Page 7 of Dirty Hearts

I looked back to see the warehouse about thirty feet away from us on fire.

Fire billowed up into the sky in a cascading wave and blew into the warehouse next to it.

As Ava screamed and tried to move out of my arms, I held her back.

All I could do was stare. Stare at the nightmare scene that unfolded itself before me. Stare at what it meant.

They killed Marissa.

She was dead.

And it was my fault.

All mine…

Chapter 2

Claudius

Present day…

Dante cut me a sharp glance and focused on me. It was the tension in his stare that brought me out of my daze.

I straightened up in my chair and tucked my hair behind my ear.

We were in my office downtown, at our weekly meeting. These meetings were important and definitely not the kind I should be zoning out in.

Sometimes I forgot that I had an image to uphold around my men. They knew the handle I had on things, and I didn’t show weakness in front of them. That would be a mistake and outside the character of the leader I was.

Not even for reasons like that shit that hit me days ago.

I swore the fucking universe was out to get me. Every damn time I thought I was doing the right thing, something would happen.

What I needed to do was wrap this meeting up as quickly as possible and think about what I was going to deal with my latest debacle.

Until then, I owed my guys the focus they deserved because I knew how hard they worked.

Besides, billions of dollars, assets, and services were the subject of our discussion. It wasn’t like we’d met up to play poker or sit around like fucking schmucks.

“I’m going to agree to the lease and refurb on the school and deny any involvement with the church,” Alex declared. He’d been talking about the proposals that had been sent to us from the city council for a complex in the old district.

“Why not the church?” I asked. “The church runs the school; it’ll be odd to deny a lease on the church.” I was surprised my brain could process that.

“Because those fuckers think they’re clever.”

Dante and Gio laughed. Jude, however, brought his hands together and started cracking his knuckles. Jude and Alex were brothers and nothing alike. I couldn’t even tell they were brothers because there was no resemblance whatsoever apart from the dark hair on their head. That was it. All of us here were full blood Italians, but Alex looked more like he’d come from eastern Europe.

Their temperament was completely different too.

“Why do those fuckers thing they’re clever, Alex?” I was real interested to hear it and couldn’t help but chuckle too at the comment.

“It’s a political move. Jason Wainwright wants to run for governor of Illinois. If he gets control of the school and the church, he gets more power. More power means more votes. The church was the goal, and the school a fucking pawn to make us think they want to preserve things as they are.” Alex smirked, and his brown eyes twinkled with pride.

Jesus Christ, I didn’t even want to contemplate how it was he knew that. But it was things like this that made me glad for the setup I had.

The original set up had already been altered when it came down to choosing who would take over from Raphael.

It was between Luc and me. I became boss and as the Morientz family consisted of Pa, myself, and Luc things would be altered even more.