“That fucker has a gun on my brother Diego,” he mutters, moving toward him like a stealth ninja. The sharp blade flashes across my line of sight so quickly, I almost miss the slash that nearly decapitates the thug who has…or had…his gun pointed to the back of his brother’s head. Diego rolls away from the guy before he collapses on top of him, all four-hundred pounds of him. He grabs the dead guy’s gun and flips around so he’s now behind the wall with us. Vince crouches down, firing shots at Juan’s other guys, and Paolo appears behind him. he catches my eye and gives me a quick nod.
That’s when all hell breaks loose.
More gunshots ring out, tearing through the walls as I leap past the wall, taking shot after shot at Salazar’s crew. I duck behind doors and chairs and tables, dodging bullets as they fly in my direction, but by some miracle, completely avoid me.
I guess I have a purpose after all.
The restaurant is obliterated by bullets tearing through walls and ceilings. Plates, glasses, vases — everything explodes under the relentless fire. But I don’t slow down. I just keep shooting and the bad guys…or worse guys, rather…fall to the ground like bags of cement.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the guy that Tommy came in with lying on the tile floor, bleeding from his left side.
Fuck.
He definitely doesn’t have that scumbag cartel look, so I assume he’s a friendly. I crouch down as low as these leather pants will allow me and dart across the foyer to his side. His eyes flutter a little bit, his lips curling into a smirk. “Shit, I’ll get shot all the time if someone like you shows up to rescue me.”
I roll my eyes and pull him around a corner so he’s out of the line of fire. “Stay put,” I whisper. “I’ll be back.”
“Hurry, I don’t know how much longer I have,” he says, sputtering a little bit for effect. He winks at me and I let out a little huff. Cute, but seriously fucked in the head. Does he realize we’re being shot up by a Mexican drug cartel right now? Or did that bullet do damage to something other than his arm?
I fire off a few more shots at the guy who took out Casanova and give him a kick when he hits the floor, just to finish him off. It feels good. I won’t lie.
Therapy, here I come.
When the explosion of bullets finally stops, I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding when I see Paolo standing next to Vince. There’s a lot of screaming coming from the kitchen and I furrow my brow, struggling to hear voices.
Paolo steps over the bodies and pulls me in for a hard hug. “Good job. That Villani warrior blood is definitely running through your veins.”
“Was there ever any doubt?” I quip. “I mean, you’ve already seen my work.”
“A little reinforcement never hurts,” he says, a smile lifting his lips. He nods at the guy behind me. “Who’s that guy moaning over there?”
I glance back at the guy I saved and shrug. “Not sure, but he tried to hit on me, so he can’t be that bad off.”
Paolo snickers and nods his head in the guy’s direction. “Well, you saved his life so I’m sure he wants to thank you.”
“Among other things,” I say with a giggle, walking back to Casanova and kneeling next to him.
“You came back,” he says, his eyes a little glassy. “Can I hold your hand?”
“Sure,” I say, examining the spot where he’s bleeding from. Someone else, maybe another brother, runs over and checks him out, and a heaviness in my gut forces my gaze upward.
Vince is standing next to Paolo as he rattles on about business of some sort, if I had to guess. But it doesn’t look like he’s paying the slightest bit of attention to anything Paolo is saying.
No, in this second, he’s not focused on anything but me.
Well, me, my outfit, and the guy who is rubbing my hand against his scruffy goatee.
The corners of my lips lift into a knowing smirk, and the smoldering flames in his eyes heat every inch of my body in response.
Fuck me if I’m wrong, but it sure looks like he wants me as much as I want him.
And as much as I hate myself for admitting that, maybe it means I won’t need a Plan B after all.
Chapter Twelve
Vincenzo
The tires of my Bugatti Veyron squeal to a stop outside of Il Gioiello hours after the attack on Tommy’s exclusive restaurant.
I narrow my eyes at the white stucco exterior.
Looks clean and new.
You’d never guess by looking at the outside that it was ground zero for a massive bloodbath involving a Mexican drug cartel and my family only hours earlier.
Fortunately, the damage had been limited to the inside.
But the partnership between me and Salazar?
Shattered and splintered like the rest of the place.
It’s been hours since Salazar’s crew tried to take out my entire family, a shootout that was never supposed to happen. But Tommy’s temper put us in the line of fire when he popped a couple of Salazar’s guys who came to deliver a shipment of blow. He went behind my back and handled family business without consulting anyone in the family. If he hadn’t been shot, I’d have beaten his ass for getting involved like that.
I had it under control!
But because of the message he sent Salazar, I almost lost it.
Thankfully, everyone on our side of the fence walked away whole.
Well, except for Tommy. He’s now got another battle scar to show off because he acted with his head so far up his ass, he could taste his fucking brain. But hey, I guess it’s poetic justice.
Goddamn emotions. They cause big problems with bigger consequences.
And my emotion-driven brothers are about as subtle as hand grenades.
Deep down, I always knew that the cartel war would erupt too close to home. We picked off enemies one by one over the past few years, but there are always more lurking. And this time it crashed through the door and annihilated the inside of Tommy’s pride and joy.
