She’s off clubbing or some shit – like she’s not a deceitful bitch.
On a whim, he dialed Tracey’s number.
“Marco!” the bartender gasped. “W-why are you calling so late?”
“Where the fuck is she?” he hissed.
“W-who?”
“I’m already on my way to you, Tracey. If I get there and she’s not with you – “
“I swear to God, I didn’t know anything about this until a few minutes ago. Please, Marco, I didn’t know about Mara – “
“About Mara?”
There was an abrupt silence as Tracey realized she had said too much.
“What about Mara?”
“She’s here too,” Tracey breathed and he could almost taste the fear in her voice.
Sofia and Mara were working together. I didn’t just allow one cop into our house. I’m a fucking FBI magnet.
“Marco, I think there’s more going on than we – “
“I’ll deal with you after. Don’t you fucking move.” His tone was like a thousand blades cutting through the phone.
“I won’t,” she promised miserably, and as he hung up, he had to wonder how much she really knew about what was going on.
Probably more than me, he thought bitterly.
As he made the drive to Fort Lauderdale, his blood boiling, he didn’t know what he was going to do.
If Giovanni finds out about this, I’m dead too. I’ve pushed my limits with the old man over the years, but never like this. Bringing an undercover agent into his restaurant, into his business – this is unforgiveable.
By the time he pulled up to the gated community, he knew he only had one choice; he had to kill Sofia – Andrea, whatever the fuck her name was. The betrayal burned through him, causing his blood to boil hotter than it ever had before. How dare she? Didn’t she know he would have done anything for her?
The idea of killing her did not sit well with him, though.
Pulling his vehicle to the curb, he watched the front door open and the female Judas walking out onto the driveway, her head down as she appeared lost in thought.
Despite his anger, Marco could not deny the flood of emotion he felt at just the sight of her.
She’s a traitor, he thought furiously, jumping from the car. She needs to learn what happens to traitors if they mess with the family.
But the bravado in his head did not match what he felt, as if he was just reciting the words he had been taught, without any real feeling behind them.
But whose words, were they his? His father’s? Giovanni’s?
“Hello, Andrea.”
She started at the sound of her name, her eyes locking on Marco who stepped toward her, his features burning with fury.
“Marco!” she gasped. “I was just coming for you!”
He snickered mirthlessly.
“I bet,” he sighed. “You and Mara both, right?”
Her complexion went ashen as Tracey appeared, her expression defeated.
“Get Mara and get into the car,” he growled at the bartender, but she shook her head.
“No,” she told him, standing firmly on the pavement, her arms crossed over her chest. “I can’t do that.”
He pinned her with his eyes, the promise of terrible retribution plain on his face.
“Tracey, go get the other one,” he demanded. “Now.”
The curvy blonde hesitated, obviously torn, but then she caved in to his demand, moving resolutely toward the house, leaving Marco to stare at the woman who had torn his world apart. He had been so sure about her!
“Get in the car,” Marco snapped, willing his gun hand to steady as he aimed the pistol at her, but Sofia stood where she was, showing her own weapon as she raised her hands.
“Marco, you need to listen to me. Please,” she implored. “I know you don’t want to hurt me.”
“You don’t fucking know me!” he spat. “Don’t pretend you ever did.”
“I do know you,” she replied softly, gingerly stepping toward him. “That’s why I know you’re going to hear what I have to say before doing anything you’re going to regret.”
“You’re a fucking cop!”
“No. I’m not.”
Confusion made him pause momentarily, and he lowered his gun slightly.
“Oh, you’re not?” he accused disbelievingly. “Is that the story you’re going with?”
“I was a cop,” she sighed. “But I’m not anymore.”
He peered at her, his jaw locking in defiance, but he detected at least a grain of truth in her face. “It’s easy to say that after you’ve been exposed, isn’t it?” he accused.
She’s a pretty terrible actress, he thought. They’ll have to work on that with her – if she makes it through this, he thought skeptically.
“I was sent here to find the woman you know as Mara,” she explained, taking another step toward him. “But I wasn’t authorized to be here.”
“Why were you sent to find her?” he growled. “Is she a cop too?”
Andrea paused as if considering her next words, but Marco felt another stab of betrayal as he understood the truth.
“She’s hiding from the same man who enlisted me to find her, a rogue agent who stole a shipment from the Capreses. He needs to be stopped, Marco. And you need to help me stop him. If you do that… you will never see me again, I swear.” It broke her apart inside to make that promise to him, but she was sure he would never be able to forgive her.
The agony in her voice was apparent, but he closed his mind to it.
He couldn’t afford to trust her again – ever. In fact, he knew it was in his best interest to just end her. No one would fault him for it. In fact, he would likely be sacrificed himself if he didn’t “take care” of her. But the thought of doing her any harm made a gaping hole burn through his chest.
He steeled his resolve and raised the pistol again, waving her toward the car.
“I don’t owe you anything,” he growled. “Get in the car.”
“No,” she agreed, unmoving. “You don’t owe me anything. You have saved me more than once in just a few short weeks,” she said sadly.
