“You’ll get your money and I’ll get the job.” I nodded. I’d already given her four hundred dollars. She’d demanded it upon our arrival. I didn’t actually plan to give her a penny more. It was Monday and I wanted us gone already.
“Well, if you don’t …” she smiled wide revealing teeth stained brown from years of smoking tobacco. “You have a choice of working for me, or the streets. Can’t stay here for nothing though.” She turned and stalked off.
Bitch …
As she said that I was reminded of the first time she’d made me a job offer. I was only twelve. Fucking twelve years old and she had wanted me to work in her brothel. I did a paper round and gave her the earnings made from that. Then my years saw me heading to the bars and clubs mostly waitressing and cleaning. She wasn’t okay with it, but back then I had someone watching my back. Someone powerful enough to make Aunt Vira leave me the hell alone and stop dragging me into her world of drugs and prostitution. I didn’t have anyone like that anymore.
I turned to Sophia who’d been quietly listening.
“Can you do me a favor and check on Flynn? I hope I won’t be out long.” I was just going to a bar / restaurant on main where I hoped to get some work. It was called Fortegra. I’d seen an ad online advertising for a waitress and bar assistant.
Sophia nodded. “Of course. He’ll be fine. I’ll make sure of it. Be careful on the streets Maria. They haven’t changed.”
I pulled in a breath and nodded. “Thank you, I will.”
On that note I left.
Moving on to the next mission.
Chapter 4
Maria
As I stepped outside the cool night air caressed my cheeks.
I glanced over at the brothel’s entrance and my heart squeezed. I couldn’t believe that I had to come back here. It was the best day ever when I had escaped at nineteen. I never went to college and didn’t plan to. My apartment had been my freedom.
Being back here was a massive slap in the face. Showing how far I’d gone in life. So far backwards and now I had a child to worry about too.
My child I had just left with my evil aunt.
I made a move to go. I just had to keep my focus and keep moving. I couldn’t afford to waste a second, not even to think.
I had two grand left and that wouldn’t be enough.
I hoped this would be a quick thing, but not over too quickly as in them saying the job wasn’t available anymore or that they didn’t think I was suited to the role.
I hated looking for work. The last time I had to do it was when Franco went to prison. Looking for work as a single woman with no kids was hard enough, but looking for work with a then eighteen month baby was horrible. It felt the same now.
We’d had a wonderful house and money galore back in Florida. All of that was seized by the feds when Franco was taken into custody. The investigation unveiled where our money was coming from—fraud, scams, and drugs. Drugs big time.
The drug part was something I found out about the year prior to his imprisonment.
I’d overheard a conversation I shouldn’t have heard. Him making a deal with a man I saw on the news and knew to be wanted for drug trafficking with the Cartel. I made the mistake of asking Franco about it and he beat me senseless. He had threatened to kill me and take the baby if I asked any more questions I shouldn’t be asking or if I spoke to anyone about it.
The year that followed was pure abuse. That one incident opened the door to who he was. What he was.
An animal. A monster.
I walked down main street keeping my focus, head straight, mission on my mind.
The bar was just ahead of me. I was glad that it was so near to Vira’s place, because if I started work immediately it meant I wasn’t too far from Flynn.
Speeding up, I joined a group of trendy people who were just going inside.
This place was around when I had last lived here. It was called Pot Luck back then and it closed down a year before I left, because someone found a human finger in a meat pie.
Terrible and devastating as that was, it didn’t surprise me with the heavy mafia influence on the town.
It wouldn’t have been the good mafia guys who were responsible for that. No, that was from their enemies.
Back then Chicago was owned by Raphael Rossi. His boys didn’t need to do shit like that to send a message. One look and you knew they weren’t the kind to fuck with.
It was all in the look, signifying it all. That’s what Luc used to say.
Luc.
Luc … Lucian Morientz.
Back then people knew him as the big bad. As one of the capos for the Rossi family the man was ruthless. Compared to Franco, however Luc was a softie.
How did I know that?
Well, before Luc became a family man he had been with me.
We never had a label. I knew he wasn’t mine, but I was his.
These days he was shacked up with a wife that wasn’t me and his very own son.
Sophia had oh so gladly filled me in on all the various events that had followed my leaving. Anything she could use to be spiteful.
From Luc’s glorious wedding to Raphael’s daughter and the birth of their son. All the things that would hurt me.
When I had first left Chicago, I laid low for a year before I made contact with Sophia just to let her know I was alive. I never called Vira, because I thought Sophia would pass the message on. I did however leave a number so either one of them could call me. Vira never did and Sophia called only when she wanted to make me feel like shit.
It hurt for a very long time, at least until I met Franco
Mafia men and drug lords, different strokes for different folks, they were two different types of criminals. Very different.
I knew that now.
I looked around to see where I should go. The place was so crowded and looked like the spot to be. Chances of running into someone I knew were always higher in a crowd like this.
