A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth at the memory of Alessandro’s hands, lips, and tongue on my body. The way his dirty words had a direct link to my core. My thighs clench at the memory and in anticipation of more to come later on. But first, I needed to take care of this extra job.
Reaching for the folder, I flip it open and begin studying everything there is to know about my mark. Father always was very accurate in the information he gathered about anyone. Everything was laid out in a neat little bow for me, from where they worked and lived to what time they got up in the morning, what they had to eat that day and even who they fucked. This one was no different, and it looked like he was closer than I anticipated.
I read over all the information a third and fourth time, and when I’m confident that I know everything there is to know about Daniel Price, I shut the folder and feed it through the paper shredder in the far corner of my office slash guest room slash library.
***
Daniel Price looks like sex on a stick in his dark designer suit as he enters the bar. An arrogant smirk on his gorgeous mouth as he slaps hands with a couple men at a high-top table before joining them. Before that first morning I woke up next to Alessandro, I would’ve been all over Mr. Price. Used my body to seduce him like every arrogant prick before him but with him, I would’ve gone all the way and when his defenses were down when he was coming inside me, that’s when I would’ve dragged my blade across his throat.
The smell of sex and death permeating the air as I gathered up my clothes, careful not to leave anything else behind… well, anything more than the biological evidence on the sheets, and then left the classy hotel room which he would’ve paid for. Oh, I wouldn’t be worried about any DNA evidence, that was one thing when being the princess of the Bratva came in handy. One phone call and it would look like the room had never been used.
That would’ve been before Alessandro wormed his way into my heart and decided to put up shop. Even though we hadn’t put a label on whatever this is, and even though shit was complicated with my job, I can’t bring myself to betray him any further by sleeping with another man. That’s when I decide to enact plan b.
I remove the hair tie holding my hair back and shake it out, long, thick, waves cascading down my back. Grabbing the apron I saw their waitress throw over the bar before she went on her break. I swipe the tray with his drink from the bar top but not before adding an extra little something and saunter over to his table.
“Whiskey on the rocks,” I lower my voice to a raspy timber and keep my gaze down, hiding my features behind a curtain of dark hair, while I set the glass down on the table in front of him. I walk away before he has a chance to strike up a conversation, tossing the try and apron on the far corner of the bar and retaking my seat in the darkened corner, away from prying eyes and where I have a perfect view of the table.
The powder won’t take effect immediately, he’ll be two or three drinks deep before he’ll notice that something isn’t right. His chest will start to feel like there’s a heavy weight on top of it, each breath will become harder and harder until he’s choking on it. And then his body will just… give up.
It’s the first and only time I’ve had to resort to a less… hands-on approach to taking out a mark and I have to admit it’s not as satisfying as dragging my blade across their skin or seeing my bullet between their eyes, though it is still captivating to watch.
I make my exit while everyone in the busy bar rushes over to Price and someone yells to call nine-one-one. There’s really no point though, by the time the ambulance arrives Daniel Price will be long gone.
I toss the phone in a nearby planter box as I step outside and onto the sidewalk to hail a cab.
ALESSANDRO
LAST NIGHT’S CONVERSATION with Jessika had me remembering the folder I took from Braxton’s home office Sunday night. I close the door to my office and pour myself a stiff drink of bourbon from the decanter behind my desk. I reach into the usually locked top drawer of my desk and pull out the offending folder, slapping it down in front of me.
I finish my first drink and pour another. Unsure of whether or not I want to know what’s in the folder. The writing looks like it could belong to Lukas, Braxton’s father, but I’ll never know until I open it. What could the De Luca’s possible have on my father or my family for that matter? My head is pounding from the amount of pressure on my jaw from the number of times I’ve clenched and unclenched my jaw debating with myself if I should open it or slip it back it back into Braxton’s office without him knowing.
“Fuck it.”
