Devil May Care: Boxed Set (70 page)

Thump.
I groaned. His cock was a blur, slamming into me, increasing the pressure of my budding orgasm with every plunge deeper. I felt the last of my resistance slipping away. I couldn’t turn him aside. When I knew he could do this to me, I was utterly his.

“You’re mine, Isabel, can’t you see that? Swear to me that you’ll obey my every word. Swear it to me now.”

“Dom…” I moaned again. This time, it was an act of submission.

He pushed his hips as hard as he could. I couldn’t move; he had me locked up. But I didn’t want to go anywhere. The colors in the room had started to run as my eyes fluttered open and shut. I was choking but it was beautiful and I wanted it. I wanted to be trapped beneath this man while he fucked me and made this pressure mount so much higher than I thought I could take. Words were impossible, or so I thought.

“Swear it, Isabel! Now!”

“I swear, I swear,” I mumbled. The bubble broke. I came; he came; hot cum filled me as I tumbled in the throes of an orgasm stronger than any tide in this world or the next. I felt myself falling for him already, despite all the voices in my head crying for me to run for the door as fast as I could.

But I wasn’t going anywhere. I couldn’t. I was his.

# # #

“So where are you from?” I asked as we laid on our backs, facing the ceiling, our chests rising and falling slowly as the breath gradually came back to us.

“Here. Everywhere. Nowhere. I don’t know. It’s hard for me to answer that question.”

“Hmm.”

“It doesn’t matter. I grew up by myself. My parents died when I was young. There was just me.”

“That’s awful.”

He shrugged. “It is what it is. I got past it.”

“Maybe you were lucky, though. Sometimes I wish I’d grown up without parents.”

“Hated your folks?”

“I only had one. Just Daddy. But yes, I hated him. Or, at least, I think I did. It’s hard to tell. My life’s been so jumbled up from the start that I don’t really know how I feel about things a lot of the time.”

It was his turn to make a wordless murmur. “Ah.”

“Sorry. I know you don’t care about that.”

Suddenly, he sat up and turned to me. His expression was fierce and focused. “Of course I do. When I said you were mine, I meant all of you. That means your past, your old man. It means I want all your scars and your nightmares. All of you, Isabel. There’s nothing about you I don’t want.”

I shivered, startled by the abrupt intensity. It was as if all the sound had been sucked out of the room and all I could hear was his steady breathing, the air whistling through his nostrils. The brightest color was his eyes, bluer than anything else I’d ever seen, staring at me and repeating silently all the words he had just said.

I’d never heard anyone talk like him before. No one talked like that, as a matter of fact. It was ridiculous, downright insane…and yet, it struck a nerve somewhere deep in me. A part of me heard what he said and held it tight. I didn’t want to let it go.

But what did it mean to give everything to this man? I hardly knew him. He was brutal and savage. Dark. Cold. He might be a monster, interspersing his aggression with little acts of kindness to keep me off balance. Maybe I should run, before I found out how deep this rabbit hole really went.

After all, I’d tried so hard to stand up for myself before. With Daddy, with Angela, I’d told myself a thousand times that
this,
this next thing—the next insult or command, the next degrading slap—would be the one that pushed me over the edge, the one that would spur me to lash back. Frank had told me to stand up for myself. A little boy had, too, a long time ago. I was on the verge of finally understanding what that meant, right on the cusp of actually doing it.

And then Dominic entered the picture. I knew there would be no standing up against him. He was iron through and through, and he would break me if I even dared to try. What did it mean that I felt a deep longing towards him? How should I interpret this desire? I didn’t even want to stand up to him. I wanted to fall on my back and let him take me. Again and again and again.

I heard an electronic beeping as the floorboards on Dominic’s side of the bed vibrated. He reached over and picked up a cell phone. It was the one Emilio had given him. He flipped it open, thumbed through the menus, and selected the text message that had just come in. I could see the first few words from where I sat.

