Glancing down at the small gold watch on her wrist, Bela gave an annoyed sigh. “He’s fifteen minutes late.”
“It’s bad form to keep a lady waiting,” Gio replied.
“Right, because that’s what’s wrong with this situation.” She flagged down the waitress and exchanged her empty martini glass for a full one.
“You know, I never once saw you drink until he put that ring on your finger.”
“Because I never did,” she said, “but being forced to marry your boyfriend’s brother can change things quickly.”
He nodded in understanding. Then he leaned in, lowering his voice. “I might be speaking out of line here, Miss DeLuca, but I just wanted to tell you we all appreciate what you’re doing here.”
“We?” she asked.
“You know. Me and all of the other soldiers out there. The ones who would do all of the fighting if we ever went to the mattresses.” He sat back and gave her an admiring gaze. “This alliance changes all of that. It makes us feel safe again, more importantly, it makes our families feel safe again. Wives, children—they used to sit up at night and worry. Now, they don’t have to anymore. And it’s all thanks to you.”
His words left her speechless. She’d never thought of the foot soldiers before, the ones who weren’t invited into the corner office. Now she realized they were probably the first to be sacrificed in any war. What if they didn’t have to be? What if this arrangement really could bring peace?
She offered him a small smile of appreciation, but before she could respond, Rafe decided to show up. He sauntered into the restaurant twenty minutes late, with two henchmen behind him. It seemed like those goons followed him everywhere. Trey could at least take care of himself and was rarely spotted with more than one crew member at his side. He saw bodyguards as a sign of weakness.
She took a small, bracing breath as he headed toward her table. Gio stood, but lowered his voice to say, “Would it make you feel better if we had a signal?”
She raised an eyebrow in question.
“You know, drop your spoon or something and I’ll come over with a fake emergency and we can bail.”
“Sure,” she said, giving him a smile. “Drop my spoon. Sounds easy enough.”
He gave her a sympathetic nod as he passed her. “I’ll be right at the bar in the back.”
“Thanks,” she said, and then turned her attention to Rafe as he approached the table. “You’re late.”
“Traffic’s a bitch,” he said, taking Gio’s seat. He picked up the menu and began to study it. “You order yet?”
“No,” she said. “You go ahead. I’m not very hungry.”
“Good God, Bela,” he muttered, dropping the menu back to the table. “Do you have to act like every one of these meetings is a death sentence? Can’t we ever just enjoy a meal?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” she shot back.
He ignored her while he placed his order with the waiter and took it upon himself to order a pasta plate for her. Once they were alone again, an awkward silence fell over them.
Bela tried to fill the silence by tapping her fingernails against the stem of her glass.
“So…” Rafe said finally. “You’re in college, right? What are you studying?”
“Psychology,” she said.
He laughed—actually, he snorted in amusement and then grinned at her. “What is that? They teach how to listen to people who lie around and whine about their problems?”
Had he really just said that? she wondered as she scowled at him in annoyance. “We study the mind and how it works,” she said, taking a sip of her martini. “If you ask me, you could use some couch time.”
“Oh, I’d love some.” He looked her up and down with a suggestive grin. “Just not the kind you’re referring to.”
She was close to shoving a spoon off the table and summoning Gio, when he gave her a challenge she couldn’t resist.
“Well come on, princess,” he said with a smirk. “Show me what you got. Shrink me.”
“Looking for a diagnosis?”
“I bet you already think you’ve got me pegged.” He relaxed against his seat, as if preparing for a good show. “Let’s hear it.”
“All right.” She studied him a moment, analyzing every detail of his appearance and body language. “Well it doesn’t take a genius to know looks mean everything to you. The perfectly groomed hair and two thousand dollar suit gives that away. It’s even in the way you speak—the words you choose, your carefully selected tones. You’re well educated or at least want to seem that way, but under that suave façade, there’s a whole mess of daddy issues. I’ll bet you felt inadequate for a long time, like nothing was ever enough to please him, right? Then something changed—something won you his approval and that, like tripled the size of your ego. You feel like a king now and expect people to treat you like one. You’re not a sociopath, so you don’t gravitate toward violence but you will use it as a means to an end if you need to. You’re a narcissist, incapable of thinking outside your own point of view, but that’s not your fault. I think it came from all those years of inadequacy.”
When she finished, he was gazing at her with a charmed sparkle in those chestnut colored eyes, his lips slanted in a mildly amused smirk. She sensed he was a hint insulted and little impressed, but mostly entertained. This told her she was nothing but a joke to him. “Not bad,” he said. “Though I wouldn’t call myself a narcissist.”
“Most narcissists wouldn’t,” she said. “But what I’m the most curious about is when you went from not good enough to king of the world? Was it when Vincent bailed?”
He raised an eyebrow in response, but didn’t bother to answer.
“Deep down you knew he was the better business man—even though you’re older than him—and your dad knew it too. Vincent was always his favorite, right?”
“Until he walked out on our family and turned his back on our entire legacy,” he said. “That’s a tough one for my dad to get over.”
“Making you number one,” she said. “Seems like it all worked out for you.”
