Without question or doubt.
But this wasn’t a life-or-death moment This was getting on a plane. And Angel was being stubborn.
“So give a statement to the police this afternoon,” Angel insisted. “We’ll leave this evening. Together. All three of us.”
“It’ll take more than that If O’Malley was so quick to judge me guilty you can imagine that others will be even quicker and even more sure of themselves.”
“Then let’s all stay and we’ll work through it. Together.”
“No, because every day we stay the piranhas who work with my family and yours will try to pull us into the business. Just like my father said.”
“I don’t want to go by myself.”
“You’ll be taking care of Anna. And I will come. I really will.”
She shook her head.
“We can’t win, can we?”
“No, but it’s best if you leave first,” Zach said, reaching up to push a lock of hair away from her face. “Take care of my sister. I’ll come when I can. I’m sure it’ll get straightened out.”
“This is like Las Vegas.”
“No, Angel, it’s not like Las Vegas. This time I’ll be there. You have to be patient”
“I’m fresh out of patience,” she said. “I want my husband.”
He consoled her with a kiss and then a long hug. But in his heart, he didn’t know how long it would be before he would see her again.
He only knew one thing—she was strong enough that he could rely on her to care for Anna, to protect her. She was a woman of substance, not a child anymore.
“Going somewhere?” a gravelly voice said.
Zach abruptly relinquished Angel.
“O’Malley, what are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same of you.”
Zach looked to make sure Anna was safe. His mother had seated herself next to her and they talked quietly and earnestly.
“Mr. O’Malley, let us go,” Angel said. “We just want some peace.” “
Let’s have a talk first.”
THEY FOUND A QUIET bench at the nearest food concessionaire. The waitress served them sodas and O’Malley laid a tape recorder out on the table.
“Start with when you left my office,” he ordered Zach. “I know you’re not a liar, but don’t protect anybody by leaving anything out. Come clean, Zach. Clean as snow. It’s the only way.”
Zach began talking. He stopped only when the waitress brought back refills and when O’Malley had to switch the tape. And then only long enough to drink some soda and catch his breath.
After a full half hour, during which neither O’Malley nor Angel said a word, Zach closed with an explanation of why he left the Martin home even as the Glencoe police responded to Anna’s call.
“I didn’t want Angel or Anna being taken in for questioning,” he concluded. “I’ve told you everything. They don’t know any more than I do.”
O’Malley sighed.
“All right, you’ve given me a lot,” he said, flipping the recorder off. “There’s only one thing wrong with this story.”
“What’s that?” Zach said.
O’Malley closed his eyes, blinking back tears.
“Guy was my son,” he said. “Lord help me, he was my son.”
Angel gasped.
“But…but how could that be?”
“I dated Jeanne many years ago, on the sly because she was supposed to be Tony’s girl. I didn’t have anything to offer her, but Lord, how I loved her. She wanted to marry, but I said no. It wasn’t the time for it.”
“I think I can see what’s coming,” Zach said mournfully.
“I bet you can. I wanted to finish law school because I knew a Bridgeport guy with no family and no education had no future. I had nothing. I didn’t realize how urgent her request was until she broke it off with Sciopelli, turned around and married your father. And then Guy showed up and I knew.”
“Did Angel’s father know?”
“Yeah, and that’s why I could never truly go full throttle on him, although I hated him, pardon me, Angel, but I did. And I felt something very close to gratitude to your father, Zach, for marrying your mother and raising my son. My only son. It was only as the years wore on that I wished I could claim him.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Your mother was afraid of how it would affect you and Anna—and I was afraid it would kill my career and my chances of busting up organized crime in this city.”
“So you kept this a complete secretk?”
“Yes. She occasionally called me for little favors, getting Guy out of jail for his problems with the law, calling for you when no one would give you a job on the up-and-up. I had some contact with Guy, met him a few times in very casual circumstances, and I kept thinking that he’d turn around. I didn’t know it would end like this. He never knew that I loved him. I think if he had known, it might have been easier.”
“I’m sorry,” Zach said.
Angel reached out and took O’Malley’s wrinkled hand in her own.
“Aw, hell,” O’Malley said, and wiped his eyes with his napkin. “Look, Zach, you’ve given me a lot to work with. So I’m going to give you a little something. Three tickets.”
He laid out three ticket folders on the table.
“A little cash,” he said, adding a fourth plain business-size envelope to the pile. “And the equivalent of two baby albums.”
Thump! Angel’s file folder and a second, thicker folder that could only be Zach’s.
