The Marker: Book One in the Bridge Series

by Howes, Ann

  “Mmm.”

  “De Luca?” His other hand joins his first and they both cup my face and the warmth from his touch makes it hard to focus. “Don’t bullshit me. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Pills,” I mutter and swallow, trying to invoke moisture in my mouth. “Make me feel weird and…wipe me out.” Among other things.

  “Why are your eyes watering?”

  “Allergies.”

  “From the Vicodin?”

  I shake my head. “Her perfume.”

  “Right.” Those hands move from my face and I miss them, but they continue to move slowly down my neck, and that feels nice. Then even further over my shoulders and that feels really nice. For a man who doesn’t want me touching him, he sure doesn’t mind touching me.

  It’s confusing.

  When his hands reach my upper arms, he clasps them and walks me backwards, until my calves bump against the wooden edge of the bed.

  “Lie down for a few, until you feel better. I’ll deal with Gina.”

  What exactly does deal with Gina mean? Boot her ass out or deal with her in another, more intimate way? I’m not sure I want to know.

  I sit, or rather drop onto the bed. Snatching a Kleenex from the box on the side table before I let myself fall sideways, my head landing on his pillow.

  Somewhere in the middle of my haze, I realize he’s lifting my legs onto the bed, then he’s pulling the comforter over me. Despite the coffee, my eyelids feel heavy and I really, really need to nap.

  Whoo.

  Just a few minutes. When my head burrows deeper into his pillow, I catch a whiff of green apples, inhale it, absorbing it into me and before I know it, I’m gone.

  * * *

  Fingers brush my hair back from my face, then a thumb moves over my lips.

  Dammit, DeLuca.

  Shelley, your father’s dead.

  Daddy…Daddy’s gone?

  We have to go.

  Don’t want to go.

  We have to, Shelley. We can’t stay. Dangerous.

  Need to see Joey. Need to understand.

  No! We have to go.

  Daddy…

  Tires squealing.

  Screaming.

  * * *

  “Jesus, Shelley.”

  Billy! Fuck, fuck.

  “Shit, De Luca, wake up.”

  My eyes fly open and I stare straight into beautiful icy blue ones.

  “Fuck, woman.” Gianni, crouched next to the bed with hands cradling my face, holding me firm. “Look at me.”

  My breath hitches as I fight for control.

  “Babe, look at me. You were dreaming, but it’s over now. You’re safe.”

  “My dad…”

  He slides onto the bed and gathers me in his arms, kissing the side of my head. “It’s okay.” His breath against my hair somehow is the one thing anchoring me, keeping me from spiraling down. Just to be sure, I cling to his tee-shirt.

  “Shh…I got you…I got you.”

  Is it strange his heart’s beating so hard against my ear? Or is it my heart beating so hard? I can’t tell.

  He adjusts himself, then slides an arm under, pulling me closer. “Talk to me, De Luca, what’s your dream about?”

  “My dad…”

  “What about your dad?”

  “The day…the day he was shot. Billy told me things I hadn’t heard because Mom refused to talk about it, and hearing things she kept from me…I guess I’m still processing.”

  He stills and the slight increase in the tension of his arms is my first clue.

  “What did he tell you?” Something’s so subtle in his tone I almost don’t catch it. But it sends a chill through me. I begin to pull away. At first, he doesn’t let me. When I insist and look into his face I sense something I never thought I’d see coming from him.

  Fear.

  My forehead wrinkles as I search further. “A bullet ripped his throat out…and he died choking on his blood.”

  Gianni shudders. It’s honest and visceral, almost as if he was experiencing it. Like he was there.

  Impossibly my heart, still beating fast from my dream, speeds up. When he swallows, I gasp.

  Like he was there!

  “You were there.”

  His lids close, then reopen slowly and suddenly, in my gut, I know it’s the truth.

  “You were there,” I whisper.

  He drags in a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

  I scramble backwards, ignoring the biting pain as my hands scrape against the bedding. “You were there.”

  “De Luca…” He reaches for me.

