by Eden Butler
My father jerked a look toward them, his eyes narrowing like the slow cogs of his brain were only just alerting him that I may have brought a threat with me inside his small compound.
He flicked his gaze from the streetlights to me, mouth opening so wide that the cigarette fell onto the ground and before he could utter the smallest warning to his four men, three gun barrels pointed at each of their temples.
“What you’re gonna want to do,” Smoke said, his voice calm, “is back the fuck up.” To the men holding my arms, the oldest Carelli sibling grinned. “Nice and slow, boys.” He twisted his head, and Lanzo and Dino appeared next to them, relieving them of their guns.
I shot a look behind Smoke when Snowflake shouted a quick “Fuck!” and he and Remy turned, Dario’s limp body swinging, then dropping to the ground with a thud when both men took off toward us.
They seemed to not expect what happened next. Not Dario pretending to be lifeless, rolling on his back and kicking his bound wrists free with one knee against the zip ties. They kept running toward us, guns drawn and ready despite the barrel on their boss’s temple and their fellow guards on their knees, hands already zip tied behind their backs. They definitely didn’t seem prepared for Dario’s fast approach or how he kicked Remy’s knee in as he ran at Snowflake.
“Son of a bitch!” Jilani screamed, curling the leg Dario injured up.
Dario jumped on Snowflake’s back, slamming the butt of his gun into his head and the white-haired man crashed to the ground.
My father looked over his shoulder, dropping his eyes when he turned toward me, looking unconcerned about Smoke’s gun pointed right at his head. “What a bitch you are, Reagan. What a lying fecking bitch…”
“Must be hereditary,” I clipped, earning a fast slap to my bottom lip from my father.
“Mother fucker…” Dario called just as Smoke reached to punch the man, but my reaction was faster, my anger licking through my veins like a virus.
One kick to the old man’s bad knee had him hitting the gravel, then, the rage boiling inside me I reared back and clocked him right in the center of his round nose. There was a crunch and his long moaning cry, and then my father fell back.
“Nice shot,” Smoke told me, motioning for Lanzo to tie Rory up. “Hang tight. Dino’s getting the van.”
Dario stopped short, looking between me and my unconscious father, the purple make up added for effect already sweating off his face.
“That son of a…”
“I know,” I told him searching for something other than anger in his expression. He hadn’t spoken to me in a week, had barely bothered to look at me for more than ten minutes.
It killed me.
It broke the already fractured bits of me to dust.
But as Dario glared at my father, then took a double take when he spotted my already-swelling bottom lip, something fell away from his face. Something that looked like worry. Something that had him standing in front of me, cursing as he held up my face for a better look.
“It’s…okay,” I told him, reaching to rest my fingers on the back of his hand as he lifted my chin. “It’s nothing…”
Dario clenched his jaw, eyebrows drawn together. He hesitated, pausing like he wanted to say something, maybe console me, yell at me…kiss me.
Instead, he brushed his thumb under my bottom lip, then moved is eyes up, catching my stare. There was something I saw in him then. Something I knew wasn’t hope on my part. It was real emotion. Real desire, and Dario let it soften his features, take away the tightness of his muscles and move a half a step closer to me.
“Dario—” But just the sound of my voice was like a rush of cold water, reminding him what I’d done, what I’d kept from him for months.
It had him shaking his head.
Stepping back.
It made Dario pull his attention from my face and walk away like he never wanted to touch me again.
25
Dario
The building was heavy with people—friends, family, all kept safe in this fortress, locked down like the rest of the town.
My brother took no chances when it came to protecting our home. A small army flanked the town limits, waving away anyone who didn’t belong, claiming a gas leak made Cuoricino dangerous to strangers brave enough to ask why they couldn’t enter.
And in my parent’s building, tucked into available rooms outfitted with beds and toiletries? Men who prepared for what was coming and the women they loved.
Except for her—Ava.
She was no one’s. Not Liam Shane’s.
Not mine.
