Smoke (The Carelli Family Saga #1) - Eden Butler Page 0,65
temple, without taking his attention away from Reynolds or Alejandro.
The two men stood near the monitors, their heads together, calculating, planning something I couldn’t hear. Something that made Dimitri’s voice dip low and the muscles around his face tense.
“Remember what I said. It’s about to start.” I looked at him, wanting to tell him to be careful. Wanting him to know I trusted him, but the words wouldn’t come. Dimitri shook his head, seeming to know I’d gone speechless. “First chance you get,” he told me, still watching them, “you leave me behind and get the baby out of here.”
“No. I…I can’t leave you—” I started, jerking back when Dimitri glared at me and his grip tightened around my wrist.
“That’s not a fucking request.” He’d never looked at me like that before.
Cold. Cunning, like he wouldn’t tolerate his demands not being obeyed. Like a boss expecting his orders to be followed.
“You get yourselves out and I will end these two.”
“How the hell are you going to do that with a concussion?” His eyes were wide, and he moved his head like the room was spinning, trying to find a spot on the wall to center him. “You’ll get sick or…”
“Maggie,” he said, grip clamping down on my arm harder. “Fucking promise me.”
Dimitri had the most beautiful eyes. Dark. Hypnotic. They could be terrifying. Scary. He was a dangerous man. My dangerous man and right then, I wanted him to myself. But Mateo whined, pulling away from me, wanting Dimitri, wanting his attention. It was the first time since I’d known him that he refused my boy.
“Say it,” he said, touching my face. “Tell me now.”
Biting the inside of my lip, I nodded, eyes narrowed because I couldn’t look at his face when I spoke. “I promise I’ll leave when I can.”
“Good, bella. That’s good.”
“Stand up,” Reynolds said, moving in front of us with the gun pointed down.
“Be careful,” Alejandro told him, tapping his arm. “Don’t hit my son.” Then, he nodded toward me. “Maggie, move away from him. Come here.”
“I will not.”
Dimitri was calm as he stretched his arm out. The black ink on his skin barely visible as I gripped it, trying to keep Mateo from crying when he wiggled against my chest reaching for Dimitri.
“What do you want with him anyway? I thought you wanted us here. Leave…leave him out of this.”
“Carelli is the reason we’re all here,” Reynolds said, gesturing his gun to get me to move. When I didn’t, Reynolds stepped closer. “I don’t care who gets shot here. It would be…disappointing if I didn’t get the tradeoff…”
“What fucking tradeoff?” Dimitri said, reaching to the side to keep the baby from jumping away from me.
Reynolds smiled, glancing at Alejandro, who didn’t seem able to do anything but keep his head down. “It helps that my friend here is smart.” He moved to my ex’s side, lightly slapping his face. “He’s a genius programmer, but he’s a fucking junky, you know that, don’t you, beautiful?”
Beside me Dimitri stiffened, his shoulders and arms stretching like he was ready to pounce on Reynolds and take his chances with the gun. I couldn’t let that happen. “You’re not telling me something I don’t already know,” I said, squeezing Dimitri’s arm, my fingers against his chest to calm him. “I remember that night in our apartment.”
“I bet you do,” Reynolds said, grabbing Alejandro by the back of the neck. “Took me four hours to get this asshole to calm down. By the end of it, I felt sorry for him and gave him the shit because I’m a nice guy.”
I held back the laugh that bubbled in my throat and Reynolds rubbed the gun against his thigh and continued, like he was telling some stupid frat party story, and not how he’d manipulated my junkie husband. “But, because I was so generous, Alejandro owed me and I fucking love when people owe me. Favors, man. They’re my favorite.”
“And who the hell else owes you?” Dimitri asked, moving to his feet. I stood with him, adjusting Mateo as we moved behind him. “Is it Finney?”
“Finney?” Reynolds laughed, his smile wide and exaggerated. “Shit, man, you gotta think globally.” He touched the barrel of the gun to his temple and rubbed, pretending to scratch the skin there. “You really need to broaden your perspective. I know if I was in a family that had pissed off the fucking Irish mob…well, I think I’d be more observant.”