by Eden Butler
Behind me, I glanced at Dario and his quick approach, the constricted muscles around his mouth and the searing glare he gave me. I understood.
It had been days since I last saw him. Since the night we had been together.
Since his promise that I was his.
But how could I be when I still belonged to Liam and his family? We weren’t partners to them. We weren’t equals. We were commodities to be bartered and traded.
For Liam, I was a distraction, a means to release the frustration he had at being lesser, weaker than every man in his family.
“I own you. You’re mine…nothing will ever change that.”
How often had he said that to me?
How intensely those words penetrated my thoughts, infected me like a virus I’d never be rid of. The damage went deep, scared me like a brand.
“You know Mrs. Phillips, don’t you, bella?” The older woman grinned at me, pulling out a chair at her side then stood when Mrs. Carelli glanced across the table at Smoke. “Everyone, please, give Dimitri your attention. He has something to say!”
She stuffed me into the chair, waving a hand to a waiter and before I settled into my spot. Across the room, Dario returned to his seat as his brother stood, smiling down at his woman. There was a faint recognition as he spoke, and just a few words in, I understood his intention.
“I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who came out tonight to wish me well and ah…congratulate us on getting through… that…mess. It means a lot, all your support and help, so thank you.”
It was obligatory. Necessary to thank the people in this room for supporting the man who always promised to protect them. But Smoke Carelli wasn’t focused on the crowd. He only had eyes for Maggie.
Behind him, Dario watched me, jaw clenched, his attention sharp. I made out every twitch in his expression, every clench of his jaw in the mirror above the bar.
“You’re mine,” he’d promised, the words satisfying, sincere but the look in his eyes as he said them? I’d never seen anyone more determined, anyone so sure of what they wanted.
And I couldn’t have that. Not with Dario. Not as long as my father’s plans were set firm and his threats against Makayla were real.
Dario wouldn’t understand. His family, even his cousin Johnny were powerful, connected, but they weren’t cruel. They weren’t murderers.
They protected. They avenged, but they never murdered as far as I knew.
Not like my father. Not like my husband’s family.
You miss me as much as I miss you. Don’t deny it.
Dario’s text the day after I kicked him out had been light, teasing, but when I read the words, when the memory of that night with him came back to me, when my father called me the next morning for an update, I knew the only way for Dario to survive this, survive me, would be if he hated me.
No. I don’t miss what I don’t have or want.
Like he knew what I’d say, anticipated the impersonal response, Dario’s reply came quick; a question I could never answer.
Ava, why are you running?
Then, because I knew it wound his pride, I struck low.
I’m not running, Mr. Carelli. It was fun, but that’s all it was. Don’t chase me. It’s beneath you.
Until tonight, I could only guess if my text had landed were I intended. As Dario glared at me, his features strained, his eyes angry, I understood they had.
Several people around me let out loud gasps, and Mrs. Carelli covered her mouth with her hands, pulling my attention to Smoke and where he was in his speech.
He knelt in front of Maggie, holding a small box out to her, his voice softer, sweeter than I’d ever heard it. “…I love you…and our boy. I wanna spend the rest of my life with you and just…be. So…you…wanna marry me?”
The room went quiet as they muttered to each other, blocking out the world. Maggie was a soft-spoken woman, low key, that much I’d sorted out about her from the few times I’d seen her around town. This moment was proof of that as she and Smoke whispered and spoke in low tones.
Mr. Carelli shouted, “Son…what did she say?”
But Smoke kissed his woman, his attention on her as he pulled her to his side. Then, he shouted back, “Yeah, Pop. She said yeah.”
I was a stranger here. I didn’t know the Carellis except for Mrs. Carelli and Dario, but even I knew this filled them up. Smoke and Maggie moved around the room, accepting congratulations and hugs, speaking to everyone, and Smoke’s mother ordered her staff to bring out champagne.
“This is nice,” Mrs. Phillips said next to me, toasting my glass as the couple took more time with their friends and family.
