Rocco

by Sarah Castille

  “Papa is dead because of her. Rocco went to jail because of her. She tried to kill you. I want to know who she is, who she’s working for and what they want. What is the end game that is so important she would destroy our family?”

  “We’ll have to wait until we get the fuck out of here to find out.” Tom tugged fruitlessly on the ropes. “Or maybe Rocco will save us again like he did at the restaurant.”

  “If he does, I don’t think he’ll leave anyone alive. He’s got a seriously crazy protective streak that I never saw when we were together in New York.”

  “I used to watch you guys laughing and joking around in the front seat,” Tom said, leaning back against the wall. “I thought he was so cool. I was jealous because he hardly ever talked to me. I wanted him to be my friend, too. And then when I was twelve or thirteen I realized you guys weren’t just friends. He would touch your arm or brush the hair off your shoulder and your face would go soft. Sometimes he would just stare at you and I’d be afraid he was going to crash the car.”

  Grace laughed. “I thought you were engrossed in your books or video games.”

  “Mostly, I was, but it was because I felt left out of what was going on between you guys.” He shifted his weight, pushing himself up on the cement floor. “After you left New York, did you see him?”

  “No. I didn’t see him again until the funeral.”

  “Must have been hard,” he said softly. “I only knew Tami a short time and I was having crazy thoughts about being together forever.”

  Grace swallowed hard, thinking of Mike. “You weren’t the only one.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be looking for you.” His face brightened. “Maybe he’ll bring help.”

  “I don’t plan to sit around waiting for a miracle.” Grace rubbed the ropes binding her hands along the edge of the wall using the jagged edges to wear through the strands. “We need to get out of here ourselves.”

  “Don’t waste your time. There’s nowhere for you to go.” Tami/Tiffany walked toward them from the dark recesses of the vast space.

  “Oh look, Tom. It’s Tami, or should I say Tiffany?”

  “You should say Teresa.” She smiled an impossibly beautiful smile from someone with such an evil heart. “Teresa De Lucchi.”

  Grace’s blood ran cold. “De Lucchi? You’re Rocco’s sister?”

  “Half-sister, and not by blood. We share the same adoptive father. Unfortunately, we never had the chance to meet in New York. Papa kept separate households.”

  Grace remembered Rocco mentioning that he had spent a good part of his teen years alone in the house with the housekeeper because his father was traveling. Maybe he hadn’t traveled that far.

  “Did he train you?” She stared at Teresa aghast. “As an enforcer?”

  “The best.” Teresa smiled. “They never see me coming. They’re always too busy looking at my hair or my boobs or listening to my sad stories about my mean ex-boyfriend.”

  Tom groaned and turned his face away.

  “Aww.” Teresa laughed. “The truth hurts, doesn’t it, Tom? You want to hear another truth? You’ll never be the underboss. You don’t have what it takes. You’re too nice. You might make a good soldier, and in twenty years of hard living possibly a good capo. But you’re not a leader. Not that it matters. The position has already been filled, and unfortunately, you’ve been made redundant.”

  “Don’t touch him.” Grace edged closer to Tom as footsteps rang out in the empty basement. She peered through the darkness, her heart thudding in her chest.

  “Cosi bella.” The deep, heavily accented voice turned her blood to ice. “You look even more like your mother than the last time I saw you.”

  * * *

  “I’ve got it narrowed down to a five-block radius,” Mia said over the phone. “The signal is too weak to pinpoint the exact location. Either her battery is running low or she is somewhere the signal can’t get through.”

  Rocco looked over the vast, unfinished gaming resort taking up eighty-seven acres at the end of the Strip. Five hotels stood in various stages of completion, along with a partially finished casino, convention center, and theaters. The last rays of evening light crept through the skeletal frame of the interrupted construction casting it in an eerie orange glow.

  “I need more than that.”

