He would need to call David as soon as he could and tell him to speed up his plans to take Nadia and Kimmy into hiding because this was only going to get uglier; things might deteriorate quickly. His own family would also be in danger, but at least they knew they were living a life where something like this could happen at any time.
Nadia, Kimmy, and Leese were total innocents on this battlefield. Robert propelled them into this mess the day he decided to trade Nadia and Leese’s lives for financial gain. He paid for that mistake when the judge sentenced him to life in prison.
“You have what you asked for,” Sharon stated, snapping Micah from his distraction, “You know she’s still alive—now we’re going to discuss business.”
To say she was ambitious was an understatement. She had plans, big plans for not only assuming command of her clan, but she still wanted to see the convergence of the two clans which had been the original plan before D’Angelo died.
The people Micah killed in the four months he spent finding Annalisa when D’Angelo sent her running for the final time, had taken place in odd locations. D’Angelo had been careful to keep their identities secret and Micah’s only job was to extinguish their lives. Had he traveled to the east coast he would have known whose clan was the target and he would have refused. But, at the time, he had little information and, greater still at the time, he didn’t care who he killed.
“I like the idea of running the lower east coast and the southern coast. To prove you are loyal to me, you’ll not only take out my father, but I expect Botachelli to die as well—do this for me and I’ll let her go completely unharmed. Screw me over, and you’ll suffer in the worst way.”
He would have been quick to tell her no, but he had plans of his own already forming. He had to be convincing. She had to believe he was committing to her completely, “Who dies first?”
She smiled, “I need to have firm command of my side before I take over yours, so my father is first. I know it isn’t going to be an easy feat, but if you are the man D’Angelo always claimed you were then I think you should be able to accomplish this first step within a week, two at the latest. Just remember the faster you do what I want, the faster her release will happen.”
“I hope you don’t expect me to make this painless for him—I’ll be thinking about you the whole time,” he growled.
“I hate that son-of-a-bitch. You can carve his fucking heart out for all I care.”
Micah rose from the table, “That’s not a half bad idea.”
“I’ll call you after I confirm where he’ll be so you can plan your attack. We’ll discuss Botachelli afterwards.”
There was nothing more to say as he turned and walked away from the wicked little seductress. He drove around to the south side of the hotel where Ryan sat inside a rented van with a computer running. Micah nodded as he passed him.
Ryan cranked the van and followed Micah’s earlier instructions to go to their hotel and wait for him.
Thirty minutes later, after Micah was certain no one was following, he pulled into the Garden Inn beside Ryan’s van.
When he opened the door to their room, Ryan was sitting on the edge of the bed staring at the computer display.
“She made the call; you captured it right?”
“Hell if I know! I captured a ton of shit with this thing. How are you going to figure out which one was hers?”
“Easy,” Micah stated as he began scrolling backward, “she placed the call at 6:19. Here,” he pointed to the screen.
“But there are four entries at 6:19.”
“Yes, but two are computer mac addresses; 803 is a local area code; 609 is her playground—Atlantic City—that’s the one,” Micah stated as he switched to a different computer program. “Now all I have to do is track all the traffic on her number and wait for her to say something that will tell me where Leese is at.”
“Can’t you just trace the call?”
“Normally, yes,” Micah sighed, “but the man holding Leese is far from normal. His number is scrambled, and he evidently has a jammer, a signal booster, and a re-direction device, most likely this call went through two other cells before it got to him.”
Micah watched Ryan’s countenance fall. He apparently thought this was going to be easy.
“She’s in a lot of trouble, isn’t she?” he finally said.
Micah nodded. Leese was in more trouble than he was willing to express, “Giovanni isn’t going to make any mistakes—he’s been trained by the best. I’ve got to wait for Sharon to screw up—and she’s so over-confident, I know she’ll do something careless.”
“So what do we do next?”
“I,” Micah emphasized, “am going to spend another day or two here monitoring her phone calls and making some arrangements. You are heading back home—now.”
“No way, I’m—”
“Leese would be pissed if she knew I pulled you into this mess.”
“I don’t give a shit! If I can help then—”
“I will need your help,” he said and then paused to get Ryan to pay attention, “in about a week or two—I just hope I don’t get you killed. I don’t know many people without mafia connections, and that list is narrowed down to just you when I consider who on that list I can trust to do this.”
“Do what?”
“You’re going to help me get rid of two of the biggest mob bosses in the southeast.”
Micah realized the ‘oh shit,’ that slipped out of Ryan’s mouth was unintentional, but the ‘oh shit’ was about to hit the fan in the biggest shakeup in underworld history.
CHAPTER sixteen
Ryan unlocked the door and took a deep breath before stepping inside. He knew Candace was going to be angry over the way he left her at the church in Florida, and he really didn’t blame her. Micah told him he couldn’t tell her why they left, and the best Ryan could offer when his cell phone went off and she wanted to know what the hell was going on, was to ask her to trust him, but most of all to forgive him and that he would see her soon.
