by Shandi Boyes
While grumbling about the brutal crunch of his gearstick as I shift from second to first, Smith shuts down the equipment he had utilized the two and a half hours of our trip. He isn’t a fan of road trips, but when it forces him away from equipment he’s rarely without, he fucking hates them.
“You need to update this piece of shit. Your laptops are more valuable than the junk you’re carting them around in.”
Smith makes a ‘duh’ face while Rocco gives reason for his lack of class. “That’s the idea, D. Who’d suspect a rusty van would be holding half a million dollars’ worth of equipment?”
Since he has a point, I quit whining before clambering out of the driver’s seat. It’s early, but our visit to a maximum-security prison hasn’t come without notice. Three red dots highlight my chest a mere second before I’m blinded by a megawatt spotlight.
I don’t know whether to be amused or pissed when the voice of Warden Mattue crackles over the speakers of the establishment we’re visiting long before visiting hours commence. I’m grateful he requested for the guards to lower their weapons, but the superiority in his tone is too haughty for my liking.
Anyone would think he’s running the show around here. I know that’s far from the truth. I’ve had a hold of things for years, and my power will only get stronger now I have Rico on-side. We’ll never be classified as friends, but as long as our agreement continues serving both our objectives, it will continue without bloodshed.
I stop smirking like a pompous prick when a man who walks like he has a stick shoved up his ass greets me with a wonky smile. His lopsided grin reminds me of the one Brandon gave me when he arrived at my office on precisely day five of my threat. The information he shared about Isabelle wasn’t anything Smith hadn’t already unearthed, but it felt good knowing I could tell Brandon to jump, and he’d ask how high.
“Dimitri, good morning,” stutters Warden Mattue. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
Ignoring the hand he’s holding out, I slant my head and arch a brow. “Do I need a reason to visit?”
He gives it his best shot to hide the quiver my tone caused his thighs. His efforts are pointless. I can smell his fear, much less taste it. “No, not at all. We’re pleased to have you.”
When he waves his hand across his body, inviting us in, I drift my eyes to Smith.
“One sec…” While chewing on the corner of his lower lip, he taps on a silicon keyboard stuck to the hood of his old van. In quicker than I can snap my fingers, the spotlight Rocco is shielding his eyes from with his forearm switches off, once again shrouding the parking lot into darkness. “Okay, you’re good to go.”
After lifting my chin in thanks, I shift my focus back to Warden Mattue. “We wouldn’t want news of my visit getting out, would we?”
“Not at all,” he parrots again when he hears the threat in my voice.
With Smith taking care of the cameras inside and outside of the prison we’re about to visit, the only way my tour will reach my father’s ear is if Warden Mattue tattles. That will end badly for him. Very very badly, although not quite as graphic as the punishment I handed down to a group of my father’s associates when they stupidly decided to test my patience last week.
They sought vengeance for the slaughter of Mikoloff and his family six weeks ago. The insolence caused their family’s downfall. They’re not just dead, they are buried in unmarked graves no one will ever find, and their legacy was struck from the record.
Their punishment was so brutal, no man will be game to test me again. Everything is operating like clockwork. Roxanne is safe, my bank accounts all remain in the seven figures, and Fien’s last ransom was received without the slightest delay.
All I need now is an outlet for the frustration keeping my body temperature in the scalding range the past six weeks. Whores won’t come close to scratching it, so I don’t bother. A bloody massacre barely skimmed off the surface, and I refuse to let another drug-fueled bender curtail my life. That only leaves one thing capable of taking the edge off, and even she isn’t at my disposal right now.
With my blood already bubbling with anger, you can picture my struggle to maintain a rational head when a bitch from my past shouts my name. Theresa Veneto smiles like the badge on her hip will save her brain from being pierced with a bullet from my gun. She’s dead fucking wrong. This prison is home to America’s deadliest criminals, which means it’s located miles from the nearest town. Many people have gotten lost out here the past six years, even Federal agents who don’t know how to back the fuck up when asked.
