The Mob And His Messenger (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 204) Read online

  Contents

  The Mob and His Messenger

  NEWSLETTER

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Extend Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  NEWSLETTER

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS

  BRATVA BEAR SHIFTERS

  LAIRDS & LADIES

  RUSSIAN UNDERWORLD

  IRISH WOLF SHIFTERS

  About the Author

  The Mob and His Messenger

  AN OLDER MAN YOUNGER WOMAN ROMANCE

  _______________________

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS, 204

  FLORA FERRARI

  Copyright © 2020 by Flora Ferrari

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.

  The Mob and His Messenger

  An explosion brings us together.

  I’ve been working for the Italian Mob as a messenger – a job my dad got me – when I make a fatal error. I tell people that my boss is Domenico DeLuca, and now the Irish are out to kill me.

  When I accidentally deliver a bomb package to Domenico, he saves mine and my beloved dog’s life. Poppet and I may be safe from the bomb, but when this suave handsome alpha stares at me, I feel like I’m standing in an even greater inferno.

  He claims me. You’re mine now. Everything you do, everything you are, it belongs to me.

  He tells me I’ll be the perfect mother to his children. Our lust erupts like the package bomb, primal, carnal, and irrepressible.

  As we start to bond, I think maybe everything will be fine, maybe I’ll get my storybook ending after all. But life is never that simple.

  My dad is Gabriel Smith, Dom’s consigliere, and they grew up together. I have no idea what he’ll say when he finds out.

  I’m a twenty year old wannabe-writer virgin (with curves to boot!), and Dom is … well, Dom. He’s a forty-two year old seven foot hunk with a jawline that could cut ice and the most intense eyes I’ve ever seen.

  Oh, and there are also people out to kill us, sadistic, cunning people who aren’t above using what we care about most against us.

  All I can do is hold onto Dom and Poppet and fight for the life I think we deserve. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.

  *The Mob and His Messenger is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with a HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

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  Chapter One

  Domenico

  “If they fucking stole from us, they’re dead men. I’m telling you this right now. Nobody steals from the DeLuca family and gets away with it. Just ask the men who’ve tried … if you can find a fucking shovel strong enough to dig that deep.”

  I sit back in the conference room, the sounds of the city just beyond the window that shines dully in the late-summer smog. The bar beyond the locked door is noisy, too, but just with the regular drunken antics of an afternoon bar.

  I listen closely to Gabriel’s ranting, my consigliere all puffed up in his anger, his combed-over black hair coated in sweat. His gold watch jingles as he waves his arms, and he stomps up and down in his baggy suit. He turns to me, glaring as if for a moment he thinks I’ve become Patty Mc-Fucking-Guinness, the man who has made the mistake of waging war against us.

  “Skip?” he says. His face quivers as he stares at me, five years younger, but he’s lived harder, and as he looks at me he seems old and fierce. “We’ve gotta do something about this.”

  I sit back against the desk and fold my arms, letting out a low sigh, looking past Gabriel to the room we sometimes use for meets. It’s better down here, in the muck of the city, with the smog and the traffic and the distraction. It’s easier for me to slip through unnoticed, turn to mist and drift through the raging mess that is Downtown. The crime waves are up since Patty started making plays, swooping in like a vulture the moment his old man passed away.

  And who’s to say Patty didn’t have a hand in that?

  “I know,” I mutter.

  “It almost makes me want to go back to the old ways,” Gabriel rages.

  I move around the desk and drop into my seat, taking the silver letter opener and idly spinning it on the oak.

  The blade swivels against my fingertip, pricking lightly.

  It makes me remember the oaths, the ceremonies, of those early days before the DeLuca family became the DeLuca family when I was fighting, making my name, establishing my rightful dominance.

  “We didn’t work this hard to return to being fucking barbarians.”

  Gabriel drops down opposite me. “Hard work don’t mean shit if we let the Irish take it all away.”

  “I know how some of the men would have it,” I murmur. “They’d want to roll up like the Irish do, just glide up to a street corner and start unloading. Is that what you want?”

  Gabriel grimaces.

  Through the face of a thirty-seven year old man, I see the ten year old boy he was when I first met him.

  I was fifteen and he was ten, and I helped raise him from the dirt and welcomed him into the Family. We grew up together, me as a boy becoming a man far too quickly, and Gabriel as an eager orphan ready to leave the hard life of the streets behind.

  But the streets became ours, and he became my best friend, and his opinion means a damn lot to me.

