Man of the House: A Dark Bad Boy Romance(57)

“Don’t thank me. This is easy for me. You’re the one running away.”

I nodded. She was right.

Running was going to be the hardest thing I’d ever done.

Especially running from one dangerous situation directly into another one.

I barely knew Vincent Mori. I knew he was young, handsome, and deadly. I knew he had a bad reputation with the Russians and just about everyone wanted him dead. Our two groups were constantly on the edge of war, constantly threatening violence. And I was terrified that they would turn me away.

But Alex was Vince’s son. He couldn’t just abandon his child. I didn’t care what he thought about me, what he felt about me, as long as Alex was safe.

“Let’s do this,” I said to Soph, terrified.

I would do anything for my son, including betraying everything I knew.





2





Vince





I rolled out of bed, a hangover buzzing in my skull.

I grunted as I got up and walked into the bathroom of my little South Side apartment. I turned on the faucet and brushed my teeth, looking into the mirror.

I looked like shit. I hadn’t been sleeping much because of the big deal happening with the Chinese, which meant a lot of f*cking stress and headaches.

“Vincent?” came the girl’s voice from the other room.

I grinned at myself. I didn’t look so bad that I couldn’t pick up some random ass from the club, fortunately.

“Yeah, babe?” I asked, looking into the bedroom.

Her hair was disheveled as she sat up and looked at me, pouting. “Why are you getting dressed? You promised me breakfast.”

I laughed. “Did I?”

“Yeah. And you promised me some more fun.”

She gave me these obvious f*ck-me eyes, and I just grinned at her.

“Another time, babe,” I said.

“Vince! You promised.”

“I have to get to the office.” I checked the clock and sighed. It was a little bit past eight in the morning.

“I thought you were a gangster?” she asked. “You don’t have an office.”

I walked over to her, and she crawled toward me on her hands and knees. She was wearing only a thin T-shirt that barely covered her full tits, her blond hair falling down around her.

“Guess you don’t know much about the f*cking mob,” I said.

She looked up at me, smiling. She reached out and began to stoke my cock.

“Wanna teach me?” she asked.

I leaned down and put my lips against her ear. “No. Now get the f*ck out.”

I straightened up as she tried to slap me. Her hand whiffed in front of my face and I laughed again.

“Fucking *,” she said.

“Seriously. I’m going to take a shower. If you’re still here, I will throw your ass out on the street myself.”

I turned and walked back into the bathroom, shutting the door.

“Asshole!” I heard her scream, and I heard something thump against the door.

I started the shower. “That better not have been something I cared about,” I muttered.

Just another typical f*cking morning in my life. The girl would be gone soon enough, and I’d be off to the compound to start my day.

The bitch really had no clue who she was f*cking with. I climbed into the shower, grinning to myself. Life wasn’t so f*cking bad when you were a made man and a crew captain.

Not so f*cking bad.



The compound was a sprawling mansion sitting on about fifteen acres of prime Chicago suburbs. It was the Barone crime family’s main hangout and the place where I had lived for most of my life.

These days I had my own apartment in the city. I found it more convenient to stay there when I was bringing women home from whatever club I had gone to with my crew that night, though I still spent a lot of time at the compound.

The Barone crime family was the largest mob in the city, just ahead of the Russians. The compound was the heart and soul of the mob, the place where we did our dealing, where we trained our people, counted our money, f*cked and fought and lived. It was like a home to me, and the mob was my f*cking family.

And I was one of the youngest captains in mob history. After my old boss, Lucas Barone, son of the head of the family, Arturo Barone, promoted me to mob captain, I quickly began to gather power and influence around me.

Lucas had taught me well, and I was using those skills to strengthen myself within the family. Arturo was barely holding on to his power, and Lucas was too busy getting his wife f*cking pregnant all the time.

As I drove up the long driveway heading toward the main house, I shook my head, annoyed with Lucas. Ever since he’s gotten married to that girl Natalie, he’d been too busy pumping out babies and spending time with his family to really get deep into the politics of the mob. Sure, he was still running his crew and was still one of the best captains. He was definitely first in line to succeed his father. But he was no longer actively trying to overthrow Arturo and take control of the family.

Not like I was trying to do that, either. I liked where I was for the moment. But Lucas used to be a f*cking gangster.

Since he had softened, I had gotten much, much harder.

That was our way in the mob. When someone made a little room, you took as much as you could. Since Lucas had given me my own crew and some power, I’d been slowly muscling into territory near my own, taking it street-by-street, amassing wealth and power and reputation.