Looks like opening night will have to be delayed for a while.
I step out onto the pavement and slam the car door shut, staring up at the place. We’d have never won this fight without Paolo.
And Aria.
My fists clench, and I press them against my temples, trying in vain to force the image of her, clad in that tight black leather, out of my mind. I need to focus on other things…and they don’t include how perfect her ass looked in those pants.
I walk toward the front door, pulling it open. The scent of bleach assaults my nostrils as I survey the guys scrubbing the place down with an array of cleaners, trying to erase the mess that ravaged the inside of the restaurant. I run my hand over one of the bullet-torn walls, sliding my finger over the holes in the sheetrock.
“Don’t worry, Vince,” one of my guys, Frankie, says in a low voice. “I’m gonna work with the construction crew to make sure all of this shit is handled once the cleaners are outta here. It’ll be as good as new.”
“It’d better be,” I grunt, walking down the short hallway toward the state-of-the-art kitchen. The stainless steel appliances, counters, and cabinets are riddled with bullet dents, the fancy lighting fixtures hanging over the staging area cracked and broken, hanging out of the ceiling by thin wires. Glass shards glitter all over the floor and the counter. I take a few steps inside and shake my head. I know how much time and effort Tommy took creating this kitchen. Before my mother died, she and Tommy spent a lot of time cooking and baking and she told him things she’d do if she could create her own professional kitchen. He took those specifications to heart and always vowed to bring her vision to life.
I survey the mess surrounding me, my shoulders sagging as I walk farther into the space.
At least he’s still alive.
We can fix this. We can fix anything. But I can’t raise my family from the dead.
All of the other shit can be handled.
I lean back against a wall and scrub my hands down the front of my face, a loud groa
n escaping my lips.
All of the other shit.
Interesting choice of words.
Will there ever be a time when there isn’t a steaming pile of it in my path, taunting me?
Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty.
Maybe my father was trying to tell me something by not pulling me inside sooner.
Maybe he was trying to send me a message.
Maybe I should have paid closer attention.
“What are you cooking in here? Smells great. Ammonia and bleach. Italian cuisine at its finest.”
I let my hands fall from my face and swallow another groan when I see Aria standing a few feet away from me with her hands on her hips. She still hasn’t changed out of her Catwoman getup, and I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t make my cock twitch the first time I saw it earlier today when we were about to get ambushed by the cartel. With that outfit and her high-heeled stilettos, she resembles a smoking hot BDSM assassin. And fuck me if I’m not turned on, despite our fallout a few weeks ago. “Where’d you come from?”
“Someone shoved me into a hole under the floor,” she says in a sarcastic tone. “And I just found the hidden ladder.”
“Funny,” I grumble.
“Not trying to be,” she says with a glare, walking toward me. She stops a few inches away and cocks her head to the side, her eyebrow lifted. “How’s Tommy doing?”
“He’s gonna survive. He’ll have a bum shoulder for a little while, but he’s good. The bullet went straight through. Clean exit. He got lucky.”
“Good for him,” she says coolly.
“The same goes for your boy, Gio,” I say, my voice tight.
She furrows her brow. “Who?”
“The guy snuggling with you on the floor before?” I lift an eyebrow. “Thought you’d like to know he’s okay, too. You two looked pretty cozy before.”
She smirks, folding her arms over her chest. “Jealous?”
“Hardly. The guy’s a fucking moron. Enjoy.” I push off the wall and take a few steps toward her. “So, you came back. Why? You wanna finish me off or something?”
“Don’t tempt me.” Her eyes sweep over the mess surrounding us and she points to a few carving knives on the dented countertop. “There are some pretty interesting cooking utensils I wouldn’t mind trying out.”
“You could have just shot me before,” I say in a low voice. “Could have chalked it up to friendly fire during the cartel hit.”
“There’s nothing remotely friendly about my feelings for you,” she snaps. With a flip of her hair, she juts out her chin. “Besides, I’d want you to know it was me, that there was no mistaking who pulled the trigger. There was too much confusion with the cartel thugs blowing things up. I’m much more intrigued by the kitchen utensils so I can look you in the eye while I slice.” Her eyes glimmer and suddenly, carving me up seems to charge her.
My jaw tightens. “So is that all you want right now? Just to see me dead? Is that gonna solve all of your problems?”
“No, but it’d be a good start.” She flashes a toothy grin. “But lucky for you, I’m not going to screw over Paolo by icing his partner. I know how to separate business from pleasure.”
Pleasure.
Why did she have to say that fucking word?
Now I can’t stop thinking about what she’s got on underneath all of that leather.
Maybe nothing.
A twinge in my groin makes me fist my hair, and I take in a deep breath, thinking of all of the greasy bastards who soiled the floor of Tommy’s restaurant not long ago. That’s the kind of image that’ll have my dick limp in seconds. That’s the kind of shit that’ll keep my head clear.
“You look like you want to say something,” she murmurs, running a hand through her long hair.
Oh, Christ, if she only knew.
I stare down at the expectant look on her face. I need to refocus my train of thought now or I’ll go off the goddamn rails. Fuck the whole thing with Gio. If she wants him, she can have him. “Thanks for showing up today.”
