Dagger in the Sea Read online

  “Better.”

  “Sorry, I’m just real sensitive there.”

  I twisted her other nipple and she pressed her lips shut against another gasp. “You say, ‘Oh yeah.’”

  She smiled softly. “Oh yeah.”

  “Hmm. Ass.”

  She flipped over onto her knees, and I spread her ass cheeks and spit, carefully fingering her tight hole. “Have you done this before?”

  “Yes.” She rocked her ass back and forth.

  “My fucking lucky night then.” I had lube ready and squished a dollop into her. I slid my dick in between her ass cheeks, and stroked. She moaned, rocking against me, and I got hard again. Condom on, I nudged my cock past her tight ring, inch by slow inch.

  “Play with your clit,” I gritted out.

  Pleasure pulsated through me as she began to push back, her grip strangling my hard length, her hand working fast between her legs.

  Robot.

  Robot.

  Hollow robot.

  Fuck you, Ciara, for your tears.

  Fuck you, Serena, for making me want to want more.

  Gripping her hips tightly, I pulled out slowly. “With every pound of my cock, you fucking moan.”

  She moaned.

  I controlled my orgasm. I wanted this one long, long, long, and hard won.

  She pressed her head against the sofa for stability, her hand steadily working between her legs, as I burrowed deep into her perfect tightness, finally allowing myself to blow.

  I released her. “Bedroom. This way.” I pointed toward my guest bedroom.

  She tottered in there on her heels, her ripped panty hanging on an ankle, a damp sheen in between her legs. My artwork in the making. I followed her into the room, pushing her back on the bed, and she lay there, hips twisting, tattoos fluttering on her flesh.

  Reminding me of her. Serena’s face flooded my vision.

  It all started when Serena had come to me one night. She’d never spoken to me before, but that night she asked me for a favor. Not your everyday request from a friend of your girlfriend’s. Could you get me a cab? Could you make me a reservation at that hot new restaurant I can’t get into? Could you pick us up from the nightclub because we’ve had too much to drink? Those were normal requests. No, not Serena.

  She asked me to get rid of a dead body in her apartment because she didn’t want the police involved.

  The moment she’d entered the restaurant where I was enjoying a glass of wine at the bar and her eyes locked on mine, I knew she needed me. I sensed it immediately—she was full of desperate hope, full of hopeless desperation. She had the keen, quiet determination of a lioness with the startling calmness of an ordinary cat, but for the first time, there was a scent of vulnerability about her that put the bouquet of my Cabernet to shame.

  Something inside me flared awake, a slick of pleasure washing through me, unlike any I had ever known.

  I agreed instantly to her request, eager to see the consequences of her wrath. At her trashed and blood-filled tiny apartment, I’d recognized the club tattoos on her victim’s burly body. I knew there was a story there, not the bullshit one she told me. I would unwind the truth from her tightly fisted hands, loosen it from those sensual lips.

  And I did.

  I was like a dog with a barbecued pork bone. I chewed deeper, chasing the flavor, and got to the delicious marrow. Serena was Med McGuire’s former “old lady.” He’d kidnapped her as a teenager and kept her, abusing her for years, until she’d escaped and landed in Chicago.

  Initially, I had fully intended on making her pay her debt to me for cleaning it all up in a number of satisfying, interesting ways, but an alternate plan had unfolded before me like a mathematical equation suddenly clarified. To have insider information from an intimate source on this mysterious legendary outlaw who worked with our rivals was a priceless opportunity.

  The things I could do with that sort of information. I would do them all, and the Boss would be not only impressed, but grateful, so fucking grateful. As time went on, I’d realized, much to my surprise, that I had an ulterior motive in terrorizing Med and ruining his business—I wanted to make him suffer for what he’d done to Serena. Emotionally, physically, sexually. A compulsion to satisfy her with his torture overtook me. I would make him pay and make her smile. A dark mission from my dark heart. An unspeakable gift.

