Chapter 33
Matteo
As I watch the officers sift through our shipments, thanks to an anonymous tip, I try my best to contain the rage that’s simmering below the surface.
As if my brother can sense I’m hanging on by a thread, he gives me a look that says to chill the fuck out, and I clench my fists, knowing he’s right.
When I got the call from one of the cops we had in our pocket, letting me know that shit was about to go down, it was too late to do anything but deal with the fallout.
The shipment, which was supposed to contain pharmaceuticals—legal, I might add—was flagged by maritime law enforcement, the Coast Guard assholes who are in charge of anything and everything related to the shipments when in the water.
They insisted on doing a check, and when the freight was opened, not only was the shipment missing the pharmaceuticals, but it was filled with various illegal drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, and Rohypnol.
South Florida Pharmaceuticals has a multimillion-dollar contract with our port, and it’s expected that their shipments will arrive safely and be prepped to be delivered to their warehouse.
“This is insane!” Ilan Cohen, the CEO of South Florida Pharmaceuticals, barks, glaring at Dominick. “I don’t know what happened, but someone needs to be held accountable for this.”
It’s the middle of the night, damn near two in the morning, yet Dominick and Ilan are both dressed in suits.
“And I’m going to look into it,” Dominick says, careful with what he says so as not to incriminate us. “But we didn’t have anything to do with it. The shipment on your cargo ship was stopped in the water. We only accept the cargo.”
Ilan huffs, and the officer steps over to him.
“Ilan Cohen, you’re under arrest,” he says, taking his hands and placing handcuffs around his wrists.
Dominick shakes his head and scrubs his hand down his face, knowing this isn’t good.
The shipment can’t be linked back to us, but that’s not the point.
Whoever did this went out of their way to screw over one of our largest contracts.
Once Ilan gets out of jail, he’s going to yank his contract with us, and then he’s going to tell everyone he knows what happened, tainting our reputation.
Dominick has busted his ass to legitimatize our businesses, and this stunt is going to set us way back. And those who use us for their illegal shipments will especially be spooked.
“You’re going to be hearing from my lawyers,” Ilan says as he’s hauled into the police car.
The next hour is filled with narcotic officers shutting the place down and bagging the evidence while we watch. Thankfully, at the moment, we don’t have anything incriminating on our premises, so they can’t arrest us.
Once they’ve finished questioning us and raiding the place, they take off, and our guys get to work, cleaning up the mess they left, leaving Dominick and me alone.
“Fuck!” I bark, punching the wooden crate that’s closest to me. It shatters into a dozen shards, but does nothing to quell the frustration I feel. “That fucking bitch …”
“You don’t know it’s a woman,” Dominick notes, always so goddamn calm.
“You don’t know it isn’t,” I retort. “Dani is the only one who’s seen this person, and she seems to think it was a female, so I’m not discounting it. But regardless, this bullshit stunt reeks of her.”
“We’ll get it sorted.” He sighs, but I can hear the devastation in his tone.
Every step of the way, someone is trying to sabotage us. Well, fuck that. This bitch wants to play games? I’ll play.
It’s eight in the morning, but I haven’t been home or to bed yet. I’m determined to figure this shit out, and I won’t stop until I do. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but she must have left some kind of breadcrumbs behind, and I’m determined to find them.
Dani texted, making sure I was okay and said she was going into work. I wanted to demand she stay home, where it was safe, but it’s not fair to her if I put her entire life on hold. She has two guards with her, and she’ll be with her brother in a secure building.
“What are we looking for?” Scotty asks as we walk down the sidewalk along the intracoastal.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “Call it a gut instinct.”
We’ve been walking for over an hour in the hot sun, but I can’t shake the feeling that we’re missing something.
My eyes land on the warehouses across the way, and an idea hits me.
“Let’s go.”
We rush back to my SUV and drive down Ocean Avenue. It’s a long shot, but at this point, I’m desperate.
