by Mariano, Sam
“Hold me,” I say quietly, as I wait for my breathing to return to normal.
Dante releases his tight hold on my throat and eases back, looking down at my prone body for just a moment. Once he’s looked his fill, he pushes me back on the bed to make some room. I use the strength left in my body to roll, then as soon as Dante climbs on the bed, I roll back up against him. Everything feels right as I settle my arm over his torso and curl up against his side.
Dante runs a hand tenderly down the back of my head, then tugs me close until I’m completely pulled into his warmth. I’m glad for the cool temperature of the room tonight. I’m glad he chased my mind away so he could have free rein over my body. I don’t know how I’ll feel in the morning, but I’m so glad I got to be with him tonight.
21
Dante
Sunlight fills the bedroom when my eyes open, letting me know I’ve slept too long. Colette’s warm body is curled up in my arms, so I don’t care.
Contentment spreads through me as I close my eyes again and just lay here holding her. We used to sleep this way all the time. Made it that much harder when she left and every night I had to sleep alone.
Now I have to get used to having her here again, but that will be a much more enjoyable adjustment.
Since I know I’ve overslept but I don’t yet know by how long, I ease my arm out from under Colette and climb out of bed. I grab my phone off the table and grimace, seeing it’s after 10. Shit, by a lot.
I hustle through the most important parts of my morning routine, so when I come back into the bedroom to get a suit, I’m bare-ass-naked, using a towel to dry my hair. I glance at the bed to check on Colette and see her staring at me, eyes wide with surprise.
“Good morning,” I say, as I head into the closet to grab clothes.
“Good morning,” she answers sleepily, stretching her arms up in the air when I come back out. “Why is it so bright out?”
I look at the suit I picked out, frowning at the navy blue tie, but I don’t have time to pick a different one. “It’s nearly noon.”
“Late start today?” she questions.
“Inadvertent. I forgot to set an alarm last night.”
Her voice light, she tells me, “Aww, Mateo’s gonna kick your ass.”
I know she’s teasing me, but I don’t even like hearing his name on her lips, so I ignore her and toss the towel so I can get dressed. “I sent a text to Xander already. He’s on his way. He’ll be out front if you need him for anything, but his job is to keep watch, so don’t distract him unless it’s important.”
“I won’t,” she murmurs.
“If you see anything that doesn’t feel right or get an uncomfortable feeling for any reason, don’t second guess yourself, just call me.” As I button up my dress shirt, I walk around to my side of the bed and open the nightstand drawer. I draw out a rectangular box and put it down on the bed beside her. “This is your new phone. I charged it yesterday and pre-loaded it with my phone number. You may call me and you may call the flower shop, but no one else unless you ask first.”
Her lips press together in a firm line of displeasure and her eyes narrow slightly, but she forces herself to nod her head in grudging acceptance of my rules.
“It’s just until I know I can trust you again,” I assure her. “You’ll get all your privileges back once you’ve earned them.”
Now she grits her teeth and tries to kill me with her eyes. I have to bite back a smile, looking down and straightening my tie so she doesn’t see how amused I am.
Since she’s annoyed at me again, I decide to give her a little push and see what she’ll let me get away with. I climb on the bed and crawl over until I’m on top of her, straddling her hips. I pull down the thin blanket she has covering herself so I can see her pretty tits. I know they’ll miss me as much as I miss them, so I bend my head to give them each a few kisses. Some part of me expects she’ll push my head away as soon as I do, but instead I hear her sharply inhale the way she does when she’s getting turned on.
I wasn’t planning on a fuck, but I certainly won’t turn one down. My goodbye kisses to her tits and the way she arches so prettily on the bed ends up running me even later, but when I’m pumping inside her and my bedroom is filled with the sounds of Colette’s pleasure, I can’t seem to find a fuck to give about the people I’ve kept waiting.
I only collapse on top of her for a couple minutes after we finish, just long enough to recover and steal a few kisses. When she catches her breath, Colette fingers the dress shirt I didn’t bother taking off to fuck her. “This is getting all wrinkled.”
“Good thing I have a maid,” I remark, completely unconcerned.
“You might want to change it before you leave. Unless you want it to be obvious you were rolling around in bed with me even though you were already late.”
I roll onto the bed beside her and tug her on top of me. Then I grab a handful of her ass and tell her, “Everyone knows this is mine. They can’t hold it against me if I run late so I can enjoy it from time to time.”
“That’s not how jobs work,” she informs me.
“It’s how mine works.”
“I would fire you,” she states.
“You could try,” I tell her, touching the tip of her nose before pushing her off me and back to her own side.
She huffs at me as I climb off the bed and I have to bite back another smile. Been a long damn time since I’ve had to suppress so many of these.
“I was going to come home for lunch, but since it’s nearly lunch now, I’ll just see you at dinner.” Looking back at her over my shoulder as I fix the button that popped loose, I tell her, “Wear something sexy.”
“And if I don’t?” she tosses back airily. “Do I lose my privileges?”
