“If I’m not here as a bargaining chip then what the fuck am I here for?” Raina demanded.
“You will watch your language and speak with respect,” he said his brows lowering over hard, dark eyes. Something about his swift displeasure made Raina cringe inside. He was one scary son-of-a-bitch. “You are here because you belong to Vee. This is your place now.”
Raina frowned and shook her head, trying to take his simple words in and decipher their meaning. “But I don’t even know her!”
“You can easily get to know your mother, I haven’t blocked your access to her. You should meet her, develop a relationship, she is an extraordinary woman.”
Raina guessed as much from what little she got from Mateo and Sotza. She was beginning to understand that her mother was some kind of force to be reckoned with. Raina eyed her captor, her sharp mind whirling. “Why do you want her so bad? Is it because she’s so extraordinary?”
“Among other things. She’s passionate, loyal, determined. All qualities I admire and wish for in a wife. She is also very beautiful.”
“But she seems so cold and unapproachable. I’ve seen her up in that window, watching everything.” Raina didn’t really know if Elvira was cold, but it helped her to imagine her mother was awful.
“She isn’t cold Raina. She’s scared. There’s a difference.”
“I don’t get it, what does she have to be scared of? I saw how angry she was that first day you had her here.” Raina had secretly admired the way Elvira had screamed and fought Sotza when he’d dragged her in the house.
“She’s scared she’ll marry me, fall in love and then I’ll turn on her, like her late husband. She’s scared you’ll reject her even though she loves you more than anyone else on the planet.” He delivered the words calmly, though they felt like a punch to the gut for Raina.
She picked at an artfully arranged hole in her jeans while she contemplated his statement. What had Elvira’s ex-husband done to her? And why did Raina care, she was a stranger. “So what if I reject her? She deserves it.”
“And why is that?” He asked, giving her that look of his that sent shivers straight down her spine. “She deserves to have a daughter who hates her? Why? Because she did everything in her power to protect you, give you a life filled with love and certainty.”
Raina snorted. “Look how well that turned out. I’ve been kidnapped and now I’m being held captive, probably for the rest of my life, according to you. Yeah, she did awesome.”
“You are spoiled, child.”
She was angry with his assertion. She was far from spoiled. She’d worked hard her whole life despite never-ending health struggles. She even managed a lucrative forgery setup. She opened her mouth to tell him off, but he stopped her.
“I don’t mean you don’t have work ethic. I’ve seen transcripts of your grades and heard about your dedication to martial arts. No, I mean you’ve been spoiled with love. With an adoptive family that loves you and gave you the best world they were capable of. A child that is content, happy, spoiled, is one that has trouble seeing the world beyond their bubble. You lack compassion for the woman who has given you life and did her best to make that life a good one, despite the pain it caused her.”
Raina was speechless. Was she spoiled? Did he have a point? She’d been searching for her mother for years. Telling herself that she wanted to confront the woman who abandoned her. Now it seemed she needed to adjust her worldview.
Sotza stood, placed his hand on her hair for a second as though sympathizing with her confusion. Raina looked up at him when he spoke again. “You were young when your body began to fail, too young to question where the money came from for your medical bills. But now you are grown, and from what I can see, not entirely stupid. Would a mother who abandoned her child, a mother that didn’t love her child, spend nineteen years watching over her?”
Raina sat in stunned silence as Sotza walked from the room, leaving her alone with her confused state of mind.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It took another day before Raina worked up the courage to visit her mother. She’d spent that time turning every tiny detail she knew about Elvira over and over in her mind, until she finally came to the conclusion that she needed to just go see the woman. Decide for herself if Elvira was cold and unapproachable or the caring mother Sotza wanted her to believe she was.
She went to his office and told Sotza she was ready. He’d nodded briefly and sent her upstairs with one of his men. The guy had silently unlocked the door and waved her inside. Raina took a steadying breath and stepped through the door. Her eyes went immediately to the petite blond woman staring out the window. Elvira didn’t turn around, giving Raina the advantage of being able to study her for a moment. Elvira’s hair was shorter and straighter than Raina’s, but otherwise they were probably the same height and weight. Even the way Elvira held her body, stiff, shoulders back, head tilted, was familiar.
“What do you want?” Elvira said coldly, her voice husky.
Raina was shocked until she realized her mother probably thought she was Sotza. “I can leave if you want,” she said tentatively.
Elvira spun around so fast she stumbled and had to reach behind herself to grab the windowsill for balance. Raina’s heart thumped painfully and she could feel her face heating. She felt ill-prepared for this meeting and part of her wanted to rush out of the room. But she’d come, and she was going to stay, for a little while at least. Dig up the truth of Sotza’s words.
Her mother was a stunningly beautiful woman. Raina had never thought of herself as particularly good-looking. But now, staring into features that were so similar, so arrestingly lovely, she began to feel some pride in sharing facial features with such a beautiful woman. Without thought, she lifted a hand to her own face, touching her cheek for a second. Elvira had the same face shape, same wide blue eyes, same bow-shaped mouth with the fuller bottom lip.
“Raina,” she said, taking a few steps toward her daughter.
