Ryker nodded, though his own face hardened in anger. It frustrated him that I clung to the memory of a dead man. “He never deserved you even when he was alive. I will not allow you to waste your life grieving a man who never loved you.”
I blinked back tears, feeling my heart stop in my chest. “Of course he loved me. I was his wife,” I whispered.
“Tesoro, he wasn’t capable of love,” Ryker told me, touching his thumb to my bottom lip where it quivered. “But even if he loved you, he’s gone. Does he protect you? Does he provide for you? Does he feed your children and tuck them in at night? Does he bring Ines stuffed wolves and play soccer with Axel? Does he kiss you and make love to you?” he asked when I jerked my head away from his hand. “No. I do those things, Calla. He is not your husband anymore.”
“Neither are you,” I whispered, feeling a tear slide down my cheek. He was quick to wipe it away, to rub the salty liquid into my cheek. His hand stunk like sex, like us and I jerked my face away in disgust.
“Yet,” he said, reaching in to turn on the shower. “We both know where this is going, Tesoro.”
I shook my head, and he didn’t press the issue further, but he didn’t do what he should have done either.
He didn’t free me. Didn’t give me the option to make my own choice about our relationship.
I would never marry a man who killed other men. A man who could be killed at any moment and abandon me and the kids.
He helped me into the shower, running his soapy hands over my body quickly and then shoving one between my legs. I winced, feeling so sore and thinking he’d take more than I wanted to give, but he only cleaned me in gentle movements.
“If that happens again, wear a condom,” I whispered. I wished that it wouldn’t need to be said, that I’d be able to trust my self-control where he was concerned. But I’d only known the man for four days, and I’d somehow ended up climbing him like a tree. His hand stilled as he washed me for a moment, and then he shook his head behind me and resumed his gentle cleaning.
“Nothing between us,” he grunted.
“It isn’t fair to the kids. I’m not on birth control. There’s been so much change, too much change, too quickly. We can’t be so irresponsible to throw a baby at them right now.” He was silent behind me, neither agreeing or disagreeing, so I pushed on to plead my case. “You claim you love them. Loving someone means putting their needs before your wants, Ryker. Please understand that they need time to adjust,” I begged, and I felt my body relax when he touched his mouth to the top of my head and nodded.
“For now. I’ll wear a condom for now,” he agreed, and I sagged in relief. At least that was one concern taken care of. I mentally ran through my cycle. We should theoretically be fine, unless Ryker had super sperm that could survive for a couple of weeks.
It would be fine. I had to believe that, because I could not have a baby with a man I had every intention of leaving in the dust the first chance I got.
✽✽✽
The rest of the weekend passed uneventfully. Ryker seemed to realize I was too sore, too pained for him to touch me again. So he’d spent Sunday doting on the kids, giving me time to see him interact with them more.
It made me sad to realize just how much he did genuinely seem to love them. He was more engaged with them, more active in their time together than I could ever recall Chad being. He’d worked too much and been too tired when he got home to do much other than eat his dinner and fiddle on his phone.
I didn’t think he’d ever changed Ines diaper. Looking back, it hadn’t always been like that. He’d changed Axel, and played with him more when he’d been younger, but somewhere along the way our marriage had shifted.
He became a provider, sharing my bed but rarely touching me. He’d given me Ines only because I begged him for another baby.
It had only taken one time to get pregnant with her, and there had been a night when she was eight months old that he’d come home and made love to me. That had been the last time my husband touched me.
I felt naïve looking back, realizing I’d been so wrapped up in the kids that I never saw what was right in front of my face. Chad hadn’t desired me anymore, and who could blame him? I’d gone from being a woman who cared about her appearance to one who lived in comfortable clothes and was covered in spit up.
There was unfortunately nothing sexy about motherhood or the stretch marks that marred the skin of my hips.
I snapped out of my reverie when Ines giggled happily. “Mommy dream,” she said. I laughed at her, nodding my head in agreement as I booped her nose.
“I was,” I whispered. “Do you want to go check on the boys?” I asked. It had taken everything in me to allow Axel and Ryker a few moments alone in the garage as they worked on the Chevelle. Given his revelation of a few days before, I’d been jumpy at even the slightest motion from him.
Ryker had taken to moving more slowly than was natural for him in his attempt to startle me less. When Axel had asked to help him with the car, I’d had no way of denying him that.
Not without admitting the truth.
Ines jumped up from our tea party in the main house, going for the door to the hall. She stopped there, letting me open it, and the sound of classic rock filtered through the open garage door. It immediately brought me back to my childhood, to my days of sitting on the garage floor in the corner and watching my Daddy chip away at car after car. My toys were always covered in grease.
When Ines ran in through the garage door, I hurried to catch up to her. Axel had his head buried in one of the toolboxes, looking confused as he stared at the treasure trove like it was candy and might jump out and bite him at the same time.
“Hey Sunshine, can you help Axel find the dial indicator?” Ryker asked. He had his head under the hood, his arms disappearing into the engine bay as he fiddled with something. I was dying to get a peek, but I crossed my arms over my chest and enjoyed the sight for a moment longer before I helped my boy.
