CHAPTER 2
My eyes stray to Viola across the room. It’s almost a shame that she’s going to be a pawn in my plan to get what we deserve. Almost. The only people I care about are my brothers. Using a Guidice to get what I want is poetic justice.
The Guidice family has had a hold on New Orleans for far too long. My family was always destined for more and we were never given the chance to make our mark on the city. My father was content with the way things were. I’m not.
Viola is a beautiful woman. I can understand why the family, and now Dante, kept her under wraps and protected for so long. She’s a liability and clearly the family’s weakness.
It’s a damn good thing I excel at exploiting weaknesses.
I’m not so much of a brute that I’ll do something to Viola she’s not begging for. I never planned to kidnap her or anything as sordid as that. Playing with her heart and using her body against her? Now, that’s another matter altogether.
Finding out she’s a member of Club Sin only makes my plan come into focus and allows me an in that I wasn’t anticipating. I’m not often surprised or caught off guard, but this turn of events is not one I was anticipating. For once, I welcome it.
I gather my thoughts as I take a sip of Hammond Whiskey, letting the smokey flavor coat my tongue and remind me to appreciate the finer things. My eyes flick over to Viola again. She will certainly be one of the finer things I’ll have my hands on. Even if it is temporary.
When I’m done with her, I’m not sure what will be left of her. I suppose it depends on how strong she is. If she’s anything like her brother, she won’t like being used, but women aren’t granted much power in my world. She might want to get back at me, at my brothers, but she won’t have the means to do it. Not without exposing herself in ways I can’t imagine she’ll be willing to do.
I take in my brother’s expressions. If they both knew the extent of my plans, they would have two very different reactions. Marco looks giddy and is practically drooling as he periodically glances at our quarry. I’ve never doubted where my middle brother’s loyalties lie. He’s willing to do what needs to be done in our name and if he gets to have some fun while doing it, he’s all the happier.
He’s going to revel in my plan before throwing himself into it without much thought about what happens afterward. He’s always been like that, and I trust him with my life. He’s never seen danger he wasn’t willing to charge into.
Some might think it’s because he lacks the intelligence to think things through, but a lack of smarts isn’t his downfall. It’s trusting that I know the outcome and have weighed all the possibilities while also protecting him. He’s not wrong, I would never put him in a situation I didn’t think he could get out of. However, he sometimes forgets that the only people I really care about are sitting around the table with me right now and everyone else could be collateral damage and I wouldn’t bat an eye at the outcome.
When I glance at Massimo, I know he’s going to be the difficult sell when it comes to my plan. I don’t know how Viola doesn’t feel the way my youngest brother is looking at her. His eyes are filled with heat and longing which has me almost feeling badly about my plan.
Almost.
He has always been the dreamer out of the three of us. He is very much rooted in reality, but he wants to believe that there can be a happy ending for us. The only happy ending we can find involves power and strength. It’ll have nothing to do with love.
Massimo’s desire to love and be loved is his weakness. If he thinks I haven’t noticed how he’s been quiet about using Viola, even if I haven’t shared how I planned to do so exactly, then he has underestimated me. My brother is loyal, but he doesn’t have the same taste for blood I do, nor does he have a twisted sense of fun like Marco.
He is the softest of us. He’ll also be the one who will try and protect Viola as much as possible. Maybe he’ll be successful. Only time will tell.
I set the tumbler in my hand down and lean forward. “Miss Guidice’s presence here doesn’t change the plan, only the approach. I thought for sure we would have to create some sort of meeting between us, but this is even better.” I shrug one shoulder, keeping my voice casual, “We’ll use it by getting her in a room with us and then making her a deal. She won’t want her secret to get back to her brother.”
Massimo narrows his eyes at me which causes me to smirk. He’s already willing to go to battle for her. Too bad he’ll lose.
Marco takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “Smells like blackmail,” there’s amusement in his voice along with a hint of the crazy I love so much in my brother.
Massimo is full of suspicion; rightfully so. “What will you be accepting to keep your mouth shut about her,” he pauses, “extracurricular activities here at the club?”
My cock twitches in my pants because I know everyone will enjoy that part of my plan. “One secret for one night,” I toss my words out as if they mean nothing, even as something teases at me in the back of my mind that I may only be fooling myself.
Massimo’s eyes go wide, and Marco’s smile widens before he rubs his hands together. The glee coming off him almost makes me smile. He’s going to enjoy himself. I’m not going to pretend like I won’t enjoy it either. Who wouldn’t want to spend the evening with a gorgeous woman? This is only the first part of my plan though; the first step in using her as a pawn.
She’ll be under our thumb because she’s paying for one secret with another.
“I love the way you think, brother,” Marco crows with glee.
Massimo’s lips thin as he clenches his jaw, but he doesn’t express his displeasure with what I’ve shared of the plan. It’s more than I’ve given them before.
I thought for sure we were dealing with a woman who didn’t have more going on than shopping and superficial beauty. Now, as I notice her eyes take in the room around her, I see something more. Not that I will be admitting that to my brothers.
I figured we would cross paths with her and seduce her, but this is even better. I wonder if she’ll cave to my demands or if there is a fire in her I haven’t seen before. The thought of her not being a meek woman has my cock growing even harder in my slacks.
“Enough about the plan. We have time.” My voice hardens and turns cold, “There is another issue we need to discuss.” My brothers look at me with interest and I push the name out past my gritted teeth, “Juan Martinez.”
