Pretty Lies, page 3
“Really?” Della asked Jennika when her friend shimmied down her skirt.
“I got bored.”
Of course.
Or working an angle.
That was Jennika.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?”
Ah.
The man of the hour.
“Mr. Tramen,” Della said, taking a single step into the office and kicking the door closed behind her, “we’re here to talk about your debt to my father and how much you’re willing to pay of it today. Careful, because before you speak, if the number doesn’t please me. I’ll take an inch. Where that inch comes will depend on your tone when you do speak to me.”
In the chair, with a stiletto heel to his forehead, the man gaped.
As they usually did.
There were two types of men in the world, Della had learned … those who could be the boss, and those who only thought they were. More often than not, all it took was a woman to figure out which one a man was at the end of the day.
She enjoyed being the woman who did it.
THREE
“YOU’RE IN ONE piece,” J said, greeting Della into his favorite booth inside the mid-town club he liked to frequent on nearly every damn night of the week. He gave her a one-armed hug, and used the same hold to pull her down to sit whether she wanted to or not. Chuckles passed down the table from her brother’s friends. Or rather, those that he cared to have around when she was also nearby. All it took was a flip of his middle finger and the guys scattered. J—whose real name was Joel Peter, but fuck anyone who dared to call him that but for their mother—still didn’t let his sister go from his grip. “Must mean the Tramen job went well today, huh?”
Della elbowed her brother hard in his kidney, earning a grunt from him but also her release from his grip. It didn’t matter that they were twenty-three and twenty-four years old—not when the two of them were together and in a mood. They went back to being kids again who just loved to have fun with one another.
“If you’re gonna be a brute, keep your hands to yourself, shithead.”
“Bitch,” he muttered as he picked up a glass from the table.
Whiskey, she thought.
He only drank whiskey.
“You fucked up my hair,” she countered, flipping a loose strand of hair over her shoulder at the same time. It was a lie—her hair was fine. It did let her scan the floor of the club for her friend that should have already been there. “And the job did go well. Daddy called right before I went in, though.”
Beside her, J stilled. “Oh?”
“He asked if you were going to be there. Well, if I was waiting for you. So, I kind of had to—”
“Don’t lie to Dad, Della. I’m not going to out what you’ve been doing most of the time with work, and all, but … that’s only because you should tell him you’re not always following his rules.”
Right.
Yeah.
She would get right on that.
“Where’s Jennika?”
Tonight had been her idea, after all.
Just like the weekend before …
Although, that hadn’t ended badly.
For her, anyway.
J picked up his phone, but his squint as he checked the screen told her that he wasn’t very happy about it. “On her way, she says. The fuck you have to give her my phone number for, anyway? It’s not like she works with me.”
No, but her friend had a secret crush—that wasn’t really so secret anymore—on Della’s older brother that was nearly as old as they were, considering they’d been friends for about as long, too. Well, since their private high school days, anyway. With men in their life that just happened to be connected to the darker side of the world, the two were bound to come together at one point or another. Anyway, she was trying to help her friend out with J.
It wasn’t working.
She did what she could.
“Indulge her,” Della said, “even once.”
“Adella—”
“Only Ma and Dad can call me that, Joel.”
Her brother scowled.
Della winked right back.
“I’m not fucking Jennika,” her brother said simply. “Because that girl is loyal to no man. And that’s fine, if that’s what a guy wants or whatever. I don’t share, you know?”
Well …
“Your call,” she returned.
She hadn’t been seated more than a minute before a server came over with the house’s drink for her and another glass of whiskey for J. The smile and wink that was shared between her brother and the server made Della think there might be another reason why J wasn’t interested in her friend. She chose not to point it out or ask.
She loved her friend.
Wished she could help her.
J was still her blood. Her brother. No matter what. Way back when he had been doing work for their dad that she couldn’t even consider trying herself, J was the one who dared to break the rules first which paved the way for her. He had her back no matter what.
So, she would always have his, too.
Pulling out the phone from her purse and dialing her friend’s number, she muttered to her brother, “I’m just saying, maybe if you gave her a taste of whatever she wanted, she’d get over it. And, if she’s distracted by her obsession with you for a little while, she might stop asking me about my ex for five damn seconds.”
Della wanted to move on.
She was ready to do exactly that.
It was hard when someone kept talking about it, though. She knew Jennika meant well. That was the only reason why she didn’t just outright tell her to knock it the fuck off. Her patience was still wearing thin.
At the mere mention of Luis, J’s scowl from earlier came back with a vengeance. “I told you to tell that prick to—”
“And I did,” she snapped.
Her friend’s phone went to voicemail.
Where was she?
Ending the call, Della threw it back in her purse and turned on her brother in the booth. “I did tell him to get the hell out of my life—you were there when I did it, remember? Except he won’t get the hint and stay gone because he keeps showing up whenever I think he’s finally gone away, and I don’t want him to start a problem for Dad.”
