by Reilly, Cora
Fabiano was dangerous. He wasn’t someone to be close to, but having someone in my life that could keep me safe was too enticing.
FABIANO
I caught her hesitation when she’d spotted me. Like a mouse in front of the trap, torn between tasting the cheese and running off.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, arms wrapped around her old backpack, like she needed another barrier between us.
“I told you I would protect you, and that’s what I’m doing. I don’t want you to walk around alone at night.”
She stared out of the passenger window, hiding her face in the shadows. My grip on the steering wheel tightened. “You can’t drive me home every night. I’m sure you’ve got work to do.”
Her lips pinched together and her fingers dug into her backpack. What had she heard? There were always rumors about me. The worst were usually true.
“Don’t worry. I can make time for important things.”
The Camorra was important. Remo and his brothers were important. She wasn’t supposed to be.
She turned, brows furrowing. “Important? Am I?”
She wasn’t. She was ... I wasn’t sure what she was to me. I kept thinking about her when she wasn’t around. About those damn freckles and her shy smiles. About how she was alone, had been alone even when she’d still lived with her mother. I knew how it was to be alone while living in a house with other people. My father. His second wife. The maids.
I ignored her question. “If I’m not in the parking lot after work, then wait in the bar for me until I pick you up.”
“I’m not in kindergarten. I don’t need someone to pick me up. Not even you, Fabiano. There’s no reason for you to do this. I can protect myself.”
I pulled up to her street.
Once I’d shut off the engine, I turned to face her. “How?”
“I just can,” she said defensively.
I nodded toward her backpack. “With what’s in there.”
“How do you ...” Her eyes widened a fraction before she caught herself. “It’s my problem, isn’t it?”
“It was before. Now it is mine. I don’t like the idea of someone getting their filthy hands on you.”
She shook her head. “We’re not together, are we? I can’t see how it’s your business.”
I leaned over but she backed up against the passenger door. So that’s how it was going to be? “The kiss we shared means it is my business.”
“We won’t kiss again,” she said firmly, determined.
I smirked. “We’ll see.” I knew she was attracted to me. I’d sensed how strongly the kiss had affected her, how her eyes had dilated with lust. Perhaps her mind was telling her to stay away, but her body wanted to get much closer, and I would make her give in to that desire. Even now, as I leaned close to her, I could see the conflict in her body language, the way her eyes darted to my lips and her fingers clutched her backpack at the same time.
“You can’t force me,” she said then bit her lip, reconsidering.
“I could,” I said with a shrug, leaning back in my seat to give her space. “But I won’t.” There was no fun in using my power to get what I wanted. Not with Leona. I wanted to conquer her. I wanted many things.
She gripped the door handle, but I put a hand down on her knee. She shivered under my touch but didn’t pull away. Her skin was warm and soft, and I had to suppress the urge to trail my hand up under her skirt and between her legs. “What do you have to defend yourself?”
She hesitated.
“Believe me, Leona, it doesn’t matter if it’s a knife, gun, or Taser. Against me, it won’t do any good.”
“A butterfly knife.”
I’d have guessed Taser. Women usually preferred them or pepper spray because it was less personal than having to ram a blade into someone’s flesh. “Have you ever used it?”
“You mean on someone?”
“Of course. I don’t care if you can make a sandwich with it.”
Anger flared in her blue eyes, and I had to admit I enjoyed seeing that kind of fire in them, especially when she’d seemed so docile and sweet the first time I talked to her. It was promise she was more fun in other areas too.
“Of course not. Unlike you and your mob friends, I don’t enjoy killing people.”
Friends? The mob wasn’t about friendship. It was about dedication and loyalty. It was about honor and commitment. I didn’t have friends. Remo and his brothers were the closest thing to friends I had, but what connected us was stronger. They were family. My chosen family. I didn’t bother explaining all this to Leona. She wouldn’t have understood. For an outsider, this world wasn’t easy to understand.
“You don’t have to enjoy killing to be good at it. But I doubt that you’ll ever get the chance to kill someone. You’d be disarmed in no time and probably get a taste of your own blade. You have to learn how to handle a knife, how to hold it and where to aim.”
“You didn’t deny it,” she whispered.
“Deny what?”
“That you’ve killed people ... that you enjoyed it.”
I didn’t tell her that with some people there had been quite a bit of joy ending their fucking lives. And I knew that killing my father one day would outshine every other kill so far. Leona looked honestly puzzled by my reaction. Had she still not grasped the concept of being a made man?
Instead of replying, I tapped the tattoo on my forearm.
She reached out, fingertips gracing the black lines of ink. Her touch was always so careful. I had never been touched like that by a woman. They usually raked their fake fingernails over my back, clutching and stroking. Nothing careful about these encounters. I enjoyed it, but this ... Fuck, this I enjoyed more.
“Could you get it removed? Could you stop being what you are?”
I didn’t know any other life. The few days when I hadn’t been part of the Outfit and not yet part of the Camorra, before I’d found Remo or rather before he’d found me, I had been like driftwood caught up in the tide, no destination to my journey. Days that had felt like eternity. I’d been adrift. “I could. But I won’t.” Remo, of course, wouldn’t allow me to quit. This wasn’t a fucking job where you could give two-weeks’ notice. This was for life. “You said it ... it’s who I am.”
