Page 4 of Heartless (Scathing Hearts #1)

Jake

Margo, the woman I’d stopped fucking a couple of weeks ago, paced the rug of my living room in her high heels. Her generous tits were nearly spilling out of her top while her ass wiggled with each stomp she took. Standing behind the couch, I drove my fists in my pockets.

She was a good lay. Ripe. And giving as good as she got in the sack. But then she’d started to nag, and I’d had enough of that shit. “Marg, where’s your fiancé?”

At that, she stopped as if looks could kill. “Jake, I only said yes because I wanted you to realize what you were losing.” She pinched her made-for-blowjobs mouth. “Don’t you feel anything for me at all? We’ve been together for—”

“Marg, what did I say to you before we started fucking?”

“You said the minute it stops being fun, you were out. But it can still be fun if I like you. Jake, I—” She lunged and pawed at my chest. “I’m sorry. I won’t ask you for more than you want to give. I love you, and I know there’s more to you than this hard exterior.”

I stepped back. “You don’t love me. I made you wet. You made me hard. And now, we’re done.”

“Jake. Please, I—”

The chime of the elevator’s doors leading into the penthouse cut off whatever shit she was about to sprout. When Sile, my brother-in-arms walked in, the whiny bitch’s eyes widened.

The jerk of his chin didn’t hide his smirk. “Hey, Marg. Congrats on the engagement.”

In a volte-face, she twisted back to me. “Did you call him here? Whatever he told you... I... I can explain. It didn’t mean anything.”

While Sile headed for the bar, I snapped my fingers at the woman to get her attention. Once I got it, I leaned in. “Have I made promises in my sleep?”

When her head turned toward Sile again, I swiped my hand over my face. “Marg, I know you fucked Sile.”

She paled. “Jake, you’re always so fucking cold. It’s like nothing touches you. Nothing matters—”

“Yeah, he’s the warm one.”

“You see what I mean? You don’t care!”

Fuck, I was getting tired of that shit. “No, I don’t. Sile and I share bitches all the time.”

Her tits jiggled when she lurched close. “I bet you do. Jake Rhodes and Silas Xavier. The famous duo of fuckboys. Why don’t you just fuck each other and be done with it?”

“What the fuck did I do?” Sile muttered from behind me.

While I chuckled, her back snapped straight, and venom coated her voice. “I hope you die alone, jackass.”

“I’ll take that over another minute of you in my face. Now get the fuck out.”

After the elevator had closed on the twat, I pivoted toward Sile who jerked his chin. “She’s in love?”

After getting a beer, I settled on the couch. “That’s what she said.”

“Brother, you have a gift.” He shook his head. “Women are fucking strange.”

And then some.

****

A week later, Sile crossed his ankles on the deck railing of his cabin.

It was early evening. Lounging back in the armchair beside his, I took a swig of my beer.

His eyes were on the fading skies over the mountain peaks. “Who’d have thought two brawling kids like us would be here?”

“I only brawled to stop you from getting your ass killed.”

He scoffed. “Good times.”

Sile had an uncanny ability to get right under people’s skin, and as much anger as me. And from the time we’d been crabbing in Alaska when we were barely men, he’d been a pain in my ass.

The night I’d told him about my history with Nigel Morrison, we’d been chugging warm beers in a dank bar in the underbelly of Algiers. He’d listened to my life mission to demolish the greedy motherfucker who’d ruined my family. By any means necessary, no matter how dirty the hit would be.

When I’d been done, he’d simply asked, “Do you need help?”

“Yeah.”

We’d shaken hands. “Until the brink breaks.”

“Until it breaks, brother.”

It only made sense to us, but it had bonded us for life. Since that day, he’d been the brother at my side.

Then, fifteen years ago, our paths had led us to Leonardo ‘Zucchero’ Conti, a semi-retired member of The Family, one of the most prolific mafia families in Southern California. Zook had been looking for someone to oversee his first legit business, a sports bar, and we’d gotten hired.

Sile’s cell ringtone cut through the quiet of the night. After browsing his screen, he sat up and jerked his chin up.

“Do you love me, Jakey?”

I pulled a couple of beers from the cooler and handed him one. “Keep calling me Jakey and find out.”

While his shoulders shook with laughter, he planted his boots on the wooden deck. “I found Morrison’s fatal flaw.”

Leaning back, I opened my beer and flicked the metal cap on the coffee table where it landed next to my boot. “What?”

“It’s a who. Her name’s Sienna Winslow.”

Morrison couldn’t keep his dick dry. Sile and I had taken turns to fuck the cold fish he’d married after his first wife.

But when the scandal had hit, Morrison had just remarried someone younger than his son.

We’d fucked Kimmy too, his third and latest wife.

The bitch had decided she was in love with me but thank fuck, she’d been more in love with his money.

I swiped my hand on my face. “Wife number four?”

My friend of twenty years smirked. “Nah. Better.” He handed me the device. “Check her out.”

A young woman with dark hair was smiling at the camera. She looked like she was barely in her twenties.

“Look at her, Jake. What do you see?”

When I shook my head, he grinned. “Look at her eyes.”

I spread my thumb and index finger over the picture. My neck tightened. Morrison’s fucking dirty yellow eyes were staring right back at me.

“Bastard number three?”

He grinned. “Sienna Winslow, twenty-three. Morrison’s latest long-lost daughter.”

“How does that help us? The piece of shit just pays them off to go away.”

