Page 29 of The Mob and his Messenger

And Dad will freak because Dom is the man who swept him up off the streets and made something of him.

Dad’s never talked explicitly about his work in the mob. But over the years I’ve gotten good at asking veiled questions.

“Is work going okay, Dad?” I’ll ask, innocently, and Dad will answer as though he works in a security firm or something—culling the details, speaking in generalities.

“Dom saved my life,” he said one summer barbecue, just me and him and Poppet on his balcony, smoke waving in the hot air. “Without him, I would’ve ended up in prison or worse. He showed me the right path. He taught me right and wrong. We’re both orphans, you know that? You don’t want to ask him how his parents went, but you know full well how your grandparents died.”

My grandmother to cancer and my grandfather in a car accident.

And I know how his parents went. He told me. And I don’t judge him for what he did.

I rub my arms against the cold in the air, not a lot, but enough to make goosebumps rise on my flesh. I know that Dad isn’t staying at the estate tonight, so there’s no chance of him catching me out here, but even so, I feel a shiver move through me, as though I’m doing something illicit.

I don’t judge Dom, as maybe I should. Maybe I should ride a wave of righteousness and tell him that murder is wrong. That I don’t care how old he was. That I don’t care what the conditions were, or that the men he killed would probably go on to do so much worse.

But I can’t.

When I look at Dom, at his silver peppered hair and the hungry young wolf in his experienced eyes, I see a man who would look like a freaking magazine cover standing next to a fireplace with his family gathered all around him.

The Perfect Husband, the title would read, with his sweater outlining his goliath’s build.

He’s not cruel for the sake of it, he doesn’t kill aimlessly, for pleasure, only when he has to, to defend his family. Is there something wrong with me that I’m okay with that?

The perfect husband, a voice mutters drolly in my head. Don’t get ahead of yourself.

And then there’d be me, standing next to him …

Do I fit?

I feel myself being led down Insecurity Alley when the air starts to whisper from high in the star-laced sky. I look up, laughing at myself a little as I stare into the stars.

Hearing things?

Maybe I’m letting the darkness spook me.

But then the whisper gets louder and I follow its noise, spotting a shifting shadow-dragon fluttering across the sky from far away. The skyline out here, so far away from the city, is like a screensaver. I can track the dragon as it flaps its wings and gets closer and much, much louder …

And of course, it’s a freaking helicopter, turned into a silhouette in the dark, my writer’s mind taking over once again.

Too much fantasy.

It lands in the field across from me, blowing against me, the grass becoming flat all around it. I laugh and wait for the propellers to stop, cheeks blazing red and excitement pumping vitally through me.

I feel alive like I can’t remember feeling, like a character in an adventure book. It’s like everything that happens to other people and never me is finally happening now, right here.

This is my moment.

All of this rushes around my head as I wait for the pilot to jump out and let Dom out. Or for the back door to open by some mechanism and for Dom to come out. But the helicopter just sits there.

A nasty thought whispers in my head that this is a mafia chopper, come here to take me, and everything Dom has told me has been lies …

But then the pilot’s door opens and Dom steps out in a moonlight-colored suit, his hair mussed a little from the pilot’s headset. He walks with his characteristic confidence across the field, his smirk jagged in the night dark.

“What are you waiting for, Dallas?”

“You never mentioned you could fly a helicopter, Iceman,” I laugh, letting the moment sweep me up as I step forward and playfully slap his chest.

“Still the Firecracker, I see,” he growls, catching my wrist and closing the space between us in a blink.

He’s so fast for such a huge, powerful man. He’s more fit than most men – boys – my age, that’s for damn sure.

“Now, are you going to get your perfect ass in there, or am I gonna have to spank you right here? Hmm?”

A thrill rushes through me as I move toward the helicopter, feeling his eyes tracking me in the shadows, feeling like his prey, sought, wanted.

And I fucking love it.Chapter Seventeen

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