  I’d promised her he’d pay, and I sensed her tense excitement. It was in her silence, in her tripping breath, the slow blink of those eyes, her stillness. I knew.

  She agreed to rat on him.

  By killing Med I’d gotten rid of a cockroach in the crap apartment of life and cut off a vital circuit on the motherboard of the Tantucci network. But what had given me the most pleasure was the simpler thing. It remained through the flames and the smoke—I’d done a good deed for a good woman. That actually felt good, and in a wholly new and different way. Surprising. Worthy of a grand statement kill, worthy of risking the fallout.

  I’d ignored it at the time; that tug deep inside as I thrust the knife into her tormentor’s neck that afternoon. It had been sharp, that tug. Made me blink, take a breath. Satisfaction. Justice. Full circle. Definitely a good deed.

  I had his body trashed in the dumpster at the motel because I wanted the animal’s ugly demise heralded on the news—I wanted her to know. Serena had left Chicago behind, but wherever she was, I wanted her to know that I’d done this for her. To know that beyond a doubt she was finally safe.

  “What would you like me to do for you tonight?” my fake Serena whispered from the bed, snapping me back to reality.

  Serena certainly hadn’t said that to me that night on the floor. She’d been angry, angry in her pleasure, cold, distant, but I hadn’t cared one damned bit. I was getting what I wanted, wasn’t I?

  I yanked on the zipper of the bag the girl had brought, yanking away those memories. “Get on your knees.”

  She folded herself into position immediately, and I found what I wanted in the bag.

  “Is that for me?” she asked, plucking at her nipples.

  What a quick learner.

  She bit her lip, one hand slowly stroking the inside of a thigh. My cock stiffened at her words, at that soft pliant voice delighted for my direction, those eyes inviting more of whatever the fuck I wanted, those strokes preparing the way for me.

  Sell the fantasy. Sell, I’m buying.

  I tapped the side of her cheek with the leather crop, and her lips parted.

  “Tonight, I want to break that fucking headboard.” I swatted the side of her tit with the crop, and she let out a small gasp. I swatted her nipple. Again. Harder. I slid the crop between her legs. Back and forth, back and forth. She lifted her hips, planting her hands behind her on the mattress. Her breath shorted as her eyes followed the crop trailing up her torso, fluttering around her tits, skimming up her throat, across her lips. She took it in her mouth.

  “Yeah.”

  We broke the fucking headboard.

  7

  Turo

  “Excuse me. Hey.”

  Something tapped on my shoulder. I forced one eye open, blinking up at her.

  The girl had settled on the edge of the bed. “Are we finished now?”

  “What?” My eyes were bleary from sleep, my limbs aching from the alcohol and so much feral activity. “You have a date or something?” I said, turning over on my back, rubbing my face.

  “Actually, yeah I do. With my boyfriend. I need to go home, clean up and get ready.”

  Everyone was in a relationship, for fuck’s sake.

  “I don’t mean any disrespect by asking,” she said, a finger rubbing the edges of her very swollen lips.

  “None taken.”

  “I wasn’t scheduled for tonight, but I’m glad it worked out.”

  Twisting over on the bed, I opened my night stand drawer and tossed her a tight, crisp roll of five one hundred dollar bills. “Here.”

  “Gosh, thank you, but Tricia’s paying m
e for this. She said—”

  “This is from me. You did well. Keep it up.”

  Her face brightened. “Okay, great. Thanks.” She scooted off the mattress. “Have a good rest of your evening.”

  She dressed quickly in the living room where she’d taken off her clothes. Naked, I saw her to the door, pulling it open for her. Another figure stood in my private hallway, filling the shadows with his aroma of cigar smoke and anger.

  The Boss. Mauro Guardino.

  My breath throttled in my weary chest. I’d recognize that bulky form, that smell anywhere. I pushed the girl into the elevator and she squeaked out a yelp as the doors closed in her face.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “To interrupt you. Seems like I did.”

  “No, you didn’t. Sorry to disappoint you.”

  He brushed past me, entering my apartment. “Get some clothes on, wash your hands, and pour me a drink.”

