“You say that like killing Fieri would be easy,” I remarked.
“Why wouldn’t it be? We’re always exposed, and don’t we have the Whistler on our side—the best sniper in the country?”
Eoghan heaved a sigh. “I ain’t pulling that kind of move without Da’s sanction.”
“Big baby,” Conor rumbled.
“No, I’m just not willing to get my balls cut off when my wife is very much attached to them.”
Aidan scrunched up his face at that. “Only attached to them for Inessa’s sake, huh? You’re all heart.”
“Trust me, I know.”
Brennan shook his head. “Da’s too stubborn to go for this. You know he wants them to kill each other. Sure, we’re at war with the Famiglia too, but the fighting is between them and the Bratva. He’s wanting them to equalize the field and reduce their numbers, so we have more power than ever.”
“We got our first shipment of ghost guns in today,” I informed them softly. “From Texas?”
Aidan blinked. “Good stuff?”
“The best. Better than expected. But you should see the gear Da ordered.” I grimaced as I scraped a hand over my chin. “He’s getting ready for battle whether we think he is or not.”
“Knowing Da, he’ll be two steps ahead anyway,” Aidan pointed out.
“We also got a wedding invitation,” I commented wryly.
“What? For who?” Aidan demanded.
“Ink and Amaryllis. But it’s some kind of new age ceremony or something.”
“I think it should be Eoghan who has to go seeing as we had to sit through his wedding already,” Conor groused.
“So did I!” he sputtered.
“You got the week off, we just had to deal with the shitty afterparty,” was all Conor had to say.
“I haven’t even been on a fucking honeymoon yet,” he grumbled.
Finn arched a brow. “Ink’s alive, at least.”
“We have good doctors on the payroll,” Aidan said with a laugh.
“Aoife will be all over Inessa. She loves weddings.”
“Then you go,” Eoghan groused.
“Nah, we’re a democracy and we’ve made the decision that you’re going,” Finn retorted, his grin widening as Eoghan flipped him the bird. “Aoife will get a kick out of hearing about all the flowers though.”
“Christ, that would bore Aela shitless,” I replied, grateful as all hell that was the truth.
“Do they have flowers at biker weddings?” Eoghan grumbled.
Aidan snorted. “Look at you, the lot of you pussy-whipped.” Then, before he could insult us further, he tipped his head to the side as a thought evidently occurred to him—one that was more interesting than a biker wedding. “Why did Lodestar get in touch with you?”
Conor smiled. “Because I laid the path for her to contact me.”
That smile was devious. “What game are you playing?”
“A few days back, I got a hit on her IP address.”
“So?”
“It’s registered to the Satan’s Sinners’ compound.”
My eyes flared wide in surprise. “She’s one of them?”
“Evidently. I sent over the picture of the biker we saw going to Caroline Dunbar’s the other day. She knew him.”
“Shit, if they have a rat then we need them to kill the fucker,” Aidan snapped, sitting upright. It was, I’d admit, the first time he’d looked anything other than stoned in a while.
“Agreed,” I stated firmly, and watched as my brothers all confirmed their stance. “I’ll get in touch with Sin. Lodestar might sit on the information, so we need to get them to act and fast.”
“When are we going to take out Dunbar?” Aidan groused. “She’s a thorn in our side.”
Eoghan perked up at that. “Any excuse to take out a pig and I’m down.”
I shook my head. “There’s something going on with her.”
“What like?” Eoghan asked, his brow furrowing with disappointment.
“I don’t know.”
“I do,” Conor rasped, his tone darkening. “And that’s the solution I was talking about. Lodestar told me that there’s a corrupt Fed who acts as the go-between for the Famiglia and anyone with beef against the Irish.”
My eyes flared wide. “Shit.”
“Yeah, shit.” He rubbed his chin. “It would be easy to set up too. Haul someone in on fake charges, talk to them, manipulate them, and get them to do what you want so you’ll drop the charges… perfect con.”
