Old Flame: Dante’s Story: (Morelli Family, #8)

by Mariano, Sam

  Even though I know exactly what he’s talking about since Mia has only been at my house once, I ask my next question just to see how he responds. “Which time?”

  His gaze sharpens ever so slightly. It’s not always easy to tell when he’s surprised, but I’ve been around long enough that I can get a better idea than most people. I’ve seen his poker face progress as he has aged, and what bothers the hell out of me is that every time this girl is brought up, for just a split second, he betrays more than he means to. Loss of control like that means his emotions are engaged on some level; when his head is level, his poker face is fucking perfect.

  A pinch of satisfaction slightly soothes my frayed nerves. Let the bastard feel worried for a minute that I might be dipping into his favorite honey pot.

  His tone just a little harder than it needs to be, he specifies, “The time you had her deliver stolen drugs to your fucking doorstep.”

  My gaze darts up to search for security cameras. I can’t believe he’d say a thing like that in public where it could feasibly be overheard. A brief perusal turns up no cameras though, and he probably already checked or he wouldn’t have said it. At least, I fucking hope so. The alternative is his possessiveness is rearing its head so hard, he didn’t even think before he spoke, and that would be bad fucking news.

  “They were Colette’s pills and she brought them to Colette; that hardly counts as delivering stolen drugs.”

  Barely letting me finish, he says, “It doesn’t matter. It’s inappropriate. Mia doesn’t work for us and I don’t want her involved in any illegal activity. Next time you need an errand run, ask someone on our payroll, not her.”

  “She wasn’t engaged in illegal activity, she delivered some fucking toiletries and a prescription to Colette. I don’t know why it fucking matters, but if it bothers you that much, I suppose I won’t ask her to bring me things anymore.”

  “I don’t want her at your house at all. There’s no reason Mia should be coming over by herself. If she’s there with Vince for whatever reason, that’s one thing, but she doesn’t need to be alone with you, and I imagine Colette would agree.”

  My lips curve up faintly. With no small measure of cynicism, I say, “Oh, yeah. Clearly it’s Colette’s feelings you’re worried about.”

  “I’m not worried about anything,” he says carefully. “I’m letting you know I don’t appreciate something you’ve done in the past so you don’t do it again. Like when Isabella misbehaves and I take away one of her toys.”

  That last scathing line rankles just like it’s supposed to. I’m ready to snarl back at him, but before I can, Alec hustles over with the salesman in tow. The man looks decidedly less excited to deal with us now, but Alec starts talking before me or Mateo can get in any more jabs at one another.

  I glare at him good, but Mateo lets the moment pass, turning his attention back to purchasing Dad’s casket so we can all get the hell out of here.

  ---

  After spending the afternoon with my pain in the ass brothers, I need to unwind. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do at all with Colette just starting to warm up to me again, but I want to go to Luca’s house and I don’t want to leave her at home.

  When I walk in, I offer a terse, “Get dressed, we’re going out,” and watch her little ass spring into action. She’s more eager than I thought she’d be. She’s probably tired of being cooped up in the house all the time. I should take her out more, I just don’t think it’s a great idea to be seen together in the city with the lawyer so recently dead. Might raise questions if we saw anyone she knows.

  Tonight we won’t be in public though, we’ll be on my turf. Since I’m not sure Luca has anything Colette will like, I grab a bottle of wine to bring with us.

  Once Colette is dressed and ready, we head out. On my way to the car I get a phone call. It’s my main contact from the police station getting back to me, so I have to take it.

  Colette lingers, trying not to pay attention, while I take my call. I like it because it’s a callback to how things used to be with us, back before this whole fucking mess. I can’t say much to my contact on the phone anyway, but we agree on a meeting place and I tell her I’ll see her there.

  When I end my phone call and open Colette’s door for her, she hesitates and meets my gaze. “Everything all right?” she asks.

  “Yep,” I assure her, my voice calm. “We just have to make a quick stop on our way. You can wait in the car, but I need to talk to someone.”

