On The Market (Dirty Delta)

Chapter 1

chapter one

Angelo

The blaring of my fourth alarm was the last thing I heard before cold water hit me in the face.

“Rise and fucking shine, brother.”

One of my eyes popped open, drops of liquid spilling into it, forcing me to rub the intrusion away dramatically before I had enough wherewithal to make out the silhouette of my older brother, Mateo, standing over my bed.

He was all no-nonsense, black polo tucked into fitted cargo pants, a golden TechOps logo brandished across the left side of his chest. Perfectly coiffed sandy hair and a manicured five o’clock shadow across his sharp jaw. We looked alike…if you squinted.

Mateo was the version of me that cared about appearances. The one who spent fifteen years in the military and led a group of men through special operations from South America to the Middle East.

I was the dirty work coveralls, third coffee with a cigarette, sidecar on a dusty jobsite at eight a.m. version.

Mateo shook his wrist out, checking the time on his watch with his tongue in his cheek, and brandished me with another impatient glare.

Fuck. I wasn’t used to punctuality. Being part owner of a construction business for the entirety of my twenties meant rolling out of bed whenever I damn well felt like it, then strolling onto a work zone to bark orders.

Now that my business had evaporated, I was back to being the one who had to show up when told to and wear the clown suit.

My brother was doing me a favor, I had to remember.

He was taking me on with no experience to be the right-hand for his cybersecurity company, getting me out of New York and into sunny Florida, and trusting that I had the brains not to fuck it up.

Old habits die hard, as they say.

Nonetheless, a speck of guilt panged in my chest. Not enough to make me feel bad, but enough to wrangle a sound of defeat out of me that tapered off into a grunt of surrender.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” The sheets slumped away as I sat straight up in the very wet, already stiff and uncomfortable spare bed at my parents’ brand-new house.

Mateo placed the now-empty glass tumbler back on the bedside table and switched off the ringing alarm, tossing my phone across the room to ensure I’d have to get up and get it. “It’s your first day of work. Can’t be late.”

“Yeah, well, my boss is an asshole,” I enunciated, drying my face and the hair on my chest with the paper-thin pillow cases. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say my parents were sending a message via linens. “How did you even get in here?”

“I have a key.”

I scoffed. “I don’t even have a key.”

“That’s because Mom and Pop want you gone as soon as possible, and giving you a key will send the wrong message. How is that house search coming along, by the way? Got a realtor? A list of properties? A preapproval letter?”

I whipped the sheets off and made a point to shove past Mateo on my way to retrieve my cell off the floor.

He may have been my older brother, but I had a few inches and pounds on him.

Not the same Army background or instinct, but when I wanted to throw someone around, I had no issues there.

Thank God for years of hauling sheetrock and doing the blue-collar work that kept me physically fit despite all the pasta Ma shoved down my throat.

“Christ, Mateo,” I complained. “I thought Mom was the biggest nag on the planet. You’re her on steroids.”

Mateo kicked open a suitcase on the floor that I’d been living out of and threw a pair of jeans and a T-shirt at me.

Our parents were giving me a month in their guest room while I got on my feet and found myself a house.

Which was ironic, considering for the first thirty-two years of my life in the Bronx, all they wanted me to do was stay put.

It took all of six months of retirement in Coconut Creek to decide they didn’t want their son down the hallway anymore.

Duran & Son went under, Mateo got married, and all of a sudden my time in New York dissipated into something pathetically underwhelming.

The family relocated to Florida, and like any baby of the family, I ambled along, hoping to start fresh.

New job, new house, year-round sunshine to keep me from spiraling into that November through March seasonal depression in the concrete jungle.

“You can’t live in an extra room with David and Anna Duran for your entire life, Ang,” Mateo said.

“I know you don’t step outside your comfort zone often, but I mean, you’re like halfway there, bro.

You’ve already taken the biggest leap by packing up your shit and moving down here.

Think about how much more fun it will be when you have your own space, friends, a girl to come home to and bang in your own fucking house without sneaking her into the basement to avoid our mother. ”

“I never did that,” I sneered, sniffing the armpit of the black T-shirt Mateo threw at me before tossing it over my head. “I’m a Hilton Honors Diamond member. I take my business elsewhere.”