“Yes.”
“Still, you hate Vincent. All those years of being second best…only to have him betray your family. You must want to make him pay. Is that where I come in?”
“You think this arrangement is just to do what…break his heart? Make him jealous?”
“I think it’s a bonus for you,” she said.
“You know, I’ve got your number, too.”
“Is that right?”
“Poor over privileged princess locked away in her tower, surrounded by the Cosa Nostra. It’s messed with your head so much you’ve come to believe every move someone makes is designed to imprison you even more. In a way, I feel bad for you.” He picked up his glass and lifted it in a mock toast, though she wasn’t sure what he was toasting. “That’s no way to live.”
She kept her gaze on him as his words ran all over her, igniting her Italian temper. Though it would help her resentment issues to throw another drink in his face, she decided to go for a more subtle exit. Using her elbow, she knocked her spoon off the table. As it clattered to the floor, she pretended to be surprised. “Oops,” she said.
Rafe just raised an eyebrow. He didn’t seem surprised when Gio came over a few moments later and interrupted them.
“Excuse me, Miss DeLuca.” Gio stood beside Bela’s seat. “Trey called,” he said. “He wants you to come home.”
“Right now?” she asked, pretending to be annoyed. “You told him I’m right in the middle of doing the last thing he ordered me to do, right?”
“I tried,” he said with a shrug. “He said to tell you ‘shut up and do it.’”
Bela pushed her chair back and stood, grateful for the excuse to leave. With a taut, reluctant smile at Rafe, she said, “Thanks for a lovely evening. Can’t wait to do it again.”
She hadn’t intended to sound so sarcastic, but the words came out that way anyway. Without bothering to exchange any mo
re pleasantries, she left.
~~~
Trey set a dinner tray on the bed in front of Mandi. She glanced at the pasta plate with a scowl. She was so sick of Italian food, just the sight of it made her want to puke. “I told you I wasn’t hungry.”
“You need to eat,” he said. “The baby needs it.”
She rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the book she was reading. Being locked up in the mansion, there was little to do but read and watch TV. Trey had made good on his promise not to let her out of his sight, although the eyes that watched her didn’t always belong to him. He was too busy to keep watch on her 24/7 and sometimes needed one of his men to do it for him.
“That your new plan?” he asked with a sigh as he sat down on the bed. “Starve yourself to death?”
“Screw you,” she said as she flipped a page, though she hadn’t read the last one. He was making her too angry to focus on the words, but the motion of flipping pages helped her to ignore him.
He snatched the book from her hands. “Are you ever going to talk to me again?”
“Wait, I have a voice?” she asked, her eyes bulging. “Shocking discovery.”
“I’m not that bad,” he said. “I listen to you. I listened when you said you wanted to work, didn’t I? I even made it happen. I just don’t agree with you on this one.”
“How much is your life going to change if we have this baby?” she asked. “I mean, honestly. Do you see it changing a lot? Because I don’t. But my life is going to be completely different.”
“Why is that so bad?” he asked.
“Trey, we haven’t even been together three months. Don’t you think this is all happening a little fast?”
“Of course I do,” he said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that it is happening.”
She sighed, bringing her fingers up to squeeze the bridge of her nose. She was getting a headache from having the same fight over and over again.
“Why is it so bad that I want this baby?” he asked. “Would you prefer me to be like the other guys out there? Just drop you off at the clinic with some money and tell you to go take care of it? I’m not one of them, Mandi.”
“No, that’s not what I want,” she said. “But you’ve never asked me what I wanted. Not once. You just make decisions for me and I can’t stand it. If you want me to stay, you’re going to have to change the way you do things. We need to make decisions together.”
“That goes both ways,” he said, locking gazes with her.
Looking down at her fingernails, Mandi fought a feeling of shame. “I wanted to tell you,” she said finally. “But I thought you would’ve tried to talk me out of it.”
“Probably.” He was quiet a moment. “But what is it that you want?”
She scoffed cynically. “I wish I knew.”
~~~
“I only have a few minutes, so make this quick,” Sal said as Vincent entered his office.
It’d taken him over a week to get this meeting with Sal, and now that it was happening, he was unreasonably nervous. His palms were even beginning to sweat, but he tried not to let it show.
“I want to talk about the merger,” he said as he took a seat in front of Sal’s desk. With his hands out of Sal’s sight, he took the opportunity to wipe them on his jeans. “It seems like everyone profits from it except for me. I lose everything.”
Sal leaned back in his chair. “You mean you lose Bela.”
“I haven’t lost her yet,” he said. “Betrothing her to my brother doesn’t change the way she feels—the way either of us feel. Sure, she’s trying to be strong and do what you want, and I keep telling her she should.”
Rapping his knuckles against the surface of his desk, Sal continued to listen.
“Then it dawned on me…why am I letting this happen? Especially when I don’t have to,” he said. “Her will isn’t made of iron. I’m sure she could be persuaded to give up the martyr routine and listen to her heart. I know you threatened to hurt us if we tried to leave, but I’m betting there’s a good chance you won’t ever find us. I’ve become quite adept at hiding from people like you.”
