Page 98 of Waste of Worth

He took four flights of stairs three steps at a time, a paralyzing fear working its way through his nervous system with each and every step. He didn’t have the slightest clue whether or not the agents had gotten their warrants, if they were done at the club, on their way over to his place, or goddammit, how much time he even had.

If he had any time at all …

It seemed as though it took him entirely too long to get inside his place, but once he was, Dino wasted no time heading to his office. Ripping the painting from the wall, he tossed it to the floor, uncaring that the four-thousand dollar artwork hit the corner of the edge and tore. Behind the painting rested something far more precious—something far more valuable.

Dino spun the dial on the safe, hitting the numbers that would open it. His mother’s birthdate, his father’s death date, and then his siblings’ birthdates. Pulling on the latch, the safe popped open, and the sweetest relief filled Dino at the sight of what rested within.

Papers. Documents.

Information.

There were other documents he knew he should worry about as well that was currently hidden within mountains of files in his filing cabinets. But frankly, the information was exactly that—a goddamn mountain to go through. Seeds of information planted within financial documents that would only lead to tidbits of data that may lead to something else. It would all take a while to get through, and even if someone managed to figure out where it all lead, it might only hurt him with a few fines and a bit of jail time.

No, he didn’t give a single shit about what was in his filing cabinets.

It was the documentation in his safe that needed to go.

Dino pulled out papers and files in the handfuls, tossing them into a metal garbage can in one giant heap of trouble.

Trouble that could put him away for years upon years.

Offshore account information. Racket details and contracts. Falsified legal paperwork. Cooked books for a dozen businesses. Fraudulent tax filings. The list went on and on.

Some of the paperwork he would have to destroy would never be fully replaced, and in the end, that would mean lost money. Dino was all too aware of that knowledge, but that didn’t stop him from grabbing the last few documents and the one file left inside the safe. Without even a moment of hesitation, he tossed it into the garbage can as well.

All that was left in his safe were stacks of bills that probably added up to a hundred thousand dollars all together.

Dino knew what might have been found at his club, and that left his brain racing a million miles a minute. Theo had done well to clean out the dirty business that would get Dino time in jail on drug charges—but the financial side of things, information that would prove the club was funneling money from all sorts of illegal activity, was still there, in the offices and hidden within the mountains of paperwork in the filing cabinets.

Dino was fucked.

One way or another, a jail cell was likely.

At least for a while.

So as he grabbed a lighter from his office desk and lit the corner of one of the papers in the garbage can on fire, he was already thinking about Karen.

Karen and his child.

What would she do now?

Who would she depend on?

He didn’t think for a moment that she would understand, though he had thought before that she might if he were the one to explain it all to her.

Dino knew now that wouldn’t be the case.

It would be one thing for Karen to know Dino was involved in illegal activities on a daily basis—she had a good idea about all of that nonsense, anyway. It would be an entirely other matter when she learned his whole life was built upon schemes, lies, and dirty money.

Schemes that left businesses bankrupt and hundreds out of jobs. Lies that left bodies in rivers with their hands and feet cut off where the scavengers could pick the corpses apart. Dirty money that paid for his lifestyle.

She wouldn’t be able to understand any of that—who would?

Don’t mess with outsiders, and especially not women, Ben would always tell the DeLuca brothers as they grew up, they only bring more problems than they’re worth.

Dino had followed that rule up until he met Karen, and even after to an extent, by keeping her out of his business as much as he possibly could. He’d done it for both his own selfish reasons, and also to protect her from people like Ben.

A man who would kill her simply because Dino had gotten close to her, and because she was not brought up inside their smothering ways.