“I know you,” she says, sitting on the bed. “I know when you’re stable, and I know when you’re running from the demons. You want to look me in the eye and tell me you weren’t making snow angels with that hussy last night?”
“I don’t have to answer to you,” I sarcastically remark, not giving a shit.
She slaps my cheek hard.
Let me add, getting slapped by a mother hurts like a son of a bitch.
“You want to break it off with Iris, that is one thing,” she reprimands with a look of contempt. “But if you hurt my son, I will kill you.”
I rub my cheek. “I’m not going to hurt Cruz.”
“You already are!” she yells in my face. “You are going to get up. Take a goddamned shower and go for a run. And you will be leaving them alone. You will not attempt to find them because he has called all the table up from New Orleans.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mumble, getting out of bed. “This isn’t that big of a deal! It was one damned blow job and a few lines.”
“One blow job and a few lines called the entire Tennessee Twelve back to Texas,” she hisses. “He is preparing for a Raniero-Cruz war!”
“There is no war.”
“Bullshit, Salvatore,” she scoffs, parking her hands on her hips and giving a maternal scowl. “Clean your act up and be ready to put on a hell of a show tomorrow night at R&T.” Marching over, she sticks her finger in my face. “I told Deacon, and I will tell you, so we are perfectly crystal clear about how this is going down. I did not spend my entire life with my focus as Deacon Cruz to watch you come in a single-handedly destroy him. If you let her go, she will be Iris Nakamura Cruz. She will be Mrs. Deacon Cruz. Saint Cruz’s wife,” she continues, rubbing salt in the wound. “And I will make damn sure of that fact. Do not fuck with me. Do not fuck with my son.”
“Yes, Ma.”
“Get it together,” she cautions, pulling my whiskers and pecking my lips. “Today!” Her arms wrap around me. “I love you.”
“… Is Rowan okay?”
“Besides being a catalyst that you need to stay away from?” Her rhetoric makes me shake my head. “Yes, she is fine and had a wonderful time on the arm of a man who does not belong to her. Straighten up, Sally boy. Before you lose it all, and I help Deacon win.”
I do everything Trudy suggests—the shower, the run, and staying quiet with Deacon and Iris. I want to cry, but no amount of exhaustion seems to bring on the emotions.
I am too locked down.
Too strung out.
After running the loop for five miles, I call Vinny in the cemetery. “Dad, I want to sell all of my RE shares.”
“Hi,” he says, stunned. “Where are you?”
“I’m in Texas,” I reply, sitting on the bench by Kaci’s grave. “I need out of all of it.”
He chuckles. “I’m glad you called. Campanelli is threatening to start a war if we don’t agree with his ludicrous terms. He wants to combine the Campanelli and Raniero families to go up against Torrente. Your mom wanted me to call and ask you if you had any ideas.”
“Goddammit!”
“Campanelli is saying if we don’t unite and do battle together, then we will suffer extreme losses.”
Luca’s business is dying, and I cannot stop it.
I hear the commotion, and suddenly, my mom is on the phone. “You have to do something, son.” Her voice is urgent and dire. “Please.”
“… You’re with him?”
“Yes,” she replies. “We have a house in Maine.”
Lighting a smoke, I ask in shock, “… Together?”
“Yes,” she swiftly answers as I shake my head. “I can’t stop…”
I can’t stop… I know the phrase all too well.
My addictions come from both.
“What the fuck do you want me to do about Campanelli?”
“I don’t know. Give me twenty-four hours,” I mutter, shaking the sweat from my hair. “I’ll come up with something.” I notice the restored Bronco, pulling up behind my car. “I got to go Mom. I love you.”
Oh. Fucknasty.
Dom Daddy is pissed.
Despite the cane, his strides are determined as he stops just short of me. His brow lifts with a warning.
“You want me to run? Because that seems counterproductive.”
“No,” he says with a smirk. “We’ve got bigger issues than your blow problem—on both counts.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“Lotus is making waves,” he informs, crossing his arms. “They’re buying fifty percent of Cristos’ shipping business. It will give Lotus access to Europe and Africa. It is a major deal.”
