Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 45702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 229(@200wpm)___ 183(@250wpm)___ 152(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 229(@200wpm)___ 183(@250wpm)___ 152(@300wpm)
No landlord in my face and no mob gangsters, not until tomorrow, at least.
Making my way up to my apartment, I consider my only real options.
Don’t go to work for Portello tomorrow and put myself in real danger.
Or…go work for Portello and put myself in real danger.
That’s not even factoring in the ‘where would I go if I ran vs. staying here in my apartment?’ scenario I’ve already thought about at least a dozen times.
If my landlord is Portello’s cousin, then he’d know where to find me. Hell, he just read my address on the pink slip anyway.
So, either way, I figure I’m screwed.
But apart from all that, the thought of my mystery man makes me want to go back.
It’s not as if he’s going to appear right here in my apartment.
Even if he did, what would I say?
I have no idea, but his memory is so fresh that I can think of a hundred things I’d like to do to him and then have him return the favor.
Oh, what I’d do to the man if I was locked in a room with him…just the two of us.
CHAPTER FOUR
Rocky
Don Portello’s eyes stare past me, fixed on a point in the past somewhere.
A place I can’t see myself because I wasn’t even born yet.
“Your Papa and me,” he reflects. “We used to get along. He used to be able to tell what I was thinking…when we were boys back in Calabria,” he murmurs before his attention shifts to the present.
His eyes narrow and regain that cold, gray stare I’ve grown used to.
For long enough, seeing it in my own Papa’s eyes has trained me that this life doesn’t make saints out of any of us.
My eyes must have some of the questions in my mind, making the old man smile to himself.
“But today,” he explains for my benefit, “I have no idea what your Papa is thinking. And it feels like he has the upper hand by sending his son to talk. I thought he would’ve come himself,” he says, letting the smile fall from his face.
I take a breath to push down my rising anger again. “He’s not a well man. And the shock of what you’ve done has…,” I say through gritted teeth.
But seeing how much Don Portello seems amused by what I feel and say makes me stop.
I won’t give him or any Portello the satisfaction of gloating after their cowardly attack on us.
“I’ve been sent here to ask why,” I continue. “But I think it serves more as a warning if I know my father,” I tell Portello, who lifts his brows in a question.
“A warning?” he asks. “A little late for that,” he scoffs.
“I think it’s time you Martinellis learned who's really the boss and how to take orders. That’s the only thing you need to understand,” he snaps coldly.
Sensing I might do what I’m thinking, the whole room reaches into their coats again, this time showing what they have instead.
A dozen guns are trained on me in a second. The brain behind them poised for my body to snap the old man’s neck like a chicken’s.
But I’d prefer to walk out of here alive, so I let my instincts go – for now.
I know I’m done here. It’s clear that Portello has nothing but power and gloating on his mind.
Sending me to talk here was a waste of precious time I could’ve better spent elsewhere.
Like following the most perfect ass in the world I’ve ever seen home.
I stand slowly, my hands slightly raised in a show of surrender before I nod a little bow of respect for the Don.
As much as I hate him and his kind, he’s still older than me. Still the head of a powerful family, and that always commands a level of respect in my world.
Plus, it never hurts to let your opponent think he’s won a round or two.
“I’ll send word to your Papa. What I want and when,” he snaps again.
“Tell him not to send a boy to do a man’s job again. Even if you are big, you’re not who speaks for your family, boy,” he sneers, and his henchmen leer and snicker to themselves as I back my way toward the door.
Strangely, I’m only worried about not being able to track the girl.
The room full of guns and hateful men isn’t even enough to dim the fire she’s lit inside me.
It’s even replacing the flames of revenge I felt flowing through me like lava before I arrived here today.
Now?
All I want now is her. Once I’m alone on the street and out of sight of the restaurant, I un-ball the soggy paper from my pocket.
The corner of my lip curls once I see her first name and street address.
The only parts of the notice I can still read, but it’s all I need and all I want right now too.