Page 58 of Bad Men

My nose wrinkled. “I don’t want it. Normal means I can’t have both of you and that’s not an option for me.”

Another kiss was planted to my skin, his watchful gaze hot over our entwined fingers. “You never have to worry about that.”

Chapter Eleven — Davien

Never trust anyone who overcompensates, Pop used to preach, a bit ironic given he worshiped the ground Eduardo walked upon. But overcompensating seemed to be the running theme amongst those in the life.

The bigger, the more expensive, the rarer the better.

Living in excess never made sense to me. Maybe because Nero and I came from nothing and never felt the need to have more than we needed, but I was comfortable in our tiny apartment. I took care of my hand-me-down car. I had enough clothes to get me from laundry day to laundry day. There was enough food in the fridge and the bills were paid. Everything after that was just luxury.

But people like Eduardo, like my pop, they were like wolves, hungry and always on the prowl for more. They didn’t care who they hurt, who they stole from as long as their side of the street made others envious. Eduardo’s four-story marble and glass tower was no exception.

It sprawled like a Playboy centerfold across lush, green acres, a gleaming fortress of polished stone and neatly manicured lawns. Nero had once called it a colonial mansion. I had no idea what that meant, except it must have been Latin for too fucking big for the three people who called it home. True, Eduardo had security who rotated throughout the night and the occasional guest, but without all that, there was only him, his wife, Cherice, and their daughter, Magna. The girl was usually shipped off to some fancy private school a million miles away and Cherice preferred their condo in New York and spent a large portion of the year there. That left Eduardo alone with whichever mistress had caught his fancy that month. I had no room to cast judgment on anyone’s choices, especially anyone’s marriage or relationship, given I’d never been married or committed to any relationship but if I had a wife and child, they would be with me. Shipping them off so I could run around with any pretty face to glance my way made no sense. Maybe, in his own twisted manner, Eduardo was attempting to keep them safe, but that was hard to see when he couldn’t keep it in his pants the entire time his wife was gone.

But none of that was my business. My job was to deliver Eduardo’s money, sit quietly through the tedious meeting, pack it up, and go home. That was all I wanted. Only, I wanted Mia there, too. I wanted her to be waiting for us on the sofa, long, smooth legs bare under the hem of one of my t-shirts, dark curls in tangled riots around her face. I wanted to push the door open and find her already there in my space, filling it with the sound of her voice. But I knew she wouldn’t be. If she had any sense in her skull, she’d take what happened with Alejandro for what it was and run. She’d cut us from her life, sever us like the tumors we were and live her life the way she deserved. We’d complicated so much for her already. We’d put her in danger. Nothing was going to change that. No apology was going to be enough, not when we had zero power to stop it if Alejandro made another appearance. We weren’t leaders. I was barely a foot soldier. Nero could probably take the fucker out, but at what cost? Eduardo would have us killed. Then he’d make Mia watch as he slaughtered her family.

I rubbed a palm over my face, aching with the exhaustion working through my very soul in black tendrils. When had life gotten so complicated?

When we lured Mia into it, I realized with a groan. Everything before her had been routine and by the book. Barely a week with her and every wall I’d built around me had cracks splintering through it. Thoughts I had no right to think were worming their way into my skull. She was fucking up everything and I … I didn’t know if I wanted her to stop. Even after this, even knowing that continuing to see her put an enormous target on her, I was in too deep. I had no idea what that meant or what I was prepared to do, but I knew I needed to pull my head out of my ass and figure it out. Not just for my sake or Nero’s, but Mia’s.

But first things first.

I gathered what remained of my patience and pushed out of the car, the cash box stuffed under my arm. The sweltering heat enveloped me with the ferocity of an angry maw attempting to devour me. Every second in it made me regret my dark clothes. At the house, I took the marble steps two at a time to the top and the doorbell. I pushed it and took the time waiting to pull out my phone and check for a message from Nero.

There was none.

I peeked at the time at the top, left corner, mentally calculating the time since Nero and I split up. I added the time it would take Nero to get through late afternoon traffic to Mia’s house, assumingly that Alejandro had taken her back there like he’d promised. There was a chance he may have dropped her off somewhere and it was taking her longer to get home and Nero was waiting for her. These were all rational thoughts, the hopeful part of me making excuses to the pounding of heart and twisting gut. It reminded both that Nero would have texted me immediately the moment Mia walked into the house. He wouldn’t have let me stew.

Nevertheless, I texted Nero. It was only a question mark, but it was enough. It was all I had time for when the door opened.

Diego Morales leered at me from the other side, his jagged features twisted into a smirk, as if he knew something I didn’t. It was bullshit. The guy had the brain of a coked-out monkey. He barely knew how to tie his own shoes. As Mateo Estrada’s right hand, Diego was all muscles and zero brains. Whatever he’d been born with had been beaten out of him, along with whatever looks he’d been given. Years of fighting in the ring had put a permanent bend in his fat nose, an odd angle to his cheekbones, and his lip only curved up on one side. But the guy could kill a man with one punch.

My dad would have loved him.

“Diego,” I muttered in greeting.

His small, watery eyes narrowed, but I had already shouldered past his bulky frame and stationed myself in the brightly lit foyer of Eduardo’s compound.

Diego stuck his head out and searched the driveway. Not finding Nero there as usual, he pulled in and shut the door. One hairy eyebrow poked up when he turned to me.

“Where’s Nero? Aren’t you two fucking or something? Thought he’d be attached to you.”

It was the same joke every time. Granted, he changed it up once in a while, but the implication remained the same. Either way, I had no time for his bullshit when I had bigger things to worry about.

“That’s not how fucking works,” I muttered dryly, not bothering to slow my strides as I moved towards the meeting room. “But it explains why you’re not fucking anyone.”

“Fuck you.”

“No thanks.”

Mateo wasn’t the captain of my sector. We didn’t even paddle the same shit. Mateo sold drugs, heroine mostly, but marijuana and meth when the supply needed dealing. His crew consisted of runaways, kids he could beat into working for him.

Nero and I ran the streets. We didn’t sell anything. Our job was collection and protection, and, mainly in Nero’s case, clean up. In the eyes of those like Diego, we were weak for not having real heat on us. That somehow, we weren’t as dangerous as they were. True, I probably wasn’t, but Nero was another story.

Nevertheless, I ignored the insult Diego hurled at my back. The cashbox was jostled a bit higher under my arm, not because I believed Diego capable of snatching Eduardo’s money and making a run for it, but not trusting him not to smack it out of my grasp just to be a dick.

The meeting room was the only door open at the end of the hallway. The others were always sealed shut before every meeting, and in all the years I’d been there, I had no idea what lay on the other side. I didn’t care. Ten seconds of walking into that place, I was already ready to leave. That feeling intensified when I stepped over the threshold and had the other five members of Eduardo’s team pause in their conversation to watch me.

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