My eyes widened. Marcus Morientz was Claudius’ consigliore and no one knew more than him.
Claudius was right this had to be done by the old ways. But that could mean getting people killed.
“I don’t want you guys in danger,” I said.
Claudius and Gio laughed at the same time while Alex smirked.
“I’m serious.” I offered up. “Claudius, you have a baby on the way and a wife. You guys this is above all of us.”
“Remember the days when people used to call us when shit was getting real and we were the people who sorted it out.” Claudius straightened up. “We’re The Four. We’re doing this. Boys, rules as usual. Women and loved ones out of business, and we keep our head up, eyes all over, eyes like an eagle. Blood for blood.”
Blood for blood …
It was the call for war.
I stilled, feeling the tension in my soul.
“Blood for blood,” Gio replied first.
“Blood for fucking blood.” Alex smiled.
My turn. “Blood … for blood.” As the words left my lips I recalled my sister, Christina lying dead on the bed covered in blood.
Yes, blood for blood.
* * *
It was late afternoon when we left.
Nearly five.
I didn’t go home. Couldn’t yet. There was one place I had to go first before going home.
I headed to Christina’s burial site. This would have been my third visit this month.
When I got there, I saw someone who I had never expected to see.
Maria.
She sat on the bench staring at the headstone.
Flynn wasn’t with her. She was just by herself and the low sun beamed off her hair making it shine like a halo on her head.
The last time we’d been here together was the actual funeral. We’d never come here together since, and we’d never spoken about that day when we found Christina dead.
We spoke about everything else—just not that, never that.
I moved to her and sat next to her.
She looked at me and tears instantly filled her eyes, then streamed down her cheeks. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Just more tears and her shoulders slumped like she couldn’t carry on the bravado that she had a handle on everything.
I knew the feeling well, because that was me too.
Some days were worse than others, but these days were unbearable.
When I put my arm around her, she leaned into my chest and clung to my shirt, breaking down.
“I should have taken better care of her.” Maria winced. “She was the only real friend I’d ever had.”
“You can’t blame yourself. We can’t blame ourselves.”
“It’s my fault though, people like her shouldn’t have gotten mixed up with people like me.” She pulled away but I kept my hold on her. “You blame me Dante.”
I shook my head. “I do not blame you. Never think that. I don’t blame you one bit. So, stop acting like I do.”
I looked her over and she started crying harder like hearing me say that was some release.
“I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head and pulled her back into my arms.
There we stayed just like that until the cover of night took over.
Still not talking about it.
It was however, the first time I didn’t feel so alone.
And today was a step in a direction.
Whatever that direction was I was yet to find out.
Yet to see where I’d be led to and what secrets would be exposed.
Chapter 10
Maria
The lights bounced off the walls—
Blue, green, yellow, pink. It reminded me of Vegas.
Like the splash of color dancing around the Bellagio or one of the other hotels.
I thought it was cool and definitely had that clublike feel.
The idea to turn the place into a club on a Friday night was definitely a Dante thing to do. He loved his music and looking around now I could see this whole set up was a hundred percent him.
I decided to bite the bullet and ask for the job. Swallow my pride and just do it.
Slowly, but surely it felt like the past was catching up with me.
Like everything was coming in full circle and hitting me full on.
Yesterday it just all got to me and not for the first time I was reminded that the one friend I’d ever had in this world was Christina. That was what sent me to her graveside. I had to see her. Never thought I’d see Dante too and hearing him tell me he didn’t blame me released that burden of guilt that weighed down on me.
It set a part of me free.
He gave me hope and I couldn’t leave him.
The good feelings however dissipated into the air the minute I got back to Vira’s and she blasted me for coming back late.
Sophia had to go to work so Vira ended up watching Flynn for probably half an hour. The woman cursed me and the anger spilled over into today. I just managed to save Flynn from her heavy hands, because he took one of her breadsticks. She was going to hit him.
Flynn was with Sophia now. I knew I wouldn’t be long, because it was practically a done deal I should have taken days ago. Dante would have given me the job if he knew I needed it.
So here I was again, looking for the owner. Looking for him. It wasn’t that late. Just a little after seven so I thought the place wasn’t going to be busy.
I was completely wrong. It was heaving with people. Downstairs was the restaurant area and upstairs on the second level there was a bar and dance floor. The tables, chairs and pool tables had been moved to open up the floor and this looked like the crowd for the night.
I stood by one of the pillars and looked around. A little smiled tugged at the corners of my lips. Dante really had done extremely well for himself. I was proud of him.
It really was like Vegas.
Franco took me there just before we got married. I’d told him I’d never been and the very next day he whisked me away. We spent four days there. It was there that he first won my heart.
That was only after two months of seeing each other. We met in the restaurant I was working as a waitress. He knew the owner and after a several attempts to get me to go out with him I finally agreed.