  “No,” he sighs. “Of course not.”

  “Then what?” I snap.

  “I don’t know,” he shouts. “Just something.”

  “I know.” I flip the letter opener and grip the hilt in my hand. “I feel the same way, sometimes. The rage fucking consumes me. Thinking about those men taking our product, what we worked for, what we paid for. Do you know what was in that shipping container, Gabriel?”

  “Electronics? Cars? I don’t know. I heard it sunk – they sunk it, or paid for it to be sunk – but I just assumed it was, well, something profitable. Jewelry maybe. What was it?”

  It was food for the homeless shelter because the Irish are getting everybody hooked on hard drugs and people are becoming homeless at record rates. No, not the Irish. Patty, Patty forcing into reality things his father always promised to avoid. Patty doesn’t give a shit. He’ll let people starve if that’s what it takes to win this war.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say after a pause. “I want y
ou to go down to the docks and speak with the manager of the day shift. He knows us. Talk to him about our shipping containers and let him know that there isn’t going to be another accident. And then have him fire every bastard who was involved. The Unions will kick up a shit storm, so you’ll need to talk to our contact there, too. Let him know. We’re firing every fucking crew that’s involved in any of our shipments going missing. There’s a price to pay for working for the Irish. And let them know we’re being kind. We could put them all in the fucking ocean for the fishes if we wanted to.”

  Gabriel nods, the same way he did when I gave him instructions when we were kids. “You got it. Anything else?”

  “No,” I say.

  He nods shortly. “Oh—and thanks, Skip. It’s been hard these past ten years, you know, with Dallas living out west with her mother. So thanks for giving her that job. It means a lot.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” I grin. “We’re best friends, Gabriel, even if I can’t say it in front of the other men.”

  He chuckles. “Yeah, can’t let the fuckers have any more of a reason to hate me. They’re already jealous of my gorgeous good looks.”

  I laugh grimly. “Yeah, and they told you that while flying around on pigs through frozen hell.”

  He flips me the bird and then leaves, and I lean back, closing my eyes.

  My mind briefly moves over Gabriel and Samantha, his ex-wife, how I watched their relationship implode three years after having their daughter. I dimly remember Dallas, a little energetic girl who was always in the way. Mostly I remember the way Samantha got colder and meaner with Gabriel, resenting him for not being the Hollywood type she seemed to think she was.

  She wore him down. She made him pathetic.

  And perhaps that’s why I’ve never found a woman, not one who means anything to me anyway. Watching her wear Gabriel down to a nub was too much for me to handle, maybe. Or perhaps our work has kept me too busy, the constant vigilance required to stay on top when you live a life like mine.

  I open my eyes.

  None of that matters now.

  All I need to worry about is getting ready for my dinner with the DEA, smiling, shaking hands, being seen to be Dominic DeLuca, a prosperous businessman, and not the wild beast that sometimes feels like it’s trying to break free from my body.

  I stand and make my way through the back passage of the bar, between the alleyway and the wall – feeling grime smear my suit, I’ll have to change later anyway – and to the locked garage that sits opposite.

  I swipe my phone against the access pad and the forest-green door starts to slide away, revealing my Mustang, night-black with tinted windows, dark rims, and a custom hood, the bottom glinting silver.

  Climbing behind the wheel of this beast relaxes me a little. I settle into the seat and bring the engine to life, savoring the growl that moves through the chassis. Then I inch it out of the garage and make the awkward drive around the alleyway to the street.

  The only reason I park it back here is that I can’t leave a car like this in Downtown, and the only reason I drive it is that it feels too damn good.

  I bought it last week. There’s something primal and predator-like about its finish, and the engine has been customized, making it feel like I’m in a rocket ship when I get to a road where I can let her go. It’s pristine and—

  And the custom hood smacks into the side door of a car, a car that’s parked right across the fucking lane sideways, sideways for some fucking reason.

  All the tension from the Irish and Patty and the giant mess snaps and I climb from the car, hitting the door against the alleyway wall in my anger. That just makes more flare and I feel it raging through me as I walk toward this bastard’s car.

  It’s a beat-up Ford, the fenders rusting. Some drunk asshole probably left it here after trying to drive home. I’ve just reached it when I see that the driver’s side door is open and there’s a dog curled on the front seat.

  It’s a rangy breed, maybe a whippet, snow-white with long hair and red eyes as it turns lazily to me. It reminds me of the street dogs that roamed with me one summer when I lived in alleyways and hovels. But it’s too clean to be a street dog. And its nails are clipped, not worn down by concrete and fighting.

