Endings & Beginnings (New Mafia Trilogy #3) (11 page)

DOMINIC

It might have been a little stalkerish, but I needed
to see Natalie again. Hoping she didn’t have any dinner plans, I wanted to
surprise her with a night out, just the two of us. I pulled up in the circular
drive in front of the hotel and the valet’s eyes lit up when he saw the Mustang.
When I revved the engine a bit, making it growl, I thought the guy was going to
jizz. He eagerly tore off my half of the ticket and handed it to me, without
taking his eyes off of my car. She did look sweet and had been detailed
recently.

I watched as the guy took off, making sure he didn’t
lay on the gas too much. There was a lot of torque under the hood, but I was
used to it. An inexperienced driver could easily lose control. As I was
crossing the lobby, I recognized a man walking towards me. He was coming from
the bay of elevators. Agent Phillips recognized me too and gave me a shit
eating grin. He had an envelope in one hand and straightened his tie with the
other, a knowing look glinting in his eyes. He didn’t say anything or slow
down, but kept walking. I turned and watched him through narrowed eyes as he
left the hotel. What the fuck was he up to? Had Agent Phillips been visiting
Natalie or was it just a coincidence? I needed answers and didn’t want to jump
to conclusions. Natalie wouldn’t turn, would she? I trusted her and she said
she loved me, but then again she had moved on and had a relationship with
fucking Jason; fucking surfer wannabe, pretty boy Jason.

The elevator ride was excruciatingly slow even
though it didn’t stop at any other floors. Finally I was in front of Natalie’s
suite and knocking on the door. A few seconds passed and she didn’t answer so I
knocked again and waited. There was still no answer. Pulling my phone of my
pocket, I called her cell and heard it ringing on the other side of the door.
The call went to voicemail, so I dialed again. In the normal world, my actions
would be perceived as crazy, but not in my world where I was used to murder and
other bad things happening. I pictured Natalie, lying injured and helpless just
out of reach of her phone. Without giving it further thought, I kicked in the
door. The deadbolt snapped and the metal latch that was flipped over, caught
temporarily, but the screws holding it in place were pulled out of the wall as
I shouldered the door open. 

Once inside, I pulled my gun and looked around. The
suite was normal. There weren’t blood stains on the floor or broken furniture;
any signs of a struggle. I moved through the suite slowly, scanning the suite
for any surveillance devices and only when the water shut off did I realize it
had been running. Natalie stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, a
cloud of steam billowing out behind her. She saw me and screamed and jumped
backwards, hitting the wall and bouncing off of it.

   “Jesus Christ, Dom! You scared the shit out of
me!” Natalie clutched the towel in a tight fist. Her hair was wrapped up turban
style and that towel was tilting sideways. “How the hell did you get in here?”
She peered past my shoulder and her eyebrows rose as she took in the splintered
door frame and door hanging crooked on its hinges.

   “I was worried. You didn’t answer and I called
your phone. I saw that Fed in the lobby. You know the one who had been dogging
you?”

Natalie nodded and relaxed her shoulders, but still
held the towel tight around her body. It took all of my willpower not to rip it
off. “Agent Phillips,” she said with a sigh. “Yeah, he was here plying the same
tactics as usual. The asshole was sitting on the loveseat when I returned from
a run. Then you break in here…” she let out a nervous laugh.

            “Hold on,” I said, continuing my scan of
her suite for any surveillance devices. I didn’t notice anything unusual, but
stepped close to her and spoke in a low voice just in case.

   “Are you telling me the truth about the Feds?” I
wanted to trust her and hated asking, but it needed to be done. Agent Phillips
acted a little too cocky for my liking.

This question surprised her and she widened her
eyes, but none of the usual guilty signs appeared; she didn’t fidget, lick her
lips or break eye contact. “Yes that’s the truth. That fucker made himself at
home here while I was gone. I can’t believe he can get away with that.” She
shivered and hugged her towel tighter.

