A Sense of Guilt (Carlisi Familia Book 3)

by Maia Dylan

  “You whored yourself to that bastardo Esposito.” He practically spat Gino’s name.

  Marissa stepped forward, dragging Jorge’s attention to her. “Now, wait just a second. If there was any whoring being done, then a cut must come to the house,” Marissa sniffed in disdain, but Rosa could see the calculating look in her eyes that said she was up to something more. “Did you take money from Gino for services rendered?”

  “And if I did?” Rosa asked, playing along.

  “Then you gotta pay the damn fee!” Marissa yelled, starting to pace back and forth in front of her. “Do you know how many of my girls that man has fucked for free? Too damn many for me to even count and every time he thinks he gets it for free.”

  She knew now that Marissa was most definitely up to something. “Your fees are too damn high. The Battaglias were much more reasonable. They at least allowed a woman the chance to make some damn cash.” Oh boy, she was flying free with this one. “If you want money, then speak to Gino.”

  Rosa watched Marissa carefully and saw that she was stepping closer and closer to the work station located a few feet in front of the wall they were standing in front of. A station that held a full knife block.

  “Don’t think I fucking won’t, you whore,” Marissa said in an ugly tone. “I’ll make him pay for fucking you in my house and not paying me for the right. You hear what I’m saying, Rosa? He had no right.”

  Rosa shot a glance back at Jorge. He looked almost entertained.

  “He has every right, where I’m concerned,” Rosa answered to show she knew what Marissa wanted to her to do.

  “He has no right to fuck you in my house!” Marissa held her gaze, and despite the angry tone she used, her eyes were calm and reassuring. “He will pay, or you will. You will pay now!”

  Rosa threw herself to the right, throwing her hands above her head as she headed for the hard kitchen floor. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as she headed down. She heard Marissa yell something that could only be described as a battle cry and was fairly certain she heard Gino shouting her name. But the sounds that had her entire being flooding with fear were the gunshots that reverberated around every flat surface in the kitchen.

  Epilogue

  “You scared ten fucking years off my life, cara.”

  Rosa laughed breathlessly then moaned as explosions of pleasure ignited within her. “I think I lost about the same amount.”

  “Seems only fair.” Gino growled, licking and nibbling his way down her neck. “If you’re going out ten years early, then I sure as fuck am, too. No way do I want to be on this earth without you.”

  Gino’s words filled her heart and Rosa tightened her grip on his shoulders. “Less talk, my love, and more showing me how grateful you are that I’m alive.”

  Gino moved a little lower, licking at her nipple, sending shafts of fire through her torso before he bit down, making her cry out. “Oh, I am grateful, baby. Let me show you.”

  He lifted up onto his arms, held her gaze, and began to move. His hips began a slow torturous glide, driving his cock in and out of her in a steady, hard rhythm. One that soon had Rosa lifting her hips to match it. When she tightened her inner muscles against him, Gino cursed, his rhythm faltering.

  “Fuck, Rosa,” he moaned. “Hold on, baby, this is going to get wild.”

  And then he began to move, and he delivered exactly what he promised. The speed at which he drove his body in and out of hers had Rosa spiraling toward her release at a frightening pace. She dug her heels into the mattress and lifted her hips against him. The pace he set was not sustainable, and Rosa felt the ripple of her orgasm a split second before Gino slammed into her and stilled. As she rocketed into a maelstrom of pleasure, she reveled in the way Gino roared her name to the heavens.

  Gino slumped down on her, holding some of his weight up from her on arms that shook, and Rosa basked in the feeling of him pressed against her.

  Gino lifted his head and stared down at her. “That’s twice now.”

  Rosa frowned. “No, I’m pretty sure we’ve made love more than twice tonight.”

  Gino grinned. “Damn straight! The night is still young and the memory of those gunshots and watching you fall to the ground are too clear for me to want to stop now. But that’s not what I am talking about. That’s twice where I thought I was coming to save you, and you’ve gone and saved yourself.”

  Rosa laughed, shaking her head. “I’m pretty sure that Marissa saved my ass tonight. Her and that knife she threw. Who knew that woman could throw like that?”

  “Shocked the shit outta all of us,” Gino said as he moved to lie on his back, pulling her with him so that she blanketed his body. “I think Nico’s definitely in love with her now. As soon as he realized Marissa had grabbed the knife, spun, and thrown it with deadly accuracy all in one movement, he told her his heart stopped beating for anyone but her. I’m certain he’s not being serious, but he has no chance with her.”

