Chapter Seventeen
Dante
I walked into the guest bedroom, closing the door, and then leaning back against it.
Reaching up, I yanked my tie looser, exhaling a deep breath as desire zinged off each nerve ending, giving my cock ideas it definitely didn’t need to be having about the wounded woman rolling around in my bed.
“Fuck,” I sighed, raking a hand down my face.
I needed to go downstairs, dig out my phone, then answer the million texts and calls I was sure my family had sent my way over the past hour or two.
Instead, I walked my ass into the en suite bathroom, closed the door, stripped, and climbed into the shower, hoping some cold water might douse the flames of my desire.
Somehow, though, my cock was still rock-solid as the icy water streamed down my back and chest.
With a sigh, I reached down, fisting my length and stroking, trying not to let my mind wander back to my bedroom, to the woman wearing my shirt, to her creamy skin and the way her pupils blew wide and her breath went shallow when my fingers touched her stomach.
Or back to the damn office. Or the haunted house.
In the end, they all came flooding back as I stroked myself. Her sighs, her shivers, the crush of her lips, how wet she was for me, how hard she came around my fingers, how much harder she would come when I was buried deep inside her.
I came hard, groaning all alone in the damn shower like a fucking teenager.
I punished myself with a few more moments of frigid cold water before climbing out, drying off, and getting dressed again.
I made my way downstairs, brewed a pot of coffee, and grabbed my phone.
Before I could even check my texts, though, there was a knock at my door.
I winced, hoping the sound wouldn’t bother Hazel as I strode to my front door to let Domenico in.
“I thought you were meeting the shipments.”
“They arrived already. I called a couple of the field hands and the kids in to get the maze done again and the pumpkins placed. They don’t need me for that shit. But your soldiers are keeping an eye on ‘em all.”
“Alright,” I said, moving aside to let him in. He was right; setting up a maze and laying pumpkins in a field weren’t really his specialty.
“How is she?”
“A little tipsy. And hopefully sleeping. There was a lot of glass in her hands. And she’s got some nasty bruises starting on her shoulders.”
“When the fucker tried to drag her back through the broken greenhouse wall. Threw her arms out to stay outside.”
Domenico walked through my house like he owned the joint, a habit we’d all grown used to since he got out of prison. He always made himself at home.
“There’s coffee,” I called behind him as I locked the door.
I was only a few steps behind him, but by the time I got into the kitchen, he’d already poured himself a cup and had dropped himself down at the kitchen table.
“Find anything out?” I asked.
“We got the fucker’s picture circulating. No one recognized him right off, though.”
“And Big Ed?”
“Moved.”
“Already?”
“Mighta had some fun playing with that backhoe before the deliveries started. Got ‘em buried twice as deep this time. For the time being, set up a compost pile over the spot with all the old hay and corn.”
Once things calmed down a bit, I wanted to create some sort of memorial to the guy, even if there was no actual grave marker. Just something to remember a part of our Family.
I hadn’t been lying to Hazel when she’d asked if this kind of thing happened a lot. While, yeah, there was a fair amount of danger involved with being in organized crime, we’d been at this for generations. We had a reputation. We were careful. We didn’t have members of our crew getting murdered.
Sure, we lost men here and there. To accidents, to overdoses, to poor health. But not murder.
Sure, Big Ed was just an associate. He wasn’t even officially in the Family the way a soldier was. But he’d been a fixture for long enough that we all figured he would eventually get a promotion.
That said, he was, well, associated with us. That alone should have protected him from harm, let alone murder.
Domenico was right, though. This felt pointed. As far as we could tell, no one else had been targeted.
I had a body in my woods, thousands of dollars’ worth of damages, and an employee had been attacked.
The thing was, more so than anyone else, my business had been stable.
I had my soldiers continuing the work with certain importers overseas and exporters from the area.
We got our cut.
It all went smoothly.
To be honest, though, I’d been focusing a lot on the legit side of the business the past few months. It was possible something slipped by right under my nose.
Sure, that was the reason for having soldiers—to make sure nothing got past us. But they could have gotten just as comfortable as I did, let something slip.
Or, worse yet, gotten tempted by someone else’s offer.
That could explain Big Ed being killed.
Had he seen or heard something he shouldn’t have? Did someone worry he might blab to me, so they took him out?
Fuck.
All I had were questions.
“Dom, I need to be here. I promised her I would be down here.”
“What do you need from me?” he asked, knowing what I was saying.
“I need eyes on Ed’s inner world. Get in his apartment. Get in his phone and his laptop.”
“Under drawers and behind picture frames. I get it. Is this a porn thing?”
“Porn?”
“As in ‘you’ll know it when you see it,’ or am I looking for something specific?”
“Honestly, I have no fucking idea. I just know he’s dead, my place is targeted, and my manager is roughed up. It’s gotta be linked.”
“Got it. Where did Ed live?” he asked, making my head whip up. “What?”
“He lived in the same complex as Hazel. Not the same building, but the same apartment complex.”
“I mean, there are only, what, two of them in Navesink Bank. That’s not weird.”
“No, but it’s another coincidence. And I think there are too many of them to ignore at this point.”
“Alright. I’ll head over there now. Want me to check out Hazel’s place too?”
“Fuck no.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s an invasion of privacy. And I’ve been to her place.”
