2. Dario
DARIO
I squeeze my eyes shut briefly before opening them again, looking at the silhouette of a woman in my shower. She’s been in there for forty-five minutes, and I’ve got shit to do.
“Sweetheart, you almost done in there?”
I don’t use the pet name because she means anything to me. In fact, I can’t quite remember her name. I wasn’t drunk when I’d picked her up, but I’d had a few, and even though she’d told me her name most likely, I sure as hell don’t know what it is now.
“Almost!” she calls.
I roll my eyes, leaning against the open doorjamb with one shoulder.
“I’ve got work soon,” I call back, hoping she gets the hint.
“Aw. I thought we’d have breakfast together. I could cook for you.”
“I don’t have groceries.”
I really don’t, that much isn’t a lie. I eat out or order in. It’s kind of the way my family has always done things.
The pang in my chest when I think about my parents gets pushed down immediately. They passed two years ago in an accident, and there’s no one to blame. No one but the other driver, I guess.
I draw in a deep breath as she babbles about going to the grocery store together.
“I’ll have to take a rain check, sweetheart. Like I said, I have to work.”
She gets out of the shower and the steam lessens enough that I get a good look at her body. She’s a little skinny, her breasts too small, hips too narrow, but she’s got a good figure, nonetheless. Slight interest makes my dick twitch.
Down, boy.
I’m supposed to meet my best friend and right-hand man, Giovanni, in less than twenty minutes.
“Are you going to kill someone?” she asks, excitement making her dark eyes light up.
I give her a half-grin, amused. “Maybe.”
“Can I watch?”
I chuckle, unable to help myself. “No, sweetheart, Too dangerous.”
She pouts. “Oh, alright. You’ve got my number, right?”
Nope. I’d made a show of putting her contact information into my phone but I hadn’t saved it.
I don’t do repeats. Not ever.
Learned my lesson about that five years ago.
I turn around as she gets dressed, not wanting more temptation. Finally, I get her outside and waiting for my driver as I slide into my muscle car.
“Bye, Dario!”
“Bye, sweetheart,” I mutter, giving her a big fake smile as I back out.
It’s late, almost two in the morning, but this is the time when mobsters do their best work.
I make my way to the diner Giovanni and I always meet at, and he stands from his booth in the back, waving at me.
He makes a show of looking at his watch. “You’re late. Again.”
“Yes, Dad, sorry I missed curfew,” I drawl, and Giovanni laughs, shaking his head.
“You were with a woman, huh?”
I spread my hands apart as if in defense, grinning as I sit down across from him. “Guilty.”
He groans and sits down himself. “Only you would have a one-night-stand that is really only a few hours.”
“A few fun hours,” I correct him, flashing the waitress a smile that makes her blush. “Just some black coffee, sweetheart.”
“Same for me,” Giovanni says, and she heads off to the coffee pot, still flushed but smiling. “Quit hitting on the waitress.”
“Make me.”
Giovanni rolls his eyes. “Did you get rid of her or did she follow you like the last girl?”
I wince. The last girl had been... needy, to say the least.
“Got rid of her. That won’t happen again, don’t worry.”
“It better not. We don’t need a Fatal Attraction situation on our hands,” he jokes, and I laugh out loud.
“Speaking of fatal,” I murmur, leaning across the table as the waitress brings our coffee and takes our orders—home fries for Giovanni, the steak nachos for me. “What’s the word on the new shipment from the Cubans?”
“On track,” he says easily. “Supposed to be dropping around two, so once we’re done here, we’ll head over.”
“No issues from Enrique?”
Giovanni raises an eyebrow. “Are there going to be issues with Enrique?”
I shrug. “Not from me.”
Enrique Vasquez, a Cuban drug lord and a very dangerous man, supplies us with blow, horse, anything we want. This is a huge shipment, though, and the first since I took over the empire. The first since my parents died.
“He’s used to dealing with your father. Do you think...” he trails off.
“Do I think he’ll try to kill me?” I shrug again. “Maybe.”
The waitress puts our coffee cups down on the table, filling them with a carafe and looking at me for a long moment before walking back toward the register. It’s dead in here, just me and Giovanni and the staff, and if we weren’t having a business meeting, I might really have hit on her.
There’s always room in my roster for a few more fun hours.
Giovanni sips his coffee, quirking a dark eyebrow. “You’re certainly taking your demise in stride.”
“I didn’t say he would kill me, just that he might try. We can hold our own.”
He nods, putting his coffee down on the table and looking at his watch.
“Alright, well, we’d better get going. We wouldn’t want to keep Enrique waiting.”
I nod, placing a hundred-dollar bill down on the table and standing up as the waitress walks over to get the tip.
Her eyes, a pretty green, widen as she sees the money on the table.
“Sir—” she starts, but I wave a hand and wink at her. She blushes and looks away.
Giovanni snorts as we walk out. “You’re something else.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whose car are we taking?”
We end up taking his since mine is pretty flashy. He drives a simple, black luxury sedan.
We arrive at the warehouse within ten minutes, parking in the back instead of a couple of blocks away like usual. We want to make a quick exit in case things go south.
