by Bethany-Kris
She was acutely aware of the gazes watching her. Of the other men at the table who would report back to whoever they needed to about her behavior, and how she handled this situation. That was fine with her. She needed people to know her name. She needed them afraid of the one and only De Rose woman willing to cut them down.
Power came to those who took it.
It was never given.
Simone scoffed, although he did sit down. “What exactly has he neglected with me, Aria? Nothing more or less than he neglected with your ignorant—”
“Watch your tongue, or I will cut it out.”
He blinked, silenced.
Aria smiled.
Simone’s wife was not quite as smart, though. Giovanna’s gaze narrowed as it turned on Aria with a burning rage that might shrink a lesser woman.
“Who do you think you are?” Giovanna asked. “You’re reaching a bit when you talk to him like that, don’t you think? Be careful, Aria. Your father isn’t going to be in prison for very much longer.”
Didn’t this stupid wife know?
Getting up from her seat with the slow grace she had been taught was most beneficial to a lady who wanted all eyes on her, Aria fingered the rim of the wine glass she’d emptied just before this meeting had begun. The wine bottle was all the way at the other end of the table, so no one seemed to think twice about her grabbing the glass as she moved down the table. All eyes stayed on her, and frankly, they should have known.
When it came to her, they always should have known.
Aria had just come to the back of Giovanna’s chair when she showed them she had no intention of going for the wine bottle. She smashed the wine glass overtop of the woman’s unsuspecting head before she grabbed a fistful of Giovanna’s hair, and yanked her head back so wide eyes were staring up at her. Chairs scraped, and warnings murmured along the table, but no one stepped in.
They did know better, then.
Or, they were learning.
Good.
Bending down to murmur in Giovanna’s ear, Aria’s smile stayed firmly in place when she said, “Check my bloodlines, cagna. You’ll find exactly who I am.”
She was a De Rose.
Camorra.
Vicious, violent, and vehement.
And she would bow to no one.
Not again.
It was only the click of a door closing that drew Aria’s gaze away from the mirror showcasing her painted-to-perfection features. All her delicate lines had been highlighted and contoured, and her eyes made demure with dark kohl. The red stain on her lips made them appear fuller, and accentuated her small cupid’s bow. Heavy, black mascara lifted, lengthened, and thickened her eyelashes enough to frame the green orbs.
She preferred it when her eyes were the first thing a man saw when he stared at her. And then, the man could get lost while he looked at everything else she had to offer, too.
That daze was dangerous.
She played it well.
“Well?” Aria asked.
Nico—the only man who had stayed entirely silent during her meeting with the others—sighed as he stepped closer to her vanity. “They’re gone. Not pleased, mind you, but gone.”
Aria went back to her reflection, and twisted one stray curl back into place. “I don’t care about their happiness, Nico, I care that they listen.”
“And what if one starts to question you, Aria? What if one decides to find a way to your father despite all the loopholes and barricades you’ve put up to keep him sheltered from them? What then?”
Oh, that seemed simple enough.
“Then, we kill them.”
Nico sighed again.
She almost smiled.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “we’re one step closer.”
One step closer to having it all.
To controlling Philly.
To gaining back her life.
“Real talk,” Nico muttered, “about Jac. What did he have to say?”
Aria met his gaze in the mirror. Nico stood behind her patient, silent, and waiting like he always did. Her most trusted companion, and the one man who had never hurt her. She’d known him since she was just a girl—young enough to still enjoy tales like gold at the end of the rainbow, and when puddle jumping was fun.
She was not young anymore.
Neither was he.
“Peace—my father wants me to make peace.”
Nico smirked a bit. “Not going to happen any time soon.”
“He doesn’t know that, though. Now, what do you have for me?” she asked.
“Information on the Accardos.”
“I love information.”
Nico laughed. “I know.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense.”
She worked on fixing a couple of stray strands of her hair as Nico went in to details about the latest information he had gathered on the family they had been provoking for a while. Tonight would be one step closer to getting in on their inner circle.
Really in if it all worked out.
“The latest little spat we had with them worked, it seems,” Nico said.
By spat, he meant a drive by shooting of one of their restaurants. Closed, of course. Aria didn’t need innocents getting mixed up in all of this. Still, she knew a couple of the Accardo men held regular nightly meetings at the business.
One had died.
Shame.
“Worked, how?” she asked.
“Seems Angelo Accardo has finally put someone on the streets to try and handle us—his oldest son, Caesar. He’s been back for about a week now.”
“Where was he again?”
“I heard New York.”
Aria nodded. “So the difficult son is back, then.”
Caesar Accardo’s antics in his family were well-known … well, as long as someone had deep enough pockets to pay someone for the information. Seemed the guy liked to cause trouble, and couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, for whatever reason.
Aria figured she could use that to her advantage.
“And he is …?” she trailed off, allowing Nico to fill in the blank she had been hoping for.