I knew I would run into people while here. I just wasn’t looking forward to it.
Over by the bar was even more of a crowd ordering drinks. The bartenders looked busy.
Shit, who was I supposed to speak to about this job?
I walked over to the bar and caught the attention of one of the bartenders who’d just reached for a bottle of gin on the shelf.
“Hi, I’d like to see the owner about the new job.” I began, hoping I didn’t sound too tired. At least she had smiled. “Are they around or possibly a manager?”
One of the other bartenders called to her.
“Just a sec. I have to serve this customer.” She apologized.
She left me and that second turned into minutes. There were too many people placing orders and not enough staff. The girl was one of three bartenders. I moved from the counter, staying close just in case I got the chance to speak to either of them.
My heart sunk further into the chasm of hell when it looked like I would be getting nowhere far tonight.
I moved near a pillar and watched, feeling hopeless.
“Holding up the pillar, or is it holding you up, Doll?” said a smooth male voice.
Another voice from the past to recognize for the meaning it held.
I turned to see his face.
Of course, he would have to be even more gorgeous than he was when I left, and definitely not like the guy I grew up with.
Dante D’Angelo.
He was that guy.
He was that guy you knew you should have been with, but had always turned away because there was someone else who filled your mind.
The worst thing in the world was running into a guy like that when he looked like a million dollars, waiting for Hollywood to snap him up, and you felt like ninety-nine cents.
Dante D’Angelo who went from scrawny when I met him at twelve years old when his family first moved to Chicago, to one of the members of the infamous Four, now capo to the new mafia boss.
Tall, dark, and handsome with a face a
ll angles and planes, that you knew God took his own sweet time with when he made him.
The rest of him, Dante had made for himself. Muscles upon muscles, the kind a military man would have, except Dante never served in the military. He was into bikes and being crazy.
The worse thing for me was running into a guy like him, who I’d turned down repeatedly for anyone I had thought was better, and here I was standing in front of him with nothing.
No life, no man to speak of. A child who had a murderer for a father and yes … I was very aware that I was just staring at him and not saying a word.
“So, you don’t talk anymore?” He raised a brow.
“Hi.” I thought I would start simple. Then I looked back to the bar to see if there was any kind of opening to give me another chance at speaking with someone in charge.
“That’s it?” he asked.
I returned my focus to him when he walked around, stood in front of me and leaned against the pillar. My gaze landed on the cross on his neck and stayed there.
It was another reminder I didn’t need tonight.
The tattoo was for his sister; Christina, my best friend.
She was my best friend and every time I saw him after her death, I was fully engulfed by my guilt for the whole terrible tragedy. My guilt in not being able to protect my friend.
And again, I’d gone silent. Just looking at him.
“You okay, doll?” He waved his hand in front of me. “I swore you used to talk a lot more than this. Five years and all you can do is stare?”
“I’m fine thanks. Can I help you with something?” I really didn’t want him to see me asking for a job.
He smirked. “Jesus, woman. Five years and that’s all you can say to me? No Hi Dante, how are you? It’s been awhile. Nothing like that?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Well since you provided the questions you can give the answers too.”
“Hello Maria, I’m fine, how are you?” He decided to say instead.
“Glorious. You can leave me now.” That was the old me talking. I must have slipped and knocked my head somewhere, taking myself back to the snobby teenager I had been. “I have an important meeting with the owner of this place.”
It sounded better to say that even though it was a blatant lie.
His eyes widened. “Really, you do? Damn. You’re lucky to get a meeting with a guy like that. I hear he’s a busy person. Exceptionally hard to get a hold of.” He shook his head.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
“Yes, great guy. Very successful too with a fuck load of money, and the kind of deep pockets a girl like you would like. I mean look at the place. You can tell that guy has some serious coins.” He nodded.
I knew better these days. I knew better than to go after a guy because of wealth and riches.
My little boy came first now.
“That’s great. Do you know when he’ll be here? It would be nice to know who I’m seeing.” Now I just wished I’d said I wanted to see the owner instead of fabricating the lie about the meeting. Maybe Dante could have arranged something for me. Men like him had influence, busy as he’d made the owner out to sound.
“What’s this meeting about?” He held my gaze and narrowed his baby blues at me.
“You don’t need to know that.” I gave him the one shoulder sassy shrug I used to sport when I was putting someone in their place.
His lips curled up into a smile and he tilted his head to the side allowing a stray lock of hair to drift over his eye. He had one of those cool haircuts with the top longish and the sides almost clean shaven. It went in tandem with his beard that had been stylishly trimmed too.
He looked sexy, and he knew it. I could see he knew it, the same as he probably saw through my bull shit.
“Maybe I do need to know.”
“Why? That’s not important for the question I asked.”
“Same old Maria. Five years later, she’s still sexy as hell and full of fire.” He chuckled.
