Chapter 11
DOMINIC
Sitting across from me is the girl I once loved, and I keep having to stare at all of her to believe I’m really beside her after all this time.
Her long, wavy raven-black hair spills over one side past her shoulder as she takes sips of her drink.
My gaze devours her, from those round, deep brown eyes to her insanely curvy body. She’s all grown up and has only gotten more beautiful. Her shirt can barely contain her tits. They’re not massive, but they’re huge for her frame.
If she wasn’t his daughter and the girl who ripped my heart out, she’d be up against the wall already with my cock buried inside her. Wouldn’t be hard at all. She’s practically begging for it.
But that’ll never happen. Not with her. I shouldn’t have even done what I just did, but I couldn’t deny our chemistry.
Why the hell does she have to be so beautiful? And why the hell can’t I stop thinking about those lips sucking on my cock here in this club?
Fuck.
My dick throbs. I bet I could have her bouncing on my lap right on this stool if I wanted to.
Getting women to spread their thighs has never been my problem. It’s making them leave after I’m through with them that is. But I have a feeling that won’t be a problem with her.
Clenching a fist, I force all thoughts of the mafia princess out of my head. I’ll never fuck her.
Not even if she begs.
Not even if it’s all I can think about.
I don’t fuck the enemy. I ruin her.
This pretty little thing may want me now, but soon, when she realizes what I’m about to do to her, she’ll want nothing to do with me.
Chiara Bianchi may be the devil’s daughter, but she’ll soon be mine, and not in the way she wants.
I didn’t intend for it to happen this way. It fell into my lap when I least expected it. But now, I can’t wait.
“How long have you run this place?” I ask, though I already know almost everything about her.
I don’t even know why I came here. I didn’t need to see her before tonight. But the sick piece of shit that I am, I want her to see me like this before I cause her entire life to fall apart like she did mine. I have lots of plans for Faro’s only child, and none of them will make him happy.
“Since I graduated college seven years ago,” she answers.
I knew that too. Between gathering information and following her for about two years, I know more than she can imagine.
I didn’t just follow her because of her father. It was deeper than that. Our past—the history I still haven’t been able to free myself from—haunted me.
I’ve never stopped thinking about her.
Not once.
And every time I remember how badly she hurt me, I only want to hurt her more.
My brothers and I have been making plans for the Bianchi brothers for years now, but in the last year, our plan became concrete. We’ve organized everything to perfection, making sure nothing was overlooked.
“Was it something you’ve always wanted to do?” I wonder.
I’m curious why she works here. I haven’t been able to learn that information. Yet.
She laughs humorlessly. “Run a strip club?” Her brow flies up. “Definitely not.”
“Why are you doing it, then?”
“Let’s just say I had to.”
“I’m sorry you were forced into something you didn’t want,” I add, picking up another whiskey I ordered and downing it fast, letting the amber liquid burn a path down my throat.
“Things could always be worse,” she says nonchalantly.
And for you, baby girl, they’re about to be.
If she only knew how much her life is about to change and how much her father had to do with it, she’d run. Or maybe she wouldn’t. I haven’t quite figured her out yet. But running wouldn’t help. I’ll always find her.
I wonder if she ever thinks about the boy I once was. Whether she regrets what she said.
Did our friendship mean anything? Did I ever matter?
I steel my jaw, waving to the bartender to order another drink, needing to burn away the scars of our past.
As I watch her watching me, I can’t help but smile. I look forward to the moment when she realizes who I really am. When everything she thinks she knows is ripped apart.
“You really don’t have a boyfriend?” I ask, even though I already know she doesn’t.
She shakes her head. Her expression is kind of broken, and my stupid heart feels it too.
“Would I be here flirting with you if I had one?” Her face is easygoing again, traces of unhappiness now gone.
“That was flirting?” I tease with a smirk.
Her lips twitch as she shoves her boot into my calf, and my hand snaps for her ankle, clutching it hard as our eyes connect.
Her narrowed gaze squeezes every ounce of my desire to feel her writhing under me while I give her the kind of punishment I’ve been aching to give her for years.
“You must be lonely,” I say, letting go of her foot, needing to calm the savagery lurking in the dark.
She circles her finger around the edge of her glass, looking absently into her drink as though it holds the answer to whatever is on her mind.
“You don’t have to worry about me, Brian Smith.” She grins as she looks up at me with a hint of straight, white teeth. “Is that a real name, by the way? It sounds fake as hell.”
I chuckle low. She doesn’t realize how right she is.
Don’t worry, Chiara Bianchi. You’ll know my name soon enough, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.
“Do you always insult people you just met, or am I just lucky?”
“Don’t be so sensitive.” Her mouth pulls into a teasing smile. “It doesn’t suit you.”
