Tied Down

by Vanessa Waltz

  “Are you—are you with Johnny’s crew?”

  Her wispy voice trembles from her uncertain lips, and I incline my head.

  She knows Johnny—knows who I’m connected to. This is getting more and more interesting.

  Elena drops her voice, adopting a frightened timbre. “Could I ask you—I mean, are you the right person?”

  “I work for John. You can ask me anything.”

  Elena bites her thumb anxiously, shooting me looks before she finally sighs. “I need to put a hit on someone, and I’ve a lot of cash.”

  A hit.

  My head turns so violently that I pull a muscle in my neck. I study her. It’s not often that I get asked for a hit from a woman. Her eyes burn with a quiet intensity that instantly raises my suspicions. Is she with the cops? Nah, I fucking doubt it.

  “Let me guess, your boyfriend?”

  She nods.

  Plenty of women have hired my services to “take care” of violent boyfriends. My fists. Their face. That’s all it takes for them to walk away forever.

  Not this guy.

  A violent surge of energy pounds through my veins, making the ones on my hands swell.

  “I think I have a pretty good idea, but why?”

  She slowly licks her lips and just the small motion is enough to make my dick throb.

  “I left him and he’s coming for me. He won’t stop until I’m dead. It’s him or me.”

  I breathe in her tantalizing scent, my eyes all over her generous cleavage, and my balls seize when her thighs bump against mine. I reach up, brushing back her dark-brown hair, and I touch one of the bruises on her neck. She flinches but doesn’t pull away.

  “Sure you want to do this? I’ve handled guys like this before.”

  Her voice hardens and her big eyes narrow at me. “I want him dead. I have ten thousand American dollars in cash.”

  Well, this isn’t quite how I imagined my night ending up. Fuck. I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing. This angelic, little Italian girl who looks as though she would shrink from the sight of blood is asking me to kill a man. Her boyfriend.

  “What’s his name?”

  The intensity from her eyes finally drops as she glances away and murmurs the name. It’s so soft that I can barely hear it. “R-Rafael Costa.”

  My insides blaze when I hear the name. I only know one Rafael Costa, and he’s in New York. He’s one of us—La Cosa Nostra. The new boss, Vincent, would chop my head off if I touched one of his made guys.

  Disappointment settles in my guts like lead as I lift myself from the couch and grab a couple glasses along with a huge bottle of vodka.

  I can’t help her. Fuck.

  “Will you do it?”

  I sit back down next to her, my eyes on her beautiful body. I imagine it sprawled on a floor somewhere, a hairline crack in her skull, a red pool of blood behind her head.

  My jaw aches. Turning back to the table, I pour a couple glasses and press one into her questioning hands.

  “Drink, sweetheart. You look like you could use it.”

  Elena lets out a sigh and brings the drink to her lips. “You’re not wrong.”

  Heat burns down my chest as I swallow the alcohol, the warmth glowing in my cock as her body jostles next to me. She drains the glass and reaches the bottle before I can pour her another. The crazy broad just takes it as if she owns it.

  I like her already.

  “Will you do it?”

  I hate saying the next few words.

  “He’s a made guy. I can’t.”

  Elena’s face falls horribly for a moment right as she brings the second drink to her mouth. For a moment I’m horrified that she might cry, but the look disappears. She shrugs, indifferent.

  “Whatever.”

  Whatever. Yeah fucking right.

  Fuck. I don’t want to know anything about this woman. I don’t want to feel sorry for her, and I shouldn’t want anything to do with her. She’s another guy’s girl, but he doesn’t respect her, so why should I respect his claim?

  I catch a strand of her dark hair dangling in front of her face and twirl it in my finger before gently tucking it behind her ear. Her nostrils flare as I stroke the side of her cheek.

  “I’m going to go.”

  I catch her hand as she stands up. “No, come on. Stay.”

  Elena tugs it out of my grasp, shaking her head. “I can’t.”

  I don’t have the heart to lay more filthy lines on her, not when pity tightens my chest. I watch her leave the VIP lounge, her head still held high. It’s as though she’s not a victim.

