He licks his lips, hungry for what I possess. “Would you help Zacarro or stay by Torrente?”
“You’re asking if I would run a loss for Zacarro?” He nods, rubbing my toes. “Not in this lifetime, Gabriel.” I pause and stare at the sharp angle of his jaw and the pronounced lips that have kissed me in places I daren’t speak of ever again. “When Angelo sent me out into the world, my first stop was Morpheus, which was far more romantic than it should have been. Zacarro offered nothing more than the reverse. The dark side to Morpheus’ light.”
“You want to eliminate them?” he cackles. “Are they on Lotus’ blacklist?”
“Beneath several others, but I wouldn’t mind putting a pinch on them.”
“Is that part of the reason you were so excited to come to Brazil and spend time with the Montesinos?”
“If I can convince the Montesinos to sell to another, it would certainly hurt Zacarro.”
He reaches for me. I slowly move into the water to kiss his generous mouth. “I promise to stay away from Zacarro. If you need help rebuilding Torrente, will you consider me?”
“Yes,” I whisper, straddling his lap as he firmly impales himself inside of me. “I will, Gabe.” With his hands in the middle of my back, I lean and welcome his starving tongue on my breasts. “Mama will provide.”
He glances up with his lip still on my nipple and mutters, “And when you convince the Montesinos to supply your boy Raniero, make sure Sal knows, I will abandon my cartel to work under him.”
“We’re Atticus Huit’s worst nightmare,” I note with amusement as he savagely dives to my breast, suckling with every thrust. “The offspring created to take out their opponents’ will backdraft and cause mass casualties.”
87
Wailing Flowers
His Master
In the nursery, I cradle my son—Romeo Salvatore Gennaro—and I remember holding a little girl at about this age. With porcelain skin and those blue-violets as big as the moon, she smiled at me like I built the heavens and painted the stars one by one.
“Where are you going?” Romeo asks.
“Daddy has to go out for a bit.”
“Where?” he demands with his curly headed mop and giant grass-green eyes. They are entrancing, and fathers with daughters who sit on porches with shotguns will have nothing on me with my son.
“He has to go to jail!” Raine yells, running past to her room. “Uncle Nicky is getting out!”
“Young lady!” I patiently scold. “Come here, please.”
“What?” she sasses as her ash blonde hair bounces. “It’s true!”
The summer always washes out Raine’s red. With big golden chartreuse eyes, she smirks just like her mother, Kaci. I decided to keep her R3—including the Raniero—out of respect to Kaci; she wanted to be a Raniero more than anything.
“Please do not let me die with Hope because I have none left. God forbid, a Cristos.”
Her daughter’s legal name is now Rozzalyn Raine Raniero Gennaro, which I guess makes her R3G. And I know it is a mouthful.
“Uncle Nicky is not getting released from jail,” I inform, refraining from making my personal opinions known. The only one who would post the bond is me. And like hell I was doing that. Nicky deserved to rot in a cage like a rodent forever, but I wasn’t going to try and explain to a nine-year-old how The Unholy went out of business real quick with Nick’s latest stunt.
Bouncing on her toes, Raine softly asks, “When is Auntie coming?”
I snort, holding back my laugh. Raine insists on using some blend of European accent when referring to her Auntie. “She’ll be here very soon,” I reply, knowing the only Auntie she acknowledges is the Lotus Queen. Megan peeks in the room and smiles. “Why don’t you and your brother go have breakfast?”
“Because Oki always undercooks the eggs!” Raine whines as Megan giggles. “They’re wet and nasty!”
“Those are not undercooked,” I correct. “They’re over easy.”
“Go, go, go!” Megan rushes them out of the room. “Regardless of what they are, you won’t eat them if they’re cold.”
Closing the door, she paces closer and kneels at my feet. “Yes, beautiful?”
“Lani called with the results.”
I lift a brow as she grins wide. “… And?”
“We did it!”
“Baby!” I yell, opening my arms as she crawls into my lap. “You and me?”
