Breathless & Bloodstained (The Chicago War #4) (6 page)

“It reminds me
that there was a time when it wasn’t different, when it was marked by him, and
not his … his body and his blood. But then it hurts again.”

“No more tears,”
Peter murmured. “Please.”

“Why don’t you
hate me?” Sara asked.

“Because I love
you. And that was enough for me to overlook what you did to me, Sara. All your
lies, the affair, and our daughters.”

“I don’t know who
the girls belong—”

“I know, but
they’ve always been mine,” Peter interjected quickly.

“Don’t you want to
know for sure if they are or aren’t yours?”

“No.”

Sara slumped back
against the wall. Abriella watched the man she knew as her father wipe more wetness
from her mother’s cheeks with a tenderness that spoke of familiarity and love.
Not for one second did Abriella doubt what she heard Peter tell his wife.

Turning away from
her parents’ private moment, Abriella headed back down the stairs as quietly as
she had walked up them. She shouldn’t have listened for as long as she did.

Their situation
was difficult. It was one Abriella didn’t understand, and clearly one she
wouldn’t ever be able to sympathize with. Some would call her mother a whore,
and her father a weak man.

Abriella wouldn’t.
She wouldn’t judge her parents for their errors and poor judgment. She wouldn’t
hurt them for their secrets, or use them for her own gain. They had suffered
enough from their choices and actions toward one another.

Her mother was
human.

Her father was
human.

Humans make
mistakes.

They forgave.

They loved.

Abriella knew she
wasn’t the same as her parents. Her forgiveness was not easily handed out, and
her understanding only went as far as her pain did. Tommas’ name echoed right
along with her punishing thoughts that constantly revolved around a man who
never left the back of her mind.

Because Tommas was
always there.

He’d gotten under
her skin long ago.

Abriella almost
wished she could
hate Tommas enough to stay away.

But she couldn’t.

The itch was back
under her skin with a few simple thoughts about Tommas and nothing more. It was
a constant ache Abriella couldn’t get rid of, no matter how hard she tried.
Twice since the Christmas party when she had told Tommas to stay away from her,
Abriella found herself seeking him out to soothe the urge beating in her heart.

Just to be close
and just to see him. Being close led to a touch, and once he touched her,
Abriella was lost.

If her father was
strong enough to forgive and trust after all that his wife had done to him, why
wasn’t Abriella strong enough to give her lover the same thing?

She was going to
fail at staying away from Tommas.

Again
.

CHAPTER THREE

T
ommas cleaned his
desk area of paperwork, sliding documents back into their respective files
until he could get back to them another evening.
Respirare
was the only
one of his clubs that he managed hands-on. His dozen others were looked after
by hired managers who were paid a decent wage to turn their cheek to any
illegal happenings when it went on.

Respirare
,
however, was Tommas’ safe zone. He could personally control who came in and out
because he worked there every night the club was open. He controlled the
workers and their loose lips when he needed his secrets kept quiet.

Secrets like
Abriella.

Lately, there
hadn’t been a reason for his workers to get their extra bonuses on their checks
what with Abriella not coming around like she sometimes did.

Tommas chanced a
look at the decorative clock hanging on his office wall. At well after two in
the morning, the club was closed. The business’s schedule was tight. Last call
came just before one, and the patrons had to be out of the venue twenty minutes
later at the latest. Cleanup and prep was quickly followed by the staff before
they were out of the joint by two.

His floor and bar
manager was always the last person to leave. The man let Tommas know when he
was locking up for the night. Tonight had been no exception.

Leaning back in
his chair and closing his eyes, Tommas pressed the pads of his fingers into his
temples to relieve some of the tension headache that had been plaguing him for
the last week and a half. There wasn’t a pain killer or drink on hand that
would make the damned thing go away.

“Tired?”

Tommas
straightened in the chair, his boots snapping on the floor with a crack as his
eyes flew wide. He found where the voice had come from almost instantly. Damian
stood in the doorway with a lit cigarette dangling between two fingers and a
curious glint in his gaze.