  Then I’m left uncomfortably alone with my thoughts. Instead of picking up another chick, I go home. I wander to my bedroom and lay flat on my bed, staring at the ceiling.

  It’s the most empty moment of my day. I feel my heart beating, but nothing much else.

  My boots slide through gray slush on the streets as my breath puffs out in white clouds. I reach for the door handle of Le Zinc, Johnny’s restaurant and headquarters. It’s a swanky, upscale French bistro with an antique zinc bar. I step inside the warmth gratefully, the sudden heat prickling my frozen fingers and toes. Pierre, a young guy who watches the door, nods at me as I enter.

  It’s noon and the place is packed. A mixture of Johnny’s crew and oblivious civilians fill the restaurant. Pierre takes the wool coat from my shoulders and I smooth the suit over my chest. Johnny sits at his usual table in the back. He stands up, smiling, his arms outstretched.

  “Tony, how are you?”

  Tommy, the new soldier, sits nearby, along with one of Johnny’s captains—Fred. At first sight, Johnny doesn’t look like much. He’s slender and slight of build, and usually wears a small smile, but he’s the thirty-five-year-old boss of the Cravotta family. At the age of twenty, he bought out all the payment companies and had all the construction companies in his pocket. At twenty-five, he bought out a dairy company up north and began extorting all restaurants and grocery stores that didn’t use Verdino cheese. Now every grocery store only stocks his cheese, and restaurants that fail to make protection payments go up in flames. When he was thirty, he backed Les Diables, a biker gang in the city, during the biker wars. They work for him now. He gets a taste from every construction company, restaurant, casino, and racetrack in Montreal. He’s invincible.

  It’s for those reasons that I always seem to forget to breathe in his presence. I’m not the kind of guy who gets nervous, but Johnny’s a fucking legend.

  He smiles at me as though I’m his best friend and pulls me into a fierce hug, and I kiss him on both cheeks. It means nothing. I’ve seen him smile like that to a man he pulled into an embrace, right before he dug his pistol into the man’s chest and killed him.

  “Hey, John.”

  “Have a seat. Do you want something to eat?” Always courteous, Johnny waves over someone even after I shake my head.

  He gives me a menu, but I know the thing by heart at this point. The waiter bustles to our table, his pen poised over a small notepad.

  “No, really, John. I’m good.”

  “At least have a drink with me.”

  The waiter grabs the bottle of wine, a vintage from Tuscany, and pours a glass for me. “All right.”

  He swirls his glass over the white tablecloth and lifts it to his lips. “Tabarnak, c’est bon.” Fuck, it’s good.

  My hand curls over the stem of the wineglass, and I take a small mouthful. It’s pretty fucking good—dry and full of flavor. I set the glass down, avoiding his painful stare.

  “I’ve bad news about Turner Construction,” I say finally, lifting my head to meet his eyes. “They won’t do business with us.”

  Johnny doesn’t say anything for a moment, but a sudden, caustic, burning heat flares from his eyeballs. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  I swallow hard. “They’re an American company—they don’t do business like us. They can’t accept bribes.”

  “Then you make them understand how it�
��s done.”

  I grit my teeth from the rumble in his voice. “I tried leaning on the boss a little, but I think they’re just going to leave Montreal. They just don’t want to deal with us. I’m sorry, John.”

  There’s nothing but the sound of people talking, the clatter of silverware, and John’s frozen stare boring into my skull. He opens his mouth.

  “I’m really disappointed with you, Tony. I thought you were a better negotiator.”

  I clench my hands over the table, feeling a surge of anger.

  Don’t get angry at the boss.

  “There was nothing else I could do. Americans don’t do business with the mob. It’s just that simple.”

  “Do you think I got to where I am now because I gave up that easily?”

  Quiet resentment builds inside my chest as he stares at me.

  I never wanted this life for myself.

  “There’s something else I need you to do.”

  He reaches in his jacket and I tense for a moment, because he could easily be reaching for a gun. Johnny smiles at me as he takes a photograph from his inner jacket and shows it to me.