“It is,” I answered her, taking a sip, saluting the happy couple and the Carellis when anyone lifted their glass.
But at the back of the room, behind his own full champagne flute Dario continued to watch me. He didn’t smile. He offered no congratulations. His face was somber, stoic and I knew if I wanted to keep him angry, if I wanted to encourage that anger, I couldn’t be alone with him. I couldn’t let him convince me how wrong I was.
Problem was, I knew that wouldn’t take much.
17
Dario
My kid brother Dante did me a favor when I got out of prison.
He and Luca DeRosa, the guy Dimitri wanted Antonia to stay away from—like that shit would ever happen—had gotten me to the city when I thought freedom would do me in.
“Gino Rispone has a girl at his club…Madonna, D, she’s double jointed.” Dante’s face was serious, his tone awed, but it was Luca who promised to quiet the noise in my head still left over from being locked up.
“Chooch, don’t scare him,” he’d told Dante, slapping his shoulder. “Let him ease into life.” But I hadn’t done anything easy that night and at Gino’s club I let his double-jointed dancer show me how far she could bend.
The girl and her talents hadn’t crossed my mind in months. Neither had Sissy Logan, a pretty waitress on the night shift at my folks’ restaurant that could drink me under the bar. Proved it at least twice since I’d been home. Proved that drinking wasn’t the only thing she liked to do under the bar either.
But those women didn’t take up space in my head anymore.
Not since Ava.
She sat across the restaurant next to Toni and Luca, her smile genuine, her attention on their faces when they spoke. My folks were busy with Dimitri and Maggie, but they hadn’t been all night. They’d welcomed Ava, treated her like she wasn’t a stranger.
Like she hadn’t cut me to the bone.
A man’s pride could only take so much, and if I didn’t have hold of myself, mine would be shredded. But I knew the game Ava played. I knew she was running from something she’d never get rid of. Not alone. That woman was the type to die rather than ask for help. But she smiled and laughed with my family like cutting me loose had done nothing to her.
And that shit pissed me off.
“Ma said you make the best biscuits she’s ever had,” Toni said, leaning toward Ava like she wanted to hear whatever she said over the crowd. She acted like they were best friends, not complete strangers who hadn’t said more than five words to each other before tonight.
“Your mother is sweet.”
“It’s the truth,” Luca answered, picking up his glass from the table next to Toni. He shrugged when my sister glanced back at him. “What can I say? I snuck a few from the basket Mrs. C. had on her desk.”
“Thanks.” Ava grinned at Luca, saluting him with her glass as Maggie and Dimitri took a seat next to them. “Congratulations.” That smile was steady, didn’t twitch or fall when I took the seat across from her at my brother’s side.
“Gracias,” Maggie said, leaning into Dimitri when he stretched an arm around the back of her chair.
“You date in mind?” Ava asked Maggie.
My brother shifted his gaze from the women to me, his chin moving in Ava’s direction like he wanted to know what was up with her. Then, he gl
anced at Luca, and back to me. I understood what he wanted to know, and Luca seemed too as well.
The man downed his drink, folding his arms as Toni settled back against her chair. “You find out anything about the DA’s case on Reynolds?” he asked Dimitri, but my brother didn’t answer. Instead, he gripped Maggie’s hand, catching the shudder that moved down her back at the mentioned of that asshole’s name.
“He’s gonna go away for a long time.” Dimitri let Maggie touch his chest, where the bullet had gotten him. “One way or another.”
Luca nodded, not being slick when he relaxed against his chair, moving his arm around Toni’s shoulder without balking when Dimitri frowned at him. “He’s got good lawyers.”
“Fuck his lawyers.” Dimitri pulled Maggie close, then he kissed her temple. “He took our boy. I don’t care who he has on his side.”
“Even if it’s McKinney?” I said, not looking away from Ava when I spoke that name. Predictably, she jerked a look at me but was smooth enough not to react outright.