“Holy fuck!” I bolt up. “No!”
“It’s being announced tomorrow,” he advises as my hands shake, and I sit back down on the edge of the bench to pull my hair. “There is no stopping it now.”
“Who has the other fifty percent?”
“Nico,” he mutters. “Cristos is getting out of shipping.”
“That worries me,” I admit as a crow caws in flight. “A whole fucking lot.”
“Me, too,” he agrees. “At least we knew where he was. Now we won’t. He’ll be undetectable until he surfaces again, and Lord only knows where that will be.”
“We’ll have to keep an eye on him through the casinos.”
He pulls a smoke from his pocket and lights it. “He’s out of the real estate, too.”
“… What?” I yell. “No! The Unholy has ten percent in them.”
“And Cesario and Cristos sold late yesterday.” He gently points out, “I was going to talk to you last night at Juliet, but you were slightly occupied with shaking your ass and downing four thousand dollars worth of champagne.”
“Fuck!” I shoot up again and pace, listening to the acorns cracking beneath my feet. “… To who?”
“The Cristos Resort Hotels & Casinos chain has been sold to a private investor only known by the name Etienne.”
“Iris?”
“I would assume as much,” he concurs with a nod. “But I would hate for you to do anything until you know for certain.”
“She has to know about the shit with Lotus,” I mumble, crouching to the ground. “There is no way she doesn’t know her sofu is getting into shipping. She knows. She has known. She didn’t say anything because she knew how pissed I would be.”
“In other news, I have a good idea of why Amber is in Africa.”
“So do I,” I imply, heaving. “And diamonds are a deadly business.”
“If nothing else, it would alleviate your problem of her,” he jokes, rubbing my back. “You need to prepare for the worst.”
“It’s too late for that,” I confide. “I just told Vinny to sell my RE shares. I’m blowing in the wind and bracing for the waves.”
“You said you wanted to be the bait…”
“I didn’t exactly think that meant I would be this far down,” I remark. “I’m getting low.”
“You’ll have the money from RE soon,” he consoles. “If you need money for gas…”
I roll my eyes and shake my head. “The RE sale won’t be enough,” I reply. “Not to get me back on the board. If I were Etienne, I would offer me chump change for the hotels and flick my ass off the playing field.”
“You asked not to be rescued.”
“I am getting fucked in every which direction,” I scoff. “After the sale of RE, I will own nothing but what I have from Kaci and The Unholy.”
“Nebraska,” he reminds. “You have Je Suis.”
“Great!” I sarcastically boast. “I got a farmhouse falling down around me with millions of tech equipment in it.”
Eyeing my car, he suggests, “You could sell that little piece.”
“I’d rather starve.”
“I’m going to ask you one question, Dominant to masochist, and I want an answer.”
I straighten up. My jaw tightens as I snarl. “What?”
“What is the appeal of Maeve Tully?”
“I wish I fucking knew,” I confide, popping my fingers. “There is something about her.”
“I am going to say something, and you’re likely going to want to punch me for it,” he insinuates. “But, you have noticed the similarity…”
Ambling over to the fallen angel gravestone, I whisper, “I am not a fucking idiot.”
“It’s messing with your head,” he insists. “You need to stay away from her. Send her back to wherever she came.” His phone rings. “Gennaro.” He wobbles about a bit.
I wish I understood my attraction to Rowan. Unfortunately, I don’t. I ignored it at the funeral, and I probably should’ve kept ignoring it. Some girls…they’re like a drug you crave.
And I am an addict.
“I’ll be right there, Serene,” he urges. “Deacon is at the farmhouse.”
I give a puzzled look. “Why?”
“Walking in the woods with Nicky.”
“Fuck!”
40
The Forest
The Master
Whipping into the farmhouse gravel driveway, I kick up a load of dust and come inches from nailing Cruz’s bike as I screech the tires of the Aventador. Serene is outside, holding Kade, and crying as I spot Daisicle and Mae standing by the screen door.
