TWENTY-ONE WYATT
TWENTY-ONE
WYATT
As soon as I got King’s call, I rushed to Elmwood Beach and to Blackstone Farms.
I must have missed news of the sale because the once-struggling farm was in full operation, the estate was alive and bustling with people, the parking lot full of cars.
With some trepidation, I got out of my Wrangler and walked to reception where a jovial young man with a headset over his head greeted me with a big white smile. His badge read Zane.
“How can I help?” he asked.
“I…I’m here to see…King? King Moore?”
“That’s right. Mr. Moore is in the manager’s office. Please go right ahead. Last door down the hall.”
Zane pointed to the hallway on the other side, and I gave him one last glance before I walked down the corridor and stopped a few feet short of the last door which read Nicholas Stone, Operations Manager.
I pulled my phone out and checked the address again. Maybe I had the wrong place. Maybe I read the message wrong. What was King doing at Blackstone Farms and what business did he have with the operations manager, a man I’d never heard of?
The text from King was clear as day. Blackstone Farms, Elmwood Beach.
Strange.
I tucked my phone back inside my pocket and pressed my knuckles against the door a couple of times before it swung open and King appeared behind it.
“Wyatt! Thank you for coming,” he said, running a hand over his dyed-blond hair and stepping aside to let me in.
“Are you okay? What are we doing here?” I asked him.
King pressed his lips together into a smile and nodded, closing the door behind me.
“He told me you needed to speak to me,” the man behind the desk said, and as he rolled his office chair around, I came face to face with an imposing figure with dark features and a tiny dog in his arms.
I straightened up before I closed the distance between us and took a seat opposite King’s brother and current godfather of the Ferraro family, Nino Ferraro.
“Hello,” I said, bypassing the usual pleasantries of new encounters.
Meeting a criminal to take down another wasn’t pleasant.
It was a necessity, and as much as I wanted to give the man the benefit of the doubt considering he was King’s family, he had still chosen to take up his father’s mantle.
He had chosen to stay a criminal instead of doing anything else with his life.
But at least he was terrorizing New York City with his bullshit. And he might prove useful with taking down our very own criminal.
“You go by Nicholas Stone now?” I asked the man sitting opposite me as King sat down next to me.
Nino laughed. “No, Nicholas is out on the field, but he lent us his office for our meeting. Away from prying eyes and ears.”
I turned to King and narrowed my eyes before I said, “So the farm is yours.”
It wasn’t so much a question as it was a statement. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together and realize the crime lord of NYC had dipped his fingers into Mayberry’s pie. Because what this island needed was more criminals.
“Just an investment. An excuse to keep an eye out for my big brother. It’s a legit business,” Nino said.
I bit my tongue.
Legit business, my ass. Did he want to keep an eye out for his brother or seize an opportunity to take out the local threat so he could be the new Salieri?
“Then you must know Salieri has revealed himself,” I said.
“Of course. King here told me as soon as you guys found out.”
“And you haven’t done anything to reclaim your money from him?” I raised an eyebrow.
It was an open secret by this point that Wilson, aka Salieri, had been Ferraro’s right hand before he stole a bunch of money and contacts and set up shop in Mayberry Holm. Nino’s father had wanted him dead.
“I’ve been a little busy in New York with my own rat,” Nino said but didn’t elaborate, which was probably just as well.
The less I knew about the goings-on of the Ferraros the better.
“But you’re here now. Are you ready to take him out now?” I asked.
Nino put his dog down and leaned forward. The dog wasted no opportunity to sniff my feet and then did the same with King before begging to be picked up by him.
“Oh, I’m more than ready, all right. The question is are you ready to deal with the consequences?”
My expression hardened, and I readjusted in my seat. “What consequences?” I asked.
Nino joined the tips of his fingers in front of his face and smirked. “I take out the head, you have to deal with his associates. They’ll be scrambling to take over power. You have to cut them down before any one of them replaces him.”
I stared at the man and didn’t waver, nor did I crack when I spoke. “You take out the head, we’re more than ready to take out the rest of the body.”
“Great,” Nino said and sat back, exuding so much more confidence than I ever felt in my life. “I’ll set up a meeting and take care of business. You get your men ready.”
I didn’t give him an answer. I simply stood up and gave him my hand and walked out of there, hoping I was doing the right thing.
Could it really be that simple to get rid of Wilson? Could it be as easy as one simple meeting with an old enemy? Or would I be taking out one evil and replacing it with another?
“What am I doing?” I shouted at myself when I was back inside the car. “What the fuck am I doing?”
A couple of workers looked up at me as they passed by in front of the Wrangler, so instead of becoming an attraction, I turned the engine on and got the hell out of there.
I’m doing the best I can.
Even if the best I could do was use one criminal to take down another.
If it meant Salieri was out of the way and my men, their kids, and Mayberry Holm was safe from that monster then so be it.
I’d have to learn to live with myself and what I’d caused.
And if Nino decided to be the new Salieri, I’d deal with him in due time.
I came to a stop in front of the Outpost. Or what was left of it, anyway. I didn’t even set out to drive here, but it seemed habit, instinct, whatever it was, had brought me here.
But I parked in front of it anyway, looked out to the sea beyond, and slumped against my seat.
“What the hell was I thinking?”
When all this started, it was supposed to be a simple job. I should have known it wouldn’t be. I was mature enough to know nothing to do with crime was simple.
Then again, I was also mature enough to know sleeping with someone didn’t fix anything, and yet I’d still succumbed to my primal needs.
Last night was a mistake. I shouldn’t have let go like that.
What could a night shared with someone so perfect fix anyway?
