Chapter Two
Dante
“Shouldn’t you be at the garden center?” Milo, my youngest cousin, asked as he moved to stand next to the chest press machine where I was doing my final rep.
Sure, it might be opening day, but that was no excuse to miss chest and triceps day.
“I’m heading there after I shower,” I told him.
“Only you would spend the day you’ve been looking forward to in the gym.”
“It helps me focus.” And burns off a bit of the nervous energy that had been needling me for the past few weeks.
Admittedly, a lot of that anxiety had to do with the fact that I was pinning all my plans and vision on… Domenico.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved my cousin. I was more than happy to provide him a legit place to work so his parole officer stayed off his ass.
That said, Domenico wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who gave a shit about childhood wonder and lifelong memories.
I trusted that he’d hired the people whose résumés I’d pushed his way.
Many were a bunch of young adults who had a past in drama and shit like that—people who would really commit to their bits in the haunted house and woods.
There were two former early childhood education teachers.
And, finally, one person who sent their résumé in on paper featuring Halloween decorations and included a paragraph about how excited they were to create an unforgettable experience for customers.
Hopefully, they would all pick up the slack Domenico might leave.
Though I did catch him at the grocery store buying extra-large black bags and tape to make dead bodies. So he was clearly committed, too.
“I heard my ma talking to your ma about it the other day.”
“Oh, yeah? What’d they say?” I asked, dropping my arms and reaching for my bottle of water.
“Your ma was going on and on about how proud of you she was.” Well, that felt good. “She said she thinks it shows that you’re getting serious about starting a family,” Milo added with his trademark playboy smirk.
“I don’t even have a girl,” I said, shaking my head as a laugh/groan hybrid escaped me.
“You know the moms. Wanna be drowning in grand babies. And you’re the last one to settle down. Didn’t your youngest brother even get married before you?” he teased, knowing perfectly well that August had settled down even before our oldest brother.
“She’s got Valley to worry about too. And who are you to talk? You’re still single too.”
“Eh, she’s on Elisa’s ass now that Smush is seeing someone. I figure I got another year or two before that shit comes my way. But, yeah, you weren’t doing yourself any favors by opening that place.”
“We’ve got other kids in the family too. I want them to have the same experiences we got to have as kids. Feels like the world is losing the spirit of the holidays in a sea of beige boringness.”
“Not your ma.”
No.
My mom went all-out for holidays still, Halloween included. If anything, she’d amped shit up since becoming a grandma.
She rented two fucking storage units to store all her holiday shit: one for Halloween and other, smaller holidays, and one for Christmas.
With October finally being here, I was sure she’d gotten one of my brothers to drive over to the unit, load up their cars, and bring the decorations to the house.
There was probably a whole graveyard set up, creepy figures ready to scare the bejesus out of trick-or-treaters, and purple and orange lights all over the place.
The pumpkins would come eventually, likely after she came to visit the garden center and picked out her own.
I was sure to grow not only the cute, small pumpkins for the class trips, but big, hunky ones slated to become jack-o-lanterns.
In orange, white, and green. The last two colors had come highly requested from my sister and cousins who wanted to decorate their front porches with all the pumpkins.
“Alright. I’m hitting the shower. You need to hit the leg press,” I said, elbowing my cousin as I passed. His legs were fine and we both knew it. But cousins were just as good for ribbing as brothers were.
I showered and changed into a suit. Dressy for a garden center? Sure. But some habits were hard to break. I’d been admiring the suits our fathers and uncles always wore ever since I was biting ankles. Aside from when I was hitting the gym, I was rarely seen without one on.
Besides, it was the first time a lot of my employees were going to see me. I wanted to look good for first impressions.
By the time I made it to DG Greens, the school bus had just unloaded, and Domenico was speaking to the teacher and chaperones as the kids bounced around on their heels, necks craning to check out all the events to come.
Why the fuck was Domenico the one greeting children? Young children who weren’t mature enough to hear the abundance of f-bombs and other inventive curse words that would no doubt escape his lips.
Not a great way to secure future deals with the schools.
On a grumble, I climbed out of my car and rushed around the garden center, looking for someone—anyone—who could step in for my cousin.
“Is anyone working here?” I asked aloud when I didn’t see anyone.
But, of course, the second the words were out of my mouth, my gaze landed on someone.
Not, as I expected, one of the many young adults or the few farmhands who were usually lingering around.
Oh, no.
I’d never seen this woman before.
I would have remembered; that was for sure.
She was small—short and slight—but with a killer rack she had covered in a simple black tee.
Her short legs were swimming in a pair of plaid orange and black pants, and there were thick combat boots on her feet.
The thick sole must have added another inch or so to her height, so she was even shorter than she first appeared.
Aside from the body, though, that fucking face. High, sharp cheekbones, sultry dark eyes under thick lashes and dark brows, and a pillowy-soft mouth covered in a deep wine red.
Her hair teased her shoulders, and her bangs brought your attention to her eyes, all of it a glass-like shiny black.
Fucking gorgeous.
And, judging by the way her eyes narrowed as she turned, wholly unimpressed by me.
It was right then that I noticed her name tag.
Hazel.
The woman with the Halloween-themed résumé.
“I work here. Can I help you with something, sir?” she asked, her tone chilly.
“Dante Grassi,” I said, moving closer.
“The owner,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Do you need me to do something?”
“Maybe tell me why my foul-mouthed cousin is the one greeting impressionable kids?” I asked, keeping my tone light, sensing I’d pissed her off.
“He’s the manager,” she said with a little shrug. “I ran around to tell everyone that the kids were here, set up the craft station, and got the doll clothes out for the scarecrows. Should I have been doing something else?”
