Page 23 of Dagger in the Sea

His forehead buckled. “Did she come crying to you?”

“No.” I put down my glass. “Erin doesn’t cry or whine.”

He licked his lips, shaking his head. “Her and her friends are making my life difficult. So I’m pushing back.”

“Unpush.”

The heaviness of his glare turned positively leaden, and the air sucked out of the room. “Why do you give a shit?”

“My mother is off limits to you. Let go of her liquor license. She’s just as stubborn as you are. You don’t think she’ll come up with some way to expose you, get the law interested in you? They’ve laid off you for a long time now. You’ve been lucky. But if you make things contentious—”

“It’s my neighborhood. She needs to show respect.”

“What do you want? A hundred camels and ten pots of gold?”

“Don’t be flip with me.”

“Don’t be an asshole when you don’t have to be.”

“You better watch your mouth.” His lips stiffened, pressing together.

He was capable of anything, wasn’t he? How many times had I seen it and been impressed? Whether it be bankrupting a small, family owned business in the blink of an eye because they were overdue on a loan, or beating a lackey to death because he’d spoken out of turn, I’d seen it all from Mauro Guardino. He could convince himself of anything to make himself feel better, to feel righteous.

What made me think he wouldn’t turn that on my mother, a person who he’d transformed into an enemy?

“You better not hurt her in any way, do you understand?” I said.

“Or what?”

“Don’t.”

“You give a shit about the woman who turned her back on you?”

“That’s between me and her.”

“Well, this is between me and her. She’s there, in my face, and I don’t like it. I don’t like her.”

My chest tightened. “You know, I don’t much like being your go-to boy on call, but I do it when you need me to. I never say no.”

His upper lip curled into beginnings of a snarl. “You trying to tell me something?”

“I want a real cut of the business that I’ve been running for you. I made your crappy brothels streamlined moneymakers with a good reputation. You need the cash and the contacts I cultivate, the favors that business generates. And yet—”

“And yet, what? You get a percentage, a good one. I can’t give you no more, how would it look?”

“You keep feeding me pieces here, pieces there, making promises…‘Someday, Turo. Be patient, Turo.’ I’m done being patient, Mauro. I get that I can’t move up the Italian ladder, but I work hard for you. I lost out on having anything from my mother. She’ll never trust me again. She’s done with me.”

“It’s not my fault she’s a cunt.”

I ground my jaw. “Sheis my mother. Don’t call her that. Not ever.”

“What’s gotten into you, huh?”

What had gotten into me? Seeing Erin today in her lair, how she’d continued to be a success without me. How I’d once been a part of that success. Of her life. I missed her. My ego had been keeping me company just fine all these years, but being in her presence again had brought back things I had pushed away…belonging, a sense of family, sharing the same taste, building something together.

With the Guardinos, I fought on my own for every inch, every cut. Erin’s business was competitive and cutthroat too—well, not literally cutthroat like Mauro’s. But there wasn’t all this fucking drama I had to deal with here on a daily basis. The older I got, the more I was over it and the less I wanted to put up with it.

I raised my chin. “Did you threaten her?”

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