“Are you trying to threaten me, Marcano?”
“Do you feel threatened, DeLuca?” Vincent countered. “I’m just asking for my share. Since I have to sacrifice for this merger to go through, it’s fair, don’t you think?”
“So, what do you want? Money? Tell me, what price makes giving up my daughter worth it to you?”
“Make me Consigliere,” he said. “Think about it. Once the merger is complete, you’ll need someone to oversee the united crews. Someone to run messages back and forth, supervise the joint ventures. And, all of that hatred and resentment isn’t going to just vanish, not without some help.”
“And you think you can help?”
“I know I can,” he said, a feeling of confidence coming over him once again. “I know both sides. I know how the others work. If you’re going to appoint anyone to mediate, it should be me.”
“Right now you’re just an associate,” Sal said. “You’d have to swear in and become a soldier first.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ve thought about it. This is what I want.”
“Once you swear in, you can only leave after you’re dead.”
“I know how it works,” he said. “I never took the oath for my father. I want to take it for you.”
“Just so we’re clear, it’s not money you want, but power?” he said. “That position makes walking away from Bela—watching her marry your brother—worth it?”
His instinct was to swallow hard, but he fought it. Poker faces were important in his line of work. “Absolutely.”
Sal stood and reached his hand over the desk. “Then get ready, Vincent,” he said as Vincent shook his hand. “You’re about to become a made man.”
11
Brother to Brother
“How could you do something so stupid?” Bela exclaimed in a low, but still enthusiastic whisper, once Vincent told her the news.
Sitting in the back of a restaurant, they huddled close so they could talk in private. At the bar a few feet away, Gio had stationed himself. Every once in awhile he glanced at them to check up, but he gave them their privacy for the most part.
“I wanted you to hear it from me first,” he said, keeping his voice low. “My handler says I need to get closer to the top. Being Consigliere between both families puts me there—right under Sal and Dante.”
“You mean right between them.”
“How else do you expect me to get close enough to bring them down?” he asked. “Associates never know anything. But advisors…”
“Are in the loop,” she finished, shaking her head. “Still, do you honestly think you can get something big enough to have my father arrested before July 29th?”
“What’s the 29th?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t heard?”
His expression fell as he realized what she meant. “The wedding date,” he said, his voice a whisper. “It’s been set.”
“And the clock is ticking,” she said. “Very loudly, I might add.”
“That’s not even a month away,” he said.
“I know.”
“If I don’t have enough by then, I’ll just move in with what we have,” he said. “I don’t care if the charges stick or not—it’ll be a big enough distraction for us to slip away.”
Reaching across the space between their seats, he took her hand in his and gave it a comforting squeeze.
~~~
Vincent opened the door to his hotel room, surprised to find Rafe standing outside. In his fancy, lint-free suit, he looked out of place at the dumpy, by-the-hour motel.
“Come to kidnap me again?” Vincent asked wryly, leaning against the door.
“Of course not. I was hoping we could talk,” Rafe said. “Brother to brother.”
Leaving the door to swing open, Vincent walked across the room to the mini fridge and took a beer out of a six-pac
k. He offered one to Rafe, and he accepted it, even though Vincent knew he never drank anything but high-end liquor. Bud Ice from the convenient store on the corner wasn’t Rafe’s scene.
“I know it’s been awhile since we’ve talked and a lot has changed,” Rafe began as he took a seat at the small dinette in the corner of the room. “But I want you to know how sorry I am about this whole…arrangement.”
Vincent raised an eyebrow. “You’re sorry?”
“I had no idea what Dad was planning,” he said. “I found out with the rest of you. And I’m not blind…I see what this whole thing is doing to the both of you and it…well, sucks. I hate doing this to you.”
“If you’re so sorry,” he said. “Then let her go.”
“I wish I could,” he replied. “It’s out of my hands, though.”
“You’re second in command, you work right under him,” he said. “Don’t tell me you don’t have some pull.”
“I do, just not enough to pull off something like that. Besides, this merger is about so much more than just you and me and Bela. Do you have any idea how many other organizations are trying to take the city? The damn Russians, the Triad, even the Mexican drug cartel wants a piece. The Cosa Nostra has to stick together; we can’t keep fighting each other all the time. This wedding is a way to bond our families together so we can tackle any threat that comes our way.”
Because Vincent was supposed to be one of them, supposed to obey the laws of the Cosa Nostra, he was supposed to understand why tackling opposing threats was so important, but he didn’t. To him they were all the same. The Bratva, the Triad, the drug cartels and trafficking rings—they were all criminals. They all needed to be stopped—even if it was by taking each other out.
“You just don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head as he looked at his older brother. “You don’t know how hard I had to work to get the DeLucas to trust me, how long we had to wait to get to the place we were in before you came in and yanked the rug right out from under our feet. And Bela—if you knew her at all, you’d know how much she hates being tied to the Cosa Nostra. There’s nothing she can do about her bloodline, but now she’s supposed to marry into it, too? And I’m supposed to stand back and watch while she’s forced into a life she hates?”
Code of Silence: Cosa Nostra #2 Page 5
