Worth of Waste (DeLuca Duet #2)

by Bethany-Kris

  “Pick one,” Dino repeated, “and we’ll go.”

  Karen nodded. “Okay.”

  She didn’t ask how or when.

  He wasn’t surprised.

  “Hey, Dino.”

  Dino’s head flew up from the screen of his cell phone as he walked out of the strip club. Business hours were about to start soon, and he wasn’t interested in sticking around. Lily’s wedding was the next day, so he needed to be up bright and early for all of that.

  “Dean,” Dino said, trying to beat back his urge to scowl.

  Walter Artino’s son leaned against the brick wall of the club looking like he owned the damn place. Except he didn’t; Dino did.

  He still didn’t trust this kid, or the guy’s snake of a father.

  Ever since Ben’s death, the Artinos had been making things particularly difficult for Dino and Theo on the business side of things. All too often, Dino found himself locked in a battle of wills with Walter on things like territory and splitting up crews.

  Walter felt entitled, due to his friendship with Ben.

  Dino felt like putting a bullet in Walter and Dean’s head.

  He couldn’t afford the attention, so he chose not to do it.

  Yet.

  Dino looked the Artino kid up and down. “You need something?”

  “Could you give me a ride home?” Dean asked.

  It seemed innocent enough, but something felt off about the whole thing. Dean was more likely to ask for something from Theo, not Dino. If only because Theo had more patience for the kid and his nonsense, and he worked under Theo a great deal of the time.

  It was odd for him to ask Dino for anything, really.

  “To your father’s place?” Dino asked.

  Dean nodded.

  It was on the way to Dino’s home, and he didn’t actually have a reason to refuse, except to be an asshole.

  “Fine, but don’t touch shit in my car.”

  Dean didn’t listen to Dino’s one demand.

  Dino made a couple of stops—once at a corner store for gas, and another at the store closer to his house for a bottle of wine he planned to open up for Lily tomorrow morning. Each time Dino got back inside his Bentley, Dean had turned the fucking radio station off Dino’s favorite one and onto some whining country station.

  “If you touch my radio one more time,” Dino threatened, “I’ll break your fingers off and shove them down your throat.”

  Dean’s brow flew high. “Sorry, man.”

  Dino had one last stop to make before he dropped Dean off, and that was to mail something off to his lawyer at the post office. The place was closed, but he’d already readied the envelope with the needed stamps, so he just shoved it in the slot, knowing the workers would mail it first thing in the morning. He wouldn’t have time for it tomorrow.

  Sure enough, when Dino got back in his car, Dean had turned the radio station again.

  This time, Dino didn’t threaten the kid.

  But he didn’t like that Dean seemed as if he was purposely trying to piss him off, either.

  He dropped Dean off at his father’s without so much as a “fuck off” and headed to his own home, going twenty over the legal limit. Theo’s cherry-red Stingray was parked in the driveway, freshly painted, it seemed.

  He must have finally gotten his car fixed after Dino had littered it with bullets that day in the Trentini driveway, although, Theo didn’t know it was his brother who had done that. He just assumed he knew things. Dino didn’t confirm or deny.

  Surprisingly, Theo was sitting on the front stoop, instead of inside where he usually was.

  “Finally figured out what an emergency is and is not, huh?” Dino asked.

  Theo shrugged. “Nice night, actually.”

  “Where’s Lily?”

  “Out with Abriella, I think.”

  Wonderful.

  “She better not come home drunk,” Dino said more to himself. “She’s getting married tomorrow.”

  “Let her have fun.”

  “Yes, because you won’t be the one dragging her from the bathroom tomorrow morning.”

  Theo didn’t deny it. “What took you so long to get home? I know what time you left the club. I made it here before you did.”

  “Made a couple stops. Oh, and that fucking tool—Artino’s kid—needed a drive home.”

  Theo frowned. “What?”

  “Dean. He wanted me to drive him home.”

  “I asked him if he needed a drive tonight, Dino. He said no.”

  Dino’s hand froze against the deadbolt lock just as he had started to slide the key in. “You asked him and he said no.”

  It wasn’t even a question.

  “Right before you came out. I knew you were leaving, so I was going for the night, too. Big day tomorrow. I always ask if he needs a way home, just in case. This is the first time all month he didn’t go with me.”

  Yet, he had gone with Dino.

  And bugged the hell out of him the whole time.

  It just felt … off.

  Dino wasn’t one to ignore intuition.

  In their life, it saved lives.

  “Something is going on there,” Dino said, looking to his brother.

  Theo cocked a brow. “You think Dean is planning something?”

  “Him, his father; what fucking difference does it make? I don’t trust them.”

  “They don’t give us a lot of reasons to,” Theo admitted.

  Dino decided to wave it off, if only because he had the wedding to deal with, and then a busy week after. His attention was going to focusing on his plan to get the hell out of the country with Karen as soon as humanly possible.

  Theo could deal with the Artino bunch.

  He was smart enough.

  “Dig into that for me?” Dino asked.

  Theo nodded. “Sure, man.”