“Someday, you’re
going to get your ass shot for doing nonsense like that,” Tommas warned his
cousin. “You almost gave me a goddamn heart attack, D.”

Damian smirked.
“That’s kind of hard to do when the whole reason I sneak up on people is
usually to kill them, Tommy.”

True enough.

His cousin was the
hit man, after all.

Tommas let it go.

“What are you
doing here?” Tommas asked.

“I couldn’t
sleep.” Damian lifted his cigarette, took a drag, and exhaled a cloud of smoke
into the office. “You’re predictable, by the way. You need to change that.”

“Pardon?”

Damian waved a
hand high. “This place, your club. Your schedule is predictable. You make it
easy to find where you’re at on any given night. On weekdays, you’re usually at
one of your restaurants. On the weekend, you’re always here.”

Tommas cleared his
throat. “It makes for an easy target.”

“Yeah. Maybe
change it up for a while. At least until things calm down and we know what’s
going on.”

“I spend my
weekends working here for a reason, D.”

Damian’s
expression was unreadable. “I’m aware. Keep that shit up and she’ll get you
killed for it, too.”

Tommas couldn’t
find it in himself to be surprised that Damian knew exactly why he spent
weekend after weekend running his club. It was two of the only days when
Abriella’s dogs were a little less watchful of her. Joel usually spent time
away on the weekends, and Abriella used that to her advantage to lose the
enforcers trailing her.

She always came
here to Tommas.

Or she used to.

“Yeah, I get it,”
Tommas finally said. “When did you show up?”

“A few minutes
ago. I figured I should make sure you’re still alive, since you’ve been as
quiet as a mouse for the last little while.”

Tommas relaxed
into the leather office chair. “I’ve been taking some time to think everything
over.”

“Think what over?”

“When I visited
Theo a week and a half ago, it made me realize something.”

“What is that?”
Damian asked.

“I don’t have a
great deal of allies left in Chicago,” Tommas said quietly. “The DeLuca crew is
out until they have a new boss to answer to, and the Conti side of things is
Switzerland when it comes to everyone else.”

“Unless provoked,
you mean.”

“I won’t provoke a
man with a pregnant wife into aligning himself with me just so that I might
have a better number to go against Joel with, D. Yes, I could easily force
Adriano Conti’s hand into turning on Joel, but unless it’s absolutely needed, I
can’t see the point. Widowing Alessa Trentini before her child is even born
isn’t the right thing to do here.”

“Fair enough,” his
cousin replied.

“But on the
upside,” Tommas continued, running his hand through his short, dark hair, “…
Joel is in the same predicament that I’m in. No allies to name. A crew of his
own to protect and streets to manage. We’re on equal footing where that is
concerned.”

“What is the
problem, Tommy?”

Tommas chewed over
his thoughts. He’d always been the kind of man who thought before he spoke,
because that was the way of a smarter man. Emotional people liked to shoot off
at the mouth first and then deal with the consequences later. He didn’t have
time for that nonsense.

“What about
outside of Chicago?” Tommas mused.

Damian glanced
away at the question.

Tommas didn’t miss
it.

“What?” Tommas
asked.

“I think that
could be an easy route to take if you went to the right families with the best
offers.”

“A family like the
Marcellos?”

“Just like them,”
Damian confirmed. “I know who they don’t want as a boss down here; I also know
that if shit doesn’t start quieting down soon, they’ve promised to make their
way here and finish it up themselves.”

“Huh,” Tommas said
under his breath.

“But be careful of
who else you talk to where other families are concerned, Tommy.”

“Joel is a snake.”

“He is, and he’s
done those rounds outside of Chicago when Riley was coming at him. Be mindful
of families that haven’t already taken issue with Joel in some way outside of
Chicago. You don’t know who might be aligned with him until it’s too late and
you’re in their den.”

“Thanks for the
info.”

