I huff as I deadlift a barbell off the ground. My muscles ache, and my body’s just about ready to be done with this workout. I usually get my exercise at the boxing gym with Nero whenever time allows, but I woke up this morning feeling restless, so now here I am, down at the home gym doing rep after agonizing rep. I’m pushing myself even though I know I’ll regret it tomorrow when I’m sore all over.
Right now, this is good. The intensity, the pain, and the effort are all ideal distractions from the fact that I’m worked up over a dream.
A fucking dream.
What am I, five?
I drop the weight with a loud thud. Good thing I built this place in the basement, so I don’t have to worry about anyone hearing me. The house is designed for maximal privacy, especially down here. There are three separate sections to the basement, with three different access points. One leads down to the gym and steam room, the other to the cigar room with the jewelry vault, and the third to my torture room.
I haven’t used the last one since my wedding to Cleo. It doesn’t feel right to bring that aspect of my work home anymore. It’s not that the torture room isn’t secure—no one’s ever managed to escape from it—but why take a risk I don’t need to take? I’ve got plenty of other places to take people. And if anything happened to Cleo because I brought someone dangerous to our house…
I close my eyes.
“Rafe! Help me!”
I’m in Midtown, eating a hot dog, when I hear her voice. I whip around, trying to find her, but it’s impossible to spot her in the dense lunchtime crowd.
“Rafe! I’m right here!”
My heart jumps into my throat when I finally see her. Cleo is crying, a gun pressed to her head. A man in a black hoodie, the hood obscuring his face, is holding her. I sprint toward her, but no matter how fast I run, I don’t get any closer. The hooded man pulls her farther and farther away. Frustration and fear hammer inside my chest.
“Cleo!”
And then I can’t see her anymore. She’s gone. All I can hear is her voice, her begging, her crying. And then a gunshot slices through the air.
My eyes snap wide.
Fuck. Why am I replaying the dream again? It’s bad enough that I woke up gasping, my hands searching for my wife. The moment I touched her, my body shook with bone-deep relief. And it felt like all the progress I’d made over the past few weeks had been erased.
Our relationship had just started to fit into acceptable boundaries. I’d stuck to my plan when it came to her, focusing on the physical aspect of our relationship and living practically every night between her legs.
I haven’t slept much, but I’ve fucked every hole and licked every inch of that magnificent body, enough to have it all memorized in clear detail.
My desire for her hasn’t waned, but I’m learning how to handle the lust. I do my best to forget about it during the day and indulge in the night. With a few exceptions—days when I want her so badly that I skip work despite my best intentions—I was succeeding. My head was clearing. I’ve been able to stay focused on my work.
The Garzolos moving under my command have served as a convenient reminder why I need to stay detached from everyone, including my wife. Not all Garzolo’s old capos are happy with me coming in as their new boss, and they’re sniffing around for weak spots, trying to figure out how they can get leverage on me. I’ve spent my life trying to make sure that leverage doesn’t exist.
There’s nothing I’m not willing to lose to protect my rule. But in that dream, losing her felt worse than anything in the entire world.
I exhale a heavy breath.
It was a fucking dream. I don’t need to get this worked up over it.
I grab a towel and turn toward the shower just as the door to the gym opens and Cleo walks in. My gaze sweeps over her. Her copper hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail. She’s dressed in a blouse and a pair of jeans, ready to go out. Her eyes spark as she takes in my sweaty, shirtless form.
“What are you doing here, tesoro?” I ask, tossing the towel over my shoulder.
She bites her lip, her gaze flickering from my abs to the barbell on the floor. “I didn’t even know this was down here. You’ve got an indoor pool tucked away somewhere as well?”
“No, but that could be arranged.”
A smile tugs on her lips. She walks up to me and drags her nails lightly over my bare abs, sending a shiver through my body. “You know, Gem’s spent years trying to convince me to go to the gym, but this view might be what finally does it.”
The appreciation in her tone is good for my ego. I’m normally immune to flattery, but apparently not when it comes from my wife.
I cup her cheek and press our lips together. Her mouth opens immediately, and she slides her tongue against my own. There’s none of the hesitation, none of the resistance from the day of our wedding.
She really is mine.
The dream echoes in my mind. I want to forget it, to push it aside and focus on Cleo and the present moment, but it lingers like a bad taste in my mouth.