“If you don’t want to dress up, come to the table naked,” I suggest. “Those are the only acceptable options.”
“I’m gonna wear sweats,” she tells me, just to be defiant. “And a ratty T-shirt.”
“Good luck finding either of those things in my house.” I walk around to her side of the bed to grab my suit jacket that I left there.
“I don’t have any of my make-up. If you want me to doll up to sit across from you at the dinner table, you need to at least get me some essentials.”
I’m able to do a lot of things, but pick out make-up is not on the list. I have no female friends and my sister is kidnapped or a runaway. Wherever Francesca is, it’s not somewhere I can shoot her a text and ask her to buy Colette some make-up.
“Didn’t Mia give you girly shit in that bag she brought over?”
“Mia?” she asks sharply, shooting up in the bed to look at me.
“Vince,” I correct, forgetting I went with the simplest version of events and let her believe Vince brought her the bag of stuff.
Shit.
“Vince brought you—” I stop trying to recover, because now it’s too late. Now she’s glaring and giving me attitude. It’s my own fault. It was an insignificant thing to lie about; I just didn’t think it mattered or that it would come up again.
“Vince brought me tampons and moisturizing shave gel?” she asks, her tone ridiculing what she accepted to be true until I slipped up.
I sigh, raking a hand through my damp hair. “Vince got you the pills, he sent Mia to the pharmacy and she picked up the rest of the stuff for you.”
Even though I specifically said he sent her to the pharmacy, Colette continues as if I am the one who sent Mia on an errand.
“Then she brought it over to you while I was asleep? How sweet.”
I can tell by her tone she does not think it’s sweet, and she’s got a sheen of crazy in her eyes. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but I don’t have time for it right now.
Colette goes on, “You call her Mia, too. You call Meg ‘Mateo’s girlfriend,’ but Mia… requires something a little more familiar, I guess.”
Goddammit. Paying close attention to the language someone uses to get at
the truth of how they feel about someone is a trick I taught her, and I damn sure don’t like it being used against me.
“I barely know the girl, Colette. You’re being crazy,” I inform her.
“You lied to me and covered up that she came over when I wasn’t around,” she tosses back with deceptive casualness. “Why would you do that if it’s innocent?”
“I didn’t lie. I asked Vince to run an errand for me, he sent his girlfriend instead. What do you want me to say? I didn’t tell him to.”
“Maybe she wanted to see you. She’s pretty. Has great taste in shoes, too.”
What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Before I can ask, she’s hurling another thinly veiled accusation at me.
“Were you two close while I was away?”
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter, patting my pockets to make sure I have my phone and my wallet. “No.”
“You said you slept with other girls,” she reminds me, sounding none too pleased about it for someone who was engaged to some other motherfucker.
“Trust me, I did not sleep with that one,” I assure her. “No one you would have to keep seeing once you were back where you belonged. What do you think I am, an asshole?”
“Yes,” she answers, but smiles faintly anyway.
I shake my head. “Clearly you’re thinking of Mateo. I don’t fuck the girlfriends of my male relatives, that’s him.”
Her arms are still folded over her chest with leftover attitude, but now that I’ve assured her I didn’t bang the blonde, she’s settling down. “Did he sleep with her?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you said I’m not his favorite back-up anymore? Is it her now?”
I don’t know how to explain that simply, and more to the point, I don’t want to. “Not exactly. Anyway, I gotta go.”
“Well, if your side bitch isn’t doing anything today, you could tell her to bring me some make-up.”
Even though she’s clearly joking about it now, I turn around and point at her. “Do not joke about that. That girl has some kind of hold on Mateo. If he thought I wanted to fuck her, he’d probably find a way to sneak cameras into my house to make sure I’m not. I don’t need that headache on top of all the ones you give me.”
Colette looks a little too proud of herself at the prospect of giving me headaches. “I’m very curious about this whole situation. Maybe she can be my lunch date since you’re busy; she can catch me up on all the Morelli stuff I missed.”
Something like regret stabs me when she says that. By asking to have lunch with Mia, she’s indicating a willingness to integrate herself back into my family’s social web. I like that she’s already offering to do that voluntarily, but I damn sure don’t enjoy having to tell her she can’t.
I wish I hadn’t brought Mia up, even if inadvertently. Now on top of everything else I told her she wasn’t allowed to do today, I have to add something else.
“Look, I know this isn’t how it was before, but I don’t want you getting close to Mia or Meg. I don’t know how long they’ll be around. Mia’s caught between Mateo and Vince so she’s bound to get herself killed, and Meg is… aside from being annoying as fuck, I don’t think Mateo really trusts her. I don’t know exactly what he’s doing with her, maybe just passing time? But he’s damn sure not in love with her, so whatever his agenda is, I wouldn’t recommend getting too attached to her either. We didn’t know what to expect with Beth, none of us ever imagined it would go down the way it did, but now we know what can happen. I don’t want to see you go through that a second time, so I think it’s best to keep your distance from these two.”