  “You were fucking there!” I yell, kicking and slapping. Warding him off.

  “I was,” he mutters and makes a dive for me.

  Fuck.

  Fuck!

  “You saw him die?” Horrible thoughts race through my mind. Horrible mafia thoughts as big, hard hands capture my wrists and using his body he pins me to the bed.

  “Let me go.”

  “Babe…I’m trying to stop you from hurting yourself. Calm down.”

  “You’re the one hurting me,” I cry. “Let me go.”

  “I’ll let you go, but I need you to look at me.”

  “No.” Sobs wrack through me, interrupting my breathing.

  “Please.” His hands squeeze lightly. “Look at me.”

  I don’t want to, but the pain in his tone demands I do. What I find surprises me. I expected something—grief, guilt—and I see both of those, but what’s even more remarkable is I see the one I suspected. Fear.

  And that makes me fearful, because what would a man like him, groomed in a world of violence, have to fear? Only the truth.

  But what is the truth and because I have to know, I ask, “Did you do it?”

  He flinches and shuts his eyes.

  “Did you kill my dad?”

  “No,” he whispers.

  Relief punches through me like a heavyweight boxer pounding a sparring bag.

  “I can see why you’d think that, but I swear to you, De Luca, on all that’s holy, I didn’t kill him.”

  Then what’s with the fear in his eyes? What’s he hiding?

  “Is there anything else I need to know about that day?”

  He hesitates for a long moment, then shakes his head. “No. But I need you to know there was nothing I could do to save him.” The muscles in his jaw ripple, then he swallows. “I wish to Christ there had been, because, believe me, I live with it every single fucking day.”

  8

  Dogs, dogs and more dogs

  * * *

  The next twenty-four hours are a blur, and I spend them sleeping or zoning out watching reruns of The Walking Dead. This is mostly because I decide that gobbling a Vicodin (or two) and living in la-la land is preferable to having to face Gianni and what his revelation means.

  Beyond that first night when he slept next to me, he’s left me alone. Though grateful for the time to get my head sorted, and I have much to think about, I’ve missed him.

  His presence is everywhere. I’ve smelled his body wash when he’s showered. I’ve heard him in his office, or downstairs puttering about or talking on the phone, but except to ask me if I want food, he’s stayed completely away.

  Should I be angry with the man who happened to be with my father when he died?

  Or.

  Should I be furious with my mother, who kept that information from me?

  Why?

  After vacillating between the two I decide on the second as it isn’t my mother who’s taken me to the hospital to visit Billy or promised to protect me. Granted, he’s expecting something in return, his marker if you will, but I’ll deal with that later.

  And it isn’t my mother who sets my heart fluttering or my belly whooshing every time I look at him. Or when I feel those intense eyes on me. Like they are now.

  “You good?” Gianni asks, as we pull up to a high, white wall with black ornate iron gates.

  “Sure, just hurting a little
. I took my last pill last night.”

  “We can get you more.”

  “Still have some. Just don’t want to take any more.”

  He enters a code on his phone and while we wait for the gates to rumble open, his eyes are back on me.

  We navigate a long driveway squished between two houses lined with palm trees and Japanese hydrangeas.

  “Oh, my God.” Despite myself, I start to giggle. “I’m remembering the crazy parties your parents used to hold. How loud and in-your-face they got.”

  “They were something.” He smiles, and if those little laugh lines aren’t enough to send my heart thumping, the grooves in his cheeks sure are. “Nobody eats or argues like us.”

  “Think I missed that most of all,” I mumble, the laugh dying on my lips.

  The family lived hard, but they loved harder and when Mom and I moved, we left all that behind. Even after she remarried, my stepdad’s family were too Bel Air to consider arguing at a family soirée. At least not in public. Instead they stabbed each other in the back behind closed doors with their little escargot forks. Needless to say, I avoided said soirées like the Ebola virus.

  “That crazy Thanksgiving when Uncle Joe drank too much grappa.”

