Page 19 of All’s Fair In Love & War (The Bulgari Cartel #2)

“Man, look... say what you want about me. I love my wife, and I’m not ashamed to say it out loud,” Bats said, eyes narrowing like he dared anyone to challenge that.

“You know what this life does to us. Being made men don’t come with a manual, just blood, bodies, and broken loyalty.

After a while, all that shit starts feeling normal.

I was numb. Dropping body after body, making enemies—it was just another Tuesday.

I didn’t care if I lived or died. Hell, some days, I welcomed death. ”

Khalil didn’t flinch, but the way his jaw ticked told me he felt that.

“I was reckless, bro. For real. Had a death wish and didn’t even realize it.

I’d sit in meetings beside you, smiling with men I knew I’d one day have to kill.

Fuckin’ women I couldn’t name, burning every bridge before I ever walked across it.

I didn’t feel shit anymore—not joy, not guilt, not peace. ”

He paused, eyes softening as the steel in his tone bent just enough to let something else slip through. “Then my wife came along.”

A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, half pride, half disbelief.

“She saw the demons riding my back and the blood on my hands, and still held 'em. Wouldn’t let go either. Told me if I wanted her, I had to learn how to love her without turning everything good into ash. That’s when I knew she was different.

She made me want that kind of love that you feel with your whole soul just by existing.

I wake up every day trying to be the man she already thinks I am. That’s real love, my boy.”

“Ol’ soft ass,” I joked, trying to keep it light, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t stir something in me.

What he said sounded real good— too good.

“You need to worry less about me and my soft ass and focus on not getting your dick bit off, so you can stop hating,” Bats replied proudly, making me laugh.

“I’ve never been a hater in my life,” I replied quickly, making Bats laugh with his whole belly. “But for real, though. You got a good one. I commend yo’ big ugly ass.”

“Fuck you.”

“Nah. I’m good on that,” I shot back. “But fuck that soft ass shit. You ready to handle business or what?”

“Always,” Bats replied with a nod. “How is it going with our Cane Corso?”

“Our who?” I asked, frowning as I glanced at Bats in the passenger seat.

“Our little biter, Felicity,” he replied with a chuckle, reminding me of the bullshit she’d done to me.

“Fuck you,” I spat, phantom aches making me rub my dick and silently pray that never happens to me again. “I don’t know. I’ve been at the penthouse or Tandy’s spot since she tried to bite my dick off. I can’t even look at her right now.”

“Speaking of Tandy, how did she take the news of your marriage?”

A grin tugged at my mouth before I could stop it, and my hand tightened around the steering wheel as I replayed the conversation in my head.

“She said she doesn’t care as long as we at least remain friends after I tie the knot. Tandy never wanted shit from me besides dick and a few coins. She never wanted to be part of this life anyway. Said it’s too dangerous, and not the life she wants to live when she gets ready to settle down.”

“I respect that.” Bats nodded thoughtfully, letting me know he was lying. “So it just leaves you to deal with Cane Corso. Damn, I hate that for you,” he said with a chuckle.

I flipped him off. “Fuck you. No, you don’t.”

“I don’t.” He outright laughed in my face. “But at least you got Tandy to offset the stress. I could tell she got you right. Your uptight ass bopped out of that building like a brand-new man.”

“I don’t bop shit. I G-walk, muthafucka,” I spat, shooting him a glare before returning my eyes to the road.

“If you say so.” He shook his head with a grin. “What do you plan to do with Cane Corso?”

“I don’t know. The staff don’t even want to deal with her.

She tried to bite one of the guards’ ears off, and now the maids won’t even look her in the eye.

I might have to bring her to the club with me tonight.

I’m not Naeem. Keeping her locked in that bedroom is starting to mess with my conscience. ”

“Nah. That’s a bad idea. Your patience is thin. She’ll piss you off, and you’ll end up putting her out of the club again.” Bats chuckled, shaking his head when I shrugged.

“That won’t happen because marrying her is my duty.

She was tryna sniff cocaine off the bar the first night I met her.