  Rosa ran her fingers lightly through the dusting of hair adorning her lover’s chest. “Why not?”

  Gino grabbed her hand, lifted it to his mouth, and pressed a kiss to her fingers. “Wrong man, wrong time, wrong family. Marissa’s got her own demons, and a story that is hers to share.”

  Marissa would share her story with her one day if she needed to. Rosa was fine with not knowing. The woman had more than earned her privacy. She’d given Rosa a place to stay, her friendship, and had saved her life.

  Gino had gotten to her moments after she landed heavily on the floor that afternoon and had her up and in his arms a heartbeat later. Once he had assured himself that she was alive, he allowed her to see around the room. Marissa was standing there apologizing for the words she’d said. She could hear police sirens in the distance but getting closer, Gavriil was issuing orders, and the room had erupted in chaos once more. But it all dimmed and fell away when she saw who was standing beside Gavriil.

  “Abuela,” was the only thing she managed to say before she fell into her grandmother’s arms, sobbing. She’d been surprised to hear about how Sofia had taken her own son down, and the two of them had cried for the time they had lost and everything each of them had had to endure over the past two years. It had been an emotionally charged afternoon, but one she would never forget.

  “Thank you, Gino.” Rosa sighed and snuggled closer to her man. “You did exactly what you said you’d do. My abuela is here, and she’s safe.”

  Gino pressed a kiss to her head and held her a little tighter. “No need to thank me, cara. That woman is smart as hell, took down an entire cartel, and has a mean right hook.”

  Rosa looked up startled. “She hit you?”

  Gino nodded, and Rosa narrowed her gaze. “What did you do?”

  Gino barked a laugh. “Your grandmother struck me, and it’s somehow my fault?” Rosa just held his gaze, and he grinned. “Yeah, okay, so she wasn’t too happy that I left you behind.”

  Rosa smiled back. Her grandmother was a force to be reckoned with. Rosa recognized that the inner strength Gino was always telling her she had came from Sofia.

  “You’re free, Rosa,” Gino whispered. “You can go anywhere, be anyone you want, and no one can stop you.”

  “Damn straight I can, and I know exactly where I want to go, and who I want to be.”

  She pulled herself up so she could look down at him. His eyes seemed troubled, and Rosa leaned down to press a kiss against his soft lips. “I want to go wherever you are, and be who I am when I’m with you.”

  Gino’s expression cleared immediately and the happiness that swept into his expression brought tears to her eyes. “Is that right?”

  Rosa nodded. “Yep. That okay with you?”

  Gino rolled them over in a slick move that had him sliding deep within her, making her groan as she wrapped her arms and legs around him, holding him tight against her.

  “That’s more than okay, cara,” Gino murmured as he began to move within her. “That sounds like absolute per
fection.”

  Her last thought before she was dragged beneath the wave of sensation that was making love to Gino Esposito was that it sounded like that to her, too.

  The End

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  BONUS SAMPLE CHAPTER

  HERS TO LOVE

  An Alpha’s Claim, 1

  Maia Dylan

  Copyright © 2018

  Sample Chapter

  …wind rustling through leaves … the sound of water moving across the land, rumbling over rocks and thundering down a cliff face, to crash into the pool below … a bird rises into the air as if spooked, calling out its displeasure … rain beginning to fall gently from the sky, the soft splash as it lands on the earth around her … then everything stills, as if the gods themselves had called a halt to life itself...

  “…ko nui taku aroha koe, taku pepi…”

  A woman’s voice, as familiar to her as her own, evoking deep feelings of love, and safety, laughter and joy. The voice of a teacher, of a guide, of an angel…

  “My sweet Ataahua, beautiful by name, beautiful in life. How I will miss watching you grow up, of seeing you become a mother, watching you guide your own tamariki to master the gifts I know they will be born with. But know that I will always be with you. Always, Ataahua, I promise you. Listen to me carefully. The path you need to take is to the north. You will find the man you are looking for, the one who changed our futures. He is north, a day’s drive. He is not what you will be expecting. Yellow River … Kong … silver … you need to be—”

  …a rush of wind … screaming … grandmother … grandmother … Nanny-ma!

