Enamoured

by Darling, Giana

  A vase of daisies sat on the mantle beside a photo of a young ethnic woman with a demure smile. I instantly knew that was Daisy, and I felt a pang in my heart knowing he still memorialized her.

  She deserved that.

  “Did you move here to escape the Order after what happened?” Cosima was asking as we took a seat on a pink velvet couch that was clearly not the choice of Simon, a man whose style ran toward hunting chic.

  Simon frowned at her. “Surely, you know it was Thornton who brought me over?” When I only pressed my lips together and Cosima’s eyes went wide as gold doubloons, he chuckled and shook his head. “Ever comfortable as the bad guy, hmm, Thornton?”

  “I did castrate you,” I reminded me drily.

  Cosima choked on a giggle, her hand flying to her mouth. “I’m sorry, Simon.”

  He waved it away with a grin. “No, no, that was rather funny. You did, of course, but you also gave me a new life, and when push came to shove, you reunited me with the one person who could heal me when all was said and done.”

  My wife’s eyebrows shot into her hairline. “Oh?”

  “He’s referring to me, I believe,” Agatha Howard said as she swept into the room looking every inch the aristocrat even in faded denim and an old Led Zeppelin shirt.

  She went straight to Simon and settled on the arm of his chair, which he instantly tugged her off of so she landed in his lap. They grinned at each other for a moment before she faced a bemused Cosima again.

  “It’s good to see you again, Cosima.”

  “Che cavalo,” she breathed. “Someone please explain what’s going on.”

  Simon smiled. “Aggie and I were best friends growing up. I was a meek lad, not inclined for much but hunting and mathematics. I didn’t have many friends, save her, and she was much too good for me. I never thought to like her as anything more than my friend, but when I fell in love with Daisy…well, she was my rock. She was with both of us through everything, trying to find a way to make it safe for us to be together. Obviously, you know the tragic end to that story. What you don’t know, just as I didn’t, was that Agatha had been in love with me all that time. When Daisy died and I…was punished for loving her, I came to America on Thornton’s dollar and set up a new life. When the Order tried to force Aggie and Thorn together, they unwittingly paired the two people who could work toward their end and wanted to for what was done to their loved ones.”

  Simon paused to press his nose into his lover’s hair. Agatha closed her eyes to relish his closeness and then continued his story. “When I confronted Alexander about not wanting to marry him, we made a pact to take down the Order. He didn’t trust me, at first, so I told him my story, how involved I had been with Simon and Daisy. Not only did he trust me after, but he also reunited us.”

  “Does your family know?” Cosima asked, but her hand was in my lap locking through my fingers and her head was tipped to press against my shoulder. Her closeness was validation of my part in their romance, a sweet acknowledgment of how brave and right she felt I was in doing that.

  I felt her gratitude soar through me like a shooting star.

  “They know I’ve absconded with a hearty portion of my inheritance and some family heirlooms, but otherwise, no, they don’t know where I’ve settled.”

  Cosima was silent for a moment, obviously digesting everything she’d been told. Finally, she tilted her face up to look at me, and whispered, “Not evil, not even close.”

  I didn’t smile at her, but my eyes held the wealth of warmth I felt for her. I liked Simon and Agatha, but not enough to reveal how desperately entangled I was in my wife.

  “Which brings us to now,” I said, finally ready to get down to business. “Have you heard anything I should be privy to?”

  “Like what? You know I’m keeping an eye on Noel, as are you, but thus far, he’s been remarkably silent in his cage at Pearl Hall. Hell, he hasn’t even hired a new servant in years.”

  “Did you know Giuseppe di Carlo is the newest member of the Order in the city?” I asked, searching their faces for betrayal. I trusted them as much as anyone outside of Cosima and Riddick, which was to say, not very much.

  Aggie winced. “I did hear that. Alan Byers told me so the other day. Are you thinking to use him to ferret out information about the auctions?”

  “Do you really think he’ll give it up?” Simon asked. “He’s a mafia boss, Thorn. I doubt he’ll give it up with a please and thank you from the likes of you.”