  “Gabrielle has a record of an SUV with that plate number going through an intersection on the west side of the Strip, so you might want to start your search there,” Mia said. “She’s working with her partners to see if we can get you some blueprints or plans—”

  “We don’t have time.” Rocco fought back a wave of panic. “I need people on the ground, checking out all these buildings. There isn’t much daylight left, and it doesn’t look like the construction site is lit at night.”

  “Luca’s organizing the capos and soldiers,” Mia said. “They should be there shortly.”

  “Paolo.” Rocco turned to the young associate who had volunteered to be part of the first wave of the search party. “We’ll need flashlights, extra ammo, and as many weapons as you can carry.”

  “Got it all here, sir.” Paolo lifted his pack.

  “Good man.” Rocco gestured to the first building. “We’ll stay together. Look for a black Escalade or doors with a vehicle access. They’ll have had to move Grace and Tom from the vehicle into the building and I doubt they would have risked a long, public walk with them, even at gunpoint.”

  “They? I thought they were taken by a woman.”

  “Tom’s about the same size as you, maybe a bit bigger. And Grace won’t have gone without a fight. Tiffany will have had help. Probably the same guys that were in Carvello’s.”

  Paolo nodded. He was a good kid. Brave, strong, and he had more than pulled his weight when Luca had been kidnapped last year. He also had lock-picking skills, which came in handy in the most unexpected ways.

  The first hotel had no visible road access. Likewise the casino. They had just started searching the second hotel when Paolo called a halt.

  “Tire tracks.” He pointed to the fresh prints on the dirt road.

  Rocco drew his weapons and they followed the prints to a partially completed underground garage.

  “There’s the vehicle,” Paolo whispered.

  Waving Paolo back, Rocco studied the SUV parked alongside two other SUVs and a sleek silver Bentley. A rough calculation yielded a potential sixteen armed men inside plus Tiffany. Not good odds, but he’d faced worse. Still, if it was going to be a bloodbath, he didn’t want Paolo involved.

  “Stay here and watch for Luca and his men.” Rocco took the pack from Paolo, and handed him an extra magazine and a flashlight.

  “Don’t you need back up?” Paolo tucked the magazine in his pocket.

  “If those vehicles were all full, one extra gun isn’t going to make a difference. Call Luca and tell him we might have sixteen assailants inside. He’ll need to bring more men.”

  Moving carefully in the shadows along the wall, Rocco checked the vehicles. They were all unlocked and unoccupied. A quick search turned up Grace’s phone on the front seat of one of the SUVs, and another phone on the driver’s side floor. His pulse kicked up a notch and he took a deep breath and then another, reminding himself that whoever was behind this had wanted Grace alive in Carvello’s and would surely want her alive now.

  Although, with her father dead, and Tom now in enemy hands, she was no longer any use as a hostage.

  No. He forced his thoughts off that path and reached down inside himself for the darkness that Cesare had taught him to embrace, the focus that cleared his mind and his thoughts of everything except the task at hand.

  Calm settled over him, emotion receding under the memories of pain inflicted on a young boy who couldn’t understand what he had done that could have made his Papa turn on him, destroying everything he cared about, and beating him until he learned to feel nothing.

  Ten years of nothing. And then Grace had walked into his life and had undon
e it all with a smile.

  Flicking on the flashlight, he made his way through the partially finished underground parking lot and into what he assumed would one day be the basement. Emergency work lights cast an eerie glow along the dark, dusty hallway. He turned off his flashlight and followed the dusty footprints until he heard voices. Pressing himself up against the cold, cinderblock wall, he listened, counting at least three men in the room beyond. He withdrew his knife and prayed Grace wouldn’t see his handiwork on the way out.

  It took only minutes to eliminate the threat.

  Cesare had trained him well.

  Making his way through the room, he came to a long, dark hallway. Reluctant to turn on his flashlight again, he took a minute to let his vision adjust to the darkness and followed the sound of footsteps until he heard a woman’s voice.

  Laughter.

  A gasp.

  And then …

  * * *

  “Cesare.”

