LEXI
His phone began to ding on the bed. I've never looked before. I never wanted to. But God as my witness, I just had a gut feeling it was her calling him during my romantic getaway.
I glanced over my shoulder toward the bathroom, listening for the running water as I reached for his phone. Swiping my finger across the glass screen, it immediately opened up to his last message.
The name across the top of the display read Cheryl.
Cheryl.
The text message read: Meet me tonight!!
My finger hovered over the text bar, ready to type in every nasty word my mind could come up with at the moment. How dare she ask to meet him?
He's mine.
The anger in me swelled to the point I couldn’t see past the red blurring my vision. Tapping on the text bar, which opened up the keyboard, I started to type the message of a woman scorned. It almost made my heart skip a beat knowing I would have a stab at her.
Cunt bitch.
Funny how wide and far my vocabulary stretched but, at that moment, cunt bitch was all I could come up with.
Startled by the water shutting off, I erased what little message I had already typed and placed the phone gently back in the spot where I found it.
He walked into the room with a white towel hanging around his neck, already wearing his tight-fitting jeans. His black boxer briefs, which clung tightly to his chiseled waist, peeked out over the waistband of the dark blue material.
I looked away. Angry. Hurt. Utterly deflated.
"Are you gonna get dressed."
"I am dressed," I whispered.
"Not with me, you're not. Get dressed," he said sternly. "You're too beautiful for those rags."
What did he want—a medal for being sweet? Fuck him.
"I said I'm dressed," I replied, rolling my eyes.
He whipped the towel from his neck and threw it on the bed, before moving toward me.
Here it comes.
I moved back as he neared, finally butting up to the wall. There was nowhere else to go. He pushed his body up against mine, sliding his hand between the wall and the back of my neck. To say the moment was tense would be a complete understatement.
His fingers grasped onto my neck tightly, holding me in place as he traced his fingers down the length of my arm.
He leaned in, letting his breath flow over my neck, sending shivers down my spine. "What did I ask you?" he whispered in my ear.
"To change," I replied, my heart beating a mile a minute.
He nuzzled his cheek to mine as his hand slid the left side of the tank top off my shoulder.
My breathing quickened and goose bumps formed on my arms as he slid his knee between my legs, pressing his lips tenderly to my bare shoulder. His kisses meandered over the curve of my neck, past the ridge of my jaw, stopping at the edge of my left ear.
"Get dressed, baby girl," he whispered.
My eyes closed, breathing in his manly scent.
Dammit.
I nodded. I couldn’t oppose him. Not for very long anyway. His hard dick pushed up against my thigh, threatening to burst through his jeans. I licked my lips as his fingers raked my shirt and bra off my left breast, exposing me. Cupping my breast in his palm, he leaned down and flicked his tongue at my nipple, making it hard and my pussy wet.
He's cheating on you. What are you doing?
"I'll change," I said, quickly lifting my shirt and bra up to cover myself up.
I slid myself away from between the wall and his impressive body, hoping he wouldn’t snatch me up as I walked away, angry that I'd opposed him. I made it to the bed without incidenct, and pulled out the red dress I wore the day I saw Liam at lunch. My lip curled at the thought of him.
Christian brushed by me and slapped me on my ass. "Hurry up, I'm starving," he said as he picked up his phone and began to scroll through it with his back to me.
I shook my head, knowing he was about to read the message for Cheryl and wished I could see his reaction. I slipped off my clothes, keeping my eye on him in case he turned around, but no luck.
Sliding the tight material over my head and onto my body, I flattened out the scrunched sides, and said, "I'm ready."
He slid the phone into his pocket and turned to me. "Let's go," he said, stretching his hand out for me to hold as I tried to put on my heels.
"Thank you."
He replied with a sweet smile, twining his fingers with mine as he led me out the door. I felt a slight anxiety as we moved down the hall toward the elevator.
What should I say tonight?