“Yeah.” At my side, Dimitri stared, his focus on the side of my face until he looked across the table watching Ava like I was. “Even then.” Maggie excused herself, making a beeline for my Aunt Maria who held her son and Dimitri took the opportunity to find out if Ava knew anything. “Reynolds is the man who helped Maggie’s ex steal our boy.”
Ava arched her eyebrows, her mouth dropping open, but she kept quiet.
“He claims to have an in with your Shane’s people.” My brother watched her, his body relaxed, but his eyes sharp. She was cool and kept whatever she thought from moving her features. “You know anything about this Reynolds asshole?”
When Ava shook her head, her eyes unblinking, Dimitri grinned, like he’d spotted a shift in her expressions that told him something. “That right?”
She nodded again, not looking away from him.
“And what about Shane? When was the last time you heard from your husband, Miss Anderson?”
“Jesus, Dimitri.” Antonia clenched like she didn’t appreciate his small interrogation. “Is this really the…” My sister went quiet when Luca squeezed her shoulder, and she sat back, her attention on Ava too. Toni liked to butt heads with Dimitri but when it came down to it, she was loyal, even if she didn’t agree with our brother’s tactics.
“It’s okay,” Ava said, sitting back, resting her hands in her lap. She was so fucking smooth. So calm. But I knew better than anyone about Ava and how she liked to pretend.
She was the best damn actress I’d ever seen.
“I’m sorry that your son was taken, Mr. Carelli and I hated hearing you were shot.” She waited, pulling anything but sympathy from her expression. “I don’t know what your brother,” Ava didn’t look at me, but she moved her head in my direction disregarding me with no effort, “told you about my marriage but it wasn’t one I wanted to stay in.”
“A lot of people are unhappy in their relationships.” Dimitri looked across the room, his eyes relaxing as he glanced at Maggie. “Poor bastards…”
“I didn’t have the kind of relationship you do.” She slid her fingertip against the base of her glass. “I didn’t have a choice who I married, and once I was in that family, I didn’t have any choices at all.” For a second, her forced calm slipped and she shifted a look at me, hesitating before she looked back at my brother. “Once the opportunity came for me to leave, I took it, and I haven’t looked back since. Where Liam is, I have no idea and I don’t much care either.” She sat back, smiling at Antonia when she touched her hand.
“Of course you don’t.” Toni pushed a plate of warm bread toward her. “Who would? He’s an asshole.”
“Thanks…” Ava relaxed her features, giving my sister a look that told me she liked her. But I knew Toni. I knew how she worked. She might give Dimitri shit, but she was working an angle. Same as I was sure Ma was. They wanted to know who Ava was, really, aside from the past she ran from. She was in our town, in our lives and we all needed to know why that really was. Ma and Toni were just a hell of a lot better at sussing out that info.
My sister leaned forward, speaking something low, likely insulting toward my brother in Ava’s ear and both women laughed, looking in our direction but not directly at any of us.
Those bright, big eyes went soft, shifting at me for half a second and I forgot myself. Forgot how cruel Ava could be for as long as it took for the words she’d texted to slip to the front of my mind.
It was fun, but that’s all it was. Don’t chase me. It’s beneath you.
Jerking my gaze from her, I motioned to a waiter, waving my glass to get a refill, ignoring how close Dimitri watched me and the small flicker of his mouth. He wanted to find out shit I had no intention of discussing. Not while the anger bubbling inside me only got sharper the longer I watched Ava acting like nothing had ever happened between us.
“D,” my brother started, closing his mouth when I took the glass the waiter gave me and had a long gulp down my throat.
“Not worth it,” I said.
Dimitri leaned toward me, his hand on my shoulder, then we both looked up, frowning as Dante stopped at our table.
“Nothing. Fucking nothing…” Dante shook his head, brows pushed together as he looked down at his phone
“Where have you been?” Dimitri asked Dante.
“Why?” He looked up when Toni tossed a crumpled napkin at him. “Wait…” he looked down at the empty champagne flutes and the waiters moving around the room to refill them. “What happened?”