I slam back the rest of my drink, flipping open the folder. But I was not prepared for what greeted me. There are sheets and sheets of printed paper, a tape recording, banking information, safety deposit box information, and keys. Years and Years of information on my father stare up at me in printed black ink. The type of information he probably didn’t want to be exposed, the type of information worthy of blackmail. Apparently, my meeting Braxton back in high school was no coincidence, and according to one of the sheets of paper, my father had been working for the Mafia since Braxton’s father took over as Don from his father.
Dad was their hired hitman, except it looks like he had an anger problem that they couldn’t control especially when his drinking began getting out of control. A brief vision of him walking out the back door with a bottle of jack hits me but I shake it off. His alcohol abuse hit an all-time low in 1987 when Lukas tried to replace his position within the Famiglia because he could no longer trust my father.
1987 was the year I killed my brother, my vision starts to blur but I don’t know if it’s from the drinks I’ve had, the new information about my father, or the memories trying to creep back up. I shut my eyes and breathe through my nose. Something nags me in the back of my mind, like a memory I’ve been successful in forgetting.
When I turn the page, there’s no more ignoring why that date and that vision of my father with a bottle of alcohol are trying to make their way to the forefront of my mind and there’s no more forgetting.
“Johnny!” I yell, scanning the backyard for my three-year-old brother, but he’s not answering.
I told him to wait for me, that I just needed to go pee and then I would be back and would help him into the treehouse this time. I knew he was still afraid of climbing the ladder because he was still so small, but that’s why he had me. I was his big, older brother. I would protect him.
My father stumbles down from the ladder of the treehouse, his foot catching in one of the bottom steps and he barely catches himself before he falls.
“Dad!” I call him. “Have you seen Johnny? We were supposed to play in the treehouse today.”
My dad ignores me, stumbling passed. He almost falls over pulling open the screen door to the house but he manages and then it slams shut behind him, leaving a stench of stale alcohol in his wake. I may only be six-years-old but I know that smell is only noticeable when dad’s been drinking. He seems to be doing a lot of drinking lately. Ma said it was just his way of relaxing after a long day at work and that we should leave him and alone and let him be. But dad hasn’t been to work this week. He’s just been sitting in his chair watching the wrestling again.
I want to be a wrestler when I grow up. They’re tough and scary, just like my dad. My red toy car catches my eye and I bend to pick it up, checking it over while making my way to the bottom of the treehouse. I pocket it in my shorts and begin the short climb. I don’t know why Johnny thinks it’s hard. It’s not hard, he’s just small. When I pull myself up through the door, I see Johnny lying in the middle.
“Johnny, you were supposed to wait for me,” I say but he doesn’t move. “Johnny?” I ask moving towards him, sitting on my knees so that I can get closer and shove at his chest, trying to get him to move but he still doesn’t, and when I pull my hands back they’re sticky and red. I look back at my little brother in shock and that’s when I see why he won’t move. There’s a tree branch sticking out
of his little body.
“Johnny!” I yell, pushing him again. “Ma! Ma!” I scream, hoping she’ll hear me. Sometimes our ma has hearing like an eagle and other times not so much. I hope today is one of those days where she’s an eagle…
I slap the folder closed and push away from the desk like it’s on fire. There’s no fucking way. No fucking way is my father responsible for my brother’s death. It was me. I did it. Didn’t I? My father looked and acted sober when my Ma called for him and he picked up my brother’s little body. Then I remember his eyes when he began reaching for me. At first, I didn’t know what it was that I saw in his eyes that day, I was a child who was still learning about the world around him, but now as a man looking back on it, I recognize that it wasn’t regret for what he had done but fear that I would rat about seeing him stumbling from the treehouse minutes before I discovered my brother’s dead body.