  Gianni chuckles. “You mean when he dropped to his knees in front of my aunt?”

  “Yeah, what was so funny about that song anyway?”

  “You don’t wanna know.”

  “Oh c’mon. Can’t be that bad.”

  “Depends on how dirty your mind can get about a lonely farmer and his goat…and his dog.”

  “Oh, gross.”

  “I did warn you.” He smiles.

  We arrive at the house, which is set on a pinnacle of land in front of several others. Gianni drives past a large queen palm set in the middle of a grassy patch and parks the truck in front of double wooden church-style doors.

  Looking around, I realize he’s right. This house is a fortress. It’s on the edge of the cliff and is higher and more than twice the size of the average lot in Sea Cliff. There’s only one, easily protected, point of entry.

  The neighborhood is one of San Francisco’s most affluent and the majority of the houses, although large, are built very close to each other and all have their own security systems.

  The Cadora family has owned this piece of land and the two houses on either side of the driveway since the early nineteen-hundreds. They’ve survived several family skirmishes and two major earthquakes.

  Gianni twists in his seat to face me, resting a forearm on the steering wheel. “Speaking of dogs. Don’t move unless you wanna be accosted.”

  That sets my heart hammering. “Excuse me…did you say accosted?”

  He answers with a grin so sexy, I have to press my legs together.

  That’s when I hear them and wonder if the remnants of the drugs in my system are still affecting me. When I realize what it is, I’m hopelessly disappointed he wasn’t talking about him accosting me. It’s a small pack of canines. Four to be precise, creating a commotion worthy of ear plugs ranging from a deep woof to a high-pitched yip. They circle the truck like frantic little warriors.

  “I forgot to ask you, I hope you like dogs. My mom’s obsessed with them. Keeps rescuing the damn things. In fact, I think she’s determined to turn the house into a shelter.”

  There’s a softness in his face and by the goofy (yet sexy) grin on his face, I suspect he might be too. I find that I like this side of Gianni a lot.

  “Stay in the truck,” he says, opening the cab door. “Let me get these critters sorted first.” But before he can unfold those long, hard thighs and climb out, enormous paws land on his shoulders, then a black and tan head is pressed up close to Gianni’s.

  “Fucking hell, Tink…let me get out the damn truck first,” he grumbles, but it must be said those grumbles are interrupted with chuckles.

  The dog obeys, backing up, allowing Gianni to exit. He bends, though not very far, to rub the dog’s ears and head. “Good girl. Now you can kiss me.”

  “This monster’s Tinkerbell,” he says over his shoulder, lifting his face above the onslaught of the dog’s massive tongue. “She’s still a puppy and needs some training.”

  He greets each animal with equal pats and ear-rubs, leaving me both envious, charmed and unable to do much about the silly smile on my face.

  Finally, he makes his way around the truck, surrounded by the quivering entourage of canine muscle.

  “Sit,” he points to the ground, at which they plant their doggy butts on the asphalt, ears pricking attentively expecting his next command.

  “Stay.” He waits a moment, ensuring their obedience before opening my door.

  By now we’ve established a routine on getting me in and out of the truck. My arms automatically slip around his neck as soon as he unclasps my seatbelt and his hands grip my hips. Since it’s a fair way down, and my arms are wrapped tight, as he lowers me, my breasts scrape against his chest. The friction causes my nipples to harden and I can’t stop the gasp escaping my lips.

  It’s not lost on me, on account my sight is in direct line with his neck, that he swallows. Not once, but twice.

  “You need to take your pills,” he mumbles to the top of my head. I can’t miss that his voice sounds a little husky. “No need for you to be in so much pain.”

  “I’m fine.” I avert my eyes as what I’m feeling has nothing to do with pain and everything to do with what’s happening between my thighs.

  After clearing his throat, he lets me go and scoops up the chihuahua. “Hold out your fingers. Let him smell you.”

  I do, and the little dog shoves his cold nose into my palms, sniffs then licks them.

  “Meet Rambo. He’s the old man of this mangy bunch.”

