Page 124 of Sin with Me

That night Callisto and I stayed up until sunrise the next morning. He told me things I’d only heard about in the whispers of my grandmother’s living room. Mafia families were a myth. A legend. The plot of a story told to peak the interest of curious children.

I learned that Carlos makes most of his money through online gambling. And even though it isn’t legal, due to him networking across state lines and overseas, I was thrilled to know he isn’t involved in drugs or prostitution. Callisto is what’s known as an enforcer, meaning when someone breaks the rules, Callisto is their consequence. He also offers protection to several local business owners, ensuring the overflow of crime that makes the city’s headlines doesn’t affect them.

That explains where he goes at night.

As much as his father tried to keep him sheltered from the family business, after watching his mother die just feet from him, Callisto wouldn’t take no for an answer. He wanted revenge. Justice. And he’s been at it ever since.

I learned he’s only actually had to kill, or burn as he calls it, four people in his seven years of working for his father. The rest of them learned their lesson in other ways. I don’t ask for details. I don’t need to know. He did confess to being responsible for ridding the world of Nathan Kress.

“He signed his death warrant when he put that shit in your car,” he told me, “I wanted to burn him just for being the cause of all your pain. My father advised against it. He worried it would start a war. But when he became a threat… The things he threatened to do to you… That was it. War or no war, he was a dead man.”

I can’t say I think less of him for it. If that piece of shit had ever cornered me, I was ready to do the same thing.

“I only hurt people who hurt other people. I need you to know that. Rapists, murderers, child molesters. People that slip through the cracks of the law. There has never been a single drop of innocent blood on my hands.”

“So, you really are like Batman.” I said, inciting a laugh that echoed through the room. I love seeing him laugh. I wish he’d do it more often. Maybe now that this weight has been lifted, he will.

“Yeah, baby. Just like Batman.”

Two weeks later, I’m signing papers on a loan to open my very own practice. I’m hoping to get a response soon from the ad I placed for a partner. I currently occupy the spot at the end of the bar at Suppato’s while I wait for Callisto to get back from a meeting.

“I always knew there was a thing,” Jaxon says as he slides a martini across the polished wood.

I stir the drink with my tiny straw and roll my eyes at him. With the first sip of its lemony sweetness, the stress of the day slowly begins to wash away.

“Don’t you know it’s bad bar etiquette to stir your drink?” he adds with a grin.

I’m so glad there are no hard feelings between us. Jaxon is a really good friend and now that things with Callisto are pretty much a done deal, I spend a lot of time here when I’m not working. No more abnormally perfect females waiting their turn for a shot at my man. When he told me that most of them were only sent there as an offer of appreciation for a job well done, you’d have thought he just told me cheesecake doesn’t have calories. I let him know very quickly how I felt about women being offered up as thank you gifts. He just laughed and reminded me that those women were always politely sent on their way.

My thumb nervously runs across the indented circle on my phone. 6:45. Callisto is uncharacteristically late. He’s never late. I shift anxiously in my seat.

“Another martini?” Jaxon asks.

“I think I’m good for now.”

He looks across the bar at me with wide eyes then shakes his head and continues wiping down glasses.

We’re supposed to be meeting Brynn and her flavor of the week at a new wine place in the warehouse district. So, I’m trying to take it easy on the hard stuff. It’s her birthday, and there’s no way I’m getting out of it.

The cordless phone rings, and Jaxon eyes me curiously as he listens to the voice on the other end.

“Carlos needs you in his office,” he says, “Now.”

My first thought is that he’s having another stroke, so I move as quickly as I can to get back there. As soon as I open the door, my stomach drops. Callisto is covered in blood, standing in front of Carlos’ desk, next to a man.

I recognize that man.

Jeeves.

“I need you to fix him. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important,” Callisto says, his eyes focused on Jeeves.

“You’re bleeding.”

I’m not worried about the other man. All I can see is Callisto’s blood-soaked shirt.

“It’s not mine,” he says, his eyes dark and cold, “Help him, baby. Please.”

Jeeves is peering up at me through bloodshot eyes. The blood has drained from his face, and his breathing is rapidly slowing. He’s going into shock.

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