Ignite You: A Second Chance Mafia Romance (Cole Brothers Series Book 0)

by Diana A. Hicks

  “I’m done too.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No.”

  “You’re cute. That wasn’t a question. I’m not going to stay in here like some damsel in distress. Mickey doesn’t own you. He needs to understand I’m not a pawn.”

  In a way, she was right. If someone wanted me dead, I’d want to face the asshole too. I just wished I wasn’t so afraid for her. I couldn’t lose her. “Fine, but we’ll drive separate cars. You go with Vic.”

  “Okay.” She sat back, fisting her shaking hands.

  “What are you doing for dinner tonight?” I reached across the table and unraveled her fingers.

  “Are we making plans?” She smiled at me.

  “We’re making plans. Actually, I have a missing person case. I thought you could join me.”

  “Am I your date or your hostage?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I get it. You have to do your lawyer thing, and you don’t want to leave me alone.” She wiggled in her seat. “Where are we going?”

  “A Different Point of View.”

  “Fancy.” Her wide grin twisted something in my chest. She knew every detail of my life, and she wasn’t scared. This woman didn’t attract trouble. She was in love with it.

  “Dinner is at six p.m. sharp.”

  Later that night, I got to see yet another side of Emilia when she stepped out of her room wearing a silky white dress that hugged her tits just right. The only thing holding the dress in place was a criss-cross of black satin ribbon going down on either side past her hip bone. She sauntered into the room and sat on the sofa to put on her killer stiletto shoes.

  “The concierge desk only sent two options. It was this or a black number.” She peeked at me through long eyelashes, her cheeks a pretty pink.

  “You look beyond beautiful.” I leaned against the sofa and ran my hand down her back where a zipper should be but wasn’t. She strutted around and walked straight into my arms. The mix of soft skin and satin was a huge turn on for me. “Are you trying to help me with the case or give me a heart attack?”

  “You like the dress?”

  “Yes.” That was a huge understatement.

  “Let’s go. If I had to guess, I bet that’s Vic sending you a million texts because we’re two seconds late.”

  I fished my phone out of my suit coat. Sure enough, I had ten texts from Vic letting me know what he thought of women and their total disregard for time.

  “He says he’s waiting.”

  She laughed, grabbed her clutch, and followed me to the door. “I’m sure those were his exact words.”

  “That was the gist of it.”

  Downstairs, outside the lobby, Vic waited by the SUV. His jaw dropped to the floor when he spotted Emilia in her hot-as-all-hell dress. I put my arm around her and thumbed her bare skin. She leaned into me. I loved how familiar our bodies had become. When I met Vic’s gaze, he gave the same disapproval look. Beautiful or not, Emilia was a liability.

  We climbed in the back seat, and he drove the short distance to the restaurant. Despite Vic’s colorful texts, we arrived thirty minutes before our reservation time. That was all the time I needed to talk to the bartender and see what he knew about Nikki’s mystery person. We sat at the bar, and Emilia ordered a glass of champagne. Not her drink. Maybe just the drink that went with the dress and this charade that we were on a real date.

  I took her hand and kissed her fingers. Maybe one day our plans would include another real date. But for now, this was enough. We were finally together.

  “What makes you think the bartender knows something.” She sipped from her glass.

  “Nothing in particular. Nikki has reason to believe the person she’s looking for was here a few days ago. If she was here, whoever was working the bar that night would have seen her.”

  She drank from her glass again. Every time she did, she scanned the room. Same as me.

  “Can I get you another round?” the bartender asked.

  “Please. Also, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  He swallowed, and his gaze darted toward the door. I hadn’t asked a damn thing and the guy had already incriminated himself. Whatever he was guilty of, I didn’t care. I pulled out my phone and showed him a picture of Tessa Cavalier, the woman who could help Nikki’s sister. Next to me, Emilia shook her head. She was right, this guy knew a lot.

  “She was here a few days ago. Did you see her?”

  “She looks familiar.”

  I placed a one hundred dollar bill under my empty glass and pushed it toward him. “And now?”

