Page 18 of Pearl
I throw back the covers. There’s a shit ton to get done before tonight and the ladies and I need to have a sit down after everything that’s happened. I send a message to Onyx.Get the troops rallied for church at noon.When I call for church, they fucking know they better all show up for a meet.First things first though, a hot shower to wash Carver’s smell from my skin because that man is absolutely everywhere after last night. And every time I inhale, it makes me want him all over again. How I let that man get under my skin as well as all over is something I’ll never know. I just crave him near, his touch. Fuck I am so screwed.
The warm water pelts over me, rinsing my skin, but hardly washing him from my mind. There’s something about Carverthat calls to my soul as though he were put on earth just for me. But still, a relationship with someone who’s connected to the mafia is bound to dredge up my entire past. I know it right deep in the pit of my stomach. Skeletons always get uncovered at one point or another. It’s a fact, as well known as any.
After getting dressed, I find myself looking in the mirror closely and fluffing my hair. not because it’s in my face but because I care how I look for him. Something I have never done before, not one day in my life. Damn that man all to hell. I pull on my boots still in a huff. I am not someone’s girlie girl. Not for one fucking minute. I fluff my hair one more time, just confirming how screwed I really am.
The thought of that alpha male makes me swoon like a female in heat. I race down the stairs, determined to get shit done before the meet up and get him off my mind, if only for a little while. I startle Skye as I walk by the bar stool where she sits counting money, her red nails click away on her square black calculator.
“How’s the bank?”I ask, heading behind the bar to pour myself a cup of coffee from the big luxury machine that the ladies just had to have and that with a big job last year, I just couldn’t deny.
She grins. “For being down two days, it’s not bad. We got in a couple more deposits. Did Onyx tell you about the request that came in yesterday? She was trying to find you but umm . . . you may have been otherwise busy.”
It’s hard not to smile, because I was so fucking busy, damn her timing all to hell. I turn around with my cup and try not to grin, but she’s grinning hard enough for both of us. Her eyes light up with mischievous amusement. “Come on, Pearl, spill. What’s going on with you and Mr. tall, dark, and handsome?It’s all everyone is talking about. You’ve never brought someone here, or locked your bedroom door, or not answered your cell.”
“What, can’t a girl get a little privacy around here once in a while? Do I hound any of you for playing house with a man or two once in a while?” I ask, coming to sit beside her.
She takes a sip of her coffee and contemplates my question. “No, we’re not questioning you. Just a little concerned, it’s all happening so fast. Who is he, what does he do for a living, how will a relationship between the two of you impact us? You know, the ladies are talking? It’s natural, Pearl. You’re the Prez.”
I sigh. It’s not that I haven’t asked any of those same questions myself, but I don’t have any answers right now, and that’s the damn truth. Carver’s been honest, but I think intentionally vague, but at the same time, I know his heart’s in the right place. And who the hell am I to judge him for not being honest when I haven’t told him one damn thing about my past. Not one, and my past could get him or me or both of us killed.
Fuck…
Maybe this isn’t going to work after all. Maybe I just needed the ladies’ perspective so that I could see things a little straighter. Besides, this club, these ladies, they are my responsibility and putting myself or them in harm’s way is out of the question. And a relationship that could lead back to the truths of the past is dangerous. Real fucking dangerous.
But yet, the idea of ending it with Carver gets pushed away at the very first thought. It’s like he’s already become part of me, part of our club, even though he’s not in any way. The little niggle in the back of my mind tells me that it’s because he’s the first fucking male in all my life who has protected me, cared about me, about the women I care about, or stood up to me, shattering the walls that I keep built high around me to keep men out. And he made every brick come tumbling to the ground with seemingly very little effort at all.
Carver fucking Canyon has managed to seep himself into my blood. And now, I’m going to have to figure out how to make this whole fucking life work, knowing what I know, not knowing what he hasn’t told me about his own life or doesn’t know about me. I glance at the round clock on the other side of the wall. And now all I can think of is him. Where he’s at, if he’s safe, if the shit he’s running is going to get him caught, or if the meet up he has with Renzo Larussio is going to get him killed.
