Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Dav

It had been a week since the party at Renzo’s place.

And I was a fucking wreck.

There was no other way to put it.

I wasn’t sleeping because I was lying awake thinking about the night in my bed, the night in Renzo’s office, trying to figure out where things had clearly gone wrong in each instance for her to walk away like she’d done.

Like it meant nothing at all.

Normally, I would be thrilled about that.

Nothing ruined some good, mutually satisfying fun like someone pulling the whole “So, what are we?” thing.

Sex, for my entire goddamn life, had been uncomplicated.

Until now, it seemed.

Because there was nothing simple about what it felt like was going on between myself and Cinna.

A cynical part of me wanted to claim it was simply because she was also a colleague and friend. That it was just the confusion of all those lines getting blurry.

The other part, though, knew it was more than that. I mean, yeah, it factored in. Because I was pretty sure if I’d fucked Cinna back when we first met, I wouldn’t be feeling as mixed up as I was about it right now. Getting to know her as a person absolutely was the biggest factor in this.

Because I just genuinely… liked the woman.

Respected her.

Enjoyed her company.

Add in the physical shit, and yeah, things were complicated and confusing and I had no fucking idea what to do with the tornado of thoughts constantly twisting and turning in my head.

All I knew was that, for a brief moment in that office, Cinna felt it too.

It was why she’d taken control, why she’d fucked me hard and rough. It was why she’d made sure she was the one to blow it off and walk away.

Because if there was anything Cinna hated, it was feeling out of control. Of anything, sure. But I imagined it was doubly so about her own feelings.

And there was no doubt in my mind that as she leaned back against me and let me hold her, that for one glorious moment, she’d been all caught up in her feelings.

About me.

About us.

About whatever the fuck was growing between us.

Cinna was great with anything that required hardness and brute force. If you wanted someone to have your back, to plow her way through anything and anyone, she was your girl.

But she’d never been good with soft.

I think the only time I’d ever seen her show even a hint of that was when she’d first become friends with Lore, when she’d gone toe-to-toe with the boss about his treatment of her.

Even then, though, her concern had been forceful.

Because she’d been protecting the softness in Lore. She hadn’t wanted to see Lore turn hard like life had forced her to become.

I knew, though, that underneath that outer shell of hers, there was hidden tenderness that I wanted her to trust me with.

She just wasn’t there yet.

And I had to learn to be patient.

No matter how frustrated I was feeling. Sexually and otherwise.

“We waiting for something?” I asked Rico as we stood outside of a local butcher shop that, apparently, hadn’t paid the family what it owed us in six weeks.

Two capos, frankly, felt like overkill, but Rico kept glancing around like he was waiting for someone else.

“Guess not,” he said, tucking his phone away, and reaching to unlatch the band on his holster before making short work of the lock, and making his way inside.

I followed, staying several feet behind him to keep an eye on the empty front room in case someone came rushing out.

It was a big space with the temperature set to chilly thanks to all the refrigeration cases around, boasting different cuts of meat.

Rico nodded toward the door to the back, and we both made our way in that direction, hearing the sound of male voices and the distinct scent of cigar smoke swirled outward toward us.

I pulled my gun as Rico did his, not knowing how many men might be back there. Or if they had weapons. We had to at least imagine there were knives lying around, given their profession.

“Interrupting some—“ Rico started, but his words trailed off, his body tensing, making me move in closer, wanting to see what he was seeing.

I don’t know what I’d been expecting.

But it wasn’t the scene in front of us.

Namely, the trio of men standing around smoking while a third man dangled from a meat hook by the handcuffs that were digging into his wrists, the blood already dripping down his arms. Plastic wrap, the kind they likely used to wrap the meat in the styrofoam trays, was wrapped around his face, covering his mouth, keeping his eyes forced open wide, and crushing his nose enough that breathing must have been difficult.

“The fuck?” Rico snapped, raising his gun, aiming at the guy who ran the shop while I shifted my gun between the other two.

This was not supposed to be one of our partners. This was just a local business that paid us for protection. What the fuck were they doing with a man strung up in their back room?

“How the fuck did you—“ one of them started.

“Think I’m the one asking questions here,” Rico said.

“We don’t answer to you anymore,” the youngest said, puffing out his chest.

“Shut the fuck up,” the owner, likely his father, snapped, glaring at the guy.

“Oh, no?” Rico asked, a chill seeping into his words. “Who the fuck you answering to then?”

There was a reason Rico was Renzo’s right-hand-man, despite most of us coming up together and having the same level of experience.

Rico was a family man, through-and-through. Any real or perceived threat to our organization was treated as a personal attack. He lived, ate, and breathed this life.

More than that, he was always collected, even when he was pissed off. He didn’t have a dark side that rose up like I did, making him unpredictable. He wasn’t as empathetic as Elian could be. Or even have the chip on his shoulder that Cinna did.

