“You can see that I’m not that boy anymore,” he replied coldly. “And I have no idea who you are.”
That’s partially true, he reasoned.
“Clearly, you aren’t as memorable as me.”
He saw Salvatore’s smile fade and they stared at one another intently for a long moment until Ariano cleared his throat.
“Well, it’s good to have you here, Sal.”
The new capo barely looked at Ariano.
“It’s Salvatore, not Sal,” he snapped.
“Pleasant,” Celine muttered, sensing the mounting unrest among the men. “We have somewhere to be, caro.”
She tugged on Ariano’s hand and gestured toward the car. She turned pointedly and looked at Matteo.
“So do you, Matt.”
Matteo was forced to pull his eyes away and catch Celine’s meaningful look. She could sense the strange tensions arising between the men and knew how to diffuse the situation before it got out of hand.
She’s a smart woman. The last thing anyone needs is bloodshed behind Il Toro. There’s been enough of that.
Matteo didn’t respond, but he tore his gaze away from his new enemy and turned toward his BMW, ignoring the snort of contempt emanating from Salvatore’s lips.
It doesn’t matter how I feel about this stronzo. At least he’s going to be picking up Marco’s slack. I barely have to deal with him.
Matt slammed the car door with a bang and waited for Ariano’s Audi to back out before following suit, but not before catching Salvatore’s green eyes once more.
So familiar. Why do I know his ugly face?
He zoomed out of the narrow laneway, determined to leave the thought of the new capo in his wake. There was no sense in driving himself crazy trying to remember a lifetime ago, but that didn’t help put his mind at ease.
Salvatore’s smug expression only incensed him, the further he drove from the heart of Miami. It had been his intention to head home and sleep for a few hours. The previous night’s poker game at his godfather’s had lasted until dawn, leaving little time for shut-eye.
But as he made his way across Biscayne Boulevard, he reconsidered.
If anyone will remember who Salvatore is, it’s Padrino.
~ ~ ~
Tomas was still wearing a bathrobe when Matteo let himself into the house.
“What did you forget?” the older man asked, his brow furrowing. “I didn’t see anything when I was cleaning.”
“I didn’t forget anything. I need information.”
Tomas yawned and gestured for him to sit at the kitchen table.
“If it’s business, hurry up. Your mother will be home from her spa weekend soon.”
Matteo had forgotten about his mother’s weekend getaway, but it was unimportant. He only needed a couple minutes of his godfather’s time.
“In Siena, do you remember a boy named Salvatore? Couple years older than me, reddish hair?”
Tomas’ eyes widened and Matteo could see his words had rung a bell with his godfather.
“Why are you asking about him?”
“You remember him? What can you tell me?”
Tomas shifted his eyes away.
“I don’t remember him very well…”
The emphasis was not lost on Matteo who leaned forward, his hands splayed across the table.
“Padrino, stop beating around the bush. What about him? Who is he?”
“First tell me why you’re asking,” Tomas insisted. Matteo could see that there was no sense in arguing with the man.
“He’s the new capo. That was what Giovanni wanted today, to introduce us to the testa di cazzo. He claims he remembers me from school but I don’t know who he is.”
“No,” Tomas sighed. “He isn’t the one you would recall.”
“There is more than one of him? Brothers? Cousins?”
Tomas didn’t speak for a minute and Matteo found himself growing annoyed with the suspense.
“What is it?” he demanded. “Who is that little prick and why do I feel the urge to punch him in the face?”
“Familial resemblance,” he replied, exhaling. Matteo was even more perplexed than before.
“What?”
“His family lived not far from us. He went to the school too and I knew they had ties to the familia in Italy but it was only minor at the time. We didn’t get involved with La Costra Nostra until we didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t paying any attention to who ran with the family back then.”
Matteo nodded slowly but it still did not answer his question. The look of confusion on his face was apparent and Tomas continued.
“You don’t remember Salvatore, but I bet you remember his sister.” Suddenly, the flash of a redheaded girl, mocking him relentlessly flashed through his mind. Instantly, Matteo knew exactly who his godfather was referencing. It wasn’t Salvatore whom he knew— it was his bitch of a sister.
“Oh, merda!” he cursed. “You’ve got to be shitting me!”
Tomas shook his head.
“Salvatore Vinucci is Carolina’s older brother.”
“Cara Vinucci,” Matteo spat, bile rising to his throat. “That puttana.”
Tomas shrugged, a weak smile on his face.
“It’s ancient history now, Matt. Anyway, Carolina is probably still in Italy.”
But Celine’s words echoed in his mind.
“He just arrived yesterday from Florence with his sister.”
“There’s no chance that there’s another sister in that wretched family, is there?” Matteo asked but he already knew the answer before Tomas shook his head.
“No. Just the two siblings.”
Matteo closed his eyes, trying to will the murderous thoughts from his mind, but he couldn’t supress the venom bubbling in his stomach.
Cara Vinucci is here in Miami. How the fuck am I going to stop myself from killing the little witch?
Even as he posed the question, a twisted idea began to take shape in his mind.