  “I didn’t work the bar last week. I’ll have to ask my friend.”

  I added another bill to the pile. “Does your friend have a name? Maybe he knows the guy who works the cameras? I’d like to know for sure she was here.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. You got a number?”

  I gave him my card, and he stuffed it in the back pocket of his jeans. I swigged from my fresh drink and draped my arm over Emilia’s chair. She shifted her body toward me and treated me to a sexy stare.

  “This isn’t the only reason we’re here is it?” She kissed my cheek. “I can handle it. Please don’t hide things from me. We’re in this together.”

  “We’re in this together.” I repeated her words mostly as a reminder to me. No more lies. I pressed my mouth to her glossy lips before I waved the bartender over again. He tossed a raggedy towel in the sink and strolled over to us. “Another round?”

  “Yes.” I paid him two hundred dollars this time. I needed a straight-up answer. “I was told Scott would be around today.”

  “He’s busy working at another bar tonight.”

  “Which one?”

  He grabbed the bills off the counter and said over his shoulder, “I’ve got your number.”

  “Are you hungry?” I turned to Emilia. She arched her eyebrow, her eyes bouncing between mine, trying to read the truth in them. Lying to her had been a mistake. If she wasn’t pissed at me now, it was because she understood me. I loved that about her, how she knew me and accepted me.

  “This won’t be over until I meet with him. Face to face.”

  She ran her hand up my leg and leaned closer to whisper in my ear. “The meeting we’re crashing. That’s tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Except we’re not crashing a meeting. Mickey set this up?”

  “Yes, he did. I was one of the bounty hunters who answered the ad. He replied only to me. I was supposed to come here tonight and ask for Scott.”

  Mickey had been biding his time. Ever since I moved to Phoenix, he’d kept a close watch on me—and Emilia. He’d been wrong to assume I had come here for her. But in the end, his patience had paid off. Just as Vic had said. I sealed our fates the day I went back to the bar to look for Emilia.

  The ad on the deep web was a warning, a way of saying I’ve got my eye on you and her. I’m in control as always.

  He was done waiting.

  23

  Home Is Where The Heart Is

  Emilia

  “Thank you for dinner.” I took the hand Dom offered to help me down the stone steps that led to the valet podium.

  “My pleasure.” He pulled me into his arms and kissed me. A long, searing kiss that I was now utterly hooked on. This hadn’t been a date at all, but it sure felt like it. He held my hand while we waited for Vic. We still had that Mickey meeting we needed to tend to, but for the next few minutes, I wanted to pretend this thing with Dom was real.

  “I think tomorrow I’d like to pay Mom a visit in Sedona,” I said. “Maybe you can join me?”

  “Making plans again? Okay.” He flashed me one of his smiles. “I would love to join you. Vic can take you. I can meet you up there after work.”

  “I don’t need a chaperone.”

  He glanced upward. “I know, but—” His words were muffled by the loud roar of a truck engine. The driver pulled up in front of us, l
eft his keys with a disgruntled valet attendant, and headed up to the bar upstairs.

  “Someone’s having a bad night,” I said.

  “I think I know him. He’s Nikki’s guy.”

  “Guy?”

  “Boyfriend. I don’t know. At first, I thought he was another mark, but I think she cares about this one.”

  “Do you think he’s here about your mystery woman?”

  He nodded, his gaze focused on the stairs. “I think so. Do you mind if I go talk to him? I don’t want the bartender to get the wrong idea. I don’t want Henry to end up on Mickey’s radar.”

  “That would be bad.” The last thing Dom needed was yet another person Mickey could use against him. “Go. I’ll wait for you.”

  He shook his head and gripped my waist. He didn’t have to say it. The last time I waited for him, I ended up in the back seat of Levi’s car, possibly headed for New York.

  “I promise I will wait in the car.” Right on cue, Vic pulled up at the curb. “See? There’s my chariot now.”

  “Okay.” He ushered me to toward the car and held the door open. “I gotta go back inside. You’re in charge.”