“Your mother has agreed to testify about your father’s activities,” O’Malley said. “And Interpol has already set to work on nailing Isabel—we think she’s a professional who’s been involved in a number of other murders. And Salvatore is going to dissolve the Sciopelli and Martin companies.”
“How is he?” Angel asked.
“A little shell-shocked, but he’ll recover. He had no idea about Isabel. Mr. Martin set him up to be introduced to her at the Christmas party—that was her entrée to your family. Salvatore didn’t know that she didn’t feel the same way he did.”
“What’s he going to do now?”
“He’s promised complete cooperation. He’s opened the study to us. He really doesn’t have the heart or the head to continue the business. Point is, we won’t need your help anymore to take apart the crime syndicate your fathers have put together.”
“So where are we going?” Zach asked, fingering the tickets.
“Why not let me surprise you?” O’Malley suggested. “By the way, your flight leaves at one o’clock.”
“O’Malley, that’s only ten minutes from now!” Angel exclaimed.
“Then we won’t have time for a sloppy, sentimental goodbye, will we?”
Zach scooped up the tickets, the cash and the file folders.
“Oh, Zach?”
“Yeah, O’Malley?”
“Through it all, you’ve always been the son I wished I had had. When your mother called me and asked me to give you a chance, I had my doubts. But I’ve come to respect you. Lord forgive me, I’ve come to really love you.”
“Feeling’s mutual,” Zach murmured.
O’Malley glanced at Angel. “You did the right thing leaving. You wouldn’t have any part of it when a lot of other people might have turned a blind eye. Both of you are good people—I’m gonna miss you.”
“I guess I’m going to miss you, too,” Angel allowed. “In an odd kind of way.”
“I thought there weren’t going to be any sloppy, sentimental goodbyes,” Zach teased, reaching out to touch O’Malley’s shoulder.
“Oh, yeah, right,” he snarled good-naturedly. “Get the hell out here, kids.”
Angel laughed and kissed him on the forehead.
Then they ran out of the food court to pick up Anna.
“Come on, we got ten minutes to get to gate B-ll,” Zach urged.
“Uh, Zach, I’ve got something to tell you,” Anna said.
Mrs. Martin p
ut her arm around Anna.
“Anna really doesn’t want to go,” she said. “She would because she loves you, but…”
“But I’m not ready for the whole world,” Anna spoke up. “I’m pretty good just where I am, in my own house. I would miss it very much.”
Zach nodded, understanding.
“I’ll come back,” he said. He put his arm around Angel. “We’ll come back. But it will be a long time before we can do that. Can you remember that we love you that long?”
Anna nodded bravely.
“Run to your flight,” Mrs. Martin said. “I’ll remind her, I’ll remind both of us, whenever we almost forget.”
They exchanged quick hugs and suppressed tears and then Angel and Zach sprinted to the gate.
They turned around to see O’Malley slipping his arms around Zach’s mother. Anna waved.
“They make a wonderful pair.”
“Angel, I think they have a long way to go before we can call them a couple.”
“It’ll happen,” she said confidently.
“Oh, come on, Angel, we’ll never make it!” Zach exclaimed.
They got to the gate just as the agent was closing the door, but she smiled when she took their tickets and checked the passports O’Malley had thoughtfully included.
Angel and Zach took their seats in first class. The pilot announced that Flight.427 nonstop to Paris was departing shortly.
“We’re going to Paris?”
“City of lovers,” Zach said. “That O’Malley’s no fool.”
“Mr. Martin?” the stewardess asked.
The couple looked up warily.
“Yes?”
“I need to check your passports. Sorry, it’s regulations.”
The couple exchanged nervous glances, but gave up their passports.
“Everything-looks in order,” the stewardess said, slipping them back two new passport folders.
Puzzled, Angel opened hers.
Her picture was the same, but she now had her name back—Jennifer Smith.
And a quick peek at Zach’s confirmed that he had been given a new identity, too.
“Mr. O’Malley ordered a bottle of champagne to be chilled for you,” the stewardess continued. “Would you like me to serve you after takeoff?”
“Champagne would be nice,” Zach said. If O’Malley set up their escape route, Zach wasn’t going to question it.
“He said that you’ve just gotten married,” the stewardess continued. “Congratulations.”
The stewardess walked away to help a passenger with his baggage before Zach or Angel could thank her.
Zach looked at Angel with a mischievous glint in his eyes. He reached out and unclasped the fragile chain around her neck, producing the ring he had given her ten years before.
He slipped it onto her left ring finger.
“Yes,” he said. “We’re finally married. In our own way.”
“Yes, finally.”
