The truth is, I'm not taking care of much. Tommy will be taken care of, but I'm a billionaire casino magnate and I don't need to worry about taking care of my own shit most of the time. I'll deal with a few things, mostly coordinating things, and then I'm going to watch Lucy on my cameras once the key code activates them. I want to stalk her every move. Partly because watching her when she thinks she is alone turns me on, and part of me has to watch because I have to know the truth. People reveal the truth when you’re watching and they think they are alone.

I'm a paranoid man. After what happened with my wife, well, that's wise.

But I'll be sure to vet Lucy. I agreed to this out-of-the-blue agreement, and I'm letting her go up to my penthouse. I'd be an even bigger fool than I already fucking am if I took all this shit sight unseen. If she has any ulterior motives, then I'm sure to glimpse them before I head upstairs.

Antonio shows up in a few moments. He looks at my glass, and then looks away so quickly that he probably thinks I didn't notice. I doubt he would dare if he fucking knew I could see him.

I'm not one for needlessly terminating my employees, but it has happened. More than once. When I terminate an employee, it's no light-handed issue. I take away everything they value, in front of them, and then theirs is the last life I take.

Now, is that a little irrational? Perhaps. But for me, it's a matter of respect. Still, my senses are now over-activated in my need to see every little detail about Lucy. I'll relax, for now. I’m not exactly a powerful man if I have to swing my dick constantly for everyone else to see, anyhow. Antonio is a good employee.

"Get me a water and get Tommy transported. Special care. No bruises, but he has to comply. I don't want a scene." Lucy wouldn't like her brother getting banged up or gathering media attention, and I trust Antonio to keep either from happening.

I call Lorenzo. "Wipe Tommy off the books, clean slate, and line up meetings with the other Heads of State, because they're taking him clean with them, too." In some ways, doing mob shit really is just running a business. When it comes to this city, we're the ones who rule it. And having an assistant schedule your meetings isn’t all that different. Lorenzo is an assistant … with a talent for strangling people I want gone, but an assistant nonetheless.

Lorenzo says the affirmative and I hang up. He's gotta be shocked with what's going down and so quickly, but of course he's not going to show it. I never let anyone know every reason why I do something, and this is no different. I keep my enemies and my friends confused, and that’s how I stay safe.

It should be fairly simple to set everything up to save Tommy, really, despite all the money involved. And that means I won't have anything to distract me from Lucy.

However, I do know one particular fuck is going to be a problem—Luke Gravos. He's not just any rich fucker, he's a dirty biker cunt who has zero goddamn class as far as I'm concerned. He wears the suits when he needs to, but he's a dirty fucking biker at heart. Being a rich kingpin spanning plenty of industries and supply chains ... he's not going to take lightly the notion that I'm looking to make a bargain with nothing much in it for his ass. I mean, there are things I can offer, but I know how he thinks. The honor behind it and the value behind it for me, that's whats going to set him off. I dial his number now, praying for voicemail. Surely he's burying his dick in something too dirty to come to the phone right now, and he'll appreciate that I made the effort to reach out and I'll deal with his scummy ass tomorrow.

The phone rings three times and I'm thanking my lucky stars.

"Y'llo?" the fucker picks up. 

I grit my teeth but take care to relax my mouth before I respond. "We need to come to terms on something you won't like.” I make a swift turn for the camera room—not the one the regular guards use, but the one I have on a panel that takes me to the cameras for the penthouse. "We'll make it easier for you to like.”

I want to turn on the cameras right now.

Luke's breathing on the other line. He wants me to listen to him take his time, because he knows me calling him like that puts me in a position where I need to make him happy.

I figure I'll go ahead and turn those cameras on without sound. I can at least look at her. She'll be in there, soon. My cock jerks in my trousers, so fucking ready to see her. Soon, to hear her and feel her.

"Yuh, tomorrow, four, your place. Square?" Luke sounds to be in a better mood. Distracted, even. That could work to my advantage. If he's already got shit on his plate, then maybe I'll close this deal we'll have to make faster than I expected.

"Four's solid. Thanks," I say. I'm fucking grateful. I hang up and look at the cameras.

She's stepping inside, tentatively. Lucy doesn't know I'm watching her, so she's not putting on a brave front. I can see she's fucking terrified. Her body is practically trembling, but when she uses the key on the door, she's making use of a few deep breaths to steel herself.

Breathe, baby girl. I'm going to take such good care of you.

Of course, she's starting to get a little less tense, but then it rises again. This is a lot to take. Seeing her in this kind of distress makes me want to reach for a glass, but I'd rather take a drink of her than down the bottom of a bottle. I groan. Lucy is walking around the rooms. She sits on the couch. Then the bed. She can't seem to decide what to do. It's pretty clear that if she's up to something devious, she hasn't actually worked up the nerve to do it. But, really, she just doesn't know what to with herself. Lucy already laid all her cards on the table.

She's a caged animal. And I'm a sick fucker because that gets my cock rock hard.

This is the best I can hope for—Lucy will never want me because of me, she's going to enjoy me despite herself. It turns my stomach to be such a pig, but I push that down just like I push down every fiery crackle inside me until my soul is cinder and ash.

Lucy is fidgeting and can’t find out where to sit or how to be. Getting up from the sofa, avoiding the elegant wingback chair (perhaps she rightly assumes that chair is mine and it kind of touches me that she doesn’t want to sit there), and heading back to the massive bed, I watch her run her hands over the edge of the bedspread. Lucy is lost in thought. I would love to know what she's thinking.