I grab the side of her chair and pull her harshly close to me until her knees hit mine. Her eyes tangle with my gaze as I lean into her neck, inhaling the scent of her floral perfume. My nose traces up the column of her neck until I get to her ear.
“How would you know what suits me, Chiara? Hmm?” I question with a low growl as my other hand lands on her thigh, my fingers wrapping tightly as she pants, her breathing intensifying.
She may be in charge at the club, but not with me.
I own her, and she doesn’t even know it.
This is all part of my plan, I convince myself. Make her want me until she realizes what I’m about to do to her.
I pull back, scanning her parted lips and heavy-lidded eyes. She’s so damn sexy, and even more so now that she’s turned on.
Fuck, I want this woman. I want the sound of her voice, broken and bruised, just as much as my heart was all those years ago when she threw away our friendship like it meant nothing.
“You…ah…” she stammers, rising to her feet. “I…I need to get back to work now.” Her eyes turn to slits as she assesses me. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Smith.”
I get up too, lifting her hand to my mouth. “The pleasure has been all mine.”
She begins strutting away, her hand drifting away from mine while she peers back at me over her shoulder.
“Chiara, one more thing,” I call.
She cranes her neck, giving me the “what the fuck do you want?” face. That feisty woman is back, and my cock hardens, wanting a taste.
“Make sure you’re careful when you leave tonight. There are lots of crazy men out there.”
Like me.
“Thanks for your concern, Smith, but I’ve managed to handle myself just fine in the last seven years.” Her gaze cruises from my eyes down to my chest before she finally goes, her round ass bouncing out of view.
I wonder how her daddy would feel knowing his daughter wants to fuck the trash. My brothers and I may have been trash to him then, but these days, we’re nothing short of a weapon with his name on it.
We’re ready for vengeance. Ready for his blood to spill onto the streets he runs like a tyrant.
The shit we did to his warehouse a week ago is only the tip of the iceberg that will be his hell. They probably didn’t suspect it would happen so soon after the laundromat attack two days before that.
Faro runs two legitimate businesses, one of which we’ve torched.
But the laundromat was just a shell, a farce of a business, one where they run guns from.
No one other than their people ever used it.
More than half the time, they were closed to run their illegal operations.
We had our men watching them. We knew everything they did.
Once we killed everyone inside, we took all the weapons, then torched the place. It’s become our signature calling card—destroying everything he owns until it’s nothing but ashes caught in the wind.
That was the first crew of his that we took out, and we left a note, smeared in blood.
Morte.
- C
It’s the event that set everything in motion. He and his brothers hid like the sacks of shit they are. They should fear us. That’s smart.
They can hide all they want. We’re patient. We’ve had to be.
We’ll annihilate every one of their men who dares stand in our way until we find them and kill them.
If we need a little help, we’ll have that soon enough, in the form of Chiara’s cousin, Raquel.
Before Faro ruined our life, I was a normal kid. I wanted to become a lawyer. Yeah. Me, a fucking lawyer. It’s funny now.
I wonder if our father is ashamed of us, or proud. He was a simple man who didn’t have a mean bone in his body. I don’t know why Faro killed him, or why he killed my brother too.
But I will find out. The devil himself will tell me the truth before I take his life, and he’ll be begging for a bullet when I’m through with him.
No mercy.
When they killed our father, we were nothing but little boys. Bugs they could squash in a blink of an eye. Up until we blew up their laundromat, the Bianchi men didn’t realize we were even alive.
But now they do.
They don’t yet know the full extent of our strength, the number of hired guns on our payroll. We have so much fucking money now, we don’t know what to do with it. The days of living in squalor are long behind us.
After we watched the warehouse burn, we cut the head off of one of his soldiers, the one we didn’t let burn with the rest, and had it specially delivered with a big, red bow.
Dante’s idea.
He’s got a sick sense of humor and an even sicker mind. If he wasn’t good at running our businesses, he’d be the perfect assassin. He kills with zero apprehension.
Faro thinks he’s above retaliation from anyone. He thinks wrong. Inside the box was not only his pal’s head, but a bloody note that read:
Hope you enjoyed the show. There’s more to come.
- C
We also left him the number for one of my burner phones, just in case he wanted to chat and catch up on old times. I wanted to hear the son of a bitch beg for this to stop.
He did call a day later. But he wasn’t begging. He had a proposition for me, one I made him think I’d consider, but one I never will.
I don’t make deals with the devil. I burn him to the ground.
I thought about saving him for last so he could see his brothers die, but I realized he doesn’t care about anything but money, so waiting to take him out would only torture me.
Fifteen years is a long time to wait for retribution.
The time has come. And the time is now.