Both on the list of things I’ve done wrong.
I slowly gaze at Mae’s expressive face. She lifts her innocent fingers, spreading them wide on the glass as I absorb our horrific existence. We aren’t normal; we are mafia. We are bound in blood and death.
“Where are they?”
“They went down to the creek!”
“Stay here,” I bark at Dom and run towards the creek. I’m regretting those five miles. “Cruz! Nicky!” I yell, weaseling my way through the brush. “Deacon!”
“You need to stay away from my wife!” Nicky roars at the other end of the creek. I run, splashing in the icy waters, towards them. “I don’t care if you are friends. Stay the fuck away from her!”
“I came here to see you,” Cruz says. “I was waiting until you got back.”
“Holding my fucking baby and laughing with my wife!”
“It’s not what you think!”
“Stop!” I bellow as my voice echoes. “He doesn’t want Serene.”
“How do you know?” Nicky shouts.
“Because he’s fucking Iris,” I hiss, spitting. Cruz lifts his hands and paces around as Nicky grabs his shoulder and nails him square in the jaw.
I am never the mediator.
But that is my boy.
I lunge on top of Nicky, and we splash into the creek. “You need to listen to me! Deacon has zero interest in screwing your wife! Calm down before this turns into something it should never have been!”
Honestly, I know who would win this.
Nicky enjoys artfully killing people.
Deacon is a hell of a fighter.
Massive difference.
“You never should have offered to sell me your portion of Cristos’ shipping if you didn’t want me to come and talk to you about it!” Deacon yells, breathing heavily and glancing at me with the look of a monster. He’s going to lose it soon if Nicky doesn’t open his damn ears. “I don’t want Serene. Or Kade. Or your life. You need to fucking calm the hell down!”
Beneath my grasp, Nicky says, “I’m sorry. I’ve been a bit on edge since Dad started doing all this shit. It’s my future that he is pawning off.”
“At least you have a future,” I mutter. “I’m selling my RE shares.”
“… Since when?” Deacon huffs.
“This morning,” I say, staring in the eyes of the man I love. “I can’t keep going like this. I’m going to lose everything, including the two people I love more than life itself. I’m leaving the show.”
“Let me up,” Nicky complains. “Before this ends up sappy.”
“Hey!” Deacon says with a nod. “I’d like to see the financials for the shipping.”
I shake my head as I stand up and look away.
“I’ll have them ready for you if you’ll swing by the house.” They shake hands and give one another a bro-hug. “I’m sorry, I assumed.”
“It’s okay,” Deacon says. “Shit happens.”
I take off, scaling up the hill, and sprint towards my house. I’m running with the wind at my back when I hear Deacon howl, “Goddammit Nero!”
I push in the code for the garage door and swiftly shut it. He isn’t welcome here in my tomb. Not right now. I glance around at the mess it’s been in for two years.
Plywood sheets block out most of the light because the windows are all shattered. I climb the stairs to the Master bedroom and look at the “5” in spray paint above the bed. The pictures of Kaci and I are destroyed with broken glass and jacked up frames.
“I’m so sorry,” I cry, laying my forearms on the foot of the bed and kneeling. “I’m so fucking sorry I failed you.”
I hear glass cracking beneath feet and glance at Deacon, standing in the doorway. “You need to change the code if you don’t want me to come in, asshole.”
“Deacon…” I hysterically sob as he strays closer. “Deacon, I’m sorry. I fucked up.”
He lowers to cradle me in his arms. “It’s going to be okay.” He rocks me. “I promise you. Everything will be okay.”
“I was so bad…”
“I know you were,” he says. “But we can’t go back and erase it. All we can do is move forward.” He doesn’t stop moving me. And it helps. “You can be so tough until you hit a wall… I should’ve stopped you.”
“This isn’t your fault,” I argue, holding onto his arms. He smells like fresh air and warm sun and everything good. “You didn’t do this.”