My mother kept Ava close to her side. The cut on her lip and the complaining asshole Dimitri kept tied up in the basement was proof enough her life had been worse than even what my mother first suspected.
“You poor girl,” she kept saying, all through dinner when Ava sat next to Kat and Maggie, a thick bundle of ice pressed against her mouth. Ma would pull the compress away, mutter something low and filthy about Rory Connelly, then push the ice back into place.
But Ava hadn’t yet proven herself, no matter what that busted lip might mean.
“You think she’ll do it?” Dimitri asked me earlier that night, holding up his hands when I flipped him off. “It’s the best chance we have to get Kat and Dante in and load that device.”
Despite what she’d done, the anger threatened to overwhelm me at my brother’s suggestion. “This is bullshit.” He ignored me, staring down at the drive Kat was configuring…the one she wanted to install into Shane’s security system to get at his financials.
“Dimitri, find another fucking way.”
“It was her idea,” he reminded me, scrubbing his face when I glared at him. “Dario, fuck’s sake. She wants to do this. I can’t ask her not to. This will give us the intel we need. This will give us leverage and take out that asshole’s entire operation.”
“Then have Connelly go in alone. Leave Ava out of this…”
“It won’t work without me,” Ava said, standing in the doorway of my brother’s office. “Liam wants to punish me.”
“Which is why you shouldn’t fucking go.” I rounded on her, and she jerked, seeming surprised by how loud I yelled. Glancing at my brother and Kat, I stepped closer, pushing back my anger to try to make her see reason. “You don’t have to do this. We can find another way.”
“No,” Ava said, her lip purple and swollen. “It has to be me.”
They wouldn’t hear any arguments.
Dimitri had a hard-on for taking out Shane and by extension, McKinney. Those assholes had been making plans for my brother’s operation for a long time, according to Rory. Given enough persuasion, the man wouldn’t stop talking.
“They want your docks, don’t they?” he’d said, face bloody. “McKinney…he says your docks aren’t monitored. There would be no authorities to stop any…shipments they bring in, but you won’t cooperate, will ya boy?”
Dimitri stared at the man, his face unreadable, his eyes sharp. “He’s playing the long game.” It wasn’t a question.
“It was Liam’s idea, wasn’t it?” Rory spat, leaving a bloody puddle of spittle on the basement floor. “He figures, does Liam, that delivering you and your brothers, not to mention your cousin Johnny, possibly even your old man would make his uncle happy and forget all about that feckin’ raid.”
Dante had stepped forward, looking ready to deliver a few angry blows to Ava’s father too, but Dimitri held him back.
“Oh, big lad, now, are you?” Rory cackled, laughing at Dante. “You lot coming off worse in a war would leave your docks open. It’s just business.”
“How did Liam get his info?” Dimitri asked, nodding Dante back as he stared at Rory. When the old man went quiet, likely hiding the biggest bit of info, Dimitri pulled on his collar, jerking his face up. “I got a lot of energy, old man and a left hook that made me a fuck ton of money. You want me to demonstrate?”
“Fuck…leave off, boy…please… Jaysus…”
Rory pulled his face back, like he didn’t want to be anywhere near Dimitri’s fist. “He…has a man on the inside…of your cousin’s crew.”
Dimitri dropped Connelly, stepping back. “Who is it?”
Rory hesitated, licking at the blood on his bottom lip. “Sal. Sal Mancini.”
Next to him Dante pulled out his cell and my brother cut his gaze to Dante, telling our kid brother with one look to fill Johnny in away from Rory’s ears.
Dimitri left Rory alone, leading us back into his office, where Ava joined us, volunteering to meet with her ex, distracting him enough to give Kat and Dante access to the basement. And all of Shane’s files.
“He’s a tech junkie,” she admitted, something Kat confirmed. “It’s a game to him, putting all his faith in his piggy backed files and dark web hacks. He’s so obnoxious he thinks no one can get into his servers.”
“Full of himself,” Dimitri noted, getting a laugh from Kat.
