Thank God.
Maria jumped off the bike as soon as Cassius pulled up in front of the pizza joint after seeing Dominic’s Mustang out front. Snatching her poor heels off the handlebars, she slid them back on her feet. “How’d you know he was here?”
Cassius touched a finger to his temple. “I know things.”
Maria stared at him strangely. The young Luciano just reminded her of her brother Lucca for some odd reason.
Feeling back to normal with her shoes on, she smoothed down her dress. “Thanks. I think I’ll get Dominic to take me back.”
“I think I’ll wait out here … to make sure.”
“Suit yourself,” Maria told him from over her shoulder, knowing there was no fucking way in hell she was getting back on that thing.
Walking up to the door, she grabbed the handle and swung the door open.
Ding.
Out of habit, Dominic looked over at the person who had just walked through the door. He almost thought it was a fucking illusion at first. There was no way in hell Maria Caruso was here, staring right at him ….
The pissed off look that crossed her face confirmed she was very much real.
Dom’s eyes went back to the hand he held in his on the other side of the table.
Ah … shit.
Ding.
The bell went off above her head as she slammed the door back open, on her way out. Her stomach had sunk the second she had seen Dominic’s hand resting over another woman’s hand.
Cassius’s face said it all before his words did. “Back so soo—”
“Maria!” Dominic called out from behind her as he flew through the glass door.
Walking toward Cass’s bike, she didn’t turn back until a hand grabbed her arm, forcing her to turn back around and face him.
“It wasn’t what it looked like. She—”
“Why should I care what it looked like?” Maria snatched her arm out of his grasp. “It’s not like we’re together,” she told him coldly, heading back toward the bike.
Snatching her arm again, he spun her around so quickly that her dress lightly twirled as he pulled her close until their bodies touched. “Don’t pretend like you don’t care,” Dominic said fiercely to her pretty face that was an inch away from his, showing her that he could see right through her façade. “If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have walked out like that.”
“I don’t,” Maria said the words, looking into his hazel eyes without an ounce of emotion. “Now let me go, and if you touch me like that again, I’ll show you just how tall the heels I’m wearing are today.”
Slowly, Dominic removed his hand from her, not letting her go out of fear, but because she asked.
Spinning back on her heels, there was one thing Maria wasn’t okay with, and that was being manhandled.
“Why are you here in Blue Park, princess?” he asked, walking behind her with every step. “There’s a reason you came back.”
“Well, apparently, it was stupid,” she spat back, knowing he was trying to rile her up. Quickly, she tossed off her heels.
“What are you doing?” he asked, watching the action, then practically flinching when she bent down to pick them up at the speed of light.
“Don’t worry.” Maria hurriedly slid one on Cassius’s bike like he had before. “I’m not going to use them on you … yet.”
Dominic stared at her in shock, just now noticing how the fuck she had gotten there. “You came here on this?”
“Yep,” Maria growled, shoving the other Jimmy Choo on forcefully. I can’t believe I fucking came here.
“I’ll deal with you later.” His hazel eyes glowered at his pleased-looking brother sitting on the bike. “Don’t you let her leave till I get back home.”
“Oh, I’ll be long gone,” Maria reminded him that she was right fucking there, jumping back up on the handlebars.
Once Maria was settled, Cassius slightly backed up the bike so he could maneuver around Dominic who stood in front of them.
Maria gave him a smile. “Your date is waiting for you.”
Suddenly, Dominic reached out, grabbing the handlebars and dragging the bike with the two of them on it right back to him.
With wide eyes, Maria stared at Dom, whose face was an inch from hers as he bent down, caging her in with his arms. He didn’t dare touch her, like she had warned.
“How does it feel?” Dominic’s taunting words sent chills up her body. “That’s only a taste of what you made me feel.”
For the first time, Maria was speechless. She swallowed hard, staring into all the emotions that he clearly felt in his hazel depths.
