Ruthless Empire: A Dark Mafia Collection

by Seth Eden

  Now, I sighed. I had to make him stop before his misplaced guilt drove a wedge between us I wouldn’t be able to remove. “Would I have been torn apart? Yes. But I wouldn’t have blamed you. It would’ve devastated you, too. I know that. I know that because of how you are with Anna. Despite being a mob boss, you’re still the best father I’ve ever seen, hands down.”

  “And my life has always been full of shit like this, okay?” I continued, knowing if I wanted him to let me back in, I needed to be honest with him, to quit holding back. “My father was an alcoholic who beat me when I was six. Then he killed someone and went to prison. My mother raised us till I was eleven, then disappeared.”

  “I have no idea what happened to her to this day, though I’m assuming she’s been dead for years. I’m the one who raised Tara because of it.” I dropped my gaze to my hands, suddenly not feeling as brave as I would’ve liked to. “I even prostituted myself once to provide her with food. So I’m very well aware that life sucks. It did then and it still does now. At least sometimes.”

  “But you know what the difference between then and now is?” I told him, making myself look at him no matter how ashamed of my past I felt. “Now I know how it feels to be with you. How it feels to experience moments of joy and love and passion. If you want to take responsibility for something, take it for that. Because despite everything that’s happened, you’ve made me happier than I’ve ever been.”

  I waited, apprehensive about how he’d take this new information. I hadn’t told him about all that not only because it was my own cross to bear, but also because I didn’t know if he’d accept that he’d fallen in love with a woman who’d once been a whore.

  I knew most men wouldn’t consider a woman who’d done such a thing as relationship material, and certainly not mother material. They’d think of that behavior as unacceptable and disgusting. Contemptible, even.

  But instead of storming away as if repulsed, Luca twined his arms around me, holding me close. “Christ, Molly, I’m so sorry you went through all that.”

  Relief, wild and dazzling flowed through me. I leaned into him, letting him give me comfort. I was immensely lucky that Luca Varasso was not most men.

  After passing several minutes like that, he said, “You’re unlike any woman I’ve ever met, you know? Hell, unlike any person I’ve ever met. You’re more courageous than anyone I know, including me.” He then scooted onto my bed as he gently lifted me up, and even more gently sat me in his lap. “It’s just… I almost lost you.”

  “You didn’t, though,” I said, laying my head on his chest. “Bad things happened to me long before I met you, curse or no curse. But being afraid of what might go down will just keep you from living the way you want. I don’t want to live that way. In fear. Life’s short enough without looking over our shoulders waiting for some curse to strike. Don’t you think?”

  He chuckled, and it felt the vibration of it rumble through me. “You make some pretty solid points.”

  “I’m smarter than your average bear. Or at least more smart-assed,” I grinned up at him, and he laughed outright.

  “True on both counts.”

  “So, you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Who am I to say no to Queen Molly?” And then, he did.

  He told me about trying to determine who shot me and why. About him and his brothers suspecting that there was a mole somewhere in their organization. About them not catching on or seeing any evidence of that mole in time to anticipate their next move. About how they’d been collecting surveillance data through drones, and about how they’d found proof that someone had been monitoring activities within the mansion.

  “Someone’s been watching us?” I asked him, astounded to hear this. Who would dare infringe on the privacy of the powerful Varasso family?

  “Yes.”

  I suppressed a shiver of discomfort. Knowing we’d all been observed in a location I’d thought of as my home gave me the creeps. “What did they see?”

  He shook his head, glowering. “We’re not certain of the extent of the footage, but the cameras we’ve located so far were spying on the hallway running along the second floor and the gym.”

  The gym. The place where this baby had been conceived. Had this mole been watching for long enough to see what happened between Luca and me that night? Suddenly, I felt exposed, like I’d been laid out naked for public viewing. I tightened my arms around him. Where else had they situated cameras? In the bedrooms? In the showers?

  And what were they doing with the clips they captured? I imagined them posting Luca making love to me on the internet like some lurid sex tape.

  God.

  Or even worse, were they planning on taking this information to the police? Lots of business was discussed in the Varasso home. Hell, the headquarters they operated out of was on the third floor. If whoever this was collected enough concrete proof, they could put all of us away for a long time. Probably permanently.

  The horror of what I was contemplating must’ve shown on my face because Luca released a sigh. He laid a protective hand over my belly and whispered in my ear, “This is why I didn’t want you to know. Just because you’re tough as nails doesn’t mean I like to see you upset.”

  I realized that Luca had done what he had to save me from additional stress. But I could be strong, stress or no stress. And I would be.

  “How close are we to finding whoever this is?” I asked him, rubbing his hand with my own. I’d never been the type to seek comfort from a man in this way. I’d never been able to depend on anyone but myself, but now I knew I could also depend on him.

  “Not close enough for my liking, but that’s what we’ve been focused on,” he said.

  I looked into his face and saw his fury and resolve. I knew he’d do anything, including using his considerable power and resources, to track this mother fucker down. Luca would do whatever was necessary to protect our burgeoning family from those who would harm us.