  Countless times over the last six years, Grace had awoken at night, her heart pounding after yet another nightmare in which Cesare caught her again. She felt the cold steel on her throat, the blade splitting her skin, and always she saw Rocco’s face—rage and anguish marring his handsome features. The nightmares had driven her to find a roommate when she moved to Vegas, and Olivia’s presence at night had provided her with some measure of comfort—Ethan, Miguel, and Trevor even more.

  But no nightmare could compare to the terror of seeing Cesare again. Her throat seized up, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. He had three men with him, all tall and heavily muscled, one in a suit and the other two wearing jackets without a tie.

  “You knew our mother?” Tom asked, edging closer to her, his warmth and solid presence thawing the chill in her blood.

  “I knew her well.” Cesare walked toward them, his Italian leather shoes tapping softly on the cement. He wore a dark, tailored suit, crisp white shirt, and blue and white patterned tie. Perfectly coiffed, with his neatly-combed dark hair greying slightly at the temples, his jaw shaved, and only the most tasteful of gold cufflinks on his wrists, he looked every inch a distinguished gentleman and nothing like the soulless monster he truly was.

  Grace continued rubbing the rope against the sharp corner, praying the slight movement of her shoulders didn’t give her away. She was not going down without a fight, and she needed her hands free so she could wrap them around that bastard’s throat and make him pay for everything he had done to the people she cared about most in life.

  “We were engaged, your mother and I.” Cesare stopped only five feet away, his gaze fully on Grace. “Did she ever tell you that?”

  “No.” She spat the word out, sickened at the thought of her mother with this man.

  “I fell for her the first time I heard her sing. We dated secretly for a year because, of course, her parents wouldn’t have approved. And then I asked her to marry me. We were going to run away together. I was going to abandon the crew, she her family. We had plans to travel the world. I would run my rackets; she would sing for money. It would have been perfect.” He sighed. “And then she met Nunzio.”

  “You killed him,” she snapped. “You killed my father.”

  “Teresa killed him. But yes, on my orders.”

  “Bastard.” Grace had never felt hatred like she felt it now, never felt anger surge through her veins, giving power to each rub of her wrists against the blocks.

  “He took everything from me,” Cesare said. “He took Cristina and made her his wife. He took our dream of traveling the world together. He took my only reason to leave the crew. And then he became underboss and took something from me that I had only ever been able to dream about. De Lucchis can’t hold administrative positions. We have no respect. Even if we kill more men, make more money, gain more power, or show more strength, we will never even have the rank of an associate in any crew. If I had come from any other family, I wouldn’t have had to hide my relationship with Cristina. I would have married her right away. I would have had the power of her family to add to my own, and I would have become underboss. I would have had respect from the family and from the woman I loved.”

  “I thought De Lucchis didn’t have relationships,” Tom said bitterly. “I thought they didn’t feel. That’s what makes you so good at what you do.”

  “Unfortunately, there is one emotion that cannot be suppressed.” Cesare’s face tightened. “I thought I’d learned my lesson. I was harder on Rocco than I was with my other orphans and still it prevailed. He loved you, Grace, and no matter what I did to him, he wouldn’t let you go. But that night at Newton Creek, I found the answer. Your mother never saw me as I truly was, but I showed you what Rocco had become, and not even love could keep you together after that.”

  She felt the ropes give way and forced herself to be still. With two De Lucchi enforcers between them and the door, their only chance of getting away was a distraction, and she had to be ready to free Tom when it came.

  “We’re together now,” Grace shot back.

  “Indeed.” Cesare sighed. “It seems love prevails above all things, and I failed to save my trainees from my fate.” He drew his weapon from beneath his jacket. “Teresa.”

  “Yes, Papa.” Teresa came to stand beside him, and his eyes narrowed on her neck.

  “Where did you get that necklace?” Cesare pointed to the gold locket hanging between her breasts.

  Fear flickered across her face so fast Grace wondered if she’d seen it.

  “It was a gift,” Teresa said.

  Cesare slid his weapon under the fine gold chain holding the locket around her neck and lifted it off her chest. “From whom?”