“Caesar is at his regular haunts,” Nico said, making her grin. “At least in the evenings.”
Her plan was coming together.
It was beautiful, really.
The two of them quieted as Aria went back to putting the final touches on her look with a black velvet choker around her throat, and diamond studs in her ears. Sexy, and classic, but nothing that might take attention away from her face or her body.
“It’s a shame, isn’t it?” she asked quietly.
Nico raised one dark eyebrow. “What is?”
“How this has all shaken out for this clan of ours.”
He chuckled dryly. “It’s really only you who has done all of this. It’s you who wants to control Philly, and who is determined enough to burn down the city in order to get what you want.”
“And you who is willing to help me,” she shot back.
Nico nodded once. “We both know why that is, though.”
She did.
And it was not because he loved her. Oh, sure, he did love her, but like a sister. It was only because of those feelings that Nico noticed what her father hadn’t, and was the first to step in and try to help her in any way that he could.
If only it had worked …
Well, it was working now.
That’s what mattered.
“Had it been you that Jac demanded I marry a year and a half ago before he went into prison,” Aria said, “I would not have been happy, but I would not be this, either.”
Nico glanced away. “I shouldn’t have said no when he asked.”
No, she didn’t love him, either. He’d never touched her, and she never thought to try with him, either. It would be like kissing her brother, and that only left her feeling icky. Still, had it been Nico who tied her down, she would have at least been safe.<
br />
Instead, it had been—
“Raffe called just before the meeting started,” Nico murmured.
That name again.
That feeling in her spine again.
Heavy, hurtful, and too hot.
“What did he want?” she asked.
She didn’t let her voice shake.
Didn’t let it even tremble.
No, she kept it cool, cold, and detached.
That was all Raffaele Ferri deserved. The only thing she had ever been able to keep when her father married her to him was the last name she’d been given at birth. Sure, Raffe had one of his moments when she requested her surname remain unchanged, but her father had rather liked the idea.
What Jac wanted, Jac got.
A lot like Aria.
Even if it took a while.
“He wanted to check in,” Nico said.
Aria’s throat worked to remove the lump that had formed there. “He’s going to be away for two or three more months at the latest. The deal with the Cambria cartel in Italy will not be one that is easy going for him. I made sure of that.”
“Careful he doesn’t find out how many hands you have in the pot, Aria.”
Yes, that would be dangerous.
A danger she could not afford.
“And he said he would be sending Mae over in the morning for breakfast,” Nico added when she didn’t respond.
Aria did smile at that. “Oh?”
Nico grinned a bit, too. “She’ll keep your mind off of things for a bit.”
“Mae’s good for that.”
“She is.”
Nico couldn’t hide the fondness in his tone as he spoke about Raffe’s eighteen-year-old half-sister. The girl looked nothing like her brother with her light brown skin, and wild head of corkscrew curls that flew in every direction. A child born to a mistress of Raffe’s now-dead father, as far as Aria knew, although she wasn’t privy to a lot about her husband’s history. He was making his best effort to scrub the Ferri Camorra clan’s history clean, and then turning her father’s organization into his own while he had the time.
But Mae … she was nothing like her brother.
And next to Nico, she was Aria’s only friend.
Standing from the vanity bench, she said to Nico, “Help me get dressed. I’ll need you to zip this goddamn dress of mine up.”
“Are you sure this is the route you want to go?” Nico asked behind her.
Aria hesitated when she reached for the shimmering, tight gold number set out on the bed. “Why wouldn’t it be? It seems like the easiest way to trap one of them, doesn’t it?”
“One pro to how many cons, though?”
He had a point.
Camorra was … difficult.
Especially for a woman like her.
“Any improper behavior from you noted by anyone,” Nico said, “and it would ruin you if Jac or Raffe found out, Aria. What you’re planning to do is going to absolutely go far beyond improper.”
Yes, and a good reputation was everything to a Camorra woman. It was the only thing allowing her respect in their life, and giving her status. Should she lose that good reputation by doing something improper that might sully her name or family, then she would be nothing.
Worthless.
Unusable.
Dishonored.
Should she find herself in hot water because of her plans, no one would look at Aria and wonder why a woman of her name and status had done what she did—they would only care she that she had done it. That would be all that mattered.
“Then, give me another way,” Aria murmured. “Tell me another way to do this—to be free of him, and what he does to me. Tell me, Nico, and I will do it.”
Nico stayed silent.
Everything about her life—from her every day appearance to even her forced marriage because her father had been facing prison time—was about never breaking that perfect, unsullied image that Camorra demanded from a woman. A dishonored woman would be given nothing, and as it stood, Aria had already been made to give up everything for this person she now was.
She was going to have to take that risk.
Aria was not giving them more.
Not of her.
Aria nodded, and peered at him over her shoulder. “Exactly. There is no other way. This is how I get out—this is how I can be free. Now, help me put on my dress, and let me try out my new name with you before I go.”