Ryker’s arms looked too good with his forearms flexed, and I had to shove down my libido that seemed to rise anytime he was anywhere near me.
I’d forgotten what sex felt like, and given the fact that I was only twenty-seven years old, that was just sad. Even if my birthday approached quickly.
With a shake of my head, I went to the toolbox, grabbing the dial indicator and handing it to Ryker. Axel smiled after me, all proud that his Mom knew her tools and car parts. His friends always thought that made me a cool mom, like I could be one of the guys.
No wonder I hadn’t had sex in forever if even six-year-olds saw me as one of the guys. “Are you hungry?” I asked him as I stepped back. “Our tea party is over, and it’s getting late.”
Ryker nodded to me with a warm smile. “I’ll be right in to get cleaned up. Axe, why don’t you head upstairs and take a shower while your Mom starts dinner, yeah?” he asked.
“Okay,” Axel nodded, darting out the door and into the main house.
I turned back to him, annoyance flaring at his continued insistence on acting like he was the kids’ father. “Spaghetti okay? I can cook some meatballs to go with it.” I tossed him a smirk.
He grimaced, glancing at Ines where her eyes darted back and forth between the two of us.
“Yeah, Sunshine. Sounds good,” he lied.
When I turned and took Ines’s hand as we headed for the house, I tried not to think about the fact that Ryker had known I would know what a dial indicator was.
I knew several women who had mechanic fathers. Most of them could barely change a tire.
It was just one more thing he knew that he shouldn’t, one more piece of the puzzle of just how thoroughly he knew our lives. I couldn’t say how much of what he’d given us was a manipulation or what was genuinely because he wanted us to be comfortable, but he’d done his research either way.
It didn’t give me a happy feeling, and as I crossed the threshold to the hallway, my skin pebbled with goosebumps and a chill raked down my
spine in a way that was all too familiar.
I spun, finding Ryker’s gaze intense on my back.
With a swallow of nerves, I stepped into the hall and out of sight.
My hair settled immediately.
Twenty-Two
Ryker
It took everything in me not to lose my shit the moment my cell pinged with another notification. It wasn’t the kind that came from my own messages, but from the app that forwarded Calla’s to me.
I knew who it was. Knew he’d been texting my woman for the last hour.
Enzo looked amused at the rage on my face, like it thoroughly entertained him to see us caving to our women and the ridiculous emotions they evoked in us.
Jealousy was not my favorite look, but it seemed like it would be a permanent fixture where my Sunshine was concerned. “What did he do that you had to drag my ass out here, anyway?” I asked him, nodding to the latest fuck to land himself in my chair.
There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot that a man could do to have Enzo bring him to me. The man’s experience in covert operations made him one of the more straight-laced of us, but he was still crooked.
We all were.
Enzo, like most of our less enthusiastic alliances, saw the benefit to Bellandi rule in the city.
We didn’t run women.
We didn’t let people kill kids.
We might have been a crime syndicate, but we had standards of what was and was not acceptable. Enzo saw the value in that. He knew that if we didn’t exist and maintain control of the city, someone much worse would rise up and take over.
Someone like Tiernan Murphy.
“Drugged a woman at Indulgence,” Enzo said, crossing his arms over his chest. If that hadn’t already been a big no-no for one of the Bellandi properties, it had quickly become one after Matteo learned someone drugged Ivory in a date-rape attempt during their twelve-year separation. Now the criminal kingpin hosted charity galas in his clubs to support the victims of date rape.
It might have seemed like a mind-fuck to anyone who didn’t know the man, but he made it work for him. Power and money went a long way in explaining a person’s eccentricities. “What’s he want done? Dead? Alive?” I asked, stepping over to my tools as I examined them.
I genuinely hoped the word was dead. I was generally inclined that way, since there was one thing I didn’t tolerate and that was rape.
“Warning,” Enzo grinned at me, as if he could sense that I needed to kill something. Namely, one Jason Taylor. “Trouble in paradise?” he asked. I glared at him in response, because I couldn’t talk about Calla in front of a guy who we’d let walk after I roughed him up. Sometimes stupid people did stupid things when they had vendettas like that, and the knowledge that I had a woman of my own wasn’t something I needed to be public yet. At least not with potential enemies.
I taped up my fists, and Enzo watched with fascination. I knew the man was no stranger to it. I’d sparred with him a few times, but he disliked it. He didn’t want his opponents to know what he could do before he fought them. There was logic in that, but I could always tell when he steadily approached the need for a genuine fight.
It was all in the way his eyes lit up at the sight of me taping my hands, like the violent pull we all felt toward just needing to beat something to shit suddenly became irresistible. Enzo might have been more human than me, a little less beastly when it came to the serial killer inside of him, but at the end of the day we were all just monsters who craved the beauty of blood on a canvas made out of flesh.
Enzo rolled his eyes, snatching the noise blocking earmuffs off my table and stuck them on the guy's head. I huffed a laugh at the look of panic in his eyes before Enzo wrapped a filthy rag around them. “There,” he said pointedly, holding his arms out to his sides. “Light and sound deprivation. Punishment in itself. So what crawled up your ass and died?”