Before I can voice my annoyance about my unexpected guest, Rocco takes up my slack. “I thought only vampires roamed the planet at dusk. Who knew witches got around, too? Do you fly above the houses to avoid collisions with your sister witches, or do you prefer the sewer network?”
While Theresa hisses at Rocco, I shift my eyes to Smith, curious to discover how Theresa’s movements slipped past us without notice. We’ve been scrutinizing her as closely as Rico has my father the past two weeks.
When Smith shrugs, as pissed as me, I return my focus to Theresa. “Are you here to cover your tracks? Or are you hoping to lead me away from them?”
The past two weeks weren’t solely gobbled up embedding Rico deeply into my father’s operation. My team put both the time and the snippets of information Rico has discovered in an embarrassingly short amount of time to good use. Little threads are coming undone everywhere. It will only be a matter of time before my father’s outfit is unraveled, and considering Theresa seems to be very much a part of his ensemble, she’ll come undone right along with him.
Theresa’s laugh agitates me to no end. “Cover what tracks, Dimi?”
Her use of my nickname pisses me off. Only my friends get to call me Dimi. She most certainly isn’t one of them. “Oh, I don’t know. How about putting a man away for a murder he didn’t commit? Or falsifying police records to conjure up a fake victim? Then we also have the fact you left an unstable woman to defend for herself.”
I don’t know what’s more frustrating, Theresa’s cocky smirk or what she says next, “The fact your focus centers around me shows how far off the mark you are.” She steps closer to me, switching out Warden Mattue’s feared scent with an over-priced perfume. “I was merely upholding my end of our agreement.”
“Our agreement?” I query, too interested in the honesty in her eyes to act nonchalant.
“You’re a Petretti, aren’t you?”
When she attempts to hand me a stack of papers, Smith snatches them out of her grip. I don’t mind. They’re official-looking documents he’ll have a better chance of deciphering than me.
Seemingly believing we work for her instead of the other way around, Theresa explains, “They’re transcripts of conversations I’ve had with your father. Their seal should prove their legitimacy, but in case they don’t, I forwarded links to the original files to your email.”
Smith logs into my email server before I can gesture for him to, and even quicker than that, he authenticates Theresa’s claims. “Imagery is shit, but the audio is first-class. Your father approached Theresa.” He listens for a couple of seconds before his brows draw together. “He didn’t want Megan killed. He had her admitted for a psych workup. That kept her under lock and key for over a year.”
“Why?” My question isn’t for Smith. It’s for Theresa, who looks way too fucking smug for my liking. “What possible benefit would my father get from keeping her alive? Why wouldn’t he just kill her?”
She shrugs. “I didn’t ask questions. That isn’t the way I operate.”
I smirk before hitting her with one-tenth of the attitude she’s smacking me with. “That’s right. I forgot the only time you exert any kind of normalcy is when you’re flat on your back being served a healthy dose of dick. Is that why you keep showing up? Does the big gaping hole between your legs still need filling?”
Rocco’s snicker annoys her, but it has nothing on the rage that fills her eyes when
her body responds to the faintest touch of my finger as I drag it up her arm. She doesn’t hate me, even though she really wants to.
With a huff, she folds her arms in front of her chest to hide the budding of her nipples. “I’m here to cash in the favor your father is refusing to bequeath.”
I tsk at her, disappointed she believes I’m stupid enough to fall for the oldest trick in the book. “As I’ve told you before, if your favor was issued by my father, he’s the only one who can grant it.”
“He’s refusing!” she shouts in my face.
I bite my lip to half my smile before asking, “And how is that my problem?”
I swear steam almost billows out of her ears when she stifles her scream with a growl. “Because everyone knows you clean up your father’s messes. It’s what you do! You’ve done it for years.”
“For clients I deem worthy. Dried-up old hags who should have gotten out of the game years ago don’t count.” I catch her hand before it gets close to my face. Then I use it to bring her within an inch of my snarling lips. “You might have Isaac on the back foot with your tricks, but I don’t play by those rules. When you are no longer of use in this industry, you’re as good as dead.”