Dimitri laughed, rubbing his face as he sat back.
Toni called Dante something she’d never say in front of our mother. “Our big brother got engaged,” she told Dante.
“No shit?”
“None,” Dimitri said. He nodded to the phone still in Dante’s hand. “Where you been?”
He fell into the empty spot next to Ava but kept his attention on Dimitri. “I had a call…” Dante grabbed the full glass in front of Toni, dodging the slap she tried to deliver. “You’re marrying Maggie?” Dimitri nodded, giving our kid brother a smile when he laughed. “Good. I’m glad.” He looked over his shoulder spotting Maggie as she rocked Mateo against her shoulder. “I like her.”
“Yeah. Me too.” Dimitri grinned, moving his chin at Dante’s phone. “What were you bitching about?”
The quiver on Dante’s mouth gave nothing away, not to anyone who didn’t know him, but I caught the meaning. When he shifted a glance around the table, then tucked his cell into his jacket pocket, I got that he understood to be selective with what he said.
Luca wasn’t family, and Ava was beyond suspect.
“Our, uh…hacker friend is still missing.” He frowned them and something like a cloud of worry moved into his eyes. It would. Kat hadn’t just been a smart woman my brother used to hack into computer systems he needed intel on. When they were kids, Dante and Kat had been inseparable. “I’ve looked everywhere, and I can’t…”
When Ava looked at Dante, seemed a little too interested in Dante’s explanation, Dimitri moved his head, one quick shake that silenced our brother.
“Ah, it’s not important.” Dante lifted his glass. “Let’s celebrate your engagement. Can’t believe she said yes.”
“You and me both, little brother,” Dimitri said.
Dante stood, turning toward the crowd, lifting his glass in a toast. “To Dimitri and Maggie!”
All around me the crowd got loud. My family toasted Dimitri, the folks I’d grown up with drunk on the good news and the friendship moving around the room. But I didn’t toast my brother. I gave him no pat on the pack. Ava smiled at me, her expression easy, then dropping away, moving to something I recognized as worry. There were hints of it in her eyes, in how her gaze shifted to my mouth when I ran my tongue against it.
She stopped smiling altogether when I sipped my whisky, not taking my attention from her face or the heat she tried to pretend wasn’t in the look she gave me.
She broke from th
e noise and crowd, from my steady stare, and moved to the bar, taking the kisses on the cheek Dino and the boys offered her. They shouldn’t touch her. She shouldn’t let them.
It was a jealous, stupid thought but one I couldn’t keep out of my head.
“You got a problem?” Dimitri asked, sitting up to block my view of the bar.
He didn’t believe my head shake. Didn’t buy how I downed my drink and forced my eyes forward, away from anything that happened by that bar.
My brother clapped my shoulder, frowning when I kept quiet. “D…”
“I can handle it,” I told him, not caring if he didn’t believe.
Problem was, I was pretty sure I couldn’t.
18
Dario
It took an hour and two more whiskeys before that deep-seated anger curling in my chest had me on my feet.
Ava said goodnight, hugging my folks and blowing a kiss to Dino and Rickey across the room. They watched her walk away looking disappointed and fucking hungry for her attention.
I gave her a thirty second start.
No one would hear us in the back of what was more lobby than eatery, and part of me thought Ava knew it.
She straightened her skirt and smoothed down her hair. I had to remind myself how deeply she could cut. I had to pretend the way she moved and the twist of her hips didn’t feel like torture.
“You not gonna tell me goodnight, Ava?” When she didn’t stop, I grabbed her arm, just a graze, a fixed touch but it was enough for her to jerk away from me.
It was enough that I could make out the flush of anger brightening her cheeks.
She was fucking beautiful.
“I don’t know what your problem is, Mr. Carelli.”
Her formal use of my name felt like a gut punch. I’d had my mouth on her pussy a week earlier and now she acted like she could barely remember who I was.
“That’s the problem.”
She didn’t back away when I stepped closer to her.
“You not knowing enough about boundaries.”