Massimo arches an eyebrow and leans back in his chair while Marco gets a glint of violence in his eyes. Martinez wouldn’t be my first choice to do business with. He has no morality and is only about power. The power I can understand, but the business he is involved in leaves a bad taste in even my mouth.
I’m more than willing to get my hands dirty and put a middle finger up to the law, but there are lines I won’t cross. I would never sell a woman, but Martinez makes a lot of his money from dealing in skin. I would prefer not to do business with the man, but we don’t have the luxury of ignoring him. At least not yet.
“The man is scum,” Massimo’s words are laced with venom. “I’m sure you heard about the issues he’s had recently. Some businessman tried to align with Martinez by basically selling his daughter to him. The Guidice family was involved in putting an end to it and the woman in question is now with Tony and Zeno.”
I give a curt nod. “I heard,” my words are terse. I might not like the Guidice family, but I wouldn’t want a woman to end up with Martinez in some horrible arrangement. No one deserves such a fate. Massimo opens his mouth and I hold up a hand to stop the tirade I know he’ll go on if I let him. “I don’t disagree, but he approached me about inventory we have, and his money is just as good as anyone else’s.”
Marco looks a little surprised, “He heard about the deal we made with Orlov?”
“Apparently,” I confirm. “I’m not sure how he found out, but I’m not surprised either. Martinez knows all the cockroaches in the city. We need to move what we acquired. If he is the buyer, so be it. We need to make plays in the city, and this is a good step. If we don’t, we’ll never climb to the place we deserve to be.”
“Martinez is not the type of man we want to be in business with,” Massimo warns.
“One deal doesn’t mean we’re in bed with him. It’s only business,” I insist.
I refuse to admit how much the idea of being aligned with Martinez makes me want to run the other way. Showing weakness, even to my brothers, won’t do me any good. They expect me to lead them in our bid to gain the power we deserve in this city. I have to stand strong.
“As long as he doesn’t expect our help with other areas of his business dealings, I’m in,” Marco chimes in as his eyes drift to Viola again.
I’ve been fighting my need to take the woman in while we’ve been talking. It’s difficult. I swear all the light wants to attach to the woman, making her look luminous even in the low lighting of the room. She looks like she belongs here—the lounge screaming old money and class.
She’s out of our league and the thought is both humbling and infuriating. Our family has been pushed around and excluded from the major dealings of the city for far too long. Our father did what he could, but never got farther than having a thriving bookie business while working as a middleman in certain situations. The Falsini name has never been given what it was owed.
A man approaches Viola and Fleur and my body goes rigid. He’s smiling at them, and it makes me want to beat him until he’s a bloody mess. My hand clenches into a fist and I barely hide it under the table in time.
What the fuck is going on with me?
It’s not as if Viola is mine. I want to use her and nothing more. Still, I won’t allow some pretty boy to stand in the way of my goal.
That must be why it’s bothering me.
Nothing more.
When I look up, Massimo is watching me and I sneer at him, hoping to wipe the knowing look off his face. The look of possession which washes over Marco’s features as he takes in the man flirting with Viola and Fleur is a little surprising.
“Maybe we should have approached sooner,” Marco muses under his breath and I have to hold myself back from exploding.
He’s always been happy to go along with my plan and rarely questions me. The fact that this woman is at the core of him questioning my actions makes me want to destroy her even more. So what if I have to push my conscience to the side to do it? It wouldn’t be the first time.
When the man reaches out to Fleur and she slides her small hand into his before he leads her away and toward the club’s rooms, I breathe a sigh of relief. Viola smiles after her friend for a moment before turning toward the bar and taking a sip of her drink.
I’m not sure if I can put this off for much longer. With one look around the room, I can see she has caught the attention of more than one man. I certainly won’t be allowing anyone else to touch her tonight. I can’t do it and the reason why doesn’t matter.
While Marco is chuckling at the look of relief on Massimo’s face, I nod toward our youngest brother. “I think you should be the one to arrange for her to meet us in the room. You know which one.”
While we haven’t shared a woman in a long time, we all know the kind of play we enjoy. Our power and position can be an inconvenience. When the woman we’re with can’t see, she can only feel. She’s not caught up in who we are, only what we make her experience. It’s intoxicating for something as intrinsic and simple as identity to be stripped away.
We are all skin and blood and need when nothing else matters.
Marco teases our brother while his question is pointed at me, “You don’t think he could get her in the room on his charm alone?”
“I’m sure he could, but I’m not going to underestimate the woman and assume she doesn’t know who we are.”
Massimo doesn’t say a word as he stands and walks away from the table. I have no doubt he’ll set up some sort of invite for Viola to join us in Room Five. It’s the room I’ve always preferred. I wasn’t surprised to find out my brothers felt the same way when we’ve enjoyed a little fun, even if we weren’t doing so together.
I’m not sure why we stopped sharing a woman between us. We’ve always worked well together and giving a woman pleasure was a way for us to strengthen the bond between us. As we started focusing on our goal to make more of our name than we’ve ever had before, we started spending more time apart than together.
Maybe that was a mistake.
I look at Viola one more time before standing and heading toward the stairs so we can head up to Room Five. I know Marco will follow me and Massimo won’t be far behind.
Now we wait. I’ve never been a man known for patience, but I think it’ll be worth it.
Viola has no idea that she’s wrapped herself up in a bow to be delivered at our feet.