  I’m a little on the tense side driving to the meet-up. I don’t feel great about bringing Colette along—wouldn’t do it, under normal circumstances, but these aren’t exactly anticipated work hours.

  I also don’t feel great about bringing Colette to meet Ceren because of our history, if you could call it that.

  Ordinarily I’d never fuck around with anyone involved in any integral part of our business operations, but Ceren caught me on a bad night one time. I didn’t feel like going home alone, she was aggressive enough that I said to hell with it, and a couple months later, somehow I still occasionally found myself waking up next to her in bed. Closest thing to a relationship I ever had when Colette and I were apart, and although Ceren might be aware that our guys at the station had orders to shut down any investigation into Declan’s death, I never told her after it was done I wouldn’t be around for the occasional fuck anymore.

  I also don’t think it’s very fucking respectful to bring Colette around another woman I fucked, even if we weren’t together at the time.

  Lot of reasons I’m not crazy about it, but I’ve gotta find out what she knows about this investigation into Rob’s house. I don’t care what Mateo says, I should be looped in on this.

  As we approach the meeting spot, I think about giving Colette some kind of warning, but I don’t exactly know what to tell her. I can’t come up with anything that makes sense, so I keep my mouth shut. As I put the car in park, then kill the engine, I look over at Colette.

  “I’ll be right back, okay? You hang tight.”

  Colette nods her understanding and fidgets with the clutch in her lap. I linger for just another second, then I close the door, slide my keys into the pocket of my slacks, and approach the slate gray car parked across the lot. Normally I’d park closer, but I don’t want her to look over and see Colette, and vice versa.

  Her instincts tell her I’m approaching before I make it to her car. Her gaze snaps to mine and then her brown eyes warm, her plump lips curving up in an affectionate smile.

  Ah, shit.

  I shake off the split second of worry. Ceren is too busy with her work for a relationship anyway so she never seemed disappointed that I didn’t want anything beyond the occasional physical encounter. That’s why it happened past the first time, which admittedly was just a mistake. A twinkle in her eye doesn’t mean shit. She can still be fond of me and not want to marry me. I don’t know why I’m being paranoid about it now.

  I open her car door and slide into the passenger side, then pull the door shut behind me. “Hey.”

  “How have you been?” she asks, offering me a little smile as she looks over at me. Her dark hair is styled and she’s wearing a face full of make-up, but I can’t tell if it’s her work-day make-up or “I wanna fuck” make-up. A lot of things I can read, but the intent behind a woman’s make-up routine sure as shit isn’t one of them.

  “I’ve been good,” I tell her, nodding faintly.

  “Good, I’m glad.”

  Her voice is so warm. Has her voice always been this warm when she was talking to me? I guess I never noticed.

  Clearing my throat and trying to shuck the weirdness that’s probably all in my head, I reach into my jacket pocket and draw out an envelope. Passing it to her, I tell her, “This is for you.”

  “Ah, another payment on my student loans,” she says brightly, but with a wry smile as she takes it. “Thank you.”

  “Student loans are fucking stupid,” I grumble, unable to help myse
lf. I’ll never understand why people want to throw their money away like that, paying to have some stuffy academic tell them to read books.

  “Yes, well, we can’t all be born into the Morelli family,” she teases. “Some of us have to work for a living.”

  “I work my ass off, thank you very much.”

  “Mm hmm,” she murmurs, still with affection in her tone I never fucking noticed before.

  I need to kill it, so I cut off the small talk and tell her, “So, not to rush you, but I was on my way out when you called.”

  “Sorry, I would’ve called you back sooner but I’ve been swamped. I wasn’t sure if you were calling for business or pleasure, and I didn’t have time for the latter.”

  “It was the former,” I assure her. “I need to know what’s going on with a complaint that was filed about that property I mentioned before. I need to know if there’s an investigation already started. If not, if it looks like one will be, and I need to know what kind of timeline I’m looking at. When my brother told me about it, he wasn’t exactly generous with the gritty details.”

