Taboo Flames (The Sicilian Sins #2)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Giovanni

A s soon as Aurora rushes away, I dash out of the bathroom and grab the nearest towel, about to pursue after my little peeping tom to?—

To do what? I ask myself.

I have no idea, but I just know I shouldn’t let her run off on me. Just as I step out of the bathroom to give chase, my phone on the nightstand goes off. I bite out a curse as I reach for it, one hand clutching my towel to my waist.

“This had better be very important,” I bark into the phone.

“Boss,” Fiore, one of my men, says into the phone. “It’s about some of our products. It’s—uh—it’s missing.”

“Our newly arrived products or the ones en route?” I ask, transferring the call to loudspeaker mode so I can yank on my clothes.

“Our newly arrived products.”

“I’ll be there shortly,” I say curtly and then hang up. Somebody, one of my men in particular, has dipped his fingers into my products, and I was going to have to teach the moron a lesson.

I dress quickly, debating the merits and demerits of calling Aurora to enquire about her presence in my house, but I finally decided to look into the matter later. Right now, I don’t need anything distracting me from what I’m about to do.

I jump into my car and drive out of the compound in the direction of one of my hidden warehouses in an abandoned school building. I get there to find my men all tense and uneasy.

After a quick inspection of the product, I’m filled with murderous rage, but I lean against the wall with my hands in my pockets and maintain an easy posture.

“There’s supposed to be fifteen crates of coke here. Why am I seeing only six?” I ask in a deceptively calm voice.

Fiore steps forward. “The other nine were supposed to come from the Torricelli family, but the Albanians caught wind of our trade and crossed us. They gave a better offer and swiped the drugs.”

My hands curl into fists at my side. “And how did the Albanians know about our trade?”

All the men immediately begin to look everywhere but at me. I run my gaze around the room, cataloging all their different expressions. Neither of them wants to say what is very obvious. We have a mole.

It isn’t anything unusual or shocking. In my world, it’s a given for people to get greedy and try to make extra cash by selling out their brothers. But it’s one of the things I don’t tolerate from my men.

Relationships in the mafia are built on trust and loyalty, without which there’s nothing but bloodshed and betrayal.

Betrayal is something I’m more familiar with than most. I know it like the back of my hand because I have lived with it all my life. It shaped me into what I am today. The very people who were supposed to have taken care of me had been the ones to set me on my journey into the life I now lived.

There weren’t a lot of close family bonds in the mafia, but one thing family never did was abandon family.

Like the way my mother abandoned me. I didn’t know who I hated more: the mother who had showered me with love only to betray me at the last moment by disappearing or the father who had chosen coke and gambling over me until they led him to an uneventful death.

The memory of watching my sperm donor leap after his little bag of coke and right into oncoming traffic was one I have tried all my life to exorcise.

I hadn’t been stupid enough to love him. Or worse, mourn him. I had far more pressing matters to deal with, like the shame of a parent meeting such an end. For years, I hadn’t been able to live it down.

Back then, boys my age were cruel, and they never let me forget that I was all alone in the world because neither of my birthgivers thought I was worth sticking around for.

That is all in the past, though. I’m not that pathetic boy from years past. Giacob Giordano had taken me in and reinvented me into the man I am today. I only wonder how I’d have ended up if he hadn’t.

“Who knew about the trade?” I ask Fiore.

“Emilio, Tippy, and I.”

“Where are Emilio and Tippy now?” I ask.

“Emilio is one of the casino guys,” Fiore said. “Tippy’s at the hospital with his ma. She has cancer or something.”

My eyes narrow in suspicion. “Who’s been paying her bills?”

Fiore shrugs. “He mentioned that his cousin Santos paid off everything the other day.”

A link was forming in my head. “And where does Santos work?”

“At the mechanic. That run down one close to Donna’s brothel.”

“Let’s go find our mole,” I say through clenched teeth. I turn and walk right out of the warehouse toward my blacked-out, bulletproof SUV waiting outside.

I pull away from the lot and gun it toward the location of the mechanic shop, the view outside flying past my window. From my rearview mirror, I can see two cars belonging to Fiore and another of the men following closely behind.

