by Lisa Cardiff
KON
The Trassato Crime Family,
Book #2
By Lisa Cardiff
KON
Copyright © 2016 by Lisa Cardiff.
All rights reserved.
First Print Edition: November 2016
Limitless Publishing, LLC
Kailua, HI 96734
www.limitlesspublishing.com
Formatting: Limitless Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1-68058-855-2
ISBN-10: 1-68058-855-9
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
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
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
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CHAPTER ONE
Konstantin
“I need a fiancée like I need a fucking bullet in my head.” I slammed the shot glass onto the burled walnut countertop.
A toxic combination of loud music and vodka swam through my veins like a drug. Rather than mellowing me out, it only made me angrier. God knew, I should drag my pathetic ass home before I did something to piss off my dad even more, yet I couldn’t bring myself to move. So many things were wrong with my life I didn’t know where to start. So I engaged in my favorite pastime as of late—drinking.
No matter how much I drank tonight, I couldn’t forget my sister was getting married right now, and she didn’t invite a single family member. Not me, not Mom, not Dad. Not even an estranged aunt or uncle.
I couldn’t blame her. We’d toyed with her life behind the scenes for years. I threatened every boy in our high school that dared to look in her direction. Once she moved to New York, things weren’t as simple. Her career took off, and we both had our own shit to deal with. Somehow she’d ended up engaged to a cheating, mealy-mouthed loser.
Granted, we could have handled things differently. I didn’t have to set him up to fail. He would have managed that all on his own. I merely sped up the process, and I didn’t regret it for a second. Better I sacrificed our relationship than have Evie waste the rest of her life on her piece of shit ex. Regardless of the fact that I made peace with my actions, I still missed my sister. While we hadn’t spent much time together over the past few years, she’d always been in my thoughts.
I loved her. She’d been the one person I could always count on, and most importantly, she never had a hidden agenda when we spent time together. I couldn’t say that about anyone else in my life. They had all disappointed me one way or another.
“We’ve already had this discussion. I’m done talking about it. Take the Trassato chick out a few times. Get to know her.” Anatolyi shrugged. “If it works out, great. If not, tell your dad to go fuck himself. You know he won’t make you marry her. I’d be hard pressed to find anyone who despises the concept as much as your dad. He’ll come around.”
“Then you don’t know my dad very well. He’s set on this dumb ass plan, and nothing’s going to change his mind.” I lifted my shot glass and pinned the bartender with a glare. I should have asked for the bottle when I walked in an hour ago so I didn’t waste his time or mine. “Making money is the Holy Grail to my dad, and he’s got it in his head that if I marry Carmela Trassato it’ll give us more power and influence.”
“Fine. Roll over like a dog and do what your daddy wants. You’re too big of a pussy to challenge him, so you let him win every damn time.” Anatolyi swiped a hand down the side of his face, bringing attention to the scar that stretched from his temple to his eyebrow. It made him look scary as fuck, but for some reason chicks dug it.
I pulled an envelope from my back pocket and slapped it on the counter. “Shut the hell up. I should kick your ass.”
“Yeah, except you won’t because without me, you’d be in the gutter somewhere licking your wounds.” He twirled his drink. “I’ve saved your ass more times than I can count in past few months.”
“Yeah, whatever, man.” The bartender refilled my glass, and I chugged the clear liquid the minute he turned his back. “I haven’t been that bad,” I grumbled, my denial lacking conviction. Over the last few months, I started more bar fights than I could count, fucked more chicks than I could remember, and only my money and connections had kept me under the radar.
He threw his hands up. “You’re fucking self-destructing.”
“That shit’s behind me now.” I slid the envelope toward him. “I need a favor. I need you to find Carmela Trassato and—”
His eyebrows shot up, and he scraped his hands through his sandy blond hair. “I love you, man, but I gotta be real honest with you. I’m not trading places with you if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve seen some pictures of her, and she’s not half bad, but I’m way too young to have a ball and chain. Not to mention, you foisted your ex off on me all the time.” He shivered. “I don’t want to be the third wheel in a relationship again, stuck taking care of your woman while you’re off doin’ business.”
“Nah. That’s not gonna happen.” I pointed to the envelope. “Just deliver this to her. I can take care of the rest.”
“Uh huh, and where will I find her? Because there’s no way I’m going to knock on the Trassatos’ door. I don’t give a shit if her old man is dead. I’m not going there.”
“You’re going to my sister’s wedding.”
“Her wedding?”
“Yeah.” I cracked my neck one way, then the other. “It’s at some old mansion outside of the city. I’ll text you the address.”