  And so would I.

  35

  Luca

  On the day before Molly’s release, it occurred to me that even though we’d declared ourselves and been totally truthful with one another, I hadn’t broached the most important subject of all.

  Our future.

  I thought of the vault in the closet of my father’s bedroom, a room none of us had entered since his death months before. I thought of the white gold ring inside it, the square emerald encircled by glimmering white diamonds. My mother’s wedding band. A piece of jewelry my father had intended for me to offer to the mother of my child before she gave birth.

  I’d spent over a year regretting that I hadn’t proposed to Alana Rhodes, married her, made her my wife.

  Then, I’d regretted that I’d fallen for Molly, had put her in the path of danger. But one thing Molly had taught me was that regrets were useless. Life can be a giant shit-fest, or it can hold great joy. It was all about living in the moment and milking those moments of joy for all they were worth.

  And in this moment, I wanted Molly to know that despite what she’d had to do in her past, I would never judge her. How could I? I was a far worse person than she was, had committed far worse atrocities than she had. And yet she loved me. If she could love the man I was considering all my myriad shortcomings, how could she ever doubt that I could love her?

  I turned to see her staring out the window of the hospital. The view left much to be desired; the only things in sight were the roofs of the lower stories of the building, with one thin strip of sky near the top and a narrow sliver of the Philadelphia skyline. She must’ve heard me come in because she quickly wiped her cheeks.

  She’d been weeping again. Still mourning but attempting to conceal that fact. “I’ve already picked out some baby furniture,” she said, with a forced joviality. “It was supposed to be delivered a few days ago, so I hope it isn’t sitting out on the lawn.”

  “It’s not,” I told her. The surveillance team watching her residence had informed me
the day it arrived, and I’d had Gabriel move it inside out of the elements. “I had it taken care of.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Thank you. I hope you like it.”

  “I’m sure I will.”

  “I picked it out the same day…” she trailed off and fluffed her blankets as if needing to straighten the bed. She made kind of a production of it, and finally, I put my hands over hers.

  “Molly, you don’t have to hide how you really feel from me. I know you miss your sister. Losing someone isn’t something you get over in a few days or even weeks. It’s okay to grieve.”

  Finally, she peeked up at me, tears glistening in her whiskey eyes. “I promised myself I’d be strong. You need me to be Queen Molly so I will be.”

  “You already are. Crying over Tara won’t change that.”

  “Damn tears,” she said, acting annoyed at herself. “They just won’t quit. Ever since I’ve been pregnant it’s like a have a valve I can’t shut off.”

  I brought my lips to her cheeks, kissing them away. “The baby furniture went to your cottage. Does that mean you plan to live there?”

  “Well, that was the plan,” she said, pushing her hair out of her face. “But that was before…”

  “I’d like you to come back to the mansion,” I told her.

  “Like to my old room?”

  “More like to my room. I’ve missed you. I’d love to go to sleep with you by my side and wake up with you in the morning. If you’re interested.”

  She smiled, “I am.”

  “It took me a while to hunt down the signal because every time I thought I had it, it wouldn’t be there,” Alessandro told me, looking like he’d been up for a week straight, probably because he nearly had. “But then I realized, it was mobile. I sent a drone to hover over the last known location and managed to catch sight of a van before it drove off. I think whoever did this is in the van.”

  “Whose van is it?” I asked, glad to have a lead. “Does it belong to the Bianchis?”

  “No, that’s the thing. I found it listed under some guy named Burton Fashinelli, but the guy’s a ghost. He died five years ago as a marine in Afghanistan. Whoever’s in that van knows how to cover his tracks and evade detection. I’m searching to see if any other names have been tied to the vehicle, but it’s going to take some more time. If we could just find it, we could take the guy out now.” He rubbed his eyes under his glasses. “Molly get situated okay?”

  “Yes. She’s sleeping a lot and is still sore, but she’s doing better.” We’d gotten Molly set up in my room the day before, and Rosa was taking her food from the kitchen for every meal. We’d put her in my king-sized bed, and last night for the first time, I’d been able to sleep in it without feeling the pang of Alana’s loss. “I think having Anna around in the mornings and evenings will keep her spirits up.”

  “My niece has that effect on others.”

  I smiled. “True.” Now that my daughter had become a rambunctious toddler, she spent the majority of her time awake running everywhere in her walker and chattering her little head off. I loved the sound.

  “So I saw you head into Mom and Dad’s old room. You going to make an important inquiry of the queen sometime soon?” Sandro said, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “When did you see me go in there?”

  “Last night. You probably would’ve noticed me if you weren’t so focused on your task it was like you had blinders on.” He chuckled. “What? I’m happy for you.”

  “You think she’ll say yes?”

  “Bro, you told her you love her, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And she’s having your kid in a few months,” Sandro went on.

  “Yeah.”

  He smirked at me. “Then I think it’s safe to say you’ve got better than a fifty-fifty shot.”

