Sincerely, the Boss Read online

  She was his, and she only wanted more—more of him, more of his touch, more of his skin colliding with hers. She felt the wetness sliding down his cheeks as he lapped her up and drank her down.

  “Cookie, I missed you too,” he murmured as he rolled her over, hovering over her, his face was glistening with her juices, and he shared it with her as he kissed her once more. “I can’t stop thinking about you,” he told her as he took her, hard and slow, thrusting to the bottom, and then pulling back until she begged and tried to clutch at him to keep him inside.

  Sal pounded at her, picking her legs up and pulling her thighs to his chest with every single drive into her core. Margo was crying from the want that was bubbling up inside and reaching her hands up to him, running them down his chest, feeling the sweat on his skin, smelling him, staring into his eyes that contained a heat she had never known.

  They came in unison this time. Sal flooded her with a torrent of his hot need, and she felt every spurt at her center, squeezing every drop from him, covering him with her own pulsating orgasm. Margo never remembered feeling this way before and didn’t know if it had been his body or his words or the fact that she had been so parched for him, but when she felt him collapse on top of her, she pulled him near and trembled as they kissed.

  CHAPTER 33

  S

  o Jay represents Vladimir Slivka and his front company?” Sal had his arms around her and their mouths were only inches apart as they talked.

  “Yes, he’s been very busy with them, twenty cases or more since I left the firm and probably thousands of billable hours.” She still didn’t know what the connection was to her or if there even was one. She just smelled that she was close, close to something major.

  “And you think he wanted you out of the way? You think the firm is in on it?” Sal was close, but she didn’t know what she was looking for either so Margo had to throw up her hands.

  “I’m not sure, I don’t even know if it matters. I’m just grasping at straws probably.” Her mind was still busy even though her body was spent. Her legs were curled around his, and everywhere his fingers touched her, her skin was like putty under his caress.

  “I have Megan’s testimony, so I’m not even sure if I need anything else.”

  Was it just a need for revenge at this point? She would blow Jay’s credibility out of the water once the court heard that not only had he forced the girl to perjure herself, but he was fucking the witness and feeding her drugs.

  “It would be good to know if there was another reason though, besides just that he was pissed off that you told him he had a small dick.” Sal chuckled at that one, “Although for a lot of guys that would be enough.” His hands molded along her waist and were moving up to her breasts, and then crushing her into his body again. Margo felt his cock stirring once more, and she moved down his body. She had a hunger for him, wanting to run her tongue along his girth and feel him harden in her mouth.

  Her phone buzzed on the nightstand, not the phone that Sal had given her, the other phone. Who in God’s name would be calling her?

  “Cookie, that’s you.” He handed her the phone, and she suddenly remembered David’s message.

  It had been such a long time since she had talked to her mother, she was hesitant, but she answered. “Hello?”

  “Margo, is that you?” She sounded weak and far away.

  “Mom?” Margo sat up so she could hear her better. “It’s Margo, is that you, Mom?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.” She was coughing; it sounded wet and she gurgled into the phone, “I hope you don’t mind, your husband gave me your number.”

  “No, I don’t mind.” Margo felt no emotion hearing her mother’s voice.

  “Are you okay? You don’t sound so good.” Her mother had been using her many imagined ailments as an excuse to pop pills and self-medicate for so long, Margo wondered if a real illness had finally caught up with her.

  “Yeah, I’m okay, just a little under the weather.” Her mother’s voice was raspy.

  Margo got right to the point. “So why are you calling me, what do you want?”

  “I just wanted to hear your voice, find out if you were doing okay.” Margo thought her mother’s voice sounded sad, maybe even a little desperate.

  Alarms were sounding in Margo’s head; something wasn’t right. She hadn’t talked to her mother in over twenty years, and now the woman was tracking her down to see how she was? “Mom, what’s really going on? Is something wrong?”

