Lacey Luzzi: Seasoned: A humorous, cozy mystery! (Lacey Luzzi Mafia Mysteries Book 7)

by Gina LaManna

  “What were you going to tell me?” I rested the back of my hand on his forehead and wiped away the beads of sweat forming on his brow. “Anthony, focus. Stay with me.”

  His eyes flicked open, and a shadow of a smile hovered just out of his grasp. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something…for a while now. Long overdue.”

  I cradled his head in my arms, doing my best not to let the tears in my eyes fall.

  “You mean so much to me, Lacey.” Anthony took a deep breath, preparing for what came next. “Lacey, I lov—”

  “Hold it right there,” a voice interrupted from behind the van. I could only see the stranger’s feet from my vantage point on the ground. “Put your hands up.”

  “Why won’t they let me finish my sentence?” Anthony whispered, one half of his mouth quirking upward. “Last chance, Lace. Run.”

  “No.” I tightened my grasp on Anthony.

  Then I reached for the gun on the ground next to him. I picked it up, held it in my hand. If someone had asked me yesterday whether or not I’d ever be able to fire a gun, I’d have said no. But today had changed something.

  And now, my answer might just be a yes.

  Raising the gun, I huddled against the edge of the van, my fingers never leaving Anthony’s skin. I touched his hair, stroked his shoulder, and brushed his cheek with my left hand, while my right hand, shaky and unconfident, held the weapon pointed towards the rear of the vehicle.

  Oleg and the driver must still be inside the van, although I couldn’t see them. If they were smart, they’d be quiet, lay low, and wait for this to blow over for their own sakes. If they had to pick between my incapable hands and a man who’d dared put a bullet in Carlos Luzzi’s right hand man, I considered the choice an obvious one.

  I held my breath; the intruder took a few careful steps towards the back of the van.

  Slowly, I breathed in, breathed out, and tightened my grip on Anthony’s wrist. Just touching him calmed me, helped me not to go completely haywire. Which was a miracle, under the circumstances.

  The stranger took another cautious step into the space behind the van.

  Anthony squeezed my hand, the one resting on his wrist, and it gave me the courage to press my finger tight on the trigger.

  The man stepped forward once more.

  My fingers dug into Anthony’s skin.

  One more step and the intruder would be visible. In my line of fire. And it’d be time to pull the trigger. Or not.

  The man raised his foot from the ground, moving slowly, slowly, painstakingly slowly towards our side of the van.

  I tensed, and I waited.

  At the last second, instead of putting his foot down, the man peeked around the edge of the van, the nose of his gun appearing first around the corner, and then a lock of his hair. It wasn’t Mack. Not unless Mack’s hair had turned gray sometime in the last twenty minutes.

  “Put the gun down.” The man’s voice was calm, collected. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

  “You already hurt him,” I said, not lowering the gun. “You hurt my Anthony.”

  “He’ll be okay; I didn’t hit anything vital.”

  “He’s vital. To me.”

  The man spoke carefully. “I’m not out to get you. I’m here to rescue you.”

  My jaw dropped. Something about the man’s voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I needed to see his face, which he’d tucked behind the van. “You’re here to rescue me?”

  “I saw you kidnapped from the premier. I was there, watching. Where’s Oleg?” The man spoke in calm tones. “I’m here for Oleg. You’re safe, ma’am.”

  “Are you crazy? You shot the one person who already did save me!”

  “No,” the man’s voice came out firm this time. “Anthony’s working with Oleg, you’ve got it all wrong.”

  “You know his name?” My voice raised a few octaves. “Come out here. Show your face.”

  “Put your gun down.”

  I hesitated, as I glanced down at Anthony. “No. I can’t.”

  “Put your gun down, and I’ll explain. Keep your gun up, and we do things the hard way.”

  “If he wanted to kill me, it’d be done,” Anthony repeated, his voice hoarse from the ground. “Listen to him.”

  “No, Anthony—”

  “Lacey, I love you.” Anthony interrupted, startling me into silence.