I had to wonder if he was seriously talking about me. Me who looked and felt like shit.
Did he seriously call me sexy as hell?
I actually almost turned and looked behind me to see if he was talking about someone else.
“Whatever,” I just shook my head. Better to do that than entertain such comments. “Clearly you don’t know the owner as well as you say, but then you were always full of shit, what did I expect.”
He laughed. “Same old Maria, can’t see what’s in front of her.”
“I can see just fine thank you very much.”
“No, I’m right. You can’t see for damn shit doll, never could. I’m him.” He nodded.
I narrowed my eyes not quite understanding. “You’re him what?”
His smile widened. “I’m him, the owner.”
I laughed a little. It felt like so long ago that it felt weird, me laughing. “You? Really?”
“Don’t believe me? Don’t worry, I’m a long way away from being insulted.”
I would have said something else, but the girl I’d previously spoken to at the bar rushed up to us and handed him a set of keys.
“Hey boss, I’m off for the night. Janine’s running late. She’ll be here in ten minutes.” She bubbled, of course looking at him dreamingly. “I can stay though if you want.”
“No, it’s cool. You go.” Dante told her.
She gave him a little smile and left us, putting me right in my place.
Dante jingled the keys in front of me and smiled. “So, what was this important meeting we had?”
I just looked at him. I really looked at him, blinked and shook my head.
I would do anything to take care of my baby. Fucking hell, I had even found my miserable self actually considering Aunt Vira’s offer to work in her brothel. That was a new low I’d sunken to—a whole new low. And, when I thought of the past, I might even prefer to consider working there than with him.
It was the same reason why I couldn’t speak to him for too long, or even look at him properly after his sister’s death.
It was the same reason why I couldn’t work here either.
Christina’s death. Her murder.
It was always the answer when it came to me and him.
“I have to go,” was all I said. I made a move to go, but he caught my arm.
“What’s going on with you Maria?” He looked me over.
The light-hearted mood left his face and something dark flashed in his gaze when his eyes landed on my neck.
I knew what he was looking at. It was the scar Franco gave me when he had hit me with a rolling pin. I was trying to walk away from a fight and he hit me.
Dante pulled me closer and lifted the lock of hair that had curled just under my ear. Franco hit me so hard I had to have stiches. We told the doctors I slipped and fell down the stairs. Anyone looking probably could see it was a lie.
Anyone looking the way Dante was would have seen that it was the scar of someone who’d been hit with something.
“What happened to you here?” He stared right at me.
That scar was over two years old. It didn’t look as bad as it did back when I first got it. “Accident.”
I freed my arm from his grasp.
“Accident? You have the troubled look? You in trouble Maria?”
Yes… I wanted to say yes badly, but thought better of it.
I didn’t need any body. I didn’t need anyone to help me and I definitely didn’t have the strength to feel worse than I already did.
“I’m fine. I have to go.”
“But you had a meeting with me.” The smile came back to his eyes. “I’d love to at least know what it was about before you go.”
“No, it doesn’t matter.” I backed away from him and moved into the crowd before he could continue the conversation.
I would have to find something else. I couldn’t work here. I knew he would have given me the job, but I couldn’t do it.
When Christina was killed,
I knew deep down he blamed me for how she had changed. I was the bad girl a girl like Christina should never have been friends with. I was the wild child with no rules, because I had no parents to punish me. Aunt Vira didn’t care about me. I strongly believed she’d taken me in as a baby, because she saw the earning potential in having me. Money from the state, and more money when I got older. She didn’t care how she got it, just as long as she got it.
Christina had a wonderful mother who adored her and a brother who would have done anything for her. A brother who looked for her killer everywhere and had never found him.
Every time I thought about that I died a little more inside, because I had one thing he would never have. One thing that might have helped.
I had a name.
A possible lead, maybe more than possible. Sometimes when I thought about it I felt it was more than possible, but I’d never know. I’d never know and it weakened me every time I thought about it.
I’d never know and I couldn’t say anything to anyone, because it was the sort of thing I couldn’t get wrong.
So, I never said anything. I never said anything because I knew the day I told him, would be the day he’d get himself killed.
Chapter 5
Dante
Like a damn idiot I couldn’t stop smiling to myself.
I really had no reason to smile and realistically I should know better than to have Maria on my mind.
She’d made it very clear many years ago that she didn’t want me.
Problem was, I’d never been able to stop myself from wanting her.
Even when she wasn’t mine.
I had half a mind to follow her last night. I didn’t though, because it would weaken the chase.
If the object of your desire seemed like they were taken up by other things then there was no point in pursuing. She wouldn’t be focused on me.
Last night she had a look I’d only ever seen on her once. One time only and that was when she came to me years back and told me she was looking for Christina.
It was the look of desperation.
Stolen Kisses Page 3