“Sometimes, fate needs to test our resilience.”
“I love you so much,” I wail like a fucking baby, lost in the labyrinth of the past. And fucking Deacon Cruz …he’s always there to catch me. “I can’t do any of this without you.”
“You don’t have to,” he reassures, kissing my head and petting my hair. “You never have to be alone. I will be doing my damndest to piss you off until the end.” He lowers his nose to my curls, sniffing my hair and muttering, “How bad were you?”
“I didn’t fuck her.”
“Hey!” he praises with a jolly tone. “That’s an improvement! Progress!”
Parting slightly from his hold, I laugh, and he grins. “Small steps?”
He flicks a brow. “It’s better than nothing.”
“How did you know?”
His lip curls up at the corner in a crooked grin. “Bitch left the tags for the dress in the trash. And honestly, I am more pissed about the fact that dress was for Iris tomorrow.”
“Shit!” I roll my eyes. He pulls a handkerchief from his cut. “How angry is she?”
“She’s ready to dump your ass.”
“Fuck!”
The back of his hand grazes along my cheek. “She begged me to fuck her.”
“Did you?”
“Nah, I told her I couldn’t until this was resolved,” he admits. “But it wasn’t easy to say no to her.”
“I know, and I’m so fucking sorry.”
“You should have banged her,” I say with a shrug. “God knows, I would’ve.”
“I’m not you.” He leans closer and kisses me. “Bend over the bed.”
“… Here?”
“Did I stutter?” he seriously questions. “Right here, right now. I am taking back what is mine.”
“You’re going to hurt me,” I quip, standing up and pulling off my sweaty shirt. “And I wouldn’t blame you. Where did you take her?”
“Lakeside,” he informs. “I knew you wouldn’t venture out there with the twelve on patrol.”
Falling onto the bed, I teasingly question, “Gonna kick my ass?”
“No, just fuck it raw.” Carelessly, he yanks my pants down. It’s humiliating for me to be starting a scene this vulnerable, and he knows it, but it won’t ease his control. If anyth
ing, he’ll fly into hot beast mode. “You are not going to come again until you see Iris. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I begrudgingly say, already throbbing. “I’ll hold out.”
“No safes. No stops.” He rips his belt off with a marked snap in the air. My fingers grip the filthy white goose down comforter. “And stare at Kaci while I come in your ass.”
“This is fucked up…”
“It doesn’t matter,” he comments, rubbing the leather over my ass and grabbing my balls. “You need to be reminded who runs this shit.”
“… Me?”
“Yes,” he boasts. “Because you wouldn’t just let anyone do this to you. You need to remember who you are. I am just the fucking ride to get you there.”
“You’re more than that,” I argue as he swings the belt. I grimace and yell, “You’re my dirty cohort!”
He snickers like the devil doling out torture. “… The fuck did you say?”
“You’re my dirty cohort.”
“I like that,” he praises, thwapping the leather against my ass again. “I love her, Nero.”
The strike imparts with a profound blow. “I know you do.”
“No,” he cautions, throwing a backhand on the other cheek. “I love her.”
Tears well in my eyes as all comprehension evades me. “Oh…God…you really love her...”
“I’ve held her hand, dried her tears, and kissed her lips for years,” he confesses, taking me to his church. “I’ve spanked her ass and fucked it too. And no matter what I do, it’s never going to be enough.”
“… Is she leaving me?”
“No,” he replies, welting my backside. “But you need to know, this love we share with Iris, it has limits.”
“What do you mean?” I warily ask as he lets the buckle pummel against my ass. It bites. “Fuck!”
“I mean, if you don’t get your shit straight,” he threatens with a gruesome tone. “I will take her from you. And don’t think this means I don’t love you, because I do. I love you more than anything. But there is only so much of your,” he heaves as the leather kisses against my ass. “Fucking bullshit behavior I can take. Triggered or not. I won’t care when I say “I do,” and this is the only warning you’re getting.”
Diary of a Submissive (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 4) Page 33