  “Ah, the doctor said I got something wrong, but what the hell does he know?” Her mother sounded weak. “These damn doctors, they won’t even give you anything good anymore; it’s like they want you to suffer.”

  Her mother had abused pills before it was fashionable, and Margo wondered how many she’d taken before she had called.

  “What exactly do you mean something’s wrong? What did the doctor say?” She waited for an answer and just heard wheezing.

  “Mom, hello? Where are you?” She heard a series of coughs on the other end before her mother gasped, “I’m in the hospital. Hold on,” she muttered.

  Margo heard more coughing, hacking, and wheezing. She wondered what the hell was really going on. As she waited for her mother to come back on she felt her pulse accelerate.

  “Are you there?” Margo asked. There was no answer. “Mom?” It was the story of her life. When she needed her mother, she was nowhere to be found. She was about to hang up. She was probably in the hospital for something stupid like falling down the stairs again and cracking a rib before passing out.

  Margo thought about all of the times as a kid she had to make excuses for her mother’s bad behavior and poor judgment. “Mom, I’m hanging up now,” she called out, not sure if she even cared at this point.

  “No, I’m here,” she rasped. “I’m here, sorry.”

  “What hospital are you in?” Maybe she would get some factual information from a doctor instead of the bullshit her mother would try to peddle.

  “I’m at Bowman.”

  Bowman General was an old, run-down hospital in the old, run-down neighborhood she had grown up in.

  “OK, well, I’m going to come see you in the morning, Mom.” She was speaking loudly in the phone, overcompensating for her mother’s lack of conversation.

  “See you later, Jellybean.” Her mom was fading, and she didn’t know if she had hung up or passed out.

  Margo felt a little sad when she lay down once more. Sal would do anything for family; he would protect them or die trying. As much as his methods at protection scared her, she had never had that growing up. She wished that she’d grown up feeling loved, safe, and secure.

  “What’s wrong with your mother, Cookie?” He ran his hand down her cheek and lifted her chin so they looked each other in the eye.

  “I don’t know, she’s in the hospital. She doesn’t sound good.”

  Margo knew that Sal had the details of her life but wondered how much of her early family history was tucked inside her file.

  “My mom is a hypochondriac pill popper who washes everything down with a fifth of whatever she can get her hands on. She’s just a junkie, I guess.” She hated to use that word, but it was more than appropriate. “I haven’t talked to her since I left for college.”

  “You really are all alone, aren’t you?” Sal didn’t approve. “Life is short, Cookie, and everyone needs family. Kinda sounds like your mother might need some family right about now.”

  “I’ll go see her tomorrow.” Margo didn’t like thinking about her mother needing her. The woman’s addiction had drained her almost dry by the time she left home. “It’s probably something minor. It can wait until the morning.”

  “Did she hurt you, Cookie?” She hadn’t thought about her mother for a long time. It wasn’t hurt, it was something else.

  “She didn’t physically hurt me; she just cared more about getting high than taking care of me. She was never there for me when I needed her. I was on my own.”


  “So she didn’t hit you? Did she make sure you had food? A warm place to live?” Margo made a face at him.

  “I’m just saying that maybe she did the best she could. You know, Cookie, not everyone is as strong as you.”

  She hated giving her mother an excuse; her mother had given her hundreds growing up. “I guess you’re right,” Margo relented.

  “Why don’t you go see her now?” Sal asked.

  Margo groaned. She was still in heat, and she wanted more of him. More of his hands on her skin, more of his wicked tongue that brought her to a boiling point along every curve.

  “I’ll go in the morning.”

  Sal raised his eyebrows at her, and she clung to him but knew he was right.

  Margo sighed in defeat. “All right, I’ll go.”

  “I’ll drop you off, Cookie.” He was staring at her face, his dick pulsating against her thigh. “I can wait for you.” He gave her one last kiss. His tongue circled hers, drawing it out, bringing it into his mouth for him to suck on slowly. “I do love kissing you,” he admitted when he relinquished his grasp.

