Dino

by Desiree Lafawn

  “Safer? Or you hacked the satellite tracking for it on your phone like Jeanette’s car?” Angel asked with her eyes narrowed, lips pursed, and eyebrow raised as she waited for his response.

  “Wait what?” This was the first I heard about this.

  “Nothing. Come on Angel, let’s go.” Gabe changed the subject by coming over and giving me a quick bear hug. Angel didn’t want to be left out, so she wiggled in with us until it was a three-way squeeze, her huge boobs pressed up against my arm. I couldn’t help but laugh, it was so ridiculous.

  “We love you, Jeanette. Let us take care of you. Stay here for now and we will work it out. Even the boogeyman has no power during the day. You aren’t in that tiny town anymore, and David Ashley doesn’t have the kind of power here that he had there.” Gabe and Angel were almost to the door but before he opened it he had one more thing to say.

  “I don’t want to downplay your previous situation, because I know what I saw when I found you, so I mean no disrespect. But David Ashley sounds like a textbook sociopath, and even though he’s dangerous – I’m dangerous too. Dino even more so than me. Trust me. He does not know who he is fucking with.” Then he and Angel were gone, and I was left in the small apartment, alone with my thoughts.

  Well, maybe not just my thoughts. Even though the apartment had a lot of clutter, it really did have some form of organization, and I sort of figured it out based on Angel’s personality. The living area was her office and workspace. There were notebooks with scribbled notes inside stacked on every surface. And books. There were books everywhere from popular romance authors, to indie titles I had never heard of. I picked up one with a half-naked man on the front and a wolf in the background. The synopsis on the back looked interesting - shifters? Hmm…I set that aside for later. Wandering into the bathroom I noticed the fresh tube of toothpaste and toothbrush still in the package on the sink. There was a brand-new hairbrush and fresh towels laid out. The bedroom had some department store bags on the bed, and in them was exactly what Angel had promised, clothes. There were some bras and panties and socks, as well as a couple of pair of jeans and some shirts along with a silky soft sleep set in pink cami and shorts with lace on the hem.

  She’d thought of everything.

  I sat down on the bed, contemplating what I was going to do with my time since I couldn’t leave the apartment, when I heard a tentative knock on the apartment door. Fear gripped me briefly until I heard a feminine voice call out, “They left, dear, I saw them. Let us in, let’s have story time.”

  “What’s story time?” I asked as I opened the door to reveal two sets of twinkling eyes and two mischievous grins.

  “It’s where we drink margaritas and talk about men,” Jolene said as she brushed past me into the apartment like I am sure she had done with Angel an innumerable number of times.

  “Oh yes, young lady, it’s no good to be alone in here when we are right downstairs.” This was the first time I think I heard Gerta speak. She had such a soft-spoken voice.

  “Well I am not opposed to the company,” I replied, and I wasn’t. It was probably much better to have someone to talk to than to be left alone with my thoughts. And these ladies certainly were interesting, if just a bit overbearing. “But I’ll have to pass on the alcohol, I don’t drink.”

  Jolene gasped and lifted her hand to her chest, squeezing her yellow polka dotted blouse as if my words gave her chest pains. Gerta looked panicked, like she had just shown up with a plate of hamburgers and I told her I was vegan. It was adorable.

  Jolene tried another tactic. “How do you know, girl, maybe you just have never had a really good drink before?”

  “Maybe she has to take medication, Jolene. Is it for health reasons, honey?” Gerta was obviously trying to keep me from feeling uncomfortable, but equally incredulous that I could pass up a good margarita.

  “Oh no,” I assured both women. “My health is fine. I just don’t drink because I like to be in control at all times.” It was the best way I could explain it without having to say more than I had to.

  “Well that’s no fun,” grumbled Jolene, and I took pity on her confused state.

  “Well, story time sounds fun anyway, so if you ladies don’t mind drinking my share, I’ll make something to eat?” Angel had said there was plenty of food and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. My stomach picked that moment to audibly gripe at me and the other two ladies heard it.

