by Bethany-Kris
Luca stiffened on the desk. “What are you saying, Maccari?”
“I think we have a rat.”
The silence was deafening.
That word—rat—was poison.
It bred contempt, suspicion, and fear, all in one fell swoop.
It didn’t need help.
It spread like a fucking airborne virus.
Luca met Mac’s gaze as he said, “A rat and a killer. This is a delicate time to be a Cosa Nostra man, it seems.”
Apparently, it depended on who that Cosa Nostra man was.
The unknown bred fear.
After all, the men were still watching Mac like he needed to be watched.
Even Luca.
“You could at least explain to me why you want me to stay at Ma’s for a week or two,” Victoria grumbled from the passenger seat of Mac’s Challenger.
“It’s a favor, nothing more. Can’t you leave it at that and stop looking for more?” Mac asked.
“Yeah, but—”
“She’s also our mother. It won’t hurt you to keep an eye on her for a bit.”
Victoria pressed her lips together tightly, her annoyance evident. “Pretty sure that’s always been a job you took care of, Mac. And I’m busy with work, you know that.”
“And partying,” Mac said, adding what his sister didn’t. “Clubbing four nights a week, even nights when you have to work the next morning. Running with a couple guys.”
“Don’t even start.”
Mac had hit a nerve with his sister, it seemed.
“Listen,” he started to say, “I don’t care what you do, Vic. It’s your life, really. Do what you want. But right now, I am asking for one simple thing, nothing more. You can do that without questioning me to heaven and back.”
“I just want to know why or what is wrong,” Victoria replied.
From the backseat, Enric flicked his cigarette ash out the window. “Shit may or may not be happening. Mac wants his people to be safe just in case. Be grateful, not annoying.”
Mac wavered between being thankful for Enric opening his mouth, or scolding the man for talking to his sister that way. He decided to go with being thankful, seeing as how Victoria had quieted in the passenger seat and was watching Mac with less irritation than before.
Of course, that didn’t mean she felt the same way for Enric.
Turning a cold eye on their passenger in the back, Victoria said, “And who the fuck are you exactly?”
Enric let out a slow stream of smoke, smooth and unbothered. “Now that, Vickie, isn’t any of your concern.”
Mac chuckled at that one, knowing what was coming.
“Don’t call me Vickie, asshole.”
“Rhymes with bitchy, right?” Enric asked.
Mac chose to step in before Victoria clawed Enric’s throat out. It wasn’t such a crazy idea, considering his sister looked damn ready to do murder.
“All right, that’s enough,” Mac said, never taking his eyes off the road in front of them. “Act like children on your own time.”
He should have known that with these two, given their entirely opposite personalities, having them close together would only end badly. Enric was too aloof, and didn’t mind telling someone to cut out their bullshit. Victoria was loud and sometimes her personality was a bit much.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
Mac sighed, knowing he didn’t have very many other options at his disposal.
Hopefully, his mother would keep Enric and Victoria from killing each other.
That was his piss-poor plan.
“I get the Challenger, right?” Enric asked from the back.
Victoria’s eyebrow cocked at Mac. “What’s he talking about?”
Shit.
So maybe Mac hadn’t told Victoria everything just yet.
Mac waved a hand, dismissing Victoria’s bitter question. “It’s nothing—just a secondary precaution while I figure some things out.”
“What precaution?” Victoria practically screeched.
That migraine was beginning to make its appearance again.
Awesome.
“Oh, your brother forgot to tell you?” Enric asked, smirking at Victoria in a way that said he was going to enjoy this.
“Enric,” Mac warned.
The younger man didn’t even act like he heard him.
It seemed like Enric was enjoying teasing and torturing Victoria. Maybe a little too much.
“I’ll be keeping an eye on your mother … and you,” Enric said, his grin deepening. “For a little while. Should be fun.”
Victoria turned her burning eyes on Mac.
He pulled into his mother’s driveway at the same time.
Pulling the keys out of the ignition, Mac tossed them back to Enric and opened the car door to get the hell out before Victoria could say another word to him. Was it cowardly? Hell yes.
He was not in the mood to deal with his sister, though.
“Call me if you need something,” Mac said over his shoulder, heading for the road. He hadn’t directed his statement to one particular person in the car. Already, he could hear them arguing behind him again.
He’d call a fucking cab to get home.
This was for Victoria and his mother’s own good.
Yeah, that’s what he was going to keep telling himself.
Mac had gone back to the apartment first, thinking his wife would be there waiting for him. After the day they had had, together and separately, he figured she would want nothing more than a quiet night in with some good food, a movie or two, and him.
The apartment was empty when he had arrived.
Melina was nowhere in sight.
He found the note she left behind, scribbled in her familiar feminine scrawl.
The tape is off The Dollhouse.
Be home after supper.
Love, Melina.