Now, she doesn’t have access to it, so that won’t be a problem,” I recounted, reminiscing about the night I encountered the elusive Felicity Veneto.

“I’ll chain her ass to my desk if I have to. ”

“I hear you,” Bats replied before grabbing his phone out of his pocket.

Everything in my life started to unravel the day the mafia princess, Tatum, ran out of her wedding, leaving the former underboss, Dallas Veneto, humiliated at the altar—and boarded a private jet out of the city with my brother, Naeem.

I told him helping her would blow up in our faces.

She wasn’t worth the risk, let alone a war, but he didn’t care. He never does when it comes to her.

One look at him and I knew he was already gone. Naeem had fallen for Tatum the second their eyes met. The man who usually thought five moves ahead didn’t think at all when it came to her.

The moment they got married, everything shifted.

Lines were crossed, enemies made, and any chance of peace went out the window.

Dallas Veneto, with his oversized ego, wasn’t the type of man who bowed out gracefully, least of all to a Bulgari.

Tatum’s betrayal wasn’t just personal. I was a public humiliation and an execution of his pride that Dallas couldn’t let stand.

Our families had been at odds for as long as I could remember. The hate was planted long before any of us were born. My grandfather once told me the Venetos went to war over everything: drug routes, blocks, extortion rings, all because we owned damn near every piece of power this city had to offer.

Naeem and Tatum’s union only poured fuel on that fire because Dallas not only lost his bride, he also lost face. In our world, there was no greater sin than that.

“Did she piss you off because she tried to snort coke off the bar, or was it because she let a random muthafucka finger fuck her in a dark corner while you watched?” Bats asked, cutting through my despair.

My eyes narrowed as I glanced over at him and was met with a goofy grin.

“Don’t ask me that shit because you know I really don’t give a fuck.

If she wants to let a nobody slut her out, that’s her business.

I ordered her to leave for disrespecting me and my establishment, and what I say goes.

End of story.” I sneered, trying not to get angry, though I partially lied.

I was bothered.

For reasons unknown.

She was an addict, and mouthing, and everything else I despised in a woman.

So, why did she have my attention the entire night?

I had no idea, but Felicity didn’t know who she was dealing with.

I was the one pulling the strings, and if she thought for a second that she could flaunt herself in front of me and not face the consequences, she was sorely mistaken.

She hadn’t just been playing with fire. She was playing with me, and I wasn’t the type to lose a fight. That was why I had her thrown out on her ass after security dragged that nobody out of my club.

With my eyes glued to the road, I intentionally avoided eye contact with Bats because there was a bit of truth in what he’d asked. I had been fucking heated, but he didn’t need to know that.”

Bats cackled. “Right, right. That’s it, huh? You know I know you better than that, right?”

“Nah, you don’t know shit.”

“I know you were still checking for her even after you kicked her ass out?”

“I ain’t checking for shit but some money,” I denied, gripping the wheel tighter as we navigated through the city streets.

The Dallas skyline loomed ahead, glass towers glittering in the morning sun and casting fractured light across the pavement.

Traffic crawled through downtown, a mess of honking horns and heat waves rising from the asphalt as I observed my surroundings.

Alejandro Bulgari, my father, drilled one lesson into my head as a kid: Never let your guard down.

That teaching stayed with me and was etched in my bones.

I liked the action, but I hated the politics.

“I hear you. At least admit Dallas’ sister is fine as fuck. Shit, even I stared at that picture you gave us to find her a few times, and you know I love my wife.”

“I know you bet not let her see you admiring another woman, or she will shoot your ass,” I replied with a snicker.

Bats waved me off. “This conversation ain’t about me. It’s about you liking the Veneto. Don’t try to change the subject. Admit you think she’s fine, or I’ll hook her up with one of my people. They’ll wife her coke-snorting ass.”

“Watch your mouth, my nigga,” I replied, my possessiveness taking over.

Bats slapped his hand against the dashboard and laughed. “I knew it! Told you I know your ass. That’s why you’ve been so stressed out.”

