by Eden Butler
“Shit…” Smoke said, hurrying to my side, his handkerchief out and I grabbed it, my chest squeezing. What was it with Carelli men and handkerchiefs? When he put an arm around my shoulder the tension in my chest eased. Smoke’s usual confidence slipped as he patted my back awkwardly. “Don’t worry…we have you—”
“What the hell is this?” I heard over the slap of the bell against the door. Dario stood in front of us, his eyebrows up and the muscles around his mouth tensed. “The fuck?” He directed his glare right at his brother and Smoke stood, hand brushing my back a final time before he exhaled, shoving a hand into his pocket.
“You find anything?” he asked Dario, looking curious but a little bored.
“You mean besides my asshole brother moving in on my girl?” Dario stepped to him, his face getting red. Smoke didn’t react other than to tilt his head like he wasn’t sure if Dario was being serious.
“Ava, we need to have a discussion, but I need to find someone first,” Smoke started, ignoring his brother’s accusation. He didn’t turn away from Dario at first, but then glanced my way to offer his small comfort. “You’re safe here. No one will touch you. You have my word.” He offered Dario a quick once over then moved past him, toward the door before he stopped, holding it open, his attention on the sidewalk outside. “When you pull out whatever it is up your ass, come find me and tell me what happened today.”
Dario kept his face tight, his glare sharp as Smoke left through the door, and I slumped against the chair, hurrying to wipe my face dry.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, turning to face me.
I hated the clip in his words, how an accusation hinted in his tone, but I wasn’t in the mood for a fight. He was a rational guy. He’d understand when I explained. “He wanted to know why I—”
“Did he make a move on you?”
Or not.
“What?” When I stood, Dario relaxed his expression but there was still tension squeezing his shoulders.
“It wouldn’t be the first time he—”
“Do you hear yourself?” I waved a hand, dumbfounded by his ridiculous worry. “You’re acting like a jealous kid.”
“You didn’t answer.”
Anger swelled right along with the frustration as Dario stood in front of me, reaching for my arm, but I jerked away, stepping back. “And I’m not going to.”
Whatever he saw in my expression changed Dario’s attitude. The line between his eyebrows softened, and when he spoke, the clip in his tone was gone. “Ava—”
“I don’t need this. You know I don’t. The jealous asshole thing is old and tired.” He was two steps behind me when I walked past him, heading for the kitchen. Dario grabbed my arm, turning me until I was against the wall with his body pressed right against mine. “Let me go…”
“I’m sorry. I’m…an asshole.” He looked back toward the door, where his brother had left. “I’m just not...” Head shaking, Dario exhaled, moving my hair into my eyes. “I’ve never cared about my brother moving in on the women I date.”
“Is…that what we’re doing?” I said, hoping to lighten the mood.
“We’re more than dating.” Dario brushed the hair from my eyes, letting his thumb rest against my cheek. “I care about you.” Guilt weighted in my stomach like a virus, and I hated the feel of it. When he looked at me, whatever he saw in my expression had Dario pushing his brows back together and that faint line returned. “What is it? Am I the only one—”
“No, it’s not that.” I wanted him. I wanted to be with him, he had to know that. From the way I watched him, to the way we were together, I was sure how I felt was obvious. But the fear of what he’d think once he knew about my part in the raid on his club…that was enough to extinguish anything he might think he felt about me. Glancing up at him, I inhaled, knowing it was time for the truth. “Dario…there are things I need to tell you…”
His stare lingered, went deep as I spoke, and before I could tell him anything, Dario darted for my mouth, covering my lips with his, demanding, controlling me with the pressure of his kiss and the slip of his tongue against mine.
“Not yet,” he said, pushing me closer. “Not when we’re good and standing this close to each other. Not when you feel like you do against me.”
“Dario…”
“Tell me, darlin’” I knew what he wanted to hear. It was in the way he watched me and how firmly he held onto me. It was in the timbre of his voice when he spoke my name. I knew what Dario felt about me and I knew how much he wanted me to feel the same.