  Motherfucker.

  I let out a sigh. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  I showered, put on a cotton robe, and returned to my living room where he waited for me on the sofa, his coat thrown sloppily on a nearby leather armchair.

  “Whisky? Brandy? Cognac?” I asked.

  “Brandy.”

  I poured the liquor into a snifter and handed it to him. Water for me, I’d had enough.

  “You found another way to amuse yourself after what you did today?” he asked, gripping the crystal glass.

  “Had to pour all that energy into someone else, didn’t I?”

  He threw the glass at me, I ducked, and it missed me, crashing on the floor at my side.

  “That was Baccarat,” I muttered.

  “You trying to make some kind of point today?” he asked through gritted teeth.

  “Your daughter has always had a crush on me, Mauro. I, for one, have always stayed away.”

  “Today you encouraged her. She’s your sister!”

  I let out a breath. “I apologize, it was stupid. I allowed all that shit with Val to get the best of me.” I handed him a new glass with more liquor.

  Mauro took it and dipped his head. “All right.”

  “Val’s jealousy and resentment are a fucking problem, and you need to deal with it,” I said. “He’s starting to interfere with my business, the very successful business I run for you, and I don’t like it.”

  He took a gulp of his drink. “I’ll handle it. You watch yourself.”

  “There’s something else I need to discuss with you. Something important.”

  “Other than that biker mess? I have to hand it to you, Turo. I’m glad you made that fucker tap dance all this time, making the Tantuccis scramble. Well done. Very well done.”

  My pulse thudded in my neck. He’d been impressed? It certainly hadn’t seemed that way earlier in his office. Once again, he’d never acknowledge his approval and pleasure in front of Val and all the rest of them, would he?

  Was this why he’d come over here? To pat me on the back as well as slap me upside the head for my confrontations with his children? I used to like it, love it, in fact, his special attention to me when I’d perform well; taking me aside and complimenting me with a quick slap on the back, a wink across the room, a quick call hours later. But I wasn’t a kid eagerly climbing up the ladder anymore. I was stuck on the middle rung, and getting stepped on by assholes who were hustling to the top.

  I said, “It’s about my mother.”

  “Erin?” he narrowed his eyes as he took another swig of his brandy.

  “Why are you fucking with her? I thought that was done the minute you got me over to the dark side.”

  His forehead buckled. “Did she come crying to you?”

  “No.” I put down my glass. “Erin doesn’t cry or whine.”

  He licked his lips, shaking his head. “Her and her friends are making my life difficult. So I’m pushing back.”

  “Unpush.”

  The heaviness of his glare turned positively leaden, and the air sucked out of the room. “Why do you give a shit?”

  “My mother is off limits to you. Let go of her liquor license. She’s just as stubborn as you are. You don’t think she’ll come up with some way to expose you, get the law interested in you? They’ve laid off you for a long time now. You’ve been lucky. But if you make things contentious—”

  “It’s my neighborhood. She needs to show respect.”

  “What do you want? A hundred camels and ten pots of gold?”

  “Don’t be flip with me.”

  “Don’t be an asshole when you don’t have to be.”

  “You better watch your mouth.” His lips stiffened, pressing together.

  He was capable of anything, wasn’t he? How many times had I seen it and been impressed? Whether it be bankrupting a small, family owned business in the blink of an eye because they were overdue on a loan, or beating a lackey to death because he’d spoken out of turn, I’d seen it all from Mauro Guardino. He could convince himself of anything to make himself feel better, to feel righteous.

  What made me think he wouldn’t turn that on my mother, a person who he’d transformed into an enemy?

  “You better not hurt her in any way, do you understand?” I said.

  “Or what?”

  “Don’t.”

  “You give a shit about the woman who turned her back on you?”

  “That’s between me and her.”

  “Well, this is between me and her. She’s there, in my face, and I don’t like it. I don’t like her.”

  My chest tightened. “You know, I don’t much like being your go-to boy on call, but I do it when you need me to. I never say no.”

