I remember what my dad said to me: “Show me a man who says he won’t marry a strong-willed woman, and I’ll show you a man who is too weak to deserve her in the first damn place.”
She went on living and doing her thing long after my father died, after his debts came to light, after everything fell apart. She could have run away and hid, licked her wounds in the shadows.
But no.
She was too strong, too proud to give up that easily. My mother knew as well as I did what kinds of awful things they all said about her, about us. And she didn’t let any of them drag her down. I will defend her until the end, because maybe the reason we don’t get along very well is that we’re just too alike. Two strong-willed women who fall in love with the only men who are strong enough to handle us.
I smile to myself.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’m on my way,” I murmur.
After a while, we pull up to a truck stop wait out in the middle of nowhere. The street lights only flicker dimly, as though nobody really cares enough to fix them out here. As we turn down the gravel way, Bruno flashes the headlights in the direction of a big truck waiting there. It flashes back at us. Go time.
“Here we go,” Bruno says quietly. He tugs the hat a little further down on his head. Two Cleaners in similar dark jackets and hats get out of the other truck and start walking our way. I slink down in the back seat, hiding myself from sight in the darkness. The last thing we need is for the Cleaners to recognize me and catch on to our ruse. I can hear their footsteps splashing through the puddles on the ground. My heart starts racing.
“Are you sure about this?” I ask, barely even loud enough to hear.
“Too late to back out now,” Bruno answers at the same volume.
“What are you going to do?”
“This will require… a delicate touch.”
“What does that mean—”
Just then, the car door flings open and I hear two shots ring out with an earsplitting crack. Against my better judgment, I sit straight up and look around, desperately hoping the shots came from Bruno and not from the Cleaners. Relief floods over me as I see Bruno pointing his gun at a guy on the ground, cowering next to the man bleeding out beside him. Neither of them look mortally wounded, just shot in the legs to keep them still.
Without another moment of hesitation, I burst out of the car and start bolting toward the Cleaners’ truck, hardly thinking about the concern that there might be more of them lying in wait just in case something goes wrong. I don’t see anyone else around, so I quickly throw open the front cabin of the truck, take the keys from the ignition, and run to the back. With one hand still gripping the gun, I use my other hand to shakily put the key in the lock, throwing open the back of the truck. I point the gun into the darkness, just in case there might be another man waiting there to shoot me first.
Then I hear it—a scream from the darkness.
A woman’s scream.
“Serena?!”
A human shape comes fumbling out of the dark cargo bed—the shape of my mother. She looks bedraggled and angry and a little shocked, but it’s definitely her.
“Serena, is that a gun?” she gasps.
I can’t help but burst out laughing, both relieved and amused by the ridiculousness of my mother’s question. “Oh my god. Yes, Mom. This is a gun.”
I help her out of the truck and, setting the gun down on the ground, throw my arms around her in the tightest, most genuine hug I’ve ever given her. “Mom, I’m so glad you’re okay!” I cry.
“Oh, I’m okay. I could definitely use a bath, though. These filthy men have never seen a bar of soap in their lives, I bet,” she scoffs, already back to her old self.
I kiss her on the cheek.
“Yeah, I think cleanliness is pretty low on their list of priorities, despite their name,” I agree, laughing as I take her hand and lead her back around. She gasps again at the sight of the Cleaners on the ground, now being tied up together with rope, courtesy of Bruno. He comes over and offers my mother his arm, which she hesitantly takes to lean on.
As we walk back to the car and get inside, she looks him up and down.
“So you’re the man who’s responsible for all this,” she says coyly, gesturing toward my pregnant belly.
“Mom! He’s also the man responsible for saving your ass,” I retort.
She turns on me, her eyes flashing.
“You think I don’t know what kind of man this is? I was married to the mafia! Hell, I was born into it just as you were! Serena, do you remember how often your father was away? How long we would wait for him to come home? How many days he would go out and not call? Maybe you don’t remember—you were just a child. But I remember everything. I remember waiting up all night for him to come home, to call and let me know he was alive, at the very least.”
She takes a deep breath, smoothing her hair back from her face.
“The point is, my dear, you must be careful. Both of you. I will not watch you struggle the way I have,” she says to me emphatically. I step forward and take her arm gently.
“I know. And trust me, I have an entirely different life planned for us. For me and for the baby. Your grandchild isn’t going to live in that world. I promise,” I assure her.
Seemingly satisfied with my response, she turns back to Bruno.
“And you! I can tell you’re a capable man. But you have that look of danger about you. I know that look. Listen to me very carefully: this girl, my daughter, is my heart and soul. If you ever put her life in danger again, I will make sure you regret it for the rest of your life,” she says, her prim and proper tone in direct opposition to the ferocity of her words. My jaw drops. I have never heard my mother speak that way.
Bruno smiles good-naturedly.
“Yes, ma’am. I understand. Your daughter has changed my life. She’s made me a far better man than I ever was before. I intend to spend the rest of my days protecting her and making her happy. Serena is my fiancée. And we would be married by now if not for… extenuating circumstances. I can assure you that is my top priority once everything gets sorted out,” he says, the very pinnacle of courtesy and patience.
