Old Flame: Dante’s Story by Sam Mariano
24
Dante
“Well, this is morbid.”
I glance over at my brother in his black suit and crisp black dress shirt—outwardly, the picture of mourning, but we’re standing here picking out our dead father’s casket and his tone is fucking light as can be.
Making it worse, he adds, “If you wanted to spend more quality time together, you could’ve just joined us for a drink in my study.”
“It’s not fucking funny,” I snap, glaring at him.
Our younger brother Alec attempts to intervene, pointing to a sleek brown and white casket open in front of us. Addressing the salesman lingering nearby rather than us, he asks, “We don’t have to get this hokey embroidering on the interior part, do we?”
The old man looks perplexed at being told his ornate gold embroidering of a cross and a loving inscription is hokey. “Most people like the opportunity to share a few last words about their departed loved one.”
“And I’m telling you we don’t,” Alec throws back easily. “Can you knock off a few dollars if we nix the embroidery?”
My jaw locks and my fists curl until my knuckles are surely white. “Who fucking cares about a few dollars?” I murmur. It’s bad enough Mateo skipped the top of the line models and brought us to the middle of the road casket instead. More than any of us, Mateo has money to burn. It wouldn’t kill him to at least put up a pretense of honoring our father by ensuring he has a burial appropriate for a man of his stature.
Alec shrugs. “We’re just gonna bury it in the ground, why not save a few bucks?”
“I’d bury him in a cardboard box pissed on by a homeless man if I could get away with it,” Mateo offers.
Losing my cool, I burst out with, “What the fuck is wrong with you two?”
The old, rotund salesman jumps at the sound of my raised voice. He quickly looks between the three of us, then tells us he’s going to give us a minute to look and hauls ass away from where we’re standing.
“He was our father,” I remind them. “Regardless of anything else, the man was our father. Show a little fucking respect.”
“We’d show respect if he deserved any,” Mateo says, meeting my gaze.
“Yeah?” I ask, my eyebrows rising. “I think a lot of people will feel the same way about you when it’s your turn. You want people to bury you in a fucking pissed on cardboard box? Or you want to be buried like a boss deserves to be?”
His brow flickers for just a split second before he clears it and resumes looking at the caskets, but I think he gets my point.
“All right, let’s…” Alec trails off, sighs, then glances between us. “Fuck it. It doesn’t matter. Let’s just go look at the nice ones. What’s another thousand dollars? I’ll pay for it myself, if it’s that big a deal. This isn’t worth you two fighting.”
I straighten my jacket and roll out my shoulders. I can feel the need to hit something moving through my veins, but this is neither the time or the place. Last thing we need is the cops called on us—not because we’re fucking criminals, but because my brother and I can’t even do one simple, civilian task without it ending in violence.
“I think he would’ve liked the gray one,” I state, trying to keep cool as Mateo and I start to follow Alec over to the nicer caskets.
“It doesn’t have any of that bullshit embroidery, either,” Alec says with approval, as if the unimportant stitching is some kind of dealbreaker for him.
“You two can pick, I don’t care what we get,” Mateo states.
“Yeah, we know you don’t,” I tell him, making my opinion clear with the way I’m looking at him.
“Don’t worry, I’ll pay,” he says with a faintly snide half-smile.
“Don’t fucking hurt yourself,” I mutter.
“This is fun. I don’t know why we don’t do this brother thing more often,” Alec states sarcastically.
“At least we’ll never have to do it again. We don’t have any more parents to bury, thanks to the man Dante insists we should mourn,” Mateo states.
Alec sighs. “That was rhetorical. All right, I’m calling it. Let’s go tell this guy we want the gray one so we can get the fuck out of here.”
“Maybe on our way home, we should stop along the roadside and collect some dandelions to scatter across the casket,” I say, scathingly.
Mateo’s lips curve up faintly. “Your captive girlfriend is a florist. I assumed she would take care of the flowers.”
“You paying for it?” I ask.
“Of course. I’m always happy to support Colette.”
He says it just to piss me off, I know he does. My hands fist again and Alec steps between us this time, breaking our eye contact on the way to fetch the salesman.
