Page 67 of Stolen Kisses
Normally I would know my place around a guy like Claudius and wouldn’t be as bold as to even look at him the wrong way. Today though, fucking hell I was mad as fuck and I didn’t appreciate a guy who wasn’t that much older than me calling mekid.
Gio intensified his glare on me and shook his head warning me to calm down. I just ignored him.
“Who the fuck you calling kid?” I straightened up and zoned in on Claudius who practically flew over to me. His hair billowing out behind him like a cape.
I wished I could say he looked like some weirdo with his long hair and funny eyes, but he didn’t.
The whole package was just one part of the reason that all the women loved him. The other was that he was one of the capos to the Rossi family. He was a guy a grunt like me, looking to work his way up, should respect. I definitely shouldn’t have spoken to him like that.
“You have some death wish?” Claudius snarled.
Maybe I did. Maybe I lost my fucking mind. It was the kind of thing that happened when a guy saw his little sister associating with one of the worst crime families and practically rolling around in the lions’ den.
My little sister was getting out of some posh car with Donny Manello, of all the people and they were going into the Crowthorne Society, Antonella property.
Barabbas Antonella was the devil.
It didn’t get much worse than that and I couldn’t do anything about it.
So yes, I had lost my mind and I was ready to either die or fight.
“Try it! You fucking L.A. punk.” I balked.
Claudius snarled and pulled out his gun at me. I simply pulled my two on him. I may have been a grunt, but nobody was a quicker shot than me. The only other person that could claim to be better was Pa and he was dead.
I held out my twin Berettas at king Claudius who looked from one gun to the other, then back at me.
“Guys please, this is shit. This is our garage where we work on the stuff we like, remember?” Gio called out from the corner.
“L.A. punk?” Claudius asked me. “New York punk, I’m from here you idiot.”
“I didn’t see you here this whole time. Think because you’re up Raphael’s ass everyone’s scared of you.” I was an idiot; everyone was fucking scared of him.
There was Gio over in the corner for a reason.
Claudius looked at me like I had lost my mind. He sneered, almost sounding like a growl and lowered his gun.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Claudius asked.
I still held out my guns just in case this was some trick to get me to think he’d eased off. “Nothing, your fucking Harley will be ready in the morning.”
“You said it would be good tonight.”
“Plans changed up. It’s delayed, now beat it.”
Claudius laughed. Laughed at me and my attitude. “You know what Dante, you have some fucking balls. You totally do. I think as much as I want to kill you, you just earned my respect. Is this about Maria?”
Maria …
Fucking hell. That woman was either going to get me killed or … something.
The answer to my problems with her was simple. I needed to forget her, end of story. It was a case of me being the grunt of a guy with nothing and my stupid old bike as she called it riding around town like a fool trying to climb up the ladder of life and impress her.
“No, it’s not about her.”
“Looks like it is, if so your guns should be on Luc, not me.” He laughed again.
I lowered my guns. “It’s not about her.”
