Page 6 of Caged Bliss

And I can’t handle that.

I’m still at Cage after all this time because I believe I can get through to her. She’s still in there, still the girl I grew up with, the girl I dedicated my life to when things were horrible. After we lost our dad, after we lost our mom, after we moved in with our piece-of-shit uncle, Serena was everything to me.

Now she’s slipping away, piece by piece, and if I’m fired from this job?—

She’ll be gone, and I’ll have nothing left.

Chapter 3

Angelo

“It’s fucking great to see you on the outside, Angelo.” Tommy hands me a glass of champagne. He’s grinning huge, one hand on his pretty girlfriend’s leg, but I’m pretty sure she’s high as shit and doesn’t even know where we are right now. “Here’s to freedom.”

We touch glasses and I drink. My mind’s half in this room and half on the mouthy, gorgeous little waitress I spooked out in the hall. She was standing in front of the door and looked like she was trying to figure out how she was going to get it open with her hands full, and when I offered to help, she nearly dropped all her shit.

Then she has the gall to give me some sarcastic comment.

Coming from anyone else, I might be annoyed. Except that girl is beyond beautiful, and there’s something about the spark I felt that I can’t really shake.

I’ve been away from women for too long.

Tommy’s chick is slender and waifish. She’s got the whole skinny supermodel thing going for her. But that waitress is everything: on the small side, maybe five-foot-four at most, with thick dark hair and beautiful olive skin. She’s got a fantastic figure which that lewd little outfit only accentuates, and I feel my blood thrumming through my veins, and I keep on thinking about that brief encounter in the hall.

I’ve been locked up for too long. I need to get some pussy and soon, because I sure as hell can’t let myself get distracted by random fucking waitresses right now.

I plaster a smile on my face and listen to Tommy talk about all the shit he’s been doing here at Cage since I went away. I pretend like I’m happy about it and compliment the decor, even though I find this whole fucking fake Greco-Roman shit tacky and obscene. Back in my day, Cage felt like what it was: a grimy, dark, steamy den of sin, not this old-world rich person garbage. But it’s not my club anymore.

I drink my champagne like I’m just having a good old catch-up with a friend, while internally I keep thinking about Paulie’s head blown to pieces, his blood staining the white couch.

“The Don’s been very good to me,” Tommy says, starting to relax now. His girl’s practically nodding off against his shoulder and he doesn’t even notice. “Cage has been growing big time over the years. I tapped into a high-end market and I’ve been providing my customers with everything they could need, from girls to drugs to everything in between, no questions asked, no judgment. Cage isn’t just for dancing anymore. It’s an everything club, and it’s highly exclusive.”

I grind my jaw and nod along. I built Cage—it was my pet project back in the day—and I took it from nothing to a thriving business in my early fucking twenties when Tommy was still barely a goon with a gun and a penchant for punching guys in the mouth. If I hadn’t gone down for five years, Tommy wouldn’t be anywhere near the top of Cage right now, except someone had to step up and take over when I got arrested and it made sense for that to be Tommy. I guess back then my father saw something in him, and now here he is, five years later, thriving and on top of the world with a pretty addict girlfriend on his arm and an expensive diamond-studded gold chain around his neck.

Old Tommy’s doing great for himself. While I rotted in prison.

I’m tempted to start asking him my questions like I did with Paulie yesterday, but I have to be a little more careful here. With Paulie, it was simple, since he wasn’t involved much in Famiglia business anymore, which made him fair game. However, Tommy’s connected, he’s a made man, and I can’t just murder him without good reason.

Not yet anyway.

Besides, Tommy knows things. He’s been around for the last five years, and I know my former lieutenant was always good about gathering information. If I kill him, I’ll lose whatever he’s got locked up in that head of his, and I’m not ready for that.

We catch up some more. I tell him about all the good friends I made in prison and he pretends like he’s interested in my jail stories. After a while, the waitress comes back again and replaces the champagne bottle. I can’t keep my fucking eyes off her, and Tommy must notice, because once she’s gone, he leans over and whispers, “That’s my girl’s sister. Can you believe it? They look nothing alike, but it’s fucking true. Right, Serena?” He elbows his girlfriend and she blinks a few times. “Claudia’s your sister?”

“Is Claudia here?” Serena says, sounding spaced out and barely with it.

“You fucking—I said, Claudia’s your sister, right? And you look nothing alike?”

Serena’s smile is dull as she leans back. “Claudia’s the best sister ever,” she murmurs.

Tommy rolls his eyes and looks back at me. “I bet shit was a little tough for you in prison, yeah? None of those old-fashioned conjugal visits, right?” He cocks his head to the side and gets a sly look. “I could call the girl back in here if you’re interested.”

I clench my jaw and take a deep breath. Rage billows up and I’m tempted to strangle Tommy here and now. I don’t know what it is, but the way he’s talking about that girl Claudia drives me absolutely goddamn mad with blind fury. Fuck what he knows and fuck his protection. I’m Angelo Bianco—I can murder this prick and my brother the Don will just have to live with that.

But I take a long drink and force myself to calm down.

I’m not going to ruin years of planning for some random fucking waitress.

“No, thanks,” I tell Tommy and he shrugs like I can always change my mind.

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