  When I eventually found my voice, I must not have registered the meaning of his words correctly in my brain. Because the response I had planned – I love you, too, Anthony – didn’t come out. Not even close. “Shut up, Anthony,” I said instead. “I mean…you’re going to be okay, you’ll get better. I don’t want to hear that sort of talk.”

  The man behind the van let out a low whistle.

  “I tell you I love you for the first time, and you tell me to shut up.” Anthony managed one shake of his head. “That’ll be a story for the grandkids.”

  I leaned down and kissed his forehead. “I’m sorry, I’m just…a little frazzled. But you’ll be fine. And of course, I love you, too, Anthony.”

  “Put the gun down,” he whispered. “Cooperate with him.”

  With a long sigh, I set the gun down. “Are you happy, Mister? Come out now from behind the van, and talk to me. Whoever you are.”

  The man took one more step around the van. “I’m coming out. I don’t want to hurt you or Anthony. I’m looking for Oleg.”

  I raised my eyes, watching as a figure stepped out from behind the van. He kept his hands raised, though the gun dangled from one of his fingers. A sign of peace, maybe, but it could be a trick. The man had a hat pulled low over his head, a tuft of hair sticking out from underneath, and round sunglasses shielding his eyes.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “What do you want with us?”

  “I told you already. I’m not after you.” The man reached up, toying with the edge of his sunglasses. “I’m looking for Oleg.”

  When he pulled the glasses away, I exhaled with a whoosh. I sucked in air, but couldn’t catch my breath. I’d wanted to meet this man for years. Thirty of them, to be exact, but I just hadn’t known it. And now, here he was, standing before me.

  A man who went by the name of Jackson Cole.

  A man who just might be my father.

  CHAPTER 31

  I had so many questions. Hundreds, thousands of them, but my sheer shock at seeing Jackson’s face up close and personal had halted all brain activity. The very same man who we’d been struggling to find for just over a month now had walked right into our hands. But why?

  His eyes didn’t hold a shred of recognition, not a hint that he suspected we might be related. Not even a spark of recognition from the Halloween I’d spent stumbling through his lawn. In his defense, it’d been dark, and I’d looked like a dude. More specifically, Aladdin.

  “Do you know who I am?” I asked.

  I’d stared at Jackson Cole’s photos for weeks, the ones from the files Clay’d unearthed. I’d studied what little we could find about his career as an FBI agent. And now, staring into his eyes, I felt as if I knew him.

  I knew the expression in his cool, hazel eyes, the graying hair underneath the hat, the slight scar just in front of his left ear. I’d looked at the photo so many times, just wondering, wanting to speak to him. And now here we were – first time meeting one another in person – and he’d just shot my boyfriend.

  Jackson squinted. “Should I know you?”

  I swallowed. My hand absently rubbed Anthony’s good shoulder. His breathing was shallow but even, and though he was clearly in pain, he found the strength to squeeze my wrist back.

  “You are Jackson Cole, right?” I asked.

  For a second, the man’s eyes flashed in confusion. “What’s it to you?”

  “I think we might know each other.” I paused. “Well, not know each other.”

  “I don’t know you. Except that I’ve seen you hanging around with Anthony now and again. I’ve been watching.” J
ackson Cole gripped his gun tighter. Then he lowered it, pointing it in our general direction. “I thought you were just an innocent girl who got stuck in the wrong crowd, but now I’m not so sure. Are you aware Anthony is working with Oleg, and that Oleg is a dangerous, dangerous criminal?”

  “He’s not working with Oleg!” I snapped. “He’s watching Oleg. You’ve got it all wrong.”

  Jackson stepped closer, giving a shake of his head. “A few weeks ago, just before Halloween, Anthony went to Oleg’s apartment. Alone. Inside.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I was watching Oleg’s apartment, waiting for him to make a mistake. And then this man comes along, a man I’d never heard of before, and he waltzes right into the place. It took me more than a few days to find a name. When I did, it was only a first name. Anthony.”

  “Anthony, did you go to Oleg’s?” I asked. “Without me?”