  The little black and white dog shivers while tasting my fingers and soon after that his tail wags. I know I’ve been accepted when he grins, revealing two broken teeth and a few missing ones.

  “Mom found him in an alley behind some garbage cans. Poor thing was nothing but sores and bones.”

  “Aww…poor baby,” I say to Rambo. While I scratch his chin, he aims his tongue at my nose.

  “Since there’re no grandkids yet for her to spoil it’s been good for her to have them to baby, especially after my dad passed.”

  Something about how he says grandkids yet with his eyes caught on me makes me warm all over and shiver at the same time. And then the reality of that statement hits me.

  Gianni and kids, which means at some point he’s thinking of settling down. That doesn’t feel so warm and shivery anymore. My belly hollows but fortunately I don’t have time to ponder that as the next second, the double church doors fly open.

  “Shelleyyy!” A deep, rumbly voice echoes off the truck.

  I swing my head towards the stairs and squeal at the large bald man jogging my way.

  “Oh, my God.” I launch myself at another member of the Cadora clan, Gianni’s cousin.

  “See you remember Marco,” Gianni mumbles, stepping out of the way and folding his arms. “This scary fucker’s the other half of your protection detail.”

  Marco bear-hugs and twirls me, scattering dogs and eliciting a grunt from Gianni that doesn’t sound exactly happy.

  “Hmm. Didn’t know you were that friendly.”

  “You know this girl had the balls to turn me down for senior prom?” Marco says as he deposits me back on the ground then taps my butt as he steps away. This gets him a hard glare from Gianni.

  “That’s only because Joey threatened to shoot you in the balls if I said yes,” I respond. “You should be kissing my ass as I’m the reason you’re still a man.”

  He laughs and reaches to squeeze me one more time. “Damn, girl, good to see you and despite those nasty bruises you’re as hot as ever.”

  I giggle when he plants a kiss on my cheek. “And you have more piercings and more muscles.” I point to the barbell in his eyebrow and he cocks it in the most adorable way.

  The slamm
ing of the truck door draws both our attention. “You two done?” Gianni, looking annoyed, tips his chin at Marco. “Help me get Shelley’s stuff upstairs.” Then he grabs two of the three suitcases he insisted I pack. Each time I thought I had enough clothing, he pulled more from my closet.

  “I’m not moving into your mother’s house permanently, you know,” I’d protested.

  “You are for now,” he’d responded in a tone that cut off any argument. “Until this thing is over with Melnikov and I say it’s safe enough for you to go home, consider your stay permanent.” I figured I’d let him have his way for now.

  The way he lugs those suitcases, like they weigh no more than the chihuahua, makes it difficult for me to pull my attention away from those corded forearms. Until I hear Marco sniggering. When I slide my gaze over and catch his eye, he gives me a smile that sends heat straight to my face. The bastard caught me ogling.

  Gianni’s already inside flanked by two of the canines. Tinkerbell in the lead, Rambo close behind.

  Marco hooks an arm around my neck and plants another kiss on top of my head. “Let’s get this out of the way before numbnuts loses his shit,” he says, picking up the remaining bag.

  I follow them into the large, marble-floored foyer and my mouth drops at the spectacular view. Through floor-to-ceiling windows, you can see the Pacific Ocean.

  The house has been remodeled since I was last here. The change is dramatic, from early-twentieth-century to luxurious and modern. A round, polished ebony table sits in the center with a huge display of pink and white oriental lilies. Their scent mingles with the ocean air, infusing the room.

  I follow Gianni and Marco up a crescent-shaped wooden staircase with a wrought iron banister, a dog on either side. A panting, overweight English bulldog, tongue hanging out the side and a floppy-eared Doberman, showing more than a casual interest in my knees. I eye it, hoping it’s not considering them as a snack.

  My room is to the right at the end of the landing. The men deposit my suitcases on the floor in front of a huge walk-in closet. Gianni opens French doors, letting the dogs out onto a large, wrap-around balcony overlooking the water.