All I wanted to talk about was Cheryl and why she would want to meet a married man, but that wasn’t a conversation to be had in public. Not with Christian Cerisi, and definitely not with his fiery Italian temper.
The elevator dinged, and the door slid open to an older couple also holding hands. The woman smiled at me, her wrinkled face told me the story of her life. She pressed her free hand against her husband's arm, squeezing his plaid button up shirt.
Christian stepped into the car, tugging me to follow. We turned to face the doors leaving the couple to stand behind us.
"You two are so lovely together," the old woman's soft voice filled the car.
I glanced over my shoulder and smiled. "How long have you two been married?" I asked.
"Forty-seven years, deary," she replied, grinning from ear to ear.
Her husband laid his hand on top of hers, which was still squeezing his arm, and added, "And I loved every minute of it."
Christian turned to him. "Well I hope we have the same luck as you two," he said, turning back to me, kissing the back of my hand.
"Oh no, son. There is no luck involved. It's all work. Hard work," the old man said, patting his wife's hand.
"Yes. Work," the woman added with a giggle.
I smiled again and looked at Christian, then turned back toward the elevator door which, after a few seconds, opened to the main lobby. I stepped out first, followed by Christian. The couple came after and as they walked by the woman shot me a wink and a smile. There was something about her—almost like she knew my future.
"Are you ready?" Christian asked, knocking my steady gaze from the woman.
"Yeah. Where are we going?" I stuttered.
"Dinner and dancing."
"We haven’t done that in years."
"Which is exactly why I wanna take you, baby," he said, taking his first step toward the exit.
"Where?" I asked, unable to keep my excitement to a low roar.
"You'll see," he said, snapping his fingers at the valet as we stepped out from the hotel.
A flash of light glinted off the hood of our silver Land Rover as it pulled up. Christian walked off the curb and around the car to take the keys from the valet. My phone began to vibrate in my purse the moment he disappeared from sight.
I pulled my phone from my purse. "Liam," I said as my eyes widened.
My eyes shot up to the driver side window to see if Christian had seen my reaction to the phone call. Luckily, he hadn't. I swiped the screen, sending Liam straight to voicemail. I couldn’t talk to him right now. What was he thinking? He was playing a dangerous game.
The lock to the car door clicked. I pulled it open and got in, hoping Liam wouldn’t call again. If my phone rang and I didn’t answer it, I would have to explain why—not a conversation I wanted to have.
Christian pulled off from the curb and merged onto the busy downtown street.
"The barbecue on Saturday is going to be amazing. I've wanted to get the family together, but this whole Il Fantasma business has really been taking up a lot of my attention."
"Il Fantasma?" I asked.
He looked over his shoulder to merge into the next lane. "It's this asshole trying to muscle in on the business."
I chuckled. "Who could possibly—who would possibly go up against you?"
"This asshole is trying. The Ghost—can you believe that? Be a man. Come out to the light and fight like a
man," he yelled, slapping his palm against the steering wheel.
My phone rang. My eyes shot over to Christian, who turned to me. My body quickly froze up as the phone continued to ring.
"Are you going to answer that?" he asked, looking down at my purse.
"I—uh," I stuttered, praying I could somehow be transported to another place and time.
I pulled my phone out and looked at the screen, expecting to see the reason for my death.
"Christian, I just wanted to—" I paused. "—it's Celia," I said, overly relieved.
"Okay, answer it," he replied, merging into the next lane to get into the turning lane.
"Hello," I said, holding the phone to my ear.
"Girl, where the fuck is you?" she asked, smacking her gum as she spoke nervously.
"I'm with Christian."
"Girl, I just received a picture in the mail."
"What are you talking about?"
"It's a fucking picture of you."
I knew Christian was listening so I tried to reply with answers that wouldn't alert him to my worry. "Oh yeah, you don’t say."
"It’s a fucking picture of you with Liam. At the club."