  “Let’s raid the fridge, dear. You are just skin and bones. That won’t do at all.” Gerta took my arm and walked me to the kitchen, which was the other half of the same room we were already standing in so it was only a few feet. Gerta rifled around in the fridge and pulled out a jar of pickles and a block of Colby cheese. “Look what I found, Jolene!” she crowed.

  “Pickles?” I asked. I wasn’t sure pickles were something to get excited about.

  “Those aren’t just pickles,” Jolene exclaimed, looking perturbed that I would even look down on them. “Those are Tony Packo’s Pickles n Peppers, girl. Pop one of those in your mouth with a chunk of Colby cheese and you will be in heaven.” Jolene grabbed the items from Gerta and started opening drawers, rifling around until she found a fork, and then pulling a chef knife out of the knife block, she turned to me again. “Sit down on that sofa over there, young lady. I’m gonna give you an education on a good old Glass City staple.” Then she turned back to the counter where she started cutting little cubes of Colby cheese and arranging them on one side of a large plate while Gerta arranged pickle slices from the jar on the other end of the same platter.

  “I can’t believe you’ve never heard of Tony Packo’s,” Jolene mumbled under her breath, and I stifled the laugh that bubbled up in my throat so she wouldn’t get offended. These women were so colorful, and I loved them already.

  “Are you sure I can’t get you just a tiny little glass?” Gerta asked, holding up what looked like a small juice glass from Angel’s cabinet. Her face was full of shining hope as she continued, “It’s my very own recipe and I’ve perfected it over the years. Going once…going twice…”

  Well, maybe just one small taste wouldn’t hurt.

  12

  Dino

  I ought to paddle her ass.

  Dismiss me with a “thanks for your help” will she? Thanks for your help? Like I was a bag boy at the grocery store and I just loaded her groceries into her trunk for her? Okay. I understood that she had a lot going on, and I wasn’t going to take that away from her, that shit was scary, but if Jeanette Clary thought she was going to dismiss what happened between us this afternoon with a simple “Goodbye, thanks for playing,” she had another thing coming.

  Damn it, I was pissed.

  I drove my car all the way back over to the shit hotel I was staying at on the East Side, still pissed off when I got to the room even after the twenty-minute drive. I could have rented an apartment, but it was easier to go week to week in an extended stay. It was good enough for a traveling businessman and it was good enough for me. The hotel was just a shit hole for what it was supposed to be and located across the street from the one and only casino in the city. I remember when it was built, Nonna had expressed her concern about it over the phone. She told me she thought it would attract the wrong kind of clientele to Toledo. I remember what I told her then.

  The riff-raff finds a way to be where it wants to be, no matter what the surroundings. There are just as many assholes wearing suits and carrying briefcases as there were toting guns and covered in tattoos. It didn’t matter what your outside looked like. A piece of shit was still a piece of shit on the inside. Nah, I wasn’t worried about the element around the hotel. I just didn’t want to sleep where I took a dump. Detroit, or the D as it was called by the locals, was where Chaz Malone set up shop. He did most of his work there too, Toledo was just kind of a side area for him. Mostly drugs and some prostitution, but Chaz had guys that handled that.

  No, his real fascination with Toledo had to do with Affini’s restaurant,
and hell if I knew why. I didn’t trust myself not to blow my cover if I stayed on the same side of town as the restaurant, but I also wanted to be closer to them than I was to Chaz Malone, so the East Side it was. Right off the expressway, it was forty-five minutes to Chaz, but only ten or fifteen to Nonna. Too bad the only time I got to see the place was when I was hanging around the property pretending to be an asshole to my own sister and grandmother.

  The first time I had shown up at the restaurant I had only been able to give Vanessa a quick text message of warning.

  I’m coming today, when you see me, you don’t know me. Tell Nonna and everyone in the kitchen. You. Don’t. Know. Me.