  “The night someone followed you to the bar,” Anthony said. “I followed you to Meg’s bar, and I left you there. When you told me that somebody followed you to that bar…and I started imagining what might’ve happened if Meg hadn’t scared him away…”

  “So you went looking for Oleg,” I finished. I turned to Jackson Cole. “Don’t you see? You’ve shot the wrong guy.”

  “But the apartment…Oleg lives in the space, but it’s not leased in his name. The landlord told me that rent is paid in cash each month. When I showed him a picture of Anthony, the landlord confirmed that’s who paid the deposit and helped out for the first month or so.” The gun in Jackson’s hand twitched towards Anthony. “Anthony pays for the apartment.”

  “Set up…for Carlos,” Anthony murmured. “Boss’s orders.”

  “You don’t have to talk.” I ran my fingers down Anthony’s arm, then back up in a gentle caress. Turning to Jackson Cole, I bit back a wave of anger. “You don’t understand what you’re doing here. Oleg threatened our family. He kidnapped me and shot my friend a few months ago.”

  The first flash of uncertainty appeared in Jackson’s eyes.

  “When Oleg got out of, uh, ‘temporary jail,’ Anthony set up the apartment to get him started down the right path. We were helping him. Watching him. Babysitting him, even. But we were not working with him.”

  Jackson dropped the nose of the gun another few inches.

  “Hang on a second, what did you think Anthony was working with Oleg on, in the first place?” I scratched my forehead. “I suppose that’s a better question.”

  A vein pulsed in Jackson’s head as he considered everything, his eyes flashing to the van. “You weren’t working together.”

  “No. Oleg kidnapped me today as blackmail. To get my grandfather, Anthony’s boss, to pay a ransom. Anthony saved me. Without Anthony, Oleg would have me locked up in God knows where by now, and I’d never have gotten out. Now, how about you answer my question?”

  Jackson’s face transformed from confused to wary. “I have unfinished business with him, that’s all I will say.”

  “What sort of unfinished business? You’re retired from the FBI, aren’t you? I’d think that means you shouldn’t be out here shooting people. Don’t those government acronym-types have rules against that? CIA, all of them?”

  The wariness quickly headed into skeptical territory. “How do you know any of that?”

  “Answer my question, and I’ll answer yours.” I gently laid Anthony’s head on the ground. And then I stood up, my hands on my hips, doing my best to look at anything besides the weapon aimed at us. “Tit for tat.”

  “I’m holding the gun. There’s my tat.”

  “I have information you want.” I crossed my arms. “There’s my tit.”

  “You might want to rephrase,” Anthony snorted from the ground. “Ow, ow. Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

  My cheeks burned, but I held Jackson’s gaze until it softened. Then he let his arms drop to his sides, his eyes blinking back something that looked like emotions. I wasn’t sure what kind of emotions, but they were emotions all the same.

  “I just want to talk to Oleg,” Jackson said, his voice taking on a new tone, this one almost pleading in nature. “I don’t need anything else.”

  “You shot my boyfriend,” I said, stepping closer, despite every fiber in my body screaming for me to step away. “And I deserve to know why.”

  “Someone killed my best friend.” Jackson spoke in a raw, coarse voice. “I don’t understand how you know my name, or why you care about my past career, but it’s true. I’m retired FBI. This is my last job, and no, I’m not on the clock. The reason I’m after Oleg is because my best friend was murdered this year, and the only clue I have is Oleg’s name. And I plan on finding the bastard who killed my partner, whatever it takes.”

  I raised my hands, taking yet another step closer. Jackson was talking, at least. “How do you know Oleg is your man?”

  Jackson shook his head. “It’s your turn. How do you know who I am?”

  “You dated a Luzzi in high school,” I said, keeping an eye on Anthony. His chest rose and fell in even waves. If Clay’d done his job, then someone – cops or otherwise – should be here soon with help. “Took her to prom?”

  Jackson’s face faded to a paleness that rivaled Anthony’s. “What about it?”

  “She was my mom.”

  “What?” Jackson’s eyes reflected pain and confusion. “Honey…?”

  “Honey?” I blinked. “No, that was her stage name. Not her real name.”