  It’s a family photo of Jack Vittorio, the former New York boss, and his wife and—the girl I met yesterday. Holy shit, she’s Jack Vittorio’s daughter?

  “This girl showed up in my restaurant yesterday, trying to contract a hit on a made guy.”

  “Yeah, I met her in Tommy’s bar. She asked me for the same thing.”

  Johnny smirks at me. “You’re fucking kidding me?”

  “Nope. I told her no, of course.”

  “Anyway, I need you to watch her. I don’t want anyone fucking up my relationship with New York or Les Diables. She might try going to them next. Do not let her.”

  An unpleasant twist leaves me feeling gutted as I stare into the photograph. She’s beautiful, really—the type of girl my Ma would love. Dark hair and innocent, big eyes. Italian.

  “And Tony?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Try to keep your dick in your pants.”

  “I can’t promise that,” I respond, grinning at the photo.

  He sighs loudly. “Go. Get the fuck out of here and start your collections.”

  The cold, dismissive tone freezes my jaw shut. I somehow manage to grunt out a good-bye and then I stand from the table. He’s looking somewhere else. It’s as if I’m already gone.

  Fucking hell, I need to get a new job.

  But that’s it, isn’t it? I can’t just quit—not after becoming a made member. It’s not just a job. It’s a way of life.

  I gather my wool coat and shrug it over my shoulders, eager to get out of there. At first it was great. All the pussy I could want and more money than I’d ever had, but after a while you start to notice that all the girls kind of look the same. They act the same, and they want the same things from you. Namely, your money. But I still want something to fill the gaping hole that girl nailed into my chest the other night.

  The warmth slowly unfreezes my fingers as I flex them, pain prickling all over my skin as they thaw. I clench my jaw, thinking of the sickening sound of cracking bone. It replays over and over in my head. The image of the lead pipe in my hand repeats in my head as I smash it against his knees, producing a thick, meaty sound. His face contorts with pain as his knees explode into fragments. The gag I shove down his mouth only partially muffles his screams.

  Fuck, the sounds.

  I take my seat at the bar, and Genevieve, the curly-haired bartender, slides me my drink almost immediately, knowing that I’m in one of my moods. She doesn’t even meet my gaze. I slam back the drink, that awful burn reminding me of gasoline, but I swallow it down. It’s like adding mulch over fire. Drinking drowns it out for a little while, but it’s still burning underneath. The flames lick through, and my head starts to pound, and I keep drinking. I don’t remember if I’m drinking to numbness, or whether I’m drinking to feel something, or whether I’m drinking just to drink.

  It doesn’t matter, anyway. It always ends up the same.

  I take a look around, trying to get my mind off of it—trying to find something sweet to alleviate the bitterness in my mouth—and then I see her.

  It’s her again.

  I freeze as she whisks by me, a citrus breeze wafting across my nose. I turn around to watch a slim waist, her shirt riding over her hips, giving me a nice view of her perfectly round ass, which bounces in her black leggings. She slides right over the stool next to me without realizing that I’m looking at her, a slight frown creasing her forehead.

  Try to keep your dick in your pants.

  If Johnny really cared about that, he would have been more clear.

  She’s involved with a made guy. You could get killed if you touch her.

  Dying for fucking a girl seems like a good way to go. Actually, I’d prefer to die while fucking a girl, but beggars can’t be choosers.

  Johnny could kill you.

  I don’t give a fuck.

  She’s the daughter of a boss. You don’t fuck daughters of bosses. You don’t look at them. You don’t talk to them except to say, “Hello, how are you?” and, “Good-bye.” She’s the forbidden fruit. A conquest.

  I have to bang this broad.

  My first instinct is to touch her shoulder, her waist, to overwhelm her with my presence. I’m a master at getting girls to come home with me. Before long, I’ll have her begging to suck my cock.

  I lean in slightly, and I let my hand grasp the head of her chair. “Hey, beautiful. What’s got you down?”

  She doesn’t even look at me. “Fuck off.”

  So the Mafia princess has a mouth, doesn’t she? Intriguing. Genevieve hears the exchange and grins at me behind that bar counter.