“What do we do?” I asked tiredly. “We kill her, it might unearth a graveyard’s worth of bodies.”
“Probably would. I think we use the information we have as leverage to get her to stop blackmailing you. We have shit on her, she has shit on us. Maybe that will be enough,” Eoghan stated.
“No. This is personal to her. It won’t stop until we end her.”
“Or maybe we use her and figure out a way to get her to end herself,” Conor mused, his tone turning distant.
“We need to tell Da,” Aidan murmured. “If we’ve got traitors in the family because of her, he needs to know.”
“He’ll just have her killed,” I pointed out.
“Then we need to come up with a better strategy,” Finn reasoned. “Conor, we need to think about this.”
Because the pair of them were our financial strategists, it fit that we’d leave them with this particular ‘problem.’
Conor was wrong.
Houston, we did have a problem, and it was shaped like a cunt who carried an FBI badge.
“We’ll talk about this in the morning,” Conor replied. “I need to think.”
“Me too,” Finn agreed.
“This has long-term repercussions,” Brennan argued. “We need to figure out who the rats are before they reveal themselves to us.”
“Like with Ryan Hoskins, you mean?” I ground out, referring to the bastard who’d turned on us, killing a Five Pointer in the process—my ma’s favorite guard, Rogan—all to help a Famiglia goon get into Aela’s house to kill my woman and my boy.
He was with the fishes now, but that was less than he deserved.
“Yeah.” Aidan frowned. “This is going to create a witch hunt.”
“Apparently a much needed one,” Eoghan retorted.
“Shit. This is going to make our already paranoid father even more of a psycho,” Brennan groused.
Because each of us agreed, we fell silent at that.
Fuck.
I let out a tired sigh. “We can deal with this in the morning. Good job, Conor.”
Finn nodded. “Definitely a job well done.”
Aidan rasped, “You had feelers out for Lodestar at one point, bro.”
“I had someone going to kick the shit out of her,” he concurred.
“You calling them off?” Eoghan asked.
His smile was unholy. “Like she said, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. There’s more than one way to play war with someone.”
“Jesus,” Brennan muttered. “I think we found Conor’s kryptonite.”
“Better than porn,” he commented.
I groaned and grumbled, “I got better stuff to do than listen to what gives you a boner, Kid. Now, fuck off, the lot of you. I need my beauty sleep.”
I cut the call before they could say another word, then, opening my desk drawer, I pulled out the gift I’d been dithering over whether to give to Aela.
Reasoning this could be my excuse for getting out of bed at this time of night, I slinked out of my office and back into my bedroom where Aela was still snoozing. The sight of her did something to me, filled me with a kind of happiness I hadn’t known since she’d left.
Most people sought happiness all their life. Me? I knew happiness wasn’t a part of the equation.
It was some lofty goal that people who weren’t mobsters could afford to search for. We dealt in reality—cold, hard facts and colder, harder money.
As I moved around to her side of the futon, I
set the gifts on the ground before I retreated to my side and slipped into bed, she instantly turned into me, her warmth sinking where that inner chill had festered for over a decade without her.
“Where d’you go?” she mumbled.
I slid my arms around her, wondering how this could feel so fucking good, before I murmured, “Got a present for you.”
She rubbed her brow against my chest. “Don’t need anything.”
I smiled even though I had to shake my head because I knew she meant it. Everyone wanted something from me. Everyone. Apart from her.
Maybe that was what had always made her stand out.
If anything, she didn’t ask enough of me. Never had.
“You remember the day you got your tag?”
She tensed. And that was my answer. She remembered.
“I hated myself that day.”
“I hated you a little bit too.”
“Couldn’t blame you.”
“Loved you more, though, otherwise I wouldn’t have had it done.”
“I know.” I kissed her again. “Funny how that was what brought us to today, no?”
“Funny—haha or funny—strange?”
