Page 40 of The Mafia's Property

“God, you’re so tight.” He pulled her up further, so that she was leaning against his chest. Still, he continued thrusting into her as he whispered into her ear, “Does he know how good your pussy feels?” Her gaze went to mine. Through eyes cloudy with desire, I saw what she was thinking. Yes, he does.

Disgusted with myself, I passed them and went to my bedroom, hoping to forget the scene I just saw. I could not. With all that I know about her and all that I had just learned, I wanted to join them. Pathetic.

Freya

“I WANT TO take you out tonight,” he said as soon as I entered the apartment. The little assignment Rico had sent me on had proved even more difficult than I thought. I couldn’t find anything he would want or needed. How did one buy a gift for someone who has everything? It was hard to do and after an afternoon of browsing through men’s stores, I gave up and went back to the apartment where I saw him already looking like he was ready to leave. Maybe a night out with him would help me learn more about this man. He wasn’t an enigma like Rico was, but I realized I knew very little about him.

The restaurant we went to was one of those exclusive types that made you wait at the bar for your table. But when we got there, Nico and I were immediately ushered to an intimate table in the corner. The hostess was more than deferential to him and treated him like he was a king. “You must dine here a lot,” I said after she was gone.

“It’s because I own this place.”

Of course he did. “Your family must own the entire city.”

“Only half of it. We concentrate most of our real estate holdings in New York and Chicago. That’s where the money is, you could say. I prefer Chicago. This city is too seasonal for my liking. It makes things unpredictable. But this town is basically our base, so…”

“Here I was thinking you only own a casino and a couple of clubs. So what do you do over there?” It was a casual question meant to fill the space, but when he arched his eyebrow, I realized the mistake I made.

“I don’t think you really want to know.”

“Sorry. I was only asking out of curiosity.”

“Don’t be. If you want to know what your gangster boyfriend gets up to all day, I can tell you he does mostly mundane jobs that are perfectly legal, mostly, but don’t think he’s clean. He can get dirty sometimes.”

I chuckled. Even when he made allusions to murder, he was awfully disarming. The clean cut shirt and trousers he had on made him look like a wall street guy on his downtime and not the killer he was. A man like him should be kept away from society, I thought. He was too dangerous.

Sooner rather than later, a waiter came to take our order and soon after that, our food was served. It was as good as I expected and even though I had never dined in a place like this; I was sure this was one of the best. Maybe it was Nico’s amazing conversation skills or maybe it was the sweet wine that paired delicious food, but halfway through the meal, I blurted out a question.

“Why are you in the business?”

Nico paused mid steak cutting.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

He dropped his cutlery and took a sip of wine. “It’s okay. What do you think I should be doing?”

I cast my gaze to the ceiling. “If not, the business maybe show-business. You strike me as someone who could have been big in this town.”

“I never thought of doing anything else, really. I wanted to be like my father my whole life and when my father died, I wanted to avenge his death. I was too young to understand what I was getting into, but I didn’t care. It’s kinda the life I wanted, and I’ve had no regrets.”

“Not even for the people you’ve, you know.”

“Killed?” He looked at me straight in the eye. “No one I killed was ever innocent.”

What about Zoe, I wanted to say? Did you kill her? There was no way I could ask him that. Even if I could, before I could formulate the question, we were interrupted.

“Nico?”

I looked up to see an elegantly dressed woman standing in front of our table. I had only met her once, but I still remembered her. Maeve. She looked like she had seen a ghost. Clearly, she wasn’t expecting us, or rather me, here. “You’ve always hated this place,” she said.

She barely acknowledged me as if I didn’t exist. Her gaze never went away from Nico and one would think we’ve never met. “Preferences change.” I turned to Nico. He looked like he was being non-nonchalant, but he has acted like that before. I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. The reason he brought me here was to make his old girlfriend jealous. I don’t know why I thought this dinner had nothing to do with his ulterior motive. The real reason he bought me. What was I thinking? That it was a date? It certainly felt like it until two seconds ago.

“What are you doing here?” Nico asked.

“A friend of mine has a birthday and we’re doing a little dinner thing for her.” She waved off her hand away, speaking casually. She cast her gaze at a table three feet away and said, “Looks like I’m the first to arrive, though. Speaking of which, isn’t yours coming up soon. You must have a party planned.”

This Maeve was talkative than the Maeve I met previously. She was a little jittery and if I didn’t know better, I would say she was a little anxious. Not at all the cool person I met at the wedding.

Nico shook his head. “Not this time. I’m thinking of taking Freya to the island for some alone time.”

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