Aloe Blacc drifts from the speakers, smoke from the grill I’m manning on the deck coast in the air through the living room windows pushed open to create a large entrance.
We are at Devin’s Barbados beach house for a weekend getaway in celebration of his birthday tomorrow. He hated extravagant birthday celebrations until he married Ren. It gave meaning to his life, he once said. Even if I gave him an earful of bullshit for being a softie, I believe his words. He’s a changed man.
Evan too…
And now me…
Kind of…
I think…
But fuck if I’d admit that out loud.
Women. They have such a chaotic effect on our lives. Like a beautiful bliss.
I tipped my beer into my mouth, turning the barbecues one by one. The sun lowers on the horizon, casting orange and a warm explosion of shade on the beach. My gaze moves to the waterfront. Cali, Rain, and Rylee, seated on a chaise under big white umbrellas, each holds a drink of their choice. I’m certain Rylee settles into a glass of water or non-alcoholic fruit punch, religiously following Ivy's advice.
Close to the water, Griffin plays football with Ghost, Kai, and Hunter. It made me smile. Each year on Griffin’s birthday, Devin would gift his son with baseball novelty items. Gloves, Yankees jersey, caps, and even Major League tickets, but the kid had an itch for football. In truth, it still bothered Devin that his son is in favor of Knox Dawson’s game over his. Knox plays in the NFL and had a thing for Ren back in the day.
“Do you plan on serving charcoal for dinner?” Ren steps out onto the deck, holding a tray of fresh seafood.
“Fuck.” I abandoned my beer on the table and quickly picked up the burnt barbecue from the grill.
Ren giggled, skirting past me, setting the tray on the table side by side with the tray of cooked and raw barbecues.
“Ah, I see. Can’t take your eyes off of Rylee,” she teased.
I chuckled, reaching for my beer again once all the almost burnt barbecues were safe to the cooked tray. It’s true though. Pregnancy looks good with Rylee. She’s four months in. Our little beans already swell in her belly, but she never fails to make my dick hard. As if to second the motion, my cock twitched in agreement.
I shift to hide the growing bulge in my crotch. “Is that jealousy I hear, Mama Ren?” I tilted my head to the side. “I hear you and Devin are not having some closed bedroom door meetings these days.”
Ren’s cheeks instantly set aflame. “You three… You really don’t have filters in your conversations!” she groaned, pushing me aside, taking over the grill.
“As if you women don’t talk about how good your husbands are in bed, huh?” Ren turned beet red. I snorted. The timid Maren Green still blushes after being married to her wicked boss. “Anyway. Where are those morons? I thought the grill was men’s duty?”
Ren huffed, barely recovering from her flushed state. She pulled her brunette hair into a messy bun and started laying the seafood above the grill. “Evan told me he’d be in the cabin.”
My brows tilted to the sky, “the cabin? It’s still here?”
Ren looked over her shoulder. “Yeah. Devin said Evan kept that place. I believe that’s where he and Cali stayed when they met here in Barbados.”
~~
I am not particularly fond of walking down memory lane. Reminiscing on the past makes people gooey on the inside, but as I walked the familiar path behind the beach house towards the cabin, it felt like going back in time.
Devin and Ren got married here four years ago, yet I never thought of wandering back to the cabin which we built when we were in college.
“I’ll be damned,” I murmured under my breath, a smile splitting my face in two.
Evan had always been good at building things with his hands. He didn’t just keep the cabin; he turned it into a vacation-worthy cabin by the beach. The structure of stones and logs has frosted glass doors and windows.
Summoned by curiosity, I went inside the house, pushing the ajar door open. The minimalist design of the living room that opens up to the kitchen separated only by a breakfast bar and dining table for six was Evan’s signature work. Laughter emitted from one of the three doors across the entrance. I immediately recognized Devin and Evan’s laughter.
“Guess that’s the perks of having a sister,” Devin said in between laughter. “But that is common knowledge, Evan. Man… So that’s why you kept calling Cali Rapunzel?”
“Yes,” replied Evan. They have their backs on me, looking at a portrait of my cousin in a red dress. She looks alive and carefree in that portrait, dancing with her eyes closed. “I kept calling her Rapunzel because I thought she’s the one who left that glass slipper.”
Devin clutched his stomach, roaring with laughter.
Evan groaned. “How do you expect me to know the difference between Rapunzel and Cinderella? If you so much as tell this story to Klaus, I will strangle you!”
“Too late,” I said, making my presence known.
“The fuck you doing here?” Evan grunted, facing me with a glare.
I stepped inside the room, afraid to uncover the paintings hanging on the walls. I have a pretty good idea who’s the subject of those portraits.
“I helped build this cabin.” I tucked my hands in my shorts’ pocket. “I own this place too.”
Evan skirted past me straight into the kitchen. He pulled out a beer from the fridge while Devin and I glanced around. He mirrors my expression, memories flooding our heads.
