Page 23 of Dangerous Men (Fortune City Mafia #1)
ALEC
Earl keeps the car idling by the curb until Sydney disappears into her apartment, safely home. Both Ashton and I watch, eyes locked on her door, until the car moves and we lose sight of it.
“ Fuck ,” Ashton groans. He takes Sydney’s panties back out of his pocket and presses them to his lips, chasing the taste of her. I don’t need to. I can still taste her on my lips.
But I want more.
“Let’s take her out tomorrow,” Ashton says, slipping her panties back into his pocket and grinning. “What do you think she likes? The carnival is coming to town soon, right? Think she’d enjoy that?”
He’s practically bouncing in his seat with excitement. I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face, imagining Sydney at a carnival. Sydney licking cotton candy from her fingertips. Sydney tasting like sugar and sin when I steal kisses from her in the shadows between the carnival booths.
Tonight went well. Better than planned. But she’s not ours, not yet .
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I warn Ashton, leaning back to relax against the supple leather of the car’s interior. I take my phone out of my pocket, looking at it for the first time in hours. “We need to be careful. If we rush into this, we risk scaring her off.”
“Nah, fuck that.” Ashton laughs. But he pauses then, turning serious. “You’re going to have to tell her, you know. About?—”
The words die on his tongue when he notices I’m no longer listening.
3 missed calls.
I pull up the call log on my phone and my pulse ratchets.
“What is it? What happened?” Ashton asks, sensing the change in my demeanor.
I shake my head to silence him and press the screen to call back the number. I switch the phone to speaker mode so Ashton can hear.
When Viper answers the call, there’s no sound at first except the rush of running water in the background.
“About fucking time,” he says finally.
“What happened?” I ask. A rage bordering on panic colors my voice.
“Well…” There’s a snap on the other end of the phone as bone breaks. No screams follow it. “Dante might not be as dead as we’d thought.”
Next to me in the car, Ashton looks ashen.
“What the fuck does that mean, Viper?”
Another crack of bone, eclipsed by a low laugh. “Let’s just say the reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated.”
“Sebastian shot him,” I manage to say through gritted teeth. “Twice. And he’s the best marksman of the four of us.”
“On a target ,” Viper emphasizes. The sound of water cuts off abruptly. “This was his first kill with a gun. You know that. His only kill with a gun.”
“And he fucked it up, didn’t he?” Ashton snarls next to me. He threads his hands through his hair and groans. “God damnit , Doc!”
I still don’t believe it. Can’t believe it.
“We were there . All four of us. And we searched every hospital record in the region,” I remind them both. “For months . He never turned up in any emergency room.”
“Never turned up in any morgue either,” Viper hums from the phone.
Fuck. Fuck .
“You sure about this?” I ask.
“Nope.” Viper cackles on the other end of the line, and something lands with a loud, wet splat .
“ He seemed pretty sure, though. Hadn’t seen the big man himself, but rumor among the old guard is he’s back and he’s pissed .
Didn’t have an address for him, didn’t even have a phone number. But he had a location.”
I’m gripping my phone so hard it’s a wonder I haven’t cracked the screen.
“Where?” I demand.
“Empire City,” Viper coos through the phone. “His old turf.”
His old turf. Our new turf.
I don’t bother saying goodbye before hanging up the phone. I’m singularly focused as I message my personal assistant, instructing him to get me a plane ticket and ensure my hotel room is clean and waiting.
Looks like I’m going to Empire City.