Page 23 of Dirty Hearts

“Maybe, and you know why.”

“Right, so it’s better for her to believe some lie? To continue believing the fucked-up for sure mess you conjured.”

“It keeps her safe.”

“Goliath took her to mess with you.”

“Yeah, he sure did. He messed with me big time.” We knew to keep our family out of business, especially our women. I’d kept Marissa right out, and Ava hadn’t even been in the picture. To get to a guy like me you had to come at me by targeting my weaknesses.

“So, you’re just going to continue like this? I know you. You don’t want anyone else. You want her.”

Things had always been messy between Ava and me.

Well… not always.

Not in the beginning.

She was sweet.

I’d never had sweet before. She was the sweet college girl a guy like me should have stayed away from. I was seven years older than her, and I was a mobster.

I should have stayed away from both her and Marissa. I didn’t.

I went for the good girl, the sweet angel, and messed up.

Marissa tricked me. Tricked me big time and in a way that the only person who I could tell was Luc.

Our relationship was formed from tricks and traps. Tricks and traps that no longer mattered because she was dead. All she did was love me, and now she was dead.

I couldn’t let the same thing happen to Ava.

“Luc, as long as that animal is alive, I won’t rest. That puts her in danger. He took her when he didn’t know how I felt about her. What do you think he would have done to her if he knew?”

“It’s been seven years, Claudius. No one’s seen him or heard of him.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop looking for him.”

Luc pressed his lips together again and straightened. A dark look washed over his face. “Something happened on Monday, and it panned out when I dug a little deeper.”

Luc only looked and spoke like that when something bad happened. Something dark.

“What is it?”

“I saw one of Manello’s men in my shop.” He steepled his fingers and gazed at me.

My blood instantly boiled. The Manellos were the key to finding Goliath. They’d been off grid just like him, and prior to that they’d only resurfaced when shit was going down. “Who was it?”

“It was a lackey, a grunt. He wouldn’t have known it was my shop.”

Luc ran a wine store in town. I doubted that anyone who’d been away for the last couple of years would have guessed that the shop was his, or even that one of the most feared and revered had settled down in the vanilla lifestyle.

“What’d you do?”

“Saul followed him.” Saul was one of Luc’s men. It was funny they were still part of my crew, but they stuck with him. They were just there in case of trouble. They worked with him, looked happy doing it, but if I needed them, they’d be at my side. “Saul said it checked out. Claudius, if the Manellos are back, then something’s going on. People know you’re boss. They’ll know.”

I stood up to go.

“What are you doing?” Luc asked.