It would have been better—safer—had Melina stayed home and waited to go into work once Mac was back, but that wasn’t the way his doll worked. She intended to keep that business going, and make it a fucking success, no matter what it meant or cost them to do it. He couldn’t even find it in himself to get annoyed that she had gone as soon as the tape had been taken off the place.
Mac had passed the clock on the kitchen wall a look. It showed that by the time he had gotten home, it was well beyond supper time.
Melina probably didn’t even realize the time.
So, he’d locked up their apartment, and gone to her.
Keeping his mother and sister safe by making sure they were together, quiet, and had someone watching them was one thing. But Melina? That was not as simple. His wife wouldn’t go quietly into the night to hide out in an apartment until he had shit straightened out and gotten done whatever else he needed to do in the process.
Frightened, Melina was not.
Mac didn’t even think the word was in her dictionary.
That only left him with one real option, as far as he was concerned. He would have to keep his wife close—closer than he normally would. Usually he did his business, and she did hers, and they were almost always apart because that was their nature of works. Mac had to be everywhere at once, all across the city, visiting men, collecting money, and seeing to his crew and their activities. He couldn’t just sit in one place and wait for the money to come to him. That wasn’t how a Capo’s job worked.
The Dollhouse was sometimes the exception.
When things were quiet, Mac could chill out there while Melina did her thing before it had opened. Even now, he suspected he could still hang out there with his wife if he wanted.
And that was probably what he would need to do now.
At least for a little while.
Melina likely wouldn’t think much of Mac being around more, especially after the second shooting. But he wasn’t sure on how much of the other stuff he was going to let her in on. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his wife.
God, he trusted that woman with his life.
; He just didn’t think it would do her any good to worry about things she couldn’t control.
Not yet.
The bigger, most obvious, problem was that Mac was doing all of these things proactively with no real reason or obvious threat to justify his actions. No one had actually threatened him, per say. It wasn’t his right-hand man or second lawyer that had been killed.
No one said he was the one that pulled the trigger.
Still, something didn’t feel right.
Anthony—as much as Mac hated that fucking cafone—had a point when he said it had been two incidents, both involving Mac in some way.
That, to Mac, was threat enough for him to act proactively like he was.
Just in case someone was trying to make a point of something, and decided Luca wasn’t getting them anywhere. Mac—or his wife and family—wouldn’t be the one whoever it was came after next.
Not if he could help it.
Instead of having a cab take him back across the city to The Dollhouse, Mac only took one half way, opting to get out at a storage place. Since Enric would be using his Challenger for a week or two—the guy refused to get a car, though he did have his license—Mac would need something else to use. Melina had her car, but he wasn’t about to take the keys from her.
Mac found the storage container that had a large number nine painted on the front. It was small enough that a car couldn’t fit inside, but large enough for him to keep safe the one thing he only brought out occasionally. He made quick work of unlocking the padlock and pulling up the metal door to expose his metallic, navy and red Ducati Superbike waiting for him. The full-faced helmet hung off the right side of the handlebar.
Damn, he’d missed this bike.
It wasn’t often he used it—it wasn’t practical when his car could haul things if needed.
The bike would do, and when he drove it, Mac found he didn’t have to focus on anything but the sound of his bike and the road ahead of him. It relieved his stress in a way his car couldn’t.
It wasn’t long before Mac was on the highway, face hidden behind his helmet as he passed car after car, his bike pushing three times the legal speed limit. It took him half the time it usually would to reach The Dollhouse. He’d just parked his Ducati alongside the front in an available spot as his phone began to buzz in his pocket, and three women stepped outside of The Dollhouse’s front door.
He recognized them as girls that his wife had hired, and didn’t pay them any mind as he tugged his helmet off and then pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket to answer the call.
Mac didn’t check who the caller was as he put the phone to his ear. “Ciao?”
“How is Enric doing?”
Mac’s brow furrowed at Luca’s calm tone. “Boss?”
He was the last person Mac expected to hear from, after what had gone on earlier that afternoon, never mind a friendly chitchat about Enric.
“Who the hell else calls you from this number?” Luca asked.
Mac decided to answer Luca’s first question. “He’s doing well. A little mouthy sometimes, but he’s good at what he does. That says a lot. He’s good.”
“Good,” Luca echoed.
Passing the front door to his wife’s business a look, Mac said, “Was that all?”
“No. A rat, you said.”
Mac stiffened on the bike. “I thought you weren’t listening.”
Luca chuckled dryly. “Or did you think I was more interested in what that fool Anthony was saying?”
“Honestly?”
“Let me have it, Mac.”
“A little bit of both,” Mac muttered.
“We all have to be careful right now, seeing as how there is a lot happening but none of us have any real answers as to why. You, especially. Me, more importantly. I will do so how I have to do so, and you will do the same—understood?”
“Got it, boss.”
Although Mac wasn’t entirely sure he did.
“I do trust you,” Luca added after a quiet moment.
“Do you?”
