“You know what, Mom? If you had said that yesterday, I would have told you I could get the girl on my own. After what just happened, I’m going to accept all the help you’re willing to give me.”
Mom sat for several minutes, slowly drinking her coffee and taking bites of the variety of pastries on the table. “You know, the biggest obstacle I had with your father was his arrogance. Which, you have to confess, you have in spades.”
I’d love to challenge her on this, but she’s right. I’m a cocky bastard who doesn’t apologize for being this way.
“You carry yourself the same way he did all of those years ago. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until he showed me his true colors that I agreed to go out with him.”
I leaned forward concentrating on her words. I had heard bits and pieces of the story, usually from my dad when he was bragging to his friends and much alcohol was involved, but not all of it.
“It was a late Thursday evening and I had not been feeling well all day, but the girl who worked with me felt even worse so she had gone home early. I counted the cash in the register and placed it in the safe thinking I would stop by Dorfman’s and grab some seltzer water for my upset stomach. I had just locked the door when I felt the cold hands of someone behind me. I didn’t even get a chance to scream before they had covered my mouth. However, just as quickly as they were there, they were gone. Your father was standing on the sidewalk with his gun pointed at the guy’s face. I ran to Mr. Dorfman’s store where he tried to calm me down. I remained a complete wreck until Antonio came into the store and I flew into his arms, so grateful for his help, and knowing the right thing to do was to thank him and have coffee as he had offered.”
Her smile split her face as she placed her cup on the table, looking at me with a gentleness she has always possessed. “Your father thinks to this day he wore me down, but the truth is, I would never have given into him if he hadn’t come to my rescue. That cup of coffee turned into a drink at the bar around the corner, which turned into him walking me home, and then having one of his guys watch my apartment from then on. The next day he was there when I unlocked the shop door. He’d brought me breakfast. Once I got to know him and saw the amazing man behind the arrogance, I fell in love with him.” Adjusting her chair, she reached over and took my hand. “I don’t want something extreme happening to Ari. I know she’s the type of girl who will open a whole new world for you. I’m going to make certain she’s at as many events as I can possibly arrange so you can show her the man I raised. Not the man-whore you’ve become.”
She was planning on using my birthday party to be the kickoff of her plan to help me win Ari. With the way Ari was around my mom, I trusted she would know how best to make this happen.
“Mom, do you want to know the craziest part?”
She nodded her head as she rubbed circles on my knuckles.
“When dad told me I had a year to find someone and be well on the way to marriage, I was honestly pissed about it.”
“And now?” she prodded gently.
“I’m actually looking forward to learning more about her. I mean, let’s be honest, she may not be the girl you and Dad think she is. She may have this huge secret she is hiding… like a husband she’s running from, or perhaps she’s really a scam artist. For now, though, I’m looking forward to this.”
I paid the bill and assured Mr. Papas I would be back. As I turned to leave, I stopped and placed an order to be delivered to the shop in the morning.
My mother smiled and whispered to me, “Now you’re thinking with the head on your shoulders.”
Ari and Gabby were laughing as they worked. I said a warm goodbye to everyone before turning back to Ari. “Hey, any chance I can get your number?”
Not bothering to stop what she was doing, she answered, “I’ve got lots of numbers, Dominick, but none of them your girlfriend would care to know.”
I was about to respond when my mother shook her head and my phone began to ring. It was Demetri, and he needed to see me. “I’ll be there in twenty,” I said and ended the call. “Mom.” I leaned over to kiss her goodbye.
“Tell your sister if you see her I will be needing her help with your party.” I agreed and slid on my sunglasses. With a smile on my face I entered my car. Dad might be smart, but my mother was fucking brilliant.
“Hey, Demetri, what do you have for me?” Putting the situation with Ari to the side for the time being, I had obligations with the Family to handle. Having issues in my mother’s neighborhood didn’t rest well with me. Now with Ari working and living there, too, it only made the situation more urgent.
“I’ve hit every source we have and it seems these guys,” he pointed to the grainy photo tacked to the wall behind him, “…have come from nowhere. They haven’t made any trouble except on your mom’s street. No arrests matching their descriptions… nothing.”
Demetri was not only one of the strongest men I knew; he was also the most resourceful. He could hack into any computer around and pick a lock in less than fifteen seconds. Don’t even get me started on how quickly he could get into a car. He loves puzzle solving, which is why he’s the guy who does this kind of work for us.
“Not to worry, Boss, they’ll fuck something up and I’ll catch them.”
I nodded and took a seat staring at the photos. They had given two stores trouble, one on each side of my mom’s store. I knew Mom had a few guns hidden around the shop. She was an excellent shot since my father trained her himself. Gabby carried the gun her fiancé had given her before he left on deployment. What I didn’t know was if Ari knew about guns or how to use one. It seemed there was too much I didn’t know about Ari Taylor.
“There’s something else I need to talk to you about.”
The seriousness in his voice caused my mental picture of the dark haired beauty to fade to the back of my mind.
“Before you ask, I’m planning to talk to your dad after I talk with you, but since you and I go back to diapers, I felt it more important to talk with you first.”
