Wicked Liar by Faith Summers

Chapter Ten

Dominic

"Aiden Romanov." I smile and put out my hand to shake his tattooed one.

Aiden dips his blond head and his ice-blue eyes crinkle as he smiles.

"Hello, old friend," he replies with a hint of a Russian accent. His brother Viktor had a stronger accent because he spent more time in Russia. Aiden always bounced around the world.

We lower to sit opposite each other at a bench in the park across from the D’Agostino building with our cups of cappuccino.

“So, how are you?” he asks

“I’m home,” I answer with a nod.

“And are you ready to be home? It sounds like duty called you back.” He gives me a knowing look and rests his elbows on the wooden table between us.

I smirk. This might be the one person I can talk to around here who may truly understand me. He messaged first thing this morning wanting to meetup. After looking over the information we sent the other day he wants to help a little more.

“Duty did call me home." I decide to be honest. "As for being ready to be back, I'm not sure."

"It's like that at first," he states and my interest piques. “If it helps, the fact you found the strength to come back because you knew you'd be needed is a sign your stronger. But being home will feel weird for some time to come.”

"Will it now?"

He sounds like he has experience. It crossed my mind before that he might, but I wasn't sure.

"Yeah."

“Thanks for your recommendation.”

“Yeah? The Healer helped you?”

“She did.”

Aiden gave me a business card for someone called the Healer. That's what took me to Tibet. I had to climb a mountain where I found the woman in a village set up with huts. First of all, I thought I was looking for a man of Asian descent. When I happened upon an elderly woman who looked to be in her fifties but was actually ninety with cotton white hair, I couldn’t have been more shocked. She always wore robes like a monk and only spoke when she thought you were ready to hear what she had to say. I was a stubborn one.

“When did you go to her? First or last?”

“Last,” I reply, and he chuckles.

“I figured. I was last too," he says, confirming my suspicions.

"Were you?"

"Yeah, but I think I was a tougher case than you so do not feel bad. I think maybe you have to go through the shit first then when you're ready you jump over that last hurdle.”

It’s the first time he’s spoken to me like this, and I wonder what his story is.

“How did you know I was on drugs? That first time there were no clues.” It’s baffled me for a long time. I thought I hid it well, and I hadn’t even taken anything that day.

“Let’s just say it takes one to know one.”

I straighten up and rivet my gaze to his. “You used to be?”

“I used to be. I think I could tell that day because of the way you were acting. You didn’t do anything specific. It was just something I picked up.”

That was when Viktor was still alive, and not long after we got the anonymous letter. They’d both joined us in the quest for finding out who was responsible for our fathers' deaths in the Syndicate bombing. They’d suspected foul play and came to us. It was then Massimo ended up showing them the letter. The day Aiden’s talking about was a hard day for me. The next time he saw me was with a dealer in a bar. I was high then. So high I didn’t even fucking recognize him.

“What’s your story, Aiden? You lost your brother and the way you lost him would send anybody over the edge. But look at you… you seem like you got it together.” Viktor died right in our building over there in a shootout. It was in another attempt to kill us when Massimo was reforming the Syndicate.

Aiden shakes his head. “Don’t be fooled. I don’t have everything together. I might look like I do, but I don’t. With my brother’s passing, I became the boss, and it’s hard in the Bratva. Maybe harder to prove yourself than in la Costa nostra. Especially when I still want to just grieve. I don’t because he would have wanted me to be strong.”

“He would,” I agree. “What happened before then? What made you turn to drugs?”

He hangs his head down and when his gaze climbs back up to meet mine, the pain that consumes his stare is enough to tell me whatever sent him over the edge was really bad.

“Story for another time, old friend. Let’s just say I had it all, then I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, do not be. It was… my fault. No one can be sorry for me.”

What happened to him? It sounds like he had more grief, more death. That lost look in his eyes looks like old pain that's taken up root in his soul.

"So, anyway..." He straightens, and the tone of his voice suggests he wants to change the subject. "Good to have you back. Now I guess we can get down to business."

"I haven't found anything more since I've been back. Our men have been hard at work on the streets, but it's been crickets."

"It's going to be difficult tracking down men like that. I did not even know Kazimir was alive still. Tell me about these files you have for Alfonse. Have you looked through everything?"

I have to laugh. "That would take me another two years. There were files and there were links. The man must have made a fucking fortune as a spy with all the jobs he did. I'm grateful for what I found. There's more to look at though, much more. I've only been looking for the last seven months." I wasn't able to do it before because of my treatment. I wish I had looked sooner though.

"Let me help you. I think you and I are more alike than what you know."

"How so, old friend?"

"Where did you learn to hack?"

"Tech geeks at M.I.T, but I picked up a thing or two of my own along the way."

"Okay M.I.T boy I learned to hack in prison from criminals who would trade you a secret for a cigar."

"No way." I laugh.

"Yeah. So, I'm sure between us we can get something organized."

"That sounds good. I'll send you the link to the file later."

"Perfect."

My attention is taken away when I catch sight of a familiar blond head across from us walking up the wide stone steps leading to the building.

Candace hugs a foolscap folder close to her chest, completely oblivious to my stare. She has her hair in her usual fishtail braid. It runs elegantly down her left shoulder, resting at the edge of her breast.

The little blue summer dress she's wearing caresses her body the way I want and compliments her sun-kissed skin.

Aiden chuckles and I look away.

"My God, I don't think I can remember the last time I saw a man look at a woman like that." He chuckles.

"Like what?" I'm interested to know how obvious I look.

"Like you want to fuck her. Are you not with her anymore?” he asks.

He didn't know what happened before I left, and it looks like he still doesn't.

“No.”

“I never pegged you for a man who just watches from the shadows.”

“I’m not.” I shake my head.

“Then why are you doing that?”

“Because she's a good girl and doesn't need any shit. I fucked up when I got my chance.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Stay away and you allow the likes of Jacques Belmont to take your girl.” He smirks, casting me a skeptical look, but it’s that comment about Jacques that has my undivided attention.

I'm meeting the prick later at Massimo's insistence. I'm really not looking forward to it and definitely not now that Aiden's practically confirmed that Jacques’ interest in Candace isn't a new thing.

“What do you know about them?”

“Enough.”

"Fuck."

He laughs. “Dominic D’Agostino, I leave that one to you. If I were you though I wouldn't just allow another man to take a woman I want. He'd be dead before he could try. I mean that."

He cracks his knuckles and I look at his prison tattoos. As I observe the tattoo of the church with three cupolas on the back of his wrist that suggests he has at least three convictions, I believe him.

I return my focus to Candace. She’s about to take those last few steps before going into the revolving glass doors. I allow my gaze to drift over her perfect body, and memories of that night we spent together fill my mind.

I can’t stop the images that come to me, not with her in that dress and those fuck-me heels. And when I think of fucking, I remember her beautiful naked body tangled in silk sheets. Her gorgeous breasts like mountainous peaks, her nipples ripe and tight with arousal as I sucked them.

I remember her moans of ecstasy through the night.

I couldn’t get enough of her and the only thing that took her from me was the dawn of the new day.

“Life’s too short, Dominic," Aiden says when Candace goes through the doors. "You don’t look at a woman like that and allow her to sleep in another man’s bed.”

I have to agree with him.

I don’t want her in another man’s bed. I want her in mine.