“Love is a weakness. And it is a weakness that cannot be overcome.” Cesare handed Teresa his weapon, and drew out his blade. “Keep your weapon on her brother. If she steps out of line shoot another limb, and keep shooting until she either behaves or he’s dead.” He gestured to Grace with his free hand. “Come. I see you’ve managed to free yourself so we don’t have to waste any time.”
“Fuck off.”
He huffed a laugh. “Teresa.”
Teresa aimed her gun at Tom, and Grace jumped up, putting herself between the gun and her brother. “Don’t shoot him.”
“Come, girl,” Cesare barked. “Now.”
Shaking with anger, Grace walked over to the man who had haunted her nights for the last six years and spat in his face.
A gunshot cracked the silence and Tom screamed.
“You’re a slow learner,” Cesare said as a dark red stain spread along the leg of Tom’s jeans.
“Don’t.” She drew in a ragged breath. “Please. Don’t hurt him again.”
“Then behave.” He slid the flat of his blade along the scar on her cheek. “I like this. It’s my mark. Everyone who looks at you will know you’re mine.”
“I’ll never be yours,” she spat out. “I’m going spend the rest of my life planning a way to make you pay for what you’ve done to my family.”
Another sigh. “Teresa.”
“No.”
Another crack. Louder this time. Grace looked over in horror, as the room echoed with a scream.
* * *
Rocco stepped out of the shadows as Teresa crumpled to the ground, her hand clutching her side.
He had a sister. All those lonely nights alone in the house with only the housekeeper to keep him company, and Cesare had been across town with her.
“I was waiting for you.” Taking advantage of the distraction, Cesare grabbed Grace and held the knife to her throat. “I would have felt that I failed you if you hadn’t managed to find us.”
“Let her go.”
Cesare laughed. “History seems to be repeating itself. We both fall for a woman. We are both betrayed. And now here we are at the same impasse we were six years ago, albeit the scenery is not as pleasant.”
“And you are a soldier short,” Rocco pointed out. Although he had wanted to rush in and save Grace as soon as he saw her, experience had taught him to deal with the unseen threat before dealing with the obvious one. He had disabled all the guards in the room as well as the ones outside, although each painful minute he spent away from Grace killed him inside.
“But not a woman.” Cesare gestured to Teresa who had her gun pointed at him, despite having to hold the wound on her side.
“Why her?” Rocco asked, genuinely curious. “Cosa Nostra doesn’t allow women.”
Cesare gave a smug smile. “That’s why she’s so perfect. She can go where men can’t go. She is overlooked and underestimated and no less vicious or ruthless than the other members of the crew.”
“So you destroyed her life as well as mine,” he said bitterly.
“I gave you a life,” Cesare spat out. “If not for me you would have grown up in that run-down orphanage in North Las Vegas.”
Teresa groaned and dropped her gun. Cesare’s face curdled.
“Finish her and I’ll let your girl go. Teresa succumbed to the poison of love, just as you did. She’s no longer any use to me.”
Rocco made no effort to hide his disgust. “That’s all we ever were to you, wasn’t it? Not children. Not people to be loved. Just tools to be used.” Rocco’s gaze dropped to Teresa, now on her knees, doubled over in pain. He could have killed her with the shot, but he’d been careful because damned if he was going to make Grace relive that night at Newton Creek. He hadn’t killed one damn person tonight, although no one would be getting up anytime soon to give Cesare a hand.
“As I was,” Cesare said coldly. “And all the De Lucchis before me.”
“I won’t do it. She has suffered enough.”
“I don’t give a damn about suffering.” Cesare’s face twisted in a scowl. “She failed me so she pays the price. If you want to save your woman, then you need to extract that price for me. Grace won’t complain if you pull the trigger. After all, Teresa killed her father, and she almost killed your friend.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to Grace’s ear, although his voice was loud enough to carry across the room. “Tell him, bella. Tell him you want her dead. Tell him how you want her to pay for killing your father.”
