Big Daddy Wants Me

BOOK THREE: HIS FORBIDDEN SIN.

Fred had one mission.

Kill Dolores Romano.

It was meant to be a very simple job for him, really. But somehow, Dolores has worn his heart with her ambient eyes, quiet charm, and banging body. So, instead of killing her as he's been contracted to do, he hides her.

But the longer he keeps her with him, the harder it is for him to keep his hands to himself. He's the furthest thing from a Prince Charming, yes, but Dolores is an angel. Undefiled. Innocent.

He wants her, but will she accept him for who he really is? A devil sent to put an end to her life?

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1 - Fred.

Politics is a dirty business. What you see on the news isn’t even the half of it. The reality is more akin to what you see in the movies.

Bribery, extortion, blackmail, corruption. I’ve seen it all. Hell, I’ve done it all. Even murder.

I’m a fixer. A bag man. I handle things that can’t be done legitimately. I keep them quiet, off the books, in the shadows. That’s where I live.

Most people think that elections are fair, politicians are mostly good people just trying to do their best for the country and pass laws they believe in. But when you’ve seen things from the inside like I have, you can never go back.

I grew up an orphan. I bounced from foster home to foster home, mostly in the care of people who didn’t gave a damn about me. When I finally landed somewhere I wanted to stay, the government decided my new parents were “unfit,” and I was taken from them.

I quit school and ended up on the streets. They toughened me up. Turned me from a wet, pathetic ball of cookie dough into a pillar of cold steel. I got a job at a bouncer at a bar called The Old Mare, frequented by those rich, establishment pricks some people call “the elite.” It was there I met George Carr.

George Carr is the latest generation of an old New York political family that goes way back. He’s as rotten as they come. His father, Bertie Carr, used his political influence as governor to make their family rich, and now his son has plans to do the same.

I work for him.

And why not? The filthy behind the scenes is going to go on anyway. I’ve got a set of skills they need, and they pay well.

This is the big year. Carr is running for governor against Frank Romano, an independent with enormous grass roots support. And for the first time since I’ve known him, he actually seems worried that he might lose.

“We have to send him a message, Fred,” he told me one night in his study over a whiskey. “Let him know he needs to back off.”

I watched and waited. He’s never needed or asked for my advice.

“The girl,” he said, smiling as it came to him.

“What about her?” I asked. I was hoping he wouldn’t say what I thought he was going to say. He didn’t. He just nodded and said, “You understand.”

And I did.

George Carr was asking me to take out Frank Romano’s daughter.

I nodded and excused myself, went back to my apartment and got my things together, telling myself that this was just another job and I would do it like every other job I’d done in the past.

It’s politics, right? There’s no way Frank’s as clean as he makes himself out to be, which means there’s no way his family is either. He says he’s grass-roots, but he’s probably got corporations backing him, or maybe even a foreign government. China or Russia most likely.

His wife’s probably laundering his money and his daughter must be schmoozing with the crooks and the criminals to help him get more powerful. And if they’re going to get in the game, they’ll pay just like him.

All’s fair in love and war – and politics.

It’s best to do your homework before a job like this. You don’t just go running in there blindly, waving a gun like some maniac out of a Bruce Willis movie. You watch from a distance, learn schedules, habits, relationships. And as I drove towards the Romano’s house, I told myself again and again that this was just another job, and I would do what had to be done.

And I was convinced of that…

…until I saw her.

Bathed in the golden glow of a reading lamp, she was sitting by the window with a book in her lap. Grimms’ Fairy Tales. It was an old, worn-out copy like something you’d buy second-hand – not a freshly delivered hardcover ordered online.

She looked…entranced, like the book was taking her to another world, and for just a second, I wondered if that was where this girl really wanted to be.

“Christ,” I muttered to myself as I sat there watching her. I’ll never forget it; she was wearing a pair of light-blue shorts that came up all the way to the cleft or her ass, and a thin white T-shirt that hid nothing.

And no bra.

She had no makeup on either, which got my d**k’s attention. I hate high-maintenance girls who have to constantly look like they’re ready to go out to the club even when it’s past dinner time and they’re going to be home for the rest of the night.

Dolores…

Eighteen years old and an absolute angel. For the briefest of moments, I allowed myself to wonder what my life would be like with her.

What it would be like to kiss her, hold her, claim her as mine, make a wife out of her and put a ring on her finger? She would give me babies and I would give her protection. Security. We’d leave this filthy life of politics, an 18-year-old angel and a 35-year-old bad man…

No.

It would never work. The real mystery was how a jaded crook of a man like myself could even think of such a thing.

I shook the notion from my mind and came back night after night to observe, make mental notes, and prepare myself for the job ahead.

You can do this, I told myself over and over as I watched her sitting in her chair, reading her fairy tales, her bright eyes sparkling from the light of the lamp.

And now, tonight is the night.

Slowly, I twist the silencer onto my pistol as I peer out at her from the shadows. She’s more than halfway through her book now. I wonder what story she’s reading. Hansel and Gretel maybe?

I don’t even know why I care. I’ve never read a fairy tale, and no one’s ever read one to me. Life is no fairy tale; it’s more like a horror movie written and directed by a sadist.

It’s time.

I’ve rehearsed this a thousand times in my mind. I stay low as I advance on the house – maintaining cover behind the long shrub that leads to the back door which I know the maids leave unlocked between 9:30 and 11:15 PM. Marla, the cook, comes out right on time for her cigarette break, and as she raises her cupped hands to her mouth, I slip through the door without making a sound.

Then it’s up the stairs, down the hall, two rights and I’m at the door to the study. I hear voices from the living room – George Carr and the two city officials he’s meeting with tonight. Gently, I switch the safety off on my gun and enter the room.

There she is…Dolores…

I’m a stoic man. Cold as ice with a heart rate that never rises above 60. But when I smell her…it’s like a kick to the chest and I almost lose my balance.

Perfume, shampoo, conditioner. I don’t give a f**k what it is; it smells like heaven and she looks like an angel. So pure. So sweet – a vision of a life I was robbed of. And when she looks up at me and our eyes meet, for the first time since I began this terrible job, I feel off balance.

“Oh, hello.” She smiles, unaware of the instrument of death in my right hand. “And who are you?”

Her voice…like music. Magic. Sweeter than I could ever have imagined.

Her body is a spectacle of young, vibrant sexuality that has my blood boiling.

She thinks I’m one of her father’s men. And why wouldn’t she? No one but me could have gotten in here undetected.

It takes me a second to find my voice.

“My name is Fred,” I tell her. “And I’ve been sent here to kill you.”