Page 60 of Ruthless Daddy
I’d said,You are forgivenand she’d practically burst—she’d come so hard it left a wet patch on me. I felt her body buck, heard her breath catch. Then, she’d said thank you like it was the first real air she’d ever breathed.
After, in my bed, she’d curled above the covers—hypervigilant, braced for the next thing, wanting and terrified—and I’d known I could never let her go. Not just because she was a problem, not just because I was supposed to “protect the asset,” but because she was the first puzzle I’d ever wanted to solve with my teeth, not my fists.
It was better than any movie. It was worse than heroin. It was an ache in my gut that pulsed with every beat of my heart, growing sharper every time I tried to smother it.
I didn’t even realize I was grinning at nothing until I caught Sal’s look from across the table. He was watching me through hooded eyes, like he knew a secret and was trying to decide if it was worth the trouble to say it out loud. Marco just kept twirling his spoon, but he’d shifted his chair a few degrees, so the lines of attack were now all in his favor. Tonio, oblivious as ever, was scratching behind the dog’s ears and making a show of not listening to any of us.
I’d missed whatever Dante was saying. It was about the airport crew, something about product, coming in and out.Guns, drugs, whatever. An extraction—someone had mentioned an extraction, maybe? Sal had printed the dossier, and Marco had color-coded the highlights for the kind of nerd who needed the visual. The only words I caught were extraction, window, and professional. I tried to pick up the thread. Dante finished, then let the silence go for a second, eyes on the city outside.
Sal cleared his throat. “Pietro,” he said.
I blinked. “Yeah.”
Sal waited, then: “Your take, cousin?”
Ah. Fuck.
A pause. I opened the dossier like I’d been reading it all along, but it was sideways. Sal’s eyebrow went up. Marco smirked behind his coffee.
Tonio grinned, teeth bright. “Fratello, dove sei?” Brother, where are you. It was the kind of thing he’d say if you’d missed your stop on a bus and wound up in Indiana.
I said, “Thinking,” and closed the folder. I improvised, hope I’d be near enough to buy me some time to catch up. “The men at the airport are C-list, but they’re not here for anything casual. We have to be vigiliant, anyone could be the target.”
Tonio made a noise. “What about Olimpo? Maybe they’re here to extract a dog.” He ruffled the fur behind the brute’s ear. Olimpo didn’t even lift his head. He just opened one suspicious amber eye, then rolled it closed again.
Marco said, “If they touch the dog, we leave them in pieces.”
Sal nodded, which was approval, or at least the closest he got to it.
Dante drummed his fingers on the table, slow, then let the hand fall flat. “We have forty-eight hours before they make the move. No doubt we’ll find out what this is all about then.”
I knew this was important, had to be, but I didn’t care. All I wanted to talk abiout was Angela, what the boys had dug up on her, how I could keep her safe.
There was a beat of silence. Marco’s eyes flicked across to me. Just a second, a little muscle twitch at the side of his mouth, like a private joke. He knew. Of course he fucking knew. You can’t live in this life and not see when a man’s been shattered.
Dante saw it, too, but he didn’t say a word. He just took in the room, the way he always did—like he was looking at a chessboard and every piece was already accounted for. He poured another coffee, black, topped off Sal’s mug, then stood.
“Fifteen-minute break,” he said. “Olimpo’s restless and I need the air. Then, the real business.”
Tonio snapped to his feet. “Dog walk!” Olimpo rumbled and thumped his tail once, a slow-motion wag.
Marco was already halfway to the terrace, phone in one hand, a biscotto between his teeth. Sal stayed at the table, watching the steam from his cup, thinking a thought so heavy you could feel it in the concrete.
I exhaled, felt the sweat under my shirt, felt the tension crawling under my skin. For a minute, I was grateful. I could get out of the room before I had to answer for myself. Maybe not forever, but for a quarter hour, I could be just a man on a walk, not a man with a secret.
I shoved the chair back, left the folder closed, and followed the dog and my brother out the door.
Theairoutsidewassharp, dry. Tonio led Olimpo out and let him off the leash. The dog did a circuit of the brick, nose down, then flopped onto his side in the single patch of sun and rolled, paws in the air, a clumsy display of joy that didn’t fit the mood.
Tonio stood with his back to the door. He put his hands in his pockets and stared at the sky like it might have an answerfor him. For a long minute, he didn’t say a word. Just breathed, watched the white vapor leave his mouth and disappear. I waited, arms folded, watching the way his shoulders squared against the cold.
Finally, he said, “Fratello.” Not loud. “You seem distracted. How are you, really?”
I smirked. “Never better.”
He shook his head, no smile, still staring at the clouds. “Don’t do that. Don’t make it a joke. I’m the only one allowed to do that.”
I said, “What do you want to know?”
