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CHAPTER TWELVE

Dario

The water ran red as I washed the blood off my knuckles. Joseph handed me a towel, and I thanked him as I carefully dried my hands.

The man behind me, tied to a column in the old, abandoned warehouse next to a factory I owned, was barely breathing. The blood on my hands was his.

“Want me to wake him up?” Joseph asked.

I shook my head. “Let him sleep. Then deliver him back to his boss with a note, of course.”

“Of course,” Joseph replied.

Joseph walked off to see about the unconscious man, and I turned my sights to a missed call on my phone.

It was from Ivan. He was my house manager and also on “Mya detail”, as I called it, while I was gone.

Ivan was always around, in a separate wing of the house, monitoring surveillance both inside and outside the house, excluding the comings and goings of our bedrooms.

I kept his presence secret from Mya. She already knew about the cameras. I didn’t need her to distrust me further, but she would if she also knew about Ivan. I hated being away from her, but this particular emergency needed my immediate attention.

A rival gang was encroaching on my territory. They’d even gone as far as eliminating two of my men. I couldn’t have that, so I had one of my guys go find the leader’s right-hand man so I could teach him some manners.

Normally, I didn’t get my hands dirty these days, but I honestly believed if you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself.

I liked to believe that I was above the violence I’d been exposed to all my life, but deep down, I knew I was a monster like all the rest.

I wonder if that was what Mya saw when she looked at me.

My phone went off and I reached for it. It was a status update from Ivan. It seemed that Mya was snooping around in places she shouldn’t have been. I’d even received an alert when she turned on my computer.

I figured she would get around to checking it eventually. I’d deliberately left my computer on and she hadn’t passed the test.

Part of me wasn’t surprised. After all, I’d taken her from the life she knew against her will. I hadn’t expected a show of disloyalty so soon after we had tried to make up.

For me, sex was a physical release, and maybe I was being sexist, but I thought women were prone to have feelings toward men they were physical with.

It seemed the only feelings she had for me were lust and distrust.

Sighing, I stood up. Maybe I had made a mistake, forcing her to marry me. I wasn’t the type to doubt myself, but our relationship wasn’t growing like I had expected.

Maybe I was asking for too much, too soon. I was a patient man, but she was testing me.

I called Ivan. “Where is she now?”

“Near the dock.”

What was she doing there?

I frowned, “Really?”

No boats left or approached the island without my permission. What was she doing at the dock? Had she managed to contact someone somehow? I checked her phone daily. Could she have found a way to get around me?

Had I underestimated her? Between my frustration with Mya and a rival trying to step on my toes, I was in a mood. A bad one.

“Bring Mya to me tomorrow evening.”

The limo was dark and quiet as we pulled up to our stop. She didn’t say a word to me as she sat next to me in the limo. I didn’t know if that was a bad sign or not. I couldn’t dwell on it.

Tonight was special. Tonight, she would get a taste of my world.

Joseph opened the door and I climbed out. Then, I turned around and reached a hand forward for her to take. I could see her hesitation, but she took it, still not meeting my eyes.

As she stepped past me, I caught a whiff of strawberries. It was her hair. She smelled and looked good enough to eat.

For the first time, I wondered if maybe she would be a distraction. It was too late now.

“Why are we here, Dario?” she asked, finally looking at me and then back at the restaurant in front of us. It was an old Italian restaurant in an upscale part of town.

“We’re going to discuss a little business with an old acquaintance of mine.”

“What? Let me guess. Someone who is an arms dealer?”

I ignored her sarcastic comment. Although she was close to the truth.

“Just be on your best behavior. I thought you would appreciate a night out.”

“To hang out with you and your Mafia buddies? It’s not exactly a girl’s dream date.”

Her tone was snarky, but she sounded tired. I stared at her, very bothered that she wouldn’t turn and face me.

Without thinking, I grabbed her chin and turned her face toward mine. She tried to resist, but I wouldn’t let go. I tilted her beautiful face up, giving each of her features a cursory glance.

She seemed to have dark circles under her eyes, although her makeup did a good job of covering it. And she looked a little pale.

“Are you getting enough sleep? You sound and look tired.”

She pushed my hand away from her face. Her voice was full of indignation as she said, “I guess you never got the memo. Never tell a woman she looks tired. It’s insulting.”

She walked away from me, heading toward the door of the restaurant.

I hurried to get out of the car and follow her.

“And never ask if she’s pregnant…because she could just be fat. Yeah, I heard that one too.”

Abruptly, she stumbled, and I reached forward and caught her.

“Sorry, I’m a klutz in heels.”

Actually, she was a stunner in heels. Despite her pale cheeks, she looked breathtaking tonight. I liked her hair down, but she had put it up today, arranged in a loose bun. I liked the way the curls graced the nape of her neck.

The dress she wore was another backless number, this time in black and white. The front of the dress was white and demure, covering her up to her neckline, but the back of the dress left her entire back naked. It made me want to take her back home and straight to bed.

There wasn’t any fabric at all on the back of her dress, just exposed skin from her waist to her neck. I didn’t even know how she kept the dress on. There wasn’t a zipper or button in sight.

I guess I would just have to rip it off later tonight.

It took all my strength not to comment on her body, or to stare at her lustfully. My pants had tightened uncomfortably when she first slid into the limo smelling as good as she looked. And they were still uncomfortably snug as we entered the restaurant.