  “Okay.” Vic’s voice rumbled from the driver seat.

  “I was talking to her.” Dom winked at me and then shut the door.

  I leaned back on the seat, my gaze focused on Dom’s long stride. The man could wear a suit. I touched my lips and caught Vic staring at me in the rearview mirror. Was the guy ever happy? He certainly wasn’t whenever I was around. I smiled back at him and the way he frowned, wrinkling his nose at the same time, reminded me of someone I couldn’t place.

  Most of the time Vic came and went almost unnoticed, like a spy. I glanced up again and caught his eye. And then I realized where I’d seen him before.

  “You’re like one of those agents in spy movies,” I said.

  He snorted and looked away.

  “I bet people never see you coming.”

  “What is it, Ms. Prado?”

  “You came to the bar several times. I was undercover, but you knew who I was.”

  “Dom wanted me to.” He kept his attention on the valet attendant as he grabbed a ticket from a patron and tried to manage the crowd. All of a sudden, Vic didn’t feel like staring at me through the rearview mirror.

  “He would’ve told me about that. So, who sent you?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted him to say it. All this stuff Dom’s foster dad had done sounded so impossible. If I hadn’t grown up with Dad and his dealings with the cartel, I would’ve thought Dom was crazy, scared of a ghost, someone who couldn’t be real.

  “Mickey has Dom’s best interest at heart.”

  A shock of adrenaline rushed through me. “Dom trusts you.”

  “And he has no reason to stop doing that, Ms. Prado. I agree that Dom would be better off with his kind, but that doesn’t mean he needs to be forced into it. In that regard, Mickey and I don’t see eye to eye. Dom knows this.”

  “So you were spying on me just for fun?”

  “I wanted to be prepared for this moment. I needed to know who you were. Obviously, I misjudged you. You should’ve stayed away. Now Dom has a difficult choice to make.”

  “He made that choice when he decided to talk to me at the bar.”

  Vic shook his head. “No, Ms. Prado. That day he simply forced Mickey’s hand.”

  “How so?”

  “When Mickey sees an opportunity, he never hesitates. Even when it comes to his own son.”

  “Dom is not his son.”

  “Not this Dom.” He held my gaze in the mirror.

  The old man’s beef with me was that I was part of a world Dom had envisioned for himself. A different one than the one Mickey wanted for him. One where he got to make his own choices about what kind of man he wanted to be. The kind who would go out of his way to help those who needed him, like Nikki. Dom wasn’t a trained assassin. He didn’t want to be. I rubbed my temple and thought of Dad. If this wasn’t the definition of irony, I didn’t know what would be.

  Why was this such a difficult concept for Vic and Mickey to understand? One way or another, Mickey needed to get it through his thick head that his prodigal son wasn’t coming home.

  “He deserves to be happy.”

  “Yes, he does, Ms. Prado.”

  What an infuriating man, disagreeing with me by agreeing with me. When I turned my attention back to the window, Dom appeared in my line of sight. My pulse quickened, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I kicked the door open and slid down the seat to meet him.

  His body tensed when he saw me. I looked to his right and spotted Nikki’s friend. He swallowed, his mouth slightly open before he turned to Dom. It was too late for me to turn around and pretend I wasn’t with Dom. Not that it mattered, this guy appeared to be a friend.

  “Hi. Emilia Prado.” I offered him my hand, and he shook it.

  “Henry Cavalier. I’m a…friend…of Nikki’s.”

  Next to him, Dom shook his head. “Well, friend of Nikki’s, we gotta go.” Dom wrapped his fingers around my arm and ushered me back to the SUV, where Vic stood leaning against the driver door.

  “She’s coming with us?” Henry followed closely behind.

  “Yes. She’s one of my clients. Very important.” A wrinkle appeared in the corner of his eye when he turned to me with a smile. He opened the door and gestured for me to get in. “Ms. Prado.”

  I slapped his hand away and climbed into the car. What the hell was this? Now we were all going on some kind of field trip.

  “Explain,” I whispered when Dom sat next to me in the back seat.