Unexpectedly, he found himself moved by the words, but he forced himself not to show his feelings.
She’s manipulating you. You can’t believe anything she’s saying! You have to kill her and Mara both.
Instinctively, he looked up toward the doorway and out walked his ex-girlfriend, her face pale as she stared at him imploringly.
“Marco,” she whispered. “Please believe me. I had to get away from Draggan! But he’s still going to come after us.”
He looked from Mara to Sofia and suddenly realized that he felt absolutely nothing toward the woman he had spent years furious at.
There was no more anger, no sense of loss.
It was as if he was staring at an old acquaintance.
Sofia changed all that for me, he thought, eyeing the slender girl inching toward him.
“Marco, please, you have to help us stop Draggan. It’s the only way to ensure none of this gets out.”
“Or I can kill you both. All three of you,” he retorted flatly, his hand at arm level as his finger curled around the trigger.
“You won’t do that – “
A shot rang out through the still night.
Everyone hit the ground simultaneously, Sofia gaping at him in shock.
“You fucking shot me?” she cried, looking over her body for damage, but he shook his head as another bullet whipped past them.
“Someone else is shooting at us,” he hissed, keeping his head low. There was no time to look. They needed to find cover.
Marco grabbed his lover’s hand, yanking her toward him while ducking behind his car. Slowly he raised his head to look over the hood.
Sofia grabbed his shoulder and yanked him down.
“Stay low,” she hissed. “You don’t know where they are.”
“Valentina! Get your ass out here!”
T
he man’s voice was close and Marco instantly recognized it.
That would be the superintendent.
“I will kill everyone here if you don’t show yourself, Val” he spat. “Not that they don’t deserve it. Mobsters and a fucking fallen cop. You’re just like your cousin, huh, Andrea? Couldn’t keep your legs closed. You’re supposed to be obedient cops, not whores!”
Marco bristled at the words but Sofia seemed to sense his desire to retaliate, placing her hand on his arm calmly and shaking her dark tresses in warning.
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Terry called tauntingly, shooting toward the women cowering near the entrance of the house. “I’m not leaving here without you, Valentina. I’ve been looking for you for three fucking years. If I hadn’t thought to follow this Marco, the piece of shit, I would have never found you. God knows your cousin is as treacherous as you are, fucking the enemy. I should have known your entire family was no good.”
Marco cast Sofia a sidelong glance.
Sleeping with me wasn’t part of the script, huh? Well, at least that part was real.
He didn’t know if that made him feel worse or better.
“I’m here, Draggan,” Mara yelled suddenly, stepping forward. “You can take me. But leave everyone else.”
The bird-man sniggered.
“How fucking noble of you,” he chortled. “You’re suddenly worried about the welfare of other – “
His sentence abruptly ended and Marco rose to his full height, the barrel of the gun still smoking from the silencer as Draggan crumpled to the ground in slow motion, his eyes still wide in shock.
Time froze for a brief moment as the two couples stared at one another, unsure of what to do next.
Marco recovered first.
“We have to get him into the car,” he growled, looking around the dark and isolated house for potential witnesses. “We have to get rid of the body.”
The women sprung into action immediately, helping to drag the agent toward the trunk of Marco’s car.
“Go back inside the house and clean up,” Marco told Tracey and Mara. “Sofia and I were never here,” he said sarcastically. “If the cops come knocking, you saw and heard fucking nothing. Capish?”
They nodded in unison.
“Come on, Andy,” Valentina called to her cousin. “You can stay with us. Please.” She implored her with her eyes, knowing that if Marco took Andrea, she may never see her again. All it took was a glance to see that the big man was still seething with anger at her cousin.
Marco tensed as he realized Sofia might try to leave him. What would he do? Would he really be able to kill her if she tried to get away from him?
He turned and looked at her. She returned his gaze with pain in her eyes.
He knew he couldn’t kill her, he realized. Not even if what she had told him had been a lie. The feelings he had for her were far too strong, and while he had no guarantees that she would disappear as she promised, he still knew that he could not put a bullet in her.
“You can go,” he told her gruffly, turning away. But she grabbed his arm.
“No. I’m staying with you.”
“Andy, come with us,” Mara insisted but neither of them looked at her.
“We’ll go together, Marco,” Andrea whispered. “Anywhere you want. I know you want more out of your life than this. Let’s go start somewhere new, together.”
He scoffed softly, but there was a hesitation in the sound.
How long had he envisioned himself untangled from ‘the family’, ending the generations of family ties to the mafia?
The opportunity was presenting itself with bells on; a slain FBI agent, the possibility of the family being infiltrated.
If he left that night, Giovanni would never know what had happened to him. And that meant it was unlikely that anyone would ever look anywhere except the local morgues or river bottoms for him.
“Marco…”
He gritted his teeth and stared at her with narrowed eyes.
“I don’t even know your real name,” he snapped. “How could you think I would just up and leave with you?”
“I don’t know anything about you either,” she replied softly. “I’m giving you – us – a chance to learn everything we need to know without targets on our backs.”
He stared at her for a long moment, his heart hammering.
