Gia spread her hands palm up as if to say, “See.”
Truth was, though, she didn’t trust herself where Luca was concerned. In light of all that had happened not just that night, but over the past five weeks, she might be tempted to give in to that soft spot inside her that yearned to curl up in his embrace and take whatever he might have to offer by way of comfort…and sex.
But considering what had happened the last time she’d given herself over to fundamental urges…she looked everywhere but at Luca’s questioning gaze.
“Vito will see you out,” Gia said.
Chapter 5
The following day, Luca’s words still resonated with Gia. She’d decided to take her morning break in her brother Lorenzo’s room and since he was in a deep sleep, she didn’t have much else to do than think.
The old bedroom was unusually quiet. The first item on her agenda was to open the heavy curtains so that her brother might see that it was daylight and regain some sense of the passage of time. More than a month’s worth that he’d lost and could never regain.
Still, the heavily paneled room felt dark.
Gia let her gaze fall over Lorenzo’s face and still form under the blanket. The doctor had been concerned about dehydration so he’d ordered an intravenous feeding tube be inserted a week ago. The stand and bag were on the other side of the bed and was a reminder of why it was so important to pull Lorenzo closer to her rather than let him drift ever nearer to her father and Mario.
Immediately following his emergency surgery to remove two bullets from his lower spine, he’d been placed in a drug-induced coma to allow his body to heal.
The problem was that Lorenzo seemed completely content to remain there, despite her pleas for him to return to some semblance of normalcy.
She needed him.
One of his three full-time nurses came into the room with fresh linens.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in here, Miss Gia.” She began backing out.
She gestured for her to come in. “That’s okay. I was just about to leave anyway.”
The nurse smiled, placed the linens on a rich red oak nightstand and then left the room again.
Gia stared at her brother’s impassive face. So handsome. Their father used to like to joke that he didn’t look like anyone on the Trainello side of the family and that it was a good thing he was the spitting image of his mother or else he’d have to have him tested to make sure he was of his blood. A broad forehead, smooth dark brows, a slightly hooked nose and strong jawline and tousled glossy dark brown hair that shone almost black against the whiteness of his pillowcase.
Growing up, Gia had had her share of friends who had sought out her company in the hopes of a chance to get closer to her older brother.
Which was one of the reasons why the thirty-year-old wasn’t married yet. Why should he marry now, he said, when he was enjoying playing a field that widened every time he turned around?
Now he lay alone in a room that was too dark, wallowing in the darkness of his own mind.
She wondered how much of his preference came from not wanting to face the loss of their father and brother. Had she had a choice, she might have gone the same route.
Then again, probably not. Because the time when you had to face the music always came at some point or another. Delaying that moment never helped anything.
A soft rap on the door.
“Miss Gia?”
Frankie. New on the job as her personal assistant and even more tentative with her than he’d been before.
“Come in,” she said softly, rising from the chair and bending over to run the back of her knuckles across Lorenzo’s warm brow and kiss him on the cheek. “Come back, Lorenzo. I need you.”
Frankie opened the door. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but your next appointment is waiting in the office.”
“Thank you. I’ll be right there.”
Long after he left, she exited the room, lingering a moment on the other side of the closed door, examining her options. Then she stepped across the hall to where the nurses were stationed.
“I’m thinking of moving my brother to another room,” she said to the nurse who had come in earlier with the linens. “Maybe the change of scenery to someplace brighter will make him want to wake up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said.
Gia frowned as she walked down the hall toward the stairs. She’d never been a ma’am in her life. Even at Bona Dea, she insisted the staff refer to her by her first name, preferring informality over stiffness.
But ever since coming home it seemed everyone was going out of their way to show their “respect” as Frankie had put it. She’d stomached it in the beginning, thinking that her grieving might be part of the reason. But more than a month into her stay, the formality was beginning to chafe.
Lucas was going to stay as close as he could to Gia at all times. Even if that meant enduring her questioning stares when she passed him in the hall. Like now, as she came down the stairs, spotted him and halted as if she’d seen a ghost.
And she was seeing a ghost, wasn’t she? Someone who had been a part of her life once, but hadn’t been present for a long time. And, apparently, she was having a hard time coming to terms with it.
He let his gaze wander down her sleek body, noting the black mock turtleneck she wore, likely to hide the injury she’d suffered last night at the hands of her would-be killer.
Vito’s voice startled him, reminding Luca that the man was there, next to him.
“I spoke to Bracco this morning and he says we don’t have to worry about that Lancione thing.”
Apparently realizing that Lucas wasn’t waiting there for her, Gia continued down the stairs into the foyer and then disappeared into the hall that led to the wing of the house that held her father’s office. Lucas slid his hand into his pocket and pretended to pace a bit away from Vito who didn’t seem to notice his intentions. His new position gave him a clear view into the hallway where three people he recognized rose from their chairs and greeted Gia.
He looked back at Vito. The “Lancione thing” was one way of putting the discovery of Claudio Lancione’s body floating in the East River the week before.
