When the Maserati started up, he met my glare through the open window before turning and driving away. When the gate closed behind him, I turned my glare to Dante as I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I didn’t choose this, you know?” I asked, and I tried not to feel any guilt when he winced visibly. I trudged on anyway. “He won’t let us leave. He won’t let me choose for myself, and you’re okay helping him keep me locked away here?”
“I’m just doing my job, ma’am.”
“Well your job sucks,” I told him, turning and striding into the house. He followed only a moment later as I worked to clean Ines of the cream cheese she’d smeared all over her face. “And don’t call me, ma’am,” I ordered. He nodded, not looking the slightest bit bothered by my attitude problem.
It would be a long day.
Eighteen
Ryker
By the time I got to the warehouse, my skin danced with the edge of urgency I associated with being away from Calla and the kids. It was impossible to shake the feeling that someone would hurt them while I was gone or that they'd escape.
That leaving them was a mistake.
After Emilio had betrayed Lino so thoroughly, Matteo, Enzo, and I spent weeks cleaning house. Torturing our own men wasn't something we took lightly, but anyone we couldn't trust had to be tested.
We’d trusted Emilio.
He'd betrayed that trust, leaving a stain on our family and nearly costing us one of our women.
It was unforgivable.
My methods had exposed three more people who'd been complicit in the attempted sale of Samara to the cartel. To the same cartel that Miguel Cuevas ran a regional branch for.
It felt good to know that our shit was clean, that the people who remained were loyal. Even if it meant that people like Sandro looked at me like I was the devil. I supposed he wasn't fond of the fact that I haunted his nightmares, that Matteo had used me as the boogeyman to inspire honesty.
"If you betray me, I'll feed you to Ryker," had become his favorite line. I didn't mind being the threat that went bump in the night.
It was a natural evolution in my career, really.
Matteo was nowhere in sight when I stepped into the freezer and Sandro hustled out to give me privacy to work. He'd seen my blade carve through our traitors when we used them to motivate the rest of the grunts.
I went to the corner, waiting for Matteo. While I might have once waited patiently, I twirled my knife between my fingers in anxious energy. The build-up, the anticipation, should have been half the fun.
But my Sunshine had taken that from me. I couldn't even be mad about it.
It was quiet inside my head. What had once been a constant rage was gone, and I didn't feel the compulsive need to make someone bleed.
I just felt the need to fuck my woman, to remind her of exactly who she belonged to, and of what she tempted with her drunken antics. After our kiss that morning, I knew she was ready. The time had come, and I'd feel her beneath me soon enough. I just had to get home first.
And get the kids in bed.
I loved them like they were my own, but that didn't mean that it wasn't frustrating that I couldn't toss Calla over my shoulder, cart her upstairs, and fuck her until she couldn't remember her own name.
Until there was nothing left but my Sunshine and her Shadow.
Matteo and Simon finally walked in the freezer doors, and Matteo took one look at my face and laughed. "Still no, huh?" he asked.
I grunted in response, making Simon shake his head. "Bunch of crazy fucks. I swear," he muttered, moving to the other corner to watch the show. He looked like he considered leaning against the wall and then thought better of it. It was a smart choice, given that blood had a tendency to splatter. I didn't exactly spend my free time cleaning the fucking walls.
And our cleaning crew could only come after I'd killed the fuck in the chair.
If they came at all.
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