Breathless & Bloodstained (The Chicago War #4) (23 page)

“I’m not.”

“I figured. You
looked disgusted out there. You weren’t even trying to hide it.”

“He had no
business coming here, Tommy, and doing this to them.”

Tommas scoffed. “I
know, but tell that to your brother. Joel believes he has every right, because
he thinks of himself as the boss of the Outfit. We all know he isn’t, and that
the seat is still open, but to Joel, it’s his.”

“It doesn’t
matter. This wasn’t about him. Eve and Theo are just trying to start their
lives.”

“And they will,”
Tommas said. “I’ll make sure of it. Don’t worry about that.”

But what about
Abriella and Tommas?

Would they get
their start, too?

Tommas’ hand found
Abriella’s in the darkness. He wove their fingers together a second before he
tugged her into his side. Abriella put her head on his shoulder, soaked in his
familiar comfort, and let her worries bleed away.

“You care about
these people, right?” she asked.

“Of course, Ella.”

“Why?”

“Because most of
the men—Damian, Theo, Adriano, and even others—are good people doing what they
can to provide for their families in the only way they were taught. They should
be given a safe chance to do that, not have to worry about picking sides or
being killed. That’s not what the Outfit is supposed to be about. I believe in
this life, and I have faith that it can be better.”

Tommas would make
a damn good boss.

She wondered if he
knew that.

“Joel is probably
going to come looking for me,” Abriella said, stepping away from Tommas’ side.

Just as fast, he
pulled her back in, only that time, he spun her around and brought her into his
chest. Without a word, Tommas grabbed Abriella’s jaw, made her stand on her
tiptoes, and pressed a fast, searing kiss to her lips. Abriella fisted his suit
jacket, wanting him closer the moment his mouth touched hers. A quiet moan
escaped from her chest, letting her lips part. Tommas deepened the kiss,
allowing Abriella a taste of the whiskey that he’d been sipping on earlier in
the night. He didn’t pull away, and he held tight, refusing to let her move as
he kissed her like he owned her with hard strikes of his tongue and scrapes of
his teeth to her lips.

It was fucking
wonderful.

For a moment,
Abriella forgot about where they were. Despite the murmurs of people just
twenty feet away, she only heard the ragged breaths from Tommas panting in her
ear. She released his jacket to tangle her hands up into his hair. Tommas
grabbed her thigh and lifted her leg to curl it around his own.

With nothing but
her thin black dress and satin panties, and his slacks between them, she was
able to feel the thick, hard ridge of his erection driving into her pelvis.
Abriella couldn’t help herself, she lifted her hips the best she could, rubbing
against his cock. The little bit of friction sent sparks of shivers running
down her spine.

Tommas answered
her quiet gasp by grabbing her hips, lifting her a little more so that she was
standing on her tiptoes, and then grinding his cock against her center.

“I bet your
fucking soaked,” Tommas mumbled against her lips. “Fuck, what I wouldn’t give
just to taste you right now, or slip my cock in and let you ride me against
this wall. Wouldn’t you like that, Ella? We’re so close to those people,
someone’s bound to hear or see something. Does that feel good for you, baby,
rubbing on me like that?”

Abriella whined
softly, the sound muted by Tommas’ mouth. It felt damn good. Her body was
overheating with every stroke of her satin covered sex on his pants. The
outline of his erection was more than enough to stimulate her throbbing clit,
and the ache between her thighs from their earlier fucking reminded her of his
cock pounding into her.

“Goddamn,” Tommas
muttered heavily. “You want a little help?”

Abriella nodded,
still chasing that high rushing her veins.

She felt his hand
untangle hers from his hair. Quickly, Tommas stuck her hand between their
bodies.

“Get your fingers
into that sweet pussy, Ella. I want to see the marks of your come on my pants
when I take this jacket off later. Make sure your fingers are good and wet so I
can clean them off before you go.”

Abriella had all
she could do to keep quiet. She did what he said, slipping her fingers into her
panties and driving two hard into her clenching, slippery sex. Her inner walls
hugged her digits tightly as Tommas drove his tongue into her mouth to hide all
her sounds. With his hips still rotating against hers, forcing her wrist to rub
over and over into her clit, Abriella was close to falling off the precipice.

“Holy hell,”
Tommas breathed in her ear. “You’re fucking shaking, baby. Let it go for me.
Hurry, before someone walks into this hallway and sees what a fucking little
slut you are rubbing yourself on my cock with your fingers stuffed up your
pussy. Is that what you want, Ella, for them to see that?”

God.

He knew just what
to say to make her hotter than ever and teetering on the brink of her own
personal insanity.

It was debasing.

He degraded her.

Being caught would
be humiliating.

Dirty.

