5

Carmine

When I got the contract from my lawyer, I first read it to make sure he didn’t miss any terms. Pleased with the outcome, I fold it into an envelope then left it on the middle of my desk.

I need to run an errand.

After grabbing my blazer from the back of the chair, I slip my arms through the sleeves. While I button my cufflinks, I stare out the bay window overlooking the garden, and I dream about playing with my son or daughter.

A dream I should not have.

But I want it regardless.

Tugging the lapels of my suit, I head out of my office in search of Gianni but instead ran into Matias and Aristide, my younger twin brothers. Ari wipes his hand on a handkerchief, staining it with blood.

“Caleb is taken care of,” Matias informs me, unbuttoning his ruined shirt.

“Will you do that in your rooms?” I don’t want Delilah to see them. They are closer in age, and she might find herself wanting one of the twins. I know they enjoy threesomes, and that isn’t something I want Delilah to be exposed to.

She’s mine.

Ari’s lips twist in a wicked smirk, his eyes firing with questions. “Why, brother? This is our routine.”

Before I could answer Ari, Gianni exists in the hallway leading to my wing of the house. “Delilah has been quiet in your room, Carmine. I’m not sure what she’s up to. I haven’t unlocked the doors.” Gianni exists in the hallway where my wing is.

“Delilah?” Matias questions. “A woman in your room? Since when?”

“And you locked her inside? I didn’t know you were so desperate, Carmine.”

I bite back my immediate response. I don’t want to seem affected by their jabs, but Delilah’s quickly becoming a weakness for me, a dent in the armor I always wear. “She’s a means to an end,” I say, which isn’t a lie.

“Carmine—” Ari wraps his hand around my arm to stop me from walking out the front door, Gianni instantly at my side. “What are you doing?” He searches my eyes for answers he won’t find.

“My room is off-limits, do you understand? She is off-limits. You are not to speak with her. I’ll be back in an hour.”

He wants to fight me on it, but releases his hold on me and runs his red-stained hands through his hair. “Fine. Matias and I will wash up, but I want you to know that it isn’t the end of the Romanos trying to bribe our people. One death isn’t going to change that.”

“You don’t think I know that? One person dead is a warning, and another dead will mean war, baby brother.” I tap his face, something he can’t stand. He scowls, pulling away from me.

“I hope you’re prepared.”

“I’m always prepared.” I go to shut the door, but stop. “Delilah is off-limits,” I remind the two troublemakers. “She is mine. Do you understand?”

They both nod before disappearing into their wings. We all have a separate area of the house.

“Where are we going?” Gianni asks, walking around the black Mercedes G-Wagon and hopping into the driver’s seat.

After opening the passenger side door, I slide in. The tinted windows conceal us, preventing us from becoming anyone’s target. “We’re going to that shitty motel on the city's outskirts. Do you know the one I’m talking about?”

“I do.” He cranks the SUV, and the engine rumbles to life.

Looking at the house, I think of Delilah and how I’m leaving her alone in a mansion full of monsters.

Why do I care?

“Her father is there. It’s cute he thinks he can hide from me, but I know his every move.”

Gianni drops his hands from the steering wheel and stares at me with disapproval. “You told the girl you wouldn’t hurt her father. She made a deal with you, Carmine. You aren’t a man that goes against his word.”

“I’m not going against it.” I slide on my sunglasses and stare through the window toward the sun, which is hot and uncomfortable, and if I stare at it long enough, I won’t be able to see. Something shouldn’t have so much power, should it?

The sun and I have that in common.

I want to remind Mr. Reynolds that he will not be able to see his daughter again if he tries to interfere with my demands. I’ll give him his life back, his shop, his home, but Delilah is no longer his concern.

She’s mine.

Gianni sighs, clearly not believing me, and I don’t blame him. Gianni is the closest person I have to a best friend, but men like me don’t admit to having friends. We have business partners. We’ve known each other for a long time…too long. He’s the one person who knows everything about me. While my blood relatives surround me in this business, Gianni is different.

My father took him in when he was just a boy, and poor Gianni thought he was being saved, but he only went from a bad situation to a worse one. My father was not a kind man to children. He bought them if he could, beat them until death or until they fell in line, and Gianni was one of those purchases.

A sick, skinny boy with hollow cheeks took the punishment from my father every day without shedding a tear.

Strength like that is almost impossible to find, but I know Gianni, and still, he finds a way to care about others.

Unlike me.

He is a stark reminder of the humanity I lost long ago. On the day I killed my father, I killed that part of me as well.

I might be a dangerous man and kill those who wronged me, but I don’t kill, beat, or torture for sport.

My father was sick in the head and no longer fit to lead the Milazzo organization.

Luckily, the twins were only three then, so they don’t remember their father’s cruelty. It’s a blessing. Sometimes I wake up screaming, remembering the hot blade searing into my skin. From when I was six years old until I turned eighteen, I had broken bones or was used as a sculpture for my father to carve his hate into.

Life is cruel, and now it’s up to me to decide how that cruelty should be gifted.

“The girl,” Gianni starts. “She’s scared.”

“She should be.”

“Why are you doing this? There are other ways for her to work off her father’s debt. We always need runners.”

The thought of her putting herself in danger like that, like some cheap and useless drug mule had me seeing red.

I yank the emergency brake, and the car fishtails to the side until it completely stops. The rancid smell of burning rubber infiltrates the vents.

“She is more than that. She isn’t a whore. She isn’t a drug mule, Gianni. I decide what I want to do with her, and I have. Your opinion is irrelevant here, and if I find out she’s been put in danger, friend or not, I will kill you. Do you understand?” My hand tightens around the brake until my knuckles are white.

He grins, my threats useless since he knows me all too well. “You like her.”

“She’s a means to an end,” I find myself repeating.

“So, you say, Carmine.” He pulls the car onto the road again without regard for the traffic streaming past us. Cars honk from him cutting them off.

Men like me don’t like. I know how to lust, to want, to take and to steal.

I’ll make her feel things she’s never felt before.

And she’ll make you feel things you have never wanted to feel.

I’m lost in those thoughts until the annoying crunch of tires hitting gravel yanks me from my mind.

“Delilah was staying here?” Gianni asks, repulsed.

I am too. I don’t like that she stayed in such a dangerous part of town. The motel is old and has seen better days. The windows are either broken or painted black. The sign that says ‘motel’ flickers on and off. To the right, the dumpsters are full of trash; even from where I sit, I can see the flies.

“This piece of property is now ours,” I say, unbuckling my seatbelt and getting out of the SUV.

“You can’t be serious, Carmine.” He hisses his disapproval. “It’s a dump. The paint is peeling, and the roof is sagging. It reeks of piss and cigarettes.”

I stare at my new investment, the beams holding the roof are nearly cracked in half. One of the faded red doors to a room opens, revealing a high prostitute who is half-naked. Her lipstick is smeared while she counts the money in her hands.

“Delilah stayed here. She was here. The vileness of this place touched her beauty. I don’t care if I have to renovate or tear it down, but it will never touch her again.” I sidestep a used needle and head to the front office. I’m furious at myself for putting her in this position.

The sun’s warmth heats my shoulders and doesn’t ease even when I enter the motel. There’s no air conditioning.