“Nah,” Kat said. “I’m the one who designed his security system. He has a right to be cocky about it.”
“Then you can get in?” Ava asked, earning a smile from Kat.
“Of course I can…”
“Will Rory behave?” Dimitri asked, watching Ava close, like he hoped she could guarantee the behavior of her unreliable father.
Kat’s laugh broke the tension in the room when she pulled out a small device, concealed in her hand.
“He figures, does Liam, that delivering you and your brothers, not to mention your cousin Johnny, possibly even your old man would make his uncle happy and forget all about that feckin’ raid.”
She replayed the recording, stopping it exactly on Rory’s last syllable. “It’s like you think I’m an amateur or something,” she told Dimitri, rolling her eyes.
“He’s a coward,” Ava said, her voice flat, unemotional. “If he’s threatened, he’ll cooperate and that will definitely bring him to heel.”
“Then we wait,” Dimitri said, looking out of his office window. “Let the old man’s bruises fade. Then, we go in.”
* * *
Three a.m., and the restaurant was quiet with only the low rumble in the distance as thunder threatened. Everyone holed up in the building slept, except me, so I’d slipped out of my bed and headed to the bar looking for something to dull my senses.
Behind the bar Ma had tucked a bottle of single-malt scotch and two glasses. It was her stash, meant only for dire circumstances or great moments of celebration.
Tonight was neither.
But I had done five years for my family and my brother was asking me to be okay with sacrificing Ava to a war he claimed he didn’t want. Now was the time for dulled senses and nothing would dull mine more than the good stuff my mother kept hidden.
The chill in the room had me tugging down my sweatpants and wishing I had on more than a thin t-shirt. Around me in the darkness, nothing turned. The streetlights outside had been dimmed and only the stiff movement of Dimitri’s guards disturbed the quiet as they paced near the restaurant entrance, mumbling statuses into their Blue Tooth earpieces.
The scotch went down hot, coating my throat with warmth and the taste of licorice. Two shots in, and a pleasant heat moved into my limbs, dimming some of the worry that had crawled into my chest the second Ava volunteered to confront Shane.
I was mixed up, my thoughts disjointed and muddled by the doubts and desires leaking into my head. The anger was still fresh, still pulsed like an open vein being squeezed. She could give me her body, promise she cared for me, make me believe impossible, stupid things…the whole time knowing what she’d done. The whole time believing I wouldn’t be mad?
There was a loud, vengeful voice in my head reminding me I’d been played, for months, by her, anytime I watched her and tried to forget she’d wronged me. That voice told me she couldn’t be trusted. It tried to convince me it didn’t matter that she was strong and beautiful and filled my head every waking fucking moment of the day. That voice tried convincing me that I didn’t feel what I felt for Ava at all.
It was getting harder to listen to it.
Almost impossible when I thought of her alone in a room with a vindictive Shane.
Another shot down didn’t keep me as calm or mute the worry.
I thought about taking a fourth shot just to see if that did the job but stopped when the sensation that I wasn’t alone hit me.
Ava’s perfume slipped into the room, and I didn’t have to look to the left to know it was her. I didn’t have to do anything at all but stare down into my glass, guessing what would happen if I drank the bottle, trying like hell to kill everything I felt for her.
Maybe I’d get so drunk that I’d manage to slip past Dimitri’s guards and find Shane myself. It was all I could think about since Ava told us what he’d done to her. He deserved to be bloody and broken. He deserved worse than what he’d done to Ava.
She moved closer, that scent growing, the long, thin nightgown she wore fitted around her chest and bouncing against her ankles as she walked. I knew no amount of liquor would drive her away completely.
Would anything?
She didn’t speak when she sat down, and I didn’t utter a sound.
Instead, I moved my gaze up, catching her round, piercing eyes, unblinking, focused on my face for longer than I could stomach. To fill the silence, I poured the scotch in an empty glass, sliding it across the counter to her.