I pull away. “You off to work now?”
She tucks a strand behind her ear. “I’m going to go to Loretta’s after my doctor’s appointment.”
A doctor’s appointment? Concern flares inside of me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just need to get another birth control shot. Unless you want to start getting cracking on that heir,” she adds, a teasing smile on her face.
My stomach dips. She’s joking. I know it. But that doesn’t stop a tsunami of emotions from crashing into me.
Having a kid with her…
My heart rate picks up speed.
Producing an heir is expected of me, but it’s always seemed very far away. Fine in theory, but in practice… I blink and peer into Cleo’s eyes. Tesoro mio, pregnant. Just the thought of it makes protectiveness surge inside of me.
I don’t think I’ll make a good father. How can I be a good father if protecting my power, my position, has to always come first? And how can I stay emotionally detached from a woman who’ll one day become the mother of my child? Fuck. I mean, many men have done it. My father being the prime fucking example. But I sure as hell don’t want to be like him.
I take a step back, overwhelmed. I don’t know how to handle this conversation.
Cleo’s smile falls. “Rafe, I was kidding. I’m definitely in no rush to pop out baby Messeros. It was just a joke.”
“I know.” My voice is strained.
“Then why do you look like you’re about to have a heart attack?”
It takes everything—everything—to fix my expression into a neutral mask. “I’m fine.”
“Are you?”
“I said I’m fine.”
She frowns, her perceptive eyes seeing past the mask even though they shouldn’t. “Something’s wrong. Talk to me.”
“I have to get to a meeting. I should hop in the shower.” I give her my back. “Good idea on the birth control.”
I leave her and take the quickest shower in history. My skin feels like it’s crawling off my bones. I need to get the hell out of the house. Good thing I brought my clothes down here with me. I change into them and leave the house without bumping into Cleo again.
Nero’s waiting for me in a car outside. “You all right?” he asks once I get in. “You’ve got a weird look on your face.”
“It’s nothing. What’s the plan for today?”
A beat passes. He turns the car on and pulls out of my driveway. “The guys at Oyster Bar called me earlier. They finally got the money…”
I tune him out. My father was a real monster. The kind that’s unusual even in our world where cruelty is a necessity. He turned that cruelty inward, toward me, toward Mamma. He might have turned it onto my sisters too if Mamma didn’t have the foresight to send them to a school abroad. They didn’t want to go without Mamma. They begged to stay, begged me to convince our parents to keep them here, but I couldn’t do that. For their own good, I couldn’t.
The day they left, they told me they hated me and Papà. Will my kids hate me too?
“They asked to see you so that they can be sure we’re all—”
“Do you think it’s possible to be a good father and a good don?” I interrupt.
Nero glances at me, brows furrowing. “I don’t know. You’re the one who had a don for a father.”
“It sure as fuck wasn’t possible for him.” Nero doesn’t know the details of what happened back when I was a kid, but he knows I never loved my father.
“At least your old man made your family rise to the top,” Nero says. “Look at Garzolo. That idiot’s shit in both areas.”
“What about Gino Ferraro?”
Nero blows out a breath. “Who knows. It’s hard to tell with him, but his sons aren’t exactly poster boys for sanity, are they? Alessio seems to have more than a few screws loose. And I don’t think Romolo’s got anything but tits and ass floating in his head.”
I grunt. “So you’re saying it’s impossible.”
“I don’t think it’s impossible, but I think it’s hard. Most don’t bother trying. You know how it is, Rafe. Kids are pawns until they knock over the king and take his place.”
He’s right. The mob’s all about family, but somehow, we all end up screwing those around us. Thing is, I don’t want to have a fucked-up family with Cleo. But what’s the alternative? None of this fits into acceptable lines.
Nero clears his throat. “Why are we talking about this?”
“Cleo brought up kids.”
He laughs. “Fuck, you two are crazy. A few weeks ago, she hissed and bared her claws whenever you got too close to her, and now she wants to have babies with you?”
“It’s not like that. She just mentioned it offhand.”
He shrugs. “Then forget about it. That’s a problem for tomorrow, and tomorrow might never come.”
I grunt. Again, he’s right. I can’t worry about the future. I’ve got enough shit to deal with right now. But the uncomfortable feelings that came up from this discussion stay with me for the rest of the day.