  Her reply had been: What the hell are you talking about? I can’t talk right now I’m busy, we had two kitchen staff quit this week and we are shorthanded.

  Yeah, I knew why they were shorthanded. Chaz had been sending local boys to scare and rough up some of the staff as they were leaving the restaurant. Broke into a couple of cars and stole the purse from a server as she was walking to her car at night. Petty hood shit. Stuff that might have gotten the attention of the cops if there had been enough of them to go around. As it was, the Toledo PD was so damn busy the best they could do for Nonna was tell her to install security cameras facing the parking lot and tell the staff to leave in pairs after closing. It didn’t help that Chaz sent different people every time.

  Until I volunteered to be head asshole.

  In reality I did it to make sure no one went too far and actually hurt someone or did major damage, but Chaz seemed to like that someone was willing to go that extra mile to be a douche bag to a little old lady and her family restaurant. I swore once I found out what his deal was I would punch his face in. It would be hard with Eddie and Gordon around, but fuck I’d find a way. Maybe it was overkill, maybe I could have gone about this another way, but the whole thing just seemed so personal. Until I could figure out his reasoning, I couldn’t figure out a way to make him stop short of getting him arrested and put away for something unrelated. And it wasn’t like I didn’t have enough on him for that –but there is a little thing called probable cause, and I couldn’t afford to start something and have him walk free on a technicality. Especially considering right now I was sort of…off the clock with the Feds.

  My immediate supervisor had texted me every day for the first week I was gone, probably trying to get me to come back before I made an irreversible decision. There was no reversing the decision though. I had family issues to get through. Once that was done I would figure out what I wanted to do for work, but I wasn’t overly concerned about it. I was simply doing now, the same thing that I did for every job, pretending to be some-fucking-body else. My apartment in Chicago packed up in storage along with my truck, and me, all I had with me was what would fit into my BMW. It was an older model, still a nice car but I wouldn’t cry salty tears if something happened to it out here.

  My fucking truck though? Let some strung-out gutter rat touch my Canyon Denali and I would stain the sidewalk with his ass. When things were more stable, and I went back to actually having a home to go back to, I would take my baby out of storage. Until then, I drove the old BMW. I wondered if Jeanette would ever take a ride in my truck.

  As I stripped off my clothes from the day and headed into the small bathroom to shower off my irritation I was reminded of what happened earlier that day. I’d had sex with Jeanette Clary. I know her name was technically Gabriella Hensley but to me she was Jeanette, and since she didn’t seem too attached to the old name, I didn’t feel honor-bound to use it.

  Fuck her old life, it could burn in a garbage fire.

  I’d only meant to rile her up, to get her going in a good heated back and forth with me, get her loose and in her element. That was why I kissed her. Not because I had been thinking about what she would taste like for the last five or so years. Not because I was scared she was going to be taken from me before I could figure my shit out and approach her like a normal human being like she deserved. I had meant to push her buttons, but I had no idea she would melt into me like that. She was too good to let go of. And then the next thing I knew she was telling me to take her, even demanding it of me.

  How could I refuse that? There wasn’t a man on the planet with that kind of self-control. And if there was, I didn’t want to meet him.

  The hot water beat on my back and I turned to let the spray wash over my chest and abdomen. As I worked the soap into a lather I saw Jeanette’s face in my mind again, how instead of closing her eyes when she came she stared straight at me, so I could see the exact moment the orgasm took her. Shit, I was hard just thinking about it. I slid my soapy hands down to my raging erection and worked my slick hands over my cock, thinking about the ways I had wanted to take her.

  I hadn’t wanted to fuck her on a floor. No, what I wanted to do was lay her gently down on a bed, on her back so I could spread her legs wide and see how wet she was before I put my mouth on her pussy. I wanted to watch as I slid my fingers inside of her, watch as her ass lifted in the air, I wanted to feel her legs wrap around my waist as she greedily sucked me in. I wanted to fuck her slowly. I wanted to take my time.

