Page 22

Chapter 22

SALVATORE

I’m not sure how long I lie with my bare ass sweating on the leather and Dante snoring on top of me. Maybe it’s an hour, maybe three or four. It’s enough time to sort out all the things Dante told me and then replay the throaty hitch in his voice when he moaned that he loved me over and over again while I tongued his perfect little hole.

His stomach growls loudly and he starts to stir, pulling me out of my own trancelike state of not exactly sleep, but temporary peace.

“Fuck, I’m hungry,” he mumbles, trying to sit up and putting too much pressure on his injured shoulder. He winces and I grunt, sitting up and taking him with me before he can hurt himself in his groggy stupor. “What time is it?”

“Late. The Chinese place down the street should still be open though. Do you want me to order us something?”

He yawns and rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands.

“Beef lo mein, please. I need to hop in the shower. My ass cheeks are glued together with cum.” He pushes himself up on wobbly legs and I let out a pleased, possessive growl thinking about my cum trickling out of him while he slept.

I watch his bare ass greedily as he saunters out of the room, then I pull out my phone to place the order. Once that’s done, I clean up the glorious mess we made, sweep up the broken glass, and gather the court transcripts and police reports into a garbage can. I put the can on the balcony so we can have a little bonfire with it later if Dante wants. By the time everything is back in order the food is here and Dante’s out of the shower.

“Goddamn that smells good,” he groans. His hair is still damp and he’s wearing one of my overly large t-shirts from the bottom of my dresser. It covers just enough that I can’t be sure whether he’s wearing anything underneath.

The remnants of our earlier conversation crash over me again. Not the ugly, jagged edges of his past, but that moment his eyes sparked with wonder when he realized how I’ve felt about him for too damn long, and the answer on his lips when he finally stopped playing brat and said it back. Except, I don’t think I actually said the words out loud. I confirmed them, but that’s not quite the same.

I set the package of egg rolls on the counter and make my way towards him. I don’t know if it was the confession or everything else, but the relaxed way he holds himself is totally different now. His feisty air of confidence and sass is still intact in the smirk he levels me with as I stoop to sweep him off his feet though. He squeals with surprise and wraps his legs around me.

Nope, nothing underneath the shirt. My cock stirs again, more than ready for round two. But we have a few other things to take care of first, so that will have to wait. I catch his mouth in a rough kiss.

“I love you,” I growl, tugging his bottom lip between my teeth and savoring the gasp he feeds me.

“I know.” He grins.

I carry him into the kitchen and set him down on the island, right next to the food I just started unpacking.

“Cold,” he gasps.

“Sorry.” I chuckle. I’m not really. He deserves a little punishment for making me beg for his words earlier, and his bare ass on the cold marble countertop seems fitting enough.

“Hey, what’s the deal with the Fitzpatricks?” he says as he takes the lo mein I hand him and a pair of chopsticks.

“What do you mean?”

“Last week when I got attacked, you said something about the Fitzpatricks, I feel like you mentioned them once before too. Who are they?”

“Irish fuckers with their own little organization just outside of Wildcliff.” I scoop some fried rice into my mouth and lick my lips, chewing before I go on. “Just seems unlikely that there’s a ginger criminal in this city that isn’t associated with them, but I can’t work out why they would have anything to do with Don, so it must be a coincidence.”

Dante waffles his head back and forth and scrunches his eyebrows, poking at his food with his chopsticks while he thinks.

“What else can you tell me about them? Maybe we’re missing something.”

I give him the quick rundown, which isn’t much. Just that they’re a thorn in our asses but Lorenzo isn’t ready to escalate things into a full-out war yet.

“Oh, and the boss, Declan, his brother just did a stint. He got out a month or so ago.”

Dante’s eyebrows shoot up. “Where?”

His line of logic isn’t hard to follow. “You think he could have met Don while they were locked up?”

“It’s not impossible, right?” He slurps a noodle through his lips noisily.

“Not impossible,” I agree. “But why? What could Don have to offer that Cian would want? He walked right out of prison to become the crown prince of a pretty well established organization, why bother helping him with petty stalking and revenge?”

“The guy who attacked me said something.” He takes another bite and chews while he puzzles again, trying to remember. “Fuck, I can’t remember exactly, but he said something like, Don wants the truth to come out, but that me marrying you only helped with his agenda.”

“ His as in the redheaded fuck who branded you?” I clarify, and Dante nods. “Okay, hold on, there’s one other thing that doesn’t fit.”

I set down my food and go in search of my phone. I find it under the couch, where it must have fallen out of my pocket earlier. I pull up my contact for Sparrow and head back into the kitchen while it rings.