All in all, he was as well-adjusted as you could get for a fucking lifelong criminal.

“Don’t gotta tell you shit,” the owner said, gaze hard.

Whoever they were linked up with now, they thought they stood a chance against our family. Which was either unbelievably na?ve, or we had a big, unknown threat on our hands.

It wouldn’t be the first time. Someone was always putting pressure on us, thinking the mob wasn’t the powerhouse it used to be. Or just ballsy enough to believe they could take us.

It had been a while, though, since someone came out of left field on us.

“Oh, I believe you’re gonna fucking tell me everything I want to know,” Rico said, tone deceptively calm, even though we were outnumbered. “Maybe while I have you strapped up on the meat hook. But I won’t put you up there by your wrists,” he added, making one of the guys I was watching blanche.

“You don’t know who you’re fucking with,” the owner said, trying to come off as unfazed, but sweat was beading in his hairline as Rico reached for a cigar in the ashtray, and snuffed it out.

“The fuck is this? You fancy yourself mobsters now?” he asked, speaking mostly to himself. “Now, I think the problem here is, Gary, that you don’t know who you are fucking with. Or how much I will enjoy grabbing one of these boys of yours, strapping him to a chair, and start clipping off some digits. That don’t work, could use one of these nice knives of yours to carve them open, and start pulling out organs.”

“You’re not going to do shit,” one of the boys said, the one with the puffed chest, making Rico’s gaze cut to him, brow raised.

The father, though, took the opportunity to rush to the side, grabbing a cleaver, and charging.

Just as the back door flew open, and Cinna moved into the space, gun raised, and aimed.

Then, into the small space, a bullet rang out just a half of a second before the father howled as he fell to his knees, hands going to his calf as the cleaver clattered to the ground several feet away.

“About fucking time,” Rico said, unbothered by the almost attack, his tone calm even as the younger kid cried out for his father, and the older one glowered at us.

“Don’t even think about it,” another voice joined the fold, making me glance over to see Coal standing there, gun aimed at the older kid. Who was trying to reach for a knife lying on a table a few feet at his side. “Who’s the poor schmuck?” he asked, nodding his chin toward the man still dangling, bleeding, and struggling to breathe.

“How about you get these fucks incapacitated, so we can figure that out?” Rico asked as Cinna was already wrenching the father’s arms up, and slapping on zip ties that she pulled tight enough to make him cry out even as his bullet wound kept bleeding through his pant leg.

Coal tucked his gun away, going for the bolder kid first, kicking the backs of his knees until he hit the ground, then struggling for a moment to hold him still so Cinna could slip on the zip ties.

He was still working on the slowly crying younger son when the back door opened again, and this time, Renzo himself moved in.

His gaze moved around the space, then landed on Cinna. “You were right to call,” he said.

“I got here before you, asshole,” Cinna said, voice devoid of ill will, as she looked at Rico. “Clocked it not being good, and called in reinforcements.”

Even as she said it, more bodies started flowing in through the back door. A bunch of Renzo’s soldiers, who started moving around, gathering the men, and taking the one down from the hook.

“Guess you thought you could fuck with me, huh?” Renzo asked, looming over the father as he hissed and whimpered in pain.

I stepped back, tucking my gun away now that Renzo and his crew were here to take over.

I found my gaze seeking Cinna, watching as she cut the duct tape Coal was unraveling to put over the mouth of the older kid who felt the need to tell us all the ways he was going to make us pay, despite being incapacitated.

She was as capable as ever, moving with a catlike sort of grace even as she moved from duct tape duty to helping a couple of Renzo’s soldiers pull the guy down from the meat hook.

“Toss that one in the freezer,” Renzo said, nodding toward the difficult son. “The other in the walk-in fridge. We will deal with them later.”

With that, everyone started to follow their orders until the only person left in the kitchen with us was the guy who was being unwrapped as he sucked in greedy, frantic breaths.

It was then that Cinna’s hand went into her pocket, fishing out her phone, and bringing it to her ear.

“What? Slow down. Right now? Okay. I’m coming.”

It seemed I was the only person who noticed the call, or even the way Cinna ducked out the back door without a word. In a rush to be… somewhere. Where something was clearly going down.

“Boss,” I called, waiting for Renzo to turn to me.

“Yeah?”

“Mind if I bounce?” I asked. “Seems like you got enough hands here.”

“Yeah. Go on. No reason for all of us to have a long night. Stay by your phone though. Might need to roll if we find out some shit.”

“Got it,” I agreed, nodding, and making my way outside, just barely catching sight of Cinna as she ducked into a cab.

“Fuck,” I hissed, waiting for another one, and flagging it down. “Follow that cab,” I said, tossing a stack of cash at him, so he didn’t immediately tell me to get the fuck out of his cab.

It wasn’t a long drive.

And I knew almost immediately as the cab pulled down a side street leading to a much rougher area of town where we were going.

To Cinna’s place.

What the fuck was going on?