It takes twenty minutes to get to the shop. I park halfway across the street and climb out of the car, taking a moment to rein in my fury. I’m going to deal with Santos—that much is certain—but I plan to take my time and teach him a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry.

When I walk into the mechanic shop, the noise dies down, all the men pausing in their tracks to stare at me in panic. I sweep my gaze through the faces there, not recognizing any of them as Santos.

The owner of the shop comes out of his office and approaches me warily. “Lombardi,” he greets and nods respectfully.

I nod back. “I’m looking for Santos.”

He lets out a sigh of relief, probably at the fact that he isn’t in any trouble. “He isn’t here. That fool hasn’t shown his face in two days. We’ve left him a million messages as well. Not even Tippy’s seen him.”

“Sir, he has family in Palermo,” one of the mechanic boys says. “His pa owns a bread store.”

“Get the address,” I tell Fiore before walking out of the shop.

Minutes later, we are heading in the opposite direction toward the small store we were directed to. I’m going to kill that bastard with my bare hands for making me go on this wild goose chase.

We park on the street outside and my men immediately rush in to grab Santos while I take my time lighting a cigar and leisurely walking in. Santos is being dragged out of one of the inner offices while his father just stares in resignation.

Good. His begging and pleading would have been worthless otherwise.

“Sir, I’m sorry. I had no choice,” he grovels as soon as he sees me.

“We always have a choice. You just chose wrong.”

“She was dying,” he pleads. “She’s the only mother I’ve ever known.”

I extinguish my cigarette on the counter behind me, then turn around to face him. “If you had come to me with your problem, I’d have helped you. But instead, you chose to steal from me. You chose to work with my enemies. I don’t tolerate a lot, but I tolerate betrayal even less.”

“Boss—”

“Take him to the Garage.”

The Garage is the name of the location where we hold our enemies and traitors captive. It is, for all intents and purposes, a torture house.

“No, no. Please,” Santos screams and begs as he is dragged out of the store.

“Will you kill him?” his father asks in a small, broken voice.

I look at him for a moment, wishing my own father could have mustered even a fraction of this worry and care for me, and then I walk away without giving him a reply.

By the time I get to the Garage, Santos is strung up by his ankles on the chains attached to the high ceilings.

He is already sweating with the blood flowing down to his head. I grin. I haven’t even begun, and he already looks so miserable. When I’m done with him, he’ll be barely recognizable.

I take off my jacket and hang it on one of the hooks on the wall. Then I walk to the metal table full of different torture tools.

“Which one shall I begin with?” I ask no one in particular.

“Please, it w—will n—never h—happen again,” he groans pathetically.

I ignore him and pick up the hammer, testing its weight in my hands.

“Shall we begin?”

For the next few hours, only sounds of agonized screams and howls and the occasional begging can be heard from the room, filling my cold heart with pleasure and glee.

The sounds alone are enough to discourage any other of my men from crossing me, but at the end of the day, human nature will surely win out over common sense, and there will definitely be another offender.

When I step out of the room, my white shirt is blood-stained, but Fiore is already waiting at the door with a clean shirt. I shrug off the soiled and bloodied one and put on the fresh one.

“Dump him on the street in front of the bread store. Let his father see the remains of his wasted jizz that would have served a better purpose in the toilet drain. Also, make sure the rest of the men are present so they know nobody messes with me and gets away with it.”

“Yes, boss.”

Normally, after a session like that, I’m relaxed. Torture has always been therapeutic for me, but today, I still feel the agitation racing through my blood.

The worst part is that I know exactly where the sense of dissatisfaction is coming from. An image of golden hair and big, blue eyes flash in my mind. I grit my teeth against the onslaught of images.

I haven’t stopped thinking of her since our last meeting, and I don’t fucking like it. She’s too young and pure—at least by my very much depraved standards—to have this sort of effect on me.

What I need right now is someone who is the complete opposite of Aurora to take out my bodily frustrations on. Someone experienced and ready to submit to my whim.

