by L. A. Fiore
“Where’s your husband?”
Like I’d tell her anything about Damian.
“He won’t get away with it?”
“With what?”
“That place is mine. I own it. He’s not taking it from me.”
“The bar?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know what he’s doing. It’s the only reason you came back here, to take it away from me. I earned it.”
I saw red. Earned it. She stole it. “Earned it how?”
“She brought me out here and then she died. I should be compensated.”
I wanted to punch her in the face “His sister? She died a horrible death from cancer and you should be compensated. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Well, yeah.”
I made a move toward her, but felt strong hands on my arms pulling me back. Snapping my head around it was to see Razor. He wasn’t looking at me. He was glaring at Janice.
Turning back to her, I shook Razor’s hold but I didn’t make a move toward her. “I not only hope he does take it away from you, I’ll do everything I can to help him.”
She lunged at me, her claws out. “Bitch.”
In a flash I was behind Razor. The sheriff appeared, probably summoned by one of the onlookers because there were a lot of onlookers.
“Maybe you need to cool your heels at the station.” The sheriff said to Janice.
“What about her? She threatened me.”
“I didn’t hear a threat.” Maureen said.
“Me either. You’re the one who approached her. Then took a swing. I’ve the scratch to prove it. I’m sure my skin is still under your claws,” Razor added.
“Let’s go, Janice. Don’t make me have to cuff you in front of all these people. You can calm down at the station.”
Razor dropped his arm around my shoulders. “You are bloodthirsty. I like you, Thea.”
Damian appeared a few minutes later. He was livid. “Where is she?”
“The station,” Razor said as he stepped in-between Damian and me.
Damian wasn’t having that. He swatted Razor aside like he was nothing more than a fly and glared at me. “And you provoked her?”
“I stood up to her. There’s a difference. She said she earned the bar because Amelia brought her out here and died. That pissed me off, so I called her on it. I’d do it again.”
I wasn’t sure what he intended, but I wasn’t expecting him to pull me into his arms and kiss me right there in the middle of town. Not that I minded, not in the least. We were both breathless when he ended the kiss.
“Are we good?” I asked because I couldn’t read him at all.
“We’re a whole hell of a lot better than good.”
“Drinks are on me.” Razor said, which were the magic words since the crowd dispersed and headed to the Tavern.
“Thanks for stepping in.” I didn’t know where Razor had come from, but he’d taken the cat scratch meant for me.
He winked. “Anytime.”
Damian and I were hosting a dinner at the cottage. We had offered it that first night at the Sharptons, but I found I was looking forward to doing something so normal and with people I was growing to really like. We were having it outside…barbequing, a fire pit, pumpkin carving and bobbing for apples for the kids, though many of the adults were joining in too. Bobby was helping Damian with the grill and I found myself stopping throughout the evening to watch him. He would never be the affable guy who talked up everyone; he’d always be in the shadows, but watching him grilling up the burgers and chicken, grinning at whatever story Bobby was sharing and seeing him happy made me really happy.
Madge had brought baked goodies, Maureen contributed wine, Razor—yes I invited Razor and Damian didn’t protest, weird—and Mic brought the beer and Dinky brought a box of cigars. Missy, Ricki and Dee were helping me in the kitchen, finishing up the sides that would accompany the grilled meats Damian and Bobby were responsible for.
“I love this. I’m so glad you two moved here,” Missy said. I felt badly that I couldn’t be completely honest with her, but I agreed. I was happy we had moved here too even if it was only temporary.
“It’s a great town. You were right.”
“Maybe Hank and Wynona will have playmates soon.”
I’d been slicing a tomato and almost took off my finger. Children with Damian, just the idea made me want to cry. Thinking of a little boy or girl with his eyes made my chest grow tight. I was saved from answering when Wynona entered the kitchen.
“Mommy, I want to carve a pumpkin.”
“Okay, give me a minute and I’ll help you.”
“Oh…okay. One minute.”
Missy glanced over at me and rolled her eyes heavenward. “And she’ll hold me to that. She learned to tell time solely for that reason.”
Children were the best. We finished in the kitchen and I followed Missy to the carving station.
“I want to make Cinderella’s coach.”
“Oh, honey, I’m not good enough to do that.”
Wynona’s big eyes turned to me. “Can you?”
I could draw the carriage, but no way could I carve it. “No, a jack-o-lantern is about as good as I get.”
Her lower lip quivered when she looked back at her mom. “Can we try?”
“Sure, sweetie. We can try.”
It was pretty clear that Missy was in over her head. Damian and Bobby approached.
“What’s going on here?” Bobby asked.
“Wynona wanted to carve Cinderella’s coach, but I’m just not that skilled.
“Daddy has two left hands,” Bobby said to which Wynona nodded, so apparently he tried and failed at some craft. Though did he do it on purpose so he wasn’t roped into being the designated helper? I had been guilty of that a time or two growing up.
Damian stood quietly next to Bobby, his hands in his pockets, observing the scene. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but then he pulled up a chair and reached for a carving knife.
“Can you?” Wynona asked him and the hope in her voice nearly broke my heart.