“No way.” He wagged his head, his dark eyes wide and his lips pressed into a thin line. “They’ll have security everywhere.”
“They do, but no one will be at the back door between eight and nine.”
His eyebrows lifted. “How do you know that?”
I kept my gaze steady and my voice firm. “I’m that good.”
“Fine. I’ll do it, but you owe me…again.” He glanced at his phone, then scooped it up and stuffed it into the pocket of his too-tight black jeans. He looked like a stupid hipster with his fitted shirt, tapered jeans, and straggly beard. “If I end up dead I’ll haunt your ass until the day you die.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.” I snagged my black hoodie from the back of my chair. “Wear this so no o
ne gets a good look at you.”
CHAPTER TWO
Carmela
It should’ve been Rocco and me.
I loved my brother, and Evie had been my best friend for over two years. Despite them being my two favorite people in the world, I never could have imagined they’d wind up together. Not even in my wildest drug-induced dreams.
As far as I could tell, they had absolutely nothing in common. Evie was a small town girl with big city dreams, and Gian was up to his eyeballs in the business of loan sharking, killing, bribing, and whatever else my family did. I didn’t know the details, and I was perfectly okay with that. Truthfully, I preferred it. I saw a glimpse of my family’s depravity when the DiTonnos gunned downed Rocco, and that was more than enough to satisfy my morbid curiosity.
The music faded, and Gian dipped Evie, her strawberry blonde waves nearly sweeping the temporary dance floor, marking the end of their first dance. The all too familiar emptiness bubbled up my throat, and I didn’t know if I’d choke or cry.
I should be happy for Evie and Gian. Just looking at the way they glowed and the perma-blush on Evie’s cheeks would make any normal sister/maid of honor explode with happiness, except I wasn’t normal. I felt sadder than I had since burying my fiancé, and I hated myself for feeling that way. I’d sacrificed any possibility of a happily ever after to ensure Gian and Evie could be together, or at least I thought I did. I hadn’t heard a word from Konstantin Trincher or his father in thirteen months.
Thirteen fucking months.
Seriously, what was the deal with that?
Part of me hoped they had released me from the barbaric arranged marriage with Konstantin, and they simply forgot to notify me. Another part of me hoped he’d hurry up and get this over with so I could stop living in purgatory. Hell seemed preferable. And the other small part of me, the part I would never acknowledge, took pride in the fact that I had successfully negotiated a deal with the notorious Trinchers. It marked the first time in years I’d exercised my free will instead of blindly accepting my family’s marching orders.
Stifling a heavy sigh, I dragged my spoon through my now lukewarm bowl of Italian wedding soup until the limp spinach and tiny meatballs blurred together in a miasma of brown and green. I couldn’t stomach more than one bite.
Since I moved home to fill the aching loneliness of my dad’s and Rocco’s deaths, my lack of appetite took on a life of its own. I had to tailor my size eight bridesmaid’s dress because it hung on me. Since I turned fourteen, I’d been on the curvy side, and I still was, but at this rate, I’d look like Evie with her dancer’s body minus all the muscles in a matter of months.
Nobody noticed. Not Gian, not Evie, and certainly not my mom. She was so caught up in her grief, I might as well have been invisible. We orbited around each other in the vast space of my childhood home like two strangers passing in the night. When she wasn’t crying, she spent every free second obsessing over the details of Gian and Evie’s wedding.
I had stopped trying to communicate with her over a month ago. She was emotionally unavailable, and nothing I did would change it. She needed to find peace on her own, and somehow I needed to find mine since I didn’t feel much of anything lately.
Rocco’s death broke me, but my dad’s death, the one I pretended would never happen, sealed my fate. Every day that passed, I felt deader than before. People claimed time healed all wounds. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced they were totally wrong. In my opinion, time caused more wounds. The damage started small, with tiny nicks in my heart. Then they grew and grew until I had a black hole in the center of my chest, sucking and pulling on me until I couldn’t think.
“Carmela?”
“Huh?”
I turned to Nico DeAngelo, my date for the wedding. Technically, this qualified as our third or fourth date. Maybe more. I’d lost count. Like so many other things in my life, I didn’t care. So what? Nico had taken me out couple of times. We hadn’t kissed, though, and it felt like going out with a friend more than anything else.
Two weeks before my dad died nearly three months ago, he demanded I give Nico a chance. I wanted to say no. I needed to say no, but I couldn’t because there was no way I could have confessed I’d agreed to some sort of relationship with Konstantin Trincher. He was already on edge about Gian’s relationship with Evie. While Alix Trincher kept his word and backed off, my dad didn’t believe he’d go away without a fight.
