Chapter 2
LUCA
I’m dreaming of a roaring fire and a heart-shaped ass, my hands on a pair of wide hips, when I’m startled awake.
“Caputo,” someone hisses. “Boss, please. Wake up.”
I grunt, irritated to be woken up from a good dream.
“What is it?” I grumble, not bothering to open my eyes.
I know from his voice and the sheer audacity to wake me up that it’s Diego Conti, my right-hand and my best friend.
Diego hesitates. Diego doesn’t hesitate.
I crack open one eye, my forearm over my forehead.
“What is it, Diego? You know I don’t like to repeat myself.”
“It’s Matteo,” he says finally, hanging his head, and it all starts to come into focus.
I sit up, running my hands through my hair to get it out of my face.
I hate the way it hangs over my forehead.
I’d get it cut, but it just seems to grow so fast.
Besides, there aren’t many men in this city I can trust with a razorblade.
“What’s he done now?”
Matteo Ricci has been on a bender now for a week, and we haven’t seen him. It isn’t as if bad behavior isn’t common among my men, but this is excessive. I know a lot of my men do drugs, but when it becomes a problem…
Then they become a problem.
“Where is he?”
“I’ve got him in the panic room,” Diego admits, guilt heavy in his voice. “Couldn’t get him to calm down. He pulled a knife on me.”
I blink, genuinely surprised. “He attacked you?”
Diego shrugs, hesitating again. Matteo, Diego, and I have all been friends since we were young.
I was once right along with them, drinking and snorting whatever I could get my hands on. But now my father is old, dying, and I’m caputo.
I can’t act like that anymore, and I can’t allow my top men to, either.
Matteo is a friend, and that’s the only reason his brains aren’t splattered all over my panic room.
“Caught him boosting a car,” Diego says as I stand up. “Stupid. But then when he pulled the knife…he was just defending himself, Caputo. He’s out of his mind, don’t—”
I freeze, glaring at Diego. He turns his eyes away.
“I'm not telling you what to do,” Diego says quietly. “But I wish, for your mother’s sake, you’d go easy on him.”
My shoulders stiffen. “Don’t talk about my mother.”
“Luca—”
“Caputo,” I remind him, my eyes narrowing, and Diego looks away again.
This has really torn him up. I can tell by the slumped set of his shoulders, the way he won’t look me in the eyes.
“Leave him in the panic room for a few days. Detox him.”
“Caputo…”
I huff out a breath. “Feed him once a day. He’ll dry out, then we can see where he’s at.”
Diego meets my eyes. “I don’t know if he can handle it.”
It hurts me to do this. It really does, because I can already hear Matteo whining and begging to get out, for just one more fix. It’s not the first time we’ve had to dry him out.
“He can handle it here or he can handle it in jail,” I say firmly. “We’ll give him a choice.”
Diego nods, and this time he doesn’t look away.
He respects me. I don’t know if Matteo still does, in his drug haze, and that’s the problem.
Men who don’t respect me tend to disappear.
It’s not about violence or hatred. There are many men who wish to do violence to me and mine, many men who hate me.
But they aren’t necessarily my enemies. Some of them are even allies. I have to keep my eyes open in this life. There’s no black and white.
Only gray.
I clear my throat and slide on a suit before heading to the panic room.
“How long has he been in there?”
“A few hours. Long enough to be sick,” Diego says miserably. He doesn’t enjoy a moment of this.
Neither do I. I try to be a benevolent leader, but when my men act up I have to make an example. Even if they’re also my friends.
I slide open the food slot and immediately hear Matteo’s sobs.
“Caputo. Boss. Please,” he stammers, half in Italian, half in English. His nose is running and his eyes are bloodshot. “You gotta let me out.”
“I don’t gotta do anything,” I drawl, even though there’s some void aching in my chest. This life swallows people up and spits them out. I don’t want that to happen to Matteo. I’m doing this partially out of love, not just for show.
“Please.” He slams his hands on either side of the slot, looking through it with wide brown eyes. “Just for an hour. I’ll come back, boss. I will.”
“You can dry out here or I can have a cop pick you up,” I say flatly, refusing to change my expression or my tone.
“No,” he whines. “No, caputo, per favore.”
I shush him. “Here or there. Make your choice.”
Matteo hesitates, trembling, his cheeks gaunt. He’s lost too much weight, making me think it’s not just the heroin but maybe coke, too. It’s dangerous. He’s dangerous, and if I had a pair of balls I’d put him out of his misery.
But Matteo Ricci…he’d saved my ass more than once when we were kids, kept my dad from finding out that I was running around crazy, experimenting with booze and drugs.
“There,” he says finally, and I know it’s because he thinks he can score in jail. Maybe he can, but I’ll do my damndest to make sure that he doesn’t.
I have plenty of cops in my pocket, plenty of guards, too.
I think I can keep him clean long enough to put him back in his right mind.
Then, if he still doesn’t respect me…
I’ll do what I have to do.
I sigh heavily and slam the slot shut, cutting off Matteo’s sobs.
“Don’t let him go to jail, boss.” Diego holds his hands out as if for mercy.
I shake my head. “He made his choice.”