  Now she frowns, bending over to retrieve her briefcase from the floorboard by my legs. “Yeah, so, the thing is, I couldn’t find what you were asking about. There were no inquiries, no notes, no complaints—there’s no record that anybody had anything to say about… well, anything regarding this property.” Withdrawing her small laptop and opening it up, she glances over at me, “Do you have a name I can look up instead of a place? Maybe the address got typed in wrong.”

  I give her Rob’s name and have her check, but he comes up clean as a whistle. I sit there scowling while she looks through file after file, asking question after question trying to help me find what I’m looking for, but there’s nothing. Not a damn thing.

  When she finally exhausts every last place she can look, I lean my head back against the headrest and stare out the front windshield. Lot of thoughts run through my head, but despite the excuses I’m tempted to make for my damned brother, there’s only one conclusion I can draw: Mateo fucking lied to me.

  A bit hesitantly, she says, “It’s not possible it was a federal investigation, right? I wouldn’t have access to that.”

  I shake my head half-heartedly. “I don’t know. I think he’d mention if the fucking feds were sniffing around.”

  Shrugging apologetically before closing her laptop and tucking it back into her briefcase, Ceren tells me, “I can poke around tomorrow and see if maybe it just hasn’t been filed yet. Maybe someone who’s friendly with your family intercepted the file and stopped it from being put in the system.”

  “Maybe.”

  Maybe not, though. I hate to even think it. Why the fuck else would Mateo want to shut down such a profitable arm of our operations? Not only that, but to fucking fabricate a police investigation—

  “Mm, you smell so good.”

  My heart jumps as Ceren catches me unaware, running her hand over my chest and leaning across the console. I catch her wrist and drag her hand away. She gasps in surprise, but then a devilish smile crosses her face. “You caught me. What are you gonna do with me now?”

  “Nothing,” I state, releasing her hand now that it’s not on me anymore. “I told you, I was just about to head out.”

  “Where you heading?” she inquires, pleasantly enough. “Want some company?”

  “To a friend’s, and no.” I hesitate for a split second, then figure this is probably a good time to let her know I’m back off the market. “I actually already have company.”

  “Oh.” She sounds faintly surprised, but not overly concerned. “All right. Well, maybe we could get together one night this weekend. All work and no play makes—”

  “No, not this weekend either,” I interrupt. “We need to shift this back to a strictly professional arrangement. I give you envelopes, you give me information, no more orgasms included for either of us.”

  Wrinkling her nose up, she asks, “Why? Your company? Is it serious?”

  Normally I wouldn’t hesitate to be an asshole when I’m ending something I don’t give a shit about, but given Ceren is a cop, I don’t want to risk making her vengeful. I try to be as nice as I fucking can, but to say it doesn’t come natural to me is a colossal understatement. “Yeah, it is. It’s, uh, actually my ex-girlfriend. We’re back together.”

  Her brown eyes dim and her tone loses a little something, too. “The one who hurt you?”

  I frown, not appreciating that she’s speaking against Colette, even if what she’s saying is true. My irritation makes it harder to be nice—and it wasn’t exactly easy to begin with. “We’re not gonna talk about her,” I inform her succinctly, so she knows how it’s gonna be between us now. “This is strictly business now, got it?”

  Faint disappointment clings to her tone, even though I can tell she’s trying not to let it. “Not even casual friendship, huh?”

  I shake my head briefly. “Wouldn’t be right.”

  She presses her plump lips together regretfully. “You’re a good man, Dante Morelli.”

  “You’re cracked for thinking that,” I inform her.

  A little of the sparkle returns to her dark eyes and she smiles. “Maybe. I still do, though.”

  “Well, I suppose you can afford to be wrong every once in a while,” I offer.

  “I’m not wrong,” she insists. “She’s a lucky woman.”