"Oh, yeah?" I replied calmly, but inside I was going crazy.
"Girl, it's bad, and whoever sent it wrote $50,000 by Sunday, or this goes to Christian right across it."
Although my stomach had turned into a veritable pile of mush, I kept it together. "That sounds nice," I said in a calm tone.
"Bitch, are you crazy? Did you hear me?"
"Yeah, I can't, I'm with Christian. I'll chat with you when I get home," I said, hanging up the phone while she was still chattering on the line.
"What did she want?" Christian asked.
"She wanted to go shopping. There was a sale or something," I said with a fake smile.
He shook his head. "Your cousin—I swear if she wasn't your cousin."
"I know. I know," I said, sitting back in my chair, looking out the window for an answer to my problem.
Who the hell could have sent the picture, and where was I going to get $50,000 without alerting Christian to the missing money? I was pulled from my thoughts by Christian's ringing phone. He snatched it from the center console before I could read who was calling.
"What?" he asked, pausing for the person to respond.
I watched his facial expression as he waited. He was definitely annoyed with whoever was on the other line.
"Fine, I'll meet you tonight," he said before hanging up.
Did I just hear him right?
He was going to meet her. That fucking bitch. How dare he make plans with her right in front of me.
He turned to me. "I have to cut this date short."
Oh hell no. I know he's not canceling our plans to meet this bitch.
I put my best fake face on, and asked, "Who was that?"
He turned to me. "It's business."
Yeah, fuckin' right. Business my ass.
I couldn't believe I was sitting here watching him lie right to my face, but what could I say? There was a picture floating around of my indiscretion. At least he was smart enough to never have been caught.
He turned left at the next street and drove onto the freeway, heading for our house.
"I'll send somebody to pick up our things at the hotel," he said, shaking his head. "I want you to know I'm sorry. I don’t wanna have to leave."
"Then don't," I said as I watched my whispers fog up the window.
"You think all those beautiful clothes fall from heaven?"
"Who cares about nice clothes when I don’t have anyone to wear them for?" I asked through tight lips.
"I'm no-one, now?"
"I didn’t say that, Christian."
"What are you talking about?" he asked, the car's speed matching his ire.
I gripped onto the door handle as he zipped by car after car, weaving in and out of traffic. "I'm saying you are, Christian Cerisi, and if you don't wanna leave our getaway, you don't have too. Say fuckin' no."
BURNING CITY
CHRISTIAN
"I'll say no when I fuckin' wanna say no. As for right now, I need to go handle some shit."
"Whatever."
I turned to her, my vision red with anger. I already had to deal with this bullshit Il Fantasma, and now she is throwing a temper tantrum. Maybe I should have Rico take care of this asshole himself, but I wanted to be there to supervise the interrogation. If this asshole knew The Ghost, I was going to find out.
This is all I needed tonight.
She'd never been so upset about me handling work shit; I wondered what was wrong with her. Our exit was coming up quick, and I didn't want to leave the conversation on a bad note. So I tried to make peace. I didn’t want all the work I had put in to go to waste.
"Listen. I'll try to be back tonight, and we can continue with our date," I said sincerely.
"Don't bother," she replied without a hint of hesitation.
I bit my tongue after that. Keeping the conversation going would have been a lost cause, and I probably would've said something I regretted later on. In fact, I'm sure of it. I turned onto our street then pulled into the driveway, only stopping long enough to let her out. As soon as she closed the door, I zipped off to the lake house to look the asshole Rico found in the eye. If this dick didn’t know anything, I was going to have Rico's head for starting a fight between Lexi and me.
I headed back down the street toward the freeway I just got off of, then felt around underneath my seat for the cold, smooth, metal of my 9 mil. Pulling it out, I laid it on the passenger seat as I merged onto the freeway. It wasn’t a long drive to the lake house, but the fact that I was as anxious as I was to get there, time seemed to drag.