We stop at the first warehouse in the Warehouse District, and I throw my name, asking to see their cameras. They agree easily, but when we take a look, nothing looks out of sorts.
I thank them, and we go to the next business and then the next one. We spend the next several hours going from business to business, asking to see their cameras.
Since the shipment was coming from Germany, she would’ve had to switch the products out somewhere along the way.
There aren’t any cameras in the middle of the Atlantic, but she didn’t swap cargo containers.
She switched out the contents, which would’ve been difficult to do in the middle of the ocean.
We’re damn near the end of the Warehouse District when I notice a small business situated on the corner, adjacent to the pier.
“There,” I say to Scotty.
I ask to speak to the manager, and thankfully, he agrees to let me have a look at his cameras.
“You know, you’re not the first person to ask to see my footage,” the guy says as we walk back. “An employee said a guy came by, asking if we had any security cameras. He was in an accident and wanted to know if it was caught on camera.”
“And what did he say?”
“My employees don’t know about the cameras. I had them put in recently after I noticed a few pieces of my fishing equipment had gone missing,” he says with a shrug. “I wasn’t here, so when he told the guy that we didn’t have any, he left.”
“And when was this?” I ask.
“About a week or so ago.”
Scotty and I exchange a look.
This bitch is smart.
The manager leaves us to watch the footage, and just when I think we’re not going to see shit, something catches my attention, and I hit pause.
“Right there,” I say, pointing at the screen.
Scotty leans in and squints his eyes. “It’s hard to tell, but I bet Eddy can zoom in.”
I pull out my phone and call Eddy so he can walk me through how to send him the footage. A few minutes later, an image, crystal fucking clear, hits my phone.
“Check-fucking-mate.”
I show Scotty the picture, and he shakes his head.
Because right there, in black and white, is proof that someone switched out the shipments.
It will not only clear Ilan’s name and our reputation, but it proves that someone is out to get us.
Well, this bitch can try, but I’m sure as hell not going to make it easy on her.
I call the detective and let him know what we’ve found, and then we wait until they arrive and the evidence is bagged. Then, I go by Dominick’s and share my findings.
“You just saved our asses,” my brother says, pulling me into a bear hug. “Thank you, Matteo. I couldn’t do this without you.”
“Well, lucky for you, you’ll never have to. Eddy is combing through the cameras to see if he can get a read on the name of the cargo ship. If he does, we might be able to find out who hired him, potentially pointing us in that bitch’s direction.”
“You really think it’s a woman, huh?”
“I really think we can’t rule it out. But man, woman—it doesn’t fucking matter. Whoever it is, when I find them, I’m going to rip their heart out of their chest.”
Generally, we have a rule against harming women or children, but whoever this bitch is, she clearly wants to be treated like one of the guys. So, when I take her out—and I will—I’ll do it just as I would to any enemy with the balls to go against our family.
“Want to stay for dinner?” Dominick asks. “Peyton’s making my favorite fettucine. Dani can join once she gets off work.”
“I appreciate that, but I haven’t seen my woman in over eighteen hours, and the only thing I’m hungry for is her.”
Dominick chuckles, but doesn’t argue.
I consider going to Dani’s work to pick her up myself, but I haven’t showered, so instead, I text her to let her know I’m handling dinner. After ordering Greek—still her favorite—I jump in the shower to wash the day off me.
When I step out of the bathroom, dressed in a pair of jeans sans shirt, I find Dani in our bedroom, putting something away in the nightstand. She’s bent over slightly, and with her sporting a tight little pencil skirt, I’ve got the perfect view of her plump ass.
She closes the drawer, and when she twirls around, seeing me standing in the doorway, her eyes go wide in shock, almost as if she’s been caught doing something wrong.
Her gaze shifts from me to the drawer, and I quirk a brow.
“Whatcha got in there?” I ask, walking over to where she’s standing.
“Nothing,” she squeaks out, stepping in front of the drawer to block it.
“We don’t lie to each other. Let’s try this again. What’s in the drawer?”