Dominic stood up instantly. “I have to go,” he muttered. He picked up his clothes from the floor and started to dress himself again. I felt a pang of regret as his body disappeared behind the layers of fabric. It was such a beautiful thing; it deserved to be exposed at all times.

“When will you be back?” I asked. I had nothing to do and nowhere to go.

“I don’t know. But, Isabel,” he said, turning to me and turning the wattage in his eyes on full blast, “stay put. Don’t even think about going anywhere. Do you understand?”

I swallowed and hesitated before giving him the tiniest of nods. “I understand,” I said quietly.

“Good.” Satisfied, he turned back to tugging on his boots. When he had dressed, he walked over to the closet. There was a small chest of drawers on the floor in there. He opened one and took something out of it, then strode back to me.

“Here,” he said, handing me a small cell phone. “There’s only one number in here—mine. You answer only if my name shows up on there. Otherwise, don’t touch the thing. Got it?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he treaded out of the room. I heard the door creak, then slam shut.

And then I was alone.

Dominic

I hustled down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time, and burst out the front door. There was a luxury sedan, freshly waxed, parked on the curb in front of the apartment complex. I fished the keys Emilio had given me out of my back pocket and unlocked it as I stepped to the driver’s door. I slipped in the front seat.

In the quiet interior, I couldn’t help but take a moment to pause. I remembered the first time I’d ever broken into a car with Slim. The silence, the calm before the storm, was bliss incarnate. I breathed in the clean scent of the leather upholstery, the faint oily tinge of the car’s inner workings that I could only notice if I held my breath and focused in hard. It was like an elixir. I felt a calm strength rush through my veins.

Inserting the keys into the ignition, I cranked the engine to life. It purred smoothly into a guttural growl. The pitch rose as I popped the emergency brake and steered the car down the street.

I passed pedestrians, dog walkers, and the jumpsuit-wearing foot soldiers of the Capparelli family. It was easy to tell who worked for Antonio. They all had the same expression, dull-eyed but twitchy, always on the alert, even as they smoked or gambled or waited around for customers to come up in search of drugs.

I coasted to a stop outside of the address that Antonio had given me. It was a small café, still quiet despite the early afternoon hour, with a simple façade and a few tables littered out front.

I waited for a moment, unsure whether I should go in or sit in the car. The decision was made for me when Antonio strolled out. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and a newspaper tucked under his arm, every bit the picture of a normal neighborhood man. But I couldn’t avoid noticing the faint hint of white powder crusted at the edge of his nostrils. I figured it was best not to mention it. The kind of man who does lines of coke to start his day probably doesn’t like to be told that it’s showing. More likely, he probably doesn’t give a damn.

He opened the rear door and slid into the back. “Dominic, my friend, how are you?” he asked in a cheerful voice.

I looked at him in the rearview mirror. He was beaming. “Good, thanks,” I mumbled.

“Excellent. Start driving, please.”

“Where to?”

“I’ll direct you. Just go.”

I pushed the gas pedal down and we moved off, away from the café.

“So tell me, Dominic, how was your first night as a proud new owner?”

“Fine,” I said.

He clucked. “Come on, don’t hold out on me!” I felt him lean forward in his seat towards me. “Tell me all the details! I want to know, did she scream? Did you fuck her in the ass?”

I hesitated. I didn’t like to talk about things like that, especially not with a psychotic bastard like Antonio. I was still on edge as I tried to figure him out. I needed to know what made him tick. That way, I could start to anticipate what his next move might be. But I didn’t understand why he seemed so interested in Isabel. Both last night and tonight, he’d been eager to hear that I’d hurt her or degraded her.

I wondered if I had. I’d let the caveman rage take over down in the sex cell, to be sure. I’d gone full rogue from my senses. The things that had happened were purely physical. It didn’t even feel like aggression. It felt simpler, a straight line from A to B. I saw what I wanted and took it. Exactly what I’d told Antonio when he first asked.

