I ought to paddle her ass.

Dismiss me with a “thanks for your help” will she? Thanks for your help? Like I was a bag boy at the grocery store and I just loaded her groceries into her trunk for her? Okay. I understood that she had a lot going on, and I wasn’t going to take that away from her, that shit was scary, but if Jeanette Clary thought she was going to dismiss what happened between us this afternoon with a simple “Goodbye, thanks for playing,” she had another thing coming.

Damn it, I was pissed.

I drove my car all the way back over to the shit hotel I was staying at on the East Side, still pissed off when I got to the room even after the twenty-minute drive. I could have rented an apartment, but it was easier to go week to week in an extended stay. It was good enough for a traveling businessman and it was good enough for me. The hotel was just a shit hole for what it was supposed to be and located across the street from the one and only casino in the city. I remember when it was built, Nonna had expressed her concern about it over the phone. She told me she thought it would attract the wrong kind of clientele to Toledo. I remember what I told her then.

The riff-raff finds a way to be where it wants to be, no matter what the surroundings. There are just as many assholes wearing suits and carrying briefcases as there were toting guns and covered in tattoos. It didn’t matter what your outside looked like. A piece of shit was still a piece of shit on the inside. Nah, I wasn’t worried about the element around the hotel. I just didn’t want to sleep where I took a dump. Detroit, or the D as it was called by the locals, was where Chaz Malone set up shop. He did most of his work there too, Toledo was just kind of a side area for him. Mostly drugs and some prostitution, but Chaz had guys that handled that.

No, his real fascination with Toledo had to do with Affini’s restaurant, and hell if I knew why. I didn’t trust myself not to blow my cover if I stayed on the same side of town as the restaurant, but I also wanted to be closer to them than I was to Chaz Malone, so the East Side it was. Right off the expressway, it was forty-five minutes to Chaz, but only ten or fifteen to Nonna. Too bad the only time I got to see the place was when I was hanging around the property pretending to be an asshole to my own sister and grandmother.

The first time I had shown up at the restaurant I had only been able to give Vanessa a quick text message of warning.

I’m coming today, when you see me, you don’t know me. Tell Nonna and everyone in the kitchen. You. Don’t. Know. Me.

Her reply had been: What the hell are you talking about? I can’t talk right now I’m busy, we had two kitchen staff quit this week and we are shorthanded.

Yeah, I knew why they were shorthanded. Chaz had been sending local boys to scare and rough up some of the staff as they were leaving the restaurant. Broke into a couple of cars and stole the purse from a server as she was walking to her car at night. Petty hood shit. Stuff that might have gotten the attention of the cops if there had been enough of them to go around. As it was, the Toledo PD was so damn busy the best they could do for Nonna was tell her to install security cameras facing the parking lot and tell the staff to leave in pairs after closing. It didn’t help that Chaz sent different people every time.

Until I volunteered to be head asshole.

In reality I did it to make sure no one went too far and actually hurt someone or did major damage, but Chaz seemed to like that someone was willing to go that extra mile to be a douche bag to a little old lady and her family restaurant. I swore once I found out what his deal was I would punch his face in. It would be hard with Eddie and Gordon around, but fuck I’d find a way. Maybe it was overkill, maybe I could have gone about this another way, but the whole thing just seemed so personal. Until I could figure out his reasoning, I couldn’t figure out a way to make him stop short of getting him arrested and put away for something unrelated. And it wasn’t like I didn’t have enough on him for that –but there is a little thing called probable cause, and I couldn’t afford to start something and have him walk free on a technicality. Especially considering right now I was sort of…off the clock with the Feds.

My immediate supervisor had texted me every day for the first week I was gone, probably trying to get me to come back before I made an irreversible decision. There was no reversing the decision though. I had family issues to get through. Once that was done I would figure out what I wanted to do for work, but I wasn’t overly concerned about it. I was simply doing now, the same thing that I did for every job, pretending to be some-fucking-body else. My apartment in Chicago packed up in storage along with my truck, and me, all I had with me was what would fit into my BMW. It was an older model, still a nice car but I wouldn’t cry salty tears if something happened to it out here.

My fucking truck though? Let some strung-out gutter rat touch my Canyon Denali and I would stain the sidewalk with his ass. When things were more stable, and I went back to actually having a home to go back to, I would take my baby out of storage. Until then, I drove the old BMW. I wondered if Jeanette would ever take a ride in my truck.