  “He needs a ride and a second.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “That’s the truth. Also, it seems we’re headed to the same place. Scott, the guy Mickey said I should ask for to take me to our meeting place is also the guy who has information on Nikki’s missing person.”

  “How is that even possible?”

  “Mickey’s way of telling me he knows my every move.” Dom waited until Henry settled in the passenger seat. “Vic, this is Henry. Henry, Vic. Got an address,” Dom said to Vic, and he nodded.

  I had a million questions going through my head, but Vic just did as he was told. He didn’t even give Dom one of his I don’t agree looks. I sat back and crossed my arms. Dom and Henry continued whatever conversation they had going on back at the bar. He was mad at Nikki, or she was mad at him. This guy was in bad shape. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, broken. He needed help. I glanced at Dom and he smiled at me. Yeah, this was the kind of person Dom wanted to be. And I very much wanted to be part of that.

  After almost an hour, the car finally rolled to a stop at some dive bar in a dark and shady part of town. When Henry unbuckled his seatbelt, Dom placed his hand on Henry’s shoulder.

  “Let me go in and see what I can find out. You’re too tense.”

  Dom unfolded his frame out of the car and went inside. Henry climbed out too and leaned on the hood of the car, fuming when a Tesla pulled up next to us.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Dom when he returned.

  “Mickey isn’t here.”

  “More games.”

  “I don’t know. This Scott guy, though. He’s in way over his head. There she goes.”

  “Who’s that?” I craned my neck to get a better view of the blonde bombshell walking into the bar, sticking out like a sore thumb.

  “That’s Nikki.” He smiled the way a proud brother would do. “Something doesn’t smell right here, but we’re already here. We might as well try to get some answers.”

  After what felt like hours, Nikki left the bar with some guy hanging all over her. “Is that our guy?” I sat back to hide behind the tinted window of the car. Nikki glared our way and then talked the guy into letting her drive.

  “Yep.” Dom tapped Vic on the shoulder. “Don’t lose them.”

  A beat later, Henry hopped in, hands fisted on his thighs. “She’s leaving with that asshole.�
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  “Got ’em.” Vic pulled out of the parking lot and followed at a distance.

  Nikki had taken a big risk leaving the bar with that guy. I regarded Henry’s profile. Something told me she’d done this for him. A couple of miles down the road, Nikki pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned building, high beams on.

  “We have to get her out of there. Don’t slow down.”

  Gravel crunched under our tires as Vic pulled up several feet away from Nikki’s car. Before we’d come to a complete stop, Henry sprung out.

  “This is what happens when you let feelings get in the way. Your friend is lucky that guy wasn’t packing.” Vic watched as Henry yanked the other man out of the car.

  “Gun’s under the seat.” Dom kissed my temple and climbed out.

  Vic shifted his weight so he could get a better view of the situation going on outside. Henry beat the crap out of the guy, while Nikki stood there watching not at all perturbed by the scene in front of her. Obviously, not her first time. I reached under the seat and checked the cartridge on the handgun.

  I turned my attention back to Vic. “So, you and Dom, you do this a lot? You drive him places so he can do his mobster thing.”

  That got a chuckle out of him. “I guess you can say that. He’s good at what he does.”

  “I can see that.” The trunk door opened, and Dom shoved a guy in the back like he was yesterday’s trash. When he closed it, the guy sprung to life, trying to hook a leg over the back seat. “Hey there.” I dug my gun into his crotch. It was dark, and I had no other way to make my point.

  He blew out air that smelled of rancid liquor and day-old fast food. After a few seconds of what I was sure was him considering his non-options, he plopped himself down.

  Dom scooted into the seat, a big grin on his face. “Good girl.”

  Vic didn’t wait for Dom’s orders. He put the car in gear and careened out of the parking lot. No doubt his main concern was meeting more of Scott’s friends. As we got back onto the main road, Dom turned to the guy in the trunk, half passed-out and with a busted lip. “We had a meeting today, and the other guy didn’t show. Did he leave you a message for me?”