Every Minute I Love You (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 3)

by Kailee Reese Samuels

  Good thing I find serial killers utterly fascinating specimens.

  And Nico’s distinct breed and corrupt pedigree are as hideously rare as my own.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket as Cat’s ring tone plays. “Excuse me for a moment,” I mutter, concerned. “Apologies.”

  Staying close, he asks, “Is everything okay?”

  “Raniero…”

  “I’m sorry, but I need you to come home!” Cat hysterically pleads. “We were jumped in the parking garage and we’re in the ER.”

  With my jaw tightening, I growl, “Who is we?”

  “Emily and me!”

  Her screams are so loud, Cristos overhears, as I charge, “I’m on my way.”

  “Come with me, Sal,” he calmly suggests, grabbing my arm. “You’ll use my private jet.”

  25

  Poles of My Bi (Bipolar)

  Rushing into the emergency room, I demand to see my fiancée. “Where is Emily Granger?”

  Glancing up from her gossip rag like I’m bothering her, the receptionist asks, “Who are you?”

  “I’m Sal Raniero.”

  “Room #12. On the left.”

  With a push of a button by her chubby fingers, the doors buzz open and I race down the hallway. The door is closed and the blinds are drawn, but I can tell the room is dark. I step inside to the horrific reality.

  I’d grown up under constant threat. I understood it and avoided issues when possible. Nonna was brilliant at shielding me from the grim side of our world. The times when gunfire shattering all the front windows woke the entire house from a peaceful slumber. I remember Cat, only a year older, but so much taller than me at the time, picking me up and carrying me through the wreckage.

  I forgot my shoes.

  I was three. We moved.

  Or when they brought Uncle Eddie, who wasn’t my uncle at all, home with multiple stab wounds from a bar fight with the Irish. They flopped him on the dining room table, where they have dinner to this day, because he was evading arrest. He was a large, stereotypical Italian gangster with cool sneakers from the nineties, bad suits from the seventies, and fedoras from the fifties. I remember Cat, shielding my eyes and telling me to go play.

  He bled red everywhere.

  I was six. Uncle Eddie died.

  Or when Dad lost the deal he had with the old cartels in Mexico, before Immortal came and took over. The Gennaros won. He was so angry, so volatile…so violent. We never knew if he would come home to toss a ball or grab a bottle and use his fist. I remember Cat, holding my hand and teaching me to hide on the staircase until we knew which mood we’d be met with.

  He beat the piss out of my mother.

  I was nine.

  And when she made a mess, shivering in the puddle of yellow on our white shag rug, my father ripped off his belt and swung with a rage like I’d ever seen.

  I swore then I’d never be like him.

  Staring at Emily with the bandages on her face and the sling on her left arm, I knew as good as a person she was, that we would never work. I was dark. And she was light. Many people in my life are light to my dark. Deacon is light, but he embraces my dark. Iris is light, but she wanders in the dark. Cat is light because she has lived in the dark.

  I learned to duck and run at an early age, but I was born for this—this life of crime that runs like a rollercoaster with a rocket booster attached and where we have cake for any monumental event.

  Wedding? Cake.

  Birth of a daughter? Cake.

  Funeral? Cake.

  Divorce? Cake?

  Birth of a son? Buy the goddamned bakery and pop the expensive champagne!

  Emily doesn't eat cake.

  She prefers cobbler or pie; she is a fruity person.

  There are dog and cat people.

  There are cake and fruity people, too.

  Emily should be in college, dating a nice dorky type fellow, and pledging for a sorority. She should not be marrying the son of a mafia, cake-eating family in a Roman Catholic Church. I can see it. I know it. But I cannot stop it, these differences we cannot overcome.

  Cat versus dog.

  Cobbler versus cake.

  I’m a dog guy.

  And a cake aficionado.

  Preferably, always barefoot.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Serene implores on the phone several days later. “I just never expected to be verbally assaulted by Ashley-fucking-Randall! Maybe I should say the soon-to-be Ashley-fucking-Gennaro!”