Fucking awful.

She loved it

Abriella just
couldn’t find it in herself to care that it was all true, too. She
finger-fucked her way to an orgasm with Tommas grinding against her body and
whispering the dirtiest things in her ear. She shivered and buried her face
into his neck, biting down hard on his pulse point to keep from screaming out.

Why did he always
make it so bad?

Why was it always
so fucking good?

It was moments
like this that reminded Abriella how well Tommas knew her. He’d given her a
distraction, but he’d handed over much more, too. Stolen moments like these
were marked all over their relationship. She loved how Tommas used her for
this, and that he took great pleasure in making her run back for more.

“There you go,”
Tommas whispered, his lips brushing against her temple. “You’re going to need
to go back out.”

Abriella ignored
the stinging in her eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

“First, though …”

Tommas snagged her
hand, pulled it from her panties, and let her drop to the floor. With a sinful
grin, he stuck her two fingers in his mouth and cleaned them with a hum.

Abriella’s throat
went dry.

“Sweet like
candy,” Tommas murmured when he released her digits. “And as filthy as fucking
sin. You good, baby?”

She nodded.

What in the hell
else was she supposed to do?

Stepping out of
the shadows of the hallway, Abriella was met by two familiar faces. Alessa and
Lily both crowded the entryway to the hall with their fronts turned to the
people. To anyone else, it might have seemed normal, like the girls were just
chatting, but Abriella could see the truth.

One of them must
have noticed she’d taken off down the hall, and that Tommas followed. Her heart
swelled at the fact her friend and sister helped to hide her secrets.
Embarrassment quickly followed at the thought of what they might have seen.

Alessa laughed at
Abriella’s red cheeks. “Hey, we didn’t spy.”

“Not even a little
bit,” Lily confirmed.

Abriella smiled.
“Thank you. Where did Joel disappear to?”

“I’ve been
wondering that myself,” Lily muttered.

Alessa frowned. “I
think he went outside to talk to Adriano in private. When their voices started
getting louder, Theo made them go outside.”

Oh, shit.

“Did Joel even say
hello to you?” Abriella asked her sister.

“No,” Alessa
replied. “But he did tell me that I was dead to him.”

Abriella’s heart
hurt for her sister. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.
Joel is what he is.”

“A fucking
asshole,” Lily said under her breath as she rubbed her rounded stomach with her
hand. “The baby is giving my insides hell because of all the noise, so I’m
going to go find Damian and let him know I need to rest.”

“You’ll be at
Alessa’s baby shower in a couple of weeks, right?” Abriella asked her friend.

“Yes. But will
you?”

“She’s my sister.”

Alessa sighed.
“Joel might not—”

“I’ll be there,”
Abriella said quickly. “No matter what.”

Fuck Joel.

“Rebel,” Alessa
teased.

“You know it.”

“I would like to
leave the hall,” came a voice inside the darkness from behind Abriella.

She had forgotten
about Tommas waiting to come back out.

Laughing, Abriella
waved her sister and friend off, and disappeared into the crowd. She made a
point of not looking back over her shoulder as she walked through the throng of
people toward the front of the house. Chances were, if Joel had gone outside
with Adriano, then her brother was ready to leave. She grabbed her jacket and
tossed it on as she passed the lines of hooks in the entrance.

Unsurprisingly,
she found Joel and Adriano in an intense stare down in the middle of the
driveway. The younger man didn’t look like he planned on backing down, and
Joel’s glare was fiery enough to melt ice.

“You screwed up
this time,” Joel said.

“I gave you no
guarantees,” Adriano replied. “My father’s dealings were not mine. If you
thought for even one second that I would marry my sister off to a man like you,
then you are much stupider than I realized. Evelina is a grown woman who made
her choice. It’s over.”

Joel barked out a
laugh. “You’re right, we’re certainly fucking over here. Don’t come looking to
me for someone to back you when you need it, Adriano, because it won’t happen.
Run to another man’s crew.”

“I never came to
you, anyway.”

“Don’t forget
whose sister you knocked up and turned into a whore-made-wife, asshole.”

Adriano’s jaw
ticked. “You know what, that’s the last time you’re ever going to say a bad
word about Alessa. She doesn’t deserve it, and I am sick and fucking tired of
playing nice with you for the benefit of others. Stay the hell away from my
wife, Joel. She doesn’t need or want your kind of family love, trust that. If
you try to cause me problems, you’ll find a hell of a lot more for yourself
waiting there in the mess.”

With those very
obvious threats said, Adriano turned on his heel and stalked toward the house.
He offered Abriella a sad smile and a nod as he passed.

“What are you
waiting for?” Joel snapped from the driveway.

Abriella hugged
her jacket tighter to her frame. “Did you get what you came for?”

