by Sam Mariano
“Promise?”
Nodding, he assures me, “You have nothing to worry about. In the event anything ever happens to you, I will make sure Elise has the life you would’ve given her.”
It makes me feel a little better, but I’m still damn aggravated that I even have to make these arrangements.
Still watching me, frowning at my obvious turmoil, Mateo asks, “What’s going on, Adrian?”
I’ve already decided not to tell him about this play—he won’t okay it if I do. He’ll know how dangerous it is, borderline reckless, all things considered. Because he does care about me in his way, he wouldn’t let me do this, not even if it meant cutting the risk in half and saving a multitude of his own men.
“Thank you,” I say, visibly surprising him.
“For what?” he asks.
“For Elise.”
“Adrian, what the fuck?” he asks, frowning. His gaze darts beyond me, down the hall for a second, then back to me with a frown. “Are you planning something I should know about? Do you have new information?”
I shake my head. It’s not new information, just a new idea, and I don’t want to talk about it or he’ll figure it out. Even broaching the subject would let him know where my mind is, and then he’d hone in on it, and before I could get a cup of coffee in the morning he’d be there forbidding me to take matters into my own hands.
In a sense, that would be nice. Take the burden off me.
But in a larger sense, in the practical sense, it would just mean we keep fighting a war we’re going to lose against an opponent who’s somehow playing better. One of Mateo’s many flaws is that he thinks he’s infallible. Why wouldn’t he? I guess if I lived his life, getting away with everything over and over again, always winning even when I should lose, maybe then I, too, would feel infallible.
I know better.
He will someday—when it’s too late.
Hopefully I’ll be around after tomorrow to keep throwing demons off his back, because I don’t know who else will if I’m not.
“You should be nicer to Vince,” I tell him. “He’s got a lot of loyalty in him and you’re not using it to your advantage.”
Shaking his head as if that ship has sailed, he tells me, “The damage has been done. There’s nothing I can do to repair it.”
“You say that like you’ve tried.”
He shrugs. “It would be a waste of energy. The source of our strife isn’t going anywhere. I’m not going to stop pissing him off, and he’s never going to get past what’s already happened anyway. There’s nothing to be done there. We’ll tolerate each other until we can’t anymore.”
I raise my eyes pointedly. “And then what?”
He shrugs evasively, not offering anything beyond that.
We both know where that ends up though, I know we do. If he doesn’t back off, it will come down to him or Vince—it already has, he just doesn’t know it yet.
Mateo usually wins, but Vince has the element of surprise now because I covered his ass. Cherie’s comments from dinner float back to my mind, suggesting Vince in power. It seems ridiculous to me with Mateo at the helm, but for how long? They’ll both age, assuming they don’t kill each other. Vince won’t always be too young, and if he’s nursed resentment for years, he just might be capable of doing it. If Vince goes the way Matt went, he’s going to get cold. Dark. Cruel. I saw a glimpse of it already in Mateo’s study when he realized Mia was going to play nice, despite her true feelings. He took sadistic pleasure in the way she endured his affection for the sake of appearances. Having a girlfriend who fawns over Mateo is going to break him down the same way Belle’s disdain wore on Matt; it’s not going to be pretty.
I shouldn’t have spared Vince. That was a mistake. I should tell Mateo now, consequences be damned, just in case I don’t come back tomorrow. Give him a heads up. But how could he not already know? If another man did to him what he’s done to Vince, he would do the same goddamn thing.
Mateo just doesn’t think rules apply to him. He doesn’t think anyone will ever make him suffer the consequences of his own actions—and Mia can’t bail him out every time.
“You should let Vince out,” I tell him.
“Out…?”
I meet his gaze. “Out. Give him some money and let him start a life of his own, removed from all this. If you’re going to do whatever it is you’re doing with Mia, you should give the kid what he’s always wanted and just let him out. Keep Mia around, let Vince go. If you’re gonna steal his girl, let him get out of your way.”