“Fuck!” I roar, swiping everything off my next in one shove, and racking a hand over my head. My father killed my fucking brother and made it look like I had done it. I needed answers and not from a goddamn computer printout, but Lukas De Luca was no longer alive and if I ever saw my father again I was going to kill him for making me go through life believing I was a brother killer. The only other person that left was Braxton, and I would bet my left nut that he knew exactly what had gone down that day thirty-one years ago because I can guarantee that Lukas never kept his son in the dark about any of the business.
I find Braxton running on the treadmill in his basement gym. I get on the one next to his without a word and match his stride. We run side by side for forty more minutes without saying a word to each other. I needed to burn off the extra adrenaline running through me when I first got here because if I hadn’t, I would’ve had him up against the wall with my hands bunched in the front of his shirt.
“Spit it out, Alessandro,” he finally says, grabbing a sweat towel and moving over to the weight bench. “I know you found the folder.”
“How long have you known?” I ask taking a stance at the head of the bench so that I can spot him.
“How long have I known that you took the folder? Or how long have I known about your father?”
“My father,” I grunt, folding my arms across my chest but staying loose enough so that if he starts struggling with the weight I can jump in and help him.
“I just found out. That’s why the folder was on my desk. I hadn’t had a chance to go through everything that was in my father’s possession until recently. That folder was among his personal things.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Haven’t you read the contents? It’s all there.”
“I wanted to hear it from you,” I say, switching spots with him and taking a seat on the bench.
“Your father came to my dad with the story that you had accidentally stabbed Johnny with a tree branch. My father didn’t believe him. Vincent had a reputation for skirting the truth. My father told him he either came clean or the Famiglia wouldn’t help him. He confessed to following Johnny up the treehouse in a drunken stupor. According to him, that’s when he blacked out and when he came to his hand was wrapped around the branch that was in Johnny’s chest.”
“Jesus Christ.” The bar clanks against the stand and I push myself into a sitting position, elbows resting on my knees.
“My father agreed to help him on one condition. That he move your family to Canada where the Famiglia could keep an eye on him, and that you attend my school. My father wasn’t taking any chances with your safety, Alessandro. That was the only way he could ensure that you didn’t meet the same feat as your brother.”
“So, I didn’t kill my brother?”
“You think my father would’ve taken you in if you did, Alessandro? You think I would’ve accepted you if you had?” Braxton shakes his, hands on his hips as he breathes hard after his last set. “You didn’t kill Johnny, Alessandro,” he says in confirmation.
“You said you didn’t know until recently.”
“I didn’t,” Braxton says, picking up a dumbbell. “But I heard the rumors circling around the soldiers about you and your family and why your father decided to join us in Canada. I also knew that if any of it was true, my father never would’ve accepted you as his own,” he grunts, finishing his set and placing the weights back on the rack. “And make no mistake, Alessandro, you were like a son to my father. It’s why he also left you some of his fortune.”
“I never wanted any of his money,” I say, grabbing my own sweat towel and wiping my face.
“I know,” Braxton answers, patting me on the back as he walks past. “Let’s head up to the office. I have something else I need to discuss with you.”
***
“How well do you know Jessika?” Braxton asks once we’re back in his home office.
“Not very well,” I say, making myself a drink at the bar before taking a seat across from his desk. “We fuck that’s it.” That’s a lie. I’m falling for her and that scares the ever-living shit out of me. I don’t do love. The last person I loved, I killed.
Braxton relaxes back in his leather chair and crosses an ankle over his knee. Anybody outside of the Famiglia might look at him and see a picture of cool, calm, and collected. But I’ve known this man for twenty years and I can practically see the storm clouds brewing.
He reaches over and pushes a file that was sitting on his desk closer to me to pick up. The name Romanov sprawled across the top in black ink.
“What does Jessika have to do with the Bratva?”
“Open it,” he says, and I do. Then my world comes to a screeching halt.
Played.
I’ve been played like a fucking puppet with Jessika pulling the strings. I invited her into my house, introduced her to the people I hold most dear in this life and it was all just some illusion. None of it was real.
