Page 8 of Of Desire And Deception

When he spotted me, he motioned me over. “What’ll it be, Cos?”

“I’m good,” I answered, shoving my hands in my pockets.

“Dude, nobody comes to a club to stay dry.” He shook his head. “At least try to look like you’re here to enjoy yourself.”

“Fine.” I rolled my eyes and glanced at the selection of bottles on the wall. “Anything but whiskey.”

The bartender poured things into a glass and slid it over with a nod. I let Luca handle the tab since he’d called for the meeting and took the drink to a curved booth in the corner. My cousin followed with a glass of something that looked more fitting for spring break in Florida than mafia business in Chicago.

“So,” I prompted, my arm spanning the back of the booth as I leaned back. “What’s going on in New York?”

“Fuck, be a little duller, why don’t you?” he sipped from the orange straw in his pink drink. “You should have sent Romeo instead. He knows how to have fun.”

“The last time you took him out, he stripped on my stage at Deception, and I had to send his ass home,” I reminded him flatly. “Somehow, I don’t think his wife would approve of him drinking and playing wingman so you can get your dick wet.”

Luca laughed. “Are you offering to play wingman? Because I gotta tell you, there’s a certain trick to picking up girls, and the first step is to have some personality.”

“I have personality,” I gruffed, taking a sip of my drink and letting the alcohol burn down my throat. “And I’ve never had a problem picking up girls.”

“I guess you kind of have that tall, dark, and dangerous thing going for you,” he conceded, regarding me thoughtfully. “It could work.”

“Luca,” I snapped. “You were supposed to be giving me an update.”

“Right.” He set his drink down and leaned toward me, his elbow resting close enough to his glass that I reached out and moved it away. “The River Raiders are working with somebody in DiSanto’s organization now.”

“Fuck,” I hissed. Daemon DiSanto ran the New York families and was not a man to be crossed. Things could get bloody fast if he thought there was some connection to my family. After Luca’s father plotted with mine, my cousin fled to DiSanto to avoid becoming collateral damage in my father’s cover-up. Now he was working as a double agent, reporting to us while pretending to carry on his uncle’s legacy. “You still meeting with DiSanto?”

“Yeah,” Luca confirmed, glancing over the railing, momentarily distracted by the patrons dancing below. I rapped my knuckles on the table to get his attention. “He wants me to work my way up in the ranks and see if I can’t figure out who his traitor is.”

“I want to know where the funds are coming from.” It was that nagging question I needed answered. A ragtag group of thugs shouldn’t be able to wreak havoc on Neretti operations, but we’d had another raid on a shipment earlier in the week. “They’ve organized.”

“Yeah, they’ve got a loose family structure now,” he offered, running his finger through the droplets trailing down his glass. “They aren’t calling them capos, but captains. We all answer to somebody, and as fast as you’re killing the Neretti men who turned against Dante, they’re replacing them with Russians or guys from New York.”

“Fucking rodents.” My hand tightened around my glass as I envisioned ripping their heads off and watching them bleed out like the rats they were. “What’s the incentive to join? They’re growing rapidly.”

“The usual.” Luca waved a hand in the air. “Money. Power. Girls.”

“They’re dabbling in trafficking.”

Luca pulled away at the sound of my voice. “I’m not a part of that side of things. Strictly weapons. They also have a drug trade.”

“I need a heads up next time they plan to steal our shit.”

His lips pressed into a firm line. “I’ll do what I can, but if you start thwarting every raid, they’ll know somebody is feeding you information.”

“The names of your captains, then,” I pushed, determined to make my night worth it.

“That I can get you,” my cousin agreed, scooping up his glass and draining it. “That’s all I’ve got.”

“Seems like a conversation we could have had in a dark alley,” I muttered, gulping down the remaining liquid in my glass and slamming it down. I rose, ready to head home, but Luca slugged me in the arm.

“Come on, Cos.” He tried to drag me by the arm, but I stayed anchored and lifted a brow at him. He rolled his eyes. “There’s plenty of willing pussy downstairs, and you’re still a man. You can play dark and brooding, and I’ll draw them in with my effervescent personality.”

Part of me wanted to reach for my blade and threaten his life, but my eyes wandered to the dance floor below, and I paused. There, with a couple of other women, was a blonde with a smile wide enough to warm the coldest heart. And it appeared my heart still beat like any other man’s because I could feel warmth spreading through my chest as I watched her body move, that white-gold hair swaying seductively.

She wore a little black skirt that flounced dangerously as she moved to the music, nearly revealing the bottom curve of her ass. Her cropped pink t-shirt looked like something from an eighties workout video, but she made it sexy with that toned sliver of skin flashing me like a beacon. I needed to touch that pale flesh, see if she was as warm and soft as I imagined.

“Fine.” I shrugged Luca’s hand off my arm and followed him downstairs to the crowded floor.

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