I can tell she doesn’t exactly love the idea of not being able to befriend the only other people who could really comprise a social circle for her, but she accepts that if I have enough doubts to tell her to stay away from them, there’s a good reason. “What about Francesca?”
“She’s missing. It’s a long story and I don’t know how that one ends either.”
“So… I’m just not allowed to have any friends now? I was close to the people in your life before. Now I can’t be?”
I don’t know what to tell her. She sounds so disappointed, I have to throw her a bone. “Hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe one of them will end up making it. If Mateo ever gets married, we can assume she’s a keeper and you can befriend his wife. How about that?”
Giving me a rather sour look, she says, “If Mateo getting married is what I have to wait for, you might as well just get me a cat.”
Yeah, that bastard’s never getting married. “I could get you a kitten,” I offer, liking that idea much more. “Or a puppy. Pick an animal, I’ll get it for you.”
Brightening, she says, “I was just being sarcastic, but I like that idea. We should go to the animal shelter next time you have a day off, see if they have any furry friends we could adopt.”
“It’s a date,” I tell her.
22
Dante
“We need to talk.”
I look at Mateo, surprised to see him at the warehouse today. He knew I had a meeting with a Castellanos informant who hasn’t shown up yet, but I didn’t expect my brother to make an appearance.
“I thought we decided you should spend as much time as possible at home or safely guarded until this Castellanos business is handled,” I remind him, taking in the strangeness of his posture. His hands are tucked into the pockets of his slacks so he’s not standing tall like he usually does when he wants to command respect. His posture is more familiar, almost like he wants to talk to me as a brother, not an inferior. That’s not something we do a whole lot, so I’m not sure what to make of it. “Something else happen?” I ask, more warily.
“A lot has happened,” he says soberly, nodding his head. “It’s been a busy week.”
“Damn sure has,” I agree, shaking my head a little. Despite the headaches it has caused, I wasn’t reluctant to go to war with Antonio Castellanos. I want their territory to be ours, personally, and war is the only way that happens. Mateo hasn’t wanted to go for it, though. He’s more interested in growing our legitimate income than the illegal shit.
I don’t think it’s a choice that has to be made and I have locked horns with him over it before, but now that significant others are getting shot, things have gone too far. It used to be people in our line of work had enough fucking respect to leave the women and children out of shit like this, but it seems Antonio’s disdain for my brother taking the reins of leadership from our dad has finally tipped the scales in the wrong direction. Traditional as they are, Antonio doesn’t respect Mateo or his commandeered authority in our family, so he’s not treating him with the respect a boss should command. He’s rejecting Mateo, and he’s not being subtle about it, either. This is too far, though. If Mateo’s woman can be shot at in public by a rival family, no one among us is safe.
“I’ll be glad when this is all over,” I admit.
“Yeah, so will I.” He makes me even more uneasy because rather than being direct, he’s stalling and wasting his time. I have the distinct impression bad news is coming.
Since he’s making me drag it out of him, I ask again. “So, what is it? What’s going on?”
“Do you know what Joey’s been up to lately?”
Our youngest brother. There’s quite an age gap from us to him, so we’re not as close. He’s closer to Vince in age and maturity level, so it’s no surprise they’re such good friends. “Nah, what’d he do now?”
Little asshole is also the only Morelli of our generation who has seen the inside of a jail cell. He didn’t get our father’s cleverness. His mom’s dead and none of us ever met her, so I can’t say what traits he might have got from her. Whatever the reason, bad genes or maybe because he’s the baby of the family, Joey is the closest thing we have to a fuck-up.
Mateo clears his throat, then looks me dead in the eye. “Joey’s dead.”
I rear back a little, hearing his words, but not making sense of them. “Wh
at? How?”
“Adrian,” he answers, nodding his head to the metal folding chair in the corner of the room we’re standing in right now. The chair where Adrian executes people who need killing—but not our fucking family members.
It takes me a few seconds to hide my shock, but I don’t know what the fuck he’s saying. I don’t know what to focus on first. That Adrian killed one of his own men, or that my youngest brother is dead. “I don’t… what does this mean? Did Adrian turn on us? Did Castellanos get to him?”
“No, of course not,” Mateo says quickly, firmly, shaking his head to cut me off before I can get carried away. “Adrian discovered that Joey was colluding with Castellanos. Apparently he’s the one who told them where to find me the night Meg was shot.”
My brow furrows and I shake my head. “That doesn’t make any fucking sense. Did Joey even know where you were that night? Why would Joey try to get you killed? Joey may not be close to you, but to turn on you like that? Why? It doesn’t make sense.”
I hear a thread of irritation in his voice. “I know it doesn’t make sense.”
There’s only one way it does make sense that Joey might get dragged into a plan to turn on Mateo. “Was Vince involved?”
I search my brother’s face as I ask the question, look for bursts of reaction as the words land, but he gives me absolutely nothing. His face is carefully guarded, his expression serious but noncommunicative. “No,” he finally answers.
“That makes no sense. If anyone in this family has cause to want to see you dead, it’s Vince, not Joey. Did Adrian question Vince?”