“Got a picture?” Damian asked.
“Mommy, your phone.”
Missy took out her phone and pulled up a picture of the elaborate coach made from a magical pumpkin. Damian studied it for a few minutes and then got to work.
I watched mesmerized at the skill Damian had with a knife, knew it stemmed from his line of work, and still he methodically carved that pumpkin, the detail unbelievable. It took him almost an hour but when he was done, Wynona had her replica of Cinderella’s coach.
“It’s perfect,” Wynona squealed as she clapped her hands together. “Oh Mommy, look at it.”
Damian stood, his hands covered in pumpkin guts, but before he could make his escape Wynona jumped from her spot and wrapped her arms around one of his legs. “Thank you, thank you.”
My heart ached in a really good way seeing Damian getting love from a little girl because he had carved her a pumpkin. She eventually released him and when she looked up, he smiled.
I followed him into the kitchen. He was at the sink washing his hands when I moved up behind him and mirroring Wynona, I hugged him, around the waist because I was taller. “I loved every second of that.”
“It’s just a pumpkin.”
I pressed a kiss right where I knew his devil tattoo was. “It was so much more than that and you know it.”
I didn’t wait for his reply and left the kitchen, wiping my happy tears from my eyes.
Toward the end of the evening I was sitting around the fire pit with Ricki and Missy. The guys were inside watching a game. We were bundled in blankets, hats and gloves, but it was such a beautiful evening with the clearest sky above, that we weren’t ready to go in.
“It’s so beautiful here.”
“I told you.” Missy’s comment brought a smile.
“I didn’t know Damian was Amelia’s brother,” Ricki said.
My eyes moved from the star-filled sky
to Ricki. “Did you know Amelia?”
“Yeah. She hired me. Great lady. It was so sad watching her fight so hard only to lose. The bar was amazing when she owned it.”
“How so?”
“She had the coolest stuff, vintage—an old jukebox, framed baseball cards. She was a collector and most of her stuff she kept at the bar. It made sense because she was there all the time.”
“Where’s the stuff now?”
“Piece by piece it’s been removed.”
I didn’t like where this was going. “By Janice.”
“That would be my guess. She’s selling it and pocketing the money, which makes her lowering our wages just bitchy.”
“She lowered your wages?”
“When she took over, she dropped it to just over minimum wage, said we would make it up in tips. The tips are great, but with the amount of money that flows through that place why is she docking us a couple dollars an hour?”
Because she was a greedy bitch.
“She docked their pay. She’s selling off your sister’s things.”
Damian and I were in the kitchen after everyone left. He didn’t seem surprised by the news.
“You knew?”
“I suspected. She’s been selling off the stock too. She’s getting ready to run.”
“What the hell was that scene then the other day?”
“She’s not one to take things lying down. She thought to intimidate you to get me to back off.”
“That didn’t work.”
His smile was wicked. “No it didn’t.”
“So what are we going to do?”
His expression changed for just a second or two, the way he studied me left me feeling all gooey inside. “The sheriff should be picking her up soon for felony fraud and theft.”
I was sure I looked like a guppy, but I shouldn’t have been surprised that Damian was on top of this, that he could multitask. Still it felt good knowing Janice wouldn’t be getting away with it.
“So it hasn’t just been Cam’s stuff you’ve been working on.”
“She went about it underhandedly, but she was the right person to run the place. She knew Amelia, she knew the bar so I sat back and waited to see how it would play out. In the beginning she kept to the status quo, but she got comfortable and cocky. I have a list of every item sold and to whom.”
“How’s that possible?”
“Mic. I did some recon, discovered he was ex-military and offered him a side job.”
“To keep an eye on Janice.”
“He was a computer systems specialist, so he’s compiled quite a nice dossier on her. She’s getting ready to run, but she’s not going anywhere.” He grinned then said, “I like hearing you say what are we going to do about it.”
“We’ve been a we since we were seventeen.”
The light kept flickering, the fluorescent bulb humming as it illuminated Federico at his favorite table, at his favorite restaurant. As was his way, the place was closed so he had the whole restaurant to himself. The man was wearing a bib, a fucking paper bib as he cracked the shells of the crab and slurped the meat into his mouth. Juice dripped down his chin onto that bib, but fucking hell, he was grown man. His security team surrounded him, providing him a false sense of security…a man past his prime but holding on too tightly to the last threads of his glory days. He had finally agreed to talk with Lucien and I, but I should have known the man wouldn’t make it easy. He cracked another crab leg and sucked up the meat.
“You’ve got to have rocks in your heads thinking I’m going to discuss my business with you. That first meeting I gave you as a courtesy. You shouldn’t have asked for a second.”
I brushed the lint from my pant leg, had to control the urge to slam the fucker’s face into his plate. “You didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know during that first meeting.”
“And I ain’t telling you now.”
“We know you’ve got Miguel Dobbs by the short hairs, but there’s someone else. We want to know who?”
“I want that bitch over there to come over here and suck my cock. It’s nice to want, don’t mean you’re going to get it.”
I glanced over at the woman, all curves and blonde hair. It’d be a cold day in hell before she voluntarily sucked him off.