Blinking through her tears, she booms, “Our baby is in Oki’s belly!”
“Goddamn! Yes!” I say with utter joy. We needed success for once. “We should fucking celebrate tonight!”
“I’ll wear the flower lingerie you like so much.”
“I do appreciate a good garden.” I wink. “I’m going to see Nick.”
With concern, she asks, “Is he getting out?”
“Deacon and Sal are still in Italy, and there is not a fucking chance in hell I am risking that monster coming anywhere near my family.”
I kiss her lips as my hand rests on her thigh. Reluctantly, I release her, and she walks toward the door. “I love you, Dom.”
With her back to me, I get her attention. “Meg?”
Spinning back, she screams at the sight of me on one knee. “Dominic…”
“Babe, breathe.”
Her quivering voice asks, “Dominic Monte Gennaro, what are you doing?”
“Megan Folly, will you make me the happiest man in the world and be my wife?”
Her screams echo through the house as the kids—Raine, Finn, and Romeo—come running, and she twists to halt them. “Stop!” she commands with her hands flat. “You brats are not ruining the moment I have waited for all of my life!”
She peers down at me. “Answer, baby girl.”
“Yes!” she whispers as I slip the engagement ring on her finger. “Holy fuck!”
I laugh, as Raine cites, “Bad word!”
“I’ll put my quarter in the jar,” Meg giggles as I stand up. She jumps into my arms and wraps her legs around me. “Go away, you guys!”
I laugh as their faces etch with disappointment, and they leave. “I love you so fucking much, baby.”
“I thought we were going to be done,” she says, crying in my arms. “I didn’t know if we were going to get past this.”
“We are never apart,” I contend, pushing her against the wall. “You are the love of my life and the light in my darkened world. And everything I do is for you.” I kiss her passionately. “And if we have to make babies in dishes and put them in Oki, I don’t give a shit. They’re ours—Folly and Gennaro.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t care as long as that baby looks just like you.”
Her slender fingers run over my cheeks. “We’re going to get married!”
“Yes, we are,” I proudly declare. “But there will be no Christmas weddings.”
“What about Valentine’s Day before the baby comes?”
“Sure,” I quickly say. “Any day you want.”
“Can we have it at Juliet?”
“I am certain I can sweet talk Anna into letting one of her favorite girls marry at Juliet.”
“The baby will be here in late spring. I cannot wait to tell Iris that her idea worked!”
I furrow my brow. “… Iris?”
“After we found out, I couldn’t have another baby on my own…”
“Because of your angry womb?” I interject her words with a chuckle.
“Yes, because of my angry womb,” she giggles. “I called Iris crying. She said she might be able to help before we put me through all the surgery it would take to make an unangry womb.”
“But Sal ca
lled me and asked if I would take Oki in,” I question. “So how did Iris have anything to do with it?”
“Because Iris wanted Oki out of Japan, away from her brothers in the Goro gang, as a means to get Murasaki’s attention,” she informs. “Save the daughter.”
“That is really fucking scary.”
“Eventually,” she says, rocking her hips against my erection. “You boys are going to learn how brilliant Iris is.”
“I can’t learn it,” I snicker. “I’ve already failed the Lotus crash course in conniving and manipulation half a dozen times.”
“You can’t beat her,” she says. “Join her!”
“I knew that thirty years ago.”
“Goddamn, you are such a Daddy!”
With a snarl, I warn, “Brat.”
“Gotta love marrying a woman half your age!” She winks.
“You’re evil.”
“Maybe I’ll wear black,” she mutters, clamping her teeth on her lip. “Or red.”
“You will wear white because you are only getting married one time, Mrs. Megan Gennaro.”
“… Can I hyphen?”
Raising a brow, I ask, “Can I spank and fuck your ass?”
“Yes.”
“Wrong. Yes, Sir,” I teasingly scold as she makes a rumbling noise. “There will be no hyphen attached to my Gennaro.”