“Place looks good,” I said, changing tack. I turned, taking it all in. It was similar to how it had been in my childhood memories. Better, though. The coffee and cider carts had been a great idea. And everything had just been amped up to another level.
When the idea came to me to buy the place—knowing that things like coffee carts, haunted houses, and hayrides were often high-cash businesses, making it perfect to clean mob money—I didn’t expect to like the actual running of a business as much as I did.
No, I hadn’t been super hands-on. But I had a lot of ideas that I passed on to Domenico to implement.
Considering it was a brand-new business, it had been a really successful summer. I had a feeling that fall and winter were going to be killer. Especially if I could bring together my plans for a winter wonderland starting the weekend after Thanksgiving.
Then, when the spring rolled around again, my plans for the summer season.
The place was going to be rolling in dough. Which the Family was going to like, since it allowed us to funnel even more dirty money through the place to legitimize it.
Maybe, if shit went to plan, I could take a bit of a step back from the mob grind, passing off that work to some soldiers, and enjoy life a little more.
That seemed to be the way it went for my brothers and cousins.
Once they had a legitimate business to clean their money, they all let the mob shit handle itself while they built lives and families.
While I hadn’t met a woman yet, doing the husband and father thing had always been the plan eventually.
Though, yeah, I didn’t tell my mother that.
I always put that shit in vague ‘maybe one day’ terms. If she got wind that there was any seriousness about it on my part, Giulia Grassi was like a damn dog with a bone.
She’d be hooking me up on dates with everyone from the mail lady to her hairdresser’s sister’s daughter’s best friend.
Who had time for that?
“Honestly, I was starting to worry it was never going to come together. But I’m really proud of what we’ve done here.”
“I imagine a lot of that is thanks to you.”
“A lot of it was your vision. I just helped pull it together.”
“Probably did more than help. Love Domenico, but I know he’s not gonna remember to buy doll clothes and leaf litter.”
“He’s oddly good at creating dead bodies,” Hazel said, making a surprised snort escape me.
I guess she didn’t know then.
That was one question answered.
The Grassi name was pretty damn notorious in and around Navesink Bank. But I was pretty sure her résumé included a work history somewhere in the South. Florida, maybe.
If she was new in town, there was a good chance she didn’t know what locals did about the mafia. Or the various other criminal organizations in the area.
Because if she knew or even suspected who we were and what we did, the dead body decorations wouldn’t have been nearly as amusing to her. Disturbing would be a lot more likely.
“If you don’t want Domenico doing the tours for the kids, that’s totally fine. I can come in a little earlier to make sure all of this,” Hazel said, waving out an arm, “is taken care of, so I have time to meet the buses when they start to arrive.”
I glanced over toward where Dom was shooting me a pained look. He didn’t want to do this kind of work. He was much more enthusiastic about mob work. Maybe it was better for him to be a manager in title only.
“If you were to put a percentage to all this, how much would you say you handled yourself?”
“It was a team effort. We all played our parts.”
“And your part was what percentage of work?” I watched as she glanced at her feet, uncomfortable with the question. “No one is gonna get in trouble.”
“Seventy?” she said. And the hesitancy made me think that it was more like eighty or ninety.
“What do you think about a promotion?” I asked. “Maybe… an… operations manager? Dom would technically be in charge as a whole, but you would be right beneath him. With all the power that comes with: company credit card to get the shit you need, ability to hire and fire as you see fit.”
“I don’t need to interview first?”
“Think of this as the interview,” I said, waving around.
“It’s yours if you want it. A raise too, obviously.
If you’re taking on extra responsibility, you deserve another…
five an hour?” Was that too little? I wasn’t used to business shit like this.
“With another potential raise depending on how the rest of this season goes.”
“I’ll take it,” she said, a little too eagerly. If she was new to the area like I suspected, she was probably experiencing a bit of shock at the cost of living in town. Even an extra five bucks an hour could make a big difference.
“I’ll put it through the system as soon as I get home.”
“Do I have a cap on how many hours I can work? Because I’ve been pulling fourteen-hour days lately.”
“No cap. Whatever you need done. But maybe consider hiring another hand that you can train and trust to take over for you, so you can have some time off.”
“Okay. Great. I can work on that. We will likely need more hands for the Christmas season too, so it would be good to train them now. I, uh, will go save the children from your cousin,” she said, shooting me a smirk. “Thanks for the promotion.”
“Thanks for making this exactly how I envisioned it. If not better.”
To that, she gave me a dazzling fucking smile.
Then she was rushing off to take over for Domenico. My cousin came sauntering over, looking relieved.
“Christ, they make a lot of noise.”
“They’re kids,” I said, shaking my head.
“No, the moms, man. The moms.”
That got a little laugh out of me.
“You met Hazel.”
“Yeah.”
“Pretty.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“Don’t fuck her,” Dom demanded.
“Excuse me?”
“This place would probably fall apart without her. Dunno how the fuck we got through the summer season without her.”
“The farmhands,” I said.
“Yeah, them. But we need her. So don’t fuck her.”
“I wasn’t planning on it. But I did give her a promotion. She’s still under you but has more power.”
“Yeah, man. Whatever she wants to take on, I’m game. You know this ain’t my thing. I’m just here until I’m off parole.”
“Yeah, I get it. I’d be happy to know there is someone here who can take your place when that day comes.”
“Which is why…”
“I can’t fuck her,” I filled in.
Dom slapped me hard on the back of the shoulder. If I were any less fit, I’d have stumbled forward from the impact.
“Now you’re getting it.”
Yeah, well, one part of me hadn’t exactly gotten the message. But I would just have to learn to deal with that.