The restaurant was owned by an old friend of my father. At one point, he’d been in the business too, but then as luck would have it, he had a daughter who grew up with a love for law enforcement and became an FBI agent.

Next thing I knew, Donnie went legit. His reasoning? He had once told me that he would either end up being arrested by his daughter or getting her killed, and he couldn’t live with either one of those options.

So he had funneled his money into high-end restaurants run by up-and-coming chefs around the city.

Tonight, the restaurant was empty. I’d requested that, because I had a dinner planned to discuss things I didn’t want overheard.

As we approached, a man and woman sat at a table at the far end of the restaurant watching us with suspicious eyes. I could see apprehension on the man’s face even though he tried to hide it.

“Good evening,” I said pausing at the table. “I’m glad that you could join me. This is my wife, Mya.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Mya,” he said in a hushed tone, standing to shake her hand. “My name is Hortensio.”

“And your guest tonight?” I turned my eyes toward the thin woman sitting beside him. Her fingers, neck, and ears adorned with tasteless jewels.

“My wife, Lara.”

Lara merely nodded.

I pulled a chair out for Mya and she sat down silently. A waiter took our drink orders and came back quickly with drinks in hand while we discussed harmless subjects like the mayor and city ordinances. I took the liberty to also order food for the entire table. Not that I actually planned to eat…

“So, let’s talk business.” I knew I was being rude, but I suddenly wanted the night to end quickly. I’d wanted Mya to be here to prove a point, but now I saw that she was an unwelcome distraction.

Every time she moved, my eyes followed. Every time she reached for her water, I watched her take a sip. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her.

“What’s there to say?” Hortensio said, looking nervous. “You have my full cooperation, Dario.”

“Do I?” The silence at the table was heavy as Hortensio sat back looking panicked.

I signaled to a waiter for more wine. It was the calm before the storm.

I watched Mya nervously fold her hands in her lap. She could sense the tension in the room.

“Something makes me think you’re not too happy with your current role in my organization, Hortensio.”

“What makes you say that?”

“A little birdie told me that you put a hit out on a few of my men.”

“That’s crazy! Absolute bullshit!”

“There’s no need for vulgarity,” I said, meaning it. “There are ladies present.”

I took a sip of my wine. It was good. I made a mental note to let Donnie know I approved.

“I trust that you received my note today?” I said nonchalantly.

I saw Hortensio’s jaw tighten. I smiled.

“You’re a bastard,” Hortensio hissed.

He was right.

“You think I don’t see the bruises on your hand, Dario? You beat him to a pulp. It was you, wasn’t it?”

I could feel Mya looking at my face and then directing her eyes toward my hands. When she looked back up, I met her gaze and saw horror there.

That was fine. It was about time for her to see me as I really was.

Actually, that was the whole point of tonight. I needed her to know that I was a force to be reckoned with and I needed to know that if the chips fell, she would be on my side.

The knife came up before I expected it. I dodged to the side, and it lodged in the wall near my head, much to Hortensio’s consternation. I had been aware that this might happen , I thought to myself as the women screamed.

The rage on Hortensio’s face, as he struggled to hold still in his seat would have scared a lesser man.

In a blur of movement, I pulled the knife from the wall behind me. I lunged across the table and stabbed it through his hand before he could move it. His wife screamed again, and so did Mya.

“Everyone needs to calm down,” I ordered. I pulled the knife out of Hortensio’s hand, and he fell back into his chair looking pale as the blood from his wounded hand poured onto the floor.

His wife fainted. I tossed a napkin at Hortensio.

“Clean yourself up. Now, you tell your new boss to stay away from my business, or next time, I’ll aim that knife at your throat. Then I’ll gut you like a fish. Understood, Hortensio?”

I stood up and tossed a few hundred dollars onto the table. “Let’s go, Mya.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“The bathroom is to your left.”

She stumbled away, and I wondered if I would see her again.

When she came back to the dining area, Hortensio and Lara were gone. I was sitting at the table playing Solitaire on my phone.

“I think we should take a raincheck on that dinner,” she said softly, sitting down next to me. “Where did our guests go?”

“Probably to the ER.”

“Why did you stab him?”

“He got several of my men killed.”

“So, you chose violence instead of finding another way?”

“I chose what people like him understand.”

She looked ready to argue and then said, “I’d like to go home now.”

I couldn’t read her expression. Maybe this had been a bad move. I wanted to know where her loyalty lay, but in doing so, had I miscalculated?

She had the ammunition she needed to call the cops on me, but she hadn’t done so. Hmm…what angle was she playing?

Should it bother me that I thought she was playing an angle? And what if she wasn’t playing any angles at all? What would that mean?

That evening back on the island, I felt her slowly pull away from me and slide to the edge of the bed.

I pretended to sleep, wondering where she was going. She stood up, hesitated for a moment, and then disappeared through the bedroom door.

I texted Ivan.

You have eyes on Mya?

His reply was almost instant.

Yes. She’s going toward the living room. Now she’s logging on to her laptop.

Fuck.

I send a reply. But it’s unnecessary.

What’s she doing?

It looks like she’s emailing something. I can’t really see….

I didn’t need to see what it was. I already knew. It was the files she had stolen earlier.

Damn, I couldn’t trust her, after all.