When Demetri and I were little, our mothers were really close and our fathers hung around each other. Demetri’s dad had wanted to work with my dad, but he didn’t have the temperament for it. My dad would give him an odd job every now and then when money got tight. Mom kept Demetri more nights than he was with his parents. He was four when his parents were found dead in their apartment. It seemed his mother had decided to stop earning money the way his father wanted her to, so he shot her three times in the chest before turning the gun on himself.
Demetri’s words were causing me to begin thinking crazy thoughts. Was he going to tell me he wanted to leave the Family? Demetri knew there was only one way to do that, and it was a huge price to pay.
“See, I ran into your sister a few weeks ago.” He lowered his eyes and shifted from one foot to the other. I raised my eyebrow, but allowed him to continue, keeping my face stoic.
“I haven’t touched her, I swear to God.” His hands came up in a defensive stance. “But I did ask her out. She won’t agree until I talk with her father. We’ve fought off feelings for one another for several years, and we are both too tired to fight them anymore.”
Another thing about Demetri I liked was his honesty. Even if the truth could get him killed, he was willing to tell it. I adjusted my position in my chair and leaned forward so my face was close to his. “I won’t give you the song and dance about hurting her, ‘cause you already know what will happen, but I will say good luck.”
Demetri nodded, then stood up. “Thanks, Boss, but it’s her quirks I love the most.”
Karla is my younger sister. She was born not long after my dad married Sophia. I take full responsibility for how she is now; those quirks Demetri referred to, my doing. Even being her big brother, I will admit she is beautiful. However, you try and get her to put any amount of makeup on and you will have a fight on your hands. She keeps her hair pulled back in a ponytail tucked in the strap of her ball cap and prefers to change the
oil on a car rather than shop for clothes any day of the week. She’s smart as fuck, with an MBA from Oxford which she uses to run the shop she bought with money she earned by working when she was younger. Dad tried to give her money when she graduated, but she turned him down. If she had her mind set on being with Demetri, there wasn’t a lot I could say to change her mind. She might take my warning and chew on it a while, but in the end, she would have Demetri on her terms. That got me to thinking.
“Demetri, what do you get a girl who doesn’t like flowers?” I was so pathetic. I had never had to work at getting a girl to look at me, much less into bed. Hell, I’d had girls whose real names I didn’t know fawn over me while I tossed them cab fare and shoved them out the door into the cold night. Now, here I was trying to impress a girl who was making it quite obvious that who I was, didn’t impress her.
“No clue, man. What does she like?”
How fucking simple was that question? What does she like? How the fuck do I know?
“Okay, wrong question. What do you want her to know about you? I mean, you have girls crawling all over each other to get to you… why?” Demetri’s face turned blank, then his eyes crinkled at the corners while a smile began to take shape on his face. His laughter erupted as he pointed at me, the other hand holding in his stomach while he roared.
“I’m so glad I fucking amuse you, fucking douche.” Kicking his desk with my shoe made him hold up his hands.
“I mean no disrespect, Boss. I can think of two things that would cause this question of yours. One, your dad laid down the gauntlet and you have to settle down, or you finally found the girl who piques more than just your need to get off.”
Flipping him off, I felt my phone vibrate in my jacket pocket. Quickly checking, it was Marissa, the fucking leech.
“Let me ask you… what do you want her to know about you? I mean, besides the obvious.”
Demetri was on to something. Ignoring Marissa’s text indicating she had something waiting for me, I placed a call to my dad’s secretary. After listening to the silence my question caused her, she said she knew just the thing. She advised me she was going to send Ms. Taylor something, which represented what I held most important outside of the Family.
Ari,
I want you to see the real me.
Dominick
The card was computer generated. Sophia and I had agreed cards like the one which resided between my thumb and index finger were not something which showed heart. Every card that went out of this shop was handwritten on scented stationery.
Dominick wanted me to see that the real him belonged in an adult book store. How appropriate. However, I didn’t need a “Sex in the Big Apple” gift basket full of sex toys to tell me Dominick was a man about town, so to speak. The handcuffs and whip glistened in the overhead lights. Multitudes of DVD cases highlighted just about every sexual appetite out there. Not to mention the amount of lotions and toys sitting proudly along the rim of the bamboo weave.
“Please, tell me that isn’t from my son?” Sophia and Gabby both had horrified looks on their faces the second the delivery guy placed the ostentatious looking article on the counter.
The second I unwrapped the bow, the ghastly smell of expired potpourri filled the room. I quickly closed the wrapping as fast as I could. “‘Fraid so.” I cringed and shoved the basket away. The smell was beginning to sting the inside of my nose.
Sophia was white as a sheet as she took the basket to the back of the shop. Gabby was trying and failing to keep her laughter inside.
“Please, Gabby, don’t break something inside, let it out.”
Not even a second passed before Gabby was on the floor, her face nearly purple with her laughter. Sophia was on her phone speaking in what I thought was Italian, while I was on the verge of tears. I couldn’t understand why he felt the need to send such a gift, which boldly said he wanted to screw me in every hotel in New York. The fact he knew his mother would see such a thing, after I had made it perfectly clear I wanted nothing to do with him, bothered me as well.