“Mind your damned
business.”

Story of my life
,
Abriella thought.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“T
ommas! Tommas,
where are you?”

Tommas nearly
dropped the glass of water he held at the shrill shriek of his mother echoing
through his house. There was nothing like the voice of Serena Rossi to put a
man on edge first thing in the morning. Setting his cup down to the counter,
Tommas rubbed at his forehead with his free hand to soothe the sudden headache
he had.

“Tommas!”

Jesus.

“In the kitchen,
Ma,” Tommas said, sighing heavily.

Serena stomped
into the kitchen looking like she’d just rolled out of bed not too long ago.
Crumpled clothes, haphazardly done hair, and smeared makeup topped off her
morning drunk ensemble. Tommas tried to pull forth some kind of sympathy for
his mother, but he couldn’t.

He had none left.

“How come—” Serena
swayed, her words stopping abruptly as she grabbed onto the edge of the table.
“I’m fine.”

Tommas lifted a
brow high. “I never said a word.”

“You were thinking
it.”

Perfect.

This was exactly
how he wanted to spend his morning.

“How did you get
here?” Tommas asked.

He’d taken away
her car and his father’s old Cadillac. Serena had no way to drive around drunk
with nothing to use to do it with. It was one of the smaller ways Tommas was
trying to help the world. And his mother, too.

In a way …

“I took a fucking
cab,” Serena spat. “It’s not like you make any effort to come to my home, thank
you very much.”

Tommas cleared his
throat, trying to keep his cool. “Ma, I came over yesterday when the
housecleaning lady said she found you in the hallway in a pool of vomit. Her
job is to clean the house, not you. Who do you think cleaned you, got you in
bed, and left the water and Tylenol for you this morning?”

Serena’s gaze
narrowed. “Oh, that little bitch. Yeah, about her. I want her to stop coming to
the house. She moves things, and I don’t like that I can’t find something when
I need it.”

Unappreciative, as
always. His mother didn’t even mention a thing about the fact he had been there
to take care of her.

Tommas wasn’t
surprised.

“You mean when
you’re sober enough to need something other than liquor?” he asked quietly.

“You little—”

“Bastard? Try
something new, Ma. You’ve been calling me a bastard since I fell out from
between your legs.”

Serena’s eyes
widened, a false sadness coloring her still-drunk features. “I would
never
,
Tommas.”

Manipulation was a
game Serena was terribly good at. Tommas had simply gotten better at
recognizing it over the years. Instead of urging his mother on in whatever
nonsense she had planned, he decided to go a different route.

“What do you want,
Ma?” he asked.

Putting a fist to
her hip, and using the table to balance her weight, Serena replied, “The Conti
baby shower is in a few days. Why wasn’t I invited?”

“You were.”

“Nobody thought to
tell me.”

“I tossed your
invitation in the trash,” Tommas explained.

Serena’s mouth
tightened a second before she said, “Well, then …”

“You’re not sober,
Ma. You have a bad habit of causing problems at these events. The upcoming
party is about Alessa and Adriano celebrating their unborn baby, not your
issues. It should be a happy, quiet day for them and nothing more. So yeah, I
threw it in the trash.”

Without a word,
Serena fell into the closest kitchen chair with a loud sigh. She fiddled with
some of Tommas’ papers on the table, never meeting her son’s gaze as he came to
sit in the chair across from her.

“But Adriano is my
nephew,” Serena said quietly.

“Sober up and you
can come with me. Simple as that. Otherwise, my choice is firm.”

“Fine.”

Tommas was
surprised his mother had given up so easily.

Standing from the
table, Serena waved at the large kitchen. “When are you going to fill this home
with a wife and children, Tommas? It’s empty.”

“When I get around
to it,” he lied.

He had someone to
fill the house with. It just wasn’t the right time.

“Sure,” Serena
drawled, a slight slur sticking at the end of her tone.

“Go home, Ma. Get
some more sleep.”

Thankfully, Serena
went without an argument. Tommas walked his mother to the front door, said his
goodbye, and opened it to watch her leave. A running cab waited out front for
her. It made Serena’s sudden appearance all the more confusing. Clearly she
hadn’t meant to stay for long.

Once Serena was
gone from the driveway, Nate poked his head around the corner of the house.
Nate’s most important job was to keep an eye on things when Tommas was at his
house, and even when he wasn’t, unless directed to do something different.

“Sorry, boss,”
Nate said. “I was going to stop her from going in, but she’s your mom and all.”

Tommas frowned. “It’s
fine, Nate.”

“What did she
want?”

That was a damn
good question.

Tommas wasn’t
entirely sure of the answer.

“Maybe she wants
attention,” Tommas settled on saying. “Without Laurent, her house is full of
nothing but her.”