It was clear from the look on her face that she was not the cool, calculating woman Raina had thought she was. Or at least not when it came to her daughter. Her striking blue eyes were filling with tears and she was shaking with emotion, her breaths coming out in quick, uneven gasps.
Raina felt the wetness in her eyes. There were so many things she wanted to know, wanted to ask. She still felt the same old hurt, but it was softened by the love shining bright and clear in Elvira’s face.
Before Raina could speak, Elvira took another step forward and said in a shaking voice, “Please, sit down. I’m sure you have a thousand questions for me.”
Raina nodded and took a few steps into the room, her eyes darting around. She decided to sit in the chair. She wasn’t ready to get too close to her birth mother. Elvira sat down on the end of the bed, facing Raina. She twisted her hands together, her eyes devouring Raina from head to foot. Raina was doing the same thing. She wanted to see and know everything about Elvira Montana. But she couldn’t seem to find her voice.
Elvira’s gaze softened. “You must be wondering why.” Her voice wavered as she struggled with tears. “Why I gave you up, how you ended up here, in this place.”
Raina nodded. She wanted to know all those things, but mostly, she wanted Elvira to keep speaking in her lovely husky voice. She wanted to listen to this woman who gave birth to her, memorize everything about her. Then she felt a sharp stab of guilt, pain as she thought of her adoptive parents. People that she loved unreservedly, but that she hadn’t really thought of much since arriving, except a gnawing worry over how they must be feeling with Raina missing.
“I was barely a child myself when I found out I was pregnant. Younger than you are now,” Elvira said, her eyes darkening. “But if that had been the only complication, I would have kept you in a heartbeat. I would have made my way as a single mother.”
“Then why?” Raina asked, swiping at tears.
Elvira seemed to struggle with her words. Finally, she said, her voice
hardening, “I belong to the mafia, Raina. My parents were mafia, I’m mafia – it’s my whole life. It’s not a proper life for anyone, especially a child, a girl. I didn’t want that for you and that would’ve been the outcome if I’d kept you. I had to make a choice, a hard one.”
Raina turned the words over, struggling to reconcile the way she felt about this woman for her entire life and the reality. As Elvira spoke, Raina’s resentment ebbed. Raina had never imagined what it might be like to become involved in the mafia, had no real understanding of the brutality that must be involved. She’d been too sheltered. Of course, she knew the mafia existed. Had seen documentaries and the news. But that was a life that never touched her. Until now. These last couple of weeks, being here, with hard men who wore guns and used violence to get their point across. She kind of got it.
“I wanted better for you,” Elvira continued, her voice stronger now. “I would have done anything to ensure your future was different from mine.”
“But why didn’t you just come with me, why not just take me and disappear?” Raina asked.
Elvira opened her mouth to answer, then closed it and shook her head. She looked like she was struggling to find the right words. Finally, she said, “It was too dangerous, Raina. You have to understand, once a person is in the mafia, especially deep, like I was… like I am, it becomes impossible to leave. There really isn’t any place to just disappear that they won’t find you.”
Raina didn’t like the answer, but she was beginning to understand. She took a deep breath and asked, “Can you tell me more? Tell me what it was like for you?”
Elvira nodded and settled onto the bed, relaxing slightly. “Some parts of it were amazing. I can’t find fault with the money, the jewels and clothes. It wasn’t worth the bullshit that came with it, men treating me like a commodity, but those other things were always a nice perk.”
Raina’s lips twitched and she felt herself beginning to smile despite the intense moment. She’d discovered she also enjoyed the freedom money could buy, had found her own little piece of the underworld to achieve that financial freedom. “How did you meet our lovely host?” she asked, beginning to form her own conclusion. She’d definitely guessed at Sotza’s shadiness, but now that she knew her mother was mafia, she pretty much figured Sotza would be the same.
Elvira laughed. “It’s somewhat complex, but basically, my boss sent him after me when I started having trouble keeping Miami under control. You see, I’d managed to climb my way up the ladder until I controlled my own little slice of the pie.”
Rather than being horrified that her mother was more firmly entrenched in the mafia than she could have imagined, she was curious. And a little bit proud. If what Raina was understanding was true, then her mother, a beautiful and relatively young woman, was the boss of a criminal organization.
“So your boss wanted you to get married to this Sotza guy?” Raina asked.
“No,” Elvira said darkly. “My boss wanted me dead. Sotza’s the one that decided he wanted something else from me. I think I intrigued him, the female mob boss that refused to give up her city.”
The emotions that whirled through Raina surfaced and clashed one at a time. She was shocked, she was horrified. But she was also impressed. Elvira sounded like a force to be reckoned with. Even if she’d ended up the captive of a powerful man, she’d fought valiantly. “That’s so medieval,” Raina said, both awe and disgust in her voice. “He’s forcing you into marriage and the alternate is… what? Death?”
Elvira’s lips twitched again, and she said, “That’s a little simplistic, but yes, I suppose you have the basics correct. Although, at this point, I suspect there is no alternative to Sotza.”