“There were cock rings, Antonio!” Sophia shouted into the phone in perfect English. She was angry, there was no mistaking it, and I was holding on by a thread.
“Fine, I love you, too.”
Sniffles caused by angry tears could be heard over the hum of the cooler. Glancing at my watch, I closed my eyes when I noticed I had hours left before closing. Most of the day remaining in which to live in this humiliation. What had I done to him to make him seem to hate me so much? It was obvious he wasn’t lacking in female attention. He had a fucking girlfriend for Christ’s sake. It was clear to me now; he had no boundaries when it came to relationships. He would be shit-out-of-luck when he discovered I wasn’t one of those girls who tossed off her clothes and jumped on his dick.
“Ari, honey, it isn’t what we think.”
My head shot up as Sophia entered the room. Tears were free flowing down my face as sobs racked my body.
She mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out with her hands firmly on her hips as she slowly began to turn around. Gabby had made a quick escape, a fact I had also failed to notice in my turmoil. Sophia quietly took me in her arms as if soothing a small child. “My son is a good man, Ari. I know it doesn’t seem that way at this precise moment, but it’s the truth.”
I swallowed several times, trying with everything I had in me not to tell her to take this job and shove it, and her sexual deviant of a son with it. All I wanted was to start a new life, one where I didn’t have to continually to look over my shoulder and worry about what shit Corey had gotten himself into. I had convinced myself when his coffin closed, the trouble he’d created had too. What I hadn’t considered was every man who draws a breath has his own shit he brings.
“He trusted someone to do something and by a terrible twist—” Sophia’s words cut short as she began to laugh. Her entire body convulsed with the effects her emotions were invoking. My sadness turned to rage as she continued laughing at me.
When she turned around her mascara smeared under her eyes. Said eyes widened in horror when she realized I didn’t find anything amusing about this situation. Her hands came up as she rushed over to me. “Sweetheart, he asked my husband’s secretary to send you something that would convey to you what he loves outside of the Family. She has a niece who makes all types of baskets and when Denise called her, Wendy took it to the extreme. I think he may have had a brief relationship with her that didn’t pan out.”
I pulled away from her, moving over to the casket spray I had been working on earlier. I recalled working on the one that rested on top of Corey’s coffin, and the feeling of pleasure and relief as I made it. For each flower I placed in the form, a glob of spit joined it. I coughed and coughed, digging deep into my lungs as I built the spray. Giving away a particular hurt with each stem, every leaf carried my disdain for the man they would cover.
“You mean he fucked her then tossed her aside?”
Sophia lowered her head, paused, and then looked at me. I expected her to slap or yell at me for saying something so disrespectful, but she didn’t. She tried to smile and reached out to rub my back. “Whoever he is, he can’t hurt you, ya know?”
My hands froze midair as my eyes flew to hers. Did she know about me? Would she fire me before I could quit because I had been involved with a criminal?
“Oh, don’t look so scared. We all have a past, Ari, my dear. Hell, these days you can’t have your first period and not have some sort of demon follow you to the grave.”
My body relaxed, slightly. I prayed she didn’t have a clue about what had happened. Needing a distraction, my hands automatically started placing stems into the foam. Working here had shown me that every town and every family had secrets they kept. It helped me feel better about withholding the secrets I had. Once again I found myself burying the hurt and fear I had.
I learned this shop sends out more funeral sprays in a week then all of the ones I made in the four years I worked
in Townsend Parish. Several of our clients had standing orders for flowers. One particular man, Anthony Salluzzo, sent fifteen bouquets every week. Fourteen of them were red roses, copies of each other. They carried the same message, but to different women. The final one was always daisies which a young man picked up in person. Even Antonio had a bouquet delivered to who I now know is his secretary. Hell, the only person who didn’t have flowers on auto order, was Dominick. But it seemed he didn’t need to, since he didn’t have a conscience when it came to women. He did send the first bouquet, but he must have really screwed up, probably unable to keep it up that particular night. Or perhaps Marissa found out she’d contracted some nasty disease, courtesy of Sex in the big Apple.
A loud screech of tires startled me, causing me to look up and out the window. A sleek, black car slid into a parking spot and the driver tossed the keys to the kid who worked at the Greek deli. He pulled his shades off and I recognized Dominick at once. Dominick had to be well over six feet tall. He was calculated and cocky, carrying himself as a powerful man.
“Mom, where is it?” he practically shouted, panic and fear coating his words as he barged into the shop.
“It’s in the trash… where it belongs,” Sophia’s firm, voice responded, causing my back to straighten a little. Dominick stood in front of me, looking at me with his hands inside his pants pocket.
This was a new look for him, not a good one, but new none the less. Dominick was a man who was always in control, everything about him told me that. However, the man who stood in the middle of the ferns and flowers was lost, with no handle on anything going on inside of him. He was drifting and, by the look in his eyes, begging for a life ring.
“Ari…” My name coming from his lips did strange things to me. Things I feared and wanted at the same time. Dominick was a handsome man to look at; I had no issue with that. It was when you got past the killer eyes and manly features the real issues began.
Stolen Secrets Page 8