  ****

  “Holy shit.”

  Ataahua Hemopo breathed the curse as her eyes snapped open. Her entire being thrummed with an unspent energy and a deep desire to move. To run. She’d gone into a deep meditative state, one she could only reach when she and her older brother Kaea were linked on both the physical and spiritual plane.

  “Ata.” Kaea’s voice was low, and filled with an urgency she could understand. “You good?”

  Still breathing deeply, fighting the adrenaline surging through her body, she whispered, “Yeah, you?”

  Kaea nodded and squeezed hands she’d forgotten were clasped in his. They stared at each for a while, matching their breaths to the other as they calmed themselves. Soon, the need to run had ebbed and Ata was finally able to let her brother go. She dropped his hands after making sure he, too, was completely himself and looked around them at the forest they had called home for the past twenty-two years.

  “Will it ever feel the same?” she asked in a quiet voice, the pain and loss she felt evident in her tone even to her own ears.

  Kaea touched a hand to her chin and gently tugged her face back toward him. “I want to lie to you because you are my little sister, and it’s my job to shelter you from anything that would hurt you. But I think we both know that it will never be the same. This was our home, our sanctuary, and it was taken from us as surely as our Kuia was ripped from our lives.”

  Ata took a shuddering breath, her heart breaking at the loss of her beloved grandmother, and nodded. “I know that, I do.” Steeling herself, and pushing her feelings deep within her, she locked her gaze to her brother’s. “I heard our grandmother clearly in my waking sleep. She told me where to find the man who took her life to strengthen his own.”

  Kaea’s dark brown eyes turned black, his expression harder than she had ever seen before. “She spoke to me, too. I know what path I must take to avenge her death and take back what was stolen from her.”

  The two of them stood up from the forest and turned back toward their house, a sprawling mountain cabin with a large wraparound verandah nestled in the forests to the north west of the Nantahala National forest. She and Kaea had been sent here from Tolaga Bay, New Zealand, to live with their grandmother, when she had been three and Kaea five.

  “We can’t fail her, Kaea,” Ata said urgently as she took the stairs that led to their front door two and a time. She opened the door and was almost dropped to her knees at the scent of lavender and vanilla that filled her senses. “God, what will we do without her?”

  She looked up at her brother, and saw his gaze was locked to the floor in front of the large stone fireplace against the far wall of the living area. That had been where they had found her, lying in a cooling pool of her own blood, her sightless gaze turned toward the door they both ran through. It was as if she had been looking for them in the moments her life was slipping away, as she bled out from the vicious wounds to her neck. No matter that the room had been cleaned physically by friends and family who had mourned with them, and cleansed in a spiritual sense by a Maori Tohunga who had been a guide and leader to them during their childhood. The sight of their grandmother on that floor was burned in their memories forever.

  “We will not fail her, Ata.” Kaea’s voice rang with determination and a strength so palpable she drew from it herself. “That is not who we are, or who she raised us to be. We will go east, and find this—”

  “East?” Ata repeated. “No, we must go north. A day’s drive, a yellow river, and something to do with silver.”

  Kaea turned toward her, and there was no missing the shock in his expression. “Grandmother told you to go north? Are you sure?”

  Ata made an impatient sound. “No, Kaea, I’m sure it’s highly bloody likely that I might have misheard the woman who has been a mother to me since I was three years old. It’s not like what she had to tell me was vitally important or anything like that.”

  Kaea stared at her in silence for a moment then nodded slowly. “Then that is what you must do. I will go east—no, Ata.” He interrupted her before she could argue that they should stick together. “If Grandmother told you to go north, then that is where you must go. You know as well as I do, messages we receive from the spiritual realm are sent to us for a reason. If we don’t do what is asked of us, we risk losing the future that is destined for us. And that future will be retrieving what was stolen from our family, and allowing our Nanny-ma to rest in peace.”

  Ata’s heart almost shattered at Kaea’s use of the childhood name they had for their Kuia. It bled at Kaea’s words because she knew he was right. As hard as it would be to go alone and follow the path her grandmother had laid out before her, she must. It was the only thing she could do.

  Pulling her courage around her like a cloak, she prepared to leave her childhood home, and head for the man who took her grandmother from her. She knew exactly what had to happen once she found him.

  An eye for an eye, wasn’t that how the saying went?

  End of sample chapter

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