“Nah, I got a score to settle, and unfortunately for her, she’s a part of my plan.”

“Yeah, you got a score, all right. While she’s hitting lines, you can be hitting that ass. You can tell me. I’ll listen, and I won’t judge.”

“Nigga, fuck you. Sit back and shut up.” I said, switching to the next lane and cutting up the radio so I didn’t have to hear his mouth.

He might have been right, but he would never know it. Felicity Veneto would never be anything more to me than a wife on paper. At least, that was what I told myself.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, slicing through the silence. I pulled it out, teeth grinding the moment I recognized the number.

“Good morning,” I answered, knowing better than to come at Mrs. Deleon with anything less than manners.

You didn’t survive childhood, or five minutes in Mrs. Deleon’s presence, without learning some damn respect.

She didn’t give a damn how much money my parents had.

Her motto was always the same: “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” And she meant that shit.

We learned fast. That was why my mamá, Daphne, loved her so much.

Mrs. Deleon wasn’t just the estate manager.

She was sixty-two, born and raised in Baton Rouge, built like she could still throw hands and win, and she ran my household tighter than a federal indictment.

She helped raise my siblings and me since we were toddlers, but I was her favorite, and she was my old girl.

Always had been. That was why I offered her a salary that Naeem himself wouldn’t have wanted to pay to steal her from his estate.

Mrs. Deleon never wore a uniform, no matter how many times I jokingly threatened to dock her pay because of the staff’s complaints about it.

She would brush me off, mumbling something about “grown folks dressing how they please. She claimed she wasn’t “nobody’s hired help” and reminded me every week, “I raised you, boy, not them.” Mrs. Dorleon knew what she was worth, and she wouldn’t take less than she deserved from anyone.

“Khalil,” she began, her tone syrupy but firm, thick with that Southern drawl she refused to let go of, even after forty years of working with the wealthy and elite. “I hate to bother you while you out rippin’ and runnin’, doin’ God knows what, but we got us a lil’ emergency.”

That meant one thing: Felicity was causing problems—again.

I leaned my head back against the seat and sighed, “What is it?”

“That crazy girl. She don’ locked herself in the west wing again. Ain’t eaten in two days, claimin’ she not if, and I quote—‘Khalil don’t come see about me tonight, he gon’ regret it.’”

I clenched my jaw. “Let her starve. I don’t care if she eats.”

“Mmhmm,” Mrs. Deleon hummed, not buying it. “That’s what I told the peach cobbler sittin’ in the oven, but it won’t throw no lamp at me or threaten to break the damn windows.”

I ran a hand down my face. “She hurt anybody?”

“No, sir,” she replied, gentler now. “But Khalil… this tantrum feel real different. I don’t like it. She quiet, and you know how I feel about quiet women. They ain’t right. It means they plottin’.”

She wasn’t wrong, and she never called me unless it was urgent.

Mrs. Deleon wasn’t the type to rattle easily, not after everything she’d seen where she came from and from dealing with The Bulgari family.

So if she was picking up the phone, it meant Felicity had done more than act out; she’d shaken something loose in her.

I leaned back in my seat, jaw tight. That girl tested limits she had no business reaching for. First, she bit my dick, and now, she’s demanding I come see her, like I didn’t have a million other things to handle.

I stared at the phone for a long second, then returned my eyes to the road. If Felicity wanted a visit, she’d get one, but she damn sure wasn’t ready for the version of me walking through that door.

“I’ll be there in twenty,” I said before hanging up and tossing the phone onto the dash.

By the time I pulled into the driveway, I was already two seconds from tearing the damn door off its hinges.

My grip tightened around the steering wheel, knuckles pale against the leather as I sat there, forcing myself to breathe through the rage clawing at my chest. I hadn’t even made it out of the car, and I was already pacing through every outcome in my head, and none of them good.

Felicity had some damn nerve summoning me like I was one of her servants.

I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me. Felicity had me fucked up if she thought I was about to walk in here and play games with her—not today.