The man Gia was rumored to have killed herself.
Lucas straightened his tie. Was she capable of murdering someone? Not just someone, but a man who might be involved in the hit against her father and brother?
He didn’t like that he didn’t know the answer to the question.
“So homicide detectives haven’t been in contact, then?” he asked Vito.
“No. And they won’t be. From what I understand from my contact in the department, the authorities are glad to have someone like Lancione off the streets. They see the shooter as having done them a favor.”
Not unusual when it came to the NYPD and the mob. The war between the two factions had been going on for so long that both sides had to pick their battles carefully. The death of a lower lieutenant in the Venuto crime family would be viewed as more of a blessing than a curse.
Even though Lucas had suspected that was the way things would go down, he still gave a mental sigh of relief. If Gia had been the trigger woman, she wouldn’t have anything to worry about. Which meant that he wouldn’t, either.
The outer door behind him opened inward and he and Vito glanced toward the unannounced visitor. Vito had automatically begun reaching for his firearm, more likely in reaction to last night’s events than any real concern for a threat.
“Sorry, boss,” the guard said as a vaguely familiar young woman who looked as if she’d come straight from a small village in Italy strode into the foyer. Three children under the age of five trailed behind her. Her all black outfit was likely responsible for her rural appearence, and the children wore somber expressions, clad in what Lucas guessed was their Sunday best of slacks and vests. All three were boys, he noted.
“I need to see Miss Gia,” the woman said to Vito insistently.
Vito didn’t
look amused. “I’ve already explained that Miss Gia is a very busy woman and doesn’t have time for a social call.”
Then it dawned on Lucas where he had seen her before. At the funeral a month earlier. Her young husband had been Mario’s driver and had died along with his employer.
“No social call is this,” she said, then continued in Italian.
Lucas easily followed her rapid-fire plea, having been raised as fluent in his parents’ native tongue as in English. She was explaining that she couldn’t feed her children and needed to appeal for help from Miss Gia.
Vito’s expression grew exasperated as he listened. He took something out of his pocket, grasped her hand and put what look like a few hundred-dollar bills into her palm. “There will be no more, DonnaMaria. No more. We’re all sorry about your husband, but what happens from here is not the family’s concern.”
Lucas felt decidedly uncomfortable as he watched the woman’s large dark eyes well with tears. He looked down to find two of the children staring at their shiny shoes. The youngest one, however, had honed in on Lucas’s curiosity and was openly looking at him.
“This won’t pay the rent,” DonnaMaria was saying. “Don Vito, please…”
Vito motioned toward the guard still standing inside the door awaiting instructions. “Take her outside,” he said.
Lucas opened his mouth to object. To unceremoniously dump the widow and her three children on the doorstep didn’t sit well with him. But before he could say anything, Gia came into the hall.
“What’s going on?” she asked, taking in the scene before her.
Lucas compared her appearance to the young widow. While Gia was also dressed in all black, there was nothing remotely rural about her. Rather she looked as if she’d stepped straight from the front page of a fashion magazine.
But her clothes were not what impressed him the most. Rather, her sensitivity to what was occurring around her and willingness to get involved did.
The widow glanced at Vito, but being beyond desperate, she advanced on Gia, reaching for her hands and shaking them several times. “Please, please, Miss Gia,” she said in Italian.
Vito motioned the guard toward them. “I explained to Mrs. Amato that you’re very busy,” he said. “Perhaps she can make an appointment for another time.”
Gia held her hand up as the guard advanced. “That’s all right. I can see her now.”
Lucas watched as Gia nodded toward her office. The widow hurried in that direction, the boys shuffling behind. Gia smiled at the children as they marched past her, touching the top of the head of the smallest before following after them.
Lucas listened as the office door closed, leaving the others waiting in the hall. Then Vito let loose a series of Italian curse words.
“Damn woman. She has a business to run. She shouldn’t be wasting her time with such mundane details.”
How a widow was going to feed her three kids didn’t rate as mundane in Lucas’s book, but he kept quiet. He, himself, had a much larger agenda to which to attend.
* * *
“Thank you, thank you, Miss Gia,” Mrs. Amato repeated, shaking her hand when Gia rounded the desk to see her out of the office.
The woman raised Gia’s right hand as if to kiss it and Gia drew it away, taken aback. She hadn’t seen such a display of respect since she’d watched the Godfather movies. She’d never even seen anyone do that with her father. She wasn’t about to allow that to happen, herself.
“I’m glad we could help you out in your hour of need,” Gia said.
The three boys had spread out while Gia had talked to the young widow, and DonnaMaria now hurried around the room to urge them back into formation. Gia pictured the foursome in a jagged hand-to-hand line as they made their way back to the train station.
The door finally closed and she stood staring at it as if it was all that separated her from the world.
She’d been raised to believe that family took care of family. If one of them suffered, they all did.
Then why had Vito wanted to turn the widow away?