“Chad’s partner keeps texting her to check in. Apparently, he went to the studio, and they informed him that Calla has been out for over a week. He got worried, especially when they told him her boyfriend called in for her,” I grunted, landing my first strike against my victim's face. The spray of blood that came from his nose appeased me just a little, soothing the part of me that demanded blood.
Enzo howled with laughter. “Boyfriend. Fuck. The idea of your crazy ass being someone’s boyfriend.” He laughed again, slapping his knee with his amusement. I punched my victim in the ribs, earning a grunt and a groan of pain.
“I’m not fond of it either,” I admitted with another punch. “It’s temporary.”
“Oh? Does that mean she’s giving you all the warm fuzzy feelings already?” he asked.
“When she isn’t threatening to cook my meatballs,” I grunted. He looked at me like I was insane, and since we both knew I was I didn’t bother to explain. After firing off a series of punches, I spoke again. “She hasn’t asked him for help. She’s following the plan and doing what she needs to do to protect the kids like I knew she would, but it drives me crazy. There’s a man who was friends with her ex talking to her, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it without telling her I’ve read her texts for years.”
I’d hated Jason even when Chad was alive, but the way he stepped into Calla and the kids’ lives after his death was like poking a bear. He’d been there for them when I couldn’t be. Held them while they cried.
I’d never tolerate his presence, for that alone.
“You’re all crazy with the shit you do behind their backs. My sisters would gut me if they ever found out I did something like that.” He shuddered, and for once I was grateful to be an only child. Calla was mine because of my willingness to do underhanded things to make her mine. If I didn’t stalk her, I wouldn’t even know her.
And I wouldn’t change having the sun in my cold, dark world for anything.
When I broke my victim’s jaw, Enzo called me off, satisfied with the warning. “You can’t keep bottling this shit up. You’ll explode.”
I hated to admit that he was right, and when my phone went off with a different tone, I grabbed it to answer.
When Matteo Bellandi called, you fucking answered.
✽✽✽
Enzo would drop my nameless victim off at his house. He would have anyway, but my sudden call to the Bellandi estate meant that I had no choice but to haul my ass there.
I hated that it meant I had to leave Calla with Dante just a little longer, because I never wanted to be away from her, but there wasn’t time to pick her up and bring her with me.
At any rate, I suspected that this meeting wouldn’t be pleasant.
Pulling in to the Estate to find both Lino and Simon there, as well as the typical Don and Scar made the hackles rise on the back of my neck. We’d waited for this day, known it was coming even. But I really wished it didn’t have to come when things were so precarious with Calla. The last thing I needed was a war at home while I waged a war in the streets.
I’d need a dresser in the garage for when I needed to change before I went into the house. I did enough wet work in times of peace, but in war?
I might as well bathe in blood.
Don answered the door, and there was no smile on his face. Ivory and Luna were notably absent, no doubt tucked away upstairs so they couldn’t overhear something that could make Ivory nervous. I might have suspected Matteo sent them out of the house, but Scar’s car confirmed they were here. Ivory went nowhere without her bodyguard, and she’d be lucky if Matteo didn’t refuse to let her leave the estate altogether.
I should consider it for Calla and the kids, and if it weren’t for Axel needing to go to school, I’d do it. But he’d be upset if I arranged a home tutor for him until things died down, and I couldn’t explain it to him.
Not yet.
Calla would have my meatballs for that one.
We wouldn’t all fit in Matteo’s office, even as large as it was. Not comfortably, so they’d all set up in the sitting room at the center of the house. It seeme
d like I was the last to arrive, but there were no jokes about me having to escape the claws of my woman. The situation was too serious for that. Matteo didn’t enter territory conflicts lightly, not when he knew that innocents would inevitably be harmed.
But the benefit outweighed the cost in some circumstances.
“Cuevas has ceded the territory to Murphy,” Matteo confirmed, and it felt like the entire room sucked in a breath. It had been years since Chicago had seen a territory dispute, since Matteo took over and the other organizations thought to test him.
“Has Murphy said if he’ll operate within the city?” Lino asked, always the voice of reason to Matteo’s rage.
“He hasn’t said anything, which I think we need to interpret as his stance. We prepare. We wait. We watch. I don’t want to start a war if it isn’t necessary, but if he tries to traffic people in the city—”
“We destroy him,” Scar growled, looking to me and meeting my eyes. We were both more acquainted with the trafficking industry than the others; we’d seen the results of crimes like that firsthand. We’d lived that life.
We’d never let it touch our city again.
“Yes,” Matteo agreed, and his eyes came to mine much like Scar’s had. Matteo might not know the exact circumstances of my life before I worked for the Bellandis, but I knew he suspected.
My last name itself was hint enough to anyone who knew politicians, and since Matteo had most of them in his pocket, it was safe to say he knew politicians. He knew them better than their own wives, with all the dirt he kept on them to convince them to do his bidding.
We’d never talk about it. We didn’t need to.
He knew I’d do whatever it took to make sure that Murphy never touched a woman or child in Chicago. I couldn’t save the world, but I could rid it of one more piece of slime.
Grieved Loss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 3) Page 16