We drank at the same time, glasses to our mouths, eyes staring straight ahead, watching each other, saying nothing.
She took the shot like a champ, not wincing or groaning from the taste.
I wanted to say a million things but didn’t trust myself when she pushed her empty glass away, fingering the wood counter, never letting her gaze move from my face.
But when she stroked the top of my hand, resting her palm against my skin, when I felt the heat of her fingers and everything inside me shouted to touch her too…it was more than I could stomach.
Whatever she saw on my face had her inching back, had great, fat tears wetting her eyes and Ava blinked, that chin shaking, hurt and guilt fighting for dominance in every expression that moved over her beautiful face.
Her features were drawn down, eyebrows pushed together, mouth sloped, and I gripped the edge of the counter, fighting with myself not to touch her. It took effort but I didn’t move, not when she let those tears fall. Not when she pushed off the stool and hurried across the dining room, heading for the exit.
The guards let her pass, gesturing to each other as Ava jogged up the sidewalk, along the empty streets, the wispy shape of her white nightgown stark against the dark street around her. Overhead, the sky fractured with one streak of lightning and another, the rumble of thunder like a whip.
Dino and Lanzo started after her when her jogs became a run, when the sky broke apart and rain pelted the pavement.
She was going to get soaked.
Dino called after her, mumbling something into his earpiece, probably alerting whoever was guarding the alleyway that opened up into the park that she was heading that way.
She was crying.
I moved to the entrance, ignoring the guards as I walked down the sidewalk, shutting out the loud, righteous voice in my head telling me worrying about Ava wasn’t my place anymore.
She’s crying because of me.
“Fuck,” I said to myself.
“D?” Dino said, his tone curious.
“I’m going after her.” A glance over my shoulder and I met the man’s eyes. “Keep your boys back.”
The sky was flashing now, opening up with light, flooding with roars of thunder. But I didn’t care. I had to see that she was okay. My bare feet slapped against the pavement as I ran, catching Dino’s quick command of “Fall back. Dario’s got her. Give ’em some space.”
My heart strummed with each inch of ground I covered, pushing my hair and the pelting water from my face. The alley was long and narrow, but in less than ten minutes I was onto the back street, sq
uinting through the downpour, catching the wave of Ava’s red hair as she ran toward the park.
“D?” I heard to my right, Manny’s voice echoing over the clap of thunder. “You good?”
“I got her,” I told him, nodding behind me. “Take off.”
He waved, glancing toward the park, then at me, not saying anything before he moved back into the alley and left me on my own.
The gazebo in the middle of the park was a white Victorian, two-tiered with a shingle roof, shaped like an octagon and outfitted with ornate corbels and at least half a dozen railings. Heavy rose bushes and evergreens bursting with early autumn white flowers that drooped in the plunging rain obscured the small benches.
Ava sat on the steps, her back to me, rain splashing from the cobblestone that surrounded the gazebo and soaked into the hem of her long nightgown. The moon was bright, despite the storm and I stopped a few feet from the shelter, dumbstruck by the shape of her long back and small waist silhouetted against the black sky and fracturing storm.
She meant more to me than any woman ever would.
And she ripped my heart apart worse than anyone ever had.
But I couldn’t keep away from her. No matter how hard I tried.
The rain began to collect and pool around the gazebo, puddles flooding the cobblestone walkway and collecting beneath the brick edging around the flowers.
“Did you mean any of it?” I shouted.
Ava jerked at the sound of my voice, turning to watch me over her shoulder. “You’re gonna get sick.” She jumped up, pulling her nightgown from the wet ground as she stood in the center of the gazebo.
“Did you?”
“Come under here!” She reached out a hand, her hair wet and sticking to her bare shoulders. “Dario, I mean it. You’ll catch—”
“Tell me.” When she lowered her arms, I looked away from her, throwing my hands into my hair. “Just fucking tell me!”
Her mouth moved as she held up her hands, but I couldn’t make out what she said, not when the thunder cracked and clapped above us, brightening the darkness around us.