Page 20 of Black Sheep
Regardless, I’m not going to stand aside and watch while he chews up and spits out a woman who can’t even begin to handle him.
Or maybe she could.
There’s something about Drew that keeps me staring at her for longer than I should, and it’s not her fantastic, curvy ass or her high, perky tits, or that long blond hair.
Actually, maybe it is the hair. Blond isn’t her color, no matter how hot as fuck she looks with it curling down her back. She should have dark hair. Brunette or black. She’d be like a sleek black cat, and there’s nothing I’d like to do more than make her purr.
Jesus. Where the fuck did that come from?I’m as bad as the old man, letting my dick get hard thinking about an employee.And even worse, I’m lying if I say it’s the first time it’s happened.
“We don’t think you’ll honor a truce,” Giancarlo Tyrol Rossetti Sr. says, and my attention snaps back to the meeting happening in front of me.
“Don’t you fucking question—” Lorenzo Angelini, Dom’s new fucking idiot second in command says. But when Dom raises a hand, Enzo shuts the hell up like a good little dog as a tense silence hangs over everyone while Dom digests the senior Rossetti’s insult.
I’m not technically supposed to be in this room. I’m the only member of the Casso clan who has a clean record and doesn’t get jacked with regularly by cops who are willing to test Dom’s temper. But since the meeting is happening at my club, which is a completely legitimate business, I’m listening from a place of honor—at Dom’s side.
It’s no secret that he wants me to fight for the right to take his position as head of the family someday. He’d like nothing more than to pit me against Enzo, a thug who has no problem smashing knees and enforcing debts, but can also pull off a half-decent impression of being slick and civilized when he wants to.
But if I’m being honest, Enzo’s a hell of a lot more like Dom than I’ll ever be.
“You don’t thinkI’llhonor the truce, Rossetti? You had a hand in fucking up the spa where my goddamned daughter went to work every day. Do you remember that bloodbath? I almostlostmy girl over that.”
Rossetti pales under his ruddy complexion.
I stay silent and still, shocked that Dom actually claimed Eden as his daughter, my half sister, out loud. Now that she’s married to a tattoo artist in New Orleans and far away from the city, he has to assume she’s safe and out of Rossetti’s reach.
“We didn’t know. Thought she was just another bitch running numbers for you.”
Dom shoots to his feet. “She’s my fucking flesh and blood. Do you know what I do to people who touch my flesh and blood? No, you fucking don’t, because they’re never fucking found again.”
I know who he’s talking about now, Creighton Karas’s uncle. I’ve known Creighton was my half brother since childhood, but he hasn’t known about our connection for nearly as long. Which is why Creighton still won’t speak to me.
It’s a long story, but suffice it to say that he was my best friend for decades. I ran his businesses, all legit, for years. Until he found out where my loyalty lay—with Dom.
If I could go back and change it, I’d be hard-pressed to follow Dom’s orders. I didn’t realize how fucking much I’d miss being able to call my best friend and ask for advice. Not that I could ever talk to him about anything like this. He had no clue that I was planted in his boarding school to become his friend and keep tabs on him for our father.None.Until I leaked the wrong piece of information to Dom and there was no other person to take the fall. Then it all came out and I was banished from the Karas kingdom, and I slunk back to the gutter, a failure.
Dom hasn’t let me live that down yet either. He still thinks that dangling the carrot of leadership of the family will make me do tricks for him, but I don’t even know if I want it.
One thing is for certain, though—Enzo can’t have it. The streets would run red with the blood of innocents, because he’s a fucking psychopath.
Giancarlo leans back in his chair, puffing on his three-thousand-dollar cigar that the club won’t be paid for. “You have my sincere apologies for my mistake, Casso. We’ll accept the truce. But if something goes down and your fingerprints are on it, we will burn your family to the ground.”
Beside him, GTR, his son, smirks. At least, he smirks until Dom rises and presses both palms on the table to stare them both down.
“Save your threats, Rossetti. If I find out that you’re fucking us over, every last one of you will be dead. We understand each other?”
Giancarlo presses down on the arms of his chair to rise. He stares Dom down, eye to eye, as GTR shoves his chair back.
“We understand each other, Casso.”
“Good. Then we have a deal.” Dom extends his arm and the two men shake hands, sealing the first truce between the families in a quarter of a century.
Dom speaks to me without breaking eye contact with the man across the table from him. “Cannon, get a box of those cigars Giancarlo likes. As a gesture of goodwill.”
Goddamned motherfucker.Now I’ll have to take over a $30,000 loss on this month’s balance sheet, all because Rossetti likes Arturo Fuente Opus Xs and Dom wants to be generous.
I button my suit jacket as I stand. “Of course. I’ll meet you at the door with them.”
When I slip out of the conclave, Tanya comes toward me.