Her minty fresh breath hits my lips when she gabbles out, “Are you threatening me?”
I drag my index finger down her white cheek before trekking it across her lips. “No, baby. If I were threatening you, you’d already be on your knees, saying your final farewell.” Her cheeks will feel my nails for days when I grip her face with everything I have. “Now get the fuck out of my face before I send Clover over for a visit. He’s been waiting years to mess up that pretty little face of yours.”
I push her away from me, smirking when she almost loses her footing on the loose gravel. As she straightens out her jacket like it’s the only thing my grip creased, her eyes bounce between Smith, Rocco, and me. She doesn’t bother with Warden Mattue because even someone as fucked in the head as her knows the only pull he has around here is getting his dick sucked by one of the female prisoners.
Did I forget to mention this prison is mixed gender? My bad.
“This won’t be the last of this,” Theresa warns before she makes a beeline to a Fed-issued car at the back of the lot.
She’s right. This won’t end until one of us is dead. You can be assured my name won’t be on a headstone anytime soon. I can’t make the same guarantee for Theresa.
I’m almost made out to be a liar when my silent thoughts are interrupted for the second time this morning. This time, the female’s call of my name doesn’t send me into a fit of rage. It sees me issuing a threat so fucking firm, Satan will hear it. “If I find out your guards’ fingers got within an inch of their triggers, I’ll gut you where you stand.”
Warden Mattue’s eyes snap to Roxanne frozen at our right for the quickest second before they jackknife back to me. He drinks in the fury the red dots highlighting Roxanne’s chest caused my face before he frantically waves his hand through the air, demanding for his men to stand down.
The eagerness of his request is appreciated, but it’s too late for him now. He’s a dead man walking. He knows it. I know it, and so the fuck does Roxanne. My ruling six weeks ago wasn’t just that she wasn’t to be touched. She can’t be threatened either. Lighting up her chest with a dozen assault weapons is a threat, and I refuse to let the injustice off lightly.
“Go…” When Warden Mattue steps closer to me with his hands held up in a non-defensive manner, my souring mood the past six weeks steamrolls back into me. “Go!”
I want to follow through with my threat, I want to pull his insides out of his belly button before stabbing a knife in his eye, but since Roxanne is too close not to see me as the monster I am, I maintain my cool—barely.
After watching the warden’s terrified scuttle, I shift on my feet to face Roxanne. I haven’t seen her in the flesh in weeks. Just like Petretti’s restaurant, I kept her family’s ranch without surveillance. A system can’t be hacked if it doesn’t exist.
I want to say Roxanne has put back on the pounds she lost during her hunger strike, that she looks well-rested and healthy. Regretfully, I can’t. She looks as tired as I feel like the past six weeks were as painful for her as they were for me. Don’t misconstrue. She looks good—she will always look good—she’s just a smidge below the woman my thoughts drift to every night when I succumb to the tiredness overwhelming me.
“What are you doing here, Roxanne?”
Although my question is for Roxanne, my narrowed gaze is for Smith. This is his second slip-up today. That isn’t just a new record, it’s also unacceptable. He can’t watch Roxanne for every hour of every day, but he is supposed to log her movements. The last report my eyes skimmed this morning was about the light in her bedroom being switched off a little after midnight, so how the fuck did she get here by five?
“This isn’t Smith’s fault.” Roxanne skips across the dusty lot as if she isn’t placing herself in the firing line for the second time this morning. “Infrareds have their faults.” She presses a kiss to Smith’s cheek before she throws her arms around Rocco’s neck to hug him fiercely. “Is this new?” she asks while teasingly dragging her index finger across Rocco’s pecs, lingering longer than I care to admit. “I don’t recall seeing it on you before. It’s cute and body-hugging. I like it.”
I know what’s she’s doing, and I don’t fucking like it. She saw my altercation with Theresa, but instead of working out why it annoyed her, she’s serving the jealousy our exchange hit her with back to me one bitter pill at a time.
With my mood not knowing which way to swing, I take the easy route. “Get your ass in the van, Roxanne. Smith will take you home.”