“And alcohol,”
Nate added.

“And that.”

“You good, boss?”

“Great. You want
something to eat?” Tommas asked his enforcer.

“Nah, I picked up
a sub on the way over.”

“All right.”

Tommas closed the
front door, shutting out the early April wind, and made his way back to the
kitchen. The cell phone in his pocket rang as he sat back down at the table.
Pulling it out, Abriella’s new burner phone number flashed across the screen.

Smiling, Tommas
picked up the call as he reached for the note that he’d kept. The note Abriella
had written for him the day she came to his house and then left before he’d
woken up. He liked to have it close, because it reminded him that Abriella was
there in one way, even when she wasn’t.

“Hey,” Tommas
said.

“Do you miss me?”
Abriella asked.

“Always, baby.”

Tommas’ hand came
up empty as he dug some more under the papers for the note. Confused, he
flipped the pile over and began looking through each one in case he missed it.
He hadn’t.

The note was gone.

“You there?”
Abriella asked.

Unsettled over the
missing note, Tommas brushed it off. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“You sound …
different. Something happen?”

“No,” he said,
hoping that was the truth.

The only person
who had touched the papers was Serena.

Why would she take
his note?

“Tommas?”

“Yeah?”

“I miss you.”

Tommas forgot
about the note and his mother. Abriella was more important.

“I already told
you that I miss you,” he replied, chuckling.

“Have you figured
out a way to steal me for the day yet?”

“Working on it.”

Quite literally.

Maybe for longer
than just a day.

Tommas chose not
to tell Abriella that, however.

“Joel is trying to
keep us from the baby shower on Saturday,” she said sadly.

“Us?”

“Mom, Dad, and
me.”

“I’m sorry,” he
said honestly. “I know you want to go for Alessa.”

“Oh, I’m going,”
Abriella replied, a fierceness that he loved coloring up her tone. “I’ll be
there, Tommy.”

Tommas laughed.
“Is that so?”

“We’re going. Mom,
Dad, and me. It’s not for Joel to decide. He’s not ruining this for Alessa.
Simple as that.”

He filed that
information away, knowing Joel would probably be alone. It was the best time to
strike a man.

“I’ll be there,
too,” Tommas said.

“Sneaking me extra
pieces of cake, huh?”

“Goddamn right.”

A few days later,
Tommas strolled out of his home to meet Nate waiting with the Mercedes. Just as
he pulled open the back passenger door to get in, two familiar figures came up
behind him.

“Tommas, we should
talk, old friend.”

Tommas scowled at
the voices of the detectives. Delog and Crown just wouldn’t get the damn hint.
In no way would Tommas talk to police. Not about the bombing, not about the
Outfit, and not for fun, either.

They could go to
hell.

“Kind of busy
today, boys,” Tommas said, slipping into the car.

Detective Crown
grabbed the car door before Tommas could close it. “Wait a sec, Tommy.”

Tommas eyed the
man with as much disdain as he could manage. “
Tommas
. It’s Tommas.”

“We don’t know one
another well enough yet to be on a nickname basis?” Delog asked.

“I would prefer if
we weren’t on a first name basis, asshole.”

“Ouch,” Crown
said. “Nasty today, are we?”

Tommas pulled on
the door slightly, just enough to tell the man he wanted to close it. “As I
said, I have a party to get to. My cousin’s baby shower. Nothing that you need
or want is more important, I can assure you.”

“Now, now,” Delog
drawled, shaking his head. “You still haven’t come down to the station again
for a follow up interview about the footprints at your club or the other things
we found. It’s been a month since the bombing happened.”

“And in another
month, you’ll be here demanding I go down to the station again. Talk to my
lawyer, it’s what I pay him for,” Tommas growled.

These damned
investigators were seriously getting on his nerves. Tommas had noticed them
following him more often, and they’d even question some of his employees at his
businesses that had nothing to do with the club.

It was getting out
of hand.

Tommas was going
to have to handle these assholes at one point or another.

“You’re actively
impeding our investigation, Tommas. Just make it easy on everyone and tell us
who was with you that night at the club,” Crown said.

“As far as I can
remember, no one was with me.”

“That’s what your
lawyer keeps saying, too,” Delog stated, cocking a brow. “Funny, we don’t
believe either of you. See, the problem we have is that whoever it was cared
enough about you to be directly beside you when you were bleeding on the
ground. We found smudged handprints on the inside of the exit doorjamb, which
means whoever she was had been inside the club. She was also carrying your
bag.”

“So maybe I hooked
up with a girl that night and was going to take her home. It is a club, idiot.
Beautiful, young women are a given. But, I can’t say for sure. I can’t
remember. Ask the doctors.”