Tommas cleared off
his desk and put the laptop he used into the bag hanging off the office chair.
Standing, he slung the bag over his shoulder.

“Time for some
sleep. I’ve got an early day tomorrow,” Tommas explained.

Damian nodded.
“How’s your mother doing?”

“Drunker than
ever. I hired a girl to look after the house. Half of the time, Serena doesn’t
even realize someone is there with her. But it makes me feel better to know
someone is keeping an eye on her when I can’t.”

“Sorry.”

Tommas shrugged.
“I couldn’t do it, man.”

“Hmm?”

“Kill her,” Tommas
said lower. “Laurent was easy, like breathing. Maybe it was because he’d never
really felt like my father for a long time, so pulling the trigger was simple.
He fucked me over when he went off half-cocked and almost got Abriella killed
in the process. But my mother? I know she’s not a saint, D, and I know she put
us kids through hell as we grew up, but she’s a victim in her own way, too.”

Damian blew out a
heavy exhale. “You want me to do it? It’d be quick, painless, and no mess if
you want. It could look like a suicide, for that matter.”

As cruel as it
made Tommas, he actually considered the offer.

“No,” he settled
on saying.

Damian didn’t
question Tommas on his answer. Tommas was grateful.

“By the way,”
Damian said.

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t have to
mess with the locks to get in earlier.”

Tommas tossed his
cousin a look. “Pardon?”

“You have a guest
out on the floor, man. She must have let herself in with the keys you gave her
or something. I’ll see you later.”

Tommas was already
leaving the office before Damian had even finished talking.

“Ella.”

Tommas dropped his
messenger bag on the bar and took a couple of steps toward the woman sitting on
the edge of the stage.
Respirare
sported a raised platform that rested
four feet above the club’s floor in the center of the venue. Depending on the
night, the platform could be used for a variety of things to entertain the
guests with.

“Later,” Tommas
heard Damian call from his far right.

Out of the corner
of his eye, Tommas watched his cousin disappear out of one of the side exits.
Once he was alone with Abriella, Tommas gave her all of his attention. The
sight of her sitting there, waiting for him like she had done so many nights
before, was all too familiar to him.

It soaked into his
system like a drug.

Comfort.

Need.

Hunger.

It wasn’t anything
new, but it never felt old.

Abriella’s fingers
wrapped tightly around the edge of the platform until her knuckles were turning
white from the pressure. Tommas kept the distance between them to a couple of
feet. It’d been a good month or more since she had come anywhere near him.

Why was she here?

“Hi,” Abriella
said.

“Hi.”

Abriella grabbed
the tumbler glass resting beside her and lifted it for a drink. “I hope you
don’t mind, but I poured myself something while I was waiting for you to finish
up in the back.”

Tommas didn’t give
a damn. “As long as it’s not a rum drink, Ella.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The girl couldn’t
drink rum if her life depended on it.

“Is your brother
out of town or something?” he asked.

Abriella sipped
from her drink before setting it back down. “No.”

“But you came here
anyway?”

“I turned the
cameras off and the alarm for the back door. I walked for a bit and then I called
a cab. I wasn’t going to come. I wanted a break or something. Time to breathe.”

Tommas’ fingers
ached to reach out and grab his longtime lover, but he forced the urge back.
“Is that so?”

Abriella laughed
bleakly. “Before I even realized it, I was already walking in this direction.
The cab brought me the rest of the way.”

“You shouldn’t be
here.”

“I’m aware,
Tommy.”

“You told me to
stay away and to leave you alone. You’re making it terribly goddamn hard on me
to do those things when you keep seeking me out like this, Ella. You’ll leave
here, like you have the last couple of times, making me feel like I did
something wrong; you’ll fuck me, but you’ll leave me feeling dirty, making me
think you hate me all over again. If that’s your goal tonight, get your pretty
ass off that stage and get out. I don’t need you to fuck me up like that again.
I have enough problems right now, girl.”