“Not to look around.”
“What do you think you’ll find? She’s new in town. Didn’t seem to even know about the Family until yesterday.”
“Or she’s a good liar and she’s working with them.”
“And why would they hurt her?”
“She was turning on them? To sell it? Who the fuck knows. Just sayin’, it’s important to be open to all angles.”
“That’s not an angle I’m interested in investigating. At least not now. If something changes, I’ll let you know.”
“Sounds good. I’ll get going then,” he said, draining the last of his coffee and leaving through the back door.
Alone, I answered all the calls from my brothers and boss before making the one I was dreading.
“I know you hate lockdowns, Ma,” I started.
“What? Oh. I don’t care about that. Is Hazel okay? Are you taking good care of her? Does she need anything?”
“Hazel’s fine. She’s asleep upstairs.”
“In your bed?”
“It’s the only bed in the house, Ma.” I closed my eyes and pinched between my brows. Only my mother would be curious if I was making a move on a woman who’d just been attacked.
“You know, I always love when one of you boys has to take a woman in. It just allows for a whole new level of intimacy right away. Emotional, I mean,” she rushed to add. “You learn so much about someone in a much shorter period of time. Is she very hurt?”
“She’s a little roughed up. It could have been a lot worse.”
“Thank God it’s not. She better not be lifting a finger.”
“I’ve already fed her,” I assured her.
“That’s the son I raised. And you’ll be keeping her there with you until the threat is over?” I could hear the silent And for the rest of your lives?
“Actually, I was thinking of sending her to stay with you.” No way in hell. I just wanted to get a rise out of her.
There were two full beats of silence. “Well, that’s not possible.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I hear your sister and cousin will be staying with me. I have no room.”
“There’s my old room.”
“That’s, uh, set up for the kids.”
“What about Nino, Massimo, or Santo’s rooms?”
“They’re all… getting redecorated.”
They weren’t.
But in the interest of not lying, she was going to get right on top of redecorating them now.
“Doesn’t the living room couch pull out?”
“I’m afraid I just carpet cleaned the whole thing.”
She was going to have a busy day to back up her lies.
“Oh, well, then. I guess she has to stay here.”
“That’s probably for the best.” I could hear the relief in her voice. I couldn’t wait until all this insanity was over so I could tease her about this shit for all eternity.
“Do you need me to bring some more food by?”
“No, we’re set.”
“It’s no trouble.”
“I can cook.”
“You’re going to cook for her?” she asked.
“You did teach me.”
“I did. I did. She’s a lucky girl. Okay, I have to get back to my redecorating. I’ll call later to check on Hazel.”
“Sounds good, Ma. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
I shook my head as I moved around the kitchen, jotting down a note in my phone for what I needed from the store. It was a lot. My pantry and fridge were nearly bare. What can I say? I was a single man. And who wanted to spend all the time cooking for just themselves?
I shot off a text to my cousin Smush—Sofia—asking if she could squeeze in a quick shop for me.
I had a feeling we were losing her as our personal shopper soon. She seemed to be gravitating more and more to this one client she had. Enough that there was a lot of scuttlebutt around the family that she might be involved with him.
But as long as I had her, I was going to use her.
So when she agreed, I amended the list with some essentials for Hazel: toothbrush, body wash, changes of clothes, and any other shit she might need.
Yeah, I’ve done this many times before.
That had been her response to the growing list.
And while it might have been common for her, it was all new to me. I found myself pacing around the house, fiddling with things, rearranging things, cleaning things that were already immaculate.
Finally, realizing it was all just nervous energy, I took myself down to the basement.
Flicking on the light, I found old, paint-splattered cement floors, dirty cinderblock walls, and the three pieces of gym equipment I kept at my house.
I loved the gym.
I liked going for a good run.
But sometimes, I was stressed as fuck but also couldn’t leave the house for some reason or another.
My original plan had been to set up a whole home gym, but seeing as I’d never be able to have all the equipment the gym itself had, I’d held myself back and stuck with the basics: a really good treadmill, a bike, and one of those all-in-one home gyms that would allow me to do some strength work without having a dozen dumbbells or plates lying around, just waiting for me to jab my toe into them when I went downstairs to do laundry.
I stripped out of my suit again, changing into the fresh gym clothes still in the dryer, then started on the bike to loosen up before moving over to the strength training.
It was my favorite way to work out— the burn in the muscles, the shaking, the knowledge that I was making myself stronger with each rep.
But it wasn’t quite clearing my mind—or the stagnant energy I knew would go right to my dick if I let it—the way I needed it to.
With a sigh, I made my way to the treadmill.
I wasn’t a runner.
I wasn’t someone who did it out of the love of the game.
I did it because cardio was necessary. But also because, if you could make yourself suffer through the first awful ten or fifteen minutes, the runner’s high set in, making it all worth it.
Normally, I’d crank up some music, drown out my own inner thoughts until the endorphins did it for me. But I was trying to listen for any issues upstairs.
That said, the more I cranked up the speed, the louder my footsteps got on the belt.
And I had no idea Hazel had even woken up until she was standing at the base of the steps in my shirt, hair bed-messy, a pillow crease in her cheek, and watching me with heavy-lidded, hungry eyes that immediately undid all of the exercise I’d just done to try to ease the desire I felt for her.
Shit.