I had no concept of time there in the dark, but after what seemed like a long while, the door to the room was opened. I knew this because of the light it let in, briefly. Then, a small flashlight came on and suddenly a woman appeared next to my bed. She was beautiful, with long blonde hair and dark brown eyes. I thought it was strange though that she was wearing the gown I’d chosen for tonight and she was smiling.
“Hello Alana,” she said in a soft, melodic voice as if we were meeting over tea. I couldn’t speak; if I could I dare say that I might not be able to control what would spew from my mouth at that moment. “I’m Cara. I’m Sammie’s wife.”
His wife? She was supposed to be dead. What the hell was going on?
“I can see that shocks you,” she said. Then she made a noise that sounded like, Tsk, tsk. “Sammie has been telling stories again, hasn’t he? He does this to get women you know. He has an insatiable sexual appetite. Be happy that you found this out before the wedding.”
She kept smiling and she had an odd look in her pretty brown eyes. I wondered if she was a little bit crazy, then I thought about the fact that I was tied down and taped up in a dark room and as I listened to her go on about how she and Sammie had a fight, but he always came back to her, I was sure of it. I was caught in the middle of the ultimate fatal attraction and I could only lay here and wonder if she was going to boil me like a bunny.
“I borrowed your dress, I hope you don’t mind. I think it looks better on me, don’t you? And look at this ring! Is that the most incredible ring that you’ve ever seen?”
She was wearing my ring. I had that thought and then I corrected myself. It wasn’t my ring. I wasn’t engaged to Sammie. It was all for pretend and if she’d take off this tape, I could tell her that. Maybe if she understood that I wasn’t sleeping with him, she’d let me go. As I had that thought, I felt something cool and sharp against my skin. I could see the glint of something silver when she moved the light just right and I realized that she was running the backside of a very large knife down my abdomen. She as fucking nuts and I was a dead woman.
“You’re awfully pretty,” she said. “Sammie likes the pretty ones. I used to have a flat belly like yours…once upon a time. Then Sammie got me pregnant and everything swelled and sagged. That was when he started seeing other women behind my back. He was repulsed by my body after I had suffered for nine months to give him a little brat.” The knife pressed down harder as she became agitated and I felt it pierce my skin. I could feel the warm trickle of blood now as she seemed to be smearing it around with the knife. She still had the sick smile on her face.
I felt the knife lift off me but before I had a chance to be relieved, I felt it pressing against the tender flesh of my neck, right across my jugular vein. The crazy bitch was going to slit my throat.
“Cara!” someone was knocking at the door and if I could have, I would have kissed them.
“What!” she hissed, “I’m busy!”
“You better get un-busy and get the fuck out here. Sammie just walked in the front door and I’m not so sure this time you’ll be so lucky.”
She looked at me and instead of looking fearful, her smile broadened. All I felt at that moment was relief. At least if Sammie was here, there was a chance….Cara killed that thought by nicking the vein that pulsed heavily in my throat. I felt the blood not trickling, but now pouring and suddenly started hoping things were right between me and the big guy upstairs because I was going to die.
CHAPTER TWELVE: SAMMIE
“Where is she, Carmine?” I had the Glock pushed against the old man’s temple as he sat perched on the same barstool he sat at every day. The naked girl on the stage looked too wasted to realize that the music had stopped. She was still dancing, fake tits swaying to whatever was playing in her head. The rest of the “patrons” had cleared out and Carmine’s bodyguards were being held at gunpoint by my guys.
“Hello Sammie, nice of you to stop by,” he said with a smile.
“Don’t fuck with me, Carmine. Where is she?”
“I have no idea to whom you are referring,” he said. He reached for his drink and I slammed the gun into the side of his head, knocking him off the stool. While he was on his back on the floor I put my knee in his chest and pressed the gun to his forehead.
“Last chance Carmine, tell me where she is or I leave your slimy brains all over this floor and tear this place apart and find her myself.”
“Get off of him, Sammy!” I heard Christopher’s footfalls and felt the gun to the back of my head before I heard his voice. I hesitated, so badly did I want to pull the trigger…. “Get the fuck up, Sammie or I swear I will kill you!” I stood up with the hand holding the gun in the air. I saw that my guys had also been waylaid. Carmine’s crew had come in the back; they were all over us now.
Finally noticing the dancer, Christopher fired off a shot near her feet and as she screamed he said, “Get the fuck off the stage!” The girl ran into the back, screaming.
“What is all the noise about? I have company.” Cara’s voice got my attention and when I whipped my head up I felt my world coming to an end. She had her arm around the waist of my Bella. She was in her underwear and blood was gushing from a wound to her neck where Cara still held the knife. I could see her pleading with me in her eyes and I knew that even if I died trying, I had to get her out of here. “Hi Sammie, I’m so glad you’re here. I missed you.”
“What the fuck is she doing here, Christopher?” Christopher didn’t answer his father. Instead he looked at Cara as if she were in charge and said,
“You want me to kill him, Baby?” Christopher asked her. He was a fucking moron. He still believed that she planned on being with him.