  Fuck.

  I’m not about to trash a car with a dog inside.

  “It’s okay, boy,” I mutter. “Your owner’s just a real son of a bitch, that’s all.”

  “Actually, she’s a girl,” a voice says from beside me, sassy and high pitched. “And I don’t appreciate being called a son of a bitch.”

  I turn to follow the voice.

  And my whole world crashes down.

  Chapter Two

  Dallas

  I stare at the man looming next to my car like a giant.

  He really is crazily tall, probably around seven feet, and his sliver peppered hair shines in the sun. It’s swept to the side and his jaw has a light dusting of iron. His eyes are green and seem to bite into me as he stands there, his body muscled in the grayness of his suit, heaving, enraged like a bear that’s just returned home to find its lair has been messed with. His watch glints, as silver as the rest of him.

  Even his eyes are a silvery sort of green.

  “Why are you parked like this?” he snaps.

  I smile as sassily as I can.

  My armor.

  That’s what Mom calls a woman’s smile. Just smile wide and brightly and watch any man wilt under the pressure. The problem is, Mom’s that sort of woman, the confident, outgoing type. My smile comes across as more of a grimace or like I’m baring my teeth, probably more like Dad than Mom. Even so, it usually results in some kind of smile in return.

  This man just stares, his emerald eyes winking all silvery.

  “I was delivering a package,” I say. “I’m a messenger for Dominic DeLuca.”

  That’s gotten me out of most jams with my messenger job these past two weeks, driving around this frankly confusing city trying to make deliveries. The west coast is so much more open, spread out, like lightly buttered toast. This is like somebody’s just wedged an entire block of butter onto the bread. It’s unfathomable at times, the warren of roads and streets and alleyways.

  But this man just watches. I think I see the corner of his mouth twitch, a sort of half-smile, but I can’t be sure.

  “So?” he says.

  A prickle whispers up my spine. I have to drag my gaze away from the tightness of his arms in the suit jacket.

  “So …”

  “So you get special privileges?” the man says, a teasing note in his voice. “Because you work for this man, you can park in the most idiotic place possible and make me hit a car with a dog inside? You’re lucky I was going slowly or he—”

  “She—”

  “—could’ve been hurt.”

  “Well, nobody asked you to drive like a jackass,” I hiss, but I feel the weight of his words boring down on me.

  I move around to the open door and stroke my hand through Poppet’s hair, tickling her behind her white ears. Her tail wags and she smiles up at me.

  “Good girl, Poppet.”

  “Is she alright?” the man asks.

  “Do you give a damn?” I snap. “You know, if you knew who Domenic DeLuca was, you wouldn’t be—”

  I’m cut off as an idea slams into me. I turn and see his eyes glinting almost victoriously. I feel the certainty of it when I see the corner of his lip twitch again.

  “You’re Domenic DeLuca,” I murmur.

  “Am I?” he laughs deeply. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “Well, you might as well take this,” I say, handing him the small package from my cargo satchel.

  I shift the strap so it’s over my shoulder and feel it dig into my left breast, sort of squishing it. I adjust it quickly, annoyed at how red my cheeks flush in embarrassment. Domenic catches the movement and something like rage moves hotly through his frustratingly captivating face.

  Grossed out, probab
ly.

  “What’s your name, then?” he asks.

  “Dallas,” I tell him. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. It’s just that Mom doesn’t really keep any photos of dad or his friends in the house.”

  “Fine,” Domenic says shortly. “You’re Gabriel’s daughter.”

  “Yes.”

  “The twenty year old woman who dreams of being a writer.”

  “Yep,” I laugh, laughing, feeling more awkwardness moving through me. Along with … something else. It tingles. Ignore it. “Any reason for the impromptu bio?”

  “So you’ve been driving around town using my name to get special treatment?” he says.

  I toss my hair and feel it fluttering around my shoulders. I stare at him with as much feisty confidence as I can muster, which doesn’t feel like that much with my heart thumping harder, the firmer he stares at me, and with a tickle stroking all over my body.

  This is dad’s best friend.

  But it’s hard to remember that when he’s smoldering at me.

  “I’ve been using your name to do my job,” I say. “This city is absolutely confusing and filled with rude assholes, to be honest. And if I have to use your name to stop some over-zealous traffic warden for ticketing me when I’m parked making a delivery, well, fine.”

  “What about your dog? What about Poppet?”