If The Seas Catch Fire(36)

Sergei shrugged unapologetically. “How else do you stay sane in a town like this one?”

“Is it even possible to stay sane in this town?”

Sobering a little, Sergei nodded. “Fair point. Makes you wonder why anyone stays here if they have a choice.”

Dom laughed dryly. “No kidding. If I had half a chance…” Well. That wasn’t even worth thinking about. No sense raising his own hopes, even with a fantasy that he knew could never happen. He shook himself and met Sergei’s eyes. “Cape Swan’s a shithole, that’s for sure.”

“Yes, it is.” Sergei’s hand drifted lower. “It does have its perks, though.”

“Does it?”

“Mmhmm.” He trailed a fingertip along Dom’s thigh. “Some of the… locals are friendly.”

Dom sucked in a sharp his as Sergei’s hand neared his dick. They’d just finished f*cking for the second time. No way in hell did he have enough for another go-round.

Right?

Maybe. But not yet. He took Sergei’s hand and brought it up to his lips. As he kissed the backs of Sergei’s long, fine fingers, he looked him in the eye. “You’re going to be the death of me, you know that, right?”

Sergei swallowed. He blinked a couple of times, as if, despite his dark sense of humor, he had no idea what to say to that. “I…”

Dom let go of his hand and put his arm over him, drawing him closer. “The way you f*ck me, you’re definitely going to kill me.” Just before their lips met, he whispered, “But what a way to go.”

Sergei stiffened a little, but he didn’t argue.

And then Dom kissed him, and Sergei slowly relaxed with in his embrace. As the kiss went on, they held each other closer. Tighter.

Sergei’s hips brushed his, and Dom shivered.

Hell. Maybe he had enough left for a third round tonight after all.





Chapter 11


Sergei glanced at his phone as he stepped into his apartment. He still had time before he needed to go meet Dom, and he’d already showered at the club and changed into more comfortable clothes.

He didn’t leave yet, though.

He triple-locked his front door and moved into the bedroom. There, he reached under the bed and up into a hole he’d cut into the box spring. From there, took down a steel box, which he set on the bed. He quickly dialed in the combination. The lock clicked and the lid came open.

From his back pocket, Sergei took out the stack of money he’d made tonight. The club had netted him about a grand. Slow night, but he didn’t care. The money he made there was chump change anyway. On top of that grand, he’d also pocketed twelve large for a job he’d recently done for the Passantinos.

The cash box was getting full. He’d need to make a deposit soon. This money would join the rest in one of several offshore accounts. Once his work was done and the Mafia families were fighting hard enough to tear each other to pieces, he’d flee to his property in Tasmania with the help of a fake passport and the substantial amount of money he’d built up by filling contracts for the very people he intended to destroy.

The stripping gig? He didn’t care about the money. That was entirely a cover. No one in the families wanted anything to do with a gay stripper, and the club was the last place they came looking if they had questions. Only four select individuals knew he was both a stripper and a contract killer. He was known by reputation only—even his four contacts didn’t have his real name, and he made sure no one ever connected his face to his hits—and anyone who wanted to reach him came through one of those four contacts. He was, essentially, hiding in plain site.

After he’d stashed the cash, he locked the box and put it back up under the bed. He reached up into the same compartment where he kept the money, and took out a rolled up paper, which he spread across the bed. On it, he’d painstakingly mapped out the hierarchies of all three crime families. From the bosses on down to the lowliest of soldiers, he had every name and who they answered to.

And it was all in pencil because it changed constantly, in no small part because of strings Sergei had been quietly pulling.

He’d erased Lorenzo Barcia’s name the night he’d tossed the f*cker into the harbor. Tonight, thanks to some info that had trickled his way from one of his contacts, he put a new name in that space—Rico Barcia. The *’s very own brother, and an idiot and a hothead. Not someone who needed to be in a position of power, but there he was.

Rico wouldn’t last long. Sergei wouldn’t even need to do anything to put a target on that f*cker’s head. As a soldier, he was a benign, if annoying presence. As a lieutenant, he could cause some actual headache for the Maisanos and Passantinos. It wouldn’t be long before he was removed from the hierarchy. Sergei probably wouldn’t even be the one to take him out—there were plenty of other hitmen in this town who’d do it for half the price.

And once he was out of the way, his replacement would come from a pool of even less competent hotheads. Which one? Sergei couldn’t say for sure. Didn’t matter. What mattered was that the more effective leadership had been removed, which would steadily weaken the entire power structure. He’d done the same with the other families—setting up the men who needed to be removed, removing them himself if he was assigned the contract, and watching the idiots and *s move up into the newly vacated places.