She stares at him with her eyes narrowed for a moment, then smiles approvingly. I release a breath I had no idea I was even holding.
“I like this one, Serena,” she tells me with a wink. “However! I do not like the fact that you have come charging in here with a gun while you’re carrying my grandchild! Serena, you should know better than that! What if something had happened? What if the gun misfired? What if you fell down and injured yourself? What if—”
“Yes, I know, I know. Trust me, I don’t plan on making a habit of it,” I assure her, helping her into the back seat of the car. She crosses her legs and folds her hands in her lap, looking every bit as dignified and ladylike as she always does, even considering her ragged, dirty clothes and tangled hair. She’s missing one shoe, too, I notice. But I figure that is absolutely not the best thing to mention at the moment.
As we drive back onto the highway, Bruno looks at her in the rearview mirror, like he did to me not even twenty minutes ago.
“Mrs. De Laurentis, I know this may seem like an odd question, but I have to ask: I don’t suppose there’s any chance you might know where we could find Don Abruzzi, is there?”
I turn and look at her, waiting for some kind of snappy response.
Instead, she sighs heavily and rolls her eyes. “Ricky Abruzzi? I’ve known that little bastard since we were in grade school. I can tell you exactly where he lives. Hell, I can tell you things about that man you wouldn’t believe.”
Bruno and I look at each other, smiling, as my mother tells us everything she knows.
19
DON ABRUZZI
“I assure you, it’s real,” I say, gesturing up to the lion’s head mounted on my wall in one of the smoking rooms where some of my guests are lounging and drinking. “This one was from a hunt in Zimbabwe back in...I want to say ‘85? I
was a younger man back then,” I add with a laugh, and the handful of men looking at the trophy with me laugh politely with me.
We’re about two hours into this little house party at one of my private homes outside the city, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
The men standing around me, along with most of the guests, are some very important men of the Bronx. And in the next few weeks, they’re going to become the most important men in the Bronx.
Most of them are men like me. Some of them come from other lesser mafia families that have been very reasonable in realizing that the Abruzzi family is the future of the Bronx. Some of them come from less organized parts of the city’s underworld—there are the drug traffickers with their South American connections and taste for luxury and decadence, there are the smugglers who deal with women, and there are security contractors who provide mercenaries to men who need them.
Not everyone comes from that unsavory part of life, though. There are more than a few lawyers here, along with a few small-time local politicians, most of them already having mafia connections. Some of them are new faces, though.
There’s an air of promise and a new future for my family in this house. It’s a party I’ve been setting up for several months now, and it’s going splendidly—which is why I should be having the time of my life.
Instead, an old thorn in my side is aggravating me.
Bruno Lomaglio couldn’t wait one more week to come back from the dead, could he? By the time I got word from my incompetent men that he was on his way back to New York, he must have already been halfway across the Atlantic. I hardly had time to get men looking for him before I got word the Costas had holed up in the fucking soap shop.
Once they’re all dead, I’m going to have the place burned to the ground.
But business like that waits for no one, so I’m having to wait for status updates on a fucking firefight in the streets while entertaining the men who are going to rule the Bronx under me in the next few years.
“Come on, Don Abruzzi,” says Mr. Giudici, one of the biggest meth kingpins in the neighborhood, “I’m sure hunting lions wasn’t the only thing you spent time doing down in Zimbabwe.”
“Certainly not,” I say, flashing him a smile. “There’s an ivory statuette I need to show you in the gallery, if you remind me—and of course, there are some other exquisite things Africa has to offer.” I lower my voice, even though my wife is long dead and not around to hear me say, “And the women you can acquire are like nothing you’ve ever experienced.” Amid the chuckles from the men, I add, “Except, of course, what our friend Mr. Ghardesca can offer.” I give a polite gesture to the man himself, one of the last major human traffickers in New York.
“I hope not to prove you wrong, Don Abruzzi,” says Mr. Ghardesca, raising his glass of wine to me, and the rest of us raise our glasses briefly.
“Quite so, quite so,” I chuckle.
Then I hear someone clear his throat behind me, and somehow, I know it’s going to be bad news.
“Yes?” I ask, peering over my shoulder to see one of my capos standing there, phone in hand. “Is this important, Tom?”
“Valentino needs you to give him a call,” he leans in to say in a low enough tone that only I can hear him. “It’s about the soap shop.”
His face is glassy.
But I’m used to keeping myself composed, so I just turn to my guests and smile affably.
“Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some fresh air. In the meantime, Tom—get these good gentlemen a little food, it’s been a bit since we’ve eaten. Some of the cigars too, and one for me when I get back.”
“Yes, Don Abruzzi.”
I take the burner phone from his hand and make my way out of the house into the back yard, and as soon as I’m out of sight of the other men, my jaw clenches.
