by Bethany-Kris
After him?
Lucian wasn’t quite getting past those words.
“Jordyn—”
“No, I’m not finished.” Jordyn tipped her chin to the side, disappointment tugging her lips down into a frown. “We’re good, you and me. But I won’t be good only occasionally, Lucian. That means if the kind of thing you did the other night happens again, and on a weekday no less, I will walk myself right out of this condo regardless of how much I love you and I will not be coming back. You want a loving, committed relationship, well here it is. It’s give and take. It’s not unconditional, there’s boundaries. You have to respect them, just like I respect yours.
“And being in love doesn’t give you a free pass to screw up when you should know better. Truthfully, that’s not the kind of love I want, anyway. I want the kind of love from a man who knows and notices everything about me. From the silly little things, to the big things, and all the in-betweens. That man would know acting like you did hurts me, and it wouldn’t have happened at all,” Jordyn finished sharply.
Others might have thought Jordyn was making a big deal out of nothing. Not Lucian. Her past with her mother made her particularly sensitive to issues like these. She didn’t mind his occasional smoke, or his beer with dinner. She didn’t care if he went out and had a good time, so long as he didn’t stumble home like a cafone leaving her to deal with the aftermath.
What she was asking for wasn’t unreasonable.
“I’m sorry,” Lucian said, hoping it’d be the last time. “I am. It won’t happen again.”
“Good. I just need you to act on that, not only say it.” Jordyn rubbed at her forehead, sighing. “I’m going to change into something more comfortable and then we can go to your parents if you want for dinner. Okay?”
Dumbly, Lucian could only nod and watch her go.
With Jordyn out of sight, the little box in his pants pocket was making its presence known. The damn thing might as well have been burning into his thigh for Christ’s sake. He’d been carrying it around for a couple of weeks, just waiting for the right time to slip itself into one of their days.
Funny how Lucian was thinking about it now.
Now, when they were fighting and she was angry with him. Now, when Jordyn was showing how strong of a woman she could be. Unafraid to tell him it didn’t matter how fiercely she loved him, if he couldn’t be the supportive, loving other half of their relationship she needed him to be, she would leave.
Yeah, he figured out what the after him meant.
There wouldn’t be an after him, Lucian decided.
Hell, he decided that a long time ago.
Sitting down on the couch, Lucian pulled that black box from his pocket and opened up the velvet top. The white gold band was encrusted in tiny white diamonds all the way around. The two-carat oval cut gem at the top would suit her hand perfectly. On the inside of the band, Ti Amo, Bella Mia was inscribed in script. It had been designed by him for her, not simply picked out of a shelf because it sparkled and looked pretty under glass.
No, he wanted her to love it. Like he loved her.
Plucking the ring out of the box, he stared at it for a long while, waiting for Jordyn to finish changing. Sometimes life was all about the wait.
“Lucian?”
Jordyn was standing in front of him, and Lucian didn’t have a clue how she got there. Those blue eyes of hers were watching the ring dangling between his fingers with a mixture of curiosity and maybe fright.
Lucian didn’t blame her there.
It was a big thing.
“Lucian?” Jordyn asked again.
Lucian smiled, shrugging. He didn’t kneel, he wouldn’t. She probably wouldn’t want him to. That wasn’t ever how he thought he would propose to her, anyway. Honestly, he assumed the time would come when they were in bed, laughing into sheets that smelled like them and love.
This was okay, too.
“I know you’re angry,” he started to say.
Jordyn blinked, wetness slipping along her bottom lashes. “I was.”
Lucian wet his lips under his tongue, calmness settling into his nerves. “I’m going to ask now.”
“Okay,” she murmured.
“I don’t want there to be someone after me, Jordyn, not ever. Marry me.”
• • •
Five months later …
Lucian watched his wife of only three months walk across the quiet street towards the tiny, yellow bungalow-style home, nervousness showing in her hands twisting together. This would be the first time she stood face to face with her biological father since she was two-years-old.
It was one thing Lucian could give back to her for everything she gave to him.
This little piece of her past, something good and healthy for her to keep, was everything Jordyn Reese-Marcello deserved.
“I have to go,” Lucian told his father on the cell pressed to his ear. “I don’t want her doing this alone.”
Antony sighed. “Call me back, yeah?”
“Of course. I should be there, I know.”