As I stripped off my clothes from the day and headed into the small bathroom to shower off my irritation I was reminded of what happened earlier that day. I’d had sex with Jeanette Clary. I know her name was technically Gabriella Hensley but to me she was Jeanette, and since she didn’t seem too attached to the old name, I didn’t feel honor-bound to use it.

Fuck her old life, it could burn in a garbage fire.

I’d only meant to rile her up, to get her going in a good heated back and forth with me, get her loose and in her element. That was why I kissed her. Not because I had been thinking about what she would taste like for the last five or so years. Not because I was scared she was going to be taken from me before I could figure my shit out and approach her like a normal human being like she deserved. I had meant to push her buttons, but I had no idea she would melt into me like that. She was too good to let go of. And then the next thing I knew she was telling me to take her, even demanding it of me.

How could I refuse that? There wasn’t a man on the planet with that kind of self-control. And if there was, I didn’t want to meet him.

The hot water beat on my back and I turned to let the spray wash over my chest and abdomen. As I worked the soap into a lather I saw Jeanette’s face in my mind again, how instead of closing her eyes when she came she stared straight at me, so I could see the exact moment the orgasm took her. Shit, I was hard just thinking about it. I slid my soapy hands down to my raging erection and worked my slick hands over my cock, thinking about the ways I had wanted to take her.

I hadn’t wanted to fuck her on a floor. No, what I wanted to do was lay her gently down on a bed, on her back so I could spread her legs wide and see how wet she was before I put my mouth on her pussy. I wanted to watch as I slid my fingers inside of her, watch as her ass lifted in the air, I wanted to feel her legs wrap around my waist as she greedily sucked me in. I wanted to fuck her slowly. I wanted to take my time.

I could see it in my mind, hear her husky voice as she moaned for me, sliding in and out of her, running my hands over those perky tits of hers just like I was running them over my own cock in this tiny fucking shower. I came in my hands, just like that, panting against the wall of the shower while the sputtering water went from hot, to lukewarm, to cold.

Damn it. I wanted more from Jeanette than just a romp on the rug. If I had to take out every nightmare she ever had and destroy it in front of her for Jeanette to understand that she was allowed to have a real life again, I would. Then I would take her out to dinner at my family’s restaurant and introduce her to my Nonna. My grandmother would love her, and fuss over Jeanette like crazy, I was sure of it. Vanesa wouldn’t even be able to find anything about Jeanette to complain about, and if she did, I had no doubt Jeanette would put her in her place. My sister was a good girl, but our family situation made her way too fucking uptight.

Yeah, things would change soon and we could both have a real, regular life. There was just some shit I had to take care of first.

I was drying off with the shitty postage-stamp sized piece of sandpaper the hotel called a bath towel when my phone rang. It was Vanessa, and I debated answering it because she knew she wasn’t supposed to contact me while I was doing this job. I had expressly forbidden her from contacting me because I could be with anyone when she called, we couldn’t afford to have my cover blown. After a couple of rings, I picked it up. There was no reason to be worried about my cover in this hotel room, and I could read her the riot act after she told me what was up her ass so bad that she had to break the rules.

“You know the rules, Vanessa.”

“Fuck you, Dino, did you know? Did you know this was going to happen?” Holy shit, what was going on?

“What, Vanessa? What are you talking about? What happened?”

“They fucking set a fire, you asshole.” She wasn’t yelling at me, she was crying. My hard-headed half-sister was crying into the phone at the same time as she was cussing me out.

“Who?” I demanded, even though I think I knew. “Where?” Even though my guts were twisting with the answer already.

“The dumpster behind the restaurant, there was an explosion. I didn’t see who did it, but you know, Dino. You know who it was.”

“Where’s Nonna, Vanessa?” I was proud of myself for how calm I was being, even though my vision was graying, and I could have passed out at any second. Vanessa gulped back her tears and took a deep breath.

“She’s riding in the ambulance with Fedo, our line cook. He was taking out the trash when the explosion happened.” I didn’t know this Fedo, he must have been a newer hire to replace all the people that kept quitting.

“Is she hurt?” My voice did tremble on the question because if so much as a hair had been disturbed on my Nonna, I would light Chaz Malone on fire and watch him struggle to put himself out myself.