  Her pussy twitched with desire, and it took every bit of her self-control not to mount him. Instead, she peeled herself off the damp sheets and redressed.

  She locked the door behind her, then they walked to his car. “I just realized your driver sits here and waits for you when we’re together.”

  Sal shrugged, “Yeah, it’s his job.”

  “Don’t you feel kind of weird? I mean, he knows everything you do.” Margo had never gotten comfortable enough to forget there was another pair of eyes on her when she was in Sal’s backseat.

  “Joey’s OK. He’s loyal. He’s been with me for a long time, and I trust him,” Sal told her when he opened the door for her.

  Margo looked out the window and thought about who else might be watching them. Did Agent Richards have them under surveillance; was he eavesdropping and listening to their conversations? Was someone else? Was she just being paranoid, or had she been naïve, taken too much for granted?

  Just because Sal was wonderful to her didn’t mean that he didn’t have enemies everywhere. Did she really think that she could be intimately attached to him and never have his world touch her?

  “I’ll ask around a little about the Russian.” Sal would get more answers than she could, and Margo reached for his hand and laced her fingers around his.

  “Thank you. Like I said, it could be nothing.” She doubted that it was nothing, but it could be nothing that she could use. Hopefully, Megan was enough to bring Jay’s house of cards down.

  “I don’t think it’s nothing; besides, the Russian’s on my turf.” Margo didn’t want to hear anything else. They were getting dangerously close to the frightening aspect of their relationship that she hadn’t come to terms with in her mind.

  “Jay’s an asshole, and he’s definitely not above doing illegal things,”—like putting together phony charges that got her out of the way—“but I don’t think he has the balls to be behind anything this big.”

  “Cookie, a guy like Slivka needs someone like him . . . spineless and weak.” Sal would have firsthand knowledge of what gangsters needed. “He’s easy to control.”

  “Really?” Margo tried to picture Jay being an errand boy for a ruthless killer, but she just couldn’t.

  “Not like you.” Sal was smiling at her. “You’re a firecracker.”

  Their lips met briefly when the car pulled up to the curb in front of the hospital. “Go see your mother.” Sal stroked her hair before his driver opened the door for her. “Call me later.”

  She promised she would, and as Margo turned back to wave good-bye, she saw Sal watching her and wondered how much of that was his affection and how much of it was just habit.

  CHAPTER 34

  T

  he woman at the front desk looked up and smiled. “How can I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Susan Harris.” Margo hated hospitals, especially this one. The place looked as if it were sagging around them. Even more run-down than she remembered during their numerous trips here as a child, when her parents had need to be bandaged and stitched over the years. It smelled familiar, and it was making her nauseous.

  The woman looked somber when she turned from the screen. “She’s in 1289. Take the elevators to the twelfth floor.”

  Margo punched the button in the elevator and read the sign. The twelfth floor was cardiology. She swallowed hard. This looked more serious than she had thought.

  The room was dark when she entered and a shape was in the hospital bed, so much smaller than she remembered her mother being. Margo flicked on a light near the bed and could hardly contain her horror. Her mother was asleep, mouth open, wheezing with each breath. Oxygen tubes in her nostrils, and other wires and tubes came from under her gown and inside her arm, connecting her to a machine that beeped. There was a large Band-Aid on her neck and one on her hand. She had greenish, fading bruises on one of her arms and face. Margo was dumbfounded. How long had her mother been here, and how sick was she?

  She pulled a chair next to the bed and touched her bony hand. Her mother had never been a big woman. She had always seemed almost dainty, and when Margo had reached her adult height, she stood a good six inches above her. What she had lacked in size, however, she had more than made up for in swagger.

  Her mother had been defiant since Margo could remember. When the school would send home a letter or the landlord would deliver a notice, Susan was bent on rebellion.

  “Don’t be a sheep, Margo.” If her mother had told her that once, she’d said it a thousand times. Now that she thought back over her childhood, she was sure that her mother’s biggest disappointment in her daughter was that she had been such a good kid.