Lucien reached for his whiskey, the ice rattling in the glass. “Who’s your bed partner?”
“Are you hard of hearing? I’ve already answered that.” Federico reached for his wine and drank the entire contents in one swallow before he signaled for his man to refill it.
“There are seven,” I said to Lucien.
“Eight, one in the back.”
“I like those odds.”
Lucien lifted his glass. “Let me just finish this. It’s exceptional.” He finished off the amber-colored liquid before placing his glass down and looking over at me. “Let’s not kill them. I promised my wife I would play nicely with others.”
“It’s too much work getting rid of bodies anyway.”
“What the fuck are you two talking about?” Remnants of crab shot from Federico’s mouth when he asked that.
Lucien and I moved at the same time, the element of surprise worked in our favor. Five were down before they knew what was happening. The man standing just at Federico’s right took a gunshot to the thigh and dropped. Federico’s fat hand went for his gun, but I grabbed the steak knife and pinned his palm to the table as the man bellowed in pain. Lucien disabled the last two thugs before he returned to the table, reached for the decanter of Chianti and poured us each a glass. We both settled back in our chairs.
“My hand, you motherfuckers.”
“It’s just your hand. You have two,” I said before I leaned back in my chair and swirled the Chianti in the glass. “I’ll ask again. Who are you working with?”
“Fuck you.”
I was out of my chair, yanking the knife from his hand. He howled in pain, but went silent when I pressed the tip to his throat.
“Make no mistake. One swipe and you’re a memory. I’m going to ask you one last time who you’re working with before I make you a casualty.”
His eyes bugged out of his head and I smelled his fear, a scent I was very familiar with as the memories I buried deep itched to break free. I pressed the knife harder against his throat. His voice broke. “Guy Hartnett.”
It was only because I had years of discipline that I managed to control my reaction to that. Guy Hartnett was dirty? He was working with Federico? And yet it all made sense, he was the point where it all intersected. Fucking Guy Hartnett. This was going to kill Thea and Cam.
I lowered the knife. Lucien studied me before his eyes moved to Federico. “If you think to retaliate, think again.”
“You won’t get away with this,” Federico hissed.
“We already have. Hartnett contacts you, I want to know,” I said blandly as I dropped the knife on the table.
“Why the fuck would I tell you?” Federico hissed.
Lucien moved swiftly, grabbing the older man around the throat and squeezing. “Because deep down you’re scared. And you have every reason to be. One of us coming at you, you might survive, the two of us coming at you and you don’t stand a chance. You cooperate and we’ll leave you out of it, you don’t cooperate and we’ll bury you. Understood.”
Federico’s face turned purple from rage, but he nodded his head. The man wasn’t as stupid as he looked.
“And those crack houses. You close that shit down or I’ll fucking burn them to the ground.”
“That’s my livelihood.”
“Find another livelihood.”
Lucien stepped back. “Are we done here?”
I drained the last of the wine from my glass. “Yeah.”
On the curb, Lucien looked back at where we’d just come from before he turned his attention on me. “We just made an enemy. I’ll put some guys on him and tap his phone. Just in case the man grows a set and tries to strike back.”
“Good
idea.”
“Who’s this Hartnett guy?”
“Former partner and best friend of the cop that was killed.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
I waited until I was back in my office before I called Damian. I didn’t even wait for a greeting before I said, “It’s Hartnett.”
Silence for a beat before Damian said, “Come again?”
“I just had the chat with Federico. It’s Hartnett.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“I’ll tell Cam, but I’m guessing you’ll want to tell Thea.”
“Fucking hell,” Damian hissed before he added, “Fucker is going down for this.”
“Yeah, he is.”
I was scrolling through the channels looking for something to watch, my mind replaying Damian’s heroics to little Wynona the other day and the pumpkin that she even brought to school to show the other kids. I was surprised there wasn’t a line of first graders at the door looking for him to work his magic on their pumpkins.
Seeing him hunched over that pumpkin—big, badass Damian carving Cinderella’s carriage—warmed my heart. And he thought he was evil.
I stopped channel surfing at The Blair Witch Project. Memories bombarded me, pulling a smile because this was the first scary movie that Damian offered himself as my security blanket.
“Hey, Damian.” Yes, I screamed that because I was very comfortable and I didn’t feel like getting up.
Soundlessly was how the man moved. One minute he wasn’t in the doorway and the next he was. He looked around and I swear he reached for his gun even though he wasn’t wearing one. After a quick scan he turned those eyes on me and it was very clear what he was thinking….What the fuck?
“The Blair Witch Project is on. Do you want to watch it with me?”
I saw his slight reaction to my news…he remembered too. He walked into the room, grabbed a blanket from the basket as he passed—my heart melted—then settled next to me just like he had done all those years ago.
I curled up against his body, wasn’t at all shy about wrapping my arms around his waist, pressing my cheek on his shoulder, draping my legs over his lap. He was wearing me like another blanket. It was perfect. And I knew this was a trigger for him, but there was no downside for me. I either got to snuggle against him or he'd rip off my clothes and have his way with me.