She nods. “And?”
I roll my eyes. “And for helping out here.”
“Helping?” she screeches. “Seriously? I clipped more than half of those thugs!”
I shrug. “You wanna parade or something? Isn’t this what you signed up for when you decided to work with Paolo?”
“I didn’t agree to help you with your cartel beefs,” she hisses, her fists pressed into her leather-clad legs. “I did this as a favor to Paolo, not you.”
“Well, thanks anyway,” I say, pushing past her and breathing in the sweet scent of vanilla as she shakes her hair out.
Ignore it. Don’t feed into this shit again, Vince. You have responsibilities. Do your damn job and remember the consequences that will kill you if you don’t!
She grabs my wrist, and with one swift motion, I have her arm locked behind her back and her back pressed against a wall. Her nostrils flare, her eyes fiery as they bore into me the way they did only a few weeks earlier.
The last time I saw her.
Looks like that fury of hers is still simmering dangerously close to the surface.
And with such a short fuse, the explosion will be deadly.
But the burn…fuck, it would feel incredible to be caught in the middle of her raging inferno.
“Why are you really here, Aria? Because we both know you’re not stupid enough to kill me,” I ask, my voice gruff and threatening. I don’t know what’s going on in her head right now, what she feels she has to prove to me, but there’s no way this ends well.
Shit, it can never happen at all.
She left me three weeks ago, unhinged and spewing hate because I saved her life.
For the third time!
And I haven’t seen her or heard from her since.
So why now?
“Maybe I wanted to say something to you, too,” she whispers, her warm breath fluttering against my cheek. “And it wasn’t about Gio.”
I’m still questioning where the hell this is all heading, but I instinctively shift myself to the side so my groin is out of her target range.
Just in case.
I’ve already fallen victim to that move, and no way is she gonna use it on me again.
“Oh, yeah?” I growl, pulling her arm tighter.
Except she doesn’t fight against it this time. The corners of her lips curl upwards. “Yeah. I came back to say the same thing.”
“What thing?” I press.
“Thank you,” she mouths, taking her time to slowly form the words with those cherry-red lips. Jesus, I wanna bite them so hard.
“You didn’t say it out loud,” I reply, narrowing my eyes. “Doesn’t count.”
“Well, since you were so focused on my mouth, I figured you’d appreciate it more that way. But if you need to hear the words, then fine. Thank you.” She leans her head back against the wall, altogether too comfortable with me plastered against her.
“So that’s it?”
She shrugs. “What else do you want? You’re lucky you got that out of me.”
“It’s stupid for you to be here right now. Why would you risk coming back? You should be with Paolo, safe at home,” I growl, loosening my grip on her arm. Part of me is waiting to see if she’ll push me away.
I hope she doesn’t.
I hope she stays put.
Right where I can see her.
Because there is more behind her gaze, more that I need to see.
She pulls her eyes away from me, her shoulders sagging a bit. “I don’t know. After everything happened today, I just didn’t want to go back with him. I actually…” Aria bites down on her lower lip. “It made me think about Mama. Not like I need an excuse these days. I guess seeing everyone together, your family, so happy and relieved to have escaped that bloodbath, made me sad. Made me miss having my own family.” Her dark hair falls over one tear-filled eye. “It really sucks to not have anyone to talk to or trust or laugh with, to not have someone in you
r life who knows you better than you know yourself.”
Fuck. I didn’t even think about how today would affect her. She showed up at the restaurant with Paolo, and we banded together to defeat Salazar’s guys after she made a few snide comments. There’s not much time to think about dead parents when you’re dodging bullets. But after the attack, we all headed to a safe house so Tommy could get patched up and I could take care of logistics with the cleaners for body disposal. When I saw that Aria had disappeared, I assumed she went home with Paolo.
Mission accomplished and all that crap.
But here she is, and it doesn’t look like she wants to make another quick escape.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice thick. Without thinking about it, I move my hand up to the back of her head, stroking her silky hair. My fingers tingle, wanting so badly to get tangled in it, to tug it backward so my lips can feast on the smooth column of her neck.
A tiny sigh escapes her lips. “I miss that,” she whispers. “I miss it so much. And when I looked around at your brothers and sister and their families, it just hit me kind of hard. I don’t have any of that anymore.” Her voice cracks and the tears spill over, streaming down her face.
“That’s not true.” I pull her close, letting her cry into my chest. I rest my forehead on the top of her head and breathe in deeply, letting her immerse my senses, every single one of them on high alert. The anger fizzles away faster with each tear that slips down her cheek. “You’re not alone, Aria. I know what you lost, but you’re here now. You’re safe and you do have a family.” I tilt her chin so that she has no choice but to look me straight in the eye. “I killed ten guys and destroyed my villa in the process. I mean, if that doesn’t scream family loyalty…”
She giggle-hiccups. “Is that how you prove yourself to everyone who questions your loyalty?”
I shake my head. “No. I’d never shoot up my own house like that.”
Fallen: A Dark Italian Mafia Romance (Men of Mayhem Book 4) Page 11
