She forgets she used to feed him and all the times he used to crash on her couch.
She forgets all the Mother’s Day cards he gave her even after his own mom passed and the wounds were still raw.
All she sees is the man who took her son to the other side.
Sighing, I shove my hands into the back pockets of my jeans and make my way toward him. He lifts his head from the menu and drinks me in for a moment. The heavy intensity of his stare makes me recall the feel of his lips against mine and I feel my cheeks immediately heat.
On top of everything else, Rocco is a fantastic kisser.
Bastard.
I pull my hands out of my pockets and cross my arms over my chest. Trying to act as nonchalant as possible, I ask, “What are you doing here?”
But he speaks over me, asking, “Why aren’t you at the Academy?”
Neither of us respond for a moment, then I give in.
“I had a four-day weekend, that’s why I flew to Miami.” I point a finger at him. “Your turn.”
“One of us had to cave,” he says simply.
His gaze darts behind me and he lifts a hand to wave at my mom. Of course she doesn’t reciprocate the gesture.
“She fucking hates me,” he mutters under his breath before bringing his eyes back to me. “Think if I order something she’ll spit in my food?”
As much as she hates him, she’d never do that.
“It’s possible,” I deadpan.
He smirks at me.
“What’s with the tie?” I ask, motioning to the red silk tie he’s sporting.
Red is definitely his color.
“I’ve got an important meeting today and need to dress the part.” He looks to the kitchen again then leans his forearms on the counter and inches forward. “How are you doing?”
I shrug a shoulder.
“I’m fine,” I say evenly.
“Bug,” he sighs.
I hate that he can see right through me, almost as much as I hate the fact I can’t lie to him.
“I’m worried about my brother,” I admit. “I’ve tried calling him and texting, but he doesn’t answer.”
Not surprised by my admission, he settles against the back of the stool and fixes me with a look.
“I spoke to him,” he reveals. “He’s having a service for Pilar. I’m going to fly out tomorrow so I’m there for him but then I’m taking the red-eye home.”
“Home,” I repeat, shaking my head. “That’s going to take a while to get used to.” He smiles at me but doesn’t say anything. The silence stretches between us until I tap my fingers against the menu in front of him and ask, “Did you want to order something to go?”
“No, that’s okay. I just wanted to check on you and make sure you’re doing alright before I leave.”
I like that even though I was too stubborn to call him, he took the time to come here and check up on me, but it’s confusing and I’m tired of the games.
I’m about to tell him that when. He reaches into suit pocket and pulls out a long, narrow black box. He lays it on the counter between us and pushes it toward me with his index finger. Curious, I narrow my eyes and lift my chin.
“What’s this?”
He stares at me thoughtfully for a moment, contemplating his answer then his gaze drops from my face to the box.
“Rocco?” I call.
“It’s for you,” he says finally, lifting his eyes back to me. Shrugging a shoulder, he continues, “It’s nothing big, just a little something for your birthday.”
“You bought me a birthday present?” I ask, my voice a whisper.
Again, he just looks at me and I feel my throat tighten slightly. I hadn’t so much as received a card. Not from my mother and certainly not from my grieving brother and here he was, albeit two days later, handing me a birthday gift. Something he picked out especially for me. I try not to get too excited…too hopeful. I remind myself, this is Rocco and everything he does, he takes back.
“Since when do we exchange gifts?” I rasp.
“We don’t,” he replies, sliding off the stool. He smooths a hand down over his chest and winks at me. “Consider this the exception. But do me a favor, open it when your mother isn’t around. I don’t trust her not to flush it down the toilet and before she asks, I didn’t rob it.”
Swallowing, I take the box in my hand and raise an eyebrow. Trying to mask my emotions, I tease, “How do you know I won’t flush it?”
He laughs and raises a hand, uncomfortably tugging at the tie around his neck.
“Call it a hunch,” he replies. Before I can say another word, he turns around and begins to saunter toward the door. He pauses, turning around and glances at the kitchen.
“Flora, always a pleasure.”
Then he turns back around and exits the restaurant. My gaze follows him as he crosses the parking lot and it stays with him until he disappears into the back seat of the sedan. I glance down at the box and slip it into the front pocket of my apron. As curious as I am, I know better than to open it with my mother lurking around.
Later, after the lunch rush is over, I excuse myself to the bathroom to open the gift and my eyes nearly fall out of their sockets. There, encased in the velvet box, is a diamond tennis bracelet. A gasp flies out of my mouth and I start to count the diamonds but after twenty, I give up. No one has ever given me diamonds before. Now I understand why they’re a girl’s best friend.
They’re stunning.
As tempted as I am to see what the bracelet looks like on my wrist, I decide to snap the box closed.
How does a man call you a mistake and forty-eight hours later gift you diamonds?
Shoving it back inside my apron, I grab my phone and pull up Rocco’s contact information. It starts to ring, and I draw my lower lip between my teeth, trying to decide how I’m going to play this. If I accept the bracelet, I’m condoning his behavior. I’m giving him a green light to play with my heart.
“Bug,” he answers.
“Hey,” I murmur, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “Is that how I’m stored in your phone?”
He chuckles.