   “What did he want?”

   “He showed me pictures from the reception.” She
explained the images she saw and how Agent Phillips gave a brief background on
each one.

   “Sounds like he was fishing.”

   “Yeah, he doesn’t have anything concrete. I found
that out in Los, I mean that he was lost and looking for me to fill in his
blanks. That is never going to happen.”

She corrected herself quickly, but not before I
caught that she was going to say something else and it had to do with Los
Angeles. While I believed her about the run in with Agent Phillips, I knew
there was more going on. I didn’t push it because I did trust her. She was one
of the few people in my world who I could trust.

Her brows furrowed together, causing a crease to
form in between. She chewed on her bottom lip as she surveyed the damage again.
“Overreact much?”

   “Yeah, sorry about the extreme measures, but I
was worried about you.”

   “They’re going to charge me…well, they’ll charge
Grant’s credit card. That’s going to cost a small fortune to fix and I can’t
afford that!”

   “Hey, don’t worry. I broke the door so I’ll take
care of it.” I gently traced my thumb over the crease, trying to smooth it. She
leaned into my touch and I wound up cradling her face, heat radiated off of her
cheeks which were still flushed from the hot shower. She inched closer until
her body was brushing against mine and I was unable to resist pulling her into
a kiss. Her lips parted under the gentle pressure and I dipped my tongue in,
tasting mint toothpaste.

My hands left her cheeks, skimming down to her shoulders
enjoying the softness of her skin as they traveled around to her back and I
pulled her close. Natalie’s arm that was crossed in front of her chest, holding
the towel together, prevented me from getting any closer. Her bed was a few
feet away and it would have been so easy to just take her. We both wanted each
other - that had never been a problem. We always had physical attraction and
couldn’t keep our hands off of each other from the very first night we met at
Crimson. We had a strong emotional connection too, one I’d never experienced
with another woman before, but that connection, while not severed, had suffered
some damage while she was off in California dating another man. As much as I
wanted to move over to the bed, I ended the kiss and put some space between us.
I wasn’t going to make love to Natalie until we were both all in, physically
and emotionally.

Her cheeks were more flushed than ever and she
looked up at me through her eyelashes while biting her lower lip. That fucking
vulnerable sexy look was wreaking havoc with my decision to stop.

   “Let’s slow things down, okay?” I asked, exhaling
sharply and taking a step backwards so I was just outside the entrance to her
room. “Before I barged in like a caveman, I was planning on asking you out for
dinner, but we can’t leave your door unsecure like that. How quickly can you
pack?”

   “Pack? Where am I going?”

   “Well, you can’t stay here. I can get you set up
in another suite or you can stay with me.” She gave me a look. “In the guest
room,” I quickly amended.

   “I’ll think about it while I get dressed.” She
shut the door and I sat down at the desk near the living room. Picking up the
phone, I dialed guest services, making the decision for her.

Close to twenty minutes later, Natalie emerged from
the bedroom wearing jean shorts that showed off her long legs and a purple
V-neck t-shirt. Her hair was combed out straight and still wet, leaving dark
marks on her shirt. She towed one suitcase behind her and carried a smaller
one. I was talking with the hotel manager on duty and a maintenance guy. They
were assessing the damage to the door and estimating what the replacement cost
would be. Natalie grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen before joining me.

   “So what’s the damage?” she asked, the bottle cap
made a snapping noise when she twisted it off of the bottle.

   “Don’t know yet, but they’re going to move you to
another suite just a few doors down.”

   “Oh,” she said with a frown. “I thought I’d stay
with you and save Grant some money.”

   “No it works better this way.” The manager
approached me then and I turned to talk to her. She turned her tablet so I
could see the screen and reviewed the itemized invoice that covered replacement
and labor charges. The electronic key pad entry was the most expensive item. In
total, I was responsible for $1,835.00. I pulled out my wallet and counted out
nineteen one hundred bills. “Keep the change, for the hassle.” Suzy, the
manager, looked surprised before she smiled at me, tucking the money into her
pants’ pocket. She took my accountant’s email address to send a copy of the
paid invoice. When she was done, Suzy handed me two key cards for Natalie’s new
suite.

