Riding Dirty: Luciotti Crime Family (A Bad Boy Mafia Romance) by Kara Hart

“I really shouldn’t be smoking though. Maybe I need a woman in my life to set me straight, huh?” He laughed and tapped the cigarette on his palm.
    “Goodbye,” I said, shutting the door.
    It was weird. I felt excited with only a tinge of nausea. Was I really smiling at all his stupid jokes now? God, I had to be more careful. Still, I couldn't stop staring at him as he walked down the road. Those broad shoulders made my mouth water. Not good!
    Carmelo was in the back kitchen, beating the floor with a broomstick. I wouldn’t call it sweeping. Every two seconds or so he would shout to himself in Italian. When I started counting the drawer, he dropped the broom and walked out to the front. “What did I tell you the other day? Do you ever listen?”
    I was immediately taken back. Carmelo was sort of a strict man, but all in all he had been incredibly nice to me over the months. Now, his tone had changed completely. “Hey, I'm sorry Carl . I had an asthma attack while walking Jen to school. He saved me. What was I supposed to do, tell him to get the hell away?”
    “My name is not Carl, Dahlia. It is Carmelo!” he hissed.
    I was shocked. Something was clearly going on. I found myself apologizing just so he'd leave and go in the kitchen. “Okay. Yeah. You're right. I'm sorry.” But he merely dropped the broom and walked out in a hurry.
    “ What the fuck?” I whispered. I didn't know what exactly the deal was with him, but I vowed to find out. Either he was jealous, which couldn't be the case, or something weird was going on between Carmelo and Lucas. Whatever it was, I needed to find out before I found myself in another dangerous situation with yet another dangerous man.

8
    Lucas
    A fucking kid ? She has a kid? Why didn't she say something? That’s normally something you mention, right?
    As I pointed my classic, black Glock at the door in front of me, I couldn't even think about the man I had to collect from. This low level chump of a drug dealer owed my family twenty grand and I'm wondering why that's reason enough to blow the guy’s brains out. Shit, I mean the guy was so fucking dumb that he fled to Toledo, Ohio.
    So I took the hour or so drive, fed myself at a nice diner with an even nicer waitress Darla, and pulled in right when the coffee hit me. I put on my black leather gloves and stretched them out so they fit perfectly around my wrist and fingers. I laced up my black boots and buttoned my jacket, all the while making sure my sunglasses were on just right . It was the little things like that that made all the difference in the world.
    I took a deep breath, screwed in my silencer, and ran up the steps to the door. That’s when I took position and knocked three times. When the son of a bitch answered the door, he was met face to face with the barrel of my gun. “Don’t move, asshole. And put your hands behind your head. State police,” I said, pushing my way into his house and knocking him against the wall.
    He didn’t even put up a fight. Instead, he actually started crying. I couldn’t believe it myself. “I’m sorry. I really am. Ah, shit! ” He cried.
    I secured his hands with some extra-strong zip ties and threw him against a glass frame that hung on the wall. On the floor, he stopped crying. “Don’t hurt me,” he said. “I admit it. I’m a drug dealer. Arrest me.” These little acts I had to do were starting to get a little boring to me. The guy wasn’t supposed to give up so soon, dammit. I checked him for any weapons, but he was clean down to the very last fiber of his being.
    “Now that you can’t squirm or point a gun at me, I want to ask you a few questions. Now, I need you to listen carefully to me, André, because if you don’t, you’ll regret it more than your mother regrets having you. You understand everything so far?” I asked him for clarity’s sake. Snot dripped from his nose onto the carpet. It was better than having blood everywhere, at least.
    But the prick