I trudge down a little cobblestone path I had laid in my backyard leading down to a spacious gazebo that overlooks a large pond. It was one of the first things I had built when I bought this place, and it’s become the place I go to when I need to make business calls. It’s far enough from the house that nobody can hear me, and it’s elegant enough that I don’t look impolite as I would walking down the road out of sight.
I call Valentino, another one of my capos, and glare out onto the pond while I listen to the rings. He picks up almost immediately.
“Need this to be important, Val,” I growl into the phone. “What’s the situation at the soap shop?”
“That’s the problem,” his gruff voice says immediately. “Haven’t gotten an update yet. Should be over by now.”
My grip tightens on the phone, and I have to hold back the urge to hurl it into the pond and scream. I take a deep breath and try to focus myself.
“Do we have eyes on the ground over there?” I say, trying to get some intel out of him.
“Can’t get a hold of anyone who hit the place,” he says. “I’ve got men headed down there now to try to scope it out.”
“They’d better have a fucking good reason for not checking in,” I say pointedly, “and who the fuck was leading them? Jack, the Costa turncoat? Make sure that chickenshit isn’t pulling anything stupid or I’ll have his liver cut out, understand?”
There’s silence for a few moments between us as I take a few breaths, pacing back and forth in the gazebo and wishing I had a cigarette in hand. Better yet, a little morphine.
“Bruno Lomaglio was going to be at that soap shop, Val.”
“Yes, boss.”
“I need him dead, Val.”
“Yes, boss.”
“I’m done playing goddamn games with this,” I say, rubbing my temple. “If they want to try to jerk us around, we jerk back. Execute Luisa De Laurentis, we don’t need her anymore. I was gonna put a fucking bastard in her belly, but the bitch is probably too dried up down there to be of any use anyway.”
Valentino doesn’t reply.
“Val, don’t you fucking get cold feet on me now,” I say in a low hiss, careful not to look half as furious as I am from a distance, in case anyone’s watching from the house. “If you don’t do it, I’ll come down there myself and personally put a bullet in the poor widow’s goddamn heart right before I put one in yours.”
“I can’t get a hold of the men who have her, either,” Valentino says in a muted tone.
My face goes pale.
One group not checking in is bad and could mean something very bad. But two groups going silent…
“Run that by me again, Val, I must be hard of hearing.”
I hear a sigh from Val’s end of the line, and I can almost see him running his hands through his hair nervously.
“We can’t get a hold of anyone who’s on the ground out there. I’ve already got men on the way to find out what’s up with the De Laurentis widow, and-”
I hardly listen to everything else my capo rattles off to me. I’m leaning against the gazebo, rubbing my head as a throbbing headache starts blooming.
“Val?” I interrupt him after a few moments. “Listen very carefully. A hell of a lot depends on Bruno Lomaglio being dead and Luisa De Laurentis on her way to being dead. You’ve made it very clear that things are not ideal right now,” I say tersely, “but you’re a competent man. I have my hands full with these other...gentlemen...at this party. So I’m giving you free reign to spend whatever you need to make this problem go away. You do this for me, maybe I’ll let you have a turn with Serena De Laurentis before we ship her off to the Russians, or wherever the fuck Ghardesca sends his women.”
“Understood, Don Abruzzi,” Valentino says, swallowing hard. Before he can say anything else, I end the call.
Just a few more hours, and I can clear the house out and give this the attention it deserves, I think to myself as I march back up to the house.
When I open the back door and step inside, the smell of Sicilian black wine being poured greets me, and I feel just a little of the stress melt away. I greet a few more people on my way th
rough the kitchen, all smiles and handshakes, like we’re all old friends just watching out for each other, like none of the ugly business we carry out is right under the surface.
It’s the game we play in the mafia. We hug, we kiss each other on the cheek, and my subordinates kiss my hand before doing what I want them to do to keep our pockets lined with money. I was born into it, and it’s been going on for hundreds of years before me.
I’ll be damned if some punk-ass carpenter from Taranto fucks that all up for me.
But first, I could use a few of the oxy pills I have in the bathroom upstairs. As I navigate the party guests, I smile and politely excuse myself on my way to the fine wooden stairs to the second floor.
None of the guests are up here, so it gives me a little quiet comfort. No sounds but my footsteps and the ticking grandfather clock in the hallway leading to the master bedroom.
I run my hand through my hair as I enter it, crossing the massive bedroom with its four-poster bed and entering the grand bathroom, tiled with white marble and big enough to be a spare room of its own.
At the mirror, I glance at my face before reaching for the orange bottle of pills on the shelf. I pop a few of them into my hand...and I pause.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
I slowly lift my eyes back to the mirror, and my whole body goes still.
In the reflection, I see the doorframe behind me leading back to the bedroom.
Standing in the doorway is Bruno Lomaglio.
“Hello, Ricky,” his deep voice rumbles. He looks like he just came from a fight, yet he’s calm as a statue. And there’s a silenced pistol in his hand.
Fuck.
Staring him in the eye through the mirror, I take the pills dry before setting my hands on the sink to hold myself up. I stare at him for a few long, hard moments before speaking.
Bound in Love (Bound to the Bad Boy Book 3) Page 17