  I raised a brow. “Do I seem like the kind of man who would use such pleasantries?”

  Cosima laughed under her breath.

  “No, but I don’t see how else you plan to get the information from him.”

  “Easy,” I said with a slow, slick smile. “Giuseppe di Carlo loves games, and he loves poker. I’ll wager him for the information. The only problem is, we need to know where his game tonight is being held. Can you help me with that?”

  Simon was a computer programmer in his previous life and made a living now doing freelance security work for big, somewhat sketchy companies.

  His smile was in answer to my own, a spill of sly smugness across his face. “Oh, I think I can do that.”

  Cosima

  A woman’s greatest weapon when properly applied was her form of dress. The midnight black silk dress smothered the lines of my exaggerated curves like motor oil, a cool, dark spill from the points of my shoulders over the outer swells of my breasts to pool narrowly, rippling around my high-heeled feet. My hair was brushed until it floated like strands of pure night around my bare shoulders, catching in the shadowed valley of my breasts like the imaginary fingers of the men who would desire to touch me there. My eyes were lined with kohl, my lips painted a deep, wicked red, the colour of old, spilled blood.

  I was sex on two legs, and that, more than the SOG Salute mini folding knife strapped to my ankle or the small pocket pistol attached to the garter in the gap between my inner thighs, was my weapon.

  And I needed a weapon that night because we were going into the lion’s den.

  Giuseppe di Carlo owned a small, quiet restaurant in the Bronx that wasn’t featured on any Zagat guides or travel sites. Even its name was scrawled in dark grey paint on a black wood awning over the blacked-out windows. It did not invite the patronage of people who didn’t know exactly what they were walking into; a modern mafia den.

  “They’ll search us,” Alexander had warned from the kitchen as I finished putting on my face in the bathroom, “but not as thoroughly as they might because it’s an open table and the kind of men enticed to play aren’t the kind of men who feel comfortable without their weapons.”

  Not for the first time since we’d planned this outing to confront the di Carlo family crime boss, I wished Dante was there. If anyone could help us with the ins and outs of a night with Made Men, it was the Camorra capo himself. I bit my lip and thumbed my phone where it lay on the sink basin, wishing he would answer any of the fourteen voicemails or innumerable texts I had sent him in the past twenty-four hours.

  “We can do this without Edward,” Alexander said, reading my mind as only he could from where he suddenly appeared in the doorway behind me.

  “We can,” I agreed. “I just wish we didn’t have to.”

  His lips thinned, but his eyes were hot with more than impatience when they moved down my body. “Come here, topolina.”

  “Don’t mess me up,” I said, holding out my hands as if that would stop him. “I need to be just right tonight.”

  “You are always enchanting,” he told me. “But tell me again not to mess you up, and I’ll be sure to paint your backside as red as wine, is that understood?”

  I shivered at the authority in his voice, moving toward him before I could stop myself. “Yes.”

  He arched an eyebrow as I pressed into his chest.

  “Yes, Master,” I corrected with sass in my eyes, but breath from my lips.

  I wanted to be stronger than my desire to submit to
him, but then again, I also didn’t.

  Xan cupped the entire side of my face in one of his big hands. “Tonight, I am your Master. Whatever I tell you to do, you will do it without question. This and this alone is the only reason I am allowing you to come with me tonight because I know just how sweetly you will obey me. If you step out of line for one instant, not only will I have Riddick take you home, but I will also tan your arse and then fuck you senseless for hours without letting you come as punishment for your noncompliance. Is that understood?”

  My legs swayed, eager to collapse into the kneeling position that made me feel whole. I steadied myself with a hand over his suited heart and nodded. Not because I had to say yes, but because I understood the gravity of the situation if I deviated from his plan.

  There was no doubt that with one wrong move, we would die.

  “Understood,” I agreed.

  I understood just how profound Alexander’s trust in me was; if I put myself in danger, I was automatically doing the same for him because he would step in front of a bullet if it meant keeping me safe. It was up to me to be smart enough to keep us both from harm, which meant obeying Alexander as he knew much more about navigating a situation like this than I did.

