I place my gun on the nightstand and bring my fingers to my nose to smell her on them. The taste of her mixed with the taste of the whiskey makes me heady.
My dick is still hard. I need to fuck. Maybe I should have fucked those women my uncle supplied all this time. I couldn’t touch them though. Turned my stomach to think of it.
Her though? Fucking Scarlett De La Cruz with that big mouth she doesn’t know when to shut. Her whiskey eyes and tiny tits. Her pussy smelling like perfume and tasting like the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted?
Yeah. I could fuck her.
I could fuck her for days.
I shove my jeans and briefs off and switch on the shower because if I don’t do this now, right fucking now and right fucking here, I’m going to go back into that room and fuck her so hard I’ll rip her in two.
I meant what I said. I get a virgin when I need a whore. Because I can’t take her the way I want to. The way I need to. Not yet.
And so, with the hand I used to finger her I fist my dick and pump so hard it’s just this side of pain. When I come, it’s with one fist against the wall and the vision of her little pussy in front of my eyes. The neat little triangle of dark hair, swollen little nub poking out at me, for me. Her pussy leaking onto my tongue as she called out my name.
Called me god.
Christ.
Fuck.
I curse her as waves of orgasm take me under, drowning me. Because I am drowning. Life is drowning me.
When it’s done, I’m out of breath. Out of energy. I sit on the bench, back against the wall, eyes closed. Water washes over me. I’m too drunk to think. Which is exactly what I wanted tonight. What I needed. Besides her, that is.
She’s lucky I had sense enough to lock her away. Never mind that I have the key.
Standing again, I switch the water to cold and suck in a breath with the first icy wave. I make myself stand under it. It’s what I need to do. It’ll wake me up.
And I need to wake the fuck up.
Because what Charlie sent me today is fucked up. Marcus Rinaldi isn’t working alone, and I don’t mean the cartel. I’ve suspected that for years but now I’m sure.
There’s no way the cartel would just help him to attack me. Would help him when they know doing so would set me against them. They wouldn’t risk losing their inroad to Europe, not now. The Rinaldi family doesn’t have enough manpower to stand against me so it makes no sense that the cartel would simply back him.
No. Marcus has had some help.
I touch the spot on my arm where I fumbled the newest name. It’s illegible but maybe that’s a good thing because it was a stupid thing to do.
Switching off the water, I grab a towel, dry off then discard it and walk into the bedroom naked. I pull back the covers and climb into bed. Lenore changed the sheets so there’s no blood, but that means I can’t smell her on them anymore either.
That’ll all change tomorrow night though, I tell myself.
Come tomorrow night I can have her till my heart’s content. I’ll go slow. Build it up. Teach her to take what I give the way I give it. Teach her to come when it hurts.
I close my eyes, but sleep doesn’t follow. Only the photo Charlie sent. Marcus Rinaldi sitting on a rickety wooden chair in the De La Cruz house drinking from a bottle of tequila. A woman on her knees sucking him off while Felix and a crew of Cartel men stand around probably plotting how they’ll off him when he’s no longer useful. When they can take over.
Marcus the idiot getting his fucking dick sucked at the exact time that we were attacked here. He’s no mastermind behind any plot. He’s just not that smart. That attack wasn’t him.
I don’t sleep much. Haven’t in years. But after lying in a coma for six long years, there’s time I need to make up for. I wonder if I’ll always feel this way.
I roll onto my side and reach to open the nightstand drawer, taking out the stack of photos there. Old photographs of my family. Us when we were little. All of us. My brothers, my parents so young, then a few with my baby sister.
And even as I see myself in those pictures, even as the proof that I was there is right in front of me, is in my fucking hands, I don’t feel a thing. Not a mother fucking god damned thing. I can’t. Because I can’t remember any of it. Not the vacations. Not me on my father’s shoulders in the pool. Not my mom hugging me when I fell and scraped my knee.
I don’t remember the events and I don’t remember my family. My only memory is the night they were killed.
What a cruel thing that that’s the one thing that sticks in my stupid brain.
26
Cristiano
My head throbs in the too-bright sun as I stand on the beach drinking coffee while Cerberus plays in the waves. I need to make some calls today. Organize our impromptu wedding.
Cerberus runs back to me as wind whips my face. It’s a brisk morning. He drops the ball I’ve been tossing for him at my feet and lays down, ready for more.
“You’re quite the guard dog, you know,” I tell him, picking up the ball and throwing it into the waves.
He charges after it and I watch. I love that dog. I love his innocence. The honesty of his existence.
My arm aches. It’s the same one the doctor reset yesterday. I peel back my shirt to glance at the tattoo. Why I thought I could write a name in script no less at that angle while drunk is honestly beyond me. I shake my head at myself and finish my coffee, unable to resist looking up at her window again.
It’s been empty every time, but she’s there now, her face turned up to the sun. She has her eyes closed as I watch her.
That tattoo wasn’t the only idiotic thing I did last night. I kissed Scarlett. That’s twice now I’ve done it. The rest of it, tasting her, wanting my dick inside her, that I can classify as sex. I don’t have to overthink it. But kissing her is so fucking personal. And looking in her eyes when I do it is just fucking stupid.
Cerberus barks.
Her eyes snap open and they lock on mine. She’s surprised to see me here, and a moment later, she’s gone from sight.
I rub my face, push my fingers into my hair. I’ve got to get my head on straight. Keep my eye on the goal. On why I’m doing any of this.
Punish those who had a hand in the murders of my family.
Period.
Destroy Marcus Rinaldi.
Period.
Put him in an early grave.
Period.
The end.
If I let myself get caught up in Scarlett De La Cruz and how good she tastes when I kiss her, how she feels and sounds when she comes, it will weaken me. Her uncle saw it last night. Just read it right on my face when I saw her standing there in that dress, looking like she didn’t belong here on earth.
The chopper’s blades cut into the morning.
I look up at it, see my uncle in profile. I feel nothing at the sight of him. Should I feel something?
Without looking away I whistle for Cerberus who comes running out of the water, standing a little too close to shake off the excess.
“Come on,” I tell him as we head to the kitchen door.
“She refused breakfast,” Lenore says from the sink, giving me a sideways glance.
“Hunger strike. It’s what she does.”
She turns off the tap, picks up a towel and turns to me as I lift the espresso pot to pour myself another cup of coffee.