How much he needed to hear that from me.
Heart fluttering, breath a little weak, I opened my mouth, pulling him close. “I care about you, too.”
He dropped his shoulders, like just those words were enough to pull the worry and tension from his body. “Good.” Dario gripped me, pushing his hips into mine, groaning when I moved back against him, lowering his hand to my butt. “Then I’ll lock the door.”
* * *
If I thought about it, it was Jada who’d last cooked for me. Though, that was to prove her eggs were fine with hot sauce and sugar did not belong on grits.
Turned out she was right.
But cancer had stolen my friend, and though her memory was still bright and beaming, the details had been dulled by time. Still, it was a pleasant surprise when I woke the next morning to the smell of bacon and the sizzle of grease announcing that, for once, I wasn’t feeding myself.
Dario looked as delicious as the biscuits buttered and resting on the kitchen island. He moved around the stove adding salt and pepper and small dashes of garlic powder into the eggs he scrambled in my heavy cast iron skillet. Those long, lean muscles in his back flexed when he pulled the bacon from a second skillet and he jerked away from the pan, covering his muscled chest when grease popped onto his skin.
“Shit!” he muttered, covering the small injury, then he turned, expression surprised at my laugh. “My pain is funny?”
“Hilarious,” I said, moving his hand away to inspect the small mark on his chest. He watched me as I moved to the faucet, grabbing a paper towel to dampen, and placed it against his skin. “Don’t you know better than to fry bacon shirtless?”
“Gotta be honest, darlin’, I have no idea what happened to my clothes.” He popped the band of his black boxer briefs, throwing a wink my way.
“Well, I’m not complaining.”
He tasted like coffee and bacon when I kissed him, and I couldn’t decide if it was the food or his mouth that was more tempting. When Dario grazed his tongue along my bottom lip, the matter was settled and I leaned into him, deciding he was meal enough to satisfy me.
“Hey, hang on,” he said, pushing me back. “We have to eat.” I cocked an eyebrow, knowing he caught the innuendo in my gesture and my body electrified at the way he returned my expression. “You say a lot with one look, you know that?”
I shrugged, making Dario laugh.
“Hell yeah, you know it but if you keep smirking at me like that we won’t leave this apartment.”
“That’s a bad thing?” I snagged a slice of bacon, hopping onto the island as Dario returned to his eggs.
“We gotta come up for air sometime, right?” He kissed the tip of my nose then finished up the eggs, hurrying to plate them.
“If you say so.”
“I say so.” Dario directed me to the kitchen table with a tilt of his head, and I complied, my mouth watering as the scent of this succulent food and delicious half-naked man all invaded my sense. “This is wonderful.”
“These may not be as good as yours,” he held up a biscuit, immediately reaching for the jelly, “but I like to think my ma’s recipe can hold its own.”
“I’m sure it can.” I took the biscuit he offered me, watching his face as I bit into it and the watering in my mouth doubled, then was appeased as that decadent, rich taste hit my tongue. “I think I’m in trouble.”
“That good, sweetheart?”
I pretende
d I wasn’t as impressed as he knew I was. “It’ll do.”
“Uh huh…” Dario snatched the biscuit from me, ignoring the small protesting noise from my throat as he polished it off in three quick bites. “Then get your own.”
The mood was light, and for the first time in longer than I could remember, there was no ache in my gut telling me this wouldn’t last. As I watched Dario dig into his breakfast the rare, unusual sensation of contentment began to sink into my bones and fill up the fractured bits of me that my former life had wrecked.
He was sweet, a little hot headed and definitely a bit of a roughneck but that made him real and genuine and honest. Dario, like all of his family had kind eyes and a sweet smile that could turn wicked and tempting given the right encouragement.
The sudden realization hit me that I could get used to this—to him. In this quiet sweet moment while we filled our bellies, both of us grinning like kids in a candy shop, I believed wholeheartedly that I could be with him and not feel anxious or worried. Not feel anything but cared for and protected.
