by Bethany-Kris
Easy, he knew, because he meant them and he didn’t say things he didn’t mean.
Karen hesitated on the other end of the call. “Fine. But that’s all you get. Come over to my place now, and I’ll give you ten minutes.”
Dino was more than willing to agree to that, and with a quick goodbye, he was already heading out of his office.
He prided himself on the fact that he was not a stupid man. Truth be told, Karen was not a stupid woman, either. She was more than capable of handling herself, and taking care of her own business.
She didn’t need him.
She had taken care of herself long before he’d ever come along. She never accepted help from him beyond the job he gave her. He offered to help pay for bills when she came up short from time to time because he had more money than he knew what to do with, but Karen refused because she didn’t need him to do anything.
Dino took comfort in the fact that his lover was able to keep her head above water and her feet on the ground, but he also knew what that really meant.
If she wanted to walk away from him, if she had finally had enough, she could do so.
She was not dependent on him.
Dino was only starting to realize now that it was him who was dependent on her in more ways than he cared to count. She made him happy, gave him peace. She made him smile, gave him happiness. She was light in the darkness that constantly clouded his life, and he had come to rely on her to keep shining around him when everything else seemed so dull.
In all his efforts to keep Karen from being pulled into his life, she had become the most important part of it.
Somehow, he had done that.
He just didn’t know how to keep her light from being snuffed out because of it.
Dino figured he could handle all of that at another time. He would handle his uncle’s disapproval over his relationship with an outsider, and what Ben might do because of it, at another time.
Right then, Karen was more important.
Dino owned her an apology and an explanation.
The ringing of a phone call echoing through the car’s speakers brought Dino from his thoughts with a bang. He didn’t think to check the caller ID, assuming it was probably Karen calling back to make sure he was still on his way to her place.
Theo’s voice answering back when Dino picked up surprised him. “We’ve got a problem.”
Dino groaned, his hands tightening hard around the steering wheel. “Not today, man. I’ve got other things to—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Theo interjected. “The club got raided, Dino.”
Dino turned into a block of ice as he hit the breaks, damn near causing the car behind him to ram into his backend. He flipped the guy the middle finger as the man maneuvered his vehicle around Dino’s to drive off.
“What did you just say?” Dino demanded.
“The club is being raided.”
“Right now.”
“Yeah,” Theo confirmed.
“Police or—”
“FBI.”
Fuck.
Dino’s frustrations boiled over as he slammed his fists into the steering wheel.
“Sounded like they’re working on other warrants,” Theo continued, “for other places.”
“Where?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, but it seemed like if they found what they were looking for at the club, the warrants would be approved on the spot.”
Probably his place, Dino thought. Maybe his other businesses.
Dino checked the clock on his dashboard and noted the time. He could be home in five minutes from his current position. He had time to get there and destroy the papers and files in his safe that would basically put him away for years on fraud, tax evasion, money laundering and more.
Nobody ever said the mafia was clean living.
Dino knew that all too well.
He made another illegal U-turn.
Karen would have to wait—she would understand.
This time, he would finally explain.
DINO didn’t even bother to park his car properly once he was in the lot for his building. No, he just threw it in park right at the front door while leaving it running, ignored the man who tried to hold open the door for him, and bolted for the stairway.
He took four flights of stairs three steps at a time, a paralyzing fear working its way through his nervous system with each and every step. He didn’t have the slightest clue whether or not the agents had gotten their warrants, if they were done at the club, on their way over to his place, or goddammit, how much time he even had.
If he had any time at all …
It seemed as though it took him entirely too long to get inside his place, but once he was, Dino wasted no time heading to his office. Ripping the painting from the wall, he tossed it to the floor, uncaring that the four-thousand dollar artwork hit the corner of the edge and tore. Behind the painting rested something far more precious—something far more valuable.
Dino spun the dial on the safe, hitting the numbers that would open it. His mother’s birthdate, his father’s death date, and then his siblings’ birthdates. Pulling on the latch, the safe popped open, and the sweetest relief filled Dino at the sight of what rested within.
Papers. Documents.
Information.
There were other documents he knew he should worry about as well that was currently hidden within mountains of files in his filing cabinets. But frankly, the information was exactly that—a goddamn mountain to go through. Seeds of information planted within financial documents that would only lead to tidbits of data that may lead to something else. It would all take a while to get through, and even if someone managed to figure out where it all lead, it might only hurt him with a few fines and a bit of jail time.
No, he didn’t give a single shit about what was in his filing cabinets.
It was the documentation in his safe that needed to go.
Dino pulled out papers and files in the handfuls, tossing them into a metal garbage can in one giant heap of trouble.
Trouble that could put him away for years upon years.
Offshore account information. Racket details and contracts. Falsified legal paperwork. Cooked books for a dozen businesses. Fraudulent tax filings. The list went on and on.
