When He Desires: A Dark Mafia Romance (Fallen God Book 1)
When He Desires: Chapter 1

In that book which is my memory,

on the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you, appear the words,

‘Here begins a new life.”

– Dante, La Vita Nuova

Three days after we leave the bodies in New York, Sandro and I cross the border into Missouri.

“You been to the Ozarks before?” the kid asks, his hands relaxed on the wheel and his voice chipper enough to make me think he’s forgotten how we ended up here. “I’ve heard it’s beautiful.”

Outside the car window is a sea of green. July in southern Missouri looks like nature threw up all over the winding roads, the canopy lush and overflowing. Every now and then, the midday sun reflects off a river hidden somewhere in the valleys. When I roll down the window, I can hear it gurgling.

“I’m more of a big-city guy.” I prop my elbow on the window ledge and drag my closed fist over my lips.

Places like this are too quiet. They make my thoughts too loud.

I’ve always been a gangster. My stepdad was a gangster. My mom came from a long line of gangsters. If there’s a gene for crime, there’s no doubt I’ve got it.

Imagine a truck stopped on the side of the road with a flat tire, the driver trying to get enough signal to call Triple-A.

You see a man in need.

I see an opportunity.

I see crates of merchandise inside the aluminum body. I see the empty stretch of road where other drivers know better than to stop after dark. I see the bags under the driver’s eyes and know he won’t put up a fight.

Depending on what’s inside the truck, there’s anywhere from ten to fifty grand to be made in fifteen minutes. All I’ve got to do is load up whatever I can into my own vehicle, destroy the driver’s phone so that he can’t call the cops, and drive the merchandise over to one of our warehouses.

Show me another job where you can make that kind of dough that quickly.

Now imagine you do this for a few years, and you have ten or twenty guys doing it on your behalf and giving you seventy percent of what they get just because you’ve worked your way up the food chain.

It’s beautiful. There’s nothing else like it.

I’ve always loved being a gangster.

But as of three days ago, I can’t be one anymore.

I reach inside my jacket pocket and take out the ID again. Staring at my fake name is a new habit. Reading it over and over. Hoping that it’ll feel real any minute now.

“My name is Rowan Miller,” I say under my breath.

Sandro glances over. “Trying it on?”

“Something like that.” I tilt the plastic card against the light, watching the laser engraving shimmer. If only the ID came with instructions…

Who the fuck is Rowan Miller?

I’ve been Nero for thirty years, but now I’m him.

“It’s better than Sam fucking Wilkins.” Sandro huffs. “Sounds like the name of a kid who got his head shoved in the toilet in grade school. Just my luck.”

I give him a look. If I were him, and I had to pick one thing to complain about, it wouldn’t be my new name. I don’t get him. Rafe told him he had to leave with me, and he just went with it, as if he’s happy to play babysitter.

Guess he didn’t have much to leave behind.

I did.

“We need to iron out our backstories,” I tell him gruffly.

He nods. “Over lunch? I could eat.”

We’re far enough from New York that we can stop for good, but where? Kansas City, Columbia, and Springfield form a triangle, and we’re driving somewhere in the middle of it. I zoom in on my phone’s GPS and a plethora of tiny towns appear as dots on the map.

When I search for “lunch,” the first place that pops up—Frostbite Tavern—is in a nearby town called Darkwater Hollow. In the photos, it looks like the kind of bar-slash-restaurant-slash-coffee shop you replace in places that don’t have enough demand for any of those businesses to exist on their own.

“There’s a spot ten minutes away.” I type the address into the car’s navigation system. “Let’s stop there.”

“Works for me.” Sandro turns up the stereo, and I see a falcon circling the field next to us as it hunts for prey.

For a moment back in New York, I was prey. Gino Ferraro’s prey. Maybe I still am. I’m playing dead, aren’t I? Pretending to be someone I’m not just so the fucking Ferraros don’t come after me.

I clench my jaw. Over the last three days while driving in this car, sleeping in raggedy hotel rooms, and eating shitty gas-station food, I’ve been going through the five stages of grief.

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.

I’m stuck in between the last two.

Yeah, I’ve accepted that I’m a nobody now, but it’s still depressing as fuck. I can never go back home. Sandro’s the only person left in my life who knows who I really am.

My life’s work—my legacy—was destroyed in one day. I spent my life following my don’s orders, and this is where I ended up.

No wonder every time I swallow, there’s a bitter aftertaste.

It’s past noon when we get to Frostbite Tavern—a log cabin with a big front porch, square windows, and a sloping roof. Its name is written in cursive lettering on a hanging sign just above the entrance. The parking lot’s nearly full.

“It’s busy,” Sandro says.

“It’s probably the only place to eat around here.”

Inside, something smells really good. I glance around the bustling dining room, taking in the black-and-white photographs on wood-paneled walls and the bar at the back. The atmosphere is cheerful. Welcoming.

So is the thirty-something-year-old hostess. She gives me a wide smile as she leads us to a table in the corner, her eyes skating down my body with a flicker of interest.

I smile back. At least some things never change.

“Your waitress will be with you in a minute.” Two plastic-covered menus appear on the table in front of us. She taps against them once with red nails and walks away.

Sandro picks up one of the menus and sighs. “You know, it’s not fair.”

“What?”

He tips his head in the direction of the hostess. “That. The way you just exist, and they can’t get enough of it.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say just to annoy him.

“I guess I get it. You look like a super-sized version of one of those Greek statues. What are you, six-four?”