I laughed. “You’re a comedian tonight, huh?”
“Always.” She heaved a sigh. “Anyway, what’s my gift? Another tag?”
“Nah. Two gifts. Just like that night.”
“Christ, that mean I’m not going to like one of them?”
“You should appreciate these ones.”
“Promises, promises.” She yawned as she sat up. “Where are they then?”
“Beside your bed. I thought you could wake up and see them.”
“Instead of waking me up to see them, you mean?”
I grinned. “Yup.”
I heard rustling, before she found her phone and the light blinked on. Using that as a guide, she found the bulky envelope which, the second it was in her hands, made a clacking noise.
She stilled. “Keys?”
I just hummed.
Knowing she didn’t like the apartment, I could sense her excitement as she sat up, leaned over to reach for the light, and switched it on. We both blinked a little as she poured out the contents of the envelope.
When she handled the bunch of keys, tossing them in her palm, she asked, “The brownstone you talked about before?”
“Yeah. You don’t like it here, plus paper walls don’t matter so much when you don’t have a kid,” I said wryly.
Her eyes twinkled. “Want to fuck me whenever you get a boner, huh?”
I grinned at her as I stacked my hand behind my head to prop myself up. “There might be ulterior motives behind the move.”
“I’ll bet.” Her brow arched, but she grinned at me, and the grin was magnetic. Enough that it made both my heart and dick take a leap. “What’s the other gift?” she asked, but mostly to herself. It was a wad of papers, and her arched brow surged ever higher. “You hired The Cloisters for the day?”
I nodded.
“Why?”
“Because I want to fuck you in the Cuxa Courtyard.”
She blinked, but fire burned in her eyes a second later. “You do?”
“Wanted it when I was a kid, couldn’t afford it. Now? I can afford anything.”
“Pays to be rich, huh?”
“Without a doubt.” I tapped the paper. “They’re getting a nice donation out of it.”
“Looks like it.” She pursed her lips. “They’re going to turn off the cameras, right?”
“There’s no art out there, so I think we can arrange for that. Especially if it’s a quickie.”
She laughed, then launched herself at me. As her lips met mine, she mumbled, “I love it!”
Her joy bubbled through me. “Good.”
This was my way of wooing her. Marriage was at the end of the road, and I knew Da would only wait so long before things were made official, but I wasn’t going to push it. I wanted her to know I wanted her for her. So I’d show her that every which way I could.
She slipped her tongue into my mouth, and I let her. I let her fuck me, loving that she took charge, loving how she writhed against me, her tits bumping into my chest, the tight peaks dragging against my flesh.
She felt like heaven and hell. The best kind of sin.
I groaned into her mouth as she reached between us, her hand shaping my dick. She squeezed before she started jacking me off a second before she lifted the sheets up, baring my dick to the millions of dollars’ worth of art I’d exposed to the night air before we’d gotten into bed earlier.
That the paintings fired her up made them the most expensive porn imaginable, but because she got it, because I got it, it just made everything that much fucking hotter.
As her thumb carefully burrowed into the tip of my cock where pre-cum had gathered, she bit my bottom lip and rasped, “Declan?”
“Yeah,” I breathed. “I love you too.”
She sighed and melted into me, absolutely merged with me like water into water.
Her body turned into silk, and I was more than happy to be covered by her.
I grabbed her wrist when she started for my balls, and I twisted us over, not stopping until she was under me and I was looming over her. I grabbed both her hands, pinned them over her head, then rasped, “I wanna fuck you on your knees, a ghrá, but if you utter a single sound, I’m gonna stop.”
Her eyes flared wide before they narrowed with suspicion. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me,” I rumbled, pressing a kiss to her mouth and letting my tongue flicker over the ripe curve of her Cupid’s bow.
She stopped wriggling against the mussed sheets, and I moved down, down and down, until my lips could whisper over her nipples. I sucked on them, lathing them with my tongue, flicking the tips until she was squirming against me even more. Smirking against the nub, I bit down a little harder than she expected, which had a guttural squeak escaping her that was quickly cut off.
