“Well, you’re still the apple of your mama’s eye,” I say, which is true. The woman practically lit up every time he came to visit. Not that she didn’t speak proudly about all her children. I take a sip and moan with pleasure.
Junior goes still, gaze fixed on my lips.
I enjoyed the show. That’s what he’d said the first night about watching me eat ice cream. My lady parts start tingling. Knowing I turn this powerful man on with a simple act of sipping coffee or eating ice cream gives me a huge boost of confidence.
I hold his gaze as I take another sip. This time I’m conscious of the moan of approval I give it. “This hits the spot,” I murmur. “Thank you.”
“You probably enjoyed watching me get my balls busted by the little princess, didn’t you?”
“Actually, I wanted to throw her out,” I answer honestly.
His face warms, the harsh lines relaxing into fondness. He shakes his head. “You’re something else, doll.”
“Yeah, except when she walked in here with her key, I didn’t just want your balls busted, I wanted them cut off.”
He chokes on his coffee.
“I thought you had some girlfriend you hadn’t told me about.” I cock a hip. “Are there other women, Tacone?”
He flashes a cocky grin. “Oh, now it’s Tacone, huh? No, baby. No girlfriends.” Then his smile fades. “I guess I should tell you I never officially divorced my ex-wife. We’ve been separated for ten years, though.”
I blink at him. “Why not?”
He shrugs and I watch his face closely. He hands me the Starbucks bag. “Here’s your sandwich.”
I grab it, narrowing my gaze. “No, really, Junior. Why didn’t you get divorced?”
“She didn’t want to be with me anymore, so I let her go. But she suffers from depression. She can’t work. She’s still my responsibility.”
A bitter taste fills my mouth. Lord, if I felt jealous of the imagined girlfriend, it’s nothing compared to how I feel knowing he still financially supports his ex-wife. Well, still his wife, technically.
I know it relates to my own issues with money and men. Abe always spent our money. Never contributed to the household. And of course, since he’s been gone, since he took Jasper, I’ve been living on nothing, with all my money still paying off the divorce lawyer I had to hire to win custody and now the private investigator.
So the idea of some woman giving up Junior and playing too damaged to work so he’ll keep supporting her? It just twists like a knife in my chest. And then another thought occurs to me.
Maybe this was the situation he chose so he could sleep with whoever he wanted, but she had to stay tied to him forever. It seems like a kind of jealous mafioso man thing to do. I tilt my head to the side. “So does she sleep with other men?”
Disgust crosses his face. “Fuck no. I seriously doubt it. She’d better not.”
The knife twists deeper. “She better not? You are seriously an asshole, Junior.”
“Yeah?” He looks slightly pissed, slightly confused.
“I get it. You want to have all the ass you want, all your freedom, but keep her locked up as Mrs. Tacone for the rest of her life. Real decent of you.”
His lip curls. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. It’s not like that. Not at all.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Really? Well then explain it to me.”
His lips tighten. His eyes have gone dead. It’s definitely scary Junior looking back at me. We blink at each other for a minute, and then he gestures toward the kitchen. “Go eat your fucking breakfast.”
“Right,” I say, my hand tightening on the food. “You just put me in my place, didn’t you?” I turn and march into the kitchen, not waiting for his reaction.
This time, I’m definitely sure he’s not turned on by my defiance.
There won’t be any punishment sex for this one.
Not that I’d welcome it.
No, I just called him out on his shit, and he didn’t want to hear it.
But it’s good. Now I know what kind of man he is. Not that I didn’t already. I just got lulled into thinking there might be more to him, underneath the frightening exterior.
But there’s not.
This is the kind of man who consumes people. And if I get stuck in his web, I’ll get consumed, too. If he decides I belong to him, he’ll keep me prisoner forever.
* * *
Junior
I throw back another scotch and sigh.
I have everyone out on the street looking for Vlad, but the Russians have gone totally underground. No one knows where to find the guy. I should be satisfied that he’s gone into hiding, but I’m not. Because he’s probably plotting revenge. Which means I need to find him and kill him before he finds me.