“Marco – “
“Andrea!” Mara’s voice was filled with panic. “You have to come inside.”
She finally addressed her cousin, shaking her head.
“No,” she sighed. “I’m staying with Marco…aren’t I?”
He eyed her and slowly nodded.
“Yeah,” he mumbled and the word lightened the insurmountable weight on his shoulders. Her face exploded into an expression of relief. “What’s your name, for real?”
“You know what? I think it’s Sofia Morano. She’s the girl I‘ve always wanted to be.”
“She’s the girl I fell for,” he conceded grudgingly, and a quavering smile formed on full lips.
“Thank you,” she breathed. “Thank you for believing me. I never faked any feelings with you. I swear it. Everything – it was always real for me. I only hope you can…know one day. How I feel about you.”
Marco realized she was telling the truth. She really was a terrible liar.
She’s willing to give up everything tonight and leave with me. Even with Mara offering her protection, she’s choosing me.
He studied her impassioned face and slowly lowered his lips to hers.
I won’t let her go. She belongs with me.
“Let’s get out of here,” he whispered as they parted. “I know just where we’re headed.”
“Where?”
“Sardinia.”
A slow blush of pleasure filled her cheeks.
“Perfect.”
“What’s going to be perfect is when I finally take your ass,” he rasped. “It will be on the Tyrrhenian Sea.”
“Sounds kinky,” she laughed, her body relaxing against him.
“It will be,” he promised, wrapping his arms around her.
He shot one last look over his shoulder at Mara who stared helplessly at them as Tracey pulled her back into the house.
I spent years furious with that woman, he realized. But if it wasn’t for Mara, I would have never met Sofia. Weird how life works out.
“Come on,” Sofia murmured. “We have to get moving.”
He nodded, releasing her as he exhaled, jumping into the driver’s side of the car, the irony of it all making him chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Sofia asked, cocking her head to the side curiously. But Marco just shook his head, pulling away from the curb.
For the first time since his father had been killed, Marco felt like he could breathe.
Even though there’s a dead body in my trunk, I feel like I’m finally on the right track, he laughed softly to himself.
Epilogue
She leaned her arms into the wicker basket, pulling out a crisp, white sheet. She shook it aggressively, trying to smooth out the wrinkles. The crispness of the white sheet against the darkening summer sky made her hesitate, and she bit on her lower lip as she peered into the sky.
Dammit! Sofia thought grumpily, eyeing the clouds with contempt. I just spent an hour washing these and now I’ll probably have to redo everything.
Her back was still stiff from leaning over the rocks at the Stragno Feraxi, doing the wash in the riverbed, like she was some turn of the century pioneer woman.
And now it was going to rain. After all that.
Well, I guess this is my life now, she mused with equal parts happiness and chagrin. Salt of the earth, living quietly and not rousing attention in the small village where the people still gathered in the square to drink coffee and gossip about their neighbors.
“You look like you’re struggling,” Marco laughed, stepping from the back of their villa, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “Let me help
you.”
“What’s the point?” she grumbled. “It’s going to rain!”
She gestured up at the sky in exasperation. To her annoyance, Marco’s smile widened and he grabbed the sheet from her hands, lowering it back into the basket, shaking his head.
“So then we’ll wash them again tomorrow,” he replied. “And I’ll help you, cara. What else do we have to do?”
The question annoyed her for some reason and Sofia scowled, folding her arms across her chest.
“Easy for you to say,” she snapped. “You didn’t spend the entire morning slaving over the laundry. Do you have any idea how much work this is? Lugging it to the river, scrubbing all – “
Her mild annoyance flared to anger as he burst into laughter and reached toward her to pull her into an embrace. She slapped him away which only made him howl louder.
“What the hell is so funny?” she demanded, her face reddening with fury. “How is this amusing to you?”
It took him a few seconds to compose himself as she stood fuming, waiting for a reasonable explanation for why he was mocking her.
He doesn’t understand how hard it is sometimes to not have any contact with the outside world, no shopping, no bustling city streets and traffic! How could I actually miss traffic? she thought furiously, parting her mouth to give him another blast, but he held up his hand, his face creased in a smile that shone with amusement.
“Look at you!” he gasped, dabbing the corners of his eyes. “Just look.”
Sofia froze and waited for him to elaborate.
This better be good before I whip something at his head, she thought, looking around for something hard and impactful. The first drops of water began to fall from the sky, but she was too busy glaring at him to notice as the warm, southern Italian rain fell upon them.
“What?” she demanded, her lip jutting out in a pout. “What about me?”
Gently but firmly, Marco yanked her closely.
“First of all,” he murmured into her ear. “You’re yelling at me in Italian.”
His hands snaked down along her body and pulled her close so she could feel the hard angle of his cock as it pressed against her abdomen.
“So what? We’re in Italy,” she groused back, but there was less irritation in her voice as she began to understand his point. She hadn’t even realized that she was speaking in her second language. It had come back to her so quickly.
MAFIA BOSSES - The Box Set: An Enemies to Lovers Trilogy Page 22
