CHAPTER ONE
I don’t chase women. Women seek me out. They drop to their knees in eager anticipation of sucking me off or stripping down, hoping to be fucked by someone of my wealth and power.
I stay sexually satisfied without the complications and annoyance of having to deal with a relationship. It’s a win-win in my book. I forget their names before I even zip up—if I catch their name at all. They’re vetted. Cleared. Willing participants with nothing to gain except the pleasure of sex. No money or promises are exchanged, and I sure as hell don’t chase after them.
Those who want what I’m willing to give come to me.
So searching for and chasing after Callista Parisi pisses me the hell off. I’ve had my best men looking for her for four years, and I’ve finally found her. Only, she’s slipped past Tio’s watch three times in the past two days.
Tio is the strongest, most loyal man I have on my staff. There’s a reason he’s my bodyguard. He speaks little, doesn’t ask questions, and gets the job done. Except for this one. If it were any of the other men I employ, I’d have punished him by now for losing my target, but Tio is too valuable.
The trashy diner in front of me in the Gaslight District of San Diego has been the hiding spot of Callista Parisi for the past year. Before that, she worked at an all-day breakfast dive in Nashville, Tennessee. Tio even traced her back to the far woods of northern Maine, her first landing spot after she fled Sicily.
I pull out my phone and open the picture of Callista that Tio sent me two days ago. Hiding behind her oversized dark sunglasses and wearing a Padres baseball cap, one would never guess she was an heiress to millions back in Sicily. Or that her father was the spawn of Satan.
No. He is Satan.
I may be considered the devil at times, but I don’t thrive on the evil that possesses the Parisi family. I trace my finger over her image. Her amber eyes are framed by thick, dark lashes; her cheekbones high and prominent, lips full and pink. Signs of exhaustion are evident on her face. There are curves under her loose-fitting shirt and shorts, and a glimpse of what promises to be an ass meant to be bent over a desk. However, she’s not the most beautiful woman I’ve seen. Granted, the women who come to me are dressed for seduction. Callista is dressed to blend in, as am I this morning.
I left Tio back at the hotel not wanting to scare her away with his presence. I’m a big man at six-one and two hundred pounds, but Tio has four inches on me and at least fifty pounds of extra muscle.
I look down at my jeans and white cotton T-shirt that I unfolded from a plastic package this morning. Tio picked them up for me at a local mall to help me blend in. I’m out of my comfort zone, being seen in public dressed like an average guy. It’s not like I roll out of bed every morning and immediately put on a designer suit. I work out in gym shorts and own a collection of jeans and sweatpants for when I’m home alone, which is rarely, or when I walk the fields at the vineyard, which has also been less often of late.
When in public, I dress for power. Not that I need designer suits for that.
Searching for Callista has eaten every waking moment since I learned of her existence. Lorenzo Parisi had played off his daughter’s absence well, telling people she was studying abroad, traveling the world with her mother. They’d both fallen off the radar eight years ago, right before her eighteenth birthday. Right before she was supposed to marry Antonio Rossi, blending the Parisi and Rossi families, which would make them the most dangerous union in all of Italy. Hell, the world.
The Parlatore name hadn’t been synonymous with evil until Lorenzo brought me down to the depths of his hell. The Rocco Parlatore I had once been changed the moment his darkness invaded my soul. I became Stone and learned by watching, then doing. Plotting.
The evil that now consumes me has a singular purpose.
Revenge.
But I’m nothing compared to the monster Parisi is. He took from me in the darkest, cruelest, most unforgivable ways, and it has been my mission since I was sixteen to kill him one day.
He took and killed my blood. Now it is time for him to pay.
First, revenge.
Then, death.
I look up as a flash of long, tanned legs crosses the street and enters the diner.
Let the games begin.
***
I hate being late towork. After Mama fell out of bed this morning, she was in all sorts of hysterics. By the time Joanne and I got her calmed down, I have only ten minutes to get to the diner.
I don’t know what I’d do without Jo. The moment we moved into our small apartment, she greeted us from across the hall and became instant friends with Mama, alternating between companion and caretaker.
There’s no way I can leave Mama alone with her cognitive and mental abilities weakening by the day. I need to get her better medical care, but I’m hesitant without insurance. Sonny hasn’t contacted me in over a year, which makes me worry about our safety. And his.
Driving across the country and finding a new job, new apartment, and new care for Mama took a big chunk out of the stash Sonny gave me eight years ago. He saved us when a cruel death was our only future. I pray my father never learns how my bodyguard betrayed him to help us escape.
I skip the shower and tug on my work uniform of khaki shorts and navy tank top with Beach & Breakfast etched across my chest. I was already sweaty and clammy from the late August heat.
I slick my hair back in a ponytail as I jog the three blocks to work.