Antony was dealing with a Commission meeting of the influential bosses of major Cosa Nostra families, the underbosses, and their important men. Lucian was supposed to attend, like his other two brothers, but he didn’t want Jordyn to meet her father by herself.
“Some things will always be more important, son. That’s a reality of love and marriage. Besides, I just have to keep Gio and his hothead in check. That shouldn’t be hard.”
“Don’t count your chickens, as they say,” Lucian muttered. “Good luck.”
“I’ll need it.”
When the phone call hung up, Lucian dropped the device into his pants pocket. For a moment, he simply stared at Jordyn across the street, waiting for him.
She was always going to be so beautiful to him. Life and love right there in flesh and blood. Something he’d never knew he wanted until he met pretty blue eyes in a confessional box. How crazy was that?
They’d come from nothing but ruins, him and Jordyn.
Their lives, childhoods, had been anything but perfect. For Jordyn, she’d broken a cycle of neglect and addiction. With his help, she’d escaped a life she didn’t want or choose. For Lucian, he’d risen above tragedy, something that haunted him for years even though he refused to let it show. It had affected him for so long. With her help, he’d learned he was happy with his life, choices, and the expectations he knew people were still waiting to see if he would fulfill, even if his life marked him a criminal.
Jordyn once told him she wanted the kind of love from a man who noticed every little detail about her. Silly things, big things, and all the in-betweens.
She didn’t want a good man. She wanted her kind of man.
Three times this week she hadn’t made it to noon before she was sick. That cream colored skin of hers was more flushed than usual. In bed, when he loved her, she seemed so much more sensitive in a very good way. On their drive to Maine, she demanded he stop to let her use the washroom more times than could be normal. Last month, she hadn’t touched her feminine products under their master bathroom’s sink.
Two months ago she missed three little pink pills because of the many changes they were going through like moving into their new home, and starting a life in general.
Silly things, big things, and all the in-betweens.
Oh, Lucian noticed.
He was still waiting for her to, though.
Maybe when they arrived home at the end of the week, she’d find a white and blue box on the bathroom counter, just waiting with its plus or minus sign.
Maybe …
Besides, he knew what it would say because he knew this woman.
Lucian just hoped this particular change wouldn’t be too soon for her.
They were a little bit filthy, Lucian’s family.
Lawbreakers. Troublemakers.
The brothers like to cause issues more often than not. His parents were always sticking themselves into their sons’ lives
and personal affairs whether they wanted them to or not. There was always going to be directions they had to follow, both privately and publically. Living in a world of crime regaled by its beliefs and rules wasn’t as easy as it seemed.
Their life didn’t fit into society’s norms. It didn’t fucking have to.
Lucian wasn’t an honorable man with his Cosa Nostra roots and the gun always hidden at his back, but he was Jordyn’s.
And with her, it was good to be filthy.
About the Author
Bethany-Kris is a Canadian author, lover of much, and mother to three very young sons, one cat, and two dogs. A small town in Eastern Canada where she was born and raised is where she has always called home. With her boys under her feet, a snuggling cat, barking dogs, and a spouse calling over his shoulder, she is nearly always writing something ... when she can find the time.
Find her on Facebook, her blog, or Twitter - @BethanyKris.
Coming Soon
Filthy Marcellos: Giovanni
Filthy Marcellos, Book Two
“What’s your name?”
“My friends call me Kim.”
Gio tasted the name on his tongue. Silently trying it out in his mind to see if he thought it truly fit the girl, or if she was just lying to appease him. She didn’t necessarily have a reason to be lying about her name.
“Just Kim, huh?” Gio grinned. “Kim with no last name?”
“I am tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll go back to being whoever I need to be.”
Something in the lit of her tone stopped the heart in Gio’s chest for a split second. There were too many times in his life when he wished he could be someone different. That he didn’t have so many eyes watching and expecting something from him. Days when it was easier to let people see him crawl out from the bottom of a bottle than to show his other failures.
Gio was the troubled one. The black sheep. He was lawless and mostly, he loved it. Often times he didn’t think things through, but he was cunning as hell and able to get himself out of most bad situations he ended up in.
He was also careless, but never carefree.
A dichotomy in a world where everyone had to be just perfectly so. Where everything needed to be explained and understood.
That wasn’t Gio.
“I get that,” Gio finally said.
“You should be in the ballroom dancing and celebrating with your brother and his new wife,” Kim said, sparing him a glance that waged a war with his insides in just a look.
