Hell, the guy had been more terrifying than I would have expected, and he hadn't done anything. He also knew a lot more about tech than I'd expected and he'd asked a lot of hard questions. I had all the answers, but it had amazed and annoyed me that someone like that would have so much knowledge. And then that stupid game I suddenly came up with on the spot, trying to play hot shot…
I'd been mostly sure that I'd win. I'd held up okay, but I thought I'd have a heart attack the longer the game went on, and I was sure I would soon be a dead man when he suddenly smiled like he did. Until he flashed his cards. If the phone hadn't chosen that time to ring, I would have broken my composure in front of them both.
Destiny, though, she played her part to perfection. If I hadn't gotten to know her just a little bit, I would have thought she was as okay as she looked. I knew better, though. I'd seen the minute look of revulsion that crossed her face when she had to stand next to him with his arm holding her to his side. I'd wanted to make some protest, get her away from him.
I didn’t.
I wondered if her coming onto me so boldly had something to do with what just happened. It wasn’t the first time she'd shown interest, an interest that was most definitely mutual, but one that couldn’t go anywhere for the sake of everyone involved.
Destiny Turner was a bombshell. Tall, slim, smooth pale skin and long, thick brown hair, but the prettiest thing about her was her green eyes. I hadn’t seen eyes that color before, surprisingly, and they had mesmerized me from the day I met her. In addition to being sexy, she turned out to be intelligent; an intelligence that she downgraded for some reason.
If we'd met under different circumstances, in just about any situation other than the one we were in, I would have gone after her. Even now, I still could. I didn’t think we were being so closely monitored that anyone would realize anything happened unless we somehow gave it away, and we'd gotten good at acting around each other in the month since we met.
But she wasn’t mine. She could never be, because she belonged to Angelo Sputafuoco, of all people.
The son of the man threatening my dad's life.
The mental reminder was enough to cool off whatever desire I felt. I pulled away from the couch, and from Destiny, moving slowly so I wouldn’t hurt her.
How could I have forgotten, even for a moment, that I was dealing with the fucking mafia? If it had been just me, my ego was big enough I would have thought myself invincible against even them. But my dad… my dad who they had held somewhere over some slight.
I couldn’t remember the details of what he'd done to annoy them, but I was pretty certain a woman was involved. Besides gambling, Dad always had a weakness for the ladies. I was surprised he'd ever been married to my mother, although she wised up quickly and left when I was still a kid. It was also amazing I didn’t have any half siblings wandering out there somewhere; I probably did and I just wasn’t informed.
I'd always thought Dad didn’t have much sense; and here I was, giving into lust with a woman that could have the both of us killed.
What the hell was I thinking?
I stood, clenching and unclenching my fingers, focusing on my breathing. I'd start panicking if I thought too much about it. All I had to do was pay back the debt to Sputafuoco and we would both be in the clear.
Which meant I had to steer clear of Destiny Turner.
"Would you like something to drink?" I asked her.
I was proud of myself when my voice came out normal. I left without waiting for her reply, heading for the suite's mini kitchen.
It looked more like some high-rise apartment than a hotel room, the kind of place I never would have seen myself ending up in. I'd grown up in an old house in a rundown neighborhood. It wasn’t the safest place, and yet I would have felt safer there than I did surrounded by all the luxury. Because I knew it all came at a price.
Sputafuoco wanted me for the money I could get him and that was pretty much it. He and his son, would be nice if my usefulness held up.
I went to the sink, grabbed a glass from the cupboard above it and filled it up with water from the tap. I gulped it all down and set the glass on the counter. I gripped at its edges, my eyes slipping closed as my head sagged on my neck.
I couldn’t let nerves get to me, not now. This was the last thing I wanted to be doing, with the last person I needed to be doing it with.
Hold on just a bit longer.