“No.”
“I opened your gift,” I say, leaning my back against the vanity. Drawing out a heavy sigh, I continue, “Rocco, it’s beautiful, but I can’t accept it.”
“The fuck you can’t.”
A sad smile forms on my lips. I should’ve expected that kind of response from him.
“Rocco,” I start, pausing to gather my thoughts. “It’s too much.”
“Do you like it?”
“I love it,” I admit.
“Then, it’s not too much, Violet.”
It feels like it is.
It feels like I’m setting myself up for disaster.
“Answer your phone later tonight,” he says gruffly.
“Why?” I whisper.
“Just do it.”
Then without another word, he disconnects the call.
He calls me in the middle of the night and without hesitation, I answer.
When he tells me to come outside, I sneak out of my window and hurry down the fire escape.
And when he takes my face in his hands and slams his mouth to mine, I kiss him back.
It’s desperate.
It’s passionate.
It’s consuming.
It’s everything a kiss should be.
Maybe I am naive after all.
Chapter 15
Rocco Spinelli
I was officially straightened out. It happened in the backroom of a little trattoria in downtown Brooklyn. Artie Donofrio and Tony Bongiovanni acted as my sponsors. Normally, for a man to be made his sponsors would have had to know him for at least ten years. But the normal rules didn’t apply in Uncle Vic’s world and I met Donofrio and Bongiovanni three hours before my induction ceremony.
My uncle looked on as I pledged my life to his organization, taking the oath of the Omerta. Then he stood before me, took my hand and pricked my tri
gger finger with a needle. He reached inside his pocket and produced a prayer card of Saint Francis of Assisi, positioning it beneath my hand. We remained silent, both of us watching as my blood dripped onto the card. When the bleeding stopped, Uncle Vic took a lighter from Artie and lit the end of the card.
He lifted his chin and his eyes locked with mine as he handed me the prayer card. In that instant as I held the burning card between my fingers, a reel of all the women in my life, past and present, flashed before my eyes.
My mother.
My sister, Gina.
And the girl I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried, Violet.
I saw the disdain in their eyes.
I saw the fear.
I saw the grief.
I saw it all and I pushed it to the back of my head as I stared at my uncle and said, “As burns this saint, may my soul burn in Hell if I betray the oath of the Overt. I enter alive, but I will have to get out dead.”
The card continued to burn to ash in my hand and never once did I blink. I stared at my uncle and for the first time in my life, I saw pride reflected in those gray eyes. When the ceremony was over, he took my face in his palms and kissed each cheek. Then he patted me on the back and whispered two words I’d remember for the rest of my life.
Thank you.
An hour later we were sitting at a long table in the trattoria, surrounded by Uncle Vic’s crew, passing overflowing plates of food and drinking top-shelf liquor, celebrating my induction into the mafia. I wasn’t sure if every man at the table knew Uncle Vic’s plan for me or that he would be turning himself over to the authorities soon, but as I looked around the table, I realized they soon would answer to me.
They’d steal for me.
They’d kill for me.
They’d lay down and fucking die for me.
It was a lot to process.
I pushed my plate away and ordered another drink. Hours went by before the plates were cleared from the table and Uncle Vic announced the night was just getting started. We wound up a nightclub in the Meat Packing district—surprisingly, one that Uncle Vic didn’t have a piece of. The booze flowed and every woman with a short skirt tried their hardest to get past the velvet ropes that separated our table from the rest of the club.
At one point Uncle Vic threw his arm around my shoulders and asked me what was wrong.
“This is your scene and you’re sitting here like a fucking monk,” he said, shouting over the music.
He wasn’t wrong. If we were back in Miami, I’d have two girls on my lap and another two on deck, but as I sat in the smoke-filled club, all I could do was think of Violet.
She was consuming my every fucking thought and that was a real problem. For Christ’s sake, I paid a debt that wasn’t mine and this morning, I went into my safety deposit box and took out my mother’s tennis bracelet.
After she passed, I gave Gina all our mother’s jewelry, except for that and her engagement ring—which Gina will eventually get too if she ever decides to find herself a husband. I think the girl is married to her career, but who am I to judge.
To each his own.
Anyway, I remember standing in the bank with Uncle Vic at my side, going through all my mother’s belongings. There wasn’t much, most of it she had sold to make ends meet after my father was murdered. But she had the bracelet, her engagement ring, and a few odd pieces, like a diamond cross and pearl earrings.
All the gold bangles and the thick gold rope chain she always wore when we were kids, were gone. Uncle Vic said she probably kept the diamonds because there wasn’t much of a demand for them as there was for gold.
A valid point.
I wanted to give it all to Gina, the bracelet too, but Uncle Vic said I should keep something for myself.
“One day a woman is going to come into your life, and you’ll wish your mother were there to meet her. To make sense of everything you’re feeling. You’ll wish you had her approval. Now, you don’t give her the ring, because even though your father was a piece of shit, your mother loved him, and she held that ring sacred. If things don’t work out between you and this girl, guess who keeps the ring? No, you give the ring to your sister’s future husband that way it stays in the family. But the bracelet, you give that to the woman of your choice and when you give it to her remember a bracelet wraps around the wrist. It’s a circle. There is no end and when you look at those diamonds glistening on her skin, you’ll be reminded that though your mother’s life ended, part of her lives on. She might not get to dance with you at your wedding, or see you become a father, but she will be there in spirit. She’ll be watching over you and she’ll watch over your woman.”