“Bristol is a frien—”
“Bristol …” Maria mouthed as she slid her eyes from his to the beautiful blonde standing behind him and off to the side. “That’s a pretty name for a pretty girl.”
Dom turned his head to see Bristol standing there, then let go of the bike.
Looking back at him, Maria felt the bike reverse again. “Bye, Dominic.”
She was grateful when Cassius kicked off and they rolled away. The sick feeling in her stomach grew tenfold when Dom simply let her go.
Maria returned her eyes to the blonde. What she had said about Bristol, she meant wholeheartedly. The gorgeous woman proved Dominic definitely had a type. He could claim she was a friend all he wanted, but she saw the hurt look in her eyes when he called Bristol just a friend. Maria couldn’t blame her either, but she wasn’t going to let Dominic fool her into thinking there wasn’t anything there when she had walked into the restaurant to find him holding her hand.
Maria had never been jealous of another girl in her life. It went against everything she believed in to pit herself against another woman, and she damn sure wasn’t going to start now.
As they rode down the sidewalk, Maria watched their surroundings pass her by while Cassius pedaled them through Blue Park.
Turning to look back at him, Maria wasn’t too happy with the youngest Luciano either. “You knew he was with her.”
Cass didn’t answer.
Now he goes back to not talking?
“Stop the bike,” Maria told him from over her shoulder. When he continued to ignore her, she yelled, “You either stop the bike, Cass, or I jump!”
Cassius slowed before hitting the brakes. “What are you doing?” he asked, watching her hop off, then taking her shoes off the end of the handles.
Sliding on the left then right of her stretched-out Jimmy Choos, she then reached into her bra to pull out her cell phone. Maria loved her purses, but there was no way in hell she’d bring a Birken to Blue Park. Both times she’d come down here via taxi, she’d stuffed her phone and some cash in her lacy bra. Her expensive shoes, however, were the exception, as there was no way she was leaving the house without them.
“What the …?” Maria patted her left breast. Her phone was nowhere to be found. The last time she had felt it was when … “Ugh!”
Cassius raised a knowing brow. “Problem?”
“No.” She shot daggers at the mini-me and swore internally at the man who had pickpocketed the phone off her without her even knowing. The bastard must have stolen it from her when he held her close to his body. She hadn’t noticed because the grip he had on her arm was more concerning. It was probably easy fucking pickings as the dress was a bit too tight up top, and she had to repeatedly shove it back down on the way here to conceal the phone.
“I’ll walk home.”
“No, you’re not.” Cassius’s tone told her he thought it was a joke.
So, Maria did the logical thing and started walking.
“Come on,” Cassius griped, watching her get about twenty feet until he rolled his eyes and caught up with her. “You won’t make it five miles in those things.”
“Watch me,” she spat as if she said the words “bite me.” Maria had gone endless miles in a mall with them on her feet, so the little know-it-all couldn’t have been more wrong.
“All right.” Cass shrugged,
letting the princess walk if that was what she wanted.
Walking another twenty feet, she watched Cassius slowly pedal the bike beside her like he was bored.
“I can walk home all by myself, you know.”
“You sure about that?” he questioned without even looking over at her.
Maria furrowed her brows, seeming to understand what he meant. Looking around the neighborhood they were passing through, she saw bars through every window and several fenced-in houses with big dogs wandering the yards, barking as they passed.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “I can take care of myself.”
He looked at her smugly, then glanced down to her feet. “So I’ve heard.”
“See? I’ll be fine. Good-bye.”
“Do you see that big guy over there?”
Maria looked toward an older man who Cass nodded toward. He was bald and huge, grilling in his front lawn while staring her down.
“That’s Big Vic.” Cassius continued pedaling beside her without a care in the world. “He got out of prison a month ago for murder. What do you think your chances are shoving your heel into that huge fucking neck?”