“You two don’t kill each other, all right? I’m not trying to shop for a second casket.”
Once Alec walks away, I tell my older brother, “Watch it, Mateo. I’m not in the mood for your bullshit today.”
At that, he laughs, like he finds me so fucking harmless. I’m ready to punch him in the goddamn face, but before I can, he knocks me for a loop, asking, “Why was Mia at your house?”
It’s such a hard turn, he knocks the wind out of my sails. “What?” I ask, completely baffled.
Mateo sighs. “Don’t make me repeat myself, Dante.”
Even though I know exactly what he’s talking about since Mia has only been at my house once, I ask my next question just to see how he responds. “Which time?”
His gaze sharpens ever so slightly. It’s not always easy to tell when he’s surprised, but I’ve been around long enough that I can get a better idea than most people. I’ve seen his poker face progress as he has aged, and what bothers the hell out of me is that every time this girl is brought up, for just a split second, he betrays more than he means to. Loss of control like that means his emotions are engaged on some level; when his head is level, his poker face is fucking perfect.
A pinch of satisfaction slightly soothes my frayed nerves. Let the bastard feel worried for a minute that I might be dipping into his favorite honey pot.
His tone just a little harder than it needs to be, he specifies, “The time you had her deliver stolen drugs to your fucking doorstep.”
My gaze darts up to search for security cameras. I can’t believe he’d say a thing like that in public where it could feasibly be overheard. A brief perusal turns up no cameras though, and he probably already checked or he wouldn’t have said it. At least, I fucking hope so. The alternative is his possessiveness is rearing its head so hard, he didn’t even think before he spoke, and that would be bad fucking news.
“They were Colette’s pills and she brought them to Colette; that hardly counts as delivering stolen drugs.”
Barely letting me finish, he says, “It doesn’t matter. It’s inappropriate. Mia doesn’t work for us and I don’t want her involved in any illegal activity. Next time you need an errand run, ask someone on our payroll, not her.”
“She wasn’t engaged in illegal activity, she delivered some fucking toiletries and a prescription to Colette. I don’t know why it fucking matters, but if it bothers you that much, I suppose I won’t ask her to bring me things anymore.”
“I don’t want her at your house at all. There’s no reason Mia should be coming over by herself. If she’s there with Vince for whatever reason, that’s one thing, but she doesn’t need to be alone with you, and I imagine Colette would agree.”
My lips curve up faintly. With no small measure of cynicism, I say, “Oh, yeah. Clearly it’s Colette’s feelings you’re worried about.”
“I’m not worried about anything,” he says carefully. “I’m letting you know I don’t appreciate something you’ve done in the past so you don’t do it again. Like when Isabella misbehaves and I take away one of her toys.”
That last scathing line rankles just like it’s supposed to. I’m ready to snarl back at him, but before I can, Alec hustles over with the salesman in tow. The man looks decidedly less excited to deal with us now, but Alec starts talking before me or Mateo can get in any more jabs at one another.
I glare at him good, but Mateo lets the moment pass, turning his attention back to purchasing Dad’s casket so we can all get the hell out of here.
---
After spendingthe afternoon with my pain in the ass brothers, I need to unwind. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do at all with Colette just starting to warm up to me again, but I want to go to Luca’s house and I don’t want to leave her at home.
When I walk in, I offer a terse, “Get dressed, we’re going out,” and watch her little ass spring into action. She’s more eager than I thought she’d be. She’s probably tired of being cooped up in the house all the time. I should take her out more, I just don’t think it’s a great idea to be seen together in the city with the lawyer so recently dead. Might raise questions if we saw anyone she knows.
Tonight we won’t be in public though, we’ll be on my turf. Since I’m not sure Luca has anything Colette will like, I grab a bottle of wine to bring with us.
Once Colette is dressed and ready, we head out. On my way to the car I get a phone call. It’s my main contact from the police station getting back to me, so I have to take it.
Colette lingers, trying not to pay attention, while I take my call. I like it because it’s a callback to how things used to be with us, back before this whole fucking mess. I can’t say much to my contact on the phone anyway, but we agree on a meeting place and I tell her I’ll see her there.