I might have felt badly about how rough I’d been, but I knew without having to put words to it that Isabel had wanted it that way. Perhaps she never would have said it out loud, or even known how to, but her body responded to mine in a way that screamed yes. “You’ll never have my consent,” she’d told me. But she’d never told me no. She became a living yes. She’d asked for it.

“Nothing happened in particular,” I demurred. Isabel shouldn’t mean anything to me, but, for some reason, I felt the urge to protect her. Her dignity, her honor, whatever it should be called, I felt responsible for keeping it above the nasty level that Antonio seemed determined to explore. That could be stupid. I should probably have just told him what he wanted to hear. But my mouth wouldn’t let me.

He settled back into his seat, shaking his head and sighing. “So private, Dominic. You should learn to share more. Take a left here.”

I pulled the car left at the light. Antonio’s phone rang. He answered it and began to jabber in Italian that I couldn’t understand. I saw him point at me in the mirror to take an upcoming right, and I did as I was instructed. He kept talking, a steady stream of syllables that made no sense to me.

“Stop,” he said suddenly, hanging up the phone. “We’re here.”

I parked the car on one side of the road and sat still in my seat. The engine settled into a low rumble. Antonio finished sending a text message. I heard the whoosh as it disappeared into cyberspace. “Do you need me to do anything while you’re inside?” I asked, every bit the picture of the obedient, boot-licking foot soldier.

Antonio leaned forward again and squeezed my shoulder. “Dominic, you are coming with me.” His eyes were bright and mischievous, like a kid getting ready to play a prank on a friend. It unnerved me. “Let’s go,” he ordered. He kicked open his door and stood up outside. I followed suit.

It was time to put my game face on. I didn’t know what this meeting was for or who would be there, but I had to be prepared for anything.

If only I knew what I’d hear.

# # #

The table was long and skinny. Seated around it on all sides were the top lieutenants of the Capparelli family. Emilio, fat as ever, sat smoking cigarettes on the far side. I was next to Antonio at the head of the table. A dozen other men I didn’t recognize completed the council.

“Gentlemen, pleasure to have you all here,” Antonio began. He placed his elbows on the surface in front of him and tented his fingers. An expensive gold watch reflected the overhead light. “As you are all no doubt aware, my father has passed away tragically in the middle of the night. His killer, a house girl, has been, shall we say,
dealt with.
Given that I am now the head of the family, I officially declare that the time of mourning has passed. The money-making must resume. This is the first chance we’ve had to all get together in such a nice little group. As such, I want to hear everything that’s been going on, from the horses’ mouths, so to speak. Let’s get down to business then, shall we? Lucio, you first.”

A tall, older man with thin, graying hair off to my right cleared his throat and started to deliver his report. “We’ve got dealers back in place all throughout our territory. A fresh shipment of H just came in from down south, so we’re in place to start moving serious weight again. Waiting on your orders to get down to it.”

“Good,” Antonio said. “Pull the trigger. Next. Arnold.”

A heavy-set man in his late forties stood. His chair screeched against the floor as he shoved it backwards. “The MMA ring is up and running. We’ve got forty fighters ready to go, and the bookies are all primed to get back to taking bets. Fuckers have been knocking down their doors just beggin’ to give away their money to us.” He chuckled. “Soon as you say so, boss, we’ll get the first match-ups rollin’.”

“Do it now,” Antonio ordered.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Two days into this mission and Antonio had brought me into the inner circle. These were the men we’d been waging war against for decades, and here they were, laying out all the details of their plans in front of me without so much as a second thought or the slightest bit of hesitation. It was mind-boggling. Surely Antonio couldn’t be this foolish? Had his old man really done such a poor job of grooming his son for the boss’s gig?

A sudden thought hit me like a cold smack in the face. Maybe he wanted me to hear all this. There was an outside chance that the coked-out man sitting next to me had been a step ahead this whole time. He could have known I was coming, gotten all of this ready, lured me into thinking I was the one doing all the snooping, only to slam shut the pincers of a trap that neither I nor Jawbone would ever anticipate.

