Chapter 4
ROWAN
“Yo, what the fuck, Rowan, you take a shit or something? You were gone for like an hour,” Ben comments. I collapse into a chair at our table near the windows overlooking the dark water.
He knows damn well what I was doing, and I generally don’t care how dirty his mouth is. Mine’s worse. But I eye Elisa, who seems offended by my brash friend’s filth. Her sensibilities are too delicate for Ben, Merrick and me. It’s hard to keep my language in check around her, though I do try. She’s not my girlfriend—in truth, I feel nothing for her—but she’s still a person and deserves respect, regardless.
“How many times have I told you to watch your mouth?”
Ben’s pale Irish skin flushes with embarrassment. He nods at Elisa, a poor excuse for an apology. Merrick smacks him upside the head, then says, “Sorry about him. He needs more training.”
She waves him off and chuckles. “Boys will be boys.”
“No, they will not,” I reply. To Ben, I say, “Do better, bro.”
He understands by my tone that I’m not playing. His gaze flits to the floor. “Okay.”
Then I see Jules across the bar, making her way toward her friends and the henchmen. She runs a hand through her disheveled blonde locks, smooths the hem of her black flare mini skirt. Her ice blue eyes find mine, but only linger for a millisecond. She really is dangerously beautiful, the kind of woman who, with nothing more than a smile, could get a man to leave his wife and kids. I’m ready to walk away from everything I’ve ever known, myself. Although it’s not her physical beauty that has me by the balls, rather it’s who she is: Intelligent—she’s an economics major, for crying out loud—and kindhearted, which I realized the very first time I met her at that costume party. Someone’s kid had tripped over his own feet and faceplanted onto the cobblestone pathway. She rushed over to him in her pink fairy costume, helped him up, hugged him, and whispered assurances into his ear until he stopped crying. Yet she still has a rebellious streak—that’s obvious, I’m a symptom of it. What I hadn’t realized until tonight is that she’s also wicked funny. Pineapple!
The fact that she made me come in under three minutes doesn’t hurt, either. That was mind-blowing. I should have let her fuck me sooner. I might have if she didn’t give off such sweet, femme, bottom vibes. She has hidden depths and that scares me. I know myself—the deeper I dive, the more feelings I’ll catch, and I can’t afford that with the burden of my father’s empire resting on my shoulders… and her father’s resting on hers. She has me wishing that I’d been born into a normal family, had a father with a nine to five instead of the fucking kingpin I’m stuck with.
Merrick clears his throat. It tears me from my thoughts. “Here.” I feel the butt of my Glock against my knee under the table. I almost forgot I’d given it to him before I went to the bathroom. Jules hates guns. I wasn’t about to show up with it holstered to my back, for what finite amount of time I had with her. I take it from him, lift my button-down shirt from my waist, and secure the weapon in its discreet cradle.
“We should get going,” declares Ben. “Fu—friggin’ Italians get so cranky when they have to wait.”
I check the time—10:42 p.m. They’ve already been at the dock for twelve minutes.
“He’s right,” Elisa confirms. “Frankie’s temper is out of control.”
That’s because he gets high on his own supply. Idiot. Damn it. I don’t want to deal with his whiny Sicilian bullshit tonight. I cover my angst with an eyeroll. “Your cousin will wait as long as I want him to wait, or he can drive down to Harlem for his snow from now on.”
She smirks at me like she’s impressed. Francisco Rossi doesn’t scare me, and she knows it. He’s got a big mouth and a flashy chrome Colt 1911, but he’s nothing like his uncle. Or my father or Jules’s. He doesn’t have the stomach for real brutality. Alfonso Rossi wouldn’t allow him to step to me, anyway. I’m supposed to marry his only child someday, solidifying the link between our two infamous families. And then the Rossi-Monaghans will own the entire eastern seaboard—guns, drugs, forgeries, everything and anything illicit. The Calloways will be small-time then, and my father’s lifelong goal of crushing Jules’s clan will be achieved. The dickhead. I snatch my Guinness from the table and chug it, slam the empty glass down so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”
Ben, Merrick, and Elisa leave the bar first. I wait to steal one last glimpse of Jules, and it’s like she intuits that my attention is on her. She flashes me that brilliant smile. I smile back, not giving a shit who may be watching.