KON (Trassato Crime Family Book 2)

by Lisa Cardiff

  She loves me.

  A sharp pain ricocheted through me and my gut twisted into knots. I froze mid-stroke of my hand on her back, clueless how to respond. Everything inside of me screamed to claim Carmela as my own, damn the consequences.

  Without a doubt, I felt something close to love, but I wasn’t one hundred percent there, and I refused to toss the words around casually only to take them back when it suited me. Too many people had done that to me, and I wouldn’t make the same mistake.

  Laney told me she loved me thousands of times. My parents claimed to love me. Even Evie had promised we’d be there for each other. All of them, the people I thought would stick by me and love me forever, turned on me or picked something over me.

  Laney loved drugs more than me. My dad loved me for what I could do for his business. My mom loved the money I sent her. Evie loved me until it was inconvenient.

  The soft purr of a snore floated through the room, and I realized she didn’t expect a response, which only left me wondering what I would have said if she were awake right now.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  My eyes blinked open, my half-asleep brain trying to catch up with everything. My arm hung limply over Carmela’s waist. My mouth felt like cotton, and my back ached like a motherfucker.

  I propped up my torso on my elbows, and my gaze collided with Gian’s impassioned glare. Before I could scramble to feet, he was already across the room. Evie stood frozen near the door, her dark eyes wide.

  Gian’s fingers curled around my shirt and he jerked me to my feet. “Are you deaf? I asked you a question.”

  “Get off of me,” I growled, my hand clamped around his wrist.

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  His fist smashed into my jaw. I stumbled and my hip rammed into the side of Carmela’s bed.

  “Stop it. Stop it. Stop it!” Carmela chanted, her voice rough from sleep. “Don’t fight. Please don’t fight. I asked him to come here, Gian. If you’re going to be mad at someone, be mad at me.”

  Gian stalked toward me. “Carmela, this doesn’t concern you.”

  “Like hell it doesn’t!” she yelled. “This is my life. I get to call the shots, not you.”

  “No. You don’t. Not anymore. You’re incapable of making good decisions. You didn’t fool me. You’ve been sneaking around to meet this piece of shit. I can’t prove it, but I know it. You’re ruining your life for a man who’s using you. He knows you’re vulnerable. He thinks you’re the weak link. He doesn’t care about you. He will never care about you.”

  My muscles rattling with anger, I lurched forward and Carmela gripped a chunk of my shirt, trying to hold me back. She didn’t need to. I wouldn’t fight her brother in the hospital while she looked on. She’d been through enough over the past few years, although that didn’t mean I’d let him take another cheap shot at me or spew lies.

  I shoved his shoulder. “Back off. You don’t know shit.”

  “This is over. Stop fucking with my family!” he shouted, his chest heaving and his fists up, ready to take another swing.

  I tugged on the bottom of my shirt and strolled by him, heading to the door. This wasn’t the time or the place to get into this. Carmela didn’t need to see this and neither did Evie.

  I paused at the threshold and glanced over my shoulder. “You don’t own me, Gian. You can boss your little fucking soldiers around all you like, barking out orders and playing out some sick superiority fantasy, but I won’t bow down to you or anyone else in your family.”

  Gian charged forward, his finger pointed me. “You will not look at my family. You will not talk to my family. You will not think about my family. You got that?”

  “Gian,” Evie said, latching onto his shoulder, “this is not the time or the place.”

  He shrugged her off. “He’s putting my sister in danger. I’m not going to stand around and let it happen.”

  “Put her in danger?” I stared down my nose at him, then cocked an eyebrow. “No, you have our roles reversed. Your piece of shit guard left her alone for over an hour last night, so don’t lecture me on endangering Carmela.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Think about it. How else would I have got into this room? You know what’s even more pathetic? He didn’t even bother to peek in the door before he took off this morning. If this is how your soldiers follow your orders, maybe you need to consider another profession, capo,” I drew out the word, mocking his title. “But don’t take my word for it, ask Carlo about his impromptu bathroom meeting last night, or better yet, pick his brain about what he thinks of you marrying a Madigan. While I’m not entirely clear what it means, I’m damn sure it wasn’t flattering to my sister or you.”