He was Italian, after all.
Revenge was in his blood.
Chapter Three
“Are you comfortable?”
The question would have been almost comical if the scenario had not been so depressing, but Cara held her smile, nodding amiably at the maid who fussed nearby. There was a tray of finger foods on a silver dish laid out beside a chilling bottle of white wine.
Cara sat at the vanity like a lady from regency times, brushing her light auburn hair with a pearl-handled hairbrush, her emerald eyes watching the maid in the reflection of the glass.
She’s ridiculously nervous. I wonder what her problem is. Maybe this is her first job.
“Yes, thank you,” Cara replied, her words tinted with a gentle accent. “I have everything I need.”
It was the understatement of the century. The lavish house in Miami Beach provided much more than the basic creature comforts. It had more luxury than anything she’d ever known in the village outside of Siena.
There, she had been considered wealthy, her family well-associated with the Costra Nostra but she had never seen opulence like she had in the past twenty-four hours.
It’s like a dream, being whisked off in a private jet to start a new life in America. What did Salvatore ever do to get such a promotion?
She quickly pushed the question aside. Cara was well enough schooled in the ways of the familia that she didn’t ask such things. Even in her sheltered life, she’d seen enough to give her constant nightmares.
“Would you like anything else?”
The girl would not quit, fluttering about like a jittery bird and Cara wondered what she could do to put the maid’s mind at ease. She had asked the question three different ways in the span of two minutes.
“I’m fine,” she insisted, nodding at the maid, unsure of what else to do. Her words seemed to have no effect on the girl and she hovered near the door, as if she was guarding her from a battalion of soldiers. As far as Cara knew, there was only one raging lunatic she ne
eded protection from—her brother.
“You can go now,” Cara finally said when the girl made no move to leave her alone in her suite. “I really don’t need anything else. I’ll call on you if that changes.”
The maid looked petrified at the thought and Cara wondered what she’d been told. A spark of indignation shot through Cara and she turned in her chair.
Or am I a prisoner here too?
Any sense of amusement she felt dissipated instantly, the reality of her situation overwhelming her.
She hadn’t simply come to America with her brother in some fairy tale setting. She had been removed, almost by force at the demands of her father. The dream wasn’t hers, it was Salvatore’s. She wasn’t in the States by choice, no matter how lovely her surroundings.
The house belonged to Don Giovanni and while it was understood that the arrangements were temporary, there was no set time for them to leave. Somehow, Cara was already feeling claustrophobic within the walls of the ten thousand square foot mansion.
“I-I’m not supposed to leave you alone,” the maid muttered and Cara was instantly furious, realizing that her hunch was right.
I should have known, she thought bitterly, turning back to stare at herself in the mirror. She fought to maintain a bored expression on her face and continued to brush her hair. There was no need for the help to see her lose her composure.
“I see.”
What else could she say? It wasn’t the girl’s fault that she had been locked away like some fallen woman of ancient times.
I’m surprised Papa didn’t just stick me in a convent.
She reminded herself never to speak the words aloud. It could be that Signore Vinucci simply hadn’t considered the idea yet.
“What’s your name?” Cara asked, sighing after a long, awkward moment of silence.
“Virginia. People call me Ginny.”
“Ginny. How long have you worked here?”
Her eyes grew wide at the inquiry.
“I-uh, I just started, ma’am.”
Cara cringed at the title but she didn’t bother to correct the girl. Maybe they would get to first name basis in due time but forcing things along wasn’t going to put Ginny at ease.
“Have you worked other places?”
She didn’t know why she was interrogating the girl except that it had been a long while since she’d had female companionship. There had been two long months of basic solitary confinement at the house in Siena before being carted away to America.
Ginny, however, did not seem to appreciate Cara’s clumsy attempts at friendship.
“I brought my book, ma’am. I’ll just read if that’s all right with you.”
A combination of embarrassment and indignation flashed through Cara.
As if I’m some errant child who needs to be babysat. Am I that bad of a conversationalist?
“You can leave,” she reminded Ginny coldly but instantly felt guilty when the maid looked aghast.
You can’t take your mood out on her. She obviously doesn’t want to be here any more than you want her here.
Cara knew she should apologize, but she refused. Instead, she waved a perfectly manicured hand at her.
“Do whatever you want,” she snapped indifferently. “I don’t care. Just stay out of my way.”
The best emotional defense is an immature offence, she thought, loathing herself in that moment. At least I learned that lesson well as a child.
In her youth, Cara had been considered a bully, pouring out the anger she’d accumulated at home on the unsuspecting children at school. It was not until she was in her late teens that a school counsellor ordered her to get professional therapy – or she would be expelled. There, she learned the root of her own insecurities.
“Bullies torment others reflectively,” Dr. Cosimo explained. “You see something in other people which reminds you of yourself and you lash out. You will continue to react this way, thus alienating yourself from others, until you start displaying pathological antisocial personality traits.”
Even then, Cara had understood the psychiatrist’s meaning.
If you keep up with this behavior, honey, you’re going to die alone.
