“You need a shower,” he said and removed his hand from her. “You have blood all over you.” He stared into her eyes, and she got lost in the grey depths. “I have some questions I want to ask you, but I’ll let you get cleaned up first.” He didn’t move right away. He had one arm caging her in place on the bed beside her outer thighs, and the other on his lap. She felt like a small animal, a piece of meat in this predator’s clutches.
“How long do you plan on keeping me here?”
He leaned back an inch, not enough to give her breathing room, though. “We won’t worry about that right now, because we have other pressing issues that need to be laid out.” He stood and moved over to the door. “The shower is through that door.” He pointed to the bathroom she had already scouted out as such. “There are some clothes on the shelf for you, and when you’re finished meet me out in the living room.” And with that he turned, left the room, and shut the door behind him.
7
Joey grabbed the bottle of bourbon off the counter and poured a shot for himself. He could have laughed at the absurdity of drinking bourbon and having another residence in the town of Bourbon.
It was pretty fucking cliché, but what did he care? He poured himself another shot, and once he finished that off he drank a third.
He had nowhere to be tonight, and every reason in the world to get good and trashed, although he reminded himself he needed to keep a clear head because he still had to ask Marra what she had heard from Mario and that Gondalo fucker. Even now Joey could see the snake tattoo that had been inked on the neck of the fucker he had blasted.
Michael had the same tattoo in the same spot, and it was some kind of gang mark, which led Joey to believe that the Gondalo crew was nothing more than an organized group that had nothing better to do than try to start turf wars.
He took one more shot and pushed the bottle aside. Since the Gondalo crew moved in to the town right next to Bourbon six months back, Joey had let it go. They had kept to themselves, running petty money-making scams that didn’t interfere with anything Joey or the Bacelli crew had working, and didn’t test the boundaries of his power.
But slowly they had started coming into his town, eating at his businesses, and starting to make it known that they were trying to set roots. He had no fucking clue who their Boss thought he was, but Joey had had enough of Carlos’ shit, and a confrontation was coming.
Joey was strong, had power behind him, and a reputation that leveled others. If some lower class gang leader thought he was going to come in and stir shit, he clearly didn’t know anything about Joey or his family.
The shower cutting off had sounded about ten minutes ago, and he knew Marra was probably stalling. She was confused, hurt, and didn’t know what his intentions were. Hell, Joey didn’t know what his fucking intentions were. He wanted her, had for the last year, but then all this shit to get her into his bed and his life had gone down when he had blown the brains of some fucker all over her face.
It didn’t matter if he had done it to save her life. She was innocent, and the life she led was in the farthest spectrum of how he lived his.
The door opening behind him had Joey turning around. She stood there, her dark hair wet and curling around her face, and the white t-shirt and sweatpants he had given her about three sizes too big.
“Sorry about the clothes, but I didn’t expect to have a female guest over.”
She moved closer, glanced around the room, and then stopped a few feet from him. “Nice place,” she said a little timidly. “Why do you have me here again?”
Well, she got right to the point. He grabbed the bottle of liquor and held it up. He didn’t expect her to want some, but he was a gentleman—at times, at least. But she surprised him once again and nodded.
“After the night I’ve had I could probably use the whole bottle.”
He smiled and grabbed a shot glass. After filling it and handing it to her, he watched in amusement as she tossed it back and then promptly gasped out. Joey shouldn’t find anything funny right now, but there was something about Marra that made him feel a little lighter.
“Another.” She handed him the glass. “Please.”
He lifted an eyebrow and smirked, but grabbed the bottle and topped off her glass. She threw that one back with the same disgusted finesse, and then shook her head.
“I think that’s my limit, especially since I’ve already been drinking tonight.”
“Are you hungry?”
She clutched her stomach and shook her head.
He stared at her until she finally looked up at him. “I have you here because I want you here.” He waited for her to respond, but when she didn’t he moved over to the fire he had started, and leaned against the mantle. She didn’t follow him, but it didn’t matter because she’d hear him well enough. “Not only did I save your life, but I took you out of an equation that could very well get you killed again.” He glanced at her over his shoulder.
“What do you mean, took me out of the equation of getting killed again?”
She looked honestly perplexed by it all, and it made Joey realize even further that she was so fucking innocent and blind to everything that he truly did. He turned so he could face her, and gestured for her to have a seat in the chair in front of him. She was slow in moving, probably because she was so unsure of this whole thing, but she did finally have a seat.
“What exactly did you hear before that fucker grabbed you?” he asked with a deadly calm voice. He saw her throat work when she swallowed, watched the droplets of water land on her shirt from the tips of her hair, and noticed the way the white material became transparent.
Joey shifted in his seat, knowing he shouldn’t be feeling any kind of arousal at a time like this, but also knowing that when it came to Marra he tended to go against the grain.
“All I heard, and remember, was the man that was holding the gun said he wasn’t any use to Carlos any longer. The guy called him Mario, and that Carlos would have fun making Mario’s wife his whore.” She exhaled loudly and rubbed her hands down the length of her thighs. “He also said Kelly might have been innocent in ratting his crew out, but he’d dirty Kelly right up.”
Joey let her words play through his mind. It was clear that there was something up with Mario and the fact everyone in Joey’s crew thought Kelly had left him. Obviously that wasn’t the case. Was Carlos using Mario’s wife, Kelly, as leverage to get Mario to do what he wanted? That would make a hell of a lot of sense seeing as Carlos might be trying to get intel on Joey’s operations.
The problem was that Carlos was a dumb motherfucker because if he had been smart, or knew anything about the Bacelli crew, he wouldn’t have tried to get a made man to turn and instead gone after someone low on the totem pole.
“There wasn’t anyone else in that alleyway, or in that area besides the two men that are dead right now, and me.”
Joey pulled his thoughts away from finding Carlos and beating his skull in with a baseball bat. He stared at Marra and shook his head at how naive she was. “Marra, your cluelessness to the situation would be endearing if you weren’t right in the middle of what will be a war.” He was going to find that pathetic excuse for a gang leader, and show him what it meant to get involved with Joey Bacelli. He was going to show him that if he fucked with anyone Joey considered in his protection, his death would be slow and agonizing.