Ramsey Security (Ramsey Security #1-3)(153)

“You mean too much to me, and I’m feeling insecure. Think of this as a test. If you fail it, I’ll run away screaming like a dumbass. Did I make it clear enough?”

“You sure are sexy when you scream.”

“Is that your answer?”

Dino studies me, and I feel on display. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but he finally smiles.

“No, but you gotta give me some emotional shit later tonight to make us even. We have a deal, Miss Apples?”

“Deal,” I say, still tugging at his shirt. “This is your fault for making me fall for you.”

“Yeah, I didn’t plan that out well enough.”

“Tell me why you quit,” I whisper, resting my head against his chest.

Music blasts from overhead speakers around the packed parking lot. All of the noise disappears except for his heartbeat and voice.

“I was a big f*cking deal back in Jersey. You know how that works with these organizations. Everyone knows who you are and gets out of the way. You get free shit from people. Women throw themselves at you. Even if you want to f*ck the wife of a normal schmo, he lets you. Fear was our currency more than cash. That’s the life I knew since I was eighteen. If I wanted something, I got it.”

The sound of departing Harleys forces us to turn to watch the men roar from the parking lot. Once they disappear around a corner, I look back at Dino.

“My father was hit by a car over a year ago. I loved my dad. When he died, I demanded revenge. That’s what we do. Someone f*cks with us, and we f*ck with them twice as hard. My father was killed by a hit and run driver, and I planned to kill the *. Not quickly either. Those next few weeks after the funeral, I thought of a lot of ways to torture the * to death. I finally decided I would break every bone in his body and then bury him alive. I wanted the f*cker to know every bit of pain.”

Wrapping him tighter in my arms, I ask, “Did your dad suffer?”

“No. He was walking across the street after work. When the car hit him, Dad bounced off the hood and hit his head on the curb. Probably died instantly, but that didn’t matter. He was my father, and I’m a made man. I don’t f*cking let that shit slide.”

I kiss him gently. His dark gaze is angry, yet I know he’s still hurting about his dad. Everything he’s ever told me about his family screams tight-knit parents who frigging adored their kids.

“I found the guy after a few months of tracking leads. I picked a night to break into his house. I was going to f*ck him up, you know?”

“Did you f*ck him up?”

“He was an old guy,” Dino says in a rough voice. “Like my dad. When I broke in, the guy was sleeping. I stood in his living room where every wall was covered with pictures of him with his family. I saw pictures of him at his wife’s grave. I saw his grandkids holding balloons at a party. I saw them all together at Thanksgiving and Christmas. The guy’s entire f*cking life was on the walls in those pictures. I looked at them, and I saw the guy as a real person, and I still wanted to torture and kill him.”

“Did you kill him?” I push when he doesn’t continue.

“I was gonna. I walked into his bedroom where he slept, and I had it all planned out. Then I saw him and…” Dino studies my face. “Don’t laugh.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“I might if I was someone else listening.”

“Well, I’m not someone else. I’m Minka Mauve Appleby.”

“Mauve?”

“Don’t try to distract me.”

Dino smiles slightly, but he’s tense. “Well, Mauve, I see that old man curled up alone in that big bed, and I freeze up. He looks like my dad. I can imagine my father driving too fast one night and not seeing someone until it was too late. I think my dad would have stopped, but this old man probably panicked. Maybe he thought he hit one of the made men from around the area. I didn’t know why he kept going, but he was just an old man living alone.”

Dino caresses my hair. “This feeling came over me that night. Guilt or shame, I guess. It was a cold, ugly feeling that I couldn’t shake even after I left his house. I ended up calling in an anonymous tip to the cops. They arrested the old man. He claimed he thought he hit a dog. I don’t know if that’s true. It doesn’t matter. They gave him a deal, so he did community service and lost his license. They also made him write a letter of apology to my mother. I guess for an old man in his circumstances, that’s what he deserved. Ever after all of that, I still had that ugly feeling inside me.”

“You showed mercy. That’s not so weird really, Dino. You were a hitman, not a serial killer. Bad guys paid you to kill other bad guys.”

“I know, but I was gonna kill that old man,” he says, staring into my eyes. “I saw him smiling with his grandkids, and I knew he was old as shit, and I still planned to kill him. I felt I deserved to kill him. Most of the men I knew would have killed him and never gave it a second thought. I figured I was that kind of man too. Knowing I wasn’t f*cked me up, and I lost my stomach for the job.”

“So, you just left?”

“I told my boss I was retiring. He wasn’t happy, so I told him that if something happened to me or my mom that I had a bunch of info he wouldn’t want getting out. Where the bodies were buried and the money was hidden. The names of the cops and law-types they had on the payroll. I told him I wasn’t a rat, and the info wouldn’t go to the cops. All that evidence would be handed over to his enemies. See what they’d do with it. He still wasn’t happy, but what can he do? He wasn’t going to call my bluff. Not after Frankie f*cked over another family. I guess he figured our family was full of bad seeds.”