  I didn’t wait for his response. I’d said enough. There was no way I’d heed his demand and stay away from Carmela. As far as I was concerned, she was mine. Sure, I had dicked around for over a year trying to get my head in the right place before I claimed her. I even tried to find a way out of the arrangement she made with my dad, but I was done denying myself. I wanted Carmela, and the Trassatos would have to pry her out of my cold, dead hands before I’d willingly give her up.

  I stomped down the hall, adrenaline rushing through me. With each step, my anger and frustration climbed higher and higher. My fingers itched with the sickening urge to put my fist through the wall over and over until my knuckles were bloody and pain replaced the fear that I was going lose Carmela before I had her.

  Gian would have his little soldiers crawling up my ass like flies on shit. It would be virtually impossible to get Carmela alone any time in the near future. I wasn’t going to roll over and give up. I’d storm her fucking house with a gun and kidnap her if I had to.

  “Kon. Kon! Wait up,” Evie called after me, her shoes squeaking on the white and green checkered linoleum floor.

  “Not now, Evie.”

  I picked up my pace, not interested in another lecture from Evie today. I got her message loud and clear. She hated me for not telling her the truth about our dad and meddling in her relationship with her ex. I accepted I hurt her, but she refused to allow me to make it up to her, and when push came to shove, she wouldn’t stick up for me. In my mind, we could mutually write each other off. I was officially done with her and she was done with me. I was wasting my time trying to get back into her good graces.

  “Then when, Kon?” She tugged on the back of my shirt and I swatted her away.

  “Never. How’s that sound?”

  She staggered, her face pale, and her eyes glossy. “Why are you being like this?”

  “Being like what, Evie? You don’t want me in your life, and I’m respecting your wishes.”

  “Ugh. I’m the one who should be mad at you. I helped you, and you repaid me by throwing my duplicity in my husband’s face this morning. You should have been gone by now.”

  I bit back all the shit I wanted to say to her. “I don’t turn my back on people I care about. Don’t you get it? Carmela was left unprotected last night. I couldn’t let her stay here alone.”

  “Dammit, Kon, you need to let her go. This will never work between you two. You’re dragging this out for God knows what reason. Let it go. If you ever cared about me, you will walk away.”

  “What about what I feel? What Carmela feels? Do you care about that? Or is this solely about making you and Gian happy?”

  “Oh, right.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t make me the bad guy. This is a game for you. Dad didn’t get what he wanted out of my relationship with Gian so you’re messing around with Carmela to make a point. You don’t love her.”

  “You don’t know a damn thing, Evie. Maybe if you pulled your head out of your ass for a second, you’d realize the truth.”

  “And what’s the truth, Kon?”

  “I wouldn’t have come here last night or spent the last month sneaking around to see her and putting my life on the line if I didn’t love her.”


  I turned my back on her and got out of there before she could rile me any further. I hadn’t been able to admit it to Carmela or myself last night, but it was the truth. The inevitability of losing her brought it all into sharp focus.

  I loved her golden eyes, her sultry curves, her laugh. I loved the way she looked at me like I was the only person in the world.

  I even loved our screwed up love story. I didn’t regret a single thing that happened between us except leaving her hospital room without confessing exactly how much I loved her because I wasn’t sure I’d get another chance, and I needed my sunshine. My solnyshka. She was the only good and pure thing in my life right now. Maybe ever.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Carmela

  “Carmela, can you come downstairs? You uncle and your brother would like to talk to you.”

  My face visibly wiped of the rage building in my chest over the past week, I made eye contact with my mom. From the minute the doctor released me from his care at the hospital, I’d been a prisoner in my home. Gian had guards stationed outside of our house and my door. He had confiscated my phone and my computer, and he refused to return them.