“Jennifer,” he said, feeling the smooth syllables of her name on his tongue. “That’s a very pretty name. We’re going to get married in Paris, you know.”
She pursed her lips.
“I mean, we should get married in Paris,” he amended.
She pulled the in-flight magazine from the seat in front of them and studied the cover as if there was going to be a test on it.
“Would you marry me in Paris?”
She looked at him and gave him a heart-stopping smile.
“Are you asking me or telling me to marry you?”
“Oh, Angel, I mean, Jennifer, I’ve learned my lesson. I’m never telling you to do anything ever again. Or, at least, not too often. But you’ll have to teach this sixteenth-century man how to do it.”
He grinned at her, the grin that made most women in the world forgive him his charming but bossy demeanor.
She stuck her face into the magazine. “I think you can figure this one out on your own.”
“All right, I’m asking you, very respectfully, very lovingly, to get married in Paris.”
She put down the magazine slowly. He noticed there were tears softening the cotton candy blue of her eyes.
“I’d be delighted to marry you, Mr….what did you say your name was?”
“Bob. Robert Smith,” Zach said, glancing one more time at his passport
“It’s very convenient that we have the same last name. Maybe O’Malley meant for us to consider ourselves already married. I know I have.”
“We’re still getting married. Official-like. I don’t want anything more to come between us,” he said. “Because I’ve waited too long for this. I love you, Angel.”
“Jennifer,” she corrected. “And I love you, too…Bob.”
“I’ll tell the stewardess that champagne would be very nice. We need to celebrate.”
He kissed his new bride full on the mouth just as the engines roared to life and the plane sped down the runway toward their new future.
Epilogue
CHICAGO (UPI)—Reputed mob boss Guy Martin, Sr., was found dead Thursday morning in his lakeside home in the affluent Chicago suburb of Glencoe. According to a family spokesman, the cause of death was an accidental overdose of the medication prescribed to control the pain he endured during chemotherapy treatments for stage-four metastasized lung cancer. Mr. Martin had recently dismissed his private nurse and was home alone at the time of his death.
Mr. Martin is survived by his wife and two of his children. Private services will be held at the Sacred Heart Cathedral on Tower Road in Winnetka.
Hours before his death, Mr. Martin had been informed of the murder of his eldest son, Guy Martin, Jr. Guy, Jr., is widely believed to have been the victim of a struggle for power over trafficking in prostitution, drugs and gambling, which took the lives of Tony and Antoinette Sciopelli at a north suburban restaurant. No suspects have been arrested in the case. The Chicago police department said that the investigation has been turned over to the district attorney’s office, who will work with federal and international law enforcement agencies to solve this series of brutal murders.
Interpol has reported that it is stepping up its search for a professional assassin who may have been involved in the slaying of Guy, Jr., the murders of Antoinette and Tony Sciopelli as well as two sons and a daughter-in-law. The assailant is described as a white female, approximately five-ten, dark-haired and has worked in the past as a runway model in Europe. She has been implicated in a number of assassinations of leading businessmen in Moscow and Prague.
At this afternoon’s press conference, District Attorney Patrick O’Malley indicated that his office would vigorously press charges against any wrongdoers in the recent tragedies of the Sciopelli and Martin families.
But he added that he had received the cooperation of Martin’s widow as well as the surviving Sciopelli son. With their help, he has received sufficient information to lead him to believe that the murders of Guy Martin, Jr., and the recently murdered Sciopelli family members marked the end of a struggle for power over Chicago’s criminal underworld.
Younger son Salvatore Sciopelli, still in mourning, has agreed to cooperate fully in any further investigations. He will reportedly oversee the dissolution of the Sciopelli Construction Company and has expressed plans to devote himself to the construction of buildings on the grounds of Sacred Heart Cathedral.
This marks a violent end to the Winnetka Shopping Mall project, a multimillion dollar shopping center that was to infuse the small suburb with much-needed tax revenues. The mayor of Winnetka announced at a press conference today that a new industrial park will be built on that property.
“Chicago is a tough town,” O’Malley said at the conclusion of the press conference. “But I am determined to make this a safe place in which our children can grow. While I am in office, there will be a vigorous pursuit of wrongdoers.”
Mr. O’Malley would not comment on reports that an attorney in his office, the surviving son of Guy Martin, Sr., has left the country, reporte
dly in the company of the only daughter of the Sciopelli family.
eISBN 978-14592-6154-9
HIS BETROTHED
Copyright © 1998 by Arlynn Leiber Presser
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road. Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the Imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Printed In U.S.A.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Excerpt
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Books by Vivian Leiber
Dedication
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
Copyright
His Betrothed Page 16
