24. Dario
DARIO
I stand outside the warehouse with two bodies inside it for far too long, staring after Liana’s car. She’s gone. She won’t go to Beth’s, not after what happened tonight, so she’ll likely be safe, but...
I grab Giovanni’s arm anyway.
“She left out of here like a bat out of hell,” Giovanni starts but I just shake my head listlessly.
The words she said keep repeating in my head. She’s going to annull the marriage. She’s going to leave me.
Again.
“I need you to keep an eye on her car. I threw an AirTag in it and she hasn’t removed it yet. Just track her and make sure she’s okay.”
Giovanni raises an eyebrow. “You don’t want to do that yourself?”
“No,” I say flatly. “I’m going out with Rocco.”
Giovanni stares at me. “Going out? On a night like tonight? Boss, you just almost got killed, and--”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I’m not going to argue with him. I plan on blacking out tonight, and I don’t care that it’s immature and impractical.
Rocco even gives me a sideways glance when I tell him we’re going out.
“Get a driver,” I tell him, and he nods. I follow him in my car to his place to park, and he heads upstairs to change, coming back down in a pair of black slacks and a silk shirt.
“You going to actually get laid tonight?”
“Your lips to God’s ears,” I mutter, because God knows, I’m going to try. Liana hates me. She told me so. She hates me, would rather live in her car than spend any more time with me.
That’s clear enough, isn’t it? There was a reason she left in the first place, but I guess she’s never going to tell me why. Maybe she just didn’t want me. Not for anything more than sex, anyway. I’m just a distraction to her, some kind of release.
She doesn’t want to be with me.
And God, I shouldn’t want to be with her, either. Not after everything she put me through, not after she moved on to someone else, had his baby...
I should hate her for that, for leaving me, for letting someone else touch her while I was still reeling. But there’s no hatred in my heart, just a heavy, empty feeling deep in my chest.
A void that I’m on a mission to fill with booze and women.
A driver takes us to a local club, and it’s loud and senseless and everything I need to not think.
I sit at the bar next to Rocco and take shots with him until the music starts to sound less annoying and more upbeat.
“What are you drinking?” a bottle redhead asks me, her hand lighting on my arm.
I choke on the shot, coughing before pulling myself together.
“Rocco? What the hell are we drinking?”
“Top shelf tequila,” he answers, and I groan.
That’s probably why the room is already spinning. I usually stick to sipping scotch, but tonight I wanted to not be on this planet, and I trust Rocco with that task.
The redhead giggles. “My name’s Viola. You don’t like tequila?”
“Not particularly, Viola,” I drawl, and then she’s perching on my lap and I don’t care.
I don’t see Liana’s gray eyes behind my eyelids every time I close them. I don’t hear her words, “I hate you,” over and over in the back of my mind.
Finally the redhead gets up to go to the bathroom and if she beckons me to go with her, I don’t notice. I’m focused on looking down at the gold liquid in my glass, trying not to think of the last time I had Liana naked and writhing beneath me.
“So you’re not going to get laid again,” Rocco says, too loud, next to my ear and I startle.
“I’m not?” I look up at him, blinking as I have double vision.
Rocco sighs. “You’ve got it bad, boss. I hate to say that, I really do, but it’s true.”
He heaves me up and then we’re back in a car and I’m losing time, in and out of consciousness. I protest as the driver goes to my house.
“Not there,” I mumble. “Take me to my penthouse.”
Not that it’s much better there. That’s where all my memories with Liana are stored, that fucking penthouse. Because I took her there like she was just going to be another notch on my headboard.
Idiot.
I wish I’d never met her. I wish I’d never looked into those gray eyes and seen my whole future.
“My payment for carrying your drunk ass inside is crashing on your couch,” Rocco mutters as he helps me up to the elevator.
“Fair enough,” I say agreeably. I probably would agree to damn near anything, in the state I’m in.
“You’re still in love with her,” Rocco says with a grunt as he throws me onto the couch.
I let my head fall back against the couch cushion, sighing.
“Yep.”
“And you don’t want her to go.”
“Nope.”
“Even though she hates you?”
“That’s pretty much the long and short of it, yeah.”
Rocco whistles. “I don’t envy you, boss. Not one bit.”
And I know, just like that, that I’m utterly fucked.
I’m still in love with her, just like he said. Crazy about her, in fact. I’d adopt Sonny as my own in a second.
And that’s pathetic, given how painful learning about his existence was. But he’s a good kid. A lot like her.
Strong. Beautiful.
I start to sober up and I don’t like it one bit.
“See if there’s any tequila in my bar.”
Rocco grins crookedly. “That’s what I’m talking about, boss.”
He heads happily over to the bar and I stare into space, thinking of her brake lights flashing as she drove away.
She’s not coming back.