Which was easier to do—both keep Luis away from her father and her father away from Luis—when her ex ran a small gang in the Heights, and her father ran his main operation outside of the city entirely. Especially when J and Della did most of the footwork for their dad inside the city, and he wasn’t as hands on as he used to be with it all.
Keeping shit under his radar was simple.
J’s gaze cut to her, the matching dark brown irises flashing with his worry and rage all at the same time. “He’s small-time in the city—Dad’s got a seat at the Outfit table as a Capo. It wouldn’t even be a fair fight, Della. You don’t have to handle the asshole alone. You’re choosing to, yeah?”
So be it.
She could handle it.
Everyone else just liked to think she couldn’t.
That was the problem.
“I’m not choosing anything because you think I want to get back with Luis,” Della told her brother. “Just so that’s clear. We’re done—me and him, it’s over. I’m over it. Last weekend took care of that, believe me.”
Then, J grinned crookedly. He looked more like their mother, and so did she with high, sharp cheekbones, dark eyes, and angular jaws; his was simply the more masculine version. Although he couldn’t take much from their dad. After all, biologically, J wasn’t even Frankie’s even if that’s what all the papers said. He couldn’t be when he’d met and married their mother when she was pregnant with Joel.
“What?” she asked when he kept grinning.
“Right, yeah, tattooed guy in the club’s employee bathroom.”
“Oh, my God.”
Her groan had her brother laughing.
“I drunk call you every time I go out,” she said, “and then I have to remember it later because you don’t even have the decency to tell me I do it the next day.”
J shrugged like he didn’t care at all. “I figure if you call me when you’re drunk and spill all your secrets, then at least you’re not doing it with someone you can’t trust.”
Well …
That was sweet.
Her embarrassment over drunk-calling her brother to spill all the details about her club hook-up the weekend before didn’t last long. Hell, she only remembered brief flashes of it the day after. It took a couple days for all of it to come back. It wasn’t like her to get so drunk that she would act foolish with a man, but it did what she wanted.
It got Luis straight out of her head.
Now when she was alone, her mind filled with thoughts of tattoos—wings on his throat; how those muscles there flexed when he swallowed—and the way he tasted when he kissed her after he’d ate her until she came. Before and after he’d fucked her.
Again.
Just for good measure.
It wasn’t so much what she did—but who—that kept Della from wanting to talk about the hook-up. That was a secret better kept to herself, considering the man who’d picked her up hadn’t seemed to know who she was, and frankly, from the rumors she knew about Cory Rossi … well, he was probably exactly her type.
Bad.
Rude.
Trouble all over.
Also, she was pretty sure he was a friend of her brother’s—but that was business J did with the people of the Outfit that Della wasn’t even allowed near. She knew just enough about Cory Rossi and the Outfit to know the men around him held the highest seats in the mob. Her father and brother kept all of that and those men far away from her. Or as much as possible. That way, no one who didn’t really matter couldn’t cause a problem about her involvement in the business.
She didn’t know when that might change.
As for Cory …
She was going to keep pretending that didn’t happen. Even if her mind and body wouldn’t let her forget.
“Let’s not ever mention that again,” Della finally said, picking up the glass of liquor on the table that she had yet to touch. That moment seemed like the right one to down the whole damn drink in a single go. Next to her, J chuckled under his breath, but otherwise, said nothing more about her drunk calls.
Good.
Then, her brother’s good mood vanished; in place of his previous happiness now rested a face made of angry stone. Della didn’t even have to look over her shoulder to know what caused that look on her brother. Only one person made him that pissed.
Luis Ruiz.
“You having her watched now?” J asked as he rose from the table before Della could even get her glass set down. When she did, though, she was quick to stand and put a hand on her brother’s chest to keep him from stepping around her to get out of the booth. “You must be, asshole, because how else would you know she was here tonight? She’s only been here ten minutes—at most. You’re looking to have a real fucking problem.”
The dark chuckle behind Della had her giving J a look, one she hoped voiced for him to calm the hell down, before she looked over her shoulder.
The thing about Luis?
The man was devastating.
A little broken, too.
And he liked for everything else to be broken along with him.
Wrap that up in a package of gorgeousness and sex, and any woman who had a thing for a bad boy would run right after him. Della had not been an exception to the rule, but she wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall for the trap twice.
So, his beautiful face made up of severe lines, with brows that dipped low in suggestion when he talked, and those lips that told the prettiest lies did nothing for her. That’s how Della knew she was done. She looked at him and felt nothing.
“What do you want?” she asked.
Maybe if she just finally made it clear that she wasn’t interested, because apparently ignoring his calls and getting rid of his shit a month ago hadn’t been enough to do it, he would go away. Move on.
“Haven’t found someone new to break, Luis?” she asked.
He smirked.