“No.” Grace’s voice was firm and clear. “She can go to jail. That’s enough for me.”
“Maybe he needs a fucking incentive.” Cesare dragged the very tip of his knife along her unscarred cheek. “Should we give you a matching set?”
“Do it.” Grace reached up and grabbed across his wrist. “I’m not afraid of being scarred. I’m not afraid of looking ugly. Beauty is on the inside, but it took Rocco to help me see it.” In one swift movement, she rolled his arm down to her chest, and raised her right arm to block the knife. Pivoting left and inward, she bit down hard on his wrist like a vicious dog.
Cursing and swearing, Cesare released her, and she bolted across the room before Rocco had even taken a step to help her.
Damn.
Just. Damn.
His moment of admiration was his undoing. Too late he saw Cesare draw a gun as the last rays of daylight faded away plunging the room into inky blackness.
“Get down.” He fired into the darkness, knowing as he released the trigger that the bullet he had waited a lifetime to shoot would find its mark. Cesare had trained him well.
Grace screamed.
A second shot rang out in the room.
And then everything went still.
“Grace?”
Silence.
“Gracie? Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
His heart thundered in his ribs as he pushed himself to his all fours and crawled in the direction of her voice. Although the urge to run to her was strong, he couldn’t take the risk that he’d missed his target, or that Teresa or one of Cesare’s men was waiting for him to make a move. “Bella?”
“Yes. I’m okay, Rocco. Really.”
“Will you marry me?”
Silence.
“Gracie?”
“Are you serious?” she said after a long pause.
“Very serious.”
“No.”
He crawled until felt the familiar softness of her body beneath her hands. “No?”
“This isn’t romantic.” Irritation laced her tone. “This isn’t a story I’m going to tell our kids. Oh, you want to hear about the day your father proposed? Well, we were in the basement of an unfinished hotel just off the Vegas Strip, and your Auntie Teresa had just shot your Uncle Tom, and your Papa had just shot your Auntie Teresa and then your grandfather tried to slit my throat.” She paused and drew in a ragged breath. “But I had escaped because when I moved to Vegas, I joined a Krav Maga class and learned how to defend myself against a knife attack.”
“I’m proud of you,” Rocco said, running his hands up her body to check for injuries. Grace put a finger to his lips.
“Shhh. I’m not finished the story you’re expecting me to tell our children.” She cleared her throat and changed to the same gentle tone she’d started with. “So then your grandfather tried to shoot me, and your Papa shot him, and the light disappeared and your Papa shouted in the darkness, ‘Bella, will you marry me?’ and then he crawled across the floor and squeezed my breasts.”
“I can hear you,” Tom called out. “Except for the manhandling my sister part, it’s kind of romantic.”
Grace groaned. “It’s not romantic to be asked to marry someone because he thinks you might be dead.”
“I knew you were alive,” Rocco huffed.
“How?”
“I could feel you.” He placed her hand over his chest. “Right here.”
“That’s a bit better for the story.” Sh
e reached up to touch his face. “I might skip out all the shooting parts and get straight to the good stuff.”
“Is that a yes?” He kissed her gently.
“Yes, Rocco. That’s a yes.”
Shouts and then footsteps echoed down the hallway. Moments later the beam of a powerful flashlight swept the room.
“Frankie!” Luca’s voice cut through the darkness.
“All clear,” Rocco yelled. “We’re going to need a cleaner, two ambulances and transport to Lake Mead. And I need you to take Grace home.”
He had a special pair of shoes to make tonight.
And a past to bury forever.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“He was a nice guy.”
“Yes, Tom.” Grace crossed herself as the pallbearers carried the coffin of Dino Forzani across the grass of the Las Vegas Shady Rest Cemetery. After attending her father’s funeral a few weeks ago, she wasn’t happy to be back in the cemetery so soon, but when your once-prospective fiancée mysteriously turned up dead, you had to make a show of pretending to grieve his loss.