She whips around so fast, her recently colored hair slaps her in the face. “No.”
“I beg your pardon?” I’m reasonably sure half the block hears me. That’s how loud my roar is. “I wasn’t asking.”
“It wouldn’t make a difference if you were. You can’t boss me around anymore, Dimitri.” She spits out my name as if it’s trash. “You lost the chance when you abandoned me.”
My jaw falls open like a fish out of water. “Abandoned you? I didn’t abandon you. I set you free.”
She folds her arms in front of her chest all prissy like. “In the house my uncle, aunt, and quite possibly my grandfather were murdered in, with three snipers outside the door, and shitty-ass cell reception inside it! You may as well cut off my wings.”
“Where the fuck are you going?” I ask when she pulls away from me. “I’m not done with you yet.”
Roxanne shrugs out of my hold before I can dig my nails into her arm. “We came here to visit my friend. Since you seem to have pull with the warden, I guess we don’t have to wait for visiting hours anymore.”
Her friend she nudged her head to during the first half of her comment isn’t eager to join her campaign. She looks on the verge of pooping her pants. I understand her concern. I’m five seconds from killing someone. I just have no clue if that someone is Roxanne or me. I love her feistiness. It thickens my cock as quickly as it fills my mind with immoral thoughts. A girl has to have spunk to be fingered in an alleyway with a stranger watching, much less go against a man as powerful as me. But her spunk also drives me nuts. Furthermore, I wouldn’t have let her out of our agreement if I knew she was going to march straight back into it.
I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s always there, in every frame, causing trouble.
It’s one of the things I like about her the most.
When Roxanne disappears into the entrance of the prison, I jerk my head in the direction she went. “Go with her. Make sure she sees who she came here to see, then load her into my car.”
“What car, D?” Rocco asks as he struggles not to laugh about the rage on my face. “Do you wanna drive your girl home from your first date in Smith’s beat-up van?”
I talk through a tightened jaw. “The car Smith is going to get here A-S-A-fucking-P if he w
ants to keep his job.”
Smith holds his hands in the air, knowing he did wrong before he puts them to good use. He will build a car if he can’t get one here within the next thirty minutes.
“All right.” While rubbing his hands together like he’s choosing a whore for the night, Rocco takes off in the direction Roxanne just went. Her friend reluctantly follows them.
Although I’m pissed at Smith, I am too confused about my exchange with Theresa to discount it for a second longer. “Did Theresa’s information sway your opinion at all?”
We only arrived here on the cusp of dawn for one reason—to unearth if Maddox is aware the woman he’s serving a life sentence for isn’t dead. It’s obvious from what Rico and Smith have discovered the past couple of weeks that Megan is alive and well, so why the fuck is Maddox keeping his mouth shut about it? If you had an out for a lifetime sentence, would you continue serving it? I fucking wouldn’t.
Smith twists his lips, a sign he’s confused. “From what I heard, your father is aware Megan is alive. I’m just struggling to understand why.”
“You’re not the only one,” I breathe out before I can stop myself.
When they were alive, my father chewed up and spat out his daughters as if they were tobacco, so why would he give a shit about a random woman, let alone one who’s batshit crazy? He kept Megan alive for a reason, I’ve just got to find out why.
“While I talk with Maddox, look a little deeper into the files Theresa handed over. She said she did this for a favor, but we both know she doesn’t do shit without some type of payment upfront.”
Air whizzes from Smith’s nose when he hums in agreement. “I’ll do that as soon as I organize a car. Any particular brand?”
“Something fast and noisy…” I almost add, just like Roxanne, but hold back the urge. I don’t need to brag. Roxanne’s moans could be heard two towns over. Smith and Rocco live on the same block as me.
Smith’s smirk reveals he heard my inner monologue. It’s as cocky as the heat that roars through me when Roxanne can’t help but watch my entrance to Wallens Ridge State Prison. She keeps her gawk on the down-low with lowered lashes, but I don’t need to see her eyes to know she’s watching me. I can feel it in my bones. It thickens my cock in an instant, which doubles the heat of her stare.