“What if I let you adopt Finn? Can he be Finnigan Graham Gennaro? Would Pharm allow it?”
“I imagine we can work out something with Mr. Jones.” I smirk, knowing the deal Cruz made in New Orleans.
“You realize Oki’s brother, Fumio, is Morpheus’ right-hand man and Pharm is his brother and Finnigan’s father?”
“I do realize that,” I say, knowing our extended family is thick and deep. “And I could tell you a secret that only one other person in the world knows.”
“Hmm?”
“Oki’s been pregnant once before.”
“How do you know this?”
“Eric Monroe’s team rescued her,” I say, remembering the details like it was yesterday. “She had come to the States with her brother, Fumio, via San Francisco and ran off for six months. He made it to Georgia, but she didn’t get past Nevada. She lived on the streets and got involved in a bad scene. The team found her and five other runaways at an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere in Colorado, sixteen, and four months pregnant.”
“Oh, my gosh,” she mutters in disbelief. “Who was the father?”
“She would never tell us,” I lie, understanding that if I tell Megan, I put her in grave danger. “The team took her to Nebraska, where she stayed in a safe house until giving birth. Sibyl put her on a plane back to Japan.”
“Wait…” she says as the lightbulb comes on. “… Is Baby Mae Oki’s? Does Dale know she is here? Did you or Sal never meet her?”
“The first time Sal and I ever met Oki Hada was the Yanagi Hostess Bar in Japan. Jack Kerris delivered the baby and handed it over to Dale Archer for a small fortune. He says he named her Mae after Kacilyn Mae, but many think he named her after Amber’s former stripper name, Mae East. If Dale finds out she is here, I will kill him.”
I know why Dale paid so much for the runt.
The disturbing part, so does he.
“She is with Serene,” she whispers. “Is that safe for Mae with Nicky and Dale?”
The billion-dollar question on everyone’s mind.
How to extract Mae from her situation.
Oki Hada’s family, the Goro gang, led by Matsu Goro, made big waves in Tokyo with the controlling regional family, Sword. There was serious concern that Goro would have enough growth to overtake the area, which would make—Mae-Mae Helouise Archer Hada—a royal.
Mae-Mae’s grandmother, Murasaki Hada, was the former concubine of The Chairman and Aki Nakamura’s best friend. Family ties need not run deep in shallow waters filled with deadly flower urchins.
And that is why Iris schemed to remove Oki from Japan.
Because she knows who Mae-Mae is too.
His Submissive
“Tell me the truth,” Trudy asks, sitting across from me. “I need to know what happened in Boston, Hannah.”
“Nothing happened, Ma,” I say, eating the chocolate waffles X made. “I swear.”
She lights a cigarette, crosses her arms, and asks, “What’s with Sal’s necklace? You taking up Catholicism now? You and my son, I swear.”
Slamming my second cup of coffee, I grin and shake my head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re wrong,” she corrects with a maternal scowl. “Try me, hot shit. Because I guarantee I have been exactly where you are.”
“Sal and I have a special relationship.”
“He has a wife,” she reminds as I get up to put my plate in the sink. “And you have a husband while Tank is sleeping in your bed.”
The horn blares. “Who is that?”
“A friend,” I say, washing my hands. “We’re going out for a bit. Please do not send the two-wheeling henchmen to guard me.” I sigh as she peers out the door. “Why is Dom’s Bronco in my driveway? He’s got enough women, Hannah Beth!”
“Ma, I am going out with Dom and Meg. He has a gun.”
“So does she,” she adds.
“I do not need anyone to chaperone me. I am twenty years old,” I snap angrily. “And I am Sal Raniero’s submissive, so if anyone touches me, they die.” I shrug and stomp to the door.
“I love you, kid.”
I smile. “I love you too, Ma.”
I rush to the vehicle, hop inside, and cry. “Go!”
“I am going!” He shifts it into reverse and flies down the driveway like we just robbed the place. “I’m surprised she didn’t follow you out.”
