Page 19 of Tempt Me (Dark Odyssey 4)

A spark of arousal flickers deep inside me, and my nerves scatter. It’s crazy. I’m crazy because I shouldn’t feel that. His confirmation is enough to throw me, but maybe it’s the way he looks at me. It’s not really any different to how most men look at me. It just has more effect coming from him.

He sighs and stalks away, heading to the door, but stops just before he gets there.

“You have until lunchtime tomorrow to think about it. After that, everything is set in stone.” The dangerous, dark look returns to his eyes, and he leaves.

The door closes, and I’m left wondering what tomorrow will bring.

I know I won’t change my mind though.

I won’t.

It’s not even a question if it will help.

Chapter Four

Vincent

Don’t you want me…

I woke with those words in my mind. Ava’s words.

I fell asleep with them in my mind too.

It was definitely the least of my worries, however, when the sun came up.

The first shit of the day was my meeting with the cops who’d called last Friday alerting me to the situation at hand.

Friday was when it all went down. The cops called first thing that morning. That was about the drugs and the prostitution ring Mark was helping fund as a valued patron. At that point, I still didn’t know about the money. I found that part out at lunchtime when I started checking things out.

Mark wasn’t at work Friday. Most likely in the height of gambling away my cash.

By nightfall, the feds called, and that was when I found out about everything else.

It unfolded like a fucking map pointing the way to the truth.

How Mark stole, how Mark was linked to a ring of drug dealers who were already on the feds’ radar for lacing the real stuff with a synthetic compound.

How Mark gambled away my money at a high-stakes poker game run by Omar Al Sheikh, one of the wealthiest businessmen in Dubai. Then how Mark not only stole money from Giordanos Inc. using my passwords but also tried to set up a pump and dump scheme for securities fraud linking us in the shit.

I foolishly believed Mark wouldn’t dare screw with me because of who I am. He knew it would mean death if I found out, yet me and death were the last things on his mind.

That fucking dog.

Bad enough that I didn’t get to end him last night, but the meeting with the cops and feds made me want to breathe hellfire. From the minute they called, I knew they thought I was tied up in it. They thought they finally had a way to get me good and lock me up in the big house.

Not just me… Pa and the boys too. The whole famiglia if they could.

In my world, all you need to cause serious trouble is a couple of hot shot cops who want to be feds thinking they have a thing or two to pin on one of the biggest crime families in Chicago. What’s fucking worse than that is the federal agents who try to twist the shit of everything to catch you out.

Cops and feds alike tried to catch me out, but I served them both the same answer that I hope like hell calls off the hounds.

With all the work my men and I did last night and over the last few days to clean up, I told them withsemi confidenceto make contact when they had real evidence to pin on me. Basically, find something to come for me, or fuck the hell off.

Usually, I play nice to keep things as cool as they can be. Today was different, but I think got the message across even though both meetings were a shit show where neither party got answers. While it made them piss off, it left it all vague. I hate vague.

As I make my way up the path to the family home, tension grips me.

We have a family meeting, and Pa will want answers. He’ll want to know what happened with the cops and feds, and he’ll want to know what I’m going to do about the situation with Mark.

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