It wasn’t over—not by a long shot—but Micah insisted he leave until the plan was ready to be unleashed. It would be the most dangerous thing he’d ever done—well, almost. Telling Candace he would be leaving for an undetermined amount of time ranked pretty high, too.
He knew from the beginning when he first learned Micah was part of the mafia that Leese was in way over her head. He had come to understand what Leese said about Micah was true: he was a different person on the inside from the person he had been trained to be. He also knew no matter the amount of danger, she could never stop loving Micah. She was a pit-bull in that respect; her heart gripped Micah’s, and she would hang on with tenacity to that love, even if it cost her very existence.
He pushed the door open and stepped into the quiet house. Their bedroom door was closed and he wondered if she was sleeping. It was two a.m. but she was a bit of a night-owl like him, so he doubted it. He pulled off his jacket and draped it over the arm of the couch and proceeded to the bedroom. He opened the door, sending a shaft of light into the blackness. “Candace?” There was no response. He flipped on the light switch when he realized she wasn’t in the bed. He heard the movement of water and knew she was in the bathtub.
He knocked gently on the bathroom door, “Baby, I’m home. Can I come in?” He heard her move in the water again and then some muffled sounds. “Candace?” His heart picked up speed as he thought something wasn’t right. He turned the handle; the door was locked. He knocked more firmly, “Why do you have the door locked?” When there was no reply, he backed up and kicked the door in.
“What the hell did you do that for?!” she snapped.
The room was only illuminated by a single candle. He flipped on the light and she squinted in the brightness.
“Turn it off!” she ordered. “I have a migraine.”
“Why didn’t you answer me?” he snapped back.
“Turn off the damn light!”
“Fine!” he growle
d, hitting the switch so hard he thought he broke it. “Why didn’t you answer me?”
“I fell asleep, you idiot! I was just waking up when I realized you were knocking on the door.”
Ryan exhaled with deep relief. She scared the crap out of him when she didn’t respond. He sat on the edge of the tub letting his head drop into his hands.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, reaching with a wet hand to lightly touch him, “I didn’t mean to yell at you, or to call you an idiot—are you okay? Can you tell me what’s going on with Leese?”
He raised his head in surprise, “You know?”
“A little. I went back to her mother’s house after the service to get our things. The police showed up and said the crime lab finally discovered that the woman who died in the accident wasn’t pregnant—it couldn’t have been Leese. I had a feeling you wouldn’t have left me that way over anything other than—than her.”
“I’m really sorry, but Micah said we had to leave right away and no one could know what we were doing.”
“Can you tell me what’s going on or do you have to keep it quiet?”
“Candace, there isn’t anything in my life that I shouldn’t be able to tell you, and if there is then I don’t deserve you—but if you could wait a little—”
She rose up and kissed him to end his sentence, “I understand, really I do. Would you hand me my towel?” She pulled the plug and stood up.
He held the towel for a moment before giving it to her and simply stared, “If you weren’t water-logged already, I’d drop my clothes and get in there with you.”
She smiled, “I’m kinda pruned or I’d accept your offer.”
He wrapped her in the towel and lowered his lips to hers, “Is your headache really bad?”
“It wasn’t an honest-to-God migraine—I’d just been…”
“What?” he whispered.
“I’d been crying so much, I gave myself a headache.”
“Ah, Candace, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It’s not that. I’ve always known how you feel about Leese; you’ve never tried to hide it from me, but I was worried about you. Micah is a good person, but I know he has another side that isn’t. I know he wouldn’t hurt you, but I was afraid he’d drag you into a situation where you could get hurt.”
Ryan swallowed. “No,” he whispered, moving her wet hair away from her shoulders. “He wouldn’t let me get close at all. He let me run some of his computer equipment, like freaking James Bond shit, but he wouldn’t let me get anywhere near the woman he’s dealing with.”
“Woman?” she said, clearly surprised.
“Yeah, the same woman who shot Leese a year ago. He says she’s worse than a venomous snake. I honestly feel bad for him because as long as she has Leese, he has to do whatever she wants.” A strange expression crossed Candace’s face, so he knew he needed to be more specific. “She wants him to kill her mob-boss father so she can take his place.”
She openly shuddered, “I don’t know how people like that can exist. And, to be honest, I can’t figure out how Leese was able to stay in love with Micah when she realized what he was.”
“She didn’t have a choice.” Candace looked ready to argue the point, but he continued, “She fell; she couldn’t turn back—it was a no return policy,” he said with a tiny amount of mirth. “She tried to explain to me once how much she really loved Micah—I just didn’t understand at the time how deep real love could go—until now.”
He pulled her to his chest and began to sob, “Candace, I love you. I know you’ve felt like you don’t mean as much to me as Leese, but you do. What I feel for her isn’t the same. I was crazy about her for a long time, but it’s a deep friendship like nothing I’ve ever experienced. She is my very best friend, but you—Candace, I want to spend my whole life with you.
”I know this isn’t the romantic way I planned this, but when I was ready to do this we got the word about the accident and everything went to hell from there, but…” He dropped down on one knee. The bathroom was so dim from the small amount of candlelight he could barely see her face, “I can’t wait any longer to ask you this: will you marry me? Will you be my wife?”
