Flicking on each of the monitors as I passed, I let them boot up to give me the unhindered views of every corner of the club as I moved to my desk and took my seat. The window to my left looked down on the full expanse of the main floor. I started up my laptop as I grabbed my cell from my pocket and dialed a number that I had called far too often in the recent months. "What's up, Enzo?" Scar asked, his voice dripping with amusement at my regular phone call.
I'd already called him once that day.
"Everyone turn up for the evening shift?" I asked.
"Hello to you too, fucker," he mocked with a laugh. "Yep. Bryan just left for pickup. Antonio, Leo, and Franky are off until tomorrow. The others all came in on schedule. We're safe behind castle walls for the rest of the day, and nobody has any plans of leaving as far as I know."
"Alright," I sighed. My free hand scrubbed over my face and I stared at the door as someone knocked softly on the other side.
"You've got to breathe, man. Your tension is at a whole new level the last few weeks."
"I'm missing something," I admitted, chewing at the edge of my thumbnail. "When I miss things, shit gets bad. I just can't put my finger on it." Another knock came, and the sound threatened to jar me into the memory of what might happen if I lost focus.
People died when I didn’t pay attention.
The third knock pissed me off, but clearly it wasn't one of those scenarios that would go away if I pretended it didn't exist. "I gotta go." I hung up before Scar had the chance to respond and torment me some more. I knew, I knew, that this anxiety didn't seem normal to any rational person. I also knew to trust my instincts because they never failed me.
What the fuck was I missing?
"Yeah?" I called, slumping my torso over my desk. Vanessa opened the door and strolled in like she belonged, and my eyelids twitched in annoyance. "Do you need something?"
"You look like you could use some help relaxing," she cooed, approaching the desk and leaning down to touch her hands to the surface and flash her cleavage in my face. "I could help with that."
"Look, no offense. But there's way too much pussy out there for me to shit where I eat, especially here. It is not gonna happen, so how about we just stop this whole charade and move on with our day, yeah?" She blanched, and I nearly felt guilty for the harshness of the words.
Any other woman and I might have.
But the fury that transformed her face from a cloying sweetness to something akin to a gremlin left little doubt that I'd made the right choice.
Yikes.
"You're an asshole," she sneered.
"No, you're just so determined to have my cock and my bank account that you purposefully ignored all the times I politely told you no. I do not screw around with people on the Bellandi payroll. I value my head, thank you." Without another word to argue her case, she spun on her heel and left my office.
Nothing left to say to that, apparently. Because she knew it was true.
Women.
I never wanted to get so caught up in one that I lost sight of everything else. That was how people got dead. Something was wrong, and the last thing I needed was to be so wrapped up in a woman that I didn’t care.
I leaned back in my chair, picking up my cell again. I'd just check in with Lino and Ryker's houses quickly.
It couldn't hurt.
3 Sadie
I loved my mother. I really, really did. But on Valentine's Day, with all her kids and their families coming to dinner?
I was fully prepared to be drawn into the kitchen by the woman who held tight to the culture that raised her and the belief that all women should know how to cook. For Filipinas, it was crucial to being a good wife someday.
I wanted Ivory; at least with her we could bond over the chaos of my mother’s kitchen when we left.
Drawing in a deep breath, I paused before opening the front door. The sounds of my nieces and nephew playing in the living room already burst through, and it was all I could do to suppress the desire to go play with them. If I knew my mom, I knew that my brothers’ wives Joy and Nina would already be trapped in the kitchen and looking to escape the whirlwind that was Dalisay Hicks.
The kitchen would be a disaster, completely derailed by her desperation to make every one of our favorite dishes in one meal, like she didn’t get the opportunity to feed us every week.
I hated the mess she made. I couldn't handle the lack of organization in her kitchen, even in the best of circumstances. But when she cooked?
I wanted to run in the opposite direction or pick up a sponge. But all she wanted was for me to slice mango for the ensalada or shave ice for the halo-halo or whatever last-minute task she had that didn't require me to do any actual cooking.
It wasn't that I couldn't. I fed myself just fine.
It was that while I loved Filipino flavors when I was eating them, I couldn't cook them to save my life.
The door flung open as my niece Lily panted at me from the other side. "Grandma said you were lurking out here," she said with a giggle, snatching up my hand and dragging me into the hectic living room, where my father and brothers monitored all the kids and made sure they didn't break anything.
Namely, my father's precious flat screen.
"Sadie Anne, get your butt in here!" the she-devil called, summoning me to my pit of eternal torment. Why couldn’t I just lounge in the living room and watch whatever