“I already have a girl,” Mateo reminds me, but not like he normally does, not dismissively, not amused by my judgments. He hasn’t thought of what I’ve just suggested, I can tell. There’s a spark in his eye, the spark of a new possibility.
I don’t know if I did Vince a favor or fucked him over, but at least I tried.
“All right, I’m going back to bed,” I tell him, turning to head back down the hall. I’ve done all I can for him, and all I want now is to spend every last second with the woman who makes me forget about all this shit.
“Adrian.”
I pause, turning to glance back at him.
“Be careful,” Mateo says.
Nodding once in response, I assure him, “I will.”
Chapter Twenty Two
When morning comes, I make love to Elise again. No condom, again. It’s stupid and sentimental, but supposing I don’t come home today, I kind of like the idea of her having something to remember me by.
I know the chances of getting her pregnant in two tries are low, which makes me sort of regret my practicality before. I felt like we had time, and now that I’m afraid we don’t… well, now I realize what I want.
I want what Mateo has.
Not the empire, but the stuff that actually matters.
I want the woman who loves me, the cute little kids to tuck in at night after a dangerous day’s work. I want to be able to wine and dine the woman I’d do literally anything for, and if she likes stupid fancy dinners and dressing up, I want to be able to give her every bit of that.
It should be a bitter pill to swallow, as much time as I’ve spent raging against just that, but it’s not. I just feel sad that I don’t have time, and the time I did have was squandered resisting.
If I do manage to pull this off today, I’m bringing my ass straight home and making up for lost time. I’m gonna put a baby in my beautiful, bewildering woman who wants togetherness and domesticity. I’ll let her cook and clean, if that’s what makes her happy. I’m gonna find a way to give her friends, too. Mia and Meg are both friendly enough, surely she’ll fit right in if I nudge them in that direction. Maybe we won’t go back to the apartment. Maybe we’ll stay at Mateo’s until I can get us a place that doesn’t suck. It’s easier for me to work from here, anyway. Plus, Maria and Cherie would be back in her life that way, and she could have back whatever bond I took from her when I dragged her out of here, thinking I was rescuing her.
If I get to come home tonight, I swear I’m going to get out of my own way. I’m gonna let us be happy.
Tonight feels like a long time from now, though.
Instead of grabbing coffee and breakfast downstairs, I head out. I’ll pick something up on the road. Don’t want to risk running into Mateo again. I don’t want to lie to him, and I can’t tell the truth until after it’s already done or it won’t get done.
The first couple of hours is spent stalking, anyway. This is the safe part. This is where I could still change my mind, if I wanted to. If I let fear rule me.
Instead I wait for an opportunity to get Antonio’s daughter alone. She lives with her boyfriend, apparently, and while he’s far from someone I’m worried will shoot my face off on sight, he’s familiar enough with my lifestyle that he probably would if he had to.
I’m not afraid of him, obviously. He’s just inconvenient, and I don’t want to kill him, since I’m gonna need something from him later. Extracting information from corpses
is beyond even my abilities, in most cases.
The girl works today, so eventually she has to leave. And when she bounds downstairs, her long wavy hair pulled back in a pony tail, dressed in black from head to toe, that’s when I get out of my car.
I feel kind of bad about this. I’ve seen the video that was made featuring this poor girl, and I can’t imagine she’s fond of being grabbed, but I can’t wait until she gets in her car. I don’t know her or her habits well enough. Maybe she would be easily intimidated into getting back out; maybe she would throw the car in reverse and peel out of here. The latter can’t happen, because then she might call her dad.
Which I want, just not under those circumstances.
She’s messing with her phone (and I’m pretty stealthy when I want to be, anyway) so she doesn’t notice me approaching until I’m right there. Fear leaps in her eyes and a short cry of surprise bursts out of her.
“Don’t scream,” I say, pressing my gun to her side.
“Oh, God,” she says, shakily.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I tell her. “We’re gonna go back up to your apartment. Anyone up there?”