She nodded. Perhaps it had finally sunk in.
“I will teach you how to use that knife and how to defend yourself.”
She looked tired, which was probably why she didn’t try to argue even if I could tell that she wanted to. She opened the door and got out but turned to me. “Sleep tight, Fabiano ... if your conscience lets you.” She closed the door and headed toward the apartment building.
When I’d started my induction process in the Outfit, I felt guilt over what I’d seen others doing. And even later, when I first started to fight at Remo’s side, I felt bad for some of the things I’d done. But now ...? Not anymore. After being an Enforcer for years, I didn’t feel anything anymore. No regret or guilt. People knew what they were getting into when they owed us money. No one got into this without a fault of their own. And most of these guys would sell their own mother if it meant money to gamble or bet or buy shit.
I’d never had to kill an innocent person. There were no innocents that frequented our bars and casinos. They were lost souls. Stupid fuckers who lost their family’s home because they spent their nights gambling.
Leona was innocent. Despair had driven her to work at Roger’s bar. I hoped she’d never get caught in the crossfire. I didn’t like the idea of having to hurt her.
CHAPTER 10
LEONA
There had been many sleepless nights because of the noise coming from my mother’s room. Either because she was at it with a john or because she was having a drug-induced fit. Now it was the noise in my head that kept me awake.
Fabiano’s blue eyes flashed before me. Cold and calculating. Attentive and alert. Seldom anything else, except for when we’d kissed. There had been a warmer emotion in them. Pe
rhaps only desire or lust, but I wanted to think it could have been something else as well.
I pressed my palms against my face. Stop it.
I needed to stop imagining there was something in him. I needed to stop wanting his touch when the same hands did horrible things to others. Things I couldn’t even imagine. Things I didn’t even want to know.
There was a sick fascination I couldn’t deny nor suppress. The mafia had always been something mysterious. I just thought it only existed in the movies. But this was real life, not a Hollywood movie with a happy ending. In real life, mobsters weren’t misunderstood antiheroes. They were the bad guys, the ones you didn’t want to encounter.
Bad. It was such a difficult term to quantify. What was bad? I was trying to sugarcoat this whole situation, something I had a lot of practice doing. I twisted and turned then eventually sat up on my mattress and reached for my backpack in the dark.
I shoved my hand in the bag and found my knife. I yanked it out then pressed the button that made the blade shoot out with a soft click. The steel of the blade gleamed in the dim moonlight streaming in through the dust-covered windows. I’d never used it, not really. I pointed it at someone once, the same guy I’d stolen it from. He was one of my mother’s johns, the worse kind. The kind that liked to beat and insult women like my mother. The kind that enjoyed making them feel even more like crap than they already did. The kind that liked to haggle over the price after the deed was done and often refused to pay. If my mother hadn’t been desperate, she probably wouldn’t have done him more than once, not after he barely paid her for sucking his disgusting dick and doing other disgusting things.
I was locked in my room when I heard them argue. Despite my mother’s warnings to keep my room locked at all times when she had clients, the fight drew me out.
His trousers were on the couch, so I decided to check them for money. Instead, I found the knife. I hid it behind my back when he and my mother stormed out of her bedroom. Mom had been half naked, and he was wearing only his socks and underpants.
“You’re not worth thirty bucks.”
“You asshole, I let you come in my mouth without a condom.”
“As if your dirty mouth is worth anything.”
He stopped when he spotted me. A sick grin curled his lips. “For her ... I’d pay thirty.”
I was only fifteen.
He took a step in my direction. My mother’s gaze had darted from me to him. Her eyes had been hazy and unfocused. She needed a fix.
I jerked the knife forward and released the blade.
“That little shit stole my knife,” he snarled.
“Don’t move ... or I’ll stab you.”
I’d wanted to, and I probably would have without remorse, if my mother hadn’t started pummeling him with her fists, shrieking. “Get out! Get out, you sick fuck! Get away from us!”
He’d left without his pants, muttering curses and leaving us with sixty bucks and a knife.
I moved the knife from side to side, considering it in the moonlight. I knew I was capable of using it if need be. I wasn’t as innocent as Fabiano perhaps thought I was. I knew there were people out there who deserved to die. I slid the blade back in place then shoved it under my pillow. Fabiano called to a side of me I didn’t like, a side that survived under the harsh years of growing up with a whore for a mother and a gambling, addict father. Maybe that was why Fabiano’s closeness scared me.
I worried he’d bring out my dark parts. I was my parents’ daughter, after all, and they both were not good people. I went out of my way to be nice and not to suspect the worst in people. Over the years, I learned to smile ... even when it was hard.
I wasn’t sure where this thing between Fabiano and me was going, but fighting it cost too much energy and head space, both of which I needed if I wanted to build a new life. If I kept my focus on working and finding a new job, I’d be leaving Vegas in a couple of months, and then Fabiano would be a thing of the past.