The old man didn’t have anyone else to look after him. I could have grabbed some cash and run, left it all behind, left Destiny and my dad. I wasn’t exactly a moral man, but I couldn’t make myself do it knowing what would likely happen to him.
I was certain that Destiny was in it for the money. What other reason would she have for being with a man like Sputafuoco Junior? Also, for helping me out at his request to charm clients so they were more easily parted from their money. I didn’t have money growing up, not regularly, so I understood the desperate measures those without would go to get it.
Still. I never would have done anything like this on my own. If I'd known this was where I would end up, virtually strung up by my fingers at the mafia's mercy, I would have made a few different life choices.
Maybe.
Yeah, I was kidding myself. I needed money for the life I wanted. I'd been so close, too. I graduated college, finally got a job that I liked with comfy pay, and I got to keep doing what I loved on the side; playing with technology.
All that was gone, though. I wasn’t sure I would ever get it back; or that I even wanted it back.
I sighed, then wanted to hit myself for all the self-pity bullshit. It would do me no good at a time like this. I grabbed a different glass, dropped mine into the sink, and filled the clean one up with water. I took it out to the front room.
Destiny was sitting up on the couch, and I almost felt like I'd been sucker punched when I saw her. Her hair was messy, having fallen from the updo she'd put it in earlier before we left for the meeting. She sat with her legs folded on the seat, her already short dress with its side slit showing a lot more of her thighs than I should be seeing.
Blood rushed through my veins, my body ignoring my valid effort to keep myself calm. How the hell was I supposed to stay away from Destiny when just the sight of her had my body excited? I'd been living in hell since I first saw her and realized just who she was to Angelo Sputafuoco.
Stay away from her.
I'd told myself the same thing plenty of times, but going by what happened earlier, it bore repeating. I somehow managed not to stumble, and my hand was steady as I handed her the glass of water she hadn’t asked for.
Her green eyes widened as her head shot up, her eyes momentarily meeting mine before she ducked her head, taking the glass wordlessly, making sure our fingers didn’t touch. I wanted to touch her face, make her look up at me so I could lose myself in her eyes.
Instead I moved away, sat in the only other chair in the room, a single seat that my body sank into. We didn’t have anything to do until we received instruction, and I was growing antsy already. I didn’t know her well enough to start up a random conversation. When I realized that my leg was bouncing, I put a hand on it to make it stop.
Reaching in my pocket, I took out my phone. I unlocked the home screen, but then just stared at it. Even though it wasn’t the latest tech, I could do more on it than most people could do on a computer. But I missed having easy access to a computer, even the old laptop I'd gotten from a guy in college at a cheap price because it caught a bug.
"What time is it?"
I looked up, surprised, to find her eyes on me. I checked my phone. "It's late afternoon, a few minutes to four."
She nodded and we lapsed into silence. Fuck, but it was so damn awkward. I wanted to get out, but I didn’t think I was allowed.
I didn’t care what just then, I just needed something to happen.
Chapter 3
Destiny
I wasn’t used to just sharing space with someone—usually,
I went to them and sex was involved. The space was a hotel room that I wasn’t even paying for, but it still felt weird. Like we were roommates, or something. Platonic ones.
Alex looked glaringly out of place, always moving stiffly, sometimes I'd catch him just staring at the wall, looking lost. I knew by the quality of his clothes—his real clothes, not what he put on to impress Angelo's clients—that he didn’t exactly come from a comfortable background.
Comfortable was what I'd always had, until I grew greedy.
I stared at him in my peripheral vision, still surprised he'd had me beneath him and he chose to walk away. When was the last time that happened, I threw myself at someone and got rejected? I didn’t think it had ever happened, not after it got that far. I definitely interested him, so what was holding him back?
Did I want to know, really?
I couldn’t help myself, though. I was curious. What did he even think about me? Probably nothing nice, considering how we met and the situation we were thrust into together. I knew he worked for Angelo because Angelo had something on him, I didn’t know what. I didn’t think he would be open to me asking.