  Margo’s freshman year in high school her mother constantly harassed her. “You gotta live a little, Margo,” she would slur. “Why don’t you go out and just have a good time?”

  “I have homework to do,” she would hiss at her mother. She had taken to calling her by her first name, “and I have to go to work, Susan.”

  “Oh my God, my own daughter is a Goody Two-shoes.” Her mother’s bathrobe fell open as she lolled in the doorway. That time she had been wearing clothes underneath, but so many times before, Margo remembered being ashamed at seeing her mother’s naked, sagging flesh.

  “How come you’re not like me at all, huh?” Although she hadn’t thought of the day for years, it was all coming back as if it had happened yesterday.

  “What do you mean, Susan? A drunk? Should I take pills all day? Would that make you proud?” Margo had snapped, and when her mother stared at her, her mouth open but silent, Margo remembered feeling victorious, even if it had been a cheap shot.

  “I’m sorry that I’m not good enough for you.” Susan’s chin had trembled as she attempted to hold back her tears. “I suppose you wish you had a different mother, right? Someone who baked cookies and went to PTA meetings?”

  “Get out of my room!” Margo couldn’t win the argument. If she said no it was like giving Susan her way once more. If she said yes, she was afraid that the woman would dissolve into hysterics right there.

  “Come on, Margo,” her mother was in the mood to fight, which she often was, and Margo watched her draw her shoulders back. “Tell me, tell me what a bad job I’ve done with you.” She was slurring her words a bit, and Margo knew she should just gently lead her to bed so her mother could pass out there with a tiny bit of dignity.

  She hadn’t done that though; instead, all of the words that she had kept down for so long were fighting to erupt from her mouth and Margo stared at her and screamed, “Yes, you’re a terrible mother! You shouldn’t have even had me; you should have given me up for adoption. Anything would have been better than living here with you and him!”

  Since the attempted molestation, Margo had never called him Dad. He was “him” or “your husband” when she spoke about him to Susan. She hated him for being a disgusting pervert, but
she hated her mother more for being so weak. Susan didn’t have to have this life. Margo could tell that she had the intellect and the will to have done so much more. Susan had chosen this lifestyle and chosen to give in to the demons that fueled her addiction. Margo felt that it had been a grave injustice.

  “Well, I’m sorry that I’m so awful, Margo.” Her mother had taken the verbal assault and didn’t even try to defend herself. She remembered watching Susan hang her head and look down at her open robe and tie it quickly as if she had just realized how offensive it may be.

  “It probably doesn’t matter to you, but I always loved you. I’ll leave you alone.” She shuffled off down the hall and went to bed. Margo wouldn’t allow herself to feel guilty for how she felt, and she hadn’t gone after her to apologize.

  The next three years, Margo had been like a ghost. She hardly ever came home, choosing, instead to do her homework at her job or at the library . . . anywhere but there. She volunteered to work holidays and weekends, any excuse to stay away from home. When she did make an appearance, it was quick and quiet, tip-toeing across the living room on her way to her room, washing some laundry or making a sandwich. The few times that she saw Susan face-to-face, they exchanged superficial pleasantries and didn’t look each other in the eye.

  Margo had figured her tirade had been forgotten before her mother even passed out that night, but Susan chose her high school graduation day to remind her of it. Her mother had come to the ceremony. She was clean, and her hair was combed into place, something that Margo hardly remembered seeing. Her mother had worn an old dress that she’d had since Margo had first gone to kindergarten, but it was ironed, and Margo remembered watching her mother fidget in it, obviously uncomfortable and wishing she could have worn the old robe instead.

  They walked down the hall together as she left high school for the last time. Margo was going away to school and had an internship that started that summer. She was leaving home for good and had no intentions of ever returning. When they reached the bus stop, Susan pulled an envelope out of the purse she had carried. “This is for you.”