It was sexy, yes. Mix his swagger and charm with the power and control he exuded, and the man became a hurricane of everything attractive and forbidden. Except he also taught her a valuable lesson—she didn’t like to be hurt.
“Just missing you, pretty thing,” he returned gruffly.
Then, Luis’s gaze cut to J behind her. Della’s brother stiffened.
“Say it,” he urged her ex.
“J.”
Her warning went right over J’s head.
It had taken her all of ten seconds to realize that Luis had come at the worst time. After she got there, her brother sent the rest of the guys away. Any protection he had inside the club was probably just out of reach, if he even had any. Was the place mob connected?
She didn’t know.
But her ex?
Luis had six guys behind him.
All muscle.
She didn’t recognize one of them.
Their tatts told her a lot, though.
Definitely gang.
“What,” Della said strongly, meeting Luis’s gaze, “do you want?”
Men always needed to be put back on task.
“A conversation, Dell.”
She cringed at his nickname.
It’d never really been her thing.
Della—that’s what she liked.
It’s who she was.
“The lack of phone calls and shit didn’t tell you I might not want to talk?” she asked.
He shrugged one distressed leather-clad shoulder. “Better to let you calm down, loca.”
Nice.
The crazy comment—like it was meant to be affectionate—had her annoyed all over again in a blink. Not that it mattered. She wouldn’t even give him anger anymore.
“Just a conversation?” she asked.
Because if she could get him out of the club, then she had a feeling that would be better for everyone in the place. She highly doubted J was slumming it in a business that wouldn’t offer him some kind of protection being who he was.
No doubt, someone was watching.
Waiting.
Della wanted to diffuse anything before it even started. “If it’s just a conversation, then you can walk me out.”
“Were you leaving?” Luis asked, chewing through each word as the man always had to have a piece of mint gum, his grin firmly in place. “Because I thought you just got here.”
She refused to indulge him.
In any way.
Luis wasn’t affected, giving her a wink when he added, “Playing hard to get again. You know I love that, girl. We can chat while you call for a cab and that’s it, that’s all.”
“Della—”
Fast, Della turned to grab her bag while also whispering to her brother, “Make sure there’s a car for me. We’ll get him the hell out of here.”
J gave her a look, clearly displeased, but said nothing. He let her make her choices even if he hated them.
Della stepped out of the booth and before she even passed Luis by, he’d turned to walk with her and placed a hand on her lower back. A little too close to her ass. His hand flexed—fingers squeezing—on her body in the same possessive way he always touched her, but it did nothing for her now. The men who stood behind her ex spun on their heels to follow them out.
She didn’t look back.
J would do what she said.
Wouldn’t he?
“A conversation,” Luis said, the crowd of dancing people parting for the line of tattooed men who now walked in front of them. “Let’s have it.”
“That does require occasional listening which was something you struggled with.”
“Low blow, babe.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m not your babe, or your love or your fucking loca, Luis. All that really needs to be said here is that we’re over. Which I already told you. It was cute the first week or so that you wouldn’t give it up. Now it’s just annoying because you’re starting to be a problem, you know?”
She smiled up at him.
He stared back, cold.
Soon, the two of them were standing on the curb outside of the club. She turned slightly, just enough to watch the security come to stand at the door—at least ten of them. Some probably armed, if the place was in any way connected to mob business.
She felt safer at the sight of the men dressed in black. It meant her brother had probably done what he needed to do, and this bullshit she entertained with Luis could end.
Her attention went back to him when he said, “You know I miss you, yeah?”
“But I don’t miss you. And that’s the thing. We’re over. It’s okay to let it end like that. You can do your thing with somebody else, and you don’t even have to think about me. Why aren’t you doing that?”
He grinned. Once, that would have made her shiver. She still felt nothing.
“You lost your appeal,” she told him. “It’s not one of those things that comes back. It won’t change. We’re done.”
“No, we’re not.”
His arm tried to wrap around her, but she took a wide step back, closer to the curb.
“I get it,” Della said, “this isn’t how it works for you, right? It’s you who tosses somebody away when you’re done with them. You’re not used to being the one discarded. That doesn’t change shit, Luis. You can’t make me be with you, or want you, for that matter.”
“You think?”
The question seemed innocent.
Even sounded like it.
Della didn’t think it was.
“Don’t cause a problem for pussy when we both know you’ve got a phone full of it that’ll give you a lot less headaches than I will, Luis.”
After all, his extra pussy was what ended this in the first place.
He didn’t even deny it.
“Except you had to go and make me work for yours,” he told her as a car pulled up to the curb with a guy in the driver’s seat that she recognized. One of the guys who had been sitting in her brother’s booth when she first arrived. The door was shoved open. Luis leaned in before she could step off the curb and get into the car. Just enough to catch a strand of her wavy brown hair between his fingertips when he said, “And since I earned it, I think that makes it mine, Della.”