“How do I know I’m giving it to the right girl?” I asked him.
He smiled at me.
“You’ll know,” he assured me.
I thought he was crazy. First of all, I wasn’t getting married and I certainly was never going to have children of my own. Secondly, if that bracelet was all I had left of my mom, I wasn’t giving that shit to some woman. Fuck that.
And yet, this morning, as I held the bracelet in my hand, I replayed that conversation in my head. If there was anyone who’d cherish that bracelet more than me, it was Violet and so the decision was made.
Now, hours after I finally left Uncle Vic at the night club, I’m sitting in front of Flora’s house, waiting for Violet to sneak down the fire escape, hoping she’s wearing my mother’s bracelet. Fantasizing about how she’ll look wearing only that.
The door opens and she slides into the back seat beside me. Her blonde hair is piled high on top of her head in a messy bun and she’s wearing a pair of oversized sweatpants and a long-sleeve New York Yankee’s t-shirt that she knotted at the waist. There isn’t a stitch of make-up on her face and she’s never been more beautiful.
“This better be good,” she warns, huffing out a breath as she crosses her arms over her chest.
Reaching for her hand, I quickly roll up her sleeve and find her wrist bare. My lip curls with disdain and I lift my narrowed gaze to her face.
When she called earlier to thank me for the bracelet, she said it was too much and I immediately knew she was going to give me a problem. In fact I toyed with the idea of rushing back to the restaurant simply to put the bracelet on her wrist myself, but her mother wasn’t my biggest fan and Uncle Vic had me by the balls. A pit stop was definitely not in the cards.
Suddenly, she pushes out her other hand and rolls up the sleeve. Even in the dark the diamonds shine brightly against her olive skin.
“Wrong wrist,” she says.
Seeing my mother’s diamonds on her wrist does something to me and I snap. I loose all fucking sense of control and instead of telling her why I want her to wear the bracelet or how much it means to me, I grab her face and slam my mouth against hers. Pulling her onto my lap, I let my hands travel down her sides and around her body. My tongue slides inside her mouth and I cup her ass in the palms of my hands.
I was surrounded by women all fucking night and with the snap of my fingers, I could have any one of them. But none of them held a candle to Violet. I wanted her, plain and simple.
A moan slips from the back of her throat as she threads her fingers through my hair and returns the kiss. Sucking on my tongue and nibbling on my lips.
On the streets I’m on the path to power, but in the back seat of this car, I’m powerless. Violet is the one calling all the shots and I’m okay with that. I’m fucking thankful for the reprieve. In the back seat of this car there is no pressure to be something I’m not.
I feel every stroke of her tongue in my dick and it takes every ounce of self-control for me not to pull her pants down and bury myself inside that sweet little cunt of hers.
“Keep grinding on me like that and I’m going to fuck you right here,” I growl against her lips. She pulls the ends of my hair and bends her head, taking my lower lip between her teeth.
“You wouldn’t.”
It sounds like a dare, but a
weak one at best. I may have been pushing Violet aside and doing my best to feign indifference to her advances, but I never blatantly denied wanting her.
“You had the chance to do that in Miami, remember?”
She stops to lick my lips, and I drag my fingers through her hair, twisting the long locks around my fist as I yank and angle her head. My mouth covers hers and my tongue slides in, lapping around all that fucking sweetness, wishing it was her pussy.
God, picture that.
Violet’s legs wrapped around my head, my tongue sliding in out of that delicious cunt, flicking her clit until she comes. I’d fucking lick every last drop.
Her fingers leave my hair, and she slides her hands under my jacket, gripping my shoulders as she rides me. Bruno, my driver, clears his throat from the front of the car, and I tear my mouth from hers, but she doesn’t relent. She keeps at me, swirling her hips as she rests her chin on my shoulder. Turning her head, her breath brushes my ear.
“He can watch,” she taunts.
“The fuck he can,” I growl, slicing my gaze to the rearview mirror. Bruno eyes move from Violet’s ass to mine and I glare at him. “Keep your eyes in front of you and take me back to my fucking hotel.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bruno peels away from the curb and Violet’s body presses into mine. I grab her hair and jerk her head so that her eyes meet mine.
“Last chance to run, Bug, and trust me, after what went down tonight, you should.”
“What went down tonight?”
I bite the inside of my cheek and shake my head.
Slip of the tongue.
“Last chance,” I repeat.
She studies me for a moment before yanking my tie, pulling me closer.
“Gonna say it one more time, Rocco, I’m not scared of you. Now, make sure I’m back before sunrise. I have to dance tomorrow, and I prefer to do it without your cum dripping down my thighs.”
Christ.
“Then it’s a good thing I plan on having it drip down your throat.”
How’s that for honesty?
Are you scared now?
Chapter 16
Straightened Out (The Pastore Crime Family Book 1) Page 11