  Dino watched the week pass by with a slowness he hadn’t experienced in years. His sister’s wedding had gone off without a hitch, for the most part.

  Church had become a near constant in Dino’s life. He could remember being a young child, and sitting beside his mother in a pew as she clutched her rosary and sang along with the hymns. Those happened to be some of his sweetest memories, and ones he shared with no one but himself, if only because they were so untainted by the realities of life.

  That was probably why, when in church, Dino was the most relaxed he had ever been.

  Church was his safe place—bad things didn’t happen here.

  Or so he thought.

  “DeLuca, a word?” Tommas asked.

  Dino turned to face Tommas Rossi, a cousin and close friend to Damian, his sister’s new husband, less than impressed to be bothered just as he was readying to find a pew. He didn’t plan on visiting his mother’s grave today, as Karen was waiting on him—she’d asked him to come over. He promised to be there on time. He was late earlier in the week.

  Lily had also invited him for supper, but he figured he could make that, too. He owed it to his sister, as it might be one of the very last suppers they had together.

  “What, Tommas?” Dino asked.

  Tommas nodded his head to the side, directing Dino away from the people. He followed, but his disinterest was clear. Once they were safely away from prying eyes and ears, Tommas shoved his hands in his pocket, a clear sign of the man’s nervousness.

  For the most part, Tommas was good.

  A Rossi, sure, but good.

  The Outfit people were still fighting. They still clawed at one another’s throats every chance they could. Dino had taken a wide step back from it all. It seemed like, for the moment, Tommas was another man who removed himself.

  Dino could appreciate that.

  “Did you know the Artinos have been cozying up to the Trentinis lately?” Tommas asked.

  Dino hadn’t. “No, but I’m not concerned. They’re snakes, they’re going to slither into whatever grass feels warmest to them at the time.”

  Tommas nodded. “Sure, sure.�
��

  “What?”

  “I just … heard some shit, thought it was odd.”

  “You’re cozying up to the Trentinis, too?”

  Tommas scowled, glancing to the side. “No, more like a girl that keeps me informed.”

  Dino didn’t need more of an explanation. “Abriella, you mean. Terrance’s granddaughter. You’re still messing with her? That’s going to get you killed someday.”

  “Clearly, I am not good at hiding that.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Too many people seem to know.”

  “As long as they keep it secret, I suppose you’re good,” Dino noted.

  Tommas shrugged like it didn’t make a difference. “She heard something at a dinner—the Artinos were there with Joel. You know he’s trying to head the family, now that Terrance is dead and all.”

  Dino didn’t blink at the mention of the boss’s death.

  Terrance had been killed the night of Lily’s wedding.

  Damian had done his damn job, after all.

  “What about the dinner?” Dino asked.

  “Abriella said Artino was going to make a move on the DeLucas.”

  “I suspected that.”

  “He mentioned Sunday,” Tommas added.

  Today.

  Dino had to tell Theo, and he would, soon.

  At that moment, his sister had caught his attention, coming into the church with her new husband. Late. Dino thanked Tommas, but went after Lily and Damian.

  He’d deal with the Artino thing later.

  Dino hit the unlock button on his key fob as he glanced back at the church where his sister and her new husband were standing close together and laughing.

  The sight gave him a bit of relief that he hadn’t been expecting to feel.

  He’d worried a lot about Lily, worried that she wouldn’t allow herself to be happy in her marriage made by men, but she had found it, nonetheless.

  He didn’t have to worry about her now.

  Damian would care for her.

  Theo was another one—Dino had done everything he could to set his brother up right in the Outfit, so Theo could make his own path, make his own name.

  He’d been much better at it than Dino had ever been.

  He’d wanted much more.

  Dino almost felt … settled.

  If that made any sense.

  Somehow, his heart seemed good.

  That was how he knew, even as he climbed inside his Bentley, started it up, and started to back it out of the parking lot, that his brother and sister would be just fine.

  He could say goodbye, and not feeling as though he had left them hanging. He hadn’t left business unfinished. He’d done what he promised his parents all those years ago when he buried them; he’d taken care of his siblings the best way he knew how.

  All those thoughts jumbled around in Dino’s mind as he reached for the tuner dial on his radio—irritated that it wasn’t on his favorite station.

  That was his first clue something was wrong.

  Dino had already turned the knob to his station when he realized his mistake.

  It was slight hiss from his dash that had him slamming back in his seat, and reaching for the door. He just got the Bentley’s driver door opened when the bomb blew.

  He woke up to the sounds of people screaming, to his skin hurting, and to the inside of the car door handle still attached to his hand.

  He couldn’t see the people, but he could hear them. Actually, all he could see was the stone fence that surrounded the graveyard, one that was just a little too high for people to see through.

  Had he gotten thrown that far?

  Had opening his door just as the pressure blew saved his life?

  Dino stood, his head ringing, his ears bleeding, and his body feeling like it as going to fall apart. He couldn’t catch a proper breath. He could barely hear, the longer he stood there.

  But he could see the flames and the black smoke over that fence—he could hear his sister screaming his name, and the sounds of people fleeing.

  No one came into the graveyard.

  No one saw him.