  I’ve been working from home and playing nursemaid to Cat and Emily’s wounds. They weren’t just jumped; they were roughed up.

  Thank God, neither of them was raped.

  In his infinite wisdom, my father very publicly offered a quarter of a mil with information leading to the assailants. Money is a fine motivator, but now the cops are breathing down everyone’s neck because they’re on his payroll too.

  “So, let me get this straight… Ashley came to threaten you, to get you to threaten Dom, to leave his new position at Juliet because she's concerned about the submissive student body?”

  “You got it,” she says as I loaf around the kitchen making coffee and breakfast for the damsels inhabiting my man cave. “Can you think of any reason why she would be doing this?”

  “I know they’ve been having problems.” The aroma of coffee fills the air as I think about grabbing my gun and blowing the fuck out of the carafe. I may be developing a bit of an anger problem in dealing with irrational insane people that take up my precious time.

  “Aren’t we all, Kid?”

  It’s an interesting position for The Unholy brothers. We are not one man running the show with his pretty little trophy prize wife in tow and his Mistress on the side. But four guys with four bitches (sometimes more, but who is counting?) and somehow, they must find a way to get along.

  Serene has been yelling in my ear for the last half an hour about Ashley.

  They. Do. Not. Get. Along.

  While it is concerning on a can’t-we-all-just-get-along level, the reality is their inability to put their differences aside is a nuisance, not to mention damn annoying.

  I hate to have this attitude because it makes me sound like a real asshole. But hear me out…

  The ladies of The Unholy are not the kind of women wearing hair nets in cafeterias slopping food to rude ass know-it-all snot nosed brats. Though I wouldn’t mind sitting down for tea with her, I understand I’m unique in this regard.

  These spoiled dolls are swiping credit cards like there is never an end. They go for nails, hair, and spa treatments to go relax so they can go swipe some more. Then they go have lunches at the club before going to swipe some more. They drive new cars, live in fancy houses, and want for absolutely nothing in the world. They live the life most people dream about.

  And yet…they can’t buckle down and pretend to get along for the sake of team morale?

  Excuse me while I take back the credit card.

  Mind you, Emily has been nothing but amicable and welcoming into the fray. She sends handwritten holiday and birthday cards, hostesses like a Queen to my King, and plays the ideal role of a mafia wife. She is kind-hearted with a generous spirit and maintains a heavy involvement with children in hospitals, which I adore about her.

  Emily can shop at the dollar place or the trendy boutique or the mall. She doesn’t need a new car. In fact, she’s declined my offer several times. She loves her Range Rover. And panties that come in a bulk pack. Her favorite foods come from dinky hole-in-the-wall dives where it’s five dollars a plate. She'd love Mamma Morpheus’ Southern fare. She’s never met a stranger, buys makeup from the drug store, and lives for Pumpkin Spice lattes—her one rich white girl habit.

  Then she takes the latte in hand, drives to the soup kitchen in her Range Rover, and hands out food. When she's done with that, she sits and talks with people for hours.

  I know…I should marry her ass before she gets away because she is that perfect.
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br />   On the phone, I kind of want to give Serene a piece of my mind.

  So, I do.

  “You need to work it out between you,” I politely say. “You are married to Nico. She is marrying Dom in a few short weeks. You have children with these men. These men, who work closely together, insure you have everything your heart desires.”

  She pauses, stumped. “You’re making it sound like we’re going to have company picnics over plates of spaghetti while we sit on crates of guns, cocaine filled salt shakers, and the heads of your enemies as cakes that are red velvet inside.”

  Hmm. Not a terrible idea there.

  I roll my eyes at her sarcastic snark as Emily moseys into the kitchen. I extend an arm and she comes to lay her head on my chest. “Just be nice to Ashley. She’s the new girl in town.”

  “New girl or not, she better back the fuck up.”

  Slam.

  She hangs up on me.

  She took that about as well as I expected.

