My patience was not generous. If I found myself in a dark room with a mosquito and didn’t flush that fucker out within five minutes, I’d be tempted to blow the whole fucking room up.
My gut told me shit was becoming dangerous. It’d mean more enemies for us if we weren’t really fucking careful. He was already more hassle than he was worth. I’d talked about backing out, but my buddy John Lewis? Johnny needed the launch, financially. He needed it to go well. He needed our help and it’d oust Leo for once and for all. I had a feeling I’d need his help with some of the other shit on my plate. John was mostly clean but well-connected and respected. He was an ally and he was a good friend. I’d get to help him out and stick it to Leo Denarda at the same time.
I had to accomplish all of this without putting Tia and my unborn baby at risk. Do it all without losing precious time watching her pregnancy bloom. I couldn’t fucking wait to see her huge, to see her waddle, to feed her pickles and ice cream or whatever she craved.
So far, all she was craving was my cock. And sleep. All she wanted was fucking and sleeping. Talk about a dream come true…
I needed to get through all this shit while keeping my own demons at bay and those fucking demons were nagging at me with all this goddamn stress.
My tattoo. Forgiveness and wisdom. Maybe it wasn’t wise but I wasn’t feeling all that forgiving right now. Zack had snowed us with this Kruna shit. I told Dare to just keep his girl and forget Kruna existed. Let the lawyers deal with shit. I told John Lewis that Denarda was just an annoying little gnat but his uncle finally croaked and Denarda somehow had the stones to make a few key moves before word got out about his uncle’s death and so he now had more power.
He’d ruffled feathers throughout Vegas and beyond and that would work to our advantage because we’d have help taking him down if we needed it. And I had a feeling we would.
I just had to be careful what kind of help I elicited because I didn’t wanna owe too many of a certain type of people favors.
And it was feeling like it was all coming to a head. Like a zit about to pop. A big zit filled with ugly shit that’d ooze over all of us.
Dare wanted to be clean, wanted us to be legit. For the girls. For our future kids. For the rest of the family. I guess I wanted the same; I don’t even know. I’m still having somewhat of an existential crisis. I don’t like the idea of letting go of the connections, the fire power in case we need it. Shit is so amped it feels like we’ll always need it.
What
I did know is that more than anything, I wanted to watch my wife’s belly grow. Dare wanted to put a dozen babies in his wife’s belly. They’d just gotten married but he said she was off birth control and they wanted to get pregnant immediately.
But, we had a fucking war ahead of us. A war with more than one enemy. So, I’d have to play fucking dirty. If I had to channel all the dirty evil shit I’d been fighting to keep at bay, all that I’d inherited from my father in order to clean all this up, so be it.
If I had to hang onto the reins of the crime empire I’d inherited a bit longer so that I have the firepower and connections to see my way through this shit, I’d do it. I’d get as dirty as I had to. I’d get so dirty it’d make Pop smile and say, “That’s my boy.”
Dare and his new wife were going on their honeymoon. The wedding had happened fast. I didn’t blame him. Mine happened pretty damn fast, too. When a Ferrano man wants a woman, evidently, he doesn’t pull any punches.
I carefully extracted myself from the bed without waking Tia. She was the only person I knew who could sleep sixteen hours and then go back to bed ten hours later. The pregnancy was making her want to do nothing but sleep. And fuck. She was horny as fuck. I was not complaining.
She didn’t look pregnant yet, except her tits looked bigger, fuller. A nice side effect. But she complained they hurt so I kissed them better at every fuckin’ opportunity.
Her tits aside, nothing seemed different. But every fuckin’ thing was different at the same time. I couldn’t wait to see what it would look like. I couldn’t wait to meet this piece of us, this piece of her and me and of what had started out as an unholy union because it came from a place of greed and vengeance. It was already something beautiful, because of all she gave me, and now it would be more. Much more.
I could not wait until she was huge, knowing I made her that way. The ultimate power; to change a woman’s life like that? Tie her to you forever. It made her yours in even more ways. Getting her pregnant? Changing her life so monumentally? It made me feel like a king.
Today wasn’t going to be a good day to be king. I had to fly out to Vegas to meet with Johnny Lewis and Ben Goldberg. The best I could hope for was that it’d be productive. All sorts of shit swirled around this Fete project and it was getting more and more unpleasant by the day.
When I got out of the shower, I heard my phone ringing from the nightstand. She was sleeping right through it despite the blaring noise right by her head.
I glanced at the screen. Zack Jacobs. My PI. A guy I trusted. Fuck him. Lying Fed rat motherfucker. I declined the call. I spotted the pup half way under the blankets with Tia. His nose poked out of the covers.
“Dog!” I clipped. He was sniffing the air, nose protruding a little more from the blankets.
“Marley,” I growled.
The covers started moving as his tail thumped slow. He knew he wasn’t allowed in the bed. Smart dog, too, because he also knew she’d let him away with it when I wasn’t there. She put a dog bed in the corner of the room and the little fucker jumped in bed with her as soon as I left it every day.
“Out,” I told him and he jumped down and slunk away, back to his own bed.
“Tia,” I leaned over and kissed her bare shoulder. She was sleeping in the buff.
“Mphf,” she grunted.
“Baby girl…”
Her beautiful jade eyes opened and she smiled at me.