It didn’t take the psychiatrist long to figure out that Cara had been abused by her father and brother. They treated her like she was no better than the maid who hovered nearby. Cara had spent her entire life trying to prove she was just as good as the men whom she shared her home with, but the attempts were futile. Not only did they treat her poorly, they were violent men, used to the criminal way of life. To them, women were lower than the servants, less deserving of respect.
Even with therapy, the deep-seated resentment she felt toward her family never quite disappeared, although with time, Cara did manage to hide her true feelings with more ease.
The stress manifested in other ways and soon, she was lashing out in much quieter ways but ones which would have much more dire consequences.
Like being sent to America.
Sighing, Cara glanced at her cell but of course there were no messages. Who was going to call her?
There’s always Instagram, she reasoned, looking around the room for her computer.
“CAROLINA!”
Despite being on the main floor of the huge house, Salvatore’s voice reverberated through the walls as if he stood beside her, screaming her name.
“Madonna santa, Salvatore! Why are you yelling?” she called back. “I’m in my room!”
A moment later, her burly brother appeared in the doorway of the sitting room, his eyes gleaming.
“You’ll never guess who I’m working with here in Miami,” he snickered without preamble. “Take a guess!”
“Have you lost your mind? How the hell would I know anyone in America, least of all who you’re working with?” she retorted.
“Oh, you know this little stronzo, although he’s not so little anymore. Quite the ugly duckling transformation, that one.”
“I have no idea what you’re babbling about.”
Cara had no interest in discussing her brother’s work. It was better that she didn’t know anything. Anyway, she had other things on her mind. Like her new prison.
“I have a bone to pick with you,” she told him, reaching for a purple lip gloss at the far end of the vanity.
“Matteo Bruno!” Salvatore yelled. He seemed ready to jump into the air like a child. Cara frowned, her dark brown eyebrows knitting into a vee.
“Who?”
“Matteo Bruno! You remember him! You used to pick on him until he cried.”
Cara shuddered at the memory. There had been so many. How was she supposed to remember one little paesano in the lot?
She shrugged, trying desperately to put a face to the boy.
“I don’t remember him.”
Salvatore lost his amused smile and grunted, the wind falling from his sails.
“Oh, come on! His godfather is Tomas Cabal?”
Suddenly, heat sprung up her neck and she gasped aloud. She could picture Matteo perfectly in her mind’s eye, his bespectacled face, chubby and crestfallen as she led her minions to mock his small size.
“Oh, mio dio, no” she muttered. “Si, I remember.”
She wished she didn’t though, and she hoped that he didn’t remember her. Salvatore’s beam reappeared.
“You do remember him! Good, I was worried I had him mixed up with someone else. He didn’t seem to remember me but I didn’t make his life as miserable as you did.”
Cara’s eyes darted toward Ginny who was pretending to be absorbed in her novel. She was glad the maid couldn’t understand the torrent of Italian.
“Why do I have a babysitter?” Cara demanded, mostly to change the subject. She didn’t want a reminder of her cruel past in that moment.
“A babysitter?” Salvatore laughed. “You have company.”
“Company who won’t leave me alone? I would prefer to be by myself, rather than entertain a houseguest who never leaves.”
/> Salvatore shrugged.
“Papa’s order’s. We can’t really have a replay here of what happened at home, can we?”
Cara’s ears turned hot and she was sure her face was crimson with shame, although she knew she had no reason to feel guilt. What had happened back home was nothing more than a misunderstanding that had spiralled out of control. Of course, there was no explaining that to the men in her life. Why would they listen to a stupid woman after all?
“It wouldn’t happen,” she protested weakly, but her words were barely audible in her embarrassment. “That was…an isolated incident.”
She could think of no more innocent way to describe it, although it had been so much more than that.
“Yeah, well, we didn’t think it would happen at home either, and now look at us.”
“Salvatore! You can’t keep me here like a prisoner!”
Suddenly, his face twisted into a sinister scowl, one which Cara knew well. It was stunning that after all these years, she was still afraid when she saw that expression on his face.
“You did this to yourself,” he spat, his voice a venomous hiss. Through her peripheral vision, Cara saw Ginny look up from her book, alarm coloring her face.
“If you think this is bad,” he continued, leaning to meet her eyes, their irises an identical shade of iridescent green. “You wait to see what we’ll do to you if you fuck things up for us again, cara mia.”
Cara didn’t doubt the validity of her brother’s threat. She had screwed things up royally at home and Salvatore was right—things could be much, much worse for her.
I just need to earn his trust back and he’ll give me more freedom, she thought with shaky confidence. Anyway, Ginny is a hundred pounds. How is she going to stop me from doing what I want?
Cara nodded and lowered her eyes in contrition.
“You’re right,” she relented. “I’m sorry.”
His frame slowly backed off and he leaned away from her as she had known he would.
“If you’d just do as you’re told, Cara, you wouldn’t piss off me and Papa so much,” he continued, apparently on his lecture tirade. “And then you wouldn’t find yourself crying that life is unfair to you.”
Taken by the Mafia Boss Page 3