“Six-five.”

He rolls his eyes. “Of course you are. If I ever want to get laid, no fucking way am I bringing you as my wingman.”

I chuckle. “Get laid? Aren’t you too young for that?”

He huffs. “I’m twenty-two. Don’t tell me you were a virgin when you were my age.”

I drag my thumb over my bottom lip. Mary from down the street was the first woman I slept with. I was fifteen and past my growth spurt. She was three years older than me and had tits you could drown in. “Definitely not.”

“There you go.” He glances around, taking stock of the tables around us, and then he leans in, his voice dropping into a low whisper. “So? What are we going to do?”

“We’ve got to replace something to occupy us in retirement.” That last word feels all wrong. Didn’t think I was ever going to retire, let alone do it at thirty.

Sandro gives me an assessing look. “I’ve got to admit, I’m having a hard time seeing you answer to anyone other than Rafe.”

The mention of my old boss’s name ignites a ball of fury in the pit of my stomach. So maybe I’m still in the anger stage.

He wasn’t just a boss. He was a friend. And he told me to play dead and never come back to the city that’s been home my whole life.

I did what he fucking told me to do. I saved his wife.

But Rafe fucked up that night. His mistake kicked off a sequence of events that ended in my ruin. It was an accident, but a part of me resents that I ended up being the only one paying the consequences.

I run my fist over my lips. “You couldn’t fucking pay me enough to work for anyone ever again.” I’m done giving people that much power over me. “We need to start our own business.”

“Yeah, but no funny business, right? We’ve got a second chance here, Ne—“

“Rowan.”

“Fuck, right. Rowan.” Sandro scratches at his brow and sits back in his seat. “It’s going to take me a moment to get used to calling you that.”

A waitress stops by the table and pours coffee into the white mugs in front of us. “Are you ready to order?”

“Sure, doll. I’d like a—“

“I’m not your doll.”

My gaze snaps up.

Our waitress is a tiny blond. Her hair’s pulled back in a ponytail, and she’s got a pair of striking blue eyes that are giving me a hell of a glare. I feel like a belligerent schoolboy being chastised by the sexy teacher for trying to flirt with her. It’s a ridiculous thought because she can’t be much older than Sandro, and she’s definitely younger than me.

But she is sexy. Beautiful, in an unconventional way. It sneaks up on you the longer you look at her. The pursed lips and air of hostility somehow only make her more attractive.

I scan her up and down. This makes her glare at me even harder, but it’s worth it, because beneath that uniform is a body that could cause a traffic accident.

My lips curve into a smile—the one that makes women turn to putty in my hands. “I apologize, miss. Didn’t mean to offend you.”

Her gaze lingers on my lips for a moment, but her expression doesn’t soften. She places—more like slams—the coffee jug on the table, pulls a notepad from her trousers, and fishes out a black pen from behind her ear. “What can I get you?”

“What do you recommend?”

Her eyes jump back to my face. I’m still smiling, and by this point, most women would start smiling back.

But her?

She’s giving me nothing.

Actually, she’s glowering like she still hasn’t forgiven me for calling her doll. You’d think I committed a felony with that word.

“The special today is chicken cacciatore with crispy roast potatoes and asparagus. It’s good.” Her tone is clipped.

“I’ll take it.”

She scribbles my order in the notepad and turns to Sandro. “And you?”

“Same for me.”

“Great.” The waitress snatches the menus off the table and turns to leave.

“Wait.”

She stops. Her shoulders rise and fall on a deep breath. When she turns, her expression is more guarded than a top-security prison. “Yes?”

“You got a newspaper lying around here?”

She brings over a paper someone left behind on one of the nearby tables. “Here you go. Anything else?” Her eyes are the same kind of mesmerizing blue as the lake we drove past on the way here.

“Thank you. That’s all.”

She walks away and disappears around a corner.

Sandro laughs. “You should have seen your face. Now you know how it is for the rest of us mortals.”

It’s my turn to roll my eyes. It’s not like I’ve never encountered a woman who didn’t like me. It just doesn’t happen often. “Whatever.”

I open the paper on the table and turn to the classifieds, looking for a lead. Job openings, used cars for sale, nanny for hire…

“Look.” Sandro reaches over and points at one of the listings. “Handy Heroes. Home renovation business for sale. Think that could work? We know a bit about construction.”

“We know how to shake down concrete companies for a percentage of their contracts. Not sure that’s all that relevant.”

“I helped one of the other drivers back home renovate his apartment last year.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. It was fun. I’d have to learn some stuff, but I think I could manage the projects. And you can handle the sales. You’re good at shit like talking to people.”

He’s not wrong. I read over the listing again. Is this going to be enough to keep me from blowing my brains out from boredom?

Guess there’s only one way to replace out.

“Let’s give them a call.”

Sandro pulls out his cellphone, and by the time the blond returns with our plates, we’ve got a meeting scheduled with the owner.

The chicken cacciatore smells incredible. Sandro’s no better than a starved animal, digging into his meal as soon as it appears in front of him. The blond looks at him for a moment before sliding her gaze to me.

That blue really is magnificent.

I open my mouth to ask her for her name, but she turns on her heel and struts away before I get the words out.

“So if this Handy Heroes thing works out,” Sandro says, his mouth half full, “you want to replace a place to stay somewhere in this town?”

I drag my gaze away from the retreating girl. “Yeah. I think Darkwater Hollow could grow on me.”