He was the first guy I decided I’d take it slowly with. I knew he was rich and powerful in his circles and I knew he had influence. It was the way people behaved around him. After all when you’d lived in Chicago all your life and spent a chunk of your life around mafia guys you got used to certain mannerisms. You could pick up straight away when certain people were considered important.
That was him and it was the first sign that I needed to be careful. I’d never lacked for attention. Never worried about how I looked, because there was always some guy after me. Some guy wanting to claim me. I’d loved it, but after Luc I gained wisdom.
I saw that really wasn’t how things should be.
Christina had been right in her dream of what she wanted—chemistry, attraction, and that feeling of getting lost in each other.
When I met Franco, I tried to feel that. I did feel some of it and I’d thought it was enough.
He took care of me and I fell for him. I figured that if I could do that part then the rest would come. Everything else would have come naturally. It felt like it did at one point. There was the day when we found out I was pregnant with Flynn and Franco was so happy he cried.
I didn’t know what changed, but it felt like he just became a different person overnight, or what it could have been was the fact that I didn’t want to see who he really was. Not until it was too late.
I spotted Gio and Alex coming from the corner beside the bar, it looked like that might have been a storage area, because they both carried crates of drinks.
Knowing they would get me access to Dante I made my way over.
Gio saw me first and smiled.
“Maria, long time.” He beamed giving
me a hug. He had to practically shout over the music.
Alex gave me a hug too. “Here to dance?” he joked.
“I wish,” I replied.
“She’s here for the boss,” Gio said with emphasis on the word boss.
I laughed. “Is he around? Place looks busy.”
“Place is always busy doll. He’s in his office counting his coins like some king.” Gio chuckled. “Follow those stairs up to the next level. His office is the first door you get to.”
“Thank you. See you guys soon.”
Both nodded and exchanged curious glances in that mischievous way they used to.
I smiled to myself and followed Gio’s directions. The music got lower as I climbed higher up the stairs. I found his office and knocked on the door.
“Come in.” He called out.
I pushed the door open and went in. He had his head bent low as he focused on something he was writing in a notebook.
When his gaze shifted to me, he stopped writing, set his pen down and smiled.
I closed the door behind me and looked him over.
He did look like a boss. Wide shoulders, sophisticated clothes tonight that was different to the casual leather I’d normally seen him in.
Eyes sparkling he gazed at me, and as he tensed his jaw it drew my attention to deep angles and planes in his perfect face.
“Hi.” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Place looks amazing. It’s so busy.”
I didn’t think I could ever remember the last time I felt nervous around a guy, and if I’d ever felt it would have been guaranteed that it was him.
“The stars must be aligning in some different way, apart from back in high school this is the most I’ve seen of you in any one week.”
“High school was such a long time ago.” It felt like it never happened. Like it was a thing that we all just went through. I remembered my first day and my last day.
Life changed so much after that it seemed to eradicate everything that happened in the in between.
“Eons. I’m getting to be an old man now.”
“You’re only thirty-six, that is not old.”
“Feels like I’ve lived a hundred lifetimes.”
Me too. It felt like the years I’d been alive were all extended so it was like a hundred years for every year.
He stared at me with expectancy. “Especially when I start seeing you on the regular.” He added. “Is this business or pleasure? I know I’d certainly enjoy one more than the other?”
Time to tell him why I was here.
“I … um, there was a job I saw. A waitressing job you had advertised online. I wondered if it was still available.”
He stared at me and a slow easy smile spread across his full sensual lips. Lips I could stare at all day and wonder what they would feel like on mine.
“How much do you need?” He straightened up.
“No,” I shook my head. I didn’t want him to give me money. “I want to work. I got a place for Flynn and me. I just need a job for a little while.”
“A little while? How long’s that? What happens after that?” Curiosity filled his eyes.
I still didn’t want to talk about Franco or tell anyone the truth about why I was here. It was better if I didn’t. I knew from past experience that it was better to keep certain things quiet. It meant protecting the people you cared about.
“I’m just seeing what happens while I’m in Chicago.”
“So, you could be leaving?”
“Maybe. I don’t think I can raise my son here.” I could, just not by myself, not in the places where we’d be able to live. It would be dangerous.
Like everything else, I’d cross that bridge when I got there. This was now though; my priority was sorting out work and finding a more suitable place to stay.
“Let me give the money you need Maria.” He insisted.
“No, I mean it and if you insist I won’t take it. I need to do this for me. I should work. It’s better and I don’t want to feel obliged to anyone.”
“It’s me, you don’t have to feel anything.”
“I know, but … this is what I want. If the job’s a no then fair enough I’ll just continue looking, heck I nearly got work at Delizioso. Who would have thought Ava turned out to be Claudius’ wife and hey presto I run into both him and Luc, while I’m with Flynn.”