Until…he discovered the truth.
Until he knew everything.
I kept my head down, digging into my breakfast, fighting the nagging voice that reminded me I had never been completely honest with him.
“Hey?” he said, reaching across the table to touch my hand. “What’s with that look?” When I only blinked at him, unable to find words to explain myself, Dario stretched his neck, squeezing my hand once before he sat back in his chair. “Whatever you’re thinking…don’t.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I adjusted my legs, slipping a foot underneath me before I finished. “And I won’t be kicking you out anymore.”
“Then what is it? You looked all happy and spoiled, and then next minute it was like I’d peed in your coffee.”
“No…” I took a sip and winced, just to lighten the mood before I looked back at him. “Dario…there’s something I need to tell you.”
“This must be what Dimitri was talking about this morning.”
“This morning?” He leaned back on one elbow. “You spoke to him?”
“He called. Woke me up.” Dario scrubbed his face, then looked down in his cup, swirling the contents before he downed what was left. “I was an asshole last night, jealous and stupid and forgot to tell him about what we found out in the city. He wanted an update.”
“And?” There was more he didn’t say. It was in the frown forming quickly over his mouth.
He paused, looking over my face, then back at his plate before he pushed it away from him, leaning on his elbows. “And, he said there were things you needed to tell us, but he figured you’re scared.”
To be read so clearly might have left a few cracks in my ego if one still remained. But whatever bravado I’d had when I was younger had gotten worn down by Liam and my father. I wasn’t weak. I wasn’t timid, but the insecurity hadn’t left me completely.
“It’s not just…” I exhaled, scrubbing my face when words failed me. Dario didn’t hurry to my side to coddle me, and I appreciated that. Instead, he watched and waited, let me lead the conversation in a direction I controlled completely. “There are things I’m not proud of. Things…that make me seem…weak.”
When he smiled, like he did just then, the tension in the room didn’t feel so constricting. “Sweetheart, you’re talking to the king of fuck ups. I bet my Not-Proud-Of list shames yours.”
“Dario…”
“Why don’t you start small?” He slid from his chair, moving to the one at my right. “No pressure, no major details if they’re too much for you.” Dario grabbed my bare feet and slipped them into his lap. “Why don’t you start with how the fuck you ended up with an asshole like Liam Shane.”
I almost pulled my feet from him, but then Dario began rubbing the heels, sliding his thumb into the arches and my defenses were useless.
“That’s a big one on the Not-Proud-Of list.”
“I won’t judge,” he promised, moving down to the ball of my foot.
He knew exactly what he was doing. The man had missed his calling but the more he worked his strong, thick fingers against the bottom of my foot, the less I cared what he wanted to know. In fact, if he kept massaging me so sweetly there was likely not a lot I wouldn’t tell him.
“It…it was because I saw…oh, that’s good…” I leaned my head back, my body relaxing fully. The memories were there. The details of my marriage had stuck like a chronic illness, attacking my insides every time I remembered what had led me to Liam in the first place.
“What did you see, darlin’?”
“The…the girls.” I sat up but didn’t pull my foot from Dario’s lap. “I saw these girls, youngest one looked to be about seventeen, that Rory, my father, was prepping to traffic.” Dario stopped massaging my foot and my stomach dropped when I spotted the frown he wore. “There were about ten of them. I’d gone to the warehouse because my grandfather was looking for Rory. His brother, my Uncle Rolfe had been robbed. He was killed and Grandda was beside himself.” Dario picked up the massaging again, but he was distracted now, watching me close.
“Grandda had called Rory a half a dozen times. He wanted my father to find the asshole who killed Rolfe. He wanted justice.” I glanced at Dario, shaking my head when I spotted the surprise on his face. “Connelly justice is always swift. My family never much cared about law and order.”
“I can relate,” Dario said, squeezing my toes.