  “I’m busy. Maybe some other day.”

  “Busy doing what?”

  I picked up the design magazine next me on the bed. “Reading.”

  Sighing, my mom crossed the room and ripped the magazine from my hand. “Stop this right now. I won’t let this rift between my kids continue for one more minute. I can’t take it.”

  “Then tell your son to stop treating me like I’m incapable of thinking for myself.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” She settled on the edge of my bed. “He’s not. He’s worried about you. We all are. You could have been killed, and Gian doesn’t have a single lead.”

  “Lucky me. Does that mean he plans to keep me locked away until he has answers?”

  She pushed her hand through my hair, and it reminded me of being a kid again. She used to play with my hair until I fell asleep. I’d do anything to feel safe and loved like that again.

  “It’s more than that. Gian doesn’t trust that boy to stay away from you. He’s not good for you, and your father, well, he’d roll over in his grave if he knew how you’ve been carrying on with him. He would never approve of a relationship between the two of you.”

  “That boy?” I glared at her. “He has a name, Mom. It’s Konstantin. You know that. Don’t pretend he’s some distant stranger. He’s Evie’s brother.”

  She folded her arms around the waist of her black dress. “Are you going to come down and talk to them or should I send them up here?”

  “Whatever. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  “At least come down and say hello to Emilia.”

  “What? Emilia’s here?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’d that happened?”

  Emilia was Dominick’s daughter. She was five years younger than me, and she had disappeared the night before her eighteenth birthday party. Dominick pretended as if she didn’t exist. His house had been stripped of all her pictures and he’d turned her bedroom into an exercise room.

  Until two years ago when I overheard my mom and dad saying she had married some guy in California I had assumed she was dead. We’d never been overly close. She kept to herself, barely interacting with anyone at family events other than Letizia, and she disappeared from our life right after Emilia. My mom claimed Emilia was introverted because she lost her mom when she was thirteen years old. To me, she came off as dark and full of disdain for all of us.

  “I’m not sure. Dominick doesn’t confide in me.”

  “Fine. I’ll come down, but only because I want to see Emilia.” For the first time in my life, I felt a weird kinship with her. My family was suffocating me, and I suspected she might be able to relate.

  Before I made it to the great room, Gian pulled me into my father’s mostly abandoned study. Inside, Dominick sat behind the desk, his imposing demeanor and dark scowl claiming it as his own. Behind him, Sal and Tony stood on either side of him like centurions, their backs to the wall, one hand tucked inside their jackets, poised to kill any threat to the head of our family.

  “Carmela.” Dominick’s gravelly voice echoed through the room. “Please take a seat.”

  I glanced back at my brother, and he merely nodded his head. He’d given me the cold shoulder since he discovered Kon in my hospital bed. His betrayal and refusal to support me made my heart ache.

  I slid into the chocolate leather chair across from him, and Gian took the seat next to me. I had no illusions this meant he was on my team and intended to support me. Dominick ruled this family with a heavy hand, and whatever I said right now wouldn’t alter the outcome.

  “I’m disappointed in your refusal to honor your dad’s wishes to marry Nico,” he started. “We’ve protected you and gave you unprecedented freedom after Rocco’s death. We’ve let you have your design business you didn’t think we knew about. We permitted you to live in the city until your dad died. We gave you a little leeway in your relationship with the Trincher man. However, all of that is over. You’re going to do the right thing now.”

  “What’s that?” I asked him, although I already knew the answer. I wanted him to spell it out and make it absolutely clear that he expected me to marry someone I didn’t like or want as though we lived in the Victorian era, not the twenty-first century.