When I end my phone call and open Colette’s door for her, she hesitates and meets my gaze. “Everything all right?” she asks.
“Yep,” I assure her, my voice calm. “We just have to make a quick stop on our way. You can wait in the car, but I need to talk to someone.”
I’m a little on the tense side driving to the meet-up. I don’t feel great about bringing Colette along—wouldn’t do it, under normal circumstances, but these aren’t exactly anticipated work hours.
I also don’t feel great about bringing Colette to meet Ceren because of our history, if you could call it that.
Ordinarily I’d never fuck around with anyone involved in any integral part of our business operations, but Ceren caught me on a bad night one time. I didn’t feel like going home alone, she was aggressive enough that I said to hell with it, and a couple months later, somehow I still occasionally found myself waking up next to her in bed. Closest thing to a relationship I ever had when Colette and I were apart, and although Ceren might be aware that our guys at the station had orders to shut down any investigation into Declan’s death, I never told her after it was done I wouldn’t be around for the occasional fuck anymore.
I also don’t think it’s very fucking respectful to bring Colette around another woman I fucked, even if we weren’t together at the time.
Lot of reasons I’m not crazy about it, but I’ve gotta find out what she knows about this investigation into Rob’s house. I don’t care what Mateo says, I should be looped in on this.
As we approach the meeting spot, I think about giving Colette some kind of warning, but I don’t exactly know what to tell her. I can’t come up with anything that makes sense, so I keep my mouth shut. As I put the car in park, then kill the engine, I look over at Colette.
“I’ll be right back, okay? You hang tight.”
Colette nods her understanding and fidgets with the clutch in her lap. I linger for just another second, then I close the door, slide my keys into the pocket of my slacks, and approach the slate gray car parked across the lot. Normally I’d park closer, but I don’t want her to look over and see Colette, and vice versa.
Her instincts tell her I’m approaching before I make it to her car. Her gaze snaps to mine and then her brown eyes warm, her plump lips curving up in an affectionate smile.
Ah, shit.
I shake off the split second of worry. Ceren is too busy with her work for a relationship anyway so she never seemed disappointed that I didn’t want anything beyond the occasional physical encounter. That’s why it happened past the first time, which admittedly was just a mistake. A twinkle in her eye doesn’t mean shit. She can still be fond of me and not want to marry me. I don’t know why I’m being paranoid about it now.
I open her car door and slide into the passenger side, then pull the door shut behind me. “Hey.”
“How have you been?” she asks, offering me a little smile as she looks over at me. Her dark hair is styled and she’s wearing a face full of make-up, but I can’t tell if it’s her work-day make-up or “I wanna fuck” make-up. A lot of things I can read, but the intent behind a woman’s make-up routine sure as shit isn’t one of them.
“I’ve been good,” I tell her, nodding faintly.
“Good, I’m glad.”
Her voice is so warm. Has her voice always been this warm when she was talking to me? I guess I never noticed.
Clearing my throat and trying to shuck the weirdness that’s probably all in my head, I reach into my jacket pocket and draw out an envelope. Passing it to her, I tell her, “This is for you.”
“Ah, another payment on my student loans,” she says brightly, but with a wry smile as she takes it. “Thank you.”
“Student loans are fucking stupid,” I grumble, unable to help myself. I’ll never understand why people want to throw their money away like that, paying to have some stuffy academic tell them to read books.
“Yes, well, we can’t all be born into the Morelli family,” she teases. “Some of us have to work for a living.”
“I work my ass off, thank you very much.”
“Mm hmm,” she murmurs, still with affection in her tone I never fucking noticed before.
I need to kill it, so I cut off the small talk and tell her, “So, not to rush you, but I was on my way out when you called.”
“Sorry, I would’ve called you back sooner but I’ve been swamped. I wasn’t sure if you were calling for business or pleasure, and I didn’t have time for the latter.”