“Even if I have to do it from afar for a bit, Mac. You’ve given me every reason to trust you, and not one reason to distrust you. Keep it that way.”
Well, then … what could he say to that?
“It could be related to me,” Mac said. “These killings, I mean.”
“I have no doubt they are, even if you’re intended to be a distraction of sorts by whoever it is,” Luca agreed. “You work on finding who that is.”
“And what will you do, boss?”
Luca sighed. “Apparently, with the way they keep coming closer to the people at my side, I’ll try to stay alive and smoke out a rat at the same time. Enjoy your evening with your wife, Mac, I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you showed up tonight. I’ll be in touch.”
Mac’s head snapped up and his gaze zoned the street.
Luca knew where he was.
“As I said,” Luca murmured, “you haven’t given me a reason to distrust you. Don’t start now. Have a good evening.”
Mac was just hanging up the phone when The Dollhouse’s front door opened, and Melina stepped out with keys in her hand. She locked the place up, turned to leave, and froze when she saw Mac.
“You didn’t get my note?” she asked, not even saying a word about the Ducati bike.
“I did, doll,” he replied. “Just thought you might want to see me a little earlier, that’s all.”
Melina’s smile bloomed widely.
It was still the best sight.
“Everything okay?’ she asked.
Mac nodded. “Yeah, considering.”
Or it would be.
I’m sticking to you like paper sticks to glue.
Melina couldn’t help thinking about the words to the old song because, for once, they actually had some application to her life.
Mac had become closer than her own damn shadow.
On one hand, she could understand it.
Yet another person connected to the Pivetti Cosa Nostra had been killed at yet another event directly related to her and Mac. It damn sure didn’t help matters that the man had turned out to be Luca Pivetti’s freshly-hired consigliere. The man had just buried his last one for fuck’s sake and now this.
So yeah, she could understand Mac’s closeness.
He hadn’t said anything to her specifically but Melina was no fool. Her husband was worried.
Worried that perhaps they were in more than the usual danger that came along with being connected to Cosa Nostra.
Worried that he was losing the respect and trust he’d fought so hard to gain.
The latter was what made her want to put a bullet in someone’s fucking head.
Mac had started off as a foot soldier living in the shadow of a father that was a monumental fuck up, but through working harder than anyone around him he’d moved up the ranks. As a Capo, he was finally reaping the benefits of all his years of labor.
No one deserved to take that away from him.
Not now. Not ever.
Especially if she had anything to say about it.
Mac didn’t have a disloyal bone in his body, which made the whispers going around all the more irksome to her.
He may have thought she was unaware, but little got past Melina.
She’d heard the word.
Rat.
It was an insult of the highest order.
Unconsciously, she bit her lip. Mac had no reason to betray his famiglia. Despite the less than stellar treatment he’d endured in the past, he was enjoying the benefits now. If anyone had more incentive to make sure that Luca Pivetti stayed in charge, it was her husband. Melina knew how much having his Don’s trust meant to Mac. He’d never do anything to jeopardize that.
But someone else was.
They just had to figure out who that person was.
“Are you okay, Melina? You’ve been quieter than usual today,” Victoria said.
Melina offered her sister-in-law a smile. “I’m okay
. I just have a lot on my mind.”
“Tell me about it. I feel like a crab in a barrel. You have got to get my brother to give us some breathing room. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.”
Victoria’s gaze swung to the corner of the salon were Enric Pivetti stood. Though the young man seemed at ease, Melina wasn’t fooled. He knew the moment anyone came in or went out of the salon. Every so often his gaze drifted over to them. Melina couldn’t help noticing that his gaze seemed to linger on Victoria when he thought no one was looking. She wondered if her husband was aware his new understudy had eyes for his younger sister.
“Ha. This is the first outing I’ve had not being directly shadowed by your brother. He’s not budging.”
“How’d you manage to get some breathing room today?”
“Enric is still shadowing you, so there was no reason for the two of them to be here. Besides, I told him if he didn’t give me some damn space he wouldn’t like the result.”
Victoria laughed. “Teach me your ways, great sensei.”
“If I was such a great teacher, I wouldn’t still be being followed. I love your brother to death but all couples need space sometimes.”
“I wouldn’t know. My going out has been limited with Mr. Smart Ass following me around. You can’t exactly go out with a bodyguard throwing death looks at your date all evening.”
“Come on. He can’t be that bad. At least he’s eye candy.”
Victoria rolled her eyes. “No. Like not in a million years. I can’t stand him.”
“Thy doth protest too much. Do I need to remind you how Mac and I were?”
“Completely different situation.”
“We’ll revisit this in a few months. I’m sure things will have changed.”
“Don’t waste your breath,” Victoria said.
Melina didn’t miss the quick dart Victoria’s eyes did over to the corner as they gathered up their purses and paid for their services.
Yeah. Something was definitely brewing between those two.
“Ladies. Where are we off to?” Enric asked. He held the door open for them.
“How about Mars?” Victoria said.