  I could see it in my mind, hear her husky voice as she moaned for me, sliding in and out of her, running my hands over those perky tits of hers just like I was running them over my own cock in this tiny fucking shower. I came in my hands, just like that, panting against the wall of the shower while the sputtering water went from hot, to lukewarm, to cold.

  Damn it. I wanted more from Jeanette than just a romp on the rug. If I had to take out every nightmare she ever had and destroy it in front of her for Jeanette to understand that she was allowed to have a real life again, I would. Then I would take her out to dinner at my family’s restaurant and introduce her to my Nonna. My grandmother would love her, and fuss over Jeanette like crazy, I was sure of it. Vanesa wouldn’t even be able to find anything about Jeanette to complain about, and if she did, I had no doubt Jeanette would put her in her place. My sister was a good girl, but our family situation made her way too fucking uptight.

  Yeah, things would change soon and we could both have a real, regular life. There was just some shit I had to take care of first.

  I was drying off with the shitty postage-stamp sized piece of sandpaper the hotel called a bath towel when my phone rang. It was Vanessa, and I debated answering it because she knew she wasn’t supposed to contact me while I was doing this job. I had expressly forbidden her from contacting me because I could be with anyone when she called, we couldn’t afford to have my cover blown. After a couple of rings, I picked it up. There was no reason to be worried about my cover in this hotel room, and I could read her the riot act after she told me what was up her ass so bad that she had to break the rules.

  “You know the rules, Vanessa.”

  “Fuck you, Dino, did you know? Did you know this was going to happen?” Holy shit, what was going on?

  “What, Vanessa? What are you talking about? What happened?”

  “They fucking set a fire, you asshole.” She wasn’t yelling at me, she was crying. My hard-headed half-sister was crying into the phone at the same time as she was cussing me out.

  “Who?” I demanded, even though I think I knew. “Where?” Even though my guts were twisting with the answer already.

  “The dumpster behind the restaurant, there was an explosion. I didn’t see who did it, but you know, Dino. You know who it was.”

  “Where’s Nonna, Vanessa?” I was proud of myself for how calm I was being, even though my vision was graying, and I could have passed out at any second. Vanessa gulped back her tears and took a deep breath.

  “She’s riding in the ambulance with Fedo, our line cook. He was taking out the trash when the explosion happened.” I didn’t know this Fedo, he must have been a newer hire to replace all the people that kept quitting.

  “Is she hurt?” My voice did tremble on the question because if so much as a hair had been disturbed on my Nonna
, I would light Chaz Malone on fire and watch him struggle to put himself out myself.

  It must have been hearing the emotion in my voice that calmed Vanessa down, because she sounded much more composed when she said, “No, Nonna is fine, but she’s very shaken up and feels responsible. Fedo was knocked down and has some abrasions from the blast but nothing life-threatening. The restaurant is closed pending the police investigation and there is yellow tape everywhere. Nonna is going to stress herself into a heart attack and who knows if we will be able to reopen – if no employees will even want to work there anymore?” Vanessa’s voice caught on a sob, “Why is he doing this to us, Dino? Why won’t he leave us alone?”

  I didn’t know. And I should have known by then, but I didn’t, and it was fucked up and I was so frustrated.

  “Where are you? I’m coming there now.” Fuck the whole thing. Fuck Chaz Malone and fuck his secrets and fuck this stupid part I was playing. My family was hurting. My Nonna needed me.

  “Nonna said to make sure you don’t come.”

  Ugh. My insides turned to dust at those words. I’d always wondered how my grandmother was handling things. After the first time I had to come to the restaurant swinging a bat and breaking all of the outside lights in front of her, Vanessa had made sure she had been the one working, and Nonna had been elsewhere so she didn’t have to witness her grandson’s shame. Fuck, my Nonna hated me. This was where this stupid job had taken me.

  “She said for me to tell you, to finish what you started.”

  What? I gripped the phone so tightly in my hand I felt the plastic case crack around the edges. “What?” I whispered the word that echoed what had been ricocheting inside my head.