“It was the former,” I assure her. “I need to know what’s going on with a complaint that was filed about that property I mentioned before. I need to know if there’s an investigation already started. If not, if it looks like one will be, and I need to know what kind of timeline I’m looking at. When my brother told me about it, he wasn’t exactly generous with the gritty details.”
Now she frowns, bending over to retrieve her briefcase from the floorboard by my legs. “Yeah, so, the thing is, I couldn’t find what you were asking about. There were no inquiries, no notes, no complaints—there’s no record that anybody had anything to say about… well, anything regarding this property.” Withdrawing her small laptop and opening it up, she glances over at me, “Do you have a name I can look up instead of a place? Maybe the address got typed in wrong.”
I give her Rob’s name and have her check, but he comes up clean as a whistle. I sit there scowling while she looks through file after file, asking question after question trying to help me find what I’m looking for, but there’s nothing. Not a damn thing.
When she finally exhausts every last place she can look, I lean my head back against the headrest and stare out the front windshield. Lot of thoughts run through my head, but despite the excuses I’m tempted to make for my damned brother, there’s only one conclusion I can draw: Mateo fucking lied to me.
A bit hesitantly, she says, “It’s not possible it was a federal investigation, right? I wouldn’t have access to that.”
I shake my head half-heartedly. “I don’t know. I think he’d mention if the fucking feds were sniffing around.”
Shrugging apologetically before closing her laptop and tucking it back into her briefcase, Ceren tells me, “I can poke around tomorrow and see if maybe it just hasn’t been filed yet. Maybe someone who’s friendly with your family intercepted the file and stopped it from being put in the system.”
“Maybe.”
Maybe not, though. I hate to even think it. Why the fuck else would Mateo want to shut down such a profitable arm of our operations? Not only that, but to fucking fabricate a police investigation—
“Mm, you smell so good.”
My heart jumps as Ceren catches me unaware, running her hand over my chest and leaning across the console. I catch her wrist and drag her hand away. She gasps in surprise, but then a devilish smile crosses her face. “You caught me. What are you gonna do with me now?”
“Nothing,” I state, releasing her hand now that it’s not on me anymore. “I told you, I was just about to head out.”
“Where you heading?” she inquires, pleasantly enough. “Want some company?”
“To a friend’s, and no.” I hesitate for a split second, then figure this is probably a good time to let her know I’m back off the market. “I actually already have company.”
“Oh.” She sounds faintly surprised, but not overly concerned. “All right. Well, maybe we could get together one night this weekend. All work and no play makes—”
“No, not this weekend either,” I interrupt. “We need to shift this back to a strictly professional arrangement. I give you envelopes, you give me information, no more orgasms included for either of us.”
Wrinkling her nose up, she asks, “Why? Your company? Is it serious?”
Normally I wouldn’t hesitate to be an asshole when I’m ending something I don’t give a shit about, but given Ceren is a cop, I don’t want to risk making her vengeful. I try to be as nice as I fucking can, but to say it doesn’t come natural to me is a colossal understatement. “Yeah, it is. It’s, uh, actually my ex-girlfriend. We’re back together.”
Her brown eyes dim and her tone loses a little something, too. “The one who hurt you?”
I frown, not appreciating that she’s speaking against Colette, even if what she’s saying is true. My irritation makes it harder to be nice—and it wasn’t exactly easy to begin with. “We’re not gonna talk about her,” I inform her succinctly, so she knows how it’s gonna be between us now. “This is strictly business now, got it?”
Faint disappointment clings to her tone, even though I can tell she’s trying not to let it. “Not even casual friendship, huh?”
I shake my head briefly. “Wouldn’t be right.”
She presses her plump lips together regretfully. “You’re a good man, Dante Morelli.”
“You’re cracked for thinking that,” I inform her.
A little of the sparkle returns to her dark eyes and she smiles. “Maybe. I still do, though.”
“Well, I suppose you can afford to be wrong every once in a while,” I offer.
“I’m not wrong,” she insists. “She’s a lucky woman.”
Ha, someone should tell her that. Instead of saying anything else, I reach for the latch to let myself out of her car. “Let me know if you kick up anything tomorrow that wasn’t in the computer.”
“Will do, boss,” she tosses back.