Some of the paperwork he would have to destroy would never be fully replaced, and in the end, that would mean lost money. Dino was all too aware of that knowledge, but that didn’t stop him from grabbing the last few documents and the one file left inside the safe. Without even a moment of hesitation, he tossed it into the garbage can as well.
All that was left in his safe were stacks of bills that probably added up to a hundred thousand dollars all together.
Dino knew what might have been found at his club, and that left his brain racing a million miles a minute. Theo had done well to clean out the dirty business that would get Dino time in jail on drug charges—but the financial side of things, information that would prove the club was funneling money from all sorts of illegal activity, was still there, in the offices and hidden within the mountains of paperwork in the filing cabinets.
Dino was fucked.
One way or another, a jail cell was likely.
At least for a while.
So as he grabbed a lighter from his office desk and lit the corner of one of the papers in the garbage can on fire, he was already thinking about Karen.
Karen and his child.
What would she do now?
Who would she depend on?
He didn’t think for a moment that she would understand, though he had thought before that she might if he were the one to explain it all to her.
Dino knew now that wouldn’t be the case.
It would be one thing for Karen to know Dino was involved in illegal activities on a daily basis—she had a good idea about all of that nonsense, anyway. It would be an entirely other matter when she learned his whole life was built upon schemes, lies, and dirty money.
&
nbsp; Schemes that left businesses bankrupt and hundreds out of jobs. Lies that left bodies in rivers with their hands and feet cut off where the scavengers could pick the corpses apart. Dirty money that paid for his lifestyle.
She wouldn’t be able to understand any of that—who would?
Don’t mess with outsiders, and especially not women, Ben would always tell the DeLuca brothers as they grew up, they only bring more problems than they’re worth.
Dino had followed that rule up until he met Karen, and even after to an extent, by keeping her out of his business as much as he possibly could. He’d done it for both his own selfish reasons, and also to protect her from people like Ben.
A man who would kill her simply because Dino had gotten close to her, and because she was not brought up inside their smothering ways.
It certainly didn’t help that Karen had also put her hands in Dino’s books for one of his businesses. She’d falsified numbers for him when he added extra cash to the books in one of his many ways to hide dirty cash in a simple way. He didn’t want her taking the hit for his shit; she wouldn’t because he would do whatever he needed to make sure none of this fell back on her.
But he also needed to take care of her.
Her and his child.
Somehow.
He just didn’t know where to start or how to go about doing anything in his current situation. As the small fire in the garbage can began to grow, a thick black plume of smoke and ash rising from the burning papers, Dino turned away from the sight and lifted his shirt to cover his mouth.
God knew he didn’t need to be breathing his sins in as he was trying to destroy them. All too soon, those very sins would be biting him in the ass, and very possibly, locking him away for a good few years or more.
But as he turned away from the burning papers, the money in the safe caught his eye once more.
All over again, Dino was faced with a choice.
He could spend whatever little time he had left going through and destroying what papers and documents might be in his filing cabinets, or he could spent it giving Karen a chance to start over in some small way.
It wouldn’t be a lot, but knowing her, she’d make it work.
Even if she hated him for it.
Even if she didn’t touch it for months.
It was something and it could work.
Dino flung open another drawer in his desk, digging through plastic-sealed envelopes to find one that was big enough to hold the stacks of money he had inside his safe. Soon enough, he found a yellow one that just might do the trick.
The buzzing in his pocket started up again—another phone call.
Dino opted to ignore it, knowing good and damn well that it might be a call he needed to take. It could be Theo letting him know the officials were on their way, or something else. It might even be Karen wondering where in the hell he was, as he should have been at her place a good fifteen minutes ago.
If it were her, there was no doubt in his mind that this would be her final straw.
It was one thing for him to up and leave the week before.
It would be another for him to flake on her again.
While the whole situation was a giant misunderstanding that he was sure he could fix with a long, honest explanation, Dino wasn’t sure if Karen would even be willing to hear it. Especially not if he was locked up—he couldn’t have her around then anyway.
It would be a way for Ben to find her.
The thought made him sicker and colder than ever.
So instead of picking up the call, Dino went to work on the money in the safe. He grabbed handfuls of the cash, stuffing it into the large, bubble mailer as fast as he could while making sure there was enough room to fit most of it inside. Once he had filled the mailer with as much money as he could, Dino tossed it aside on the desk, reaching for one thing he always kept close at hand.
His black book—filled with contacts—flipped open to the desk. Dino started tearing out pages as he went, tossing them into the burning garbage can. While the great majority of the contacts were just normal, law abiding citizens, some belonged to people who couldn’t afford to be tied up in a mess with a gangster who had gotten caught.
Finally, he got to the page he needed.
Karen’s address and info stared back at him.
It was only her initials written on the page.
K.M.
