I frowned. What the heck did that mean?
I sat for about an hour in Tommy’s office with the guy while Dario went off somewhere in the house or on the property. Then I was told I could go back to bed.
Tommy was home a few hours later and I knew this because he was in bed with me, all over me. Fingers, lips, tongue, cock. He devoured me like it hadn’t been a week; it’d been more like a century.
“Missed you so much,” he breathed against my ear while he was thrusting his cock into me hard, so hard. So good…
“Why are you back early?” I rasped, “And did you get a lot done?” Then my head was banged a little against the headboard with the force of his hips against mine. He rubbed my head and took the brunt of my head hitting his hand and his knuckles hitting the headboard a few beats and then grabbed a pillow and shoved it behind my head to shield it, still without missing a beat, without breaking our connection, without stopping his rhythm.
“No one is going to fuck with what’s mine,” he grunted angrily and then he slowed and deepened the driving into me, taking us both to orgasm. He rolled and I fell asleep on top of him, him still inside of me.
Later on, he told me that someone had been on the balcony outside our door and that something had been left. He didn’t tell me what but his eyes were filled with wrath when he said he suspected they were there to hurt me as a message to him. I didn’t know what was going on now but suspected it was huge. I didn’t know if it was an old threat or a new one. He didn’t want to discuss it and asked me to have faith that he’d protect me.
A Week Later…
We were getting ready for Tom Sr.’s welcome home dinner. He’d been released from the hospital several days before and now that it was Sunday, the usual Ferrano family Sunday dinner thing was on. Lisa had called and told me to make sure we came, that’d extended family would be there, too, to welcome Tom home. Tommy told me things were tense with his father and that some shit was going on in the business but said we’d go for the sake of appearances.
The past week had largely consisted of me and Tommy seeing very little of one another. He was closed-lipped about things going on businesswise and hadn’t said anything, really, about his time away. He was gone a lot. When he was home he was affectionate and sweet, if quiet and preoccupied.
I watched Tessa’s boys a few times and Sarah and I watched Luc’s girls together the day she gave birth to their baby, a 5 pound 2 oz. slightly early but healthy bouncing boy they’d called Nicholas James.
The house security had first been beefed up since the night Tommy came home but then it dropped off, which I found odd. Security dwindled to just Nino during the day and Dex at night, which I asked Tommy about and he said that things weren’t cool with his father and that many of the usual guards were reassigned to other Ferrano projects by his father. He was planning to hire private security but had an intense vetting process because of the problems in the past little while.
My first outing in a while was on the Friday before the dinner at Tom and Lisa’s. I’d been taken to a shooting range where Tommy got me comfortable with a gun so that he could leave a gun here knowing I’d know how to use it and knowing I wouldn’t be afraid of it being here. Tommy hadn’t said anything further about his exit plan and I didn’t want to press him, knowing there was a lot on his mind.
The air was thick with tension for the whole welcome home dinner. Bianca and Nino, her mother, her Aunt Joanne and Aunt Joanne’s husband Al were there plus a few other people that were friends and associates. It was catered affair. Tessa was somber and Tom was edgy and terse with everyone.
Tommy and Dario hung back for the most part, in conversation with one another rather than their father and the rest of the room. Tommy whispered to me to say my goodbyes right after dessert. As I was making the rounds to say goodbye, the oddest thing happened as I approached Tommy’s father. I leaned in as he’d motioned to hug me but then he hooked his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me to him. He kissed me on the mouth, forced his tongue into my mouth, and then looked at Tommy with ferocity on his face. The whole room seem to be stunned and the electricity coming off Tommy…he was wired. Suddenly I was pulled back and they were chest to chest, both glaring at one another. Dario grabbed my elbow and then ushered me out of the room. The whole room then emptied, leaving Tommy and his father in there. Two dozen people were suddenly spilling out into the backyard and Dario was putting me into Tommy’s jeep, “Two seconds, Tia.” Dario said and then ran back into the house.
My heart was hammering in my chest. I looked at the house and Lisa and Luc were standing there talking and they were staring at me. I opened my mouth, still in shock, and shrugged at them. Lisa had tears in her eyes and Luc looked like she wanted to spit venom but it didn’t look like it was directed at me.
Suddenly my door opened and someone pulled me out by the arm. I didn’t recognize him. He was a tall and husky guy with no neck. He wore a men-in-black suit and dark glasses.
“What are you doing?”
“Come with me.” he said and he put me in the back seat of a black car behind the Jeep. Luc and Lisa were staring, open-mouthed, so were some other people. The doors opened and two more burly goons got in on either side of me and the car drove away from the house.
What on earth?
Tommy
I was fucking steaming fucking mad. My Pop wasn’t happy about what’d happened at the hospital that day and hadn’t taken our calls or seen us since. He knew I was still digging into his activities and that I was finding out shit that made my skin crawl. My father was more power hungry, more ruthless, and more evil than I had ever realized.
He’d frozen us out. He’d frozen company accounts and was taking legal action to lock Dare and me out of the business, even though we owned shares on paper. He’d put a lawyer in charge. Lisa didn’t know squat about it all so of course she’d invited us to Pop’s big surprise welcome home dinner and Pop hadn’t looked at us once all day until he put his hands and his mouth on my girl and looked right at me and that’s when I was ready to fucking lose it. I’d been behind Tia and immediately ripped her out of his arms and got in his face.
Dario took her away and the room cleared out.
“What in the fuck was that?” I demanded after a stare down that went on until the French doors to that room and the sliding doors to the outside clicked shut and it was just us two in the room.
He said nothing, just looked at me with cold dead-looking eyes.
“Pop!”
“Everything you have, my boy, everything you have is because of my blood, my sweat.”
I raised my brows, “You haven’t made me work for everything I’ve got? You haven’t made me prove loyalty and worth to you every single fucking day of my life? Your kids, everyone who has ever loved you haven’t all paid a heavy price for being your family, your wives?”
Pop snickered.