  Dino almost wondered …

  Was he dead?

  He was in far too much pain to be dead.

  Nobody else knew it, though.

  Karen

  “J, GET off the counter!”

  Karen pulled the giggling, squirming toddler down, put him to the floor, and gave him the sternest look she could manage. Junior laughed in her face, and then ran off in search of something else to climb.

  That kid was going to make her go gray.

  “And stay out of the bathroom!” Karen shouted after her son.

  Junior didn’t respond, but that wasn’t unusual. His new favorite way to find trouble included seeing what exactly he could make disappear down the toilet. Thankfully, he hadn’t clogged it yet.

  Hoping her son wasn’t looking for trouble, and had decided to play in his back bedroom, Karen went to work in the kitchen. She wanted to have lunch with Dino, but if she didn’t start cooking something now, it wouldn’t be done by the time he got there from the church.

  Absently, to fill the silence, she turned on the small flat screen TV in the kitchen while she worked. A random news channel with several anchors sitting around a curved table doing some sort of panel on the latest economy numbers.

  She didn’t care to hear them talk, so she turned it on low, just enough for their murmurs to keep her from worrying too much about what Junior might be doing.

  Dino had told her to stop hovering so much over the boy, and to let him explore. He was a smart child, maybe too smart for his own good, and he needed to expel his energy or he was going to expel it in worse ways.

  Karen decided to give it a try.

  Dino had been willing to clean the messes, after all.

  She got so lost in chopping vegetables that she barely caught the flyby of her son as he ran past her, giggling about something. Turning to watch him run up the spiral staircase that led to the upper loft, something on the television screen caught her attention.

  It’d only been a few minutes, she thought.

  The panel should have still been on there talking.

  Except … they weren’t.

  A whole new picture was beginning to take shape on the screen. Smoke hanging heavily in the sky, charred ground, frightened, crying people, and a twisted mess of a vehicle that was burned right down to the fucking ground.

  Karen stilled in place, watching the scene unfold.

  The woman on the television was talking, explaining what had happened, her voice a quiet murmur in the cabin’s large kitchen. Perhaps she should have turned the television up, listening to the Breaking News unfolding in the heart of Chicago, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  Why?

  She recognized that parking lot. She recognized the church behind it and the large stone wall surrounding a cemetery where she had once photographed a beautifully lonely man cleaning the headstone belonging to his mother.

  It didn’t matter, Karen came to realize slowly.

  She didn’t have to turn up the volume at all. The headline rolled across the bottom of the screen, explaining the details for those who might just be passing a television by and didn’t want to stop long enough to listen to the broadcast.

  Breaking News, it read. Bombing. One suspected dead. Victim identified as Dino DeLuca …

  Karen stopped reading. She didn’t need to know what he was affiliated to, his age, or that his siblings had been in the parking lot, too. She already knew those things.

  She knew everything about him.

  Karen had been wrong.

  Once, she had thought to herself, if she had to, she could live without Dino. It would hurt, her soul would be gone, leaving a black, empty space full of pain and loneliness, but she could do it if she needed to.

  She could live without her soul, she had said.

  She had been so terribly wrong.

  K
aren only realized how wrong she had been when her knees hit the hardwood floor of the kitchen, tears spilling as she screamed for no other reason than to give her sudden shock of pain a way to escape from her body.

  And she thought … this is what dying inside feels like.

  She had been wrong.

  There was no such thing as life without a soul.

  Black mood.

  Black heart.

  Black day.

  Black dress.

  Karen thought it was all appropriate that her mood, the way she felt, the day, and her dress all managed to match the color of mourning for the day of Dino’s funeral. If anything, it would allow her to blend in with the rest of the mourners, and she wouldn’t draw attention with her presence.

  Or at least, that was her hope.

  She had to say goodbye.

  She deserved to say goodbye.

  Karen had waffled on the idea of bringing Junior, too, if only because this funeral was for his father, and while he was too young to understand Dino was dead, he was not too young to understand that his daddy hadn’t been around for more than two weeks.

  He asked for his father every day. He held up the last T-shirt Dino had given him, wanting a new one. He woke up every morning and searched for his father. He broke Karen’s heart with each crestfallen expression, when he realized Dino was still not there like he needed and wanted him to be.

  Somehow, Karen had managed to talk herself out of bringing Junior to the funeral. It hadn’t been an easy choice, but she knew it was the smarter one, as far as that went. There would likely be pictures of Dino for the mourners to look over before they took their seats and the funeral began, as was customary for most ceremonies.

  Karen thought if Junior saw a picture he recognized, he might have a fit, or even just point out to anyone who would listen that the man in the picture was his dad.

  They weren’t a part of these people’s lives.

  They weren’t a part of this at all.

  That was what Dino had always told Karen. He’d kept them away and safe from it all.

  She intended to do the same.

  Karen took a back pew the very second she entered the church, sitting beside an older gentleman with a hat on the top of his head that made him look like he had come straight out of the dirty thirties. She found the people she believed to be Dino’s family—his siblings—in the very front row, accepting hugs, handshakes, and quiet apologies.