“I should.”
“It’s just not you, hmm?”
The side of Gio’s lips quirked up into a smirk. “Something like that.”
“Mr.—”
Gio tapped his finger to the table again, interrupting the dealer without even considering he should just fold his hand. The king of clubs popped up and sent his hand bust. Gio should have expected that. He probably should have held his hand last draw, but someone had him otherwise distracted.
The longer Gio stared at Kim, the drunker he felt. On what, he wasn’t quite sure. He’d taken all different types of illegal substances in his life and downed more than enough alcohol to know a buzzed out, high feeling when it came along. This girl only needed to be within sitting distance of Gio to get his nerves stirring like drug or drink had been infused straight from her air to his.
That was crazy.
And he wanted to know why.
“Miss?” the dealer asked Kim.
It was only then did Gio notice her hand. A three and an eight. Eleven. How fucking lucky was that? The dealer had stayed at seventeen, the house limit. Everyone else at the table had either folded, stayed, or gone bust. Kim, though, had not. She only needed to beat the house, and really, she had a pretty damned good chance of doing just that.
Kim smiled at Gio, the sight almost too innocent to be true. “Forty percent chance I hit a number lower than a five. Five percent says it could be a six. Fifty-five puts it high enough to beat the house. It’s a risk. A little too close to fifty-fifty for some. Which would you choose, Giovanni?”
How did she know his name?
You never knew who the shark was.
“I’d take a card,” Gio replied.
“Me, too.” Kim nodded at the dealer for another card and didn’t even bat an eyelash when a jack turned over. “Keep my bet for the house,” she told the dealer with a shrug. “I was counting. It’s unfair to the game.”
Just as easily as she’d slipped into her seat at the Blackjack table, she was suddenly getting up to leave. Gio reached out and snagged Kim’s wrist in his palm without even thinking about it. Like her reaction to the card game, she didn’t seem all too surprised at his interruption of her exit, either.
Who was this fucking girl?
“You didn’t answer my question,” Kim said quietly, the heat of her skin soaking into Gio’s palm like a drug.
“Which one?”
“Why wouldn’t you do what your brother did and pick both?”
“I wouldn’t do this at all,” Gio stated with a pointed look to the entrance separating the dance hall from the casino section.
“The wedding thing, or the marrying thing?”
“Why does it matter?”
Kim shrugged. “It doesn’t.”
Gio doubted that. “Maybe it’s just not my thing, Tesoro.”
He didn’t miss the recognition twinkling in her eye at his use of an Italian endearment for one’s sweetheart. Did she understand what the word meant? Treasure. Dear. Darling. Gio couldn’t think of another time when it’d slipped so easily from his mouth, yet he heard his father call his mother that every day of his life.
“Or maybe I’m not the marrying kind,” Gio added.
“Maybe you just haven’t found the right one to tame you, yet.”
A smirk crept over his lips. “The fun isn’t in the taming. It’s in the attempt.”
“Sì,” she agreed.
Kim pulled her wrist from Gio’s grasp without another word. He wasn’t entirely sure this was how he wanted their odd encounter to end, considering the bubbling attraction curling around his senses and the lust pooling in his gut. Even still, he rested back in his chair and watched blue peep-toes walk away from the table without even a single glance back.
When she disappeared into the influx of people moving into the casino room from the ballroom, Gio turned back to the table.
“Mr. Marcello?” the dealer said, gaining Gio’s attention once more.
“Hmm? I think I’m done for the night.”
“Ah, no, sir. On the table, Mr. Marcello. It was underneath her cards when I picked them up.”
With those words, the man handed over a key card. The fancy script of a hotel’s name was scrawled across the front in golden embossed letters. The hotel directly across from the plaza they were currently in. On the back, a floor and room number were printed above the barcode.
Hell … Gio did like to take his risks, after all.
What was one more?
Copyright © 2015 by Bethany-Kris. All rights reserved.
WARNING: The unauthorized distribution or reproduction of this copyrighted work is illegal. No parts of this work may be used, reproduced, or printed without expressed written consent by the author/publisher. Exceptions are made for small excerpts used in reviews.
ISBN: 978-0-9937797-2-5
Cover Art © Viorel Sima
Editor: DL Curley
This is work of fiction. Characters, names, places, corporations, organizations, institutions, locales, and so forth are all the product of the author’s imagination, or if real, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to a person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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