It was yet another way that Dino had made an effort to keep her presence in his life quiet. Even if her details in his black book could simply be explained away by saying she was an employee of his. It hadn’t mattered to him. He wanted to keep her as safe as he possibly could from his life.
Fuck.
How hard he was failing, he realized sadly.
Dino couldn’t think on that realization for long, instead he went about writing Karen’s address on the bubble mailer with a black marker, making sure her details were clear, bold, and couldn’t be somehow screwed up when it went into the mail. On the return address section, he hesitated.
But only for a second.
In big, bold letters, Dino wrote, DO NOT RETURN TO SENDER.
He didn’t want the money coming back to him. He didn’t need it, Karen would. He hoped the one sentence would be enough for her to get his hint, take the money, and do what she needed with it, but he didn’t know if it would be.
The woman was fucking stubborn.
He loved her for it, sure, but she could be difficult.
This was something he nor she could be difficult about. Karen would need a backup plan, even if she wouldn’t fully understand why, and Dino needed to make sure she and his unborn child would be taken care of.
Deep in his heart, burrowing into his black soul, that need was taking hold.
It was far greater than even his need to make sure he was okay, that he came out unscathed in all of this.
She came first now.
His child would come first.
He had to make sure of that.
Ripping out a piece of paper from a notepad, Dino scribbled a few sentences, not taking much time to think about what he could or should say to Karen, but rather, the first things that came to his mind. Things that were important—things that would keep her safe.
Things that he needed her to know.
I’m sorry. Please use this, even if you don’t want to. Know that I love you. Stay away.
Then, he hesitated on the last sentence he knew he absolutely needed to write—something he had to tell Karen, but knew how it would come across without an explanation to follow it, or for that matter, without him telling her why he was asking it of her.
Don’t give the child my names.—Dino.
His hand had slipped on that final sentence, the trembling making his letters appear more haphazard than his writing usually was. His heart beat painfully hard in his chest as he took in the words again and again, rereading them to himself until his eyes hurt and his vision blurred. He hadn’t realized how absolutely aching it would be to write those words, to know he had to mean them, and to know what it would mean and feel like to Karen when she was the one reading them.
Keep them safe, he kept telling himself.
It was starting to feel like a mantra.
He almost grabbed another paper and rewrote his short letter, wanting to take that last sentence out, wanting to tie himself and his legacy to a child not yet born. But he couldn’t.
So he didn’t.
Dino didn’t let himself stare at the letter for too long lest he go back and change what he knew was best for Karen, instead he folded the paper into a small square and shoved it into the bubble mailer, too. Quickly but carefully, he sealed the package, grabbed the stack of prepaid mailing stickers, and stuck as many onto the package as he could. It was probably too many, but at least then it wouldn’t get lost to the system for having too little.
It was only then that Dino realized his entire office was filled with a hazy cloud of smoke, lingering midway in the room like a heavy b
lanket waiting to fall. For a long moment, he stared at the haze, hoping he had done enough to at least save himself a life sentence.
A year, he could handle.
A few years would put him back a lot, but it was still manageable.
A life sentence was a death warrant.
Dino didn’t know how much time he had left, if any at all, so he didn’t bother to start going through his filing cabinets to destroy what was in them, too. Instead, he headed back out of his apartment, making his way down to the end of the hall where he knew he could finish at least one thing that was far more important than the rest—without problem or the officials finding out he had done so.
The evidence in his apartment that he had destroyed would be obvious.
The mailer he was sending out would not be. It didn’t have his name on it, or even his address.
At the end of the hallway, Dino pulled open the chute that had been installed the year before in the building on every floor. It allowed the renters to drop in whatever they wanted mailed, and it would be sent out before the hour was up.
One benefit to paying high maintenance costs, Dino thought.
He dropped the mailer into the slot, hearing it hit the sides of the chute with loud thumps before it finally came to a stop on the bottom floor’s mailing cart.
Dino only had the time to close his apartment door when he heard the first bang of boots coming down the hallway.
The officials only had to knock once before he let them in.
“DINO DeLuca,” the agent said, strolling into the interrogation room with files in hand. Behind him came another agent, and in his hands he held a familiar garbage can. “How’re you feeling, Dino? Comfortable? Hungry? Cigarette?”
Dino flicked the agent with a disinterested look, and then went back to studying the marks on his wrists from the cuffs being put on too tightly. “Fuck off.”
“That’s not a particularly great way to start this conversation.”
“Please fuck off,” Dino said, not bothering in the slightest to hide his smirk at the anger that flashed in the agent’s eyes.
“The hard way it is.”
Dino had no idea what the fool was talking about, and while he was sure he wouldn’t like it, he wisely chose to stay quiet as the other agent placed the garbage can on the table top. He could see the dusting of ash around the rim, and the marks on the side that said they had tried to get fingerprints off the item.