Nico shook his head. “What did you choose to go with?”
“Take a guess.”
“Your mother’s name?”
Aria shrugged. “I’ve always loved the name Carina. I think it works.”
“You think a lot of things.”
She gave him a look.
“Watch it, Nico.”
“Yeah, yeah. The prized rose with her thorns.”
“My thorns cut like knives. Don’t you ever forget it.”
“But who sharpened those thorns, Aria?”
Raffe.
Jac.
This life.
“Me,” she settled on saying.
It was still true.
THREE
LUCIFER’S DEN WAS a favorite haunt of Caesar’s for a number of reasons; most being something people might find salacious or immoral. And that was just fine with him because that’s exactly why he frequented the club.
On the outside, Lucifer’s Den appeared the same as any other club except for the rooftop parking section for the uber-wealthy that patrons like Caesar were allowed to use by way of a glass elevator that would lift a vehicle up and down. The flat-gray bricks, and simple sign gave nothing away about the goings-on inside the joint.
Certainly not the drugs.
Or the sex.
If a person wanted something, the best place to find it was Lucifer’s Den. It was all provided in the plentiful, and Caesar liked to indulge a hell of a lot more than he probably should. But shit, he was going to die someday regardless, and he was not going out with regrets about things he should have done.
He was going to do it all.
Inside the club, once he had come down one of three glass elevators from the roof that led inside the club, Caesar was bombarded by the familiar sights on the entrance floor. Red velvet couches, and a bar to the right. Dimmed lighting by low hanging chandeliers, and a DJ set up in his booth where no one could get to him while he worked. A few girls moved over the dance floor in their tiny skirts and sky-high heels with large serving trays filled with either drinks, or empty glasses. The dance floor was full, too.
Caesar might dance.
If he found someone’s skirt to hide his hands while he did it …
Passing the main floor, Caesar grabbed a drink from one of the passing waitresses, and she gave him a wink. His face was recognizable, and his tab hadn’t been officially closed in this place since it opened three goddamn years ago. Sure, he paid it off, but the owner still kept it open for him to use again and again—he was a repeat, after all.
It was the barrel-chested man standing in front of red-velvet upholstered double doors keeping Caesar from getting to the place he wanted to be. Or rather, closer to finding a new pair of thighs to get in between for the better portion of his night.
“Good to see you again, Caesar,” the bouncer said.
“And you.”
Kevin, he wanted to say?
He wasn’t really sure of the man’s name.
“I think you alone could make the boss a very rich man with the amount of times you come to this place a week,” the guy said, stepping back just enough to open the double doors for him. “Enjoy your evening.”
Caesar ticked a finger over his shoulder, and then disappeared into the red stream of light filtering between the crack in the doors.
Hell was a sexy sight—black velvet, red lighting, dark hardwood, and cocaine on a glass table. Caesar passed two girls leaning over in their men’s laps to lock onto on
e another with a kiss, but he had other things on his mind. Cocaine dust powdered one of the girl’s noses, and a similar streak of the drug looked like it had been smudged on one of the man’s collars.
By the end of the night, he bet both of those men were going to be snorting that coke right off those girls’ asses. Lucifer’s Den was predictable in that way. It always ended with the same thing every single time here.
Another section with couches surrounding the same style of black-glass table had a bowl—pink, blue, purple, and white pills filled it like candy. For the people sitting there with their champagne and painted on smiles, he bet it did taste like candy for them.
Black and red sheer curtains hung low from the ceiling, and dipped down to the floor around each of the seating sections. It allowed someone the illusion of privacy if they wanted to pull the curtains a bit to close out the rest of the club, but it was widely known here that everyone could still see whatever you were doing behind it.
Oh, yeah.
This club was what Caesar’s wet dreams were fucking made of.
And sin was always waiting.
He planned to head directly back to his favorite spot in the club—a corner couch section with just enough room for two or three people, should he be interested in that kind of crowd. It gave him the perfect view of the vast majority of the floor, and a good show of whatever was going on around him.
A familiar voice calling out stopped him.
“Caesar, my man!”
His steps faltered as a familiar man straightened from the couple he was talking to a few feet away, and came Caesar’s way with his signature grin. The owner of Lucifer’s Den was a lot of things, and had his hands in too many pots to count, but he had always been good to Caesar. And he was good enough to let the man know never to fuck with him, either. Sometimes that warning was just enough to keep Caesar from pressing … depending on the man it came from.
“Maverick,” Caesar greeted.
The man flashed his white teeth as his hand struck out, and met Caesar’s with a hard smack. Maverick knew Caesar well enough not to draw him into a hug, though. He didn’t care for people touching him unless it was to get him off, frankly.
“Place is busy tonight,” Caesar noted.
Maverick nodded. “That it is. Shit, didn’t I just see you in here two nights ago?”