  His upper lip curled into beginnings of a snarl. “You trying to tell me something?”

  “I want a real cut of the business that I’ve been running for you. I made your crappy brothels streamlined moneymakers with a good reputation. You need the cash and the contacts I cultivate, the favors that business generates. And yet—”

  “And yet, what? You get a percentage, a good one. I can’t give you no more, how would it look?”

  “You keep feeding me pieces here, pieces there, making promises…‘Someday, Turo. Be patient, Turo.’ I’m done being patient, Mauro. I get that I can’t move up the Italian ladder, but I work hard for you. I lost out on having anything from my mother. She’ll never trust me again. She’s done with me.”

  “It’s not my fault she’s a cunt.”

  I ground my jaw. “She is my mother. Don’t call her that. Not ever.”

  “What’s gotten into you, huh?”

  What had gotten into me? Seeing Erin today in her lair, how she’d continued to be a success without me. How I’d once been a part of that success. Of her life. I missed her. My ego had been keeping me company just fine all these years, but being in her presence again had brought back things I had pushed away…belonging, a sense of family, sharing the same taste, building something together.

  With the Guardinos, I fought on my own for every inch, every cut. Erin’s business was competitive and cutthroat too—well, not literally cutthroat like Mauro’s. But there wasn’t all this fucking drama I had to deal with here on a daily basis. The older I got, the more I was over it and the less I wanted to put up with it.

  I raised my chin. “Did you threaten her?”

  “I’m not going to let her and her pansy ass gentrification committee pals get the best of our neighborhood. They think they can just steamroll through when and how they want.”

  “You’re going to have to make adjustments. This isn’t anything new. Don’t let your personal shit with her cloud your judgement.”

  His lips twisted. “Oh, I don’t need your council on this particular matter.”

  “Obviously. That’s why you’ve kept me out of it, right?”

  He leaned back against the sofa. “As I said, none of your concern.”

  “My mother’s safety and well being are my concern, Mauro. I’m asking you to pull back.
If it’s not her restaurant, it’ll be someone else’s. Then a bar, a café, a fucking Starbucks.”

  “None of your concern.”

  End of discussion? I ground my jaw. None of his family knew about me, and I’d accepted that. I’d accepted his conditions from the very beginning. He liked me working in his business, appreciated my talents. He needed to give me this much. “I’ve been your lackey, your bodyguard, your pimp, your secret messenger, your assassin, your accountant, your advisor. But I’m also your son, and I’m asking you to let this go.”

  Mauro sniffed in air, rubbing his fingers along his throat. “Pour me another drink.”

  I took his glass and poured him another, handing it back to him. He drank. “I need you, Turo.”

  “You need to need Val,” I shot back.

  He pointed a finger at me, eyes beaming. “You’re right. Do one thing for me, and I’ll give you what you want. I’ll lay off your mother.”

  That phrase. It was always one thing, one more thing. Hang on, Turo, just do this thing. His exact words ten years ago, words I’d sucked into my soul and fed on, thinking they’d feed my hunger.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Val was supposed to get hired by Gennaro Aliberti for his new hotel in Chicago,” he said.

  Aliberti was a hotelier from Miami who owned a popular hotel conglomerate which included high-end casinos in Vegas and trendy boutique hotels in New York City and Miami. Now, he was planning on opening a hotel in Chicago. Mauro wanted in on that prestige. He wanted the connections that such a working relationship with Gennaro might provide. And to top it all off, Gennaro came from mob royalty in Napoli. His brother was the head of one of the strongest and oldest families there.

  “Right,” I said. “You’d made a bid for construction, carting—”

  “The whole thing. This was going to be the beginning of a new relationship.”

  “You and Aliberti have always been on good terms. I thought that was a go ahead,” I said. Aliberti’s resort in Vegas was Mauro’s favorite vacation spot. Aliberti’s famiglia back in Napoli were a major locus of crime in southern Europe. Getting this job would be a coup for the Guardino name among the other Chicago Outfits.