She hesitates, determining whether or not to lie to me. Finally she settles on, “No.”
The lie. Okay, that’s understandable. “Give me the phone,” I say, since it’s still in her hand.
She hesitates even longer, so I grab it from her.
I smile a little when I see she managed to get into contacts, but failed to reach any. “Were you trying to call your boyfriend or your dad?” I ask, out of curiosity.
Her big gray eyes flash with anger and she strangely reminds me of Elise for a moment. Not every day Elise, but the little badass version of her who took down the mugger.
I don’t realize I’m smiling until she glares at me and demands scathingly, “You enjoy accosting women outside their homes? Does it make you feel like a big man?”
I laugh a little, shaking my head. “No, actually. I find it pretty distasteful.”
At that she frowns, losing her glare, clearly confused.
“Come on,” I say, taking her arm and leading her back inside. “Let’s go have a little chat.”
She doesn’t fight me on the way back to her apartment. Probably because she’s thinking she has the element of surprise, thinking I’m taking her into an empty apartment, when her boyfriend is actually inside. He’s unlikely to have a gun nearby, but he does have one, so if he happened to be out of sight and saw me first, it stands to reason he might be able to retrieve it and defend her.
I mean, he wouldn’t. But she doesn’t know who I am.
“Why are you doing this?” she asks me, outside the apartment door.
I don’t respond. Instead I lock my arm around her waist, pulling her back against me. A shuddering breath escapes her—fear—but I’m onto the next thing in my head. I don’t have time to reassure her.
“Open the door,” I murmur quietly.
“Please…” She’s having doubts now, since I’m holding her and I have my gun at the ready. “Are you here to hurt Ethan?”
“No.”
“Are you here to hurt me?”
“I don’t want to hurt either one of you,” I inform her lowly, near her ear. “But if you don’t open the goddamn door, that might change.”
Swallowing, she slowly reaches for the door knob. The door drifts open and I go to move inside, but before I can, she screams, “Ethan!”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. This girl is pissing me off. She’s in a relationship with her rapist; how can she possibly be this annoying? I was expecting pliant like Mia, not this bullshit.
Fortunately her attempt doesn’t amount to much, because while Ethan does come bounding to the door to see what’s wrong, he does not bring a weapon.
Then he sees me, and he clearly recognizes me, because his face loses several shades of pigment.
What reassures me a little is that while he does look horrified, he doesn’t look entirely surprised to see me.
His Adam’s apple bobs and his gaze drops to my hold on Willow, to the gun, already outfitted with a silencer.
“Please let her go.”
He keeps his tone calm, not wanting this to escalate. Not like his screamy girlfriend. I appreciate that.
I don’t respond, because I want to see what he says on his own.
“Please,” he repeats, holding both hands in front of him, showing me he’s unarmed. “Leave her out of this.”
“You know why I’m here?” I finally ask.
Swallowing again, Ethan nods.
This makes me happy. This makes me really fucking happy.
He doesn’t know why I’m here, but that he thinks he does means if I do survive the first mission, my second one is going to be easy. I like easy.
“Okay, this is good. As long as your girlfriend here doesn’t do anything dumb, I think we’re gonna be okay. Don’t try to pull any hero shit on me.”
“I’m not that stupid,” Ethan states.
“And I’m his fiancée, not his girlfriend,” Willow informs me, like it matters to me in the least.
“Well, you’re a pain in the ass, whatever you are,” I shoot back.
Ethan really wants my hands off his lady-friend, so he says once again, “Can we just—let’s step outside, we can talk, just the two of us.”
“I want to talk to Willow first,” I inform him.
“Willow knows nothing,” he states, firmly.
“What’s going on?” the girl asks, obviously out of the loop, and not appreciating it.
“Well, she does,” I say, ignoring her. “She knows Antonio Castellanos—and that’s what I need from her. What I need from you, we can get to later.”
Ethan scowls at me, not understanding.