Though I bet I wouldn't exactly love her thoughts.

I'm just so fucking fascinated with her.

I want to see those long legs slung over the bed and I want to be between them.

Lucy bounces up and heads toward the bathroom mirror. I watch her and she's looking at herself in the mirror. Her jaw is going slack, her eyes are more hooded now. She's looking at herself with scrutiny, and there's an unmistakable fog of lust in her eyes. Her fingers tuck under her blouse and she pulls it up over her head. The cups of her silky, lacy lingerie are promising the creamy peachy flesh beneath to me.

I grip my cock over my trousers. Fuck.

She unzips the skirt and the panties she's wearing, fuck. They have a little butterfly over her pretty pussy and the ass is sheer with a peekaboo hole peeping over the top of her ass with a ribbon. Fuck. This is not slutty lingerie. The outfit, the lingerie, she's got a sophisticated taste for what is sexy and it's my goddamn undoing. I could have any skank out there, and even though Lucy thinks skank is what I like, she put this on to come and offer up her virginity.

Her hands are smoothing over her body, appraising every sensual inch of her. The sight of her hands gliding over her perfect body is so fucking sexy. But she gives her body disapproving looks. Her eyes go down her long legs and she steps out of her heels. She looks away from the mirror, her sexy lips frowning with her mouth downturned in a pout. Lucy hightails away from the bathroom and rushes to the bed, crawling under the covers. She's shivering, but I suspect that these tears have more to do with her suffering than any temperature. I can't have this. I have to go to her now.

I flick off all the cameras and rush out from the panel, not caring if my exit is less than conspicuous. She's not up to anything and I've taken care of everything. I don't want Lucy crying. The tears streaking her cheeks, her knees pulled against her chest, her head resting there. Fuck. I can't have that. I want to make her feel better, even though I know that I'm why she feels this way.

Fuck, that stab makes me want to go step out of the elevator and just let her be up there, all alone, all night. I could be alone around all the people in my casino. I could ... but I told her I would be up there and if I don't come up there soon, that's just more time for her to fear my arrival. What if I try to be kind and leave her alone all night, and the anticipation just destroys her?

That’s definitely a possibility … and there’s the fact that if I don’t put my hands on her soon, I’ll lose my own goddamn mind with a very different kind of anticipation bubbling inside of me.

So I keep going, allowing the elevator ride to bring the surge to my stomach that the spiced rum I like to drink would do for me. I want to taste her, and not the burn of alcohol right now. I don't think I want another drink ever again. I don't want the haze that it keeps me in. I want to be clear-headed.

I'm destroying Lucy's life, sure, but I don't want to be some drunk asshole doing it. I can at least be a sober one.

Zander appears when the elevator opens on a floor just before my level. "Sir, there's an issue--"

"I can handle it in the morning," I cut him off. I want to get to Lucy now, there's unlikely to really be something so goddamn pressing that it can't wait.

"Well," Zander swallows. "Your wife," he says in a lowered voice, and pauses. "The morning, yes. I'll take care of it from here." There's something that passes over his eyes. Zander is the one who's been watching Tara's descent. If he wants to get caught up with her, that's a hell of a move. I don't fuck her. Not after what she tried to do to me. I don't care if anyone else fucks her. But I'm not sure if he knows that, and yet here he is, quite possibly taking that risk. Damn. Well, he said he was going to take care of it. That's a problem for later.

I walk past Zander and he waits a beat and comes after me. "Luke Gravos. He's going to be a problem tomorrow, too."

I turn on my heel and look at Zander. I see the frustration on his face. I don't blame him. "And how do you know that?"

"Seems before you'd made your decision about Tommy, well, he'd made one too. So he's going to be more interested than you'd like. I'm on it," Zander says, straightening his jacket. I get it. He's gotta tell me, but he doesn't want to be in the position of delivering shitty news. But he's gotta let me know.

I nod and start to walk away. I don't look back to his face when I deliver the next line. "If you're fucking Tara, that's your problem. If you wanna go there, that's your mistake to make. I won't be chopping your dick off or anything, though."

I don't have to look. I knew when I saw that face that he was planning to do something more than just make sure Tara didn't cause more problems. When he took an interest in her, I could see this shit coming from a mile away. That's his bed of snakes to lie in, I've got shit to do. Luke fucking Gravos better not do a goddamn thing to Tommy or demand way more than he's worth for any of this. That said if it's written all over my face that I'm all wrapped up in Tommy's sister, that's the kind of shit Gravos would use. Fuck all this shit. She's up there in tears and I just want to make them go away. If I really cared about her, I'd help her with everything in my reach and I’d ask for nothing in return. I wouldn't make her give me her virginity, and especially now when I know she's so fragile.

Except, I'm cinder and ash in my soul. My heart is charred and soaked in the alcohol I drown every day in. I'm not about to do anything out of the kindness of my heart. Really, I'm not so different from Luke Gravos. He's just trashy no matter how nice his suit is. He'll be biker trash no matter how many legitimate and illegitimate businesses drown him in cash. I just happen to be able to get my riches in legal ways and I don't fuck skanks. Not anymore. Not ever again.

But my cock? About to be buried in heaven while I drag dear Lucy right down to hell.

Goodness of my heart. Is that some kind of joke that my brain even considers that? I never do anything without getting something in return. Several somethings. I manipulate and deal my way into everything I want.