“That’s a relief to hear.”

“I’m going to get my shit together,” I clipped.

“What has it been? A week? You’re asking me to have a job, start tech classes at Broward, get a realtor and a loan agent and a broad, and settle down.

Good things take time, brother.” My palm clapped down on Mateo’s shoulder, shaking it. “I don’t even have pants on.”

Mateo brushed me off and turned on a heel, stalking toward the window and pulling up the blinds to let in the scorching morning sunlight.

It was the beginning of September, but the temperatures were still stagnant around ninety degrees.

Back in New York, the leaves would be morphing into the most beautiful mosaic of reds and oranges, everyone in the city breaking out their sweaters and boots, taking weekend trips upstate on the Metro North to leaf peep and hike the mountains in the Hudson Valley.

There were a lot of things changing around me in a very small window of time, like reality itself.

I didn’t expect Mateo to understand that feeling—he’d been the director of his own destiny since he was eighteen—but he was going through changes now, too.

I had this funny feeling he was taking me on like a responsibility the same way he did in the Army, compensating for life outside the military by making me one of his soldiers.

“How’s Tally feeling these days?” I asked, letting myself into the ensuite bathroom and flicking on the tap.

Mateo finally turned back around and his shoulders relaxed when I mentioned his wife’s name.

Natalia and Mateo were married in mid-June, and by the end of their honeymoon she was knocked up.

They broke the news to our parents once she’d seen an OB and had an ultrasound to make sure everyone was healthy, and I swear my mother both had a stroke and saw God in the same moment.

We had to peel her overjoyed, hysterical body off the tile floor and get her a cold washcloth for her forehead.

“Dealing with morning sickness like a champ,” Mateo said. “Like she does everything.”

“Of course,” I agreed, shoving a toothbrush into my mouth and talking around it. “How is that affecting the, uh…the other business venture?”

“Don’t ask questions about that,” Mateo snapped, pinching the bridge of his nose. “That’s not… Just fucking hurry up and get ready for work. We’re already behind schedule.”

A curt laugh burst out of me so quickly a dollop of sudsy toothpaste dripped down my chin. “What? You’re allowed to pry into my life but I’m not allowed to check in on my sister-in-law and her breadwinning, top streaming adult fantasy nudey page?”

“Angelo.” He spat my name like a cuss. “I swear to God, I don’t know how Ma and Pop dealt with you for thirty-two years. I’m making it my priority to get you the fuck out of their house so they can meet their first grandchild before you drive them into an early grave.”

“Are you going to tell the kid their mom and dad are famous?”

Mateo rushed for the open bathroom like he might strangle me, and another half possessed, half terrified laugh flew from my chest when I kicked the door shut just as he slammed his shoulder into the wood grain. “I’m just asking!”

Silence followed, and I spit my toothpaste into the basin and flushed cold water over my lips and chin.

I was due for a shave, I noticed, staring at my reflection in the mirror.

My hair was a mess of auburn-brown waves that I brushed my fingers through quickly, and then I stuck a stick of deodorant under my shirt into my armpits.

“I have a great idea,” Mateo finally spoke, much too close to the other side of the door for comfort. Like he’d been planning my death three feet away and all he needed was for me to come out to execute it. “Mia.”

Mia.

Shooting me in the chest might have caused less of a visceral reaction than that name did as it landed.

My fingers bunched into fists on the sink top and I watched my eyes dilate in the reflection.

A chill slipped down my spine, and I couldn’t decide if it was a chill of fear, jest, excitement, loathing…

nerves. Because, boy, did that fucking woman know how to get on every last one of mine.

“I’m going to call Mia,” Mateo repeated. “Or I’ll have Tally do it.”

Death be damned, I swung the bathroom door back open and came face-to-face with my older brother and the smirk that was painted across his chiseled mug. “Don’t,” I said, poking him in the chest with an aggressive finger. “I don’t need her.”

“You do,” Mateo said matter-of-factly. “She’s your only hope to find somewhere to live in such a short amount of time. She’s a shark, and you know it as well as I do.”