Raina frowned. “But you have to keep fighting him, you’ll find a way out. You can’t be forced into marriage.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” The words were spoken softly but seemed to hold a wealth of emotion.
Raina was beginning to see the depth of her mother’s life. And it hadn’t been an easy one. “Can you tell me about it?” she asked, standing. She moved shyly toward the bed. Vee moved over, making room for her. Raina sat, making sure to keep a little distance between them.
Vee sighed. “It’s really not a pretty story, but if you want to know, I’ll tell you. There are things you’ll learn about me that you might not want to know.”
“I’ll risk it,” Raina said with a small smile. “I’d like to know.”
“Alright,” Vee agreed and looked down at her lap, as though gathering the words. “I was well into my 20’s when I met Tony. You’d been gone for several years already. Up until that point I’d only experimented with drugs. I drank too much, but it was part of the life. We women went to the clubs, we drank, we danced, we became conquests for the tough guys. I was smarter than others, used my looks to get as much as I could out of the guys. Then I met Tony. He swept me off my feet, and not in a good way. He was an underling to Frank, the man I was living with at the time. He decided he wanted Frank’s empire and, after a while of working for him, Tony took over.”
“How did he do that?” Raina whispered, terribly afraid she already knew.
Vee looked over at her, a dullness to her eyes now. “Tony murdered Frank and some of his top guys. Then Tony moved in and set his own people up. A classic takeover. And, as in many takeovers, I was a commodity, passed on to the next guy. Maybe I could have disappeared, tried to leave in the confusion. But Tony had a bead on me, and I’d begun to use more. Become dependent on drugs and alcohol to dull all that shit.”
“Drugs?” Raina asked, trying to keep the accusation from her voice. She’d always considered drug addicts as weak, unable or unwilling to find the courage to quit. Now that she was listening to her mother’s story, Raina was beginning to question her assumptions.
“Cocaine,” Vee said succinctly. “Our main product. Tony became addicted too.”
The disdain Vee felt for her late husband was clear in her voice. “He was pretty awful?” Raina asked softly, feeling more than just curiosity now. She was seeing the incredible, painful life of this woman and it hurt.
“Yes,” Vee said, her voice low. “I was his property. His pretty ornament. Just something to decorate his arm and his mansion. He didn’t love me and he certainly never respected me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the type to fade into the background. I spoke back to him, often. Which resulted in a lot fighting.”
Raina’s stomach clenched. She took in her petite mother, saw her as she must have been, addicted to cocaine, fighting for her rights in a world that didn’t acknowledge the rights of women like her. “He hit you?”
Vee laughed bitterly and inclined her head in a semi-nod. She didn’t elaborate though.
Raina supposed she didn’t want to get into the worst of it. “What happened to him?” she asked, though she was beginning to suspect she knew. If Tony had killed Frank and taken over his organization, then Vee must’ve done something to earn her way to the top of Miami’s mafia.
“He’s dead.” Vee was matter-of-fact, though her shoulders were stiff with tension. No doubt, waiting for Raina’s judgment. Her tone of voice indicated the subject was closed, that Raina shouldn’t push the how of Tony’s death. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know yet anyway.
“Good.” Raina hardened her voice. Maybe her mother was a murderer, had blood on her hands. Had fought her way to the top of a criminal food chain. But life had shaped her this way. She could have given up years ago, stayed on drugs and lived a shadowed life until she was no longer pretty enough to capture the attention of those tough guys. “You’re clean now, you don’t take drugs?”
Vee looked at her seriously. “I haven’t used in over a year. But that’s not long, Raina. Any addict will tell you, once an addict always an addict. And a year clean is only a drop in the bucket.”
Raina thought about it, turned her mother’s words over in her head. They made sense, but she was beginning to know this woman, beginning to see the ex
traordinary things Sotza saw in her. “You won’t go back on drugs,” Raina said confidently.
Vee smiled. A real smile that showed her teeth and she reached out to touch Raina, the first time the two women had touched since Raina was a baby. “Thank you.”
Raina nodded as Vee’s hand fell away from her arm. She missed the touch. She could feel the spot on her arm, almost like it burned, her awareness was so heightened. She turned on the bed, bringing her knee up and said, “You can’t do it again. You can’t marry another mobster who… who just takes you. As though you’re some kind of prize. It isn’t right, you earned more, you deserve more.”
Vee blinked rapidly and Raina thought she might cry. She took a couple of breaths and finally said, “I appreciate that you think that, Raina. You have no idea how much it means to me. But I don’t have a choice. In less than a week Sotza will marry me.”
Raina shook her head. “But why? There has to be a way out! We’ll find something.”
Vee smiled gently, her face smooth and happy as she looked Raina over. As though pride in her daughter was erasing all the sadness of her situation. And Raina knew, though her mother didn’t say a word, that as long as Sotza had her, then Vee would do anything he asked. Even though he insisted Raina wasn’t a bargaining chip, Vee would never risk it.
“Now it’s time for you to tell me about yourself, Raina.” Vee’s voice had changed from melancholy to eager. “Don’t leave out any details. I want to know everything.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Queen’s Move: Book Two of The Queens Page 14