“No one needs to know what we’re doing,” I mutter, drying my tears with a tissue I stole from the box on the floor. I pull his Bollé sunglasses from my bag and put them on. “It’s my business. Not anyone else. My choice.”
“Are you sure you want to go see Nicky?”
“I’ve never been more certain of anything except the collar on my neck.”
Alone in the jail basement, I spot the old cage behind rows of filing boxes. Creeping closer, I pull a chair up to the bars. The stench is unyielding, and my stomach curdles as I gag and cover my mouth.
“Hannah…”
“Nico,” I stoically reply. “I only have one question.”
“You need to know why I did it,” he interjects, standing and walking to the bars. He grabs hold of them with desperation in his eyes like he’d pounce and violate me again if he could. “I did it because you’re mine. Even in here.” His hand drops, and he shoves it under his pants. His hand is moving fast as I feel sick. “So fucking pretty.”
I throw up, fully projectile, on the floor of his cell and his pants. With the tissue clenched in my hand, I stand up and yell, “No! You don’t get to do this again! Stop!” He doesn’t listen as his hand pounds on. “Tell me who told you to rape me!”
“They did…”
“Who the fuck is they?”
His eyes close to slits as his face contorts into a hideous beast, and he ejaculates. He sneers, happy he’s offended me. “The one who has been telling me what to do for years.” He drops to his knees as I see his hand dripping with cum. Scraping his tongue through the vomit, he looks up with the eyes of a lunatic. “You’ll never find them. They’re hidden in the forest.”
“Fuck you!” I seethe. “You will never touch me again.”
He swipes his tongue through the mess again. “If I get out of here, I’m going to eat every piece of you, whore.”
“You are a dead man, Nico. No matter what you do. No matter where you go. You will die.”
Turning my back to him, I cringe as he roars like a beast spawned from the depths of hell. “Hey, Pretty…”
I glance back, and he rapidly flicks his tongue at me. “Fuck. You. Nico. Cristos. You. Will. Never. Hurt. Me. Again.”
His tongue rests on th
e edge of his sharp eyetooth. “Your pussy was wet, crying all over my dick, and just begging me to take her.”
I look him straight in the eye. “Never. Again.”
88
Argh! Ahoy, me mateys!
The Master
“When are you leaving?” Cruz asks as we eat Chinese on the floor on the apartment.
“For Dubai?”
“No, I know that is in three days,” he says, dipping his dumpling in the sauce and feeding it to Amber. “Home?”
“As soon as I get back from Dubai and pack this place up.”
He chuckles, “… Not coming back?”
“Not like this,” I rant, shaking my head as the phone vibrates in my pocket. “Shit, it’s Georgia. Keep eating you two.”
I step out on the balcony and answer, “Raniero likes it rough.”
“I love you so much,” she giggles. “I got some juicy stuff for ya.”
“Oooh, I like your kinky talk.”
“Kinky talk for a kinky bastard,” she teases. “How are you?”
“I’m…” I hesitate, knowing fine isn’t good. “I’m okay. Ready to get my ass out of purgatory. What you got?”
“Rie Ford.”
“A name I haven’t heard in a while,” I snicker. “What’s Iris Kettles up to now?”
“Ms. Rie Ford checked into her favorite hotel in New York City during Carlo Torrente’s funeral. I am sending you the bill now.”
I chuckle, “Bitch put it on my credit card?”
“Oh yeah, Boss. And she had about ten bottles of her favorite champagne over her two day stay.”
“Who was with her?”
She sighs. “My best guess is Jas, considering he hasn’t bothered to even respond to my emails, texts, or phone calls to try and retrieve the surveillance footage. I don’t think your girl was in Japan.”
“Fuck.”
“But I hate guesses,” she taunts. “And I am crazy about your fine ass, so I called the security firm and told them I was Carlo Torrente’s secretary. Of course, I provided proper validation,” she says with an abrupt cough. “And they sent me the videos.”
A Dark Place (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 5) Page 69