  In her dark blue and turquoise plaid pajama pants and an old Raniero soccer jersey, Emily peers up with those blue eyes as big as the moon. The lacerations on her face are healing, but it doesn’t obliterate the crime. I will catch whoever did this to them, and they will pay.

  We are together—for now—for safety’s sake.

  But we haven’t sealed the deal by talking or fucking.

  “You smell good,” she whispers, kissing my chest. “Are my mother and Ash still at it?”

  “Yes,” I say, chuckling at her perceptions.

  “She needs to stop. Ash can be mean.”

  “So, can your mother.”

  “It’s different.”

  I know this better than anyone.

  With the French glass doors shut, Cat is in my study while Emily takes a nap the next afternoon. Cat claims she is bored and restless—a genetic Raniero family trait. I’m on the speaker phone with Georgia trying to make frayed ends meet and tie nicely together in a bow.

  “The pool water wasn’t dye or any other pigment,” Georgia informs as Cat rewraps her sprained wrist with the Ace bandage. Her black eye is fading, but her swollen lip still looks like she’s had one too many injections from the plastics guy. “There was a substantial amount of animal blood, specifically sus scrofa domesticus, or porcine.”

  “… Pig blood?”

  Cat’s nose draws up, and she makes a terrible frown.

  “Yes,” Georgia says, “I assume the filter was off, but my best guess is you are talking about more than one round of blood being deposited into the water.”

  “You mean they repeated the process over two months…”

  “Who the fuck does that?” Cat busts out, waving her hands about like a guido at a disco. She eases back into the chair and tosses her legs over the side. I eye the odd position, one I do a lot, and know high-strung is not the only common genetic trait. “It’s stupid.”

  “Are the agents on site continuing to test the water?”

  “Yes, and there have been no changes since the benchmark from the day you went renegade in Texas. However, fascinatingly enough, I checked the lab reports from the Sugargrove PD, and the water they tested the day before. There was a significant amount of the…substance added to the water prior to you being there.”

  “Someone showed up after Serene’s video.”

  “You got it, champ.”

  Rocking in my chair, I bite the end of the pencil I’ve been twirling between my fingers. “What about the memory card?”

  “Oh, honey,” Georgia excitedly booms. “It is chock full of all kinds of things. I’m sending them to you in a file that I’m calling Little Black Book.”

  “My LBB?”

  “Uh huh… all the clients you saw and the very…um…vivid descriptions, that kind of read like a trashy porn novel.”

  “Jesus fuck…” I drop the chair and flop my head into my hand as waves of embarrassment and shame wash over me. “Noooo!”

  “Names, phone numbers, preferences on food, sex position, how many times they came…” Georgia teases, but with a palpable accuracy. Cat’s eyes ignite with the information. “It was all there. And now, it is copied.”

  “Fuck!” My head hits the desk as Cat snickers under her breath.

  “Where did you leave it?”

  “I didn’t leave it anywhere…” I mumble as my words drifted off, growing quieter by the syllable, as I think back to the book I used to keep like a journal of daily events. “I left it at La Chiesa!”

  “Then I can give you one guess who had it, considering she stayed at the house for six months, and went with you to the mission for five weeks.”

  Popping my body up like a pressurized spring giving way, I frantically ask, “Why the fuck would Iris copy my LBB?”

  Georgia laughs. “I don’t know. Maybe to get to know you better?”

  “Did you pull the records on the old Ballister house?”

  “Yes, the title is still in Chance Ballister’s name, but I’ve got it under surveillance to be safe. But I’m not convinced they know about it, Sal. They knew Iris was at staying at the house and had connections to Juliet, but to know about that house, they would have to do some digging. And frankly, these guys aren’t acting like the brightest oil bulbs on the flocked tree.”

  Cat giggles as I say, “Thank you, I think.”

  “I’m sending you the file now.”

  Great. More shit for my desktop.

  My phone rings almost as soon as I end the call. “Raniero.”

