Megan.
She made me think and that song of hers opened the doors to something a bad man like me shouldn’t want.
The future.
Her song poured from her soul as she sang for me and I wanted her.
Women are a weakness I can’t afford.
I saw what it did to my father to lose my mother to the violence of the gun.
As she spoke about how her father went off the rails when they lost her mother, I thought of my own.
He didn’t go off the rails though, he lost his heart and became ruthless, merciless, a soulless creature void of humanity and that’s what rubbed off on me.
I wanted Megan, but she deserves more than that and she doesn’t belong in my world. That’s why I haven’t been back.
I have every intention to call Lucca and tell him the job’s done. I even do so as I get in my car but the fucker doesn’t answer his phone.
I don’t want an excuse to walk through the doors of Carpe Diem. I don’t want to be the schmuck, desperate to see a woman and find any excuse to walk through those doors.
But here I am.
I look up at the frosted glass, at the name of the club written in black and gold italics and I push the heavy doors open. They aren’t usually heavy, so I know it’s me.
I’m a mess and I look like shit. Not like the well put together boss I’ve come to be.
I see Lucca standing in the corner of the lounge.
He grabs one of the girls nearby and fondles her tits before giving her ass a squeeze and shoving her over to a man old enough to be her grandfather.
When my cousin sees me he tenses.
He didn’t expect me for another few days, at least, because I had to track Antonio to Minnesota. I did go there and I was there for two days, but the fucker came back to Chicago thinking he could give me the slip.
He was after Lucca and I was after him.
“Cousin,” Lucca says. Usually calling me cousin is a sign that he’s tipsy. Not completely drunk yet, just more dumber than usual.
“You don’t answer your fucking phone anymore?” I sneer.
“Ah… it’s somewhere. Can’t remember where I put it.” He wobbles and smiles. “But no biggie, you’re here delivering the news that I can walk around outside again without getting my head blown to kingdom come. What would I do without you?”
I look around and I notice something, or rather I notice that something is missing. Megan.
Every time I’ve been here this week, I’ve picked her up from inside here. It’s a little later than usual. My fucking heart actually squeezes when I think of her with another man.
Lucca starts babbling about shit from when we were kids and my blood heats.
It’s not the first time over the last few days that I’ve thought about her with other men. I’m here now and I feel like a fool and an idiot for treating her like a whore. I just left her and she would have thought I didn’t care from my absence.
Lucca’s in the middle of the same shit talk when I grab him by his neck again.
“Where is Megan?” I growl and people look at me.
When Lucca’s stupid eyes widen slightly with fear I realize he’s gonna tell me something I don’t want to hear.
“Thought you were finished with her.”