So I explain—not so much for him, but for Antonio’s daughter. “I’m probably not surprising you with the news that Antonio tried to have Mateo Morelli killed—a few times. Most recently, he had Mateo’s pregnant fiancée shot in the stomach.
Willow suddenly gasps, horrified.
Ethan’s features tense, his jaw locking.
“Is she okay?” Willow asks, her meanness drained right out of her.
“She’s recovering,” I say. Since I’m still holding her against me, I feel her sag a little with relief. Now I’m starting to feel weird about this position, so I do finally let the girl go.
She bolts away from me, moving to Ethan’s side, but she looks a little more distressed now, less angry. “My father and I don’t really have much of a relationship,” she tells me. “He’s not a great person, obviously.”
“He’s scum, is what he is,” I inform her, meeting her gaze.
Dropping mine, as if embarrassed by her own connection to him, she nods.
“She already knows that,” Ethan states, wrapping a protective arm around Willow. She wraps an arm around him, leaning into his side for comfort.
“Just making sure we’re all on the same page,” I tell him.
“We are,” he assures me, nodding.
“I want Willow to call him,” I state, glancing from him to her. “I want you to ask him to meet you, tell him it’s important, you have big news, something to lure him out.”
“Why?” she asks, quietly.
I’m sure she already knows why. “He won’t bring a heavy entourage to meet you,” I state. “He’s come completely unguarded in the past. I doubt he will now, but… he’ll probably bring a body guard, nothing more.”
“I can’t do that,” she says, shaking her head. “He’s a bad man, I know that, but I can’t… You want me to help you kill him, and I can’t do that.”
I glance to Ethan. He looks a little less sure—like he agrees with her, but only because he loves her, not because he’d be even a little sad about Antonio’s passing.
Sighing, I drop my gun hand, letting it point at the ground. It’s time for the big guns, not the little metal one.
“I’ve met your brother a few times over the years, b
ut most recently when he came to me with this crazy idea that my boss was behind your abduction and subsequent… abuse.”
Willow’s eyes widen and her cheeks flush. I feel bad bringing it up, letting her know I know, but I need to tap into any negative emotions that whole experience stirred in her.
Ethan’s grip on her tightens, another protective impulse. None of her negative emotions seem to be wrapped up in him somehow, even when I mention that—even when he was the perpetrator. This doesn’t surprise me as much as it should. Obviously I’ve been working for Mateo for too long.
There’s no shielding her from the truth, though. Not now.
“Because my boss doesn’t like being blamed for shit he didn’t do, and because I don’t like men who abuse women, I decided to use some of my free time to do a little digging. As far as I could tell, nobody ever figured out who was behind what happened to you.” I watch Ethan now, to see if he does know. I’m sure he looked into it, but I don’t know what he found. Judging by his expression, I don’t think he knows.
Then he can’t help asking, “Did you find anything?”
“I did,” I say, nodding. “I didn’t care so much back then, and once your brother realized where I was going with it, he didn’t want my help anymore—probably easier to just ignore things. So, I left it alone. Wasn’t my problem, and I have enough of my own.” I pause, pressing my lips firmly together for a moment. “But now it is my problem. People are dying because of your father—a lot of people. And they’re going to keep dying if something isn’t done. And so, while I really hate having to tell you this, Willow… your abduction was funded by your father.”
Her head starts shaking slowly, but it doesn’t stop. She just shakes and shakes and shakes her head, rejecting what I’ve just said.
“Yes,” I say, with a single nod.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ethan demands, stunned.
I shake my head. “It was his first attempt to turn his family on Mateo. Tito used to work for us—for Delmonico, he had him on his crew. Fired him, because Tito’s a liability and we don’t really keep on liabilities. Antonio picked him up, had him assemble a crew under the guise of still working for Delmonico. None of you assholes needed much proof, I guess. When the job was done, Castellanos killed off everyone who could talk—everyone but you, because Willow wouldn’t let him, from what I understand.”
