26. Dario
DARIO
A few more shots of tequila later, Rocco and I make the unanimous decision to go back out.
“We’re finally going to get you laid,” Rocco says, his words slurred around the edges, and I shrug.
I don’t have the heart to tell him I’m not interested.
All I want is Liana back. I want to hold her close, beg her to tell me why she left, what I did wrong. To tell me so that I can fix it.
I’m past hating her. I just want her back.
But she doesn’t want me. I have to accept that, don’t I?
So what’s there to do other than bury myself in someone else?
We walk the couple of blocks to the club and it feels like we teleport there, given the amount of alcohol in our bloodstreams.
The redhead who flirted with me before is still there, and she makes a beeline to me, smiling and cupping my face with one hand.
“You look like you’ve been through it, honey,” she whispers close to my ear, and I give her a sheepish smile.
“Maybe.”
“Some girl did you wrong?”
I look down at her, surprised by her astuteness.
I nod slowly, and she wraps her arms around my neck.
“I can help you forget about her. Hell, I’ll pretend to be her, if that’s what you want.”
I frown. “You deserve more than that.”
She looks up at me, blinking big green eyes that suddenly look wet.
“Maybe I do. You’re a good guy, you know that?”
“I dunno about that,” I mumble, but her arms are slipping from around my neck and she’s being carried off by a group of friends.
I look after her for a long moment.
“Did you strike out with the redhead?” Rocco asks incredulously.
“I guess so.”
“You really do have it bad,” he snorts, and I nudge him with my shoulder, meeting a pair of blue eyes in the crowd and freezing.
It’s him.
That guy that Liana went on the date with. The one she was looking up at, smiling at, leaning into right before he leaned down and...
“Hey!” I call out before I know what I’m doing. “Hey asshole! Howard, isn’t it? Scott Howard?”
He turns slowly and Rocco goes pale.
“Boss he’s like twice my size, are you sure you wanna—”
“What do you want?” Scott Howard barks, and I roll my shoulders around, grinning wildly at him.
“You touched my wife,” I mutter under my breath. Scott doesn't even hear me.
“What?”
“You tried to kiss my fucking wife!” I yell, throwing my fist into his face, and then it’s all a blur of bodies and grappling. I don’t know who kicks me in the ribs but it fucking hurts and I yelp, rolling over.
Scott Howard is trying to crawl away but I grab him around his thick ankle, yanking him back into the fray and throwing my fist into his body.
He grunts and tries to throw me over his body but I manage to move away. Eventually, the sirens break up the fight and everyone scatters like cockroaches—everyone but me, Scott, and Rocco.
I’m hauled up to my feet, my stomach rolling, and I turn to see Dick the detective standing there.
“You’re always at the scene of the crime lately, Conte,” he drawls, and I grin.
“I’ll make it worth your while if you let me go.”
“I think I’ll keep you in for tonight, drunk as you are.”
I frown. “You can’t put me in jail.”
“Watch me.”
Rocco groans as he’s thrown into the back of Dick’s car, and I get in without a fuss, shocked that Dick’s actually arresting me.
“I think that guy you were fighting broke my fucking ribs.”
“Walk it off, Rocco.”
I can’t help the laugh bubbling up out of me. Liana leaves me for one night and I go off the rails. She probably wouldn’t find it so funny, but I can’t help laughing almost all the way back to the station.
My face hurts and I realize my nose is bleeding when I wipe it and my sleeve comes away bloody. Howard must have gotten me with an elbow or something.
He’s being processed next to me, though, so I must have given as good as I got. I grin at him but he won’t look at me.
Rocco and I get thrown in the drunk tank, and I lie down on the bunk.
“How are we getting out of here, boss?”
I don’t open my mouth to tell him I don’t care if we ever get out, that if Liana’s gone I don’t have anything to go back to.
“You get one phone call, but you’re not leaving until you sober up,” the female cop says to me, leading me out of the cell to a phone. I nod, considering not even making a call.
In the end, for Rocco, I call Giovanni.
“Boss, what the fuck are you still doing up?” Giovanni answers, his voice raspy from sleep.
“Went out with Rocco.”
“Fuck. Of course you did.”
“And well, there was this bar fight.”
“Of course there was. Are you two in the fucking drunk tank?”
“We are,” I say, and laughter wants to bubble up in my chest all over again. I don’t quite know why. I guess the situation is ridiculous. Me, the don. Getting locked up by the very detective I have in my pocket.
I’m really making Papa proud.
“Fuck. I’m coming to get you.”
“Don’t bother coming until daylight. They say we have to sober up first. But bring bail for me and Rocco and....” I sigh. “Also, bail Scott Howard out of jail.”
“Scott Howard? Who the fuck is—”
“Just do it, okay?”
“Alright, boss. I’ll... I’ll see you in the morning.”
I head back into the cell and Rocco looks up at me blearily.
“We posting bail?”
“In the morning,” I mumble, and he doesn’t respond. I curl up on the bed, which is hard and unyielding, and the alcohol in my system forces me to pass out as soon as my head hits the cot.
I wake up with my mouth dry and sticky, daylight streaming through the bars of the cell.
“I feel like something crawled in my mouth and died,” Rocco groans from the other side of the room.
Some kid, younger than both of us, is sleeping on one of the other cots.
I sit up and rub my face.
“Giovanni’s coming,” I croak, and Rocco nods, too tired to argue, I guess. He usually would be pissed I called Giovanni.
They call Rocco out first. I wait and wait, sitting on the edge of the cot.
They bark out my name.
I stand up with effort, wincing at the pain in my head.
“You getting out of here?” the kid asks me, apparently conscious now.
“Guess so.”
“Lucky you.”
I don’t feel very fucking lucky.
Giovanni glares at me.
“I’ve already chewed out Rocco for getting you in that situation.”
“It wasn’t his fault.”
“So what, it was your fault? I thought you had the local police department in your pocket.”
“I do,” I groan. “At least, I did. He said I was at the scene of the crime too often.”
“We’ll call Phil.”
Phil Harvel is my lawyer and he’s always on retainer.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter.
“I know this shit with Beth has you twisted but—”
“Just don’t. Not now, alright?”
Giovanni looks at me for a moment, as if trying to decide if chewing me out is worth the fight.
I don’t care one way or the other. I wish I could make him understand that. Liana’s gone. There's not much else to fight about.
“Is she safe?” My words come out in a grunt.
“Far as I can tell. She spent all night at a hotel.”
I nod, my shoulders relaxing in relief. “You’re sure?”
“Kept an eye on it all night. I checked a few moments before I picked you up, and the car is still there.”
“I still want real eyes on her,” I argue, and Giovanni nods.
“I’ll put our best guys on it.” He pauses, looking at me. “What are we going to do about...”
“Beth?”
He nods, and I let out a long breath through my nostrils.
“There’s nothing we can do, is there? We have to kill her.”
As much as I wish I could just take a pinky, she’d broken the one rule of the Conte family—she tried to kill the don. More than once.
“Alright, boss. We’ll make a plan.”
Making a plan to kill Beth just makes me feel further and further away from Liana. She’d never approve of any kind of plan that might hurt Beth.
But I have to protect myself. Protect her. Protect my empire.
Even if it makes Liana hate me.