“I’ll take care of it,” I growl, throwing the file back on his next and far enough away from me like that would somehow make the information in the file any less of the truth.
“Don’t fuck this up, Alessandro. I’m counting on you to fix this.”
“Consider it done.” I slam back the rest of my drink and exit Braxton’s office.
I spend the next two hours in the gym in the basement of my new house until my muscles are screaming in protest and I’m drenched in sweat. The bitch thought she could get the drop on me. Take me by surprise. That we wouldn’t figure out what she was up to until the last minute… my last minute.
For fuck’s sake, Alessandro, she’s just another pussy. You can go out tonight and find another one. She’s nothing special. Do what you’ve become so good at doing. Do what the mafia pays you to do. Bury the bitch.
With a renewed determined, I shower and dress grabbing my wallet and car keys on the way out. She has no fucking idea what she just unleashed.
Jessika Tomlinson aka Jessika Romanov is as good as dead.
“Jessika!” I pound a fist on her apartment door not giving a fuck if the neighbors hear or complain. I don’t stop pounding until the door swings open. Jessika stands on the other side, hair wet like she just got out of a shower. She looks fucking adorable and if I wasn’t so fucking mad I’d fuck her up against the wall. Hell, maybe I still will for old times’ sake.
When those emerald eyes lock with mine, my heart screams mine, but I immediately shake it off and stalk towards her until her back is pressed up against a wall in the living room.
***
JESSIKA
When I opened the door, it didn’t take me long to realize that Alessandro knew. He knew everything. The anger and betrayal are rolling off him in waves but it was his eyes that truly gutted me and the already half-smoked cigarette dangling from between the fingers of the hand not raised to bang on my door. He said he had stopped the habit years ago. Was that a lie or was I the one who drove him to take up the habit again?
His chest heaves with every heavy breath, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. I knew this
was coming. Have been anticipating the day when it would happen, but never would I expect the tears threatening to spill from my eyes, or the way my heart just seized in my chest. As fucked up as my life has been, I’ve never regretted a damn thing. Until now.
“Is it true?”
I don’t trust my voice to not break so I simply nod, then flinch when his fist hits the wall beside the door.
Alessandro walks me back until I’m pressed up against another wall. A hand coming up to rest beside my head on the painted surface.
“Today the day you going to kill me, Jess?” The other hand, still holding his burning cigarette, trails down the exposed skin between my breasts.
I don’t answer him. I don’t know how he found out or who told him. I had tried putting it off as long as I could, but soon my sister will be here to finish the job if I couldn’t.
One more job.
One more job and then he promised me I would be free of the family. I refused to be a pawn in my father’s game anymore. That didn’t go over to well with my father. Once he has his eyes set on something, he’ll do anything to get it. Including threatening his own daughter with her life. See, daddy dearest is the head of the Bratva. We were another one of the biggest crime families in Canada… the other being De Luca and the Italian Mafia. But dad didn’t just want to be one of the best, he wanted to be the best. And the only way he could see to do that was to take out Braxton by destroying everything he held dear and everyone close to him. Including Klara and Alessandro.
Dante and Giovanni were supposed to play a big role in that by kidnapping Klara, and they did by convincing Braxton that Dante wanted to run the Famiglia. But they failed when they got themselves killed at the hands of Braxton himself. I was one of the girls Braxton and his men found in the shitty run-down building.
This is where my story gets all kinds of fucked. Up until then, I had been an innocent, naïve nineteen-year-old who thought the world was her oyster. I was going to leave the Bratva behind and go off to college on the other side of the world where I never had to look back. If I ever thought my family would allow that, I was sorely mistaken. It was made pretty clear to me that I was expected to do the family’s dirty work. Just like my sister, Amanda. It wasn’t until I refused that I saw who my father really was. He handed me over to Dante and his men like I meant nothing to him and told them to do with me what they wanted. And they did. Repeatedly.
Dark Betrayal (Famiglia Book 2) Page 8
