Aurora ignored me completely over the next two days. I had sworn to Dad that I wouldn’t spend more than a week at the race circus, so my time was coming to an end. I could tell that especially Massimo was growing restless with the lifestyle. He needed a task, and he probably missed his arguments with Carlotta.
I too missed Las Vegas, mainly because of our raids. Not killing anyone in a week really gave me an itch.
Still, I had every intention to stay until the race tomorrow and try to get one more rise, and hopefully orgasm out of Aurora.
In the afternoon before race day, Massimo, Alessio and I sat on folding chairs in front of the trailer we shared. Another thing that grated on Massimo’s nerve. He preferred privacy, especially at night.
Adamo came over to our trailer. He gave Massimo and Alessio a smile before he narrowed his eyes at me. He was still pissed because of Gigimo. It was an open secret in camp that I had attacked him because of Aurora. Nobody had dared to look at her twice since then. Even Adamo’s wife Dinara had given me the nasty eye ever since the incident. “Nevio, a woman came to me today. She told me she needs to see you. It’s of utmost importance.”
“What did you do now?” Alessio asked, his black Converse propped up on the folding table in front of us. “We’re in the middle of the desert, and trouble still finds you.”
“How did she look?” I asked, not really interested in the matter. If she was a groupie wanting to have sex…well, I was out of the business of having sex with random girls. And if she was a girl from the past…hard pass from me.
Adamo gave me a look that made it clear he didn’t want to get involved in whatever went on. “Tall, dark hair, with a French accent.”
I frowned. “I can’t remember a French girl…”
“You had two French girls so far. One last year, one the year before,” Massimo said, not even looking up from his phone where he was probably reading the newest Science Weekly or whatever tickled his fucking fancy right now.
Adamo let out a long sigh. “Whenever I’m around you three, I realize why Remo was constantly pissed off at me when I was a teenager. You’re a nuisance. Any plans to return to Las Vegas. Perhaps tonight?”
Massimo gave a small shake of his head. “Technically, only I’m still a teenager, if you go strictly by the numbers and not by intellect and level of development.”
“Uncle Adamo,” I said with fake hurt. “We’re family. This is our bonding time.”
“Your version of bonding causes me too much trouble.”
I chuckled. Adamo sighed again. “The girl looked really panicky, and I think it’s urgent. So maybe you should talk with her before she disturbs the race tomorrow. I’d be really pissed if that happened. It’s an important race. We have halftime so new bets will flood us. Lots of money to be made.”
I lowered my feet from where I’d rested them on a vacant chair. “All right. Where is the mystery girl?”
“She wants to meet you at the car cemetery. She seems to share your sense of morbidity.”
“And his level of crazy if she meets with Nevio at a place where he could dump her body,” Alessio added.
Adamo gave me a hard look. “No bodies. What you did to Gigimo was enough. This is my last warning, Nevio.”
“She’ll live,” I said as I stretched out my arms. “I don’t see how she could piss me off enough to make me want to kill her.”
“You want to kill pretty much everyone,” Alessio said. “Do you need moral support?” I answered his mocking grin with my middle finger.
After a yawn and stretch, I rose from the chair, strode over to my car, and got in. I missed the comfort of my RAM. The hard suspension of the Mustang was a nuisance.
The drive to the cemetery took me thirty minutes. I tried to remember any French girls from my past, but my mind came up blank. It wasn’t surprising, though, considering I’d even forgotten my night with Rory, who overshadowed every other girl in my past.
A rental Toyota Yaris waited on the gravel parking lot next to the car graveyard. Over the years, Adamo and other racers had buried the remains of their cars in the dusty ground. Now dozens of cars emerged from the ground like dominos.
I came to a stop with my bumper facing the other car’s bumper and got out.
I could see a woman sitting behind the steering wheel. She didn’t look happy to see me. Maybe this would end in a tirade. Who knew what I’d done after I’d fucked her. It must have been bad if she hunted me down more than a year later to give me a piece of her mind. This could be fun.
Finally, the driver’s door opened and she got out. Adamo was right. She was tall and had good curves, but she definitely wasn’t dressed to impress today. She wore simple jeans and tight tee plus flip-flops and no makeup. I hoped she hadn’t forgone her face paint because she planned to ugly cry. She’d soon realize that crying didn’t work on me.