Then there were times like this that surprised me. He'd rejected me, asked a paltry question and walked off…. Then he came back. To give me water.
I wasn’t sure what to make of Alex Wright just yet.
A knock on the door startled both of us. I froze, thinking I'd misheard, when the knock came again. Alex shot me a look, slowly getting to his feet and turning toward the door.
It couldn’t be Angelo, I thought. He would inform us first, and even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t knock and wait so politely. In his words, that was a tradition meant only for poor people and the powerless.
It was a wonder I hadn’t realized how egotistical he was the first time I met him. It would have been the red flag I needed to know I was supposed to be running the other way.
"Destiny, are you there? It's me."
The words were accompanied with another knock. I had frozen again, this time in something akin to horror. But Alex was still heading toward the door.
Hit with a sense of urgency, I shot up off the couch, dropping the glass on the table and hurried over to stop him. I grabbed his arm, but if he hadn’t stopped on his own, I didn’t think I would have been enough to stop him. Without my heels on, I was only a couple of inches shorter, but he was still around twice if not more of my body mass.
He frowned down at me, but he stopped. I put a finger to my lips, telling him wordlessly to be quiet.
"Wait a minute," I called out, pitching my voice lower as if coming from further away.
Most of the living space was covered by the carpet so it muffled our steps as I dragged him away. I pushed him into the hallway that led to the bedroom.
"You need to hide."
He glanced back at the door. "Why?"
"Because, that's my friend at the door."
"You mean Zoe?" There was another knock, and his hand touched my elbow, pulling me further into the hall as he dropped his voice lower. "I thought you said she was your best friend."
I was surprised he even remembered, I'd only mentioned it in passing in a conversation we had weeks ago. It hadn’t been a lie. If I could ever call someone friend, it would probably be her. I didn’t even have friends back in high school, or college. But still…
"I don’t know if she knows about you, or what Angelo told her about the situation. Besides, I can't be sure she's alone and we were told no one else can see you here, remember?"
He looked toward the door, and I noticed a muscle tic in his jaw, before he nodded. I felt relief wash over me, even though I hadn’t had a doubt he would do something so simple if I just asked him to; he was just that kind of guy.
"I'll go hide in the bedroom."
"No," I said in alarm, then winced and lowered my voice. "She might go in there. Hide in the closet."
His eyes widened in surprised. "I don’t think I've ever hidden in a woman's closet before." He almost sounded amused; his lips even twitched.
I scowled up at him. "It's not funny. It's spacious enough so you'll be comfortable. I'll tell you when you can come back out."
He nodded and did as I said. We both headed for the bedroom, and I pushed him into the closet as I grabbed an oversized T-shirt from the rack against the wall. The bi-fold doors had slats instead of a flat surface, but when closed it was dark enough inside that if Alex stuck to the back of the closet, he wouldn’t be noticeable until someone opened the doors. I slid them closed as he squeezed inside.
I walked over to the bed as I took off the little black dress. I didn’t have a bra underneath—anything I put on would have ruined the look, so I kicked it under the bed as I pulled on the oversized T-shirt. It fell to my thighs; I hadn’t originally bought it to sleep in, but like hell I was opening the door in lingerie. I wiped at my face with my hands and messed up my hair, walking back to the front room.
The knocking had grown annoyed. I paused at the door to take a breath, squinted my eyes and opened the door.
Zoe stood on the other side, alone thankfully. She was dressed up in a black dress with a design like the one I just took off. We'd bought the dresses on the same day, at the same store, and I wondered at the coincidence that had us wearing them separately on the same day.
"What took you so long?"
"Um, I was asleep." I didn’t make the bed earlier, and room service had been asked not to enter the room unless called so it was still messy, in case she needed some proof. "I'm sorry, I just," I sighed and rubbed at my eyes. "I had something to do earlier and I wasn’t feeling so good, so I came back here to rest."