Her expression became serious as she knelt with him, “I can’t answer that right now. I need to talk with you for a little while because there are a few things I’ve got to know before I tell you yes or no.”
He swallowed hard as he thought about the fact that a ‘no’ was an option for her. They rose and went to the bed and lay down. Ryan was scared to death about these questions, but he was ready to tell her whatever she wanted to know.
She asked him questions about his feelings for her and Leese that were deeper and more emotional than he expected. At one point, and he couldn’t help himself, he broke down crying because he honestly didn’t think Leese was going to come out of this mess alive. He’d almost made it to her funeral once and he didn’t think he could handle doing it again. He didn’t know how Candace felt about his responses, but he wanted them to be truthful.
“Tell me exactly what you were thinking when you came home tonight because breaking down doors isn’t normally something I expect out of you.”
“When I walked in and the house was quiet, I thought you were gone. I kept thinking all the way home, ‘she’s packed up and left you, buddy.’ I saw the car outside, but I had a feeling you weren’t here. Then, when I got to the bathroom door and you wouldn’t answer me—I was afraid, Candace. All I could think was if I’d given you some reason to hurt yourself…” his voice choked off and he couldn’t continue. He took a couple deep breaths and finished what he had to tell her. “You’re my everything. I want you to know I’m scared-to-death to marry you because if anything ever happens to you, I’ll go freaking out of my mind—just like when I lost my dad. I’d never felt so utterly insane in my life than when I lost him. I really loved him, and I’m freaked out because I—I love you more.”
She sat up on the bed, her towel slipping off as she grabbed the bottom of his tee-shirt and started pulling it over his head. He didn’t resist, but he didn’t try to grab onto her. She undid his belt, then his jeans and boxers went off the end of the bed. Her skin was cool against his as she made him recline and straddled him, laying her body chest to chest with him, her cheek resting in the hollow of his neck.
He wrapped his arms around her.
“For a long time,” she began, “I thought this was all there was to loving someone. I thought if I gave my physical self then that was enough. You asked me to sleep with Micah, but then you sat there and watched over me all night and my heart literally ached. It hurt because I realized how deeply the man holding me loved the woman he imagined I was, and then I realized how deeply the man watching me loved me. I know I get a little crazy in this bedroom, but I thought if I didn’t make this exciting enough for you then you’d go somewhere else.”
He started to speak, but she put her hand over his mouth, “I’m starting to believe this isn’t the reason you love me—and that blows me away. You really do love me, don’t you? This bed isn’t part of the reason, is it?”
Ryan rolled her onto her back as he looked into her eyes, “If you closed your legs and told me we couldn’t do this anymore—damn it, man that would hurt, but it wouldn’t stop me from loving you—because I love you, Candace, not just the act of loving you. I would like to have kids someday, so if you’re gonna cut me off from this tell me now so we can blow my trust fund and not worry about paying for everything that comes with babies.”
She laughed and then locked her legs around him, “That’s one thing I know I couldn’t do like Leese; I could never sleep in the same bed with you without sex.”
He finally laughed; God, it felt good to laugh, “So answer my question; will you marry me?”
“No.”
He wasn’t sure he heard her correctly, “No?”
“I want a little more time to make sure,” she said cupping his face in her hands. “You’ve
got to understand something; your parents loved each other, my parents hated each other. Dad told me it felt like love in the beginning, but then everything changed. She stayed until I was seven, but it felt like war every night. I don’t want it to be like that with us.”
“Candace,” he said, his voice choked, “it won’t be.”
“Please, Ryan, please understand. I’ve got to know I’m not going to become my mom; I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Can’t you just say yes and we’ll make it a long engagement?”
She shook her head.
“What’s going to be so different from living together like we are now, to living together with a ring on your finger?”
“The difference is when I came home, I thought about leaving.”
He swallowed so hard it was audible.
“I only thought about it for a second, but in that one second it scared me to death; I felt like her.”
“But you didn’t.”
“It took her eight years to leave my dad, and I have to wonder how many times she thought about it.”
“Candace, I’m already committed to you, ring or not. If you’re only worried about hurting me then you need to know whether you leave me in a few minutes or if you leave me eight years from now, either way you’ll break my heart—and I’m going to give you the perfect reason to get out.”
“What?”
“I’m getting ready to get in the middle of this mess in a bad way. Micah told me he’s going to need my help in a week or so, and that it’s going to be crazy dangerous.”
“No!” she spouted off, “You’ve done enough, you—”
“It’s not enough until she’s safe.”
“No! I don’t want you getting involved in his world. I can’t...” she began to sob, “…can’t lose you. I’ll say yes, just don’t do it.”
He wrapped his arms around her, half expecting she’d fight him, or at least slug him, but instead she melted against him like a weak child. “Shhh, baby, shhh. You keep that yes and tuck it away for me. I want you to give us some deep thought. I don’t like waiting, but I understand why you want to be sure, just know that I love you, Candace. No matter what happens, baby, I love you.”
Untraceable Page 18