We built this place out of boredom one spring break during college freshman year. The three of us got together pretty quickly not knowing that we were running away from the darkness shadowing our childhoods. Devin spends his spare time in this country because it reminds him of his late mom. Evan was escaping the troubles at home, emanating from his adoptive brother’s hatred for him while I wanted to be a regular college boy, away from the burdens of being a mafia heir. Look at us now. I’d say we are still those trouble makers, still wickedly good-looking, but we’ve come a long way. The happiness our wives brought to our lives overshadowed the burdens of our past. “Damn, you two have googly eyes,” Evan hushed, setting his phone down with a knowing smirk. “The fuck did you just do?” I groaned. “Checking for leverage,” he said, tipping his beer bottle. “Say a word about what you heard, and that video of you dancing with Rylee will go live online.” I shook my head and grabbed a beer f
I apologize if it took me a while to post the final chapters. As you know, endings are always bittersweet, but that's the final chapter of this book. Next novel in this series would be Kai and Berenice's story. You'll see more of Klaus and Rylee in that book as it unfolds, the twins and Rylee's dad. I'm still in the middle of putting the story together but I hope to have it signed before this month ends. The title of Kai and Berenice's story is My Gangster Babysitter. I'll be updating the progress of the plotting in my socmed accounts.Thank you for reading. Please don't forget to leave your review about Klaus and Rylee's story.xx 8.4.22 Update. My Gangster Babysitter is now up on my profile. xx 8.9.22
~Rylee~I don’t know what disappointed me more—finding out that my boyfriend of three years played house with another woman in our home or the fact that I couldn’t even put a bullet between his other woman’s eyes because she was my sister.Just minutes ago, I was grinning from ear to ear, dashed out of the cab straight from the airport.Working twenty-four seven for Klaus Martinelli was damn exhausting. I craved the familiarity of my own place, the comfort of my own bed, and the arms of the man I hold dearly in my heart.But the sight of my boyfriend tangled in my Egyptian cotton sheets with my sister made working for that infuriating Italian a sweet wonderland.So I did what a rational human being would. I woke them up and threw them out of my place, but that’s when things went south. You’d think they’d have the decency to volunteer and leave on their own accord, but no.“This is my house too!” claimed Mason. He didn’t bother covering up and started an argument with a pissed-off me i
~Klaus~There comes a time in a man’s life when he realizes he’s not as young as he once was. That he cannot drink like there was no tomorrow, party like his reputation precedes, fuck every woman without a care in the world. For me, that moment came when I woke up in an unfamiliar room, tangled in the sheets with two naked women. One had her legs draped over my middle, while the other had her boobs pressed in my face.“Cazzo,” I groaned, tossing away the leg keeping me down. She fell back into her slumber, snuggling with the busty boobed chick. I sat on the edge of the bed, getting my bearings.Everything was blurry and disorienting. Clothes, alcohol bottles, cups, and condom wrappers – more than my fingers could count – were scattered on the floor. My world spun as I scoured for my phone.The closed balcony doors muffled the traffic from the street. The curtains were open, permitting a sliver of morning light inside.I found my phone on the bedside table, and a thong dangled from the
~Klaus~‘Fucking Kino,’ I groaned, ignoring Dianna, Dina, Darlene – whatever this blond’s name – nails dug into the back of my thighs as I thrust my cock down her throat; her eyes watered. The pendulum movement had the headboard banging on the wall.My mind reeled with my father’s words. For years, he threw hints after hints that he wanted a family man to take over the mafia. I took them as a joke he’d like to throw around at meetings and parties. A fucking mistake on my end. Now I am about to lose the only thing I ever worked for.I had always been a mafia man. There was no other option for me. I made better of myself in every aspect of the business, eyeing the price of becoming Don when my father retires. All my hard work will go to waste just because I am single? Huh. Life is never fair, but this is some kind of prejudice.Dina coughed as I pulled out of her mouth. She gasped, retrieving the air she gave up to please me, corkscrewing her hands up and down my dick. Like a man on a m
~Rylee~It took me two minutes to wallow in the pain of Kara and Mason’s betrayal. I allowed myself two minutes to be human. I deserved it, the time to cry, to ponder the choices I made, and to berate myself for fantasizing I could find love in this world.In those two minutes, I had already devised a plan. I have to leave this place and move on with my life. Starting over is what I’m good at, but that doesn’t mean I liked it. I wanted to settle down, tired of moving from one place to another and going back to zero.I didn’t bother to check everything inside the house. I still had the backpack I carried with me from New York. Going straight into the basement, I pushed the rickety bookshelf left behind by the previous owner, which I turned into secret storage. Behind it was a safe containing a wad of cash in different currencies, passports from different countries, a black pouch, and dad’s Scarce Perrin Revolver.Without another glance into the house I considered my home, I trudge on t
~Klaus~Fucking wildfire.I bit my lower lip, spotting Rylee in that body-hugging silver dress.She’d probably point a gun at my head if she knew what I had been doing for the past two days. She hated being stalked, being watched. It’s ironic since it’s what she does for a living.She blended in with the crowd, swaying her hips in Dillon Francis, DJ Snake’s Get Low booming on the speaker.I stifled a groan as she raised her hands; her skirt rose, revealing those legs for days that had been looped around my waist in my fantasies.Goddamn.My jeans grew tighter as I watched Rylee rocked that body, pushing a few guys who tried to grope her. I restrained myself from going down there and drove them away with my fist.It was hard to be patient. This is why I never liked waiting.McKay came in, and Rylee put her plan into play. I had to keep my distance, knowing that she would feel someone tailing her.I didn’t step in until she triggered the alarm in McKay’s private room. She put up a fight
~Rylee~I bit my lip, fighting back a giggle at Klaus’ comical look. Expressive viridescent eyes blinked once, twice, as though he caught something in them. Capturing this on camera would have been epic. Maybe I could request a CCTV copy from the restaurant.“Come again?” He reached for his glass of wine, sipping more than a mouthful.I did the same, repeating my last statement. “A baby.”He swallowed hard. The gears on his mind shift as he digests what I said. “A baby…” he parroted, sampling the words. “Like one of those little… thing…” he searched for words. “… that cries and whines and forces people to become celibate?”That did it for me. I laughed wholeheartedly, gaining a few eyes from the couples dining close to our table.Our table stood out for its intimate arrangement in the middle of the busy restaurant with that classic vibe. Klaus booked a booth that had a good view of tonight’s jazz performer. The dim light deliberately made the food and my companion appear tempting. Apa