Page 2 of Unbound

I clenched my jaw. Fuck.

“Are Kruna aware he’s digging into his pet’s past?”

“Does not look like it.”

Dario Ferrano wasn’t on my radar until a few months back when Jesse turned up dead. Jesse had been blown up and was after the Ferrano boys in the name of vengeance for Juan Carlos. Dario Ferrano liked to cause explosions. Another fortuitous thing for me.

Not fortuitous? The fact that Kruna’s senior partner team were being sloppy. Considering that Delgado was on that team? Not a surprise.

“Do you think Jacobs knows you have her?” Rocco asked me.

“No. He doesn’t play like that. If he already knew, he wouldn’t poke around. He’d be straight up about it. What we know about Zack Jacobs, he’ll figure it out soon enough.”

Zack Jacobs was a fucking bloodhound and exceptionally good at his job. He’d been an asset to me on a few occasions already.

“So, what can I do now for you? To help?”

“Get me everything you can on the Ferrano family. Who their friends are, who their enemies are, what their big deals are right now. Make it a priority.”

1

A Few Weeks After Dare’s Wedding

Tia was asleep, her cheek on my belly, her silky oats and honey-scented hair fanned out across the chest tattoo that bared her name and displayed her symbol. An owl on an olive branch. Wisdom. Forgiveness. Thinking about the symbolism made my gut churn, go sour.

My left hand was tangled in her hair and I was staring at the ring that sat on my finger. Gold and black. Light and dark. Good and evil. Right now, there was more black than gold to me because I’d spent a sleepless night plotting. Plotting the next moves that had to be made. It all went round and round in my brain all fucking night long.

Take down Kruna, being the fucking gophers for the goddamn Feds without getting ourselves killed.

That fucking Zack.

If I had my way, when this was over, the footnote would be a gaping hole in his forehead. Dare was acting like he was leaning toward giving Zack a pass. I didn’t fucking think so.

Bastard didn’t earn my trust overnight. He worked at it, the motherfucking liar. And he’d pay for fucking us over. I never forgot betrayal.

We had to first confirm and then if she was there, (I suspected she was), get Angel’s sister Holly back from Alessandro Romero’s hellhole down in Mexico. Zack said he had it on good authority that this was where she was and it would be a tricky proposition. He wasn’t useless. A lying Fed motherfucker but he was resourceful.

Once he was done fact-finding, we’d have to find a way to get her back, knowing Romero knew what we’d done. We didn’t know him. We’d heard he was an ice-cold mother fucker and it stood to reason that he’d want me dead for killing his Uncle Juan Carlos and Dare dead for killing his brother Jesse. The cartel that I had a relationship with from the takedown of the Castillo cartel was something I didn’t relish the idea of calling on again. They’d helped me for what they’d get out of him being gone.

This time, if we needed their help, we’d be indebted to them and that would slow down our plan to distance ourselves from Pop’s world as much as humanly possible without it meaning we had to disappear into thin air to escape that shit.

I didn’t know much about Romero other than the fact he’d inherited his father’s business in pedaling flesh and in dealing guns. And my guys alerted me once or twice to the fact that people had compared us. I didn’t like that. I’d had people keep their ears to the ground, concerned Romero might set his sights on us after Jesse Romero was blown up.

Beyond this shit with Kruna and with Angel’s sister, we also had the launch of Ben Goldberg’s new project, Fete, and smarmy goof Leo Denarda was being a thorn in my side. This guy wanted in on the partnership, but I made my involvement contingent on him being kept out. Of course, he wasn’t happy. But he was a slimy asshole that I refused to associate with.

He didn’t take the news of his exclusion well and now he was trying to screw with us. And what’d started out as an annoyance had become more than a mere pain in my ass; like a mosquito trapped in a dark room with you.

My patience was not generous. If I found myself in a dark room with a mosquito and didn’t flush that fucker out within five minutes, I’d be tempted to blow the whole fucking room up.

My gut told me shit was becoming dangerous. It’d mean more enemies for us if we weren’t really fucking careful. He was already more hassle than he was worth. I’d talked about backing out, but my buddy John Lewis? Johnny needed the launch financially. He needed it to go well. He needed our help and it’d oust Leo once and for all. I had a feeling I’d need his help with some of the other shit on my plate. John was mostly clean but well-connected and respected. He was an ally and he was a good friend. I’d get to help him out and stick it to Leo Denarda at the same time.

I had to accomplish all of this without putting Tia and my unborn baby at risk. Do it all without losing precious time watching her pregnancy bloom. I couldn’t fucking wait to see her huge, to watch her waddle, to feed her pickles and ice cream or whatever she craved.

So far, all she was craving was my cock. And sleep. All she wanted was fucking and sleeping. Talk about a dream come true…

I needed to get through all this shit while keeping my own demons at bay and those demons were nagging at me with all this goddamn stress.

My tattoo. Forgiveness and wisdom. Maybe it wasn’t wise, but I wasn’t feeling all that forgiving right now. Zack had snowed us with this Kruna shit. I told Dare to just keep his girl and forget Kruna existed. Let the lawyers deal with shit. I told John Lewis that Denarda was just an annoying little gnat, but his unclefinally croaked and Denarda somehow had the stones to make a few key moves before word got out about his uncle’s death and so he now had more power.

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