If she tells me it’s a surprise for me, I’ll let it go, but between the rise in her voice and the guilty-as-hell look displayed on her face, something tells me it’s not a gift.
She stares at me for several seconds and then sighs. “Fine.” She huffs, crossing her arms over her chest.
I’m momentarily distracted by the way her forearms push her cleavage up, showing off the swells of her tits. Tits that I’m dying to suck and fuck. It’s been a long day, and I haven’t burned off any steam, so the thought of fucking her until we’re both sweaty and spent has me—
“I bought condoms,” she says, bringing my thoughts to a halt.
“I’m sorry. I must’ve misunderstood you. Did you just say you bought condoms?”
She rolls her eyes and opens the drawer. She grabs the box and tosses them at me, and sure enough, she bought fucking condoms.
“I called to make an appointment with the gyno today, but they’re booked out five weeks.
Since there’s no way my shot is still effective at this point, I figured it would be best if we played it safe and used condoms until I could get back on birth control.
The good news is, I should be good to go for our wedding night. ”
I look down at the condoms, noticing they read Glowing pleasure, and bark out a laugh. “You bought glow-in-the-dark condoms and expect me to take this seriously?”
I toss them back at her, and she catches them.
“What? No, I …” She reads the box and groans.
“I was so embarrassed in the condom section, and the front box looked like it had been tampered with, so I grabbed the one behind it. I didn’t even realize it wasn’t the same box.
But that doesn’t change anything.” She shrugs.
“Unless you want to knock me up out of wedlock, we’re going to need to use these. ”
She tosses them back at me, and I catch them, my eyes never leaving her as I picture her swollen with my baby.
I’ve almost lost her twice now—once when Enrique took her and again when our mystery bitch had her snatched up—and just like not wanting to waste any time making her my wife, I feel the same way about us starting a family.
“Do you want to have a baby with me?”
Regardless of what I want, if she says no, that’s the end of it. I’ll always respect her wishes—the same way she respected mine when I told her I didn’t want to have kids before I fell in love with her and everything changed for me.
“We talked about this,” she says. “We agreed to wait.”
“But let’s say I was okay with not using protection and letting nature take its course, would you want to have a baby with me?”
I step toward her and place my hands on the curves of her hips.
“Would you want a little one”—I press my lips to her cheek and then trail soft kisses along her jawline and neck and up to her ear, lightly sucking on her lobe—“half you”—her breath hitches, and I smile to myself, loving the way I affect her—“and half me”—I slide my hand from her hip to the front of her belly, and a shiver visibly courses through her body—“growing in your belly?”
“Matteo,” she breathes. “You’re not playing fair. You just don’t want to use protection.”
I chuckle. “That’s true,” I admit, making her glare at me. “But before you, I never—”
“Nope!” She covers my mouth with her hand. “I don’t want to hear about the hordes of women who came before me. The only two people in this relationship are you and me.”
“I agree.” I slide my hand up her thigh and into her panties. “And right now, I’m dying to be inside you.”
I crash my mouth against hers as I push my fingers into her wet center. I kiss her hard and deep, finger-fucking her the same way.
It doesn’t take long for us to discard our clothes, and then I have her on her back on the bed, one leg over my shoulder as I thrust into her.
She moans, her eyes rolling upward, and I keep fucking her like this until she’s screaming my name.
Since we never came to an actual decision regarding condoms, once she’s exploded around my cock, choking it like a fucking vise, and I’m close to following behind, I pull out and grip my shaft, stroking it a few times before I come all over her tits.
She glances down at the white ribbons spread over her flesh and grins. “That’s a first.”
“I wasn’t sure where we stood on the condom debate.” I shrug, catching my breath.
She looks at me, deadpan, and then the sweetest fucking laugh escapes her lips as she shakes her head.
“Oh, Matteo, what am I going to do with you?”
I lean over and lick across the seam of her lips.
“Marry me,” I murmur against her mouth, “and spend the rest of your life with me.”
She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me closer to her. “That’s exactly what I plan to do.”