Nothing. It could only complicate things further. Like it did. Like I knew it would.
Fuck!
I closed my eyes and banged my head against the headrest, and yet, despite the frustration, last night flashed back before my eyes in its full glory.
His lips on mine, the taste of him in my mouth, the feel of him inside me.
My cock got hard just thinking of a mere second of what occurred last night.
I opened my eyes if for nothing else than to put an end to the endless loop playing out on the back of my eyelids.
He was in a relationship. I shouldn’t have been fantasizing about him. Love, relationships, sex, they were all dangerous things. They only ever led to disaster. To misery. All this time I was trying to protect others from heartache and I somehow managed to break my own heart with my carelessness.
Ari wasn’t available. He was in a relationship. He was a cheater.
And yet…
The way his hands held me, held on to me, last night. His soft but firm skin against mine. The way his eyes looked at me when he pounded my ass.
Fuck! What am I doing?
What was wrong with me? Here I had all the reasons why Ari was bad for me. Here I had all of my fears realized. And I was dreaming of him.
“You’re an idiot. An old fart of an idiot,” I mumbled under my breath and leaned forwards on my steering wheel trying to cast him out of my mind.
As if I didn’t have bigger things to worry about.
Someone knocked on my window, and I jumped, almost out of my own skin. Dare was standing outside glaring at me with concern, and after a moment, I rolled down my window.
“Dare,” I said.
“What are you doing here? Are you okay?” he asked.
I wanted to tell him I was fine, to project the strength I’d projected since he left me. To be a man, but all I could do was try not to break down, and I shrugged.
“I know that face. What happened?” he asked.
“Nothing. Why are you here?” I looked around for his boyfriend, but he was nowhere to be found.
“Because the others are worried. They heard you stormed into the town hall and haven’t heard from you. What did you do?”
“Nothing,” I said, last night flaring in my mind every time I blinked.
Dare huffed and walked around the car then opened the passenger door, getting in next to me.
“What’s up? I thought we were friends now,” he said.
He looked at me with his bright green eyes.
Eyes I had confided in so many times. Eyes I had looked into many-a-nights when he was making love to me.
Eyes that had haunted me for five years since he put an end to us.
But now all I could see was Dare. Just a friend.
A friend I’d shared something deep with once upon a time, but a friend.
“I slept with Ari,” I said.
It slipped from my mouth before I even realized, but as soon as it was out, I felt a sense of relief take over me. Like I wasn’t being weighed down by it anymore.
“Dr. Ari? Warren’s Ari?” Dare raised an eyebrow.
“He’s not Warren’s anything. I checked,” I said.
“Yeah, I know.” Dare chuckled. “Okay. And you’re freaking out?”
“I wasn’t. Until I woke up.”
“And you realized what you did the night before?”
“No, when I woke up and read a message he received. From his boyfriend.”
Dare’s eyes went wide, and he sat back on his seat. “Oh,” he said.
“Yeah. I mean, it figures I’d screw it up again.”
“Huh? But you didn’t screw anything up. He did. He’s the one who cheated.”
“Yeah, but it’s me we’re talking about. I ruin everything I touch.”
Dare grimaced. “Is that what you think? That you ruined me?”
“I ruined us, and that was enough.”
Dare sighed. “You didn’t ruin us. Your fear did, Wyatt. Your fear of coming out. Of being true to yourself.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I asked.
“Then why don’t you do something about that? What are you so afraid of?”
I thought back to my time in Camp Hell, and the hairs on my arm rose, but I shook my head.
“I’m too old. What point is there in coming out? Everyone already thinks so little of me. Besides, Ari is taken, so…there really is no point.”
Dare shook his head and reached for my hand.
“You wouldn’t be coming out for a guy. You’d be coming out for yourself.
I don’t know what you’re so scared of. Ninety percent of the guys that moved here are some kind of queer or another.
Do you really think they’d kick you to the curb considering they found the love of their lives because of you? ”
“You’d hate me.”
“Why would I hate you?”
“Because I ruined us? Can you imagine me coming out now after I destroyed what we had?”
Dare squeezed my hand and pierced me with his gaze. “Sweetheart, you need to move on. The past is the past. What’s done is done. If it would make you happy to finally be true to yourself, why would I ever hate you?”
I chewed on his words for a moment, but I shook my head after a second or two. “It’s…it’s fine. I was doing fine for so long without someone. I don’t need to rock the boat now. Besides, I've got bigger fish to fry.”
“And yet this fish keeps coming back to haunt you. Maybe it’s time. Maybe that’s why it keeps bugging you when you’ve got bigger things to worry about. Maybe Ari wasn’t the one, but you shouldn’t be doing it for a guy anyway. You should be doing it to find your own inner peace.”
I almost laughed at that.
What inner peace?
I didn’t even know what that was. There was always war in my head. Probably a side effect from being in actual wars. Which made me all the more pathetic for being worried about silly, infantile things like love.
“Start with someone. One person can sometimes be enough.”
I looked at him and blinked. “I came out to you.”
Dare groaned. “I don’t count, you idiot. I’ve been inside you. Of course I knew. Start with a person you have no interest in fucking.”
I choked back a laugh. “Fine.”
“So you’ll do it?” he asked.
“Maybe.” I shrugged.
Probably not.
Was there even a point when I had no interest in pursuing anything with anyone?
Ari and his beautiful smile flashed before my eyes, but I bit my lip, bit my tongue, bit my heart, and cast him out of my mind.
Yeah, right. Who do I think I’m fooling?
Maybe if I talked to him, maybe if I told him what he did—what he made me do—was wrong, it would help.
Yeah.
That sounded like a plan. A plan so I could go back to worrying about real life.