It must have been hearing the emotion in my voice that calmed Vanessa down, because she sounded much more composed when she said, “No, Nonna is fine, but she’s very shaken up and feels responsible. Fedo was knocked down and has some abrasions from the blast but nothing life-threatening. The restaurant is closed pending the police investigation and there is yellow tape everywhere. Nonna is going to stress herself into a heart attack and who knows if we will be able to reopen – if no employees will even want to work there anymore?” Vanessa’s voice caught on a sob, “Why is he doing this to us, Dino? Why won’t he leave us alone?”

I didn’t know. And I should have known by then, but I didn’t, and it was fucked up and I was so frustrated.

“Where are you? I’m coming there now.” Fuck the whole thing. Fuck Chaz Malone and fuck his secrets and fuck this stupid part I was playing. My family was hurting. My Nonna needed me.

“Nonna said to make sure you don’t come.”

Ugh. My insides turned to dust at those words. I’d always wondered how my grandmother was handling things. After the first time I had to come to the restaurant swinging a bat and breaking all of the outside lights in front of her, Vanessa had made sure she had been the one working, and Nonna had been elsewhere so she didn’t have to witness her grandson’s shame. Fuck, my Nonna hated me. This was where this stupid job had taken me.

“She said for me to tell you, to finish what you started.”

What? I gripped the phone so tightly in my hand I felt the plastic case crack around the edges. “What?” I whispered the word that echoed what had been ricocheting inside my head.

“She said she knows you’re working hard to fight that man, so don’t come. Don’t undo the progress you’ve made.” Vanessa choked on a little sob then, showing me that she wasn’t as held together as it sounded. “She said maybe though, you can hurry up a little. Dino, I’m scared. I don’t want to lose our restaurant, but I can’t let this keep happening to Nonna. Is it the restaurant that he hates, or is it us? The family?”

“I don’t know, Vanessa,” I admitted. And I didn’t fucking know, but I was going to find out.

“I knew you didn’t do it, Dino.” Vanessa whispered into the phone. “I’m just so fucking scared. I don’t know what to do. I’m headed to the hospital and after we take care of Federico I am taking Nonna to Uncle JoJo’s place in Bowling Green. She needs to be away from this, and the restaurant is closed for a little while anyway.”

“I can go to Uncle JoJo’s and see her.” He wasn’t my Uncle JoJo, technically he wasn’t even my step-uncle, he was Vanessa’s mom’s brother, but he’d always been nice to me as a kid.

“No, you can’t. Don’t blow your cover, brother. Just…keep doing what you need to do to find out why he is doing this to us. I’ll take care of Nonna.” That was all the signal I was going to get that she was ending the conversation, and the next thing I knew there was dead air because Vanessa had hung up the phone.

Fuck. This. Shit.

Too far. Chaz had gone too far, and he’d just told me to lay off the Affinis. I couldn’t even call him and ask, because I shouldn’t even know about it yet, I was supposed to be working on the Gabriella Hensley situation. I couldn’t go see my Nonna, and Jeanette was treating me like a stranger even after we’d had sex in her dining room. Where the hell was I going to go?

I went to the one place everyone goes when their world is falling apart – the bar.

* * *

Well, I cheated a little bit. I wasn’t supposed to go to Nonna’s and I wasn’t supposed to go to Affini’s, but there was no reason anyone would be able to come up with for why I couldn’t go to a bar. And if Nasta’s happened to be across the street from the restaurant, well then wasn’t that a coincidence?

The place was jumping actually, for nine on a weekday, but everyone was spooked by what happened at the restaurant, and since rubbernecking was a past time as old as prostitution, everyone at the bar had an idea of what was going on.

“Probably drugs,” said one young hipster to his group of friends as he sipped a hard cider that he had poured from the perfectly good bottle it came in into a pint glass, trying to pretend it was an actual beer.

“Maybe they owe money to the mob,” exclaimed the bespectacled girl next to him. Her hair was short and dark and stuck up all over in artfully arranged spikes. It was supposed to look messy and casual. I bet she spent a shit ton on that haircut in a salon that played techno music and only hired trendy young people wearing lots of eyeliner when they were freshly graduated from cosmetology school. I turned away from their group and contemplated my Sammy Boston Lager. Man, I was a cynical dick tonight.

“That place is run by the Affini’s, and Rosalina Affini is one of the nicest old ladies you will ever meet. What happened out there was a scary damned tragedy, and you aren’t doing that family any favors by gossiping about it like a bunch of hens.” The young bartender with the strawberry blonde beard looked over at the group disapprovingly. “Angel’s about to start a set, why don’t you go bug her for a little bit while you can? She loves it when people yell “Free Bird” from the back of the bar while she is opening up for requests.”

