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A Winter Wonderland
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Taken by the Mafia King Status Report
TommasoI sat back in my desk chair and looked out at the snow through my window. I could just barely make out the tracks Paige and I had left. We’d had such a great time before she ran away. I hadn’t seen her since then. I’d cut it way closer on my meeting than I intended to. She had a way of distracting me.“…all to say, my place is looking pretty fucking good,” Carp said.I glanced at the enforcer. He seemed confident, but not so much it worried me. He had a good head on his shoulders.“Fucking A,” I said. “If you’re doing well, I think it’s time to let Lyle into your systems.” I nodded at the reedy IT guy who I hadn’t been able to get through a meeting without yet. Some of the territory I’d taken had no virtual protections, and some of them had so much only Lyle could get into their systems.Lyle typed a few things into the laptop I almost never saw him without. “De Luca’s stuff has been midrange so far. Not too sloppy, not too tough to get into. Mostly gonna be resetting all the
Taken by the Mafia King Everything Is Fine
PaigeI stroked the top of Francis’s head in Lauren’s office. For the first time, noonday sun poured in her big windows. Tom rearranged my appointments permanently to line up with when most people at Henley and Stephenson would be taking their lunch so I missed as little as possible. Part of me thought that was sweet. The rest of me had no idea what to think about Tommaso anymore.“So, our longest break yet.” Lauren smiled. “How was your weekend?”In my mind’s eye, Tom cupped my face gently, somehow both in my dream-bedroom and on the back of the snowmobile. I’d been avoiding him since then.“I did the homework we talked about,” I blurted.“Great!” Lauren scribbled a couple notes in a new color of pen. “Tell me a little about it?”I ran her through the steps, through our loose plans for achieving them. Every time she looked like she was about to ask another question, I invented another detail to tell her to avoid it until I finally ran out.“Wow,” she said. “It’s awesome that you were
Taken by the Mafia King Two Steps Back
TommasoI glanced at Paige in the passenger seat next to me. In the shuffle, I hadn’t had a chance to hire my own driver yet, but the little black coupe I’d bought last year for personal driving seemed subtle enough for the trip. She stared out the window, her shoulders still at perfect right angles like they had been since she walked out of Lauren’s office. Something had obviously happened in there. She’d been awkward, even tense since Friday—with the exception of the snowmobile ride—but this seemed different somehow. Maybe they’d finally crossed the line and started dealing with the hard stuff.“You can pick the music,” I said to break the silence.She looked at the radio where soft pop music oozed out of the speakers. I drove myself so rarely I never even bothered to change the presets. I didn’t recognize the melody, but it had the unmistakable cadence of something that would get stuck in my head if I let it.“You like this?” She shook her head. “I mean, this is fine. I don’t care
Taken by the Mafia King Not A Triple Date
PaigeI picked at the plate of lasagna in front of me and looked around Tom’s formal dining room. He’d said he tried to keep decoration out of the place so people could focus on the food, but that was only half-working because of the company. Killian and Sera showed up as promised, but they brought along Patrick and Olivia, who were also a couple. The four of them walked in arm-in-arm, already chattering, and I’d instantly felt like an ant. I’d never done well in big group events. Or medium ones. I basically hadn’t been to a party since that last birthday of Sera’s, and I never figured out how everybody else seemed to know when other people were done talking. Even inviting over Killian and Sera had been stupid, but on a whim while trying not to fall asleep last night, I’d bought this white dress covered in pink and green geometric patterns, and I wanted to show Sera Bianchi I still knew how to pick out my own clothes.But now here she sat, completely resplendent in a deep blue designe
Taken by the Mafia King Reality Check
TommasoMy brain shut off. Paige’s lips were on mine, moving with that same sinuous grace I’d seen in her body under the sheets. How long had I been dreaming of this? I cupped her face, ran my had through her hair, and she opened her mouth on mine. She tasted like rich, dark fruit and—And wine. Because she’d been drinking at dinner, at least three glasses. On a tolerance so low, she would’ve reacted to a single shot of scotch. I mustered every ounce of willpower I’d ever had and pulled back.Paige blinked at me, hurt in her dark eyes. On the tail of the hurt quickly came the humiliation I’d grown used to. Her pale skin started to turn red.“You’re upset,” I said. “You’ve been drinking.”“I’m upset. I’ve been drinking.” She nodded as though confirming to herself.“I’m gonna go.” I glanced at the door as a burst of laughter floated up the stairs. We—I--still had guests. Even if I didn’t know the wine was making Paige do this, I wouldn’t be able to stay here. “You get some sleep.”“I wi
Taken by the Mafia King Perspective Shift
PaigeI sat back on Lauren’s bright blue couch on Wednesday at lunchtime. Francis sat on the far end, seeming to sense I didn’t want him near me. I didn’t want anyone near me. I’d snapped at Miranda this morning when she accidentally gave me coffee with milk and sugar instead of just sugar, and I’d almost sent a kind of catty email to a client. I just couldn’t stop thinking about that dream, about the fucking kiss, about how close I kept coming to exploding my whole life right when it was maybe starting to become something I could live.Lauren smiled. “So if you want to, there are a lot of ways to try on clothes before you buy them. And if makeup’s a struggle—”“So, are we just never going to talk about what happened to me?” I asked.She swallowed and nodded. I resisted the automatic impulse to wince. I didn’t feel bad. She was supposed to be helping me, and I was just as shitty as I used to be.“Do you want to talk about what happened to you?” Lauren asked.I threw my hands up in the
Taken by the Mafia King February Sun
TommasoI trailed after Paige to my car and unlocked it as she grabbed the handle. She seemed different after therapy today. I’d seen a lot of versions of her walk out of that office, but this one seemed the most at peace. I slid into the leather front seat of my car and turned it on.“How was it?” I asked.She snorted. “You know, that’s really not how therapy works.”I couldn’t help it. I laughed. She looked up at me in surprise.“So, after a week and a half, you’re the expert?” I said.“More than you. You’ve never even been to a session.” She shook her head, still smiling, and stared out the window. The February sun cast her features in sharp relief. “If you’re gonna make me tell you, it was good.”“Good,” I said.She laughed then began adjusting settings on the radio.“What are you doing?” I asked.“You said I was in charge of the music.” She found an old rock-’n-roll station blaring a screaming guitar and turned it up. “I’m tired of pop.”I laughed and pulled out of the parking lo
Taken by the Mafia King On The Trail
TommasoI pulled my coat a little tighter around myself to ward off the early spring chill wafting in through the open bay door of my main warehouse and watched my men load wooden crates of guns onto the back of an eighteen-wheeler. For the first time since I’d returned from Egypt, I was happy with the number of subordinates I was sure were loyal to me. Carp, Stan, and I had been working hard on weeding out the motherfuckers who’d turn a second time, and damn near everyone nodded at me when they noticed me standing against a shelf now.Not that I’d shown up for the nods. No, I’d dragged myself out of bed in the middle of the goddamn night because Tony was doing another fucking pickup. And because, in the handful of weeks since Paige drunkenly kissed me, any and all nighttime visits had stopped. Part of me missed it. Another part of me was glad my own willpower wasn’t being tested like that. I couldn’t stop dreaming about the taste of her lips.Tony wandered out of the cab of the truck
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