Her hand went absently to her neck. She hadn’t seen much of herself in the young woman, even though they had to be close to the same age. DonnaMaria had chosen a different route. But now that her husband was gone and she had three boys to raise on her own, she would have to reevaluate what she wanted out of life.
Gia hoped she could help her in that endeavor.
She made a mental note to call Bryan at Bona Dea and tell him to alert personnel that she was sending a seamstress their way in the morning. And the generous check she’d written in the widow’s name should be enough to see her through the next couple of months until she got back on her feet.
A brief knock on the door. She immediately tensed, imagining it might be Lucas, whom she’d seen with Vito in the foyer speaking with Vito when she’d come downstairs.
Would there come a time when she wouldn’t lose her breath when she looked at him?
“Miss Gia?” Her assistant opened the door.
She relaxed against the front edge of the desk. “Come in, Frankie.”
The young man entered, hands laden with a tray of coffee and biscotti. He quickly closed the door after himself with his foot, and Gia lurched forward to take the tray from him before he could splash the liquid on top of the Persian rug. Or, worse, on her.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, turning red to the tips of his ears. “I’m not very good at these kinds of things.”
“That’s all right. I’m a little clumsy with items of a domestic nature myself.”
She smiled and set the tray on the coffee table.
Actually, Frankie didn’t seem good at much of anything. Ask him to bring you a file, and chances were he’d get the wrong one. Answer the phone, he’d butcher the caller’s name. Send him on an errand, and he’d call five minutes later, completely lost.
Despite all that, Gia liked him. He was genuinely enthusiastic and she had a feeling he’d offer up his right hand should she ask him to part with it.
Of course, she never would. But just knowing that someone as apparently loyal as Frankie was nearby made her feel better.
Besides, his bumbling made her feel…well, not so out of her element.
Frankie cleared his throat. “I just wanted to tell you that your ten o’clock is here. And that your eight forty-five, nine o’clock and nine-thirty are still waiting outside.”
Gia sighed and rounded her desk. “So many people wanting to meet with me.” She sat down and looked over the schedule that Frankie had made out, his handwriting barely legible, but getting better. “I know you didn’t work directly for my father, but was his meeting schedule this busy?”
“Oh, yes, Miss Gia. Every Monday and Wednesday the driveway was always full with people wanting to talk to your father.”
She nodded, having suspected the same.
Still, it didn’t relieve the dread of the day stretched out before her—a day full of people asking for favors, offering to return favors and generally wanting to get in good with what was apparently the new boss of the Venuto family.
Gia stared at her schedule without really seeing it. Is that what she was? When had her hunger for revenge expanded to include family business as usual?
And what did she do when that business as usual deterred her in her hunt to find her father’s killer?
Another knock at the door. Without waiting for a response, Luca entered.
The contrast between Frankie and her tall, handsome ex-lover struck her in the gut, reminding her of another reason she might have taken a liking to the thin teen. He wasn’t a threat.
“May I have a minute?” Luca asked in a deep baritone that resonated throughout the room.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have a minute to give right now. Surely it can wait until another time?” She looked at Frankie. “Send in my next appointment.”
“Yes, Miss Gia.”
Lucas caught the young man’s sleeve as he passed. “Send them in in five
minutes.”
Frankie looked from Lucas to Gia.
Finally, Gia sighed and nodded.
Frankie hurried through the door and closed it, leaving Gia in a position she didn’t want to be in so early in the morning. Or, rather, that she’d prefer not to be in at all.
Alone with Lucas…
Chapter 6
Secrets. They could be as deadly as they were dangerous.
And in Lucas’s case they were as necessary as the air that he drew into his lungs with every breath.
“Vito believes he might know who made the attempt against your life last night.”
Gia could be as hard as nails when she wanted to be. But this information seemed to be the hammer that drove her into the wall. Lucas watched her hand go to her neck as if of its own accord, the fear that flickered through her eyes undeniable.
And his own response was equally powerful.
A protectiveness he hadn’t felt in a very long time expanded within him until he was filled with the desire to sweep her into his arms and spirit her away—away from this house, from this family, this dangerous environment—and take her somewhere safe. Somewhere where he could watch over her twenty-four/seven.
Somewhere where he could explore his conflicted emotions for her.
Somewhere where no one could ever hurt again.
The problem lay in that he was positioned as her greatest betrayer.
“It’s my guess that it’s whoever was responsible for the hit against my father,”
Gia said, obviously attempting to inject some metal into her voice and falling short of the mark.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
She leaned back in the chair and for a moment Lucas was reminded of her father.
Giovanni Trainello had responded in the same way when he wanted answers to oftentimes unanswerable questions.
“I don’t think I have to tell you that there’s been some dubious response to your taking the helm of the family business, as it were.”
“No. No, you don’t have to tell me that.”
He didn’t suppose he did. From what he could tell, she’d already met with each of the other four heads of the rival crime families over the past week. And he didn’t think they’d gone all that smoothly. There had even been thinly veiled threats to take over the Venuto family by absorbing it directly into one of the other families. All four of which wanted the honor.
Dangerous Page 4