“Do you want to dance?” One corner of his lips perked up like he was the keeper of a million naughty secrets. By almost anyone’s standards, Nico qualified as handsome. He had icy blue bedroom eyes, long lashes that actually curled, pouty lips, and an angular chin with the cleft in the dead center. I’d seen the way other women ogled him. Heck, my cousin Ava practically drooled every time she looked at him. She resorted to draping herself over him during the cocktail hour like a cheap dress, and I couldn’t summon a flicker of jealousy. Without uttering a single objection, I walked away. She could have him. It’d save me a lot of trouble.
“I’m not done eating,” I lied.
He held out one hand, palm up. “Dance with me.” It wasn’t a question. It was a demand, which didn’t surprise me. As long as I’d known him, he never politely requested anything. He took what he wanted, and apparently he’d got it in his head that he wanted me.
I slipped my hand into his and followed him to the dance floor, joining five or six other couples. Grinning down at me, he closed his arms around my waist. I stared at him, hoping to feel something.
A quiver of my stomach. A double thud of my heart. A flicker of lust. A flare of disgust.
Anyfuckingthing.
When the couples started swirling into motion around us, I gave up and hooked my arms around his neck. We danced to a song about loving a man like you were going to lose him. I’d already lost the only man I’d ever love so the whole song felt depressing rather than romantic.
“You look beautiful,” Nico murmured next to my ear.
“You think so?”
His hands tightened around my waist. “I do.”
“Really?” I tipped up my head, catching his eyes. “I kind of thought canary yellow wasn’t my color.” I wasn’t lying. It brought out the yellow undertone of my skin and made me look jaundiced.
He spun me away from him, probably to avoid responding to my comment, and snapped me back into his waiting arms.
“You look beautiful in any color,” his said, brushing his thumb along my cheek.
A wave of heat rolled up my face and with it a spark of hope. Maybe a relationship with Nico would work. With his position in the Trassato family, he could untangle the promise I’d made to Konstantin and maybe, just maybe, I’d be content, if not happy.
Nico froze mid-step. A hush fell over the room.
“What’s going on?”
“Goddammit. I told her to stay away.” His hands dropped from my waist and his eyebrows flattened into a straight line, highlighting the rigid pinch of skin in the middle.
“Who?” I glanced over my shoulder. A woman in a black shift dress with a young boy on her hip hovered near the entrance to the room. I squinted, trying to bring her into focus. “Wait. Isn’t that your sister?”
I hadn’t seen Nico’s sister in years. She’d been banished from our life after she ended up pregnant three years ago. Apparently, she’d been dating some guy on and off again, and he split for good when he found out about her pregnancy, or least that was the rumor circulating about her.
I didn’t understand why anyone considered it a big deal. She was twenty-four not sixteen, and there were plenty of successful single mothers in the world. Although it wasn’t the kiss of death anymore, the family didn’t see it that way. She disappeared from our circle of acquaintances and no one had seen her since. Until tonight.
Nico cut across the dance floor, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his black suit pants. Without thinking twice, I trailed behind him, wanting to defuse the situation
. Nico normally kept a tight leash on his emotions, but from the stiff set of his shoulders, I feared he planned to draw blood. “Gemma,” Nico growled. “What are you doing here?”
She shifted the little boy to her other hip. “I lost the keys to my apartment. I’ve called and texted you a hundred times, and you haven’t responded. I didn’t have any choice. It’s not like I can sit at Lanelle’s house all night with Marco Rocky. It’s already past his bedtime, and you’re the only one with a spare key.”
“Rocky? His middle name is Rocky?” I blurted out, ignoring the way saying my dead fiancé’s childhood nickname knifed through my chest. Seeing that he hated the nickname, only Rocco’s mom and I used it. He thought it sounded childish, and had stopped acknowledging it by the time he turned twelve. Most people called him Rocco or Little Rock because he was named after his dad.
Her dark eyes cut to me, and her mouth contorted into what could only be called a snarl. “Nico, what are you doing with her?”
Nico patted her shoulder. “Come on, Gemma. This isn’t the time or the place. I’ll walk you out.”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on with Carmela Trassato.” She spat my name like a dirty word.
“She’s my date. Now, c’mon. Let’s take this outside. Nothing good is gonna happen by staying here.” His hand circled her upper arm, and he pulled her toward the exit.
“Your date?” She snatched her arm away. “Are you serious? Please tell me you’re not serious. You wouldn’t date her after everything, right?”
Clueless what I did to piss her off, my attention ping-ponged between Nico and his sister. I’d only met her a handful of times, and she was more Ava’s friend than mine. They hung around a fast crowd, whereas my parents practically kept me under lock and key until I graduated from high school.