“You know how that will go, Luca,” Diego continues, frustration evident in his voice. “He’ll score in there—”
“He won’t.”
Diego draws in a sharp breath, but he doesn’t complain further. He knows better.
I send a couple of coded texts then drag Matteo out of the panic room. He’s slobbering and crying but I ignore it.
“Get yourself together or they’ll put you with the crazies,” I warn him, hauling him to his feet.
Matteo sniffles. “Thank you, Caputo. You won’t regret this.”
“No,” I say firmly. “I won’t. Because if you don’t get it together this time, Matteo…it’s over. You’re out.”
Matteo’s brown eyes widen but he doesn’t speak, just nodding like a jack-in-the-box.
“I’m taking you in myself,” I say.
Diego stiffens, and I glance over, hoping it shows in my eyes that I’m not going to hurt Matteo.
Not yet. He’s got one more shot.
I drag Matteo to the car, putting him in the back. He goes easily enough, ready to see if he can grab a fix while he’s in lockup.
He doesn’t know I’m going to make it very difficult to get high in jail.
I jerk my head at Diego, who’s followed us out to the garage.
“Come on.”
Diego jerks into action, yanking open the passenger side door and getting inside. I get into the driver’s seat and we drive in silence to the police department.
“Stay in the car,” I bark at Diego. He nods.
I take Matteo into the lobby and he leans against me, almost grateful. He wouldn’t be if he knew I’m going to have eyes on him twenty-four seven.
The receptionist looks up, her eyes widening at the sight of me.
“Rossi? You finally turning yourself in?” she drawls, and I bark out a laugh.
“Nah, not today, Rosie. But my friend here…” I haul Matteo into a standing position and he grunts. “He’s got a warrant. Matteo Ricci.”
“Date of birth?”
“Five, seventeen, nineteen-eighty-six.”
He’s just a year younger than me.
She nods sharply as she types. While I wait, I look through the glass where people are being processed and I’m not terribly surprised to see Mark Hampton.
He’s one of my drivers, at least on occasion, and I recognize him instantly. He catches my eye, looking desperate, but I don’t plan on bailing him out.
If he got caught, that’s on him.
That’s how it goes.
My eyes trail further, to the man and woman processing him. I don’t know either of them by name. Must be rookies.
The man stands tall and lanky, not too much of a threat.
The woman—Jesus fucking Christ, she’s got a pair of hips on her. And a nice, rounded ass. Reminds me of my dream this morning.
I lick my lips, holding up Matteo with one arm and wondering what it’d be like to put my hands on those wide hips.
Wonder if she’d moan if I slipped my fingers between her cheeks, slid down my hand until…
Matteo slumps and grabs his stomach. “It hurts, boss, please…”
I’ve already given strict instructions to the guards in my pocket—anyone delivers drugs to Matteo, they have to deal with me.
He won’t score.
The policewoman who fills out her uniform perfectly turns to face me and all I can see is sky-blue, doe eyes.
“Fuck,” I say out loud and Matteo makes a noise in the back of his throat.
The door buzzes and a guard comes out to take Matteo in.
“Three days,” I tell him, calling to him as the guard drags him away. “If you can make it three days clean, I’ll bail you out.”
Matteo nods, but I know he’s just thinking of his next score. It’s all he seems to think about lately.
Diego was right to come to me with this.
I drag my eyes away from the policewoman’s supple ass as she turns, and I walk out the doors. Back in the car, Diego looks over at me.
“Caputo—”
“Don’t start. Three days is generous.”
Diego grunts in response, and it’s quiet as we pull up to the mansion.
Three days later, I find myself back in the lobby, looking through the glass and hoping to find that policewoman with the perfect ass.
She’s nowhere to be found, though, and I’m surprised that I’m a little disappointed.
Women are things I can use, if I’m honest with myself. I don’t tell them I love them. I don’t tell them that we have a future together.
I tell them, up front, that this is a one-time thing.
That we get to use each other’s bodies for the night. If they want anything more, they aren’t getting it from me.
But fantasizing about a woman I’ve never spoken to? A woman on the other side of the law?
Strange.
Matteo comes out clear-eyed but twitchy, and I look him over.
“You’re clean?”
“Clean, Caputo. I promise.”
“Good.”
I drive him back to the mansion and Matteo looks at me, confused.
“I thought you were driving me home.”
“Guess I lied,” I say calmly, getting out of the car. I wait as Matteo hesitates.
“I’m clean, boss, really.”
“I know,” I say quietly, an edge of pity to my voice. I can’t help it. Matteo is my friend. “But you won’t stay that way.”
“Boss…” I can hear the fear in the way his voice goes high-pitched.
“Just a week, Matteo. To make sure you’re clean. This is your last chance.”
“A week? Caputo—”
I grab his arm and shove him into the mansion, even as he screams and fights. I throw him into the panic room.
The slot is open and he rushes to it, looking at me with wide brown eyes. He’d taken the rap for me more than once.
Which is why he gets this chance.
“Luca, please!”
I slam the slot shut.
A week in the panic room.
A week alone with his thoughts.
With no drugs, nothing to blur the edges.
It may be hell for Matteo, but it’s what’s best for him right now.
As I said, I’m a benevolent leader.
When I can be.