  The energy burning from her body is completely different from last time. Last time, she was scared. Defeated. Today, she’s pissed. Did Johnny turn her down again?

  I give Genevieve a nod, and she pours a drink for the girl.

  “What’s this?”

  “I’m buying you a drink.”

  She pushes it away. “I don’t want your fucking drink.”

  Then why did you sit right next to me?

  “What’s with the tone?”

  “You’re just trying to get into my pants.”

  “Is it a crime that I think you’re gorgeous?”

  She turns her head, her long hair snagging on her creamy shoulders. Brown eyes look at me under her long lashes, and they widen as she takes in my appearance. Gently parted lips beckon to me, and I smile at her. My cock makes an impatient twitch as her lips lift slightly.

  Her slim body slides off the stool and she walks close to me. Close enough so that blood pounds in my ears and I’m face-to-face with an amazing view of her cleavage. Her lips, slightly wet with pink lipstick, tremble. The citrus scent floats over me like a cloud, not overpowering, but pleasant.

  “I’ll do whatever you want if you get rid of my ex for me.”

  Goddamn. The desperation in her voice makes my stomach sink, but I’m tempted to say yes. Fuck him—fuck the mob, I’ll kill him for you because I want to suck on your lips and feel the warmth of your tits in my palms.

  Instead, I shake my head, hating the disappointment in her eyes. Her hand slides away from mine.

  Don’t let her go!

  “I’m sorry, hon. You’re not going to get anyone to agree to do that for you.”

  She shakes her head, her eyes watering, and she gives a hopeless, sharp intake of breath that makes my insides clench.

  I take her shoulder, half expecting her to throw my hand off, but she lets me touch her skin. My fingers just graze over her and her eyelids flutter.

  “Come home with me and you’ll forget all about that asshole. I’ll make you feel really good, Elena. I promise.”

  Her body shivers and she steps back from me. Temptation brews in her eyes like a storm gathering. I see it shifting and receding. She wants to, but she doesn’t want to.

  Then she opens her mouth, he
r eyes hardening into marbles.

  “I want nothing to do with you.”

  Frustration gathers in my chest when she shoots me down. I want this woman—she’s a goddamn prize, and I would gladly shoot her ex-boyfriend in the face if it wouldn’t get me killed.

  Elena turns to leave, taking her coat, but I grab her tiny wrist. I pull her into my chest and she utters a gasp. My arm wraps around her waist and she swallows hard.

  “At least have a drink with me.”

  “No.”

  “Come on. One drink.”

  She wets her lips, and for a moment I imagine them crushed against mine. My fingers tease around the hem of her shirt and then her eyes glint with pain and she reaches behind herself, grabbing my hands to rip them away from her body.

  “You don’t know how to take no for an answer, do you?”

  I grin at her, loving how ferocious she is, and the way her brown eyes seem to sparkle with electricity. Girl’s got fire.

  “You kissed me back the other night and left me with a raging hard-on. I can’t leave you alone.”

  Her mouth parts almost as though she’s about to give in, but then her eyes harden. “I don’t want you. End of story.”

  Yet she doesn’t pull away when I grasp her chin and lean down close enough to feel her breath over my cheeks, and to see her neck pulsing with her racing heartbeat. My fingers run along her jaw, moving to the back of her head, into her silky hair. My lips fall against hers, and her mouth opens in a gasp. It’s intoxicating. This girl makes my body hot, and my other arm snakes around her tiny waist. I pull her smoking-hot body into mine, and her tits crush against my chest. I smile against her mouth as she sighs into mine. Her palm flattens against my body.

  And she shoves me.

  I have a brief view of her red, furious face before a sharp sting hits my cheek, her hand a beige blur. The slap echoes in the bar, despite the noise and the people everywhere. They turn to look at us, but they hardly give me a second glance. I’ve been slapped before. So what? They always go home with me.

  I didn’t even fucking see it coming.

  My chest shakes with laughter as she stands frozen with a semi-paralyzed look on her face, and then she turns around and bolts from the bar.