The Boss's Heir

Chapter 7

Marco didn't know where the fire was or why he'd been roused from his sleep with Cay but obviously someone got their signals crossed, saying there was an emergency at the office.

Sighing frustratedly, he asked Dre to take him back home. His bed, with Cay, is where he wanted to be. He needed her to know how much he wanted her and on a permanent basis. She wasn't a one-night stand or a fling. Cay was the kind of girl that you did forever with and that's what he saw with her.

But confusion reigned in place of his usual panty-dropping smile when he reached his bedroom to find no sign of Cay. Anywhere. She was just gone. He immediately shouted out for Stefano.

"What's up, boss?" The man should get an academy award for his performance. "What happened to Ms. Cay?" Marco asked. The man shrugged his shoulders and said "I don't know sir. She just asked to be taken home, something about making a mistake, that you were out of her league. She seemed upset. I arranged a car for her."

Marco was extremely hurt and pissed because he thought they had gotten all of that out of the way last night and he just couldn't believe that Cay was that girl, only she didn't ask anything of him, she gave him something though and that's why none of this makes any sense.

He huffed his way to his sister's room, to see if she had any insight on the matter and after waking her up and talking at length with her, they both thought it sounded weird.

"Give it a couple of days" Jules suggested. Marco nodded but now, after putting himself out there emotionally, he wasn't sure about anything anymore.

Two weeks later

Marco had been sent immediately out to France, Spain and Italy. He was thoroughly immersed in his work and had pushed Cayanne Daniels from his thoughts. But who was he really kidding? He couldn't not think about her.

The only person he kept in touch with was his Nono and of course Jules. He would never admit to anyone that for the first time in his life, he'd had his heart broken and he felt like something died inside of him and he just didn't give a f*ck any longer. No more giving his heart away.

He stayed very busy with the family business. He was opening a club in Spain, a winery in the south of France and a restaurant in Rome. These were going to be huge cash cows and having legit businesses, going through the proper channels made it easy to launder his money from those enterprises that weren't so legit.

On one of his Skype meetings with Jules, he kind of asked if she had seen or heard from Cay. "She sent a bunch of texts, which I didn't read and she's called about a million times. I'm pissed at her Marco" she huffed.

Marco sighed. "Don't be mad at her Jules. I pushed too quickly and I scared her off. I know how you guys feel about each other, so please don't shut her out. I don't want you to lose your friend."

He didn't believe one word he was saying, but he was jaded and his sister wasn't and he wanted to keep her that way as long as possible.

He said his goodbyes, shut off his laptop and went to take a shower. He had a function tonight opening his winery in France. He dreaded these black tie affairs but he promised Nono he would go and he had to take a date.

He contacted an acquaintance, Cherie' Mouton, a very successful model from that country and his FWB (friend with benefits) when he was in town but he had no intentions of asking her back to his suite and he would make that clear right away.

Time flew by for Marco and soon Cay became a distant memory for him. They'd shared something one night and that's all it was and the more he tried to convince himself, the harder it became.

Andre had enough of his PMSing and told him to either call her or forget about her and both options were not feasible at the moment, maybe not ever, so he did his best to return to the old Marco and take care of business and kick ass when needed.

The winery was doing quite well as was the restaurant, but the club however was a different story. When his legal team had studied the demographics, P & L, etc, everything showed that this should be making money hand-over-fist, but it wasn't. It was showing a loss.

Time to pay his manager a visit and demand to see the books. He was coming armed with his accountant, who was also his Consigliere, Carmine Russo. The man had degrees out his ass and two in accounting, plus Marco trusted him.

Rodrigo Saldavar was his manager at Club Dulce and to say the man was surprised when Marco walked in, would have been an understatement. You could see the sweat forming on his brow and upper lip already.

That was a sign of guilt. Nono had always said you might be nervous but sweating like that was a sure sign of someone hiding something from you.

"M-Mr. DeL-Luca, what a pleasant surprise" the stupid man lied.  Marco just stared at him, coldly and with purpose. "Yeah, tell me that when we are done looking at the books, Saldavar."

He didn't miss the man swallowing hard at his words.  "I want to know, with as busy as this club has been, why my profits are so low.  That means one of two things...my manager is an idiot and can't run the club properly or he's a thief.  One will simply get you fired and the other one will get you killed."  Marco nodded to Carmine to get started.

Andre found, when questioning the office staff, that Saldavar had been acting strangely and his assistant had emailed herself documents proving he'd been pilfering the club's money.

When Marco asked the woman why she hadn't come forward, her simple answer was, she was a single mom who'd been threatened so instead she emailed herself everything that looked hinky and put it on a flash drive.

Marco thanked the woman and then asked what her background was.  Master's in Business Management.  "Congratulations, Glamaris.  You've been promoted."

Now, to deal with the trash.  Plastic sheeting was the tell-tell sign something messy and ugly was about to go down and Rodrigo knew it too.

"Tie him to the chair" Marco demanded.  It took three men to finally get him latched to the wooden chair, the man's face a mask of fear.

"I warned you" Marco started.  "You know in some countries when a man is caught stealing, they cut the hand off, when they lie, the tongue is severed from the body."

Marco nodded, as his men held his hand steady, and taking a reciprocating saw, his hand, just above the wrist, was separated from his body, blood spurting everywhere.

Vittorio Moretti, one of Marco's soldiers, had made a fire and as soon as it was ready, Marco took a huge knife, held it over the fire until it turned red hot.

Nodding, his men held Rodrigo's head while Moretti pried his mouth open and using pliers, held his tongue out.  Marco took the man's tongue in on swift motion.

His bloodcurdling screams could be heard by no one, other than DeLuca and his men.  Drawing his pistol from his waistband, he pointed and pulled the trigger, hitting him between the eyes.

He felt dirty and was ready to go back to his hotel room for food and sleep and for a split second, he wished for Cay and the comfort of her arms.  But it would never be.