  “Sal,” Nico heavily breathes on the other end. “I need you, man.”

  I don’t have to ask because I know. “What did you do?”

  26

  Self-Restraint

  The following week, I’m back at Raniero Enterprises in my corner office. My new secretary—executive assistant according to Mama—Daisy, is a nervous wreck and her anxiety is making mine flare. She checks in every fifteen minutes on the clock. “Do you need anything? May I do anything for you? Would you like a cup of coffee…whoops! Tea?”

  I want to gag, bind, and bend her over.

  I need the control back in my life.

  Unfortunately, Daisy is happily married to one of the financial guys, Garrett. I’d be more apt to flirt if I didn’t think they looked absolutely in love. I hate them both. And my father hates me for hiring one of those people.

  All is fair in war and hate.

  With her puffed out fro, Daisy stumbles into my office and smiles with her gorgeous pink stained lips as she brings my third cup of tea. She is a darling twenty-something, fresh out of college, looking to make her way up. I may keep her for the rest of her life. Besides, I have Daisicle at home and Daisy in the office; everything should be coming up daisies. Unfortunately, the only thing coming up is me. “Anything else, Mr. Raniero?”

  God, I want to fuck this girl.

  “No, no, Daisy that will be all,” I reply, snapping the top off of the tea and pouring it into my ceramic mug. “I’d like to be undisturbed for the next hour.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Hard. I want to fuck her—hard.

  With the pierced beast at attention, I grab my mug and my phone to go sit length-wise on the sofa by the window. I loosen the constriction of the blasphemous tie my mother insists I wear. “You must look professional!”

  I hit the numbers, knowing this will not satiate the protrusion, but it will calm my twitch. “Lula, did you get the video?”

  “I did,” she says. “Nico approached Ashley in the parking lot and threatened her. I don’t know what all was said, but by the looks of things, he was fuming.”

  “His wife was threatened…not the kind of thing anyone should be doing with Nico Cristos.”

  Serene and Nico may be having some issues, but his wife is sacred ground. If you tread on her, you will get him. And while it’s not a bad mentality for a husband to evoke, it could be cataclysmic for The Unholy. Ashley is marrying Dom in mere weeks, and I’m trying to figure out how to defuse the bomb b
ecause the last thing we need is the explosion of Dom and Nico going head to head.

  I don’t know who would win.

  One good thing about dealing with the dramarama of these two ding-a-lings is I’ve managed to defuse my dingle. No chance of eruption below the belt now. “How long did the conversation last?”

  “About five minutes of Nico continuously blowing up at her. No one said anything because it was so early in the morning.”

  “Can you send what you have?”

  “Of course,” Lula answers as I hear her huff. “As soon as I shower.”

  “Where are you?”

  She giggles. “Running in the White Rose Cemetery. Thanks for the suggestion.”

  “You’re welcome.” I smile.

  My wife would’ve eaten Lula Gregory up—literally.

  My interest in her has nothing to do with my dick. Or the consumption of her. Lula is forthright and assertive just like her father, Tank. Her ex-military training is a blessing and the very reason I keep her on my private payroll.

  Ashley doesn’t want to be in Sugargrove. Being in Chicago was okay because Dom was headstrong on making the Gennaro business work when they left New Orleans. He no longer has that fire. It’s diverted to another region and Campanelli, for the meantime, is safe from the burn.

  With Dom’s focus on uniting The Brethren and The Unholy to almost absorption status, I don’t mind his work with the upper middlemen in the sea, but much like Cristos, I’ve got my eyes on the sharks. Perhaps that is the difference between Dom and I. I thirst for blood.

  Carnage. Reign. Pure Dominance.

  And I have the power to push forth through the shit to do it.

  Not everyone does.

  It isn’t a knock at Dom, but he has a good twenty years on me and that plays into it. Dom wants to settle down in a sleepy little town with a loving family and good friends. He longs for that stability. I’m still hankering for the occasional one-night stand, the frat boy gone wild, and lap dances that cost way too much.