Page 122 of More Tricks

Dax shifted so now her arms were folded over my chest, and she could rest her head on them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The government won’t let you marry them all,” I reminded her.

“Well, duh,” she said with a snort. “There are other things you can do that mean the same thing.”

“True, but you, missy, aren’t going to do the white dress, walk down the aisle, toss the bouquet type thing,” I teased, booping her nose. “You said yes to being our wife in name and commitment, but there won’t be paperwork stating that fact in a legal government database.”

“Does that really matter?” she countered. “If you are my husbands, and I’m your wife, we combine all our resources, have legal documents giving power in each other’s lives, then what does it matter there isn’t paperwork that specifically states I married you all?”

“So you’re keeping your last name?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Yeah, if it means that much to you all, then take my last name. It’s way easier to just do things that way than to argue whose last time I would take.”

Cognac stirred next to Dax, popping his head up, bleary eyes trying to focus on our woman. “Fuck, I didn’t think about the last name thing.” He cocked his head, then grinned. “Juan Blackmore would sound pretty cool if you ask me. I dig it.”

Dax shifted to give him a quick deep kiss. “You would.” She giggled. “You think the others will put up a fuss?”

“Most of us, besides the brothers, don’t have family that’s living or we give a shit about,” Cognac pointed out. “It might take those two a bit to wrap their heads around the idea, but I don’t see them saying a hard no. Eagle might have more of an issue with the fact you don’t want a wedding.”

“What are you talking about? We had one last night,” Dax announced. “To me, that was perfect. Get a ring, get the guys, get fucked. What more could a woman ask for?”

This logic had me snorting as I tried to hold back my laughter. If that wasn’t the most Dax thing I’d ever heard out of her mouth, I don't know what it would be. “Oh fuck, I love you,” I murmured before kissing her cheek, then slapping her ass. “Come on, let's get up and get shit done. I have no doubt everyone else in this whole compound is hung over as fuck from last night. Good thing it’s Sunday, so no one has to go to work.”

The other two groaned and threw pillows at me as I crawled out of bed to the stairs. When I turned around, I noticed that Cognac got distracted and was sucking on one of Dax’s nipples as his hand drifted between her legs. When the hiss burst out of her mouth, it had us both snapping to attention.

“Okay, so I might be a bit sore,” she admitted. “That was a lot last night.”

Cognac kissed up her neck, then caught her lips, making her moan before pulling back. “Then we will just have to give your kitty a rest for today. She worked very hard last night taking all those cocks one after the other,” he said in an incredibly serious tone. I had to leave before I made an idiot of myself.

Fuck, this family I found myself in was weird as shit, but I was glad to have stumbled into it.

Chapter sixteen

Dax

Three days after the envelope was dropped off on our doorstep, I was on a plane flying out to Massachusetts. Wes had buried himself in his office and dug up every scrap of information on Tommaso that he could. It seemed he took after his adopted father’s footsteps and became a lawyer who worked heavily for the Italian mafia. Not that he advertised that publicly on a business card, but if you knew what to look for, it was clear.

Wes found he’d been looking for information on his birth parents at one point back in his high school years. Nothing was found, but it gave Wes the idea he needed to set up a meeting with the man so we could explain ourselves.

We had five days to get this man on board or finalize the plan B we’d been working on initially. I looked over the information we had on him and all the indications he was someone I wanted to work with.

On the outside, he might look like a lackey to the Italians, but I paid close attention to what deals and situations they put him in charge of. He did both criminal cases as well as business ones, depending on how big of a deal it was. Tommaso was a shark who found his opponents’ weakness and went for it, but there were some situations he could have taken advantage of that he didn’t. When it came to wife and kids, he left them the hell alone. The thing about family was everyone has someone who can be used as leverage.

The other thing I noticed was he was the first choice if there was a case that wasn’t an easy one to win. A money house had been raided, and they got a few of their higher-up on the food chain people, but he managed to get them out, no time served on technicalities. No matter how hard Wes searched, he couldn’t find bribe money being exchanged either. This guy was criminal-minded to the core but had rules he played by as well. Just how I liked to run my operation. Follow the law when you could, then when you had to break it—be smart.

“Do you think he’ll kick us out once he realizes we aren’t really there to talk about his family?” Cognac asked from the seat next to mine.

Somehow, Cam managed to talk the FBI into letting us use their jet to fly privately for the weekend. He’d explained to them that we needed to keep my arrival and the conversations we were having on the down low. Since this plane was owned and run by the FBI, no one would ever think it had anything to do with me. While the jet was nice, it certainly wasn’t overly luxurious. More practical to get work done as you traveled.

Turning away from the view of the early morning sky, I mulled over Cognac’s question. “That depends on how we lay it out for him. My hope is he won’t be the only one in that meeting. If he has his father or anyone else tied to the Italian mafia, then Tommaso might be overruled if he tried to give us the boot.”

Cognac rubbed his chin before turning to Wes. “Remind me again who his mom was?”

“She was the daughter to the consigliere to one of the previous mob bosses whose since passed away. The family was still held in high regard, which is why there was so much backlash when she was found dead in their summer home in upstate New York. The baby had gone missing, but Diego wasn’t focused on finding him with how ‘grief stricken’ he was,” Wes answered, adding finger quotes to show how little he believed that bullshit.

“Do we know how he got in touch with Marco?” Sprocket asked. “Even with all the information we have from the FBI, he’s a fucking ghost. No one seems to know where it is he hides out, always moving from place to place.”

I glanced down at the picture of Diego and his first family. The happiness in this photo was legit, but how could he turn his back on his son? Was he really that affected by her death? They’d only been married two years… unless they knew each other from before.