“He would have been a good husband,” Tom said.
“Mmmhmm.” She made a noncommittal noise at the back of her throat. Was she a terrible person for being relieved that the Mafia soldier her father had arranged for her to marry had been killed in a hit-and-run accident the day after he’d been overheard boasting to his friends over a meal at Luca’s restaurant that he was still going to marry the “Mantini bitch” and “put her in her place” by “pounding her pussy” and showing her what it was like to fuck a “real man”?
Thoughts of “real men” took her to Rocco, who had promised to meet her at the service. She hadn’t’ dared to ask him if he was behind the hit on Dino—no one believed it was an accident—because she didn’t want to know the answer. Rocco was utterly uncompromising when it came to her safety or matters of honor. Even if he hadn’t been behind the wheel, as the new Toscani crime family underboss, and leader of the De Lucchi crew, he could have ordered any one of a number of soldiers to do the deed and no one would have dared disobey.
“He was into baseball,” Tom said.
“Yankees?”
“Red Sox. And you’d better wipe that smile off your face. Your husband is a Red Sox fan. Better get used to being on the losing side.”
“He’s not my husband yet.” And he might never be if he disrespected the family and failed to show up before the end of the service. “Weddings can’t be planned in just a day.”
Tom laughed. “He said you’ve been planning this one for years.”
“I planned it for New York. I had to start all over again since we’re having it in Vegas. Luckily, I have Olivia who knows everyone who is anyone in the wedding planning industry in the city. Apparently dealing with bridezillas on a day-to-day basis leads to a need for counseling when you try to have a stable relationship of your own.”
He gave her a gentle nudge. “Please tell me you’re not a bridezilla.”
“I don’t have to be. When you’re a mobster’s bride-to-be, people will bend over backwards to make you happy. No one wants to piss me off when the price of failure is a visit from Rocco in the middle of the night.”
Tom cleared his throat and a shoved his hands in his pockets. “Olivia told me about the caterer who put down Italian food. She said his facility went up in flames in the middle of the night.”
Grace was less interested in burning kitchens and more interested in the fact that Tom had offered to chauffeur Olivia around as she helped source flowers and decorations for the wedding. “You’ve been spending a lot of time together.”
“Just trying to be a good brother and help out.”
“Sure. I get it.” She bit back a smile when she caught a few people looking in their direction. The graveyard was filled with members of the Toscani crime family—soon to be her family after she married Rocco—all dressed in black despite the blazing sun overhead and the unbearable ninety-degree heat. It was an almost perfect replica of the funeral she had attended for Dino’s brother, Benito, only a few months ago except this time she was a stronger, more confident version of herself. She had embraced who she was and what she wanted. She was part of the “family” and her heart had finally been made whole.
“I never imagined you staying out here permanently,” Tom said. “But then I never imagined me living here either.”
Over the last few weeks, the huge political shake-up in New York had led to a new administration and shifts in alliances between the families. Once consigliere, the scheming Luigi Cavallo had become don after his coup and appointed two powerful capos as his underboss and consigliere.
Still recovering from his injuries, and deeply affected by their father’s death and the events that followed, Tom had decided not to challenge the new regime and instead moved to Vegas to be near Grace. Nico had welcomed him into the Toscani crime family and he now worked as a soldier in Luca’s crew.
“I like it here in Vegas.” And for the first time, she meant it. Rocco and her closest friends were here, and with Tom’s arrival, her family, too. Not only that, she had just landed a national jingle contract, and she had officially joined Stormy Blu. With her vocals, Ethan’s contacts, Miguel’s new arrangements, and some kick-ass playing from the rest of the band, they had been in high demand since their first performance at the Stardust.
“We’ve also just closed the deal on the house we were looking at in Henderson,” she continued. “So it looks like I’m definitely here to stay.”