After twenty minutes of speeding down the freeway at 95 mph, I finally reached the exit. I zipped through a couple red lights and was only about a mile from the house when the familiar sound a police siren behind me blared through the otherwise quiet car.
Fuck!
I slowed down and pulled over to the shoulder of the small two-way street. I slid my gun back underneath my seat and pulled out my wallet to grab my license. The officer, dressed in a black polyester uniform and aviator sunglasses, tapped on my heavily tinted window a few seconds later.
I rolled it down and smiled. "Officer."
"License and registration please," he said with no regard to my smile.
I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out my registration, handing it to him along with my license.
He looked at me then at the license, eyeing every feature of my face, comparing it to the license. "Stay right here, sir," he said as he walked back to his car.
I picked up my phone and texted Arty, a detective who was heavily indebted to me. He owed me so much money, he owed me his life and someone else's—anybody else's. I let him live, knowing I had him in my pocket forever.
Me: My license is being run. I'm running late.
Arty: Yes, Mr. Cerisi. I will get right on that.
Before I could text anything back, the officer had already started to walk back from his car. I put my phone down and rested my elbow on the car window.
He handed me my license and registration, and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Cerisi, sir."
"Just doing your job, right Officer?" I asked with an arrogant smile.
"Yes, Mr. Cerisi, sir," he replied with a slight tremble in his voice.
I rolled my window up and sped off, leaving him in a plume of dust my back wheel had kicked up. He stood there watching me, waving the dirt from his face. It was men like that who made it easy for men like me to thrive. Fear—what a beautiful thing it was.
Rico's black Range Rover was parked right outside the log cabin, which sat at the edge of the private lake the Cerisi family has owned for as long as I could remember. I used to swim and play with my cousins every summer. Those were the days before I knew what my family did to afford the luxury of a private lake. The days when I was still innocent, but that
was a long time ago, and I would never be accused of being innocent ever again.
I pulled up behind Rico and pulled out my gun, sliding it in the waistband of my jeans as I started for the front door. Suddenly, a gunshot rang out. Quickly, I took cover behind Rico's Ranger, crouching down as I panned the scene for the shooter.
Another snap of the gun seared through the crisp air. "What the fuck!" I yelled, finally realizing it had come from inside the cabin. "These bitches better not have killed this asshole."
I cocked my gun and slowly walked to the door, ready to shoot anyone who wasn't one of my guys. Pressed up against the wall next to the door, I grabbed the handle with my left hand and flung it open, quickly sweeping the area with the gun in my right.
Rico was standing over a slumped body, the man's arms and legs were bound to an old wooden chair with a steady stream of blood oozing from his mouth.
My eyes narrowed. "Did you fucking kill him?"
"No, Boss. I shot his legs," Rico said, pointing to the bloodied holes in the man's pants.
I walked over to where he was standing to inspect what he had done. Positioning the gun underneath the man's chin, I lifted his head up to see who he was. His face didn’t ring any bells for me.
"Who is he?"
"The guys saw him hanging around one of the stores we lost to Il Fantasma. When they asked him what his business was there, he closed up like a clam. That's when we called you, Boss."
"Who are you?" I asked, looking at his swollen and bloody face.
He didn't reply. My jaw clenched at his disrespect.
How dare he not answer me.
"Listen here, dick," I said, bending over, positioning my face next to his. "Tell me who you are, or I'm gonna fuckin' shoot you in the eye!"
He smiled and chuckled. "The big man himself. You should save your energy 'cause you're gonna need it."
"And why is that?" I asked, pacing around him.
"Genesis 19."
"What about it?"
"I'm sure a good Catholic boy like you has heard the story of Sodom and Gomorrah," he said before spitting blood on the floor.
"What's that have to do with anything?"
"Lot's wife couldn't help but look back at the burning city, and she burst into a pillar of salt."
Wrath: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Deadly Sin Series Book 1) Page 7