   “Take it easy on the door this time,” she teased
and shook my hand. Seconds later Suzy left, taking the maintenance man with
her. 

I crossed the living room to Natalie’s luggage,
which was propped against the back of the loveseat. “Is this all you have?” I
asked.

   “Yeah, well except for the water and some fruit
in the fridge.” She grabbed a plastic bag and opened the refrigerator, dumping
the contents into the bag. “Problem solved,” she said, using her hip to shut
the door.

We walked down the hall together to her new suite. I
forgot I had the keys and set her suitcases down to grab the cards out of my
pocket. Handing them over to Natalie, she opened the door and we entered a
suite identical to her old one.

Natalie stocked the refrigerator while I put her
bags in the larger of the two bedrooms.

   “Dom, you could have downgraded to a smaller
room. It’s just me. I don’t need all of this space.”

   “No downgrading for you, babe.” I winked at her.
“You hungry?”

   “Starving! That run burned right through brunch.”

   “Cool, come on,” I held my hand out to her and
she accepted, lacing her fingers through mine. It felt so natural.

   “Where are we going?”

   “It’s a surprise.”

We walked out into the warm night. Traffic zoomed by
in a cloud of hot exhaust as we strolled down the sidewalk towards a stretch of
illuminated storefronts. We bypassed all of the restaurants, the air an
aromatic blend of spices, grilled meat and fried dough. Natalie laughed when I
held the door open at our destination: Wawa. I knew Natalie loved her hoagies
and she mentioned more than once that California was sorely lacking this
convenience store. We placed our order on the touchscreen monitor and while our
hoagies were being made, wandered around gathering other items. By the time
were checked out at the register, we had a six-pack of Diet Coke, a giant bag
of Herr’s potato chips, two soft pretzels (for Natalie’s breakfast) and a bag
of M&Ms.

It was a quick walk back to the hotel where we
spread our feast out on the coffee table in the living room area. We found the
remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre on TV, which was a horror movie we both
hadn’t seen yet. After we ate, Natalie curled up next to me on the loveseat and
when the movie was over, I looked down to see she had fallen asleep with her
head on my chest.

Managing to extricate myself from beneath her
without waking her, I scooped Natalie up into my arms and carried her into the
bedroom. As I laid her down on the bed, her eyes fluttered open and she gave me
a sleepy smile. “Thanks for tonight, baby. I love you,” she murmured before
rolling over and falling back asleep.

I paused at her words and whispered that I loved her
too as I tucked a blanket around her shoulders. Our emotional connection was
still there and growing stronger the more time we spent together, but Natalie
was flying back to L.A. in four days and I was afraid it wasn’t going to be
enough. We needed more time.

Before leaving, I cleaned up our mess from dinner
and made sure her soft pretzels were wrapped up tight so they wouldn’t get
stale. As I was getting ready to leave, my cell phone vibrated. I pulled it out
of my pocket and saw that it was Dante calling so I answered.

   “Hey cuz, what’s going on?” I said, stepping out
into the hallway and closing the door to Natalie’s suite behind me. I double
checked to make sure it was secure before continuing towards the elevators.

   “Meeting is on as planned.” The time and place
had been arranged earlier and Dante knew better than to relay that information
over the phone. Even though we used disposable or “burner” phones, our calls
could still be monitored since they were transmitted across network lines.
While Dante’s brother applied some techie tricks, we still had to be careful.

   “Is everyone going to be there?” I left Dante in
charge of coordinating this meeting that Ji, Chan and Demetrius and I discussed
at the wedding. Egan was the one who I suspected would be difficult and try to
change the meeting to somewhere in his neighborhood.