He laughed. “Heard about that. Did you cause a stir and rock the nest? I’ll bet old Luc demanded to know if Flynn was his in his big bad way.”
“He did, and I think I was a little rude to him.” I was more than rude, but he kind of had it coming.
“Why’s that doll? Funny as it is to hear you handed him his ass.” Dante smirked.
“He didn’t come for me, he was more concerned with Flynn. I just thought if he’d seen just me, he wouldn’t have wanted to know what brought me back to Chicago.”
Dante looked at me and gave me an assessing look.
“The old me would have danced all over that theory. New me will tell you to give him the benefit of the doubt since bosses orders were for me to get you out of Vira’s and sort you out.”
My lips parted. “Bosses orders?”
“Yeah. Claudius and Luc, one and the same. One says something the other follows. Of course, it was all so very unnecessary, because good old Dante already checked on Maria. And she knew I’d be checking in on her whether she liked it or not.”
He’d come to see me for me and there was the difference.
He smiled and continued. “Good old Dante even went as far as offering up his place to her and her boy, so she knew Dante had her back. Neither of them know you the way I do. You wouldn’t have liked the sorting out part, so I figured if push came to shove I’d do what was necessary. So, let’s start with that job you want so badly, because you don’t want to feel obliged to me. You can start tomorrow at eight if you hang out with me for a while.”
I was listening. Listening and taking it all in. It made me feel a little better. better knowing I wasn’t completely alone.
“Hang out?”
“A drink or two. Who’s watching Flynn? Please don’t say Vira.”
I liked that he was considerate of Flynn. “Sophia, I probably have half an hour. Forty-five minutes tops.” I told her I’d probably be gone for an hour and a half.
“Plenty of time to hang with me.” He stood up, came over to me and took my hand like it was habit.
“Dante D’Angelo where are you taking me?”
He turned and walked backwards while still holding my hand.
“My private quarters.”
His eyes sparkled and beneath the hard exterior of the man he was I saw the adventurous flicker of the boy he used to be.
Chapter 11
Maria
The minute we’d stepped into these private quarters of his it felt like we were in a completely different building.
It was like an apartment.
Very classy with the trendy layout and since this place had been an old factory it still had those long windows, high beams and red brick in some places.
He sat me on a stool around a counter where he laid out all this fruit and drinks to make cocktails. I thought he meant we’d be drinking wine or something. I didn’t realize he was going to make the drinks himself.
He chopped away at a pineapple and coconut.
“Pina Colada for you with an edge of Sex on the Beach.” He beamed proudly tossing the fruit into a blender.
“Dante, what don’t you do?” I laughed. It felt strange to just relax and unwind with him, if only for half an hour or more, give or take.
“Doll I could always do this, you just never knew.” He stopped the blender grabbed the cocktail glass and poured the drink in with a shot glass of rum and a dash of vodka. He finished it off by drizzling it with cranberry juice, blue syrup and a little umbrella on the side.
He passed it to me, smiled and sat down.
“Oh my God this looks amazing.”
�
�Go on taste it.”
I laughed and took a sip. It tasted like heaven. The sweetness and tang was perfectly blended and I could have happily indulged forever.
“Yummm, mmmmm.” I laughed.
“Good?”
“It’s perfect.” I was nearly finished. The drink was so perfect I wanted to devour it. “Where the hell did you learn to make drinks like this?”
“My mom taught me. She makes the best drinks. She said it was how she got my dad to fall for her. One of her drinks and he was all hers.”
That was beautiful. “You have one.”
“In a bit, I want to watch you drink yours.”
I took the umbrella off the glass, placed the glass back up to my lips, tipped my head back and drank up the rest.
I could feel his eyes trained on me, watching me the way he used to when I would make him crazy, because I loved the attention.
“Think you could handle another one and maybe take off that jacket?”
I laughed. “Why do I need to take my jacket off?”
“You’d look sexier showing more skin with that glass.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“Leave me with my fantasies. I can think up whatever the fuck I want.”
“Okay Dante. Far be it from me to criticize your fantasies. You are full of surprises though.”
“Well I’m happy I could surprise you. Bet you just saw me riding around on my old bike and assumed that was all I did.”
I chuckled referring to that conversation many moons ago when I called his bike old.
“I apologize, but the bike looked old, and Christi—” I stopped myself. I didn’t talk about her and definitely not with him.
“My sister taking a dig at my things again.” He filled in.
My hands started shaking and I brought them together to stop them. He turned off the blender, reached over and placed his hands on top of mine.
“It’s okay to talk about her Maria. Sometimes I wish you would. You and me, we found her and then it was like we severed that connection, because neither of us would talk about it.” He gave my hand a gentle squeeze and a gamut of emotion surged through me. I appreciated him.
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