  Jackson looked as if he were in a different world, talking to somebody I couldn’t see. “No, that’s what I called her, my honeypot. It’s stupid…an old joke. Winnie the Pooh, but…never mind, that’s all in the past.” He twitched, then cleared his throat, then repeated himself. “It’s all in the past.”

  “It might not be as much in the past as you think.” My eyes trailed to the ground. “My mom had a baby girl shortly after you two dated. Her name is Lacey. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, that’s me.”

  “No, it can’t be…she broke up with me.” Jackson Cole let the gun slip from his fingers, the metal clattering to the street. “She blindsided me.”

  I waited, letting Jackson have time to puzzle it out himself.

  “I thought things were going perfectly. I would’ve proposed after school, just as soon as she’d let me – a girl like Honey doesn’t stay on the market long. But no, she didn’t want to get engaged yet, she was going places. College, she said.” Jackson Cole shook his head. “And then one day, out of the blue, she showed up at my house and screamed at me. She told me she hated me, accused me of cheating on her, said she never wanted to talk to me again.”

  “Well? Did you?” I didn’t want to hear the answer.

  “No! Of course not! Not a shred of that is or was ever true. Not even close.” Jackson looked so heartbroken, his personality so shattered that I couldn’t help but believe his story. “None of that is true. Not a shred of that is true. I loved her more than I’ve ever loved anyone. To this day, even.”

  “Why would she have said all those terrible things, then?”

  Jackson gave a slow shake of his head. “I don’t know. Everything was perfect. Wonderful, even…and then that night she screamed at me, she just disappeared. Told me never to call. Never to contact her family. Never to see her again. She vanished.”

  “Did you try to find her?”

  “For months.” Jackson’s face crumpled. “I drove by her home, her hangout places, I called her phone, no answer. Never an answer. Never a resolution. Never any closure.”

  Anthony coughed on the ground. “She knew you wanted to be a cop?”

  Jackson nodded at Anthony’s question. Which sounded more like a statement. “Yes, of course. I’d wanted to be in law enforcement ever since…well, for a very long time. I didn’t keep it a secret.”

  Anthony, his eyes still shut, tapped his fingers against the ground. “She was…she protected you.”

  It took Jackson a long time to respond
. And when he did, he knelt carefully next to Anthony, surveyed his face, and then spoke slowly. “What do you mean?”

  “She was a Luzzi,” Anthony said, his voice barely a breath. “She knew you wouldn’t…couldn’t…”

  Anthony trailed off, and I pushed Jackson aside, dropping to my knees. I rested both of my hands on Anthony’s cheeks, cupping his face in my palms. “Leave him alone,” I said to Jackson. “You can talk to him once he’s all better.”

  “I would’ve chosen her over anything.” Jackson ignored me. “I loved her.”

  “Luzzis and cops don’t go together, that’s just the nature of the business,” Anthony said. “She was Carlos Luzzi’s daughter.”

  I pressed a gentle finger to Anthony’s lips. And I interpreted for Jackson, who seemed to be having a hard time comprehending all that’d happened nearly thirty years before. Granted, it was a lot to drop on a guy all in one day.

  “What Anthony’s saying is that my mother found out she was pregnant, and she knew that you’d have to make a choice. Either stay with her and the baby, or be a cop. The two were mutually exclusive.”

  “No, they weren’t.” Jackson Cole was shaking his head. “No.”

  “Well, at least in her eyes, at that time, they were. She was emotional and scared, I’m sure. Who knows exactly what she was thinking?” I hugged my arms around myself. “And it seems, or so I’d guess, that my mother made the choice for you, so you wouldn’t have to pick. She pushed you away, Mr. Cole, so that you could become the cop you’d always wanted to be. She didn’t do it to be mean; she did it because she loved you. I know she loved you, and if anything, she didn’t want to hold you back. Right or wrong, that’s my best guess. And we’ll never know the truth, because she passed away three years ago.”

  Jackson stood up, backing away from me and Anthony. His face flashed through ten emotions before he composed his expression into one that could only be described as surviving. “But that would mean…” he paused, his eyes searching for mine. “That would mean…”

  “That I’m your daughter,” I finished. “That’s why I’ve been searching for you. And I know you’re FBI.”