  “From Rocco’s friend. The one you asked me to kill as a warning to Rocco about the danger of getting too close to people.”

  He lifted the locket higher with the barrel of his gun. “Open it.”

  Teresa’s hands trembled as she opened the locket.

  “How lovely.” Cesare’s lips peeled back in a snarl. “I assume that is a picture of him.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  Sweat glistened on Teresa’s brow. Grace caught movement in the shadows, and then one of the men who had accompanied Cesare disappeared into the darkness without a sound.

  “Is he dead?” Cesare’s voice was low with warning.

  “I thought he was, but he survived.”

  “How disappointing.” Cesare slid the weapon through the chain and with a hard yank, ripped it off her neck. With a flick of his wrist, he sent the locket sailing into the darkness and it landed on the cement with a soft clink.

  All the blood drained from Teresa’s face, and the smallest whimper escaped her lips.

  “You loved him, didn’t you?” He shoved the barrel of the gun under her chin, forcing her head up.

  “No.” Teresa shook her head, but the near panic in her eyes belied her words.

  “What did I tell you about love? What did I tell you about emotion? They will destroy you. They make you useless to me. I am about to become the New York underboss, Teresa, and I don’t want to be surrounded by useless people.”

  Nausea churned in Grace’s gut and she worked the ropes free from her ankles. If she’d harbored any hope that Cesare would spare her because of her likeness to her mother, it had disappeared the moment Cesare shoved his gun into his daughter’s throat.

  “He’ll be dead by morning, Papa.”

  “I hope so.” He grabbed her hair, yanking her head back even farther. “We have glorious days ahead and I want you to share them with me. Luigi Cavallo and I orchestrated a coup like nothing the Cosa Nostra has seen before. He helped me gain access to the don’s house and I slit his throat in the middle of the same night you were supposed to whack Rocco and the Mantinis and bring me the girl.” He gritted his teeth. “A failing you will remedy tonight.”

  Grace watched as another guard was swallowed by the shadows and hope burned bright in her chest. “Why?” she called out, trying to buy Rocco—she had no doubt
it was Rocco—time to deal with the other guards. Who else would be in the shadows, working his way around the room? “Why would you want to kill your own son?”

  “Because he suffers from the affliction of my youth,” Cesare spat out. “I gave him a contract to take out Benito Forzani and it led him back to you. I knew he was done after that, so I sent Teresa to clean up the mess and get the Mantinis out of the way so there would be no one to challenge my claim to be underboss. Luigi has promised to change the rules so the De Lucchis are no longer exempt from holding positions of office. I’ll have everything Nunzio stole from me, and you will be a substitute for your mother.”

  “If that’s what you want, then let Tom go. He won’t challenge you.”

  “I’m not worried about being challenged by an inexperienced boy.” Cesare snorted a laugh. “I need Tom so you’ll do what I tell you to do, willingly and without coercion. If I tell you to sing, you’ll sing, or Tom will suffer.” He released Teresa and fired at Tom, the bullet thudding into the wall only inches from Tom’s head. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Shaken from the jolt of adrenaline and the near miss, Grace nodded.

  “I can’t hear you.” He fired again, and this time Tom screamed. A red stain seeped through his shirt and Grace threw herself over his body, heedless of giving up the advantage of her unbound hands and feet.

  “Don’t hurt him,” she screamed. “Don’t hurt him.”

  “Then learn to behave or I’ll finish him and end your life the way I ended your mother’s.”

  Grace’s hand flew over her mouth. “You killed my mother?”

  “Of course, I killed her. She betrayed me. She knew I would come for her, so I waited, dragged it out. Ten years, I bided my time, and ten years they suffered, living in fear, unable to go to the don because your father had broken the rule about sleeping with a made man’s woman. He thought it wouldn’t matter. I was a De Lucchi. Nothing. The lowest of the low. He couldn’t have been more wrong.”

  The third guard disappeared into the darkness. Grace tugged on the ropes holding Tom’s wrists, working the knots until his hands were free.