Crossing her arms, she saw the prison tats that marked his face come into view. “And you think if you stick around, that’ll keep me safe? You’re like thirteen ….” She paid him back for the earlier comment.
“Fifteen,” he corrected. “But, nope, it’ll keep those assholes behind us from touching you.”
Maria regretfully glanced over her shoulder, seeing three sketchy men in their late twenties tailing them. They had better luck fighting off Big Vic from prison than those three. A slight alarm went through her, but she didn’t feel the need to have to run yet as the men were still quite a ways back.
“Don’t worry; they won’t touch you as long as I’m here,” Cassius assured her, sensing her thoughts.
Again, Maria stared back at the fifteen-year-old boy. “What makes you think that?”
“Because I’m Lucifer’s son and the spitting image of Dom. They’d have to either be fucking stupid or asking for a death wish to touch you while you’re with me.”
Glancing back again, they appeared to be closer. “You sure about that?”
“I’ve snuck out of the house and walked these streets since I five, so … yeah,” Cassius assured her once more without a hint of worry. “I’m sure.”
Unfortunately, that didn’t mean much coming from the little Lucifer in the making.
Cass gave the man over the fence a nod. “Hey, Vic.”
“Hey, Cass.” Big Vic gave him a warm smile with a wave. “Tell Dom I said thanks for the homecoming present.”
“Will do.”
Maria’s mouth fell open, then quickly snapped back into place, thinking it had to be a joke. She had seen real murderers, but on the inside, that man was a Teddy bear.
“Yeah … he seems real dangero—”
“He went to prison for killing the man who raped his daughter.”
Maria kept her mouth shut now, understanding. “Oh.”
Cassius still kept trailing along. “Like I said, he wasn’t the one you should worry about.”
Again, she looked back over her shoulder, and again, they were even closer. “Since you were two, huh?”
“Yes.” Cassius shot her an ominous look with a raised brow. “Sound familiar?”
Maria stopped, staring over at him. She wondered how the hell he would know about her wandering problem around her father’s casino when she was just a kid. “You’re really starting to creep me out.” Looking back, she felt their presence sneak closer. She was either going to make a run for it or get back on his bike. “You know, you’re not very convincing, considering they’re still following us.”
“That’s because they’re following you, not me.” Cassius pedaled his bike faster. “They’ve been too busy staring at your legs and ass that they have yet to recognize me from the back.” Crossing in front of her, he slowly circled around her.
The second the three men saw his face, they scurried like three blind mice down a cross street.
Laughing, Maria looked at him, impressed.
“Don’t worry, that won’t last much longer.” Cassius resumed his riding spot beside her. “Once Dom gets the word out that you two are together, Blue Park will be safer than any place on your side of Kansas City.”
Maria found the last part of that statement interesting … until she remembered the first. “Me and Dominic are not getting to—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Cassius said, wanting her to save those words for someone who believed it. “Now, can you please jump back on so we can get home already?”
“No.” Maria flipped her gold hair behind a shoulder. “I’m still mad at you for not warning me about his little date back there before I made a fool of myself.”
“Is this the part where you want me to apologize?” he asked seriously, making Maria look over at him.
She realized how much older he looked, but just how young he still was. It was like a child asking if he was in trouble, like his father Lucifer and her brother Lucca, Cass’s emotions weren’t just stunted, they were nonexistent. He hadn’t yet mastered blending in, like bumping into someone at the supermarket and saying “sorry” because it was the polite thing to do. It was what people like Cassius needed to learn to survive so they could live undetected as a danger to society. Maria knew … because she was one too.
“You never have to apologize to me unless you mean it,” she told him, not wanting him to feel like he had to pretend with her. However, someone was working with him, trying to help keep him accountable, so much so that he was aware to ask the question if he should apologize.
“Is Dom the one helping you?”
Knowing what she meant, Cassius shook his head. “Kat.”
“Oh.” Maria smiled inwardly to herself. It meant Cass trusted her, and that strangely made her feel … happy.