Zoe watched my face, probably noticing the ruined make up, my hair. I had enough mascara around my eyes, with all the rubbing I'd done I was sure I looked like a sad little raccoon. She lost the annoyed look, though, so I knew I was in the clear.
I smiled a little, opening the door so she could let herself in. She had on heels that put her height even to mine, her blond hair down in a style that made it look deliberately mussed.
Zoe was older than me; I wasn’t sure how old Alex was, I thought twenty-seven but I couldn’t remember where I'd heard it. Zoe was twenty-eight, three years older. We met when we worked together at a bar over a year ago. Ironically, Zoe had been the only person to warn me away from Angelo, who by that time had been a regular at the bar. I'd grown interested in him after seeing the crowd he always hung out with, because Angelo was never seen out on his own.
The people he had surrounding him, at least in public, were socialites, pretty, rich people. He always had at least one woman draped over his arm, and he lavished them with attention. More than that, he lavished them with money and presents; that had been all I cared about then.
I worked hard to catch his eye, and when he finally noticed me, my tips grew. I was on cloud nine, imagining being one of the women draped over his arm, dressed in the finest clothing and adorned with jewels. I'd never met a man quite like him, or one so high profile. If there were red flags, I never would have noticed.
When Zoe had warned me off, I hadn’t listened. I'd assumed she was just jealous of me, because Angelo took notice of both of us, but he paid more attention to me. I'd felt jealous that he saw her at all.
Playing ignorance when she tried to talk to me turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life.
I closed the door behind her as she walked inside. I'd lied when I told her I was sick, but suddenly I felt like I could go to sleep, I didn’t care how early it was, and not wake up until noon the next day.
"You should clean up after yourself," she commented.
I turned around, and noticed the glass I'd left on the table. Crap, I forgot that.
"Uh, I had a glass of water before I went to sleep. I guess I left it there," I said.
"Just look after yourself, okay? I can't always come check on you."
"I wouldn’t make you do that, Zoe. I'll take it to the kitchen. Would you like something?
"
She ran a critical eye over my form. "Why don’t you put on some coffee? It's not the time for it, but it should wake you up. No offense, you look dead on your feet," Zoe said.
I almost felt guilty, I hadn’t realized I'd become that good an actor. I could have gone to tell Alex he was free to come out, since she was by herself. But I hesitated. She was probably the only person I trusted—the only person I still talked to that gave a damn about what happened to me; the only other human being I could rely on.
But… Alex. I wasn’t told to keep him a secret—I wasn’t his babysitter, he already had one of those—but I didn’t want Zoe to meet him yet.
I grabbed the glass and headed for the kitchen. It was a fully equipped kitchen with a coffeemaker. I found the beans and added them, adding a little water. I looked to see what there was to eat, even looked in the fridge. There wasn’t much left. We lived in a hotel, anyway, so it wasn’t like I needed to get out to buy groceries. I could have some brought up, or order room service.
I washed the two used glasses in the sink and wiped them down, before putting them back with the rest in the cupboard above the sink. I got two mugs from a different one and poured coffee in both. I added a healthy dose of sugar and creamer, adding extra to mine.
I placed both mugs on a tray and carried them to the living room. I looked up, freezing when I didn’t see Zoe there. Panic immediately gripped my chest. If she'd wandered to the bedroom, she might see Alex. I pushed the panic away so I wouldn’t drop the mugs down, setting them on the table carefully and going for the hall.
"Zoe?" I called out.
I waited for an answer. I was ready to go check when she didn’t respond immediately, but she appeared before I could.
"Hey, where did you go?" I asked.
Zoe answered, "I was just looking for the bathroom."
"You could have asked me. I would have shown you."
"I didn’t want to bother you." She saw the coffee and took her seat, shooting a smile of thanks at me as she picked up her mug, the one with the darker coffee.
Dirty Money: A Dark Mafia Romance (Alpha Men Book 1) Page 2