She hadn’t pulled the keys from the ignition so she was preparing for a quick escape. My interest was piqued. Her face didn’t conjure up any memories. I couldn’t even say if she was my type. I had been a mood fucker. One night, I picked the tall, model type who turned everyone’s head, and one night, the wallflower who gave you the blow job of a lifetime, risking lasting damage to her throat in gratitude for picking her.
She stopped in her tracks and looked at me, her expression filled with anxiety. “You don’t remember me, right?”
I shoved my hands into my pockets. “No, not at all.”
“I figured,” she said, her eyes darting to her car. I had a feeling there was someone in there. Did she bring her new lover for support?
Narrowing my eyes, I stalked toward the back door and opened it. She didn’t stop me, only watched.
I froze when I spotted a small child in a dirty child seat in the back seat. He was only in a diaper, which was probably enough in the blistering heat outside but not in the AC air inside the car.
I took a step back and glared at the woman. “I want a fucking explanation, and I want it ASAP, or this is going to become a very unpleasant experience for you.”
She came toward us and picked up the child, a boy I would guess from his facial features, from the seat. She held him as if he was a dirty mutt she’d found on the street and couldn’t wait to drop off at a shelter.
I had a fucking bad feeling about this.
She held him out to me in her outstretched arms. The boy stared at me with wide eyes.
Fuck it.
“He’s yours.” She tried to hand him over to me again. I took a step back, staring at the kid, then at the woman.
She put him down on the hot desert ground, and he crawled toward her legs, trying to be picked up again. The ground was probably blistering.
“Put that fucking towel under him or pick him up,” I snarled.
She reached for the dirty towel on the floorboard, thrust it on the ground, and set him down on it. “Stay,” she said impatiently as if he were a disobedient dog.
She met my gaze. “He’s your son.”
I shook my head. My son? What the fuck? I’d forgotten a condom on occasion in the past. Was this really coming back to bite me in the ass now?
“How do I know he’s mine?”
She glared. “I usually use a condom. You were the only one where I didn’t use protection.”
“If you went bareback with me, you might have fucked other guys bare too.”
“He’s yours! You can do a DNA test if you don’t believe me.”
I didn’t want to believe a fucking word out of her mouth. But I didn’t need a DNA test to know he was mine. Fucking mine. He had my eyes, and something about him just screamed Falcone. I couldn’t explain it.
“I’m not taking him back with me,” she said as if we were discussing a piece of furniture, not a kid. Didn’t women usually have motherly feelings for their brood? My mother would have chopped herself to pieces before she would have abandoned us, but of course I knew the stories about my crazy-ass grandmother who tried to kill my father and his brothers. Wasn’t it fitting that I had picked a crazy bitch for a fuck?
“I’m not taking him back,” she repeated as if I hadn’t heard her the first time.
“I don’t want him either!” I roared, fucking furious and also fucking overwhelmed for maybe the first time in my life. She’d popped him out of her vagina and taken—more or less—care of him since then. I was seeing him for the first time. If she didn’t have feelings for the kid, did she really expect me to have them? Fuck, feelings and I weren’t on a first-name basis.
He was a kid, all right, and had part of my DNA, but I didn’t feel like a father. I didn’t feel anything but utter confusion and rage.
She shrugged. “Then abandon him in the desert or drop him off in front of a hospital, or do what you do at night. Everyone knows what you are.”
Was she fucking serious? Was she really suggesting I kill that kid? Fuck, I was a psychotic fucker, no doubt about it, but even I had certain limits.
I grasped her throat so tightly that my fingers dug into her skin and slammed her against the side of the car. Her eyes bulged, face turning red. She wanted to speak but couldn’t. I wasn’t sure how much the kid had understood of her cruel words, but since he hadn’t sought her closeness since she’d dropped him on the towel, I supposed he wasn’t used to affection from her.
I would have killed her, most likely, if the kid hadn’t started bawling. Fat tears rolled down his chubby cheeks, and his face turned dark red. I released her, and she bolted, losing a flip-flop as she rounded the hood of her rental, then flung herself inside. The car jerked as she reversed it, then steered it to the side and raced away, scraping the side of my bumper with hers in the process. She left a trail of dust behind—and the boy.