Without a second thought, I walk to my car and make the short drive to Paradiso Dei Peccatori , one of the exclusive strip clubs that cater to all tastes. The owner is a woman I helped in the past to get rid of a rival gang that had been after her life. I go there when I don’t feel like being in the company of my friends.

The familiar thrum of excitement fills me as I make my way into the club and up to one of the reserved rooms on the top floor.

“Participating or watching?” the server asks as soon as I’m seated.

“Participating,” I reply. “And get me a glass of whiskey, neat, a Cuban cigar, and one of your best girls with dark hair and dark eyes.”

The server nods and walks away. Moments later, a luscious girl in a bright red lingerie set, complete with net thigh highs and high heels, walks in carrying a tray with my drink and cigar.

She smirks as soon as she sees me. “They got me a nice one this time around.” She licks her lips.

I wince at the sound of her throaty voice. It is nothing like Aurora’s soft, lilting voice, and I hate it. I immediately reach for the drawer beside me and pull out a gag, then toss it at her.

She picks it up and begins to fasten it around her jaw while I throw back my drink. Then, I grab the cigar and put it into my mouth, and she immediately flicks open a lighter and lights it for me.

Pulling her body closer, I trail my finger across her jaw and my thumb over the harness, pushing it into her mouth and making her suck as our eyes remain locked on each other.

“Such pretty eyes for a slut.” I see her face scrunch up at my insult, but I couldn’t care less. Fisting her soft hair in my hands, I push her down to her knees. “Suck me off,” I command, spreading my legs.

Like she wasn’t just annoyed a few seconds ago, her eyes light up with excitement, and she reaches for my belt. Yes, this is what I need—a woman who won’t argue with me at every point in time.

She wraps her hand around my semi-hard cock and begins to stroke it until it is rock-hard in her fists. Then she pushes the head of my cock in through the hole in the harness and moans throatily.

“Get on with it,” I say impatiently.

She pushes my whole cock into her mouth until I hit the back of her throat before her head begins to bob up and down. I pull on my cigar and imagine that Aurora had crossed the door of my bathroom, gone down on her knees, and swallowed my cum.

With a groan, I push the thought away irritatedly. I’m not supposed to be thinking of her. My sole reason for being here was to not think of her. And yet, even with another woman’s throat closing around the head of my cock, my mind is still stuck on her.

Dammit.

Women are very disposable to me. They threw themselves at me, I fucked them, and then they left. I never think of them after sex. As soon as I cum, it’s time for them to leave, and that’s the end of it.

I prefer them tied up and entirely at my mercy. I like to fuck them hard and make them beg. I use their bodies for the wet holes they were created for and move on to the next, and they thank me for it. They don’t talk back or argue. Unlike a certain blue-eyed minx that I can’t get out of my head.

With a furious curse, I fist my hand into the girl’s hair and spin her around until she is on her hands and knees. Pushing her thong to the side, I push into her in one single thrust. She lets out a muffled moan as I begin to fuck her ruthlessly.

No matter how hard I fuck her, though, I can’t chase Aurora from my mind, and neither can I cum. I pull out of the woman’s wet heat and wrap my hands around my aching cock, then tug on it, imagining it was Aurora before me, her ass up, legs spread wide, and wet pussy bared for me.

Only then do I reach my release. I cum with a loud shout, my seed splattering across the floor, and then I look at the girl, angry at how useless she was in curing me of my Aurora problem.

“Lick it,” I command, and she’s just about to use a finger to scoop it up when I speak again. “Off the ground with your tongue.”

She looks at me like I have just grown horns on my head, but she knows better than to defy me. She bends and laps at it eagerly like the filthy girl she is.

“Such a good little slut. Don’t let it go to waste. Lick up every drop,” I urge her. I try to feel a sense of satisfaction over what just happened, but not even my orgasm helps in making me feel less agitated.

It doesn’t matter how many women I fuck from here to Timbuktu. There is only one that will give my body what it needs.

She’s also the one I have to stay as far away from as possible. If she can have this much effect on me when I haven’t even touched her yet, I wonder what will happen when I eventually touch her.

When…not if.

Because, at this point, I very much know it’s only a matter of time.