“Not yet. I want to know where my son is first.”
“I told you, Cara…he’s in Italy with Lola.”
“And I told you, I know that’s bullshit. Tell me where he is.”
“Why Cara? You never wanted him to begin with. You blamed him for everything that wasn’t right in your life.”
“No Sammie, I blamed you. You were the one who made me go through with the pregnancy. Then when I was fat and saggy, you didn’t want me anymore.”
“That was all in your head, Cara. I would have stayed faithful to you forever as long as you were a good mother to my son….but you weren’t.”
“What the fuck difference does any of this make?” Christopher said. “This isn’t a fucking reunion. Tell her where the brat is so we can end this.”
“And then what? You think Tony will let you walk out of here alive, Christopher? What did she tell you? Her father is going to welcome you to Chicago with open arms? He wants nothing more to do with her than I do. And you, Carmine? You’re ready to die today for this crazy bitch?”
“Watch what you’re saying!” Cara screamed. She was digging the knife deeper into Alana’s throat. I had to keep going though she didn’t plan on letting Alana live once we walked out of here. I had to keep us here until Tony and the boys arrived.
“It’s true Cara. You’re not right in the head. Everyone knows it…except for Christopher, but he’s not right either. What I can’t figure out is why you’re involved in this Carmine. You know it can only end one way. Even if she kills me….especially if she kills me, you and your son are both dead men.”
“This isn’t how it was supposed to go down,” Carmine said. “You were supposed to go to the house…You were all supposed to be at the house…”
“Yeah, and you thought I was stupid enough to fall for that. That’s why there’s hardly any of your crew here, right? They were waiting for me there? What do you get out of this Carmine if you live through it?”
“This wasn’t how it was supposed to go down!”
“Oh! I get it…Your crew was going to find me there, in the house with my throat slit, along with Alana. Then what? You kill someone else and pin it on them?”
“Salvatore…”
“Shut the fuck up, Christopher! This is your fault! The o
ne time you decided not to follow orders!”
“I’m tired of following your orders, Pop. I never get anywhere that way. Cara needs to be with her son and this was the way she wanted it.”
“Sammie is right about one thing, Christopher, that bitch is crazy!”
Cara dropped Alana to the floor and gun to me head or not, I lunged for her. I heard a gun go off and then I heard Christopher screaming as I took Alana into my arms. Cara was yelling at him to shut-up and then the gun went off again, just as Tony’s men broke in and all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: ALANA
I woke up in the hospital. I could feel a thick bandage across my throat and there were three bags of some kind of fluid…or maybe blood going into my veins. The machines were beeping and groaning and it was all giving me the worst headache. When I opened my eyes, I was shocked to see Nate Hunter asleep next to my bed. What the hell was he doing here? Where was Sammie?
Nate opened his eyes and when he realized I was awake, his face lit up. “Alana! Thank God! How are you feeling? I need to get the doctor.”
“No…wait,” my voice came out in barely more than a raspy whisper, but he stopped and turned around. “Tell me what happened first.”
Nate came back over to the bed and said, “You were kidnapped by a psycho who was obsessed with your new boyfriend. It was the woman who disappeared a few years back…his wife.”
“Where is she?”
“In jail, where she belongs. Too bad your boyfriend isn’t there with her.”
“Sammie? Where is he?”
Nate sighed and looked disgusted that I would care. “The police are still investigating, but so far they have nothing to hold him on. The guns that killed the people in the hotel weren’t found, but the one who killed the two men in that bar had his crazy wife’s fingerprints all over it, as did the knife that slit your throat. The police are still investigating what happened at the hotel, but go figure…no one is talking. The same day, there was a massacre at a house in the Bronx. The five dead were all made men…all of them worked a crew for one of the dead guys at the bar. The other dead guy was his son. Alana…what the hell are you doing all mixed up in that?”
That was a good question, what the hell was I doing? “You can get the doctor now,” I told him.
“Alana…”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now, Nate. Later, please.”
He went to get the doctor. I endured the poking and prodding, being told that I’d been asleep for three days. That was strange. The whole time I wondered where Sammie was, why wasn’t he here?
When the doctor’s finally left and I told Nate I wanted him to go away so I could sleep, I closed my eyes and tried to remember all that had happened. I remembered it all in bits and pieces, but the one bit of clarity I had was when the crazy bitch had dropped me to the floor and I was suddenly in Sammie’s arms. I’d lost a lot of blood by then, so I wasn’t sure if I heard what I thought I did. Sammie was crying, I thought that was weird. He was so tough, hard as nails…he didn’t cry. But he was, and as he held me he was saying over and over,
“Please don’t go, Bella. Stay with me, I love you. Please don’t go!”
He said that he loved me. I don’t think my mind made that up, he said it. If that was true, why wasn’t he here? Why was I alone?
“Bella?” I heard his soft voice and God help me my heart jumped at the sound. Pulling my eyes back open, I saw him standing next to my bed looking like an angel that I knew he wasn’t. “I’m so sorry,” he said, taking my hand. “I’m so very sorry.”