  Ha, someone should tell her that. Instead of saying anything else, I reach for the latch to let myself out of her car. “Let me know if you kick up anything tomorrow that wasn’t in the computer.”

  “Will do, boss,” she tosses back.

  25

  Colette

  We’re only at Dante’s friend’s house for about twenty minutes before I become intensely uncomfortable. Back in my day when we socialized, it was mostly with Mateo and Beth. I’ve gathered since returning that he and Dante aren’t as close as they were back then and obviously Dante wants me to keep a distance from anyone I could grow close to who might not stick around, so I guess now he has a new crowd.

  I’m not going to lie, I don’t approve. Like, at all. Within ten minutes, three different girlfriends of Delmonico’s pop up. At least, that’s what my initial thought is because why else would he live with these women he’s clearly very familiar with? One is even pregnant, and judging from the way she looks at him, he’s the father. But then I see the way he treats them and I begin to question whether or not they’re here by choice. Surely no woman in her right mind would stand for this kind of treatment and stick around, right? Let alone multiple women.

  Pulling me from my thoughts, Dante’s friend Luca snaps his fingers. My gaze jerks to his and he almost smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, were you speaking to me?” I ask, although I want to tell him I don’t respond to a snap of his fucking fingers.

  “That depends. Do you answer to ‘whore’?”

  My eyes widen. “Excuse me?”

  There’s a trace of warning in Dante’s tone. “Luca…”

  Luca’s deep gaze dulls like he’s bored by the prospect of interacting with me on a leash, then drifts to the woman approaching me with a bottle of water. She has bruises on her arms and a defeated look in her eyes. I don’t feel like I should take a drink from her, I feel like I should bundle her up in a soft blanket and get her the hell out of this awful place.

  “Faster next time,” Luca snaps.

  The girl’s fearful gaze jumps to his and she nods fervently, then drops her gaze, swallowing hard as if worried she offended him by making eye contact.

  I feel like I’m going to crawl right out of my skin. I have to get away from this man. Shaking my head at the girl offering me the beverage, I hurriedly stand and go to move past her.

  “Where are you going?” Dante asks.

  “I need air.”

  I feel as if I’m holding my breath until I get outside the house. Only then can I breathe, grabbing a post holding up the awning on
the porch. My mind races in a confused attempt to both process where I just was and ignore it as hard as possible.

  I’m only outside by myself for a moment before I hear the door close behind me. I feel Dante’s presence so I don’t turn to make sure it’s not the monster he calls a friend approaching.

  I don’t know what to do with that. If that’s the sort of man Dante considers a friend, what the hell does that say about Dante? I’ve always known he dirtied his hands at work, but I never had my face rubbed right in the filth. Rather than feeling excluded by his family’s “keep the women out of business” rule, I’m starting to feel grateful for the practice if this is the kind of dirty shit business entails.

  Is it even business, or does Dante just enjoy the company of sociopaths? I’m so confused.

  “You didn’t bring your Valium, did you?” Dante finally asks.

  I slowly shake my head, crossing my arms as a shiver runs through me.

  “Do you need one? I’m sure Luca has some here.”

  “I don’t want anything from that man,” I tell him, not bothering to try to hide my distaste.

  “I know he’s a little rough around the edges,” he begins.

  Pivoting on my heel, I stare up at Dante with wide eyes. “Rough around the edges? That man gives me the creeps. There’s something horrifying about him, and I’m a little horrified that you don’t agree.”

  “I know him better than you do,” Dante tells me. The way he says it, like I should just give the nice psychopath a chance, blows my mind.

  “I don’t want to know him. He’s awful to those women in there.”

  “It’s work,” he says dismissively. “They’re not…”

  He stops, but I think he stops just short of saying they’re not women. Trying not to look at him like he, too, is a monster, I shake my head. “I don’t think I can stay here. Can you call Xander to give me a ride home? If you want to be here, fine, but I—”

  Stepping closer and grabbing my arm, pulling me close to him, Dante says with gentle authority, “You are going to stay wherever I am.”