No, no, that couldn’t be. There were too many variables that he’d have had to account for. For instance, there was no way to be certain that I’d win the fight in the basement. If he was so intent on turning me against my own club, that would’ve been a foolish risk to take. I could easily have gotten my ass beat and the whole plan would have been dust from the get go.

I settled back, temporarily convinced that, as far as I could tell, we still firmly had the upper hand. I looked to my right and saw Antonio. His foot tapped at a frenetic rhythm and his fingers twitched endlessly. This motherfucker was high as a goddamn kite. There was no way he was executing elaborate plans designed to draw a noose around my neck before I ever saw it coming. I sighed, satisfied. Things were going well.

The words “Broken Bones” perked my ears up and drew my attention back to the meeting at hand. A curly-haired, greasy-faced Italian man seated next to Emilio on the opposite end of the table was delivering his report.

“We’ve got intel indicating that the Bones are moving forward with their plan to sell those chem weapons to the Yakuza,” he said grimly. “We know the time and location where the swap is supposed to take place.”

My blood ran cold instantly. All traces of the momentary calm I’d just deluded myself into vanished immediately, replaced by ice floes of fear in my bloodstream. They were on to us after all. They knew everything.

“The bastards thought they’d pull a fast one on us,” the man went on. He laughed. “Like peace was something we’d ever take seriously. Too bad they don’t know we’ve got that mole inside their operation. He fed us all the details the second they got hammered out. It’s going down tonight.”

Antonio slammed his fist into the table. His tongue lolled forward hungrily from his mouth. His eyes were bright with an insane glare. “Perfect!” he bellowed. “I want them dead, all of them. Full-scale, all the weapons, however the fuck you do it, I don’t care.”

The man hesitated. “Boss, are you sure?”

Spit flew from Antonio’s mouth as he roared back, “Of course I’m sure! I want a raid. Catch those motherfuckers red-handed and then put them all down like the useless mutts they are.” The man flinched, startled by the sudden angry outburst. “I want those weapons, too,” Antonio added as an afterthought.

He stood and started pacing around the outside of the room. The atmosphere had become brittle and unstable as soon as he started speaking. Everyone shifted uncomfortably in their seats as he passed by behind them. “This is our chance,” he said in a low voice, “
my
chance. It took Frank forty years to build this empire up. We have a lot, to be sure, but now is the time to strike and strike hard. He was too scared to be violent. I’m not. Do you hear me, men?
I’m not.
” He stopped behind the man who’d revealed the Broken Bones’ scheme. His hands came to rest lightly on the man’s shoulders. But as the seconds ticked by, I saw his fingers digging harder and harder into the soft flesh beneath the bone. His knuckles turned white with the effort.

He leaned down and whispered in the man’s ear, loud enough for all of us to hear. “Do you understand me, Patricio?” he hissed. “I am not my father. Frank wouldn’t do this. But I will. I’m going to exterminate the bastards. I want to see them begging for their lives in front of me. That way, when I kill them—one by one by one—they will know that I had the choice to spare them and I chose not to. They will know I am not weak. They will know that I am not my father.”

Patricio was wincing under the painful pressure of Antonio’s hands. No one dared to move or make a sound. Then, just as suddenly as he had exploded, the anger passed from Antonio’s face and he became once again the picture of calm and disinterested. He strolled back to his seat, whistling.

I noticed for the first time a shadowy figure in the corner. Angela sat with her legs crossed, examining her nails. Her blonde hair was pinned back in a tight bun that accentuated the harsh lines of the crow’s feet around her eyes. When she grinned, I saw her white teeth catch the light. It flashed across my eyes like a warning beacon.

I had to get in touch with Jaw right away. He needed to know this so he could call off the arms trade. If we didn’t abort immediately, we would be walking right into a slaughter. The deal was scheduled for tonight. I didn’t have much time.