I tried to smile but my face hurt. In my new raspy voice I said, “That’s not what I want to hear, tell me the other thing.”
He looked confused at first, and then he smiled,
“I love you, Bella,” he said. With my pulse pounding against the new stitches that held it together in my neck I said,
“God help me, I love you too.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SAMMIE
It was a month to the day that Bella got out of the hospital when she agreed to wear the engagement ring. The reason it had taken her so long to agree was because I insisted this time she only put it on if it was for real. She’d told me that she loved me in the hospital, and I had seen it in her eyes. When she got out and came home, she’d tried to backtrack on that. She was scared, and I didn’t blame her. I let her have the time she needed, just being there to listen when she needed to talk, and knowing when to shut up when she didn’t.
She was ever the journalist, and all along she was still asking questions. Carmine had agreed to help Cara with the intentions of instilling his son as something other than a lowly soldier. Christopher agreed to help her because of his infatuation with her. Cara and Christopher were both dangling on the verge of insanity. Carmine died because he loved his son too much to realize that before it was too late. Christopher killed his father and Cara killed him. The police were still trying to sort it all out. Paulie was giving his father and me a hard time over it, but I didn’t think he’d take it any further than that. He could talk all he wanted to about good and evil and right and wrong, but family was family.
Alana still intended on writing my story, and I still intended on letting her. But, that moment when I thought she was going to die I was ready to die myself. When she writes that story, I want it to be from our safe haven, the one that I was preparing for Nico and myself…and if God will allow me after all I’ve done, my Bella.
The day she’d made my world complete, we had been having breakfast and out of the blue she said,
“Where’s my ring?”
It took me a minute to even process what she was talking about. When I did I smiled, “It’s in the box, in my room.”
“I’d like to wear it now,” she said, casually as she took a bite of her eggs.
“With my conditions in place?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said, “But I have one of my own.”
With a sigh I said, “What’s that?”
“I want a six month engagement. That’s usually as long as my relationships last. If we’re still good after six months, then we can get married.”
My heart was so excited it felt like it would jump out of my chest. I went and got the ring and slipped it on her finger. She looked at it and back up at me and she said,
“In those six months Sammie, I need you to tell me everything. I know you’re a good man, my heart knows it…but I have to know what sins my husband will have to atone for one day and I have to have that information before I stand with you at an altar and pledge to love you for eternity.”
I had a knot in my stomach. I wasn’t sure that she would still want to do that when she had all the facts. For now though, I was going to enjoy the time that she was promising me…
“What about sex?” I asked her.
She grinned and said, “Men! You make everything about sex.”
“I’ve waited a long time, Bella. I’ll wait another six months if you insist….” she stopped me by covering my lips with hers.
I kissed her back, standing up and pulling her along with me. I’d known since the first day I laid eyes on Alana that she would be my undoing. I hadn’t told her, but Nico wasn’t the only reason I wanted out of the life. I wanted out so that I could make a life with both her and my son, but she hadn’t been ready to hear that. Until now.
I led her into my room and laid her back on the bed. “Take off your clothes, Bella,” I whispered as I began relieving myself of my own. She did as I asked, and I had to stop for a second and catch my breath. She was so beautiful, even with the scar that Cara had left behind on her sweet neck. She smiled at me as I lay down next to her and reached up and touched my face. Her hand slid down and she ran in along the back of my neck, caressing the skin underneath my hair and sending goose bumps racing down my arms.
I pressed my lips back to hers and I could feel hers curve up in a smile. I pulled back and looked at her face,
“What?” I asked her.
>
“Nothing,” she said, “Just happy.” I kissed her again and slid my hands down the sides of her smooth, curvy body. She let out a contented moan against my lips, like the purr of a cat. Knowing that she was stone cold sober and she wanted me as much as I did her was like a natural aphrodisiac.
“No holding back this time,” I whispered against her mouth. She moaned again, louder this time and I let my tongue slip in between her lips. It sought hers out and they danced together until mine was suddenly craving her lips and I brought it out and licked and caressed them, savoring every part of her mouth.
I felt her hands on my back. Everywhere she touched me was electric tonight. I could feel the depth of our connection in her touch. It was much different that it had been the first time that had only been sex for her. Tonight, we were making love and she knew it as well as I did. The sparks between us were palpable and at last I finally knew what absolute happiness felt like.
I rolled over on my back and pulled her on top of me. She was straddling me and we could both feel the hardness and heat of my desire pressing between us. She leaned down and we resumed the kiss. I ran my hands down the length of her back, across her smooth skin there, and then across the curves of her ass. I wanted to commit every inch of her to memory so that I could call it up at any time.
When we broke the kiss I told her, “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you tonight.” She smiled and I suddenly felt her warm breath and the gentle touch of her lips against my neck as she placed kisses across it. She kissed down my chest to my abdomen. I knew where she was headed and I almost let her…but if her lips found me there, I’d never make it inside of her tonight. I had to be inside of her. I was craving it like nothing ever before. I put my arms under hers and lifted her back up.
FAMILY TIES: A Mafia Love Story (Erotic Mafia Romance) Page 6