“If he doesn’t want to tell you, I’m not telling you,” Sparrow says.

“No, it’s not about the police records. We already cleared that up.”

“Oh, okay, what’s up?” I can hear the click-clack of keyboard keys faintly in the background.

“I know you told Enz it would take a couple of days, but I was hoping you could—”

He barks out a laugh. “Already on it. I was actually just waffling over whether the big boss man is the kind of guy who will get pissy over a one a.m. phone call.”

“Wait, you mean you already traced the bank transfers?”

Dante gestures at the phone, and I pull it away from my ear and put it on speaker while Sparrow responds.

“Yeah, it was bugging me. Who hacks an account to transfer money into it? It doesn’t make any sense. So, I decided to let Xav play with Antonio alone while I worked on this.”

“And?” Dante asks, leaning forward until he’s perched on the very edge of the counter.

“Definitely didn’t add any clarity to the ‘why,’ but it’s interesting, that’s for sure,” he says.

Dante rolls his eyes, and I choke back a laugh. “Would you stop edging us and just tell us whatever you found?”

“The IP address that I traced the activity back to came from MacFord Correctional Facility.”

“Don,” Dante says without hesitation. “Get me your laptop.” He nudges me with his foot.

“Why?”

“I’ve got some hacking of my own to do.”

“Let me know what you find, I’m invested now,” Sparrow says, then hangs up without a goodbye.

DANTE

My eyes are burning and I’m vaguely aware of night turning into dawn turning into full-blown daylight in my peripheral vision. Salvatore has been snoring softly beside me for hours now, one hand hanging off the couch and loosely clutching my foot, his fingers twitching every so often while he dreams.

“I’ve got it. Sal, wake up, I think I figured it out.”

He grunts and jerks awake, blinking against the daylight. “Shit, I’m going to pay for sleeping on the couch all night.” He groans, sitting up and slowly working out the kinks in his neck.

My muscles have been burning for hours, but that’s not as important right now as what I found.

“Listen, it took me half the night, but I got into Cian’s emails. I broke the encryption and boy do I have answers.”

His eyebrows inch up, and he shakes off his grogginess.

“You did all that in…” He looks at his wrist like he’s expecting there to be a watch there.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m amazing.” I wave him off. “You’re not going to believe what I found though.”

He nods. “Lay it on me.”

“First of all, Antonio is Cian’s little pet, I can show you the messages between them. But more important than that, I have dozens of emails between Declan and Cian while Cian was locked up. They’re not stupid enough to say anything incriminating, obviously, but about eight months ago, Cian started mentioning that he had some ‘new business ideas’ for when he came home. He says he met someone with a mind for business who worked in importing for years.”

“That’s Don?”

“That’s Don. I don’t know what Don told him exactly, but clearly, he charmed the guy, convinced him he had ideas that could benefit the Fitzpatricks, probably made himself sound like some kind of fucking king pin, knowing Don. Declan’s responses are pretty dismissive though. He tells Cian the business is going well, that he just wants him to focus on more important things right now, not to worry about it, stuff like that. So, eventually, Cian dropped that tactic and started bringing up the Morettis a lot in his emails instead.”

Salvatore perks up and glowers. “What about us?”

“Nothing specific, but it feels like he’s trying to nudge his brother to start that war you said Lorenzo isn’t keen on. It almost sounds like he’s trying to make him paranoid in a lot of these emails. He tells Declan to keep a close eye on the books, that someone might be stealing, things like that.”

Salvatore drags his hand along his jaw and then the light bulb goes off in his eyes. “Those transfers into our accounts?”

I nod. “Bingo.”

“I don’t know if Cian is trying to dethrone his brother or just create chaos, but Don knew computers. He could have given him the idea and even offered to find a back door in to make the transfers happen.”

“Fuck,” he mutters.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Alright, I need to call Lorenzo. Save those emails or whatever you need to do, and get ready, because I’m sure he’s going to want the full rundown of everything you just found.”

“Got it.”

He heaves himself off the couch and pulls out his phone to make the call. With the adrenaline finally fading, I sway a little on my feet, exhaustion starting to catch up with me. I don’t have time for that right now though. Don is getting released in a few days, and clearly he got himself tangled in a big-ass Mafia clusterfuck.

“What if the Fitzpatricks decide to protect him?” I ask after Sal ends the call.

His expression darkens and he cups my face in both hands. “I’m taking care of this one way or another, Angel. Trust me.”

I nod and sag into him, that certainty I felt last night still as solid as ever.

“I do,” I whisper. “I trust you.”