Shaking my head, I continued. “I wasn’t supposed to be there. I…wasn’t supposed to see or hear any of it. But when Liam and Rory argued about what the cut for the girls would be, what they’d get from the Russians that were buying the girls, well, I didn’t keep quiet. One of Liam’s guards found me, caught me trying not to vomit when I heard what they were talking about and what those poor girls looked like.” I squeezed my eyes, trying to block out their skinny arms and legs and the sharp contours of their clavicles. They’d been sparsely fed, likely given the rare toiletries to keep themselves up.
“Rory looked ready to throw me in with the other girls, but Liam, he looked so pleased.” I shook my head remembering the way he watched me, that fat tongue of his slipping along his lips. Dario’s fingers slowed, and I glanced up at him, hating the pity I saw in his eyes. “Liam wanted me, and I don’t think it was because he thought I was pretty or attractive at all. I’d always been rude to him, turned him down again and again whenever he’d proposition me.” The quick, bitter laugh left my mouth before I could stop it and Dario’s touch stilled. “He never asked for a date. Not once. He just assumed because my father kissed his and his uncle’s asses that I would too. But I never did. I refused, and it must have been like a challenge for him, to break me down.”
I tried to pull my feet from Dario’s lap, but he held on, rubbing my ankles, then the back of my calves. I let him, wanted him distracted when I told him the rest. “But it backfired for both of us. Rory and Liam’s uncle, they decided we both should be taught a lesson. I’d be forced to marry Liam because if anything ever happened and there was ever an indictment for any of the shitty things he did, I couldn’t be made to testify against him.” Liam never looked at me once during the ceremony, and I was glad. He would have laughed at how I fought to keep from crying.
“And Liam, well, McKinney thought him being married would settle him. Like a ring and a license could make him act like a man.”
“He’ll be a boy till he’s old, darlin’. No paper or jewelry will change that.”
I agreed, gesturing as Dario leaned forward, holding his fingers still against the tops of my feet. “Why didn’t they just…take you out? It would have been cleaner.”
“I thought about that too. Even asked Rory that once, and he lost it. Like an entire life of him directing everything I did wasn’t proof enough of how little he thought of me. Hell, the only reason I was allowed to go to New Orleans was because I’d won a scholarship. He would have never paid for it on his own.” I rubbed my
shoulders, a chill running over my skin as I thought about that conversation and how deadly my father looked at me. “He is a bastard and a criminal, a liar and a man with no soul, but even he had a bottom line, and I guess that was killing his own flesh and blood. When I was fifteen my grandda told me my father hadn’t always been the way he was. When my mother was alive, he was better, but she died and took whatever good that was left in him with her.”
“You couldn’t just…leave?” Dario asked, his voice soft, curious.
My stomach burned at his question and the slightest taste of bile began to creep up my throat. “I tried. Once.” Dario’s frown deepened the longer he watched me, his expressions shifting from curiosity to worry, then right to rage.
“What did he do to you?”
There were flashes shading my memory. Riots of color and noises, fear, and anger. I didn’t know whose screams were loudest. Mine? Liam’s? Most days, I tried to forget that night, when he caught me at the airport.
We didn’t make it back home.
“Ava?” Dario said, holding onto my ankles.
He had a beautiful face. Fierce. Stunning. I could watch all the expressions shifting forever, laugher and pleasure. Hope and joy but not this. Not rage. Not hatred.
So, I ignored his question, moving the topic somewhere safer. “It wasn’t just me I had to keep safe. God knows I tried to stay invisible when I was in college, but Rory has a way of reminding me what I could lose.” I stared back at Dario, watching him, wondering if there would ever be a time when I trusted him completely. I owed him. He didn’t know why yet, but he would. I could at least be honest.
“My best friend Jada had died two summers before I married Liam. She left behind my goddaughter.”
“The junior scientist?” Dario asked, his expression guarded, like he knew I’d ignored his question. He pulled my feet further into his lap as he sat back.