  He tugged on the cuffs of his white shirt and slid his suit-clad elbows across the glossy desk. “Let me lay it on the line for you. I’m hosting an engagement party for you and Nico in three days. You will marry him by the end of the month in a small ceremony in your backyard. The plans are already in the works. We don’t need or want your input. All we need from you is for you to slip on the dress purchased for you, walk down the aisle, and say ‘I do.’”

  “No. I won’t marry Nico.”

  “It’s been decided, and considering your behavior lately, you’re lucky marrying Nico is the only consequence.”

  “Gian.” My head whipped to the side, my eyes meeting his. “You said you’d support me. That you wouldn’t make me marry Nico. You’re supposed to be on my side. You’re my brother.”

  “I’m sorry, Carmela.” The skin under his eyes looked bruised. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. He looked like crap. “You’re marrying Nico. There isn’t a way out of this. I can’t keep you safe anymore. You need to be under someone’s protection.”

  “This is ridiculous. You don’t have any evidence that person targeted me, yet you’re keeping me under lock and key like a prisoner, and now you want me to marry some guy neither of us likes so I’m safe. What about happy? Do you care if I’m happy? Or is this all about assuaging your conscience and ticking off some mental checklist so you can get to your perfect little life while mine continues to burn?”

  Gian jerked back as if I slapped him. “You’re acting like a child.”

  “You’re acting like a dictator,” I shot back.

  “That’s enough!” Dominick pounded his fist against the desk; the metal penholder rattled then tipped over, scattering pens all over the top. “You need to learn your place, Carmela.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Exactly where we tell you. You’ll marry Nico. You’ll come to the engagement party in three days. You’ll walk down that aisle and say ‘I do,’ and you’ll do all of it with a goddamn smile on your face.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Konstantin Trincher will pay for your sins against our family.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Dominick rose out the chair, dusting imaginary lint from his suit jacket, his lifeless eyes drilling into me. I’d seen him like this in the past when I spied on his conversations with my father. A shiver darted down the spine. This man wasn’t my uncle. He was the one people whispered about in hushed tones full of fear. He was a living, breathing manifestation of evil.

  “Don’t play dumb.” He stalked
around the desk, pausing near my feet. “You know exactly what I mean.”

  My heart swooped and flapped against my chest. I’d stupidly believed I could get away with making that dumb deal with the Trinchers and walk away unscathed. At the time, I wanted to make Evie and Gian happy. Then I went along with Kon’s plan, thinking…I didn’t know what the hell I’d been thinking, and I didn’t care anymore.

  I felt lighter around him, like the weight of all the ugly things in my past had been lifted from my shoulders. I wasn’t numb. I cared about my future again, and I no longer wanted to blindly walk off the plank, sacrificing myself for my family.

  “I can’t marry Nico,” I whispered.

  “It’s done. You will marry him; I gave him my word. You will honor it, or you’ll be dead to this family.”

  “I will be dead either way.” My lips quivered. “A little over a year ago, I made a deal with the Trinchers. I agreed to marry Konstantin in exchange for them backing away from Gian and Evie.”

  Gian’s head whipped to face me. “You did what?” His voice sliced through the air like a physical blade.

  “You heard me.”

  “That’s why you’re running off with him without regard for your family or our wishes?” Gian shouted.

  “At first, but now…” I swallowed over the desert like dryness coating my mouth. “Now I love him.”

  “That’s fucking ridiculous. Do you hear what you’re saying? You don’t love him. You have Stockholm Syndrome. He trapped you into this arrangement, and you twisted it up in your head, convincing yourself you love him or some shit like that.”

  “You’re wrong. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I can’t go back on my word. Alix, his father, will come after me. After the whole family. He’ll—”

  “He’ll do nothing.” Dominick hooked his thumbs over his shiny black belt. “He’s been trying to muscle his way onto our turf for years to push heroin. That’s what he wants. He doesn’t give a fuck if you marry his son. So here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna cut a deal with the fucking Trinchers, and you’re gonna be a good girl and marry Nico. This is the best offer you’re gonna get.”