  The den of inequity one might conjure in conjunction with a mafia outfit was not what we walked into after being patted down by blank, scar-faced bouncers. Nothing was dark or macabre, slick and old-fashioned like something out of The Godfather. Instead, it was bold and modern, a large expanse of basement transformed into a stark black and white gambling hall. The roulette wheels were matte black and silver, the poker felt was dark garnet, the floor polished concrete, and the chairs black wood topped with black velvet cushions. It was sumptuous and striking, a beautiful place to indulge in all kinds of sins.

  Only the men who already sat around the large poker table in the middle of the room were not so beautifully presented. There was a huge, square-faced man with blunt fingers and greasy skin who rubbed his rotund belly until he belched. Another was handsome in the way of the wicked, sharp, hard features honed like implements meant to extract female admiration. He was dark, with dripping black curls that kissed his shoulders, a short beard over his jaw, and a suit the same startlingly icy blue as his dark-ringed irises. When we locked eyes, he smiled, and it was one of the most sinister expressions I’d ever witnessed.

  The third man was one I recognized from the society pages of the newspaper. He was nothing special to look at, flaccid, fleshy features with wide pores and a loose, wet mouth that hung open and hooked to the left like he was constantly sneering, and maybe he was. He had a lot to sneer at, Giuseppe di Carlo, given he was the head of the most prolific crime family in United States history, but at that very moment, he was sneering at me.

  “Look just like your father there, Davenport,” di Carlo rasped in his smoked-out voice as he raised a thick cigar to his lips. “Slick cat thinks he can just stroll into my territory mighty as he pleases without even asking my leave. How’s that workin’ out for ya?”

  I looked over my shoulder to see Alexander standing stock-still under the press of a gun at the base of his neck. There was no sign of tension in the bored set of his features, no panic in his easy, regal posture. Only his stillness hinted that he was aware of the threat at his back.

  He adjusted his cufflinks and checked the face of his Patek Phillipe watch. “Quite frankly, Giuseppe, I’m surprised you let us through the door.”

  The capo frowned for a long moment and then laughed so loudly, his weak chin warbled. “Gotzo! What balls you have for a man in such jeopardy. You know this, that your father he would pay me a princely sum to hand you over to him?”

  Alexander scoffed. “Doubtful. I’ve been operating without threat from my father for years now.”

  Di Carlo’s brows cut thick creases into his florid forehead. “I wasn’t speaking to you.”

  Both men looked at me.

  I could feel the air around Alexander surround me like smoke before it solidified to stone. Threatening him was one thing, but me, another.

  In ten seconds, accompanied by a series of smacks, clicks, and grunts, Giuseppe’s thug was disarmed and Alexander was aiming his gun at his own temple.

  “Speak to her like that again, and I’ll kill every person here,” he explained calmly.

  The thug hissed through his clenched teeth, and Xan pressed the gun tighter to his head.

  “Oh, sit the fuck down,” Giuseppe barked. “These poker nights are fucking sacred. Don’t need you ruinin’ that with bloodshed before we even get started. You see, fancy pants, how it works is like this. You want to threaten me, go ahead! But you do it through your wagers.”

  He sat back in his chair to smoke, big belly protruding like a pregnancy bump as he waited for Alexander to decide.

  After a moment’s pause, he took the gun from the thug’s temple and handed it by the barrel back to him. “Might want to learn how to use that, mate.”

  He ignored the way the man cursed and collected my arm to guide me toward the table, taking a seat directly across from Giuseppe and installing me beside him.

  “You are not the only unlikely guests who have arrived tonight,” Giuseppe added conversationally as he slid his eyes behind Xan’s shoulder. “Welcome, capo.”

  My head turned so quickly, something crunched in my neck. I ignored the flare of pain when I took in Dante standing in a black suit with a dark red shirt looking every inch the mob boss he was. Complete with a glower that could have killed a grown man where he stood.

  “Dante,” I mouthed, not wanting to giveaway my relief at his presence to the other men at the table but needing him to know I was outrageously happy to see him.

