Bastian
Alarge part of the business deals we were tying up required both of us working together. Dante, my security and a distant cousin, could reach out to him continually for intel but it wasn’t as smooth.
When your father was the head of a dirty mob family, cleaning it up took precision, finesse, and fucking attendance.
Cade knew this was a team effort. Five years ago, we’d put out a hit on our father, brought him down, and made the conscious decision to clean the family up. One painful business at a time.
Every one of them was a mess. Drug imports and sex trafficking and illegal money laundering.
I wouldn’t leave a legacy of filth, though. My empire would know a different type of power. But I needed my team. I relied on them and built trusted partnerships with each of them. That included my brother working alongside me so I didn’t stumble through communications with a company. I needed Cade to be running checks, giving me background information, and confirming dealings as I shook hands with businessmen. Today, instead, Chet had waited for Dante to sift through information, making our communication stilted.
The deal wasn’t done. With all that waiting, Chet didn’t trust me enough to sign those papers yet.
So here I was, drinking at the boy’s night Chet had proposed when I could have been back on the jet, flying home.
The only silver lining was that it would be done soon and maybe I’d find a woman to relieve some of my stress before the night was over.
But it certainly wouldn’t be this one.
This one was a train wreck waiting to happen.
But one I would glance back and stare at, maybe tell the person on the phone about because of how ridiculous said train wreck was.
Quite frankly, the whole city of Miami was full of ridiculous people with ridiculous needs.
And hobbies.
And beliefs. Like crystals.
I worked night and day in my city to close deals. Here, they partied and read their horoscopes.
Morina checked every one of those boxes, I was sure. Her eyes lit up like Santa was coming to town when I’d shown interest in her sign.
Did she think that shit was real?
Absolutely absurd.
“Nope.” I cut our conversation about astrology off. “Don’t even know what my sign is.”
Now, those big blue eyes fell like a wounded doe’s. She did have that going for her at least. They were a dark blue, like the color of the sky at midnight. Unique, honestly.
She scoffed, “Figures.” Her gaze scanned the room again and landed on Dante.
For some reason, her picking Dante over me felt ridiculous too. Why want someone who believed in hocus pocus? Were stars what really matched people?
I couldn’t begin to fathom that someone would write off a whole person based on the day they were born. “Do you intend to ask my friend his sign?”
“Well, not if you know his birthday… was he born in–”
“I don’t know his birthday,” I cut her off.
“Well, that’s rude of you.” She hmphed.
She could think I was rude or a liar. I knew Dante’s birthday because we all made it a mission to never celebrate them. His had been a few months back and he’d been away. Probably on purpose.
“Do you want another cocktail?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Not a good idea.”