Because, connected men, they don’t play nice. At least they didn’t with me, and who knows what they know about me. Maybe that’s why they wanted to meet with Carver, because they know about me. Fucking aye. Now I’m just being paranoid. “I’m going for a ride,” I tell Skye, heading for the door, giving it one good push to escape into the sun and gain some perspective on my runaway mind.
I straddle my bike, helmet up and kick it into gear, peeling out faster than I usually do, heading down the main drag, weaving in and out of traffic until I get to the closest on ramp to the freeway. Somewhere I can open up, breathe underneath the open sky with the purr of my bike beneath my thighs, and just think.
I’m halfway to Tucson in the middle of the desert before I course correct, turning around to head back through the cactus, dry dirt, and tumbleweeds dancing across the road every once in a while, and vast looming mountains on the way back home. I may not have solved the world’s problems, but at least the ride helped clear the cobwebs just like it always does.
But now I need to focus on the Harlots. We did good the last few weeks, and they need to be up to speed on these things, understand the work we do matters to more than us, and to feel proud of all we have accomplished, hell all we accomplish each and every day. No matter the job. We make a fucking differenceto a bunch of women who need safe haven, and I plan to tell every single one of them that very thing at our meet up today.
But the loud roar of bikes rumbling, suddenly screaming across the desert behind me tell me that I may have ventured way too far out for my own safety. I swallow hard, knowing that killing some of the Desert Riders and taking their women may not be very good for my health.
Especially as they begin to close in, bikes behind me, and no matter how fast I go, bikes creep in beside me and then in front of me, boxing me in on a road that is as open and desolate as they come. My only hope is that some traveler picks this moment to drive this road, before they overpower me, but of course they don’t. And only too soon, the bike by my side swerves into me, sending my bike into a spin, causing it to tip, throwing me from the seat as I shoot down the road on my side at breakneck speed.
Chapter 16
Carver
Renzo and Matteo Larussio, two of the most notorious of the Larussio cousins. Everyone who knows their name knows the reputation. The hothead gatekeepers to the heads of the entire Larussio crime family. The capos, the ones no one in their right mind wants to meet in a dark fucking alley.
Yet, the two of them walk toward me across the tiled casino floor of The Larussio in their fancy Italian shoes and black suits as though they were the most dignified of businessmen. Renzo extends a hand. “Carver, meet my cousin, Matteo.” He looks around the reception area of the largest resort hotel and casino in Vegas, which is filling up with visitors who are anxious to get checked in and have a little fun.
He gestures down the hall. “Let’s find somewhere to talk.”
I follow him, while Matteo walks beside me until we reach a set of elevators off the beaten path. Once inside, he swipes his finger across the digital security screen, and the elevator car begins to move downward. “We’ll have more privacy.” Renzo doesn’t give me any other explanation and for one second, I think the absolute fucking worst. What if inadvertently I’ve gotten on the wrong side of the Larussios?
But there are people, a lot of fucking people milling around when we walk into the club. A woman in five-inch red stick heels, a brief swatch of red material covering her snatch, and a couple red feathering pasties glued to her nips walks over to us. “Usual?” she asks Renzo and then looks to Matteo. They both nod. “What can I get you, handsome?” she asks me.
“Coke.”
She laughs. “I get it, handsome. Gotta have your wits about you around these two.”
Renzo gives her a smirk and walks with us to the far round table in the back corner, away from the dancers’ stage and out of the line of traffic as people move through the club. Matteo taps the back of a chair and as soon as I sit down, they take seats across from me. Clearly old mafia myths have some ring of truth to them because every now and then their eyes scan across the room, looking from their view to the door. Probably exactly why they put my back to the door and not theirs. They like to see trouble coming, well fucking so do I, and this seating arrangement doesn’t sit well with me at all.