“Damn, Jesse, we’re sorry. We didn’t know you were friends with the restaurant lady, but you don’t have to send us on a suicide mission. Jesus,” a girl with ketchup-red hair and a septum piercing, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five whined.

Jesse smiled and flicked the towel he had been wiping the bar within their general direction. “Be a little more mindful, is all I’m saying, you guys.”

“Sorry, Uncle Jesse,” the group chimed as they walked closer to the tiny corner where Angel was setting up her guitar and mic.

“You are a little young to be anyone’s uncle don’t you think?” I asked the young bartender, mostly because I was the only one at the bar and felt the need to fill the empty space with conversation for some reason.

“And yet I feel like I have lived a thousand lifetimes,” the young man named Jesse said as he sighed tiredly. He did look rough. He had dark shadows under his eyes and his beard looked in need of a trim. Everyone has their own set problems they have to deal with, don’t they?

Angel started making noises on the mic at the other end of the dark bar and I turned to look at her. “I’d like to start off the evening by playing a song for my friend D, who is here tonight.” Oh fuck me, please no. “I want to play this song especially for you, because even though you may not be as big of a douche bag as I had originally thought, unless you have something you want to tell Jesse tonight, this is how I am going to treat you forever and ever, until you die.” Then she blew a fucking kiss in my general direction and started playing an actually really well executed acoustic version of the All-American Rejects, Gives you Hell.

“Jesse, man, can I get a shot of whiskey? Two shots of whiskey I mean?” Jesus, Angel was never going to forgive me. I wasn’t welcome at the restaurant, I wasn’t welcome with Jeanette, shit was I not going to be welcome here either? I could have just gone back to the hotel, but the thought of laying alone in that shit stick after the news I got seemed like the last thing I wanted to do.

“What did you do to her, buddy?” It occurred to me that Jesse didn’t know my name. And why would he? I had only been in the bar a handful of times, and the only time I had actually spoken to him was when Jeanette and I had come in for Angel’s music kit after she had gotten spooked and ran out of the bar when one of Chaz’s guys tried to take her out. Admittedly it was my face that had scared the shit out of her, but that was a big misunderstanding. It didn’t help that I had to tase her to calm her down. Shit, actually, the list of reasons Angel was probably mad at me was pretty damn long.

“Uh, Jesse, I think I need to clear something up here.” Jesse put two shot glasses down on the bar in front of me and started filling them with warm amber liquid. “I don’t know if you remember, but a few months ago when Angel had a problem and had to leave in a hurry, I came in with a woman to pick up her gear.”

“Oh, I remember you,” Jesse said with a grin as he pushed the shots a little closer to me.

“I may have misspoken about the reason Angel took off that night.”

“Mhmm, how so?” He stroked his beard, waiting for me to continue.

“I told you she pissed her pants and left embarrassed and that was a lie.”

“Oh I know.”

I couldn’t have heard him correctly. “You know?”

“Oh for sure, especially after Angel came back for her next gig and had her finger in my face talking about that - No good Doucho and his fucking lying lips. She was pretty pissed.”

“If you know,” I said slowly, “and she knows you know, then why did I just have to do this?”

“Because she was mad and wanted you to squirm? Because she wanted a reason to sing that song? I don’t know, man. But she looks super happy right now, look at her.”

I glanced over the dark bar at Angel, who was still singing what boiled down to a “fuck you Dino” song to me and I had to admit Jesse was right. The lights shone down on Angel as she sang and sported a shit-eating grin. Her eyes twinkled as she caught me looking at her and she threw me a wink. Okay, she got me. She could have this round, Jesus Christ. I knocked back the two shots one after the other, letting them burn all the way down to my belly before taking another swig of my beer. I looked over at the young bartender who looked like he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. I was jonesing for something, my family, a friend, someone who didn’t hate me or at least didn’t know me enough to be mad at me for something. Emotions were boiling up inside me that I was having a hard time keeping in control. My bones ached, and I was so damn exhausted from trying to pretend I didn’t care about anything, when everything I did was because I cared too damn much.

Jesse caught me giving him the eye and in his best bartender customer service voice he asked, “You have the look of a man with a heavy load, man. What else can I get you?”

I pulled a wad of cash and slapped it down on the bar. I wouldn’t be ready to leave for a while. “Well,” I said slowly, thinking it over. “We can start with two more shots of whiskey, and then you can ask me again.”