Letting my mouth trace along her curves, I found the faint indents on her belly. The stretch marks, the scar, and I kissed them all. Tasting the flesh with my tongue, thanking her, silently, with each caress.
When she started wriggling again, evidently wanting me to head further south, I arched up, bounding away from her, and she sat up in surprise, her hand reaching for my arm as she hugged me to her, not letting me move away.
“What did I say about making noise?”
She pressed her forehead into my arm then whispered, “You make me feel too much.”
The despondent words shot through me like a shockwave.
There wasn’t anything she could have said that could have messed with me more, and I was on her again, faster than lightning followed thunder as I pushed her into the sheets. I grabbed her legs, spread them wide and high, then took a hold of my dick and rubbed it against her bare pussy.
As I nudged her clit, her back arched against the bed, and as I slipped inside her, she hissed as her muscles grew tense with the abrupt penetration.
Slowly, I fucked her. Moving further down, leaning into her deeper and deeper so her muscles could get used to the stretch and I could get farther into her pussy.
I swore, if I could crawl inside her, I totally fucking would.
Groaning as she took all of me, I cut off the noise, well aware my kid was apparently in the know about our bedroom games, so I tried to keep things on the down low. But fuck, the feel of her, the heat, the goddamn pressure, and just knowing it was Aela. At. Long. Fucking. Last. I began to slam inside her. I had no choice. No alternative. My dick tunneled into her, filling her all the way, keeping her full.
I reached between us, my thumb on her clit as I made sure she soared as high and as hard as I was.
Letting her take my weight, I leaned over and covered her mouth with my hand as I pounded into her hard enough for the bed to shake, and when she bit down on the fleshy part of my palm, I hissed as the rapture broke through me like a million fucking fireworks that were sent fr
om above in a glorious light show that proved just how much she was it for me.
As her pussy pulsed around me, I spread her legs, hooked them high around my waist, then collapsed on her. Within seconds, her arms came around me, and she held me close.
And before I slumped totally into her hold, I reached for the tag that signified way too much—and none of it good—and kissed it.
She sighed as my tongue traced the letters, and her mouth brushed my temple as she whispered, “I love it when you fill me with your cum.”
I groaned and rumbled, “I love filling you with it.” Letting her arm relax against the sheets, I pressed a kiss to her throat before I managed to twist us over so she was on top of me, and holding her close, I whispered, “Now go to sleep.”
“Like I was the one who kept us up,” she teased drowsily, but seconds later, she drifted away.
And so did I.
Some parts of my world might be up in the air, but that was how it worked in this life. Somehow, at the end of the day, knowing she was here to come home to, that Seamus was seated at the kitchen table doing his homework, made it all a helluva lot more bearable.
It was everything I never thought I’d have, and everything I’d always wanted.
This life… well, it wasn’t all bad, was it?
Twenty-Seven
Declan
“You’re shitting me.” I scrubbed a hand over my face as I dealt with the news I’d just been handed—it was just one of those fucking weeks.
“I wish I was.” Sin, the Satan’s Sinners’ MC Enforcer, broke into a burst of heavy coughs.
Not that I could fucking blame him.
“Why the fuck would anyone bomb your compound?”
“I don’t know, but we’re not going to be able to make things right for the run next week.”
I blinked at that, wincing at the amount of work it would take, but hell, what was I supposed to say? Hop to it? When half their compound had been destroyed, the Prez’s father was in some kind of coma with an arm and a fucking leg lost to the blast, and with a couple of brothers having passed away to the inferno?
Rubbing my eyes, I rumbled, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll sort it out.”
Filthy Dark: A SECOND CHANCE/SECRET BABY, MAFIA ROMANCE (THE FIVE POINTS' MOB COLLECTION Book 3) Page 35