“She hates my fucking guts,” I barked. “Even if you asked her—which you’re not going to—Mia would rather drive a Toyota Corolla for the rest of her life than be my realtor.”

“Which is why it’s perfect.” Mateo followed me back to my suitcase as I sifted through it for a pair of socks. “She’ll want you out of her hair as fast as possible. I bet that girl finds you a house in a week just to never have to see your face again.”

Something about that stung. My jaw clenched and I jammed my tongue into my cheek.

Mia Russo was a multi-million-dollar real estate agent in South Florida.

The younger one in a pair of twin daughters to John and Sistine Russo, though the older sister to my brother’s wife, Natalia.

The last time I saw Mia was at their wedding, across the marbled dance floor with a flute of champagne to her lips and a glare in her eyes that didn’t quite pierce me, but instead left a blank space where you might fill in a Mad Libs adjective.

The time before that, we were in Vegas. I kissed her.

She slapped me across the face.

Hence the absolutely terrible idea my brother was presenting about hooking Mia and me up for some house hunting.

As if the thought hadn’t already crossed my mind in the last two months, but in comparison, I’d thrown it directly out the window.

Besides, she worked with businessmen, tech moguls, investment bankers, property sharks—big money clients that kept her pockets just as deep as theirs.

In my defense, I did well for myself. I saved every dollar I’d ever made as part owner of Duran & Son, lived rent free, utilized the city subway system, and splurged on nothing outside a few drinks and a pack of Marlboro on weekends.

But I didn’t look the part. I was a fucking blue-collar boy, through and through. I wasn’t what she wanted.

As a client. I wasn’t what she wanted as a client.

“It’s not gonna work,” I told Mateo, stuffing my phone and wallet into my pockets and trying to escape the bedroom, leaving the conversation behind with it. “Aren’t we late for work or something? Come on. Chop chop.”

Mateo rounded the staircase’s banister at my heels.

“What, are you afraid of her? She’s five foot nothing.

Sure, she’s got an attitude, but what do you expect from a Russo girl?

She’s the best in the business, and you have a family connection.

You can put your differences aside for a month and get along. Your future is riding on it.”

“I can handle myself. I’m not a fucking kid anymore.

” I whirled around, taking a breath and reasoning beyond two grown adults with a feud.

“She’s probably all tied up at work anyway.

I’d do better with a little old lady with a realty license, not a thirty-something, high-strung, high-maintenance boss bitch with a vendetta against me for a party foul. ”

“You kissed her.”

“It was for all the marbles!” I shouted.

Our mother materialized at the bottom of the wooden staircase holding up two identical lunch boxes with a smile on her face that rivaled the mid-swing moon. “Look at my boys, heading out for work together,” she gushed. “This is what dreams are made of.”

“Morning, Ma.” I smiled, hiding any hint of stress from my and Mateo’s conversation.

We both kissed her on the cheek, reluctantly but appreciatively grabbing our homemade lunches and hiding a sigh until we were safely out of the house and in the driveway.

I opened the passenger side of Mateo’s truck and there on the seat, wrapped in plastic, were two brand-new TechOps polos with my name embroidered on the chest.

Regret washed over me. Maybe I was being too harsh on Mateo.

Falling back into my old little brother antics and forgetting that we were different people now than when we were teenagers.

Mateo wanted what was best for me, and I wanted to impress him.

I wanted to be his right-hand man, his shoulder to lean on, the guy he could rely on when things got tough, a damn good uncle to that little baby when it arrived. He was trying to help.

“I won’t reach out to Mia,” he said, joining me in the cab. “Let’s forget it and focus on the installation today. You’ve got a lot to learn.”

No matter how hard I tried though, I couldn’t forget it.

Not for the ride across town, taking in the palm trees and the local businesses that were my life now.

Not while my eyes glazed over as Mateo showed me code screens on the desktop at a veterinarian office we were securing.

Not while we chatted about Florida sports teams and the upcoming hockey season over identical chicken cutlet sandwiches for lunch, or on the ride back home looking at for-sale signs on the front lawns of new builds.

The entire day, like a pest scratching at a wall, my thoughts kept circling back to the irritating reminder of Mia Russo.