  36

  Roman

  Finding out the bitch had managed to survive left me in a burning rage. Her death had been essential to all the tumblers inside the lock falling into place correctly, but because of one tiny miscalculation, they hadn’t. Now I’d have to revise my plan. I may even have to start from scratch.

  Goddammit.

  What drove me the most insane was the fact that I’d taken out three of the four people I’d targeted, only to miss the most crucial one. It frustrated me to no end. I hadn’t foreseen that stupid alarm, and it’d knocked me off my game and made me get sloppy.

  So Molly Greene was still alive, and things only got worse from there.

  I’d been discovered. Well, not me so much as my equipment and devices. But now, I couldn’t see into the mansion. I couldn’t tell who was coming or going or when. It left me at a disadvantage.

  And since I’d grown up under plenty of disadvantages, I didn’t appreciate that.

  Not one bit.

  With a simple hack into the hospital, I’d been able to tell when the status of Molly Green had been upgraded. She hadn’t been out of the woods for days, but it hadn’t been enough. The wounds I’d inflicted hadn’t polished her off like I’d hoped. And worse, she’d been released. No doubt back into the reinforced levels of security at the Varasso mansion.

  It might not have been impenetrable before, but it probably was now.

  There was only one miniscule piece of good news that I’d been able to unearth.

  Her records stated she was pregnant. The Crown Prince had knocked up a second woman. I’ll say one thing for Luca Varasso: he’s a potent son of a bitch.

  Which meant that though I’d fucked up, still meant I had one last chance.

  If I took her down now, not only would I be depriving him of the woman he loved, I’d also be depriving him of his unborn child.

  Two birds with one stone.

  I could still render him distraught, maybe now more than ever.

  I still knew the layout of the estate and family home, still had one last ace in the hole he didn’t know about. I hadn’t wanted to do things this way, but sometimes, it was better to use a jackhammer than a scalpel.

  Granted, before now, I’d always been an operative of subtlety. On little seemingly inconsequential moves that ultimately provided me with a win, tiny as it might be.

  But this time, I’d lost my patience.

  He’d backed me into a corner, but I could still spit like a cobra from there. I could still be lethal. And my dear brothers were about to find out just how lethal.

  Must be a call back to my acting roots, but I did have to admit to having a flare for the dramatic. My next and final act would definitely be that.

  I’d had to shuck my van, turn off my computers, and ditch my hacking equipment in a storage unit. Couldn’t afford to be tracked now, could I? So I wouldn’t be. No more mistakes.

  None at all.

  Using another black server, I tapped into the net from a completely different location, with another IP address, and a fresh username and password. No one would be capable of finding me from here.

  One thing about being great with forgery was how many friends I’d been able to make over the years. A couple of them happened to be in some pretty high places and had access to some pretty amazing crap. I’d been holding on to said crap for a few months now, keeping it in reserve, holding on to it as a backup.

  Kind of like a backup file. But this was more than a file, more than a piece of equipment.

  This would be the thing that turned the tide in my favor and opened a chink in the levy. It was high time that I received the bounty I deserved, and I knew my luck was getting ready to improve.

  How?

  Because I would be the one to improve it.

  I’d hoped to resell this particular piece of equipment at a profit on the black market—it was worth a small fortune, more than a small fortune even—but que sera sera.

  Taking the throne from a pile of rumble and ash hadn’t been my first choice, but I could make it work. The point of all this was that I would get to take the throne at all. That I would be king. And I would.

&n
bsp; I adjusted my ace in the hole onto my shoulder, feeling how it felt to carry it, to balance with it on one side. Then, I imagined Luca’s expression of horror once he had to deal with what I’d done. Well, if he survived it at all.

  I pondered which would be the most rewarding, to kill all of them in one go, or have just the Crown Prince left behind as he took in all the destruction and loss of life. The latter, for sure. Such a thing would break him in two.

  Either way, I’d created this scenario to get the point, set and match in a single volley. And either way, I’d be revealed as the ultimate victor, even if Luca wasn’t around to see it.

  What is it they say, go big or go home?

  Well, the Varassos were about to find out just how big this could get.

  37

  Molly

  I’d awakened early, just as the lime green of dawn crested at the ends of the earth. I glanced over at Luca. He’d stayed up late working with Alessandro on tracking down the shooter. He’d told me about every bit of their progress that afternoon, but last night, I’d been half asleep when he’d stumbled into the bed beside me.

  He hadn’t been getting enough sleep. I could see it not only in his face, but in the way he held himself. He’d been moving more slowly and having difficulty following a conversation, even if he’d started it. I’d catch him yawning while playing with Anna, and yesterday he’d nodded off while texting with one of his brothers back and forth.

  I felt this urge to take care of him, to mother him even.

  Maybe it was nesting instincts due to the pregnancy, or maybe it was that I hadn’t been given the opportunity yet to do the things most girlfriends did, but I found myself feeling protective of him and his time. He lay there on his back, arms thrown over his head in his sleeveless undershirt and boxer briefs. He’d simply torn off the layers of his suit and climbed between the covers.