  He blinked at me, but otherwise his expression didn’t change. He was channelling Alexander, the mighty coldness and impassivity that made him more statue than man.

  “di Carlo,” Dante almost drawled as he moved farther into the room with his man Frankie at his back. “You wanted to talk so desperately that you sent men to ambush me. Well, here I am.” He unbuttoned his blazer and sank into the chair with infinite grace for such a large man. “Well, talk.”

  Di Carlo licked his fleshy lips in undisguised glee. “So many interesting people here tonight. Tell me, Davenport and Salvatore, do you know Ren Tarsitani and Hugo Ralston?”

  Dante had told me about Ren. He was the man everyone went to for information because, somehow, he knew everything about everyone in the New York City’s underworld. Not just the organized crime syndicates, but also the dirty politicians, society scandals and more. Based on the way he smiled slyly as he looked back and forth between Dante and Alexander, I figured the gorgeous, sharp-featured man with the ice chip eyes was Ren.

  The other, bigger man who sat in his chair like an amorphous blob, I didn’t know, but on sight, I knew he was bad news.

  “Pleasure,” Ren said with a nod of his head to both men on either side of me before affixing his almost colourless eyes on me. “Who, may I ask, is the great beauty you’ve brought with you?”

  “She is of no consequence to you; therefore, you don’t need to know her name,” Alexander said calmly in a voice as implacable as forged steel.

  Di Carlo huffed a laugh, obviously delighted with the tension solidifying the air in the room like taffy, sticky and impossible to tear through.

  “Oh, but I think she could be very much of interest,” Ren rebutted. “We all know why you are here, Davenport, and it’s not to win dirty money from dirty men when you already have an abundance of your own. No, it’s to win information. Information that I happen to know.”

  Di Carlo’s pleased expression creased into a jowly frown. “Now, Ren, I don’t want you to go stepping on my toes.”

  Ren studied him for a long minute, reaching over to lift his rocks glass to his lips and take a draught of his whiskey. “If you leave us, Giuseppe, I don’t think anyone would hold you accountable for what goes on here tonight.”

  “Why would I do that
and miss all the fun?” he demanded like a spoiled child.

  I had a feeling di Carlo had gotten his own way since birth, and the idea of anything else was utterly inconceivable to him.

  “You do, and I’ll give you what you want on the micks,” Ren offered easily, but his eyes seemed to cut through di Carlo like a hot knife through butter, slicing through his shields until the heart of his desire was laid bare to Ren’s calculating gaze.

  I knew a ‘mick’ was a derogatory term for an Irishman because Seamus had taught me as such, but I had no clue why the offer of information on them made the Cosa Nostra crime boss grin almost manically.

  “I want it now, Ren,” he demanded.

  “After the game,” he countered as if he was in a position of great power while sitting in di Carlo’s own hub, surrounded by his men all of whom were obviously carrying weapons.

  Di Carlo vacillated, glaring at Ren, then sweeping his eyes over the rest of us before shoving away from the table. “Fine. You have one hour before I return. And Ren? If the information isn’t good, I just acquired a new nail gun I’d love to demonstrate for you.”

  Ren waved the threat away with his hand and then slid his eyes to the nervous, waiting card-dealer and raised his brows. “Shall we then?”

  The cards were dealt, and the first three laid down on the felt before Ren spoke again, his voice as coy as a serpent in the grass. “If you want the information, I’ll need something more than money from you, Davenport.”

  Alexander didn’t seem surprised by this. He merely lifted a cool brow in question as he raised the pot by fifty dollars.

  “Her,” Ren said, pointing a long finger at me. “She has to kneel at my side the entire game and if I win, she must spend an hour alone with me.”

  Denial was written all over Alexander’s suddenly concrete form. Not even his chest moved with breath. He was so still, he seemed dead and mummified sitting there with his hands on his cards and his eyes tipped to the felt.

  I thought about answering for him, agreeing to Ren’s conditions because I’d rather spend one hour in a room alone with a mafioso than the rest of my life being hunted by the Order who were, most likely, ten times more malicious.