That’s what happened when your family was in the mob. You didn’t get to choose the kind of life you wanted to live, but you could take the life you got and make it work for you. You didn’t get to live in the city of your heart, but you got to live in the city where you’d found your heart. And you got to be with the man you loved.
“What about your psychology degree?”
Grace shrugged. “It wasn’t really my calling, although it helped me work through everything that happened in New York. But I’m going to keep up my skills by increasing my volunteer hours at the orphanage and helping out the kids in need.”
The priest finished the Rite of Committal and the crowd responded with the proper prayers. Grace felt the whisper of a breeze against her neck, the softest caress. A shiver trickled down her spine, but when she turned slightly hoping to catch the soothing air, the breeze died away.
“He’s here,” she said softly, remembering the shiver that had coursed down her spine at Benito’s funeral. That afternoon, she had suspected. Now she knew. Their connection was a living, breathing bond that tied them together even if they were physically apart.
Although they spent every night together, she hadn’t spent much time with Rocco during the days since the incident in the hotel basement. Now Nico’s underboss, Rocco had also become defacto leader of the De Lucchi crew. Instead of stepping aside, as Grace had assumed he would do, he had accepted the position and was now in the process of making sweeping changes through the organization. He had eliminated the requirement that each member of the crew offer up a son or orphan to be trained as a replacement. Training was to be done only after the age of sixteen and then only with consent and in a facility where other crew members could observe and prevent any abuse. Enforcers were free to reject contracts for any reason. And members of the crew were expected to join with established crime families where they would move up the ranks and be treated as equals.
Although Rocco ran the De Lucchi crew, he left the hands-on enforcement work to his soldiers so he could focus on his work as underboss and the fight to overthrow Tony so Nico could lay claim to the city. He could never leave the mob so he had made the best of the world that had made him. Although she still had dreams of a life without guns and funerals, men with nicknames, and codes of honor, Grace had reconciled herself to being married to a mobster. Rocco had promised to keep his business out of their home, and losing him again wasn’t an option.
“It’s weird how you know he’s aroun
d,” Tom whispered. “When I was having delusions of a happy life with Tami or Teresa or whoever she is, I never imagined being able to sense her presence when she walked into a room.”
“Did you go to see her in the hospital before they took her to jail?”
Tom shook his head. “I didn’t want anything to do with her. She’s a nasty piece of work. I’m just glad I didn’t wind up with a scar across my throat like Mike. Even he didn’t go to see her after he recovered, and I heard he’d fallen for her even harder than me.”
“The mob is worse for gossip than high school,” she muttered under her breath. Teresa was now in jail after being arrested on suspicion of murder. A mysterious informant had directed the police to a discarded syringe with Teresa’s prints on it, as well as the video surveillance tapes from the hospital that had gone missing shortly after the event. As a result of the new evidence, Rocco had been cleared of all charges and Teresa was facing a lengthy prison term.
“I also heard that Dino’s accident wasn’t an accident.” Tom glanced around to make sure no one could overhear them. “Was it Rocco? Or was it you?”
Only in a Mafia family would they have this discussion.
“I’m still a pacifist.”
Tom barked a laugh and then immediately tried to cover it up by feigning a fit of coughing.
Grace caught movement in the crowd near where the priest was standing.
That’s when she saw him.
Tall. Dark hair. Broad chest tapering to a narrow waist. Black T-shirt tight over a ripple of muscle. Jeans a feast of seams in all the right places. Thick-soled boots for riding. But instead of leather, he wore a casual suit jacket, and instead of keeping to the shadows, he stood with the Toscani crew.
Her body heated in places it shouldn’t. Only one man would dare show up at a Mafia funeral wearing anything other than full formal dress.
She squinted, trying to make out his face, but by the time her eyes had adjusted to the light, he was beside her.
“Bella.” Rocco bent down and gave her an inappropriate, hand-in-the-hair, tongue-down-the-throat, this-is-my-woman, touch-her-and-die kiss.
Rocco Page 31