The banging on my door startled me. I looked around with bleary eyes. The sun was low in the sky. As the door swung open, Dad stumbled into my room.
I sat up sleepily. “What’s wrong? What time is it?”
“You need to give me some money. I know you must have gotten paid for working this week.”
I had gotten money, but apart from getting us food, I set the rest aside to finally buy another less expensive dress. I rubbed my eyes, trying to get rid of the brain fog. “I thought you were working too.”
He didn’t say anything for a while. “They fired me.”
“Before I came here?”
He sighed then nodded. So he’d lied to me. “Leona, I really need that money.”
“Who is it you owe money to? The Camorra?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. I could talk to Fabiano—”
“Are you stupid? Just because he’s fucking you doesn’t mean he’s going to listen to anything you say.”
I screwed my lips shut, suddenly wide awake. Had he really said that?
“Don’t give me that look. People are talking. You’ve been seen riding around in his car. They call you his whore.”
My stomach tightened at the insult. I fought so hard so that label would never be put on me, and now, far away from my mother in Las Vegas, people actually called me whore.
“That’s none of your business,” I gritted out, anger filling my veins. I didn’t want to lash out at him, even if he deserved it for lying to me constantly. “I don’t have money for you.”
“I let you live here and this is what I get for it?”
He was drunk. It became more and more obvious. “I pay for our food. I clean the apartment, and you already took money from me.”
Even though he’d hurt me with his insults, I still felt guilty for refusing him.
Without a word, he barged in and grabbed my backpack. He rifled through it, but I’d learned from last time. He made me jump when he grabbed my wrist, dragging me to my feet. “Tell me where it is.”
I smelled tequila on his breath. It had always been his favorite and my mother’s.
His grip was even harder than last time. Tears burned in my eyes as I ground out, “Let me go. You’re hurting me.”
“Tell. Me. Where. It. Is.” He shook me with every word he said.
Fury, hot and blinding, burned through me. “That’s why mom left you. Because you always lost it and beat her. You haven’t changed a bit. You disgust me.”
He shoved me away, and I fell back on the mattress. He whirled around to leave the room, and I heard another male voice. I stiffened as steps came closer. I quickly got to my feet and pulled my jeans short over my panties.
Dad came back in, saying, “She’s nice to look at. Have a go at her. That should pay my debt.”
I sucked in a breath. Addiction turned even the kindest people into ruthless criminals, and my father wasn’t even all that kind. Still, I never thought he’d do something like this to me. I’d always suspected he was the reason why my mother had sold her body in the first place.
Dad pointed in my direction. A man with dark hair with gray streaks came into my room. He seemed distantly familiar. One glance at his forearm showed me that he was part of the Camorra. My chest constricted with terror. I squared my shoulders, my eyes darting to my backpack that was on the ground between them and me. I wished Fabiano was here and that realization scared me shitless.
The dark eyes of the man scanned my face. Then he shook his head. “No can do, Greg. She belongs to Scuderi.”
What? I stopped myself from contradicting him. If being Fabiano’s meant I was safe from my father selling me off like cattle, then I was gladly his ... for the time being.
Dad sputtered and opened his mouth to argue, but the mobster turned on him and smashed his fist into Dad’s face. Blood shot out of his nose, and he dropped to his knees. “Soto,” Dad gasped.
Soto hit him again and again. I jumped over the mattress and grabbed the man’s
arm, trying to pull him off my father. Maybe Dad deserved it, but I couldn’t bear seeing it. I couldn’t stand back and watch him be beaten to death.
Soto pushed me aside, so I stumbled backwards and landed with my butt on the mattress. He finally let up. “Two hours,” he told Dad. “Then I’ll be back.”
“No wait,” I called when he was halfway out the door. Dad sat with his head between his knees, blood dripping onto the floor from his nose and lip. I went over to the moving boxes stacked up against the wall and reached behind the one on the ground, pulling out all my money. Two hundred dollars. I handed it to Soto. He counted the money without a word. He gave a nod and just disappeared.
“How much did you owe him?” I asked.
“150,” Dad rasped.
“But he took two hundred.”
“That’s for his trouble of paying me a visit,” Dad said bitterly. He pushed himself to his feet, one bloody palm against the wall. “If you’d given me the money right away, this wouldn’t have happened. It’s your fault.”
He stumbled out of my room, leaving only the bloody imprint of his palm on the gray wall. I sank down on the mattress, completely drained—of my money and fight.
FABIANO
I kicked the heavy bag once again. I really needed another fight soon.
Soto strode through the training hall toward me. His expression was a bit too triumphant for my taste. That was never a good thing with the idiot. “Hall offered me his daughter as a way to pay off his debt,” Soto said, stopping beside me.
“Hall?” I asked. The name was ringing a bell somewhere. He wasn’t someone who owed us big money or else I’d have to take care of him. Not important.
“Leona Hall.”
He didn’t get the chance to say another word. I thrust him against the wall and dug my elbow into his throat. His head was turning red, then purple, before I let up slightly. “If you touched as much as a hair on her body, I’ll rip you to shreds.”