Stopping, she tossed off her heels, hopefully for the last time. “How about we make a deal?” Picking up her shoes, she went to stand in front of his stopped bike. “Tell me why you wanted me to see Dominic with her, and I’ll let you give me a ride back to your house … Deal?”
It took Cassius a moment before he gave a single nod of agreement. “I knew, if you didn’t see them together, you would never be able to really understand what Dom was talking about when he told you that you hurt him by choosing somebody else.” On paper, what Cassius said might’ve been deep, but his blank eyes and even tone reminded her that wasn’t the case on the inside. “Those are just words to people like us. They hold no meaning.”
Staring right through the windows of his soul, Maria couldn’t find anything in the young boy.
Cassius was soulless.
Sliding her heels back on the bike, she jumped back on the handlebars, accepting his answer without a word. For someone who was a lot like him, that answer kind of stung.
Back on their way, Cassius waited until he was at a higher speed to take one shoe off the bar and launch it into someone’s yard. By the time Maria had noticed, he had already snatched off the other one.
Watching her brand new Jimmy Choos being launched hurt a hell of a lot worse the second time as the yard it landed in had a Rottweiler that had just found its newest chew toy.
“You little motherfu—”
“Oh, shut up.” Cassius kept pedaling so she couldn’t jump off to stupidly try to retrieve them. “I knew you were just using me for a little ride. Your ass would have started walking the second we got there.”
Maria snapped her neck forward furiously. He was right, but that wasn’t the point. This Luciano suddenly got knocked down to dead last.
“You’re lucky if I don’t kill you when I get off this thing.”
Cassius actually laughed. “Why the hell do you think I threw those?”
“That won’t be why,” she hissed at him as the wind hit her face. “I gotta wait three years.”
Thirty-One
As soon as Cassius came to a stop, Maria jumped off. Having to walk barefoot on the filthy ground made her livid. Seeing that only Matthias’s car sat in the driveway meant Dominic wasn’t back yet, and she didn’t know if that made her happy or more pissed.
Storming into the unlocked house, she left Cassius behind, who was still getting off his bike in the dust. Maria went right up to the phone on the wall in the kitchen and started dialing a number. She pressed the last number right when Cassius ripped the cord out of the wall.
“You little …,” Maria grumbled, unable to finish the sentence to his evil but cute face. Shit!
Storming down the hall, she needed a different method. Throwing open the bedroom door, she walked right into the dark room casting light from the hallway inside.
Maria suddenly stopped when the light illuminated his sleeping face glow. Even in what should be a peaceful sleep, the dark circles under his eyes highlighted that his dreams were haunted.
“What time is it?” she whispered very quietly over to Cassius, who was following her through the house. “Isn’t it a little late to still be sleeping?” Her tone wasn’t judgmental, but held a bit of worry.
“Matthias”—Cassius took a second to finish his answer—“works kinda late.”
Maria’s emerald gaze slightly softened, staring at his sleeping face. She kind of felt … bad for what she was going to have to do.
Bursting through the room, she went right up to his nightstand.
“What the …?” Matthias groggily opened his eyes before they flew open. “The fuck are you doing here?”
“Looking for your phone, sleepyhead. Where is it?” she snapped, her kind demeanor toward him had clearly been left at the door.
Quickly, Matthias got out from under his covers and exited the bed on the other side. Holding up his hand, he dangled the rectangle. “You mean this?”
Maria slowly turned her head from the nightstand to the Luciano brother with intent to kill, but when her eyes landed on him, the emotion dissipated at his sight.
Matthias was only wearing a thin pair of shorts. Waist up, his body was on display. She had seen his twin, Angel, whom they shared mirror-imaging tattoos, but she had never seen him unclothed. She assumed the twins had more tattoos, as their fingers, hands, and necks were fully inked until they disappeared under clothes … but not this many.
Dominic (Made Men Book 8) Page 23