And they’d all signed multimillion dollar shut-up contracts.

“Not this one. After the DNA test, he bought her a shit ton of designer gear and moved her into a house up in Canyon Hills. He also took her home to meet Kimmy and Joel.”

I eyeballed the phone again before I gave it back to Sile. “Lost baby girl enjoying Daddy’s late child support?”

“Nope. According to Munch, she flat out refused a fifty thousand dollars monthly allowance, and she threatened to cut contact if Morrison insisted. And get this, Morrison not only backed off, but he apologized for offending her.”

We’d been paying Munch for years to be our ears in the motherfucker’s house. Someone Morrison, or his bitch of a wife, would pay no attention to and who hated him almost as much as we did.

Whatever power that girl held over the motherfucker was more important than money. Something that made him apologize. Sienna Winslow was becoming more interesting by the second.

“What about the mother?”

“Caitlin Winslow. Never married. She led a quiet life. Not luxurious, but being a bank manager, she had a good handle on her finances.”

“Past tense?”

“Died two months ago. Cancer. Story is Morrison saw the mother’s name in the obits and accosted the girl at the cemetery.”

“The day of the funeral?”

When Sile confirmed, I exhaled slowly. “I need to meet her.”

Sile smirked. “Way ahead of you. Sienna and her friend Gabrielle Ashford—”

“Ashford?”

“Yep. That Ashford. They’re on the guest list of the Silver Shell on Friday.”

The Silver Shell was the nightclub where all the trust funds babies went to spend their parents’ money. The popular nightclub was owned by The Family and managed by Zook.

“You want in on that one?” I asked.

Swinging back his legs up onto the balustrade, he chuckled. “Nah. I just want to see you crawl out of the unrequited love that girl is going to unleash on you. All by your fucking self, Jakey.”

Lifting my bottle in a cheer, I slanted back in my chair.

Revenge was going to be fucking sweet.

****

The administrator of the hospice, a rail-thin woman, followed me into the room where my comatose father had been lying in for half a decade. The urn containing my mother’s ashes was sitting on the narrow shelf on the side of his bed.

I tipped my chin down. “Thanks, Doctor.”

She threw a coquettish smile my way. “Leslie, Jake. We’ve known each other for a long time.”

The woman squirmed. Even if she’d been my type, did the bitch think I’d fuck her in my father’s room? “Thank you, Dr. Nuys.”

She got the message and exited the room. I pulled the empty armchair near the bed and settled down.

I’d never get used to his stillness. My father had been a force of nature who’d taken me camping, taught me how to fish and build a shelter.

After my mother’s death, he’d plunged into a depression he’d never gotten out of.

Then, five years ago, he’d driven his truck into a ravine that left him here, waiting for a death that wouldn’t come.

All this because of that motherfucker.

“I’ll make it right, Pa.”

I touched the urn on the shelf beside his bed and left.

****

On my way home, I pushed the Bluetooth button in my truck to call Zook.

“Son, what’s up?”

“Zook, is my marker still valid?”

After a pause, he said, “A marker from The Family is for a lifetime, son.”

One night, Bianc, Zook’s niece, who’d been sixteen at the time, had come to the sports bar with her friends.

When a grown-ass motherfucking predator had cornered her in the bathroom, I’d taken the fucker to the alley at the back of the bar and taught him a lesson that had left him with a permanent limp.

As a show of gratitude, Zook’s brothers, Edoardo Conti, the head of The Family, and Dario, Bianc’s father, who served as Edo’s second-in-command, had bestowed me a marker. A favor of any kind granted to me with no questions asked.

“I’m calling my marker.”

No hesitation. “Who?”

“Her name is Sienna Winslow.”

“You know Edo’s rules: no children and soft kills for women. Accident or suicide?”

Fuck. I’d almost forgotten who I was talking to. “Just need information, and I want her isolated. She’ll be at the Silver Shell on Friday. No one touches her.”

“You got it, son.” That was it. Business talk was done, so Zook got personal. “My Bianca’s visiting at the end of the month.” He grunted. “Two marriages. Still single. That girl, apple of my eyes, but fuck I wish she would settle down with a nice Italian boy.”

After she’d lost her mother at the age of fourteen, her father, Dario, had wanted nothing to do with a grieving teenage girl with an artistic soul. Having no kids, Zook had claimed Bianc as his own.

With the subtlety of a herd of elephants, he said, “You’re not getting any younger, Jake. You have money and you’ve built a good life.”

And that was thanks to him. Zook had taught us how to make money and invest it to make more.

We’d also learned how to play dirty against competitors while keeping our hands clean.

Three years after Sile and I had taken over the sports bar, we’d bought the bar from him.

Two years after that, I’d bought and fully paid for my first house.

Shortly after that, I’d acquired my first piece of land.

I knew where that conversation was going but I let the man, who’d been a friend and a mentor, continue. “What you need now is a pretty wife who can take care of you and make you babies.”

I wanted neither a wife nor babies. Not with Bianc, a magnet for drama who I loved like a pesky baby sister. Not with anyone.

“I’ll take care of Bianc.”

“You always have, son, since she was a bambina. The two of you have always been close.”

I veered toward the underground car park of the penthouse. “Still not Italian, Zook.”

“Every man needs a legacy, Jake,” he said before ending the call.

Mine will be the destruction of Nigel Morrison. I needed to find out how much value Sienna Winslow held for her father. Then I was going to fuck her, break her, and make him fucking watch.