Enrique stands at the back of the building, surrounded by crates of drugs. His dark eyes narrow as we walk up.
“You must be Dario.”
“The one and only,” I drawl, smiling. I walk up and shake his hand. He has a firm grip, which makes me feel a little less on edge. We’ve been communicating on the phone for the last year, but we haven’t been able to put together a shipment until now.
I’d taken a year hiatus after my parents were killed, allowing myself some time to grieve, and I’m glad that I did. I came back with a clear head.
“Heard about your parents,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I nod. “Thank you.”
“Your pops was a good man,” he continues. “I hope that you’ll carry on his legacy.”
“That’s the plan.”
He nods, finally seeming to relax, and my heart stops racing.
“Your father never tested my supply, but you’re welcome to.”
I shake my head. “With new suppliers, I bring someone to test them, but I don’t do it myself.”
Enrique gives me a small smile. “You’re a smart man. More like your father than I thought.”
I look a lot like my mother, have her dark eyes and hair, but I’m built like my father, lanky and tall—six-foot-three.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should.”
Enrique leads me over to the shipments, cracking open each crate to show that there’s powder inside. I nod, happy enough. My father trusted Enrique, so I trust him, too.
For now.
Things change on a dime in this lifestyle. That’s why Giovanni is waiting in the car in case I need to make a quick getaway.
“I’d like to make this a regular thing,” I say to Enrique casually, and his smile widens.
“Me too, amigo. I’m a man who has two loves: women and money.”
I grin. “Turns out we have a lot in common.”
Enrique laughs and shakes my hand again, whistling and snapping his fingers.
As I watch in awe, five men appear from within the warehouse. I hadn’t clocked them, not a single one of them, and that’s pretty scary since I’m vigilant.
“All is well,” he tells them, and they file out of the warehouse in a line, like the soldiers they are. Enrique sees my gaping mouth and shrugs, smiling slightly. “Have to be careful in this line of work, amigo.”
“Yes,” I say, still shell-shocked. “Until next time.”
Enrique gives me a sloppy salute and exits out the front. I make my way to the back door.
When I slide into the passenger seat of Giovanni’s car, I see that he’s gone deathly pale.
“Five guys came out of there, don.”
“I know,” I say, laughing a little. “He would have really gotten the drop on us.”
“But it went okay?”
“It went fine,” I assure him. “But I think we need to make sure Enrique Vasquez stays on our good side.”
“Hell yeah, I’d say so,” Giovanni says, letting out a long breath.
Giovanni drives me back to the diner and we say our goodbyes. I wave at him as I get into the car, heading back to my apartment. The mansion seems so empty now without my parents, and I haven’t touched the place since they passed.
The gate isn’t working properly, and I frown. Someone has broken the gate arm, smashed right through it. Usually security is posted up here, but there’s no one stationed there.
Something’s going on. I slowly make my way to the garage and park, but I put my gun in the back of my pants, making sure the safety is turned off.
Voices trail toward me from the left, and I turn to see two men standing near a luxury sedan, much like Giovanni’s.
“There’s a fucking kid in there, Reese! We can’t steal this car.”
“So throw him out.”
“Alright, well, he’d better not fucking bite me or anything.”
“He’s asleep. It’ll be easy.”
I sneak around the side of the building, pulling my gun.
When I get closer, I see a woman’s form lies crumpled on the ground, her dark hair streaming out on the pavement.
Anger rushes through me. It’s not that I’m a saint.
I’ve done things that might break another man, but I don’t hurt women or children, and I don’t tolerate that behavior.
“We could take the girl,” one of the men says. “Have a little—”
Before he can finish his sentence I tackle him, knocking him to the ground.
“Hey, what the fuck?” the other man, a blond, says before the other man goes down. The blond looks up to see me pointing my gun at his head. “Hey man, we don’t want any trouble.”
When I walk closer, I recognize him—the new security guard.
“You sonofabitch,” I seethe, pressing the silencer barrel into his forehead.
He whimpers. “Don’t kill me. There’s cameras.”
I give him a slow, wicked smile. “Oh yeah? I know. I had them installed. I own this complex. And clearly I need to review my hiring policies.”
I pistol whip him before he can take another breath and he drops like a sack of potatoes.
Blood from his nose splatters on my face and I make a disgusted noise, wiping at it. It probably only smears, but I don’t care.
I make my way to the car, checking on the kid first. He’s curled up under a blanket with one bare foot out and it makes me smile. I sleep like that sometimes, one leg out. It seems to keep me cool. He seems to be sleeping and when I open the back door, his soft snores make relief wash over me.
The car is full of trash bags and boxes. It’s clear that they’ve been living in it. My heart aches for them. But why would they be here? This is a rich part of town, only the upper-crust live here because it’s so expensive.
I go to the woman next, gently turning her over, hoping she’s not dead. When she rolls over she makes a slight groan.
As I’m watching, the two men I took down stand up, scampering away. Usually, I’d run after them, but I feel like I’m glued to this spot.
It feels like someone dumped a bucket of cold water over my head. I’m fucking trembling as I look down at the woman’s face—bruised on one side but beautiful.
Liana Rossi.
The only woman I’ve ever loved. The only woman who ever broke my heart.