Untraceable

by Lindsay Delagair

  “I—I thought you—you didn’t love Mom; didn’t love—me,” I told him through tiny punctuated breaths. It had been in the back of my mind my whole life that I had to be independent because the person who helped create me didn’t want me.

  “Annalisa, I never stopped loving you,” he said, backing up and cupping my face in his hands to get me to look at him. “You’re shaking all over. Come on,” he said, leading me to the couch, “sit down. Giovanni, get her some juice or a cold water. Are you hungry? Anything you want—doesn’t matter what it is,” he stated, as he started to smile. “I’ll have someone get you whatever you’re hungry for. New York is at your disposal: bagels, pizza, Black and White cookies, something from one of our Italian delis, Italian pastries, Greek food, Chinese—you name it, I’ll have it here in fifteen minutes.”

  It was as if he’d been too afraid to look at my stomach, but he finally lowered his eyes.

  “I only spent the first four months of your mother’s pregnancy with her, but she had some crazy food cravings.”

  “It broke Mom’s heart when you left,” I said. “She tried to find you when she turned eighteen, but I guess, knowing what Micah has told me about you, it wouldn’t have mattered how hard she tried, you were untraceable.”

  His face hardened at the mention of Micah’s name, and for the first time, I was seeing the ‘business’ side of him. “I never stopped watching you, Annalisa. Neighbors, teachers, local business owners—I’ve always had someone in your world to help you. You were growing up into such a beautiful young woman, and everything seemed to be going so well, I decided to back away—and then your grandpa died.

  “I stepped back in a little bit, just to make sure you knew how to take care of yourself. I had a couple observers who said they thought Nadia was slipping, mentally.

  He turned quickly, wiping his eyes, evidently not wanting Jonathan to see him becoming emotional. “So tell me,” he said firming his composure, “how my beautiful daughter, whom I have stayed away from so you wouldn’t be tainted by the mafia, fell in love with the worst mob soldier out there?! I can’t believe he got to you before I did!”

  ”What do you mean?”

  Anger washed over him and he rose and began to pace, one hand on his hip, and his other fisted against his chin and lips. He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe everything he was about to say. “When the news broke about Nadia and they were saying you were a runaway, I knew something was wrong. Hits are kept in the strictest of confidence, but I shook up enough people and discovered that, of all people, my own daughter had a million dollar contract on her head. I couldn’t believe it!

  “I sent Giovanni to New Orleans to kill Gavarreen, but you two were gone. I spread out several men to find you, but he had you well hidden—until one of my men heard that Sharon Norton Moretti was looking to hire someone to take out the Southern best. He met with her to get the down payment, but more important to find out what she knew about your location—that was the day you were shot.

  “When I heard the story the cops were spreading about how Gavarreen tried to save your life when they arrived, I realized the two of you were in love; I decided to spare him—God, what a mess! He blows away his capo, I save his ass and now this—I should have killed him!” he growled.

  “No! Dad, please don’t hurt him; I love him!” It was immediately obvious that me calling him ‘dad’ was a complete surprise, but I didn’t know what else to say—Mr. Caprizio, Leonard, Lee C., or Lee all felt wrong. For the first time in my life, I had someone who truly was my dad, and it felt natural and wonderful to utter that word.

  He dropped back beside me on the couch and pulled me in again for a long embrace.

  “I’ve waited nineteen years to hear that word,” he whispered. “But, I don’t know what I’m going to do about him. He’s kill the Boss of someone else’s Family—who happened to be an old friend of mine, and he killed his own Boss. He’s breaking too many rules for me to ignore.”

  “Whatever he’s done,” I said, wiping my nose and snuffling back a tear, “he must have felt he didn’t have a choice.”

  His hardened expression stayed that way for a moment longer, but then it softened, “I can’t believe you’re really here.” He turned to Jonathan, “Did you have much trouble? I almost sent a couple more guys when we lost phone contact, but then I heard the plane was on its way back.”

  Jonathan gave a slow smile, “Leese is a very clever woman—she almost blew my head off.”

  “I was aiming for the window,” I defended

  My dad arched an eyebrow at me.

  “Micah taught me how to shoot.”

  That didn’t seem to set too well. “Give him another chance. He is a good person and he’s…” I paused as I reached for his hand, pulling his palm against my stomach, “He’s your grandson’s father.”

  His touch was gentle, but his face stayed hard. “I can’t promise you his safety, but,” he added when he sensed my panic, “I’ll give him a chance to explain before I decide.”

  That was when I understood the magnitude of my father’s control. Whatever he decided, it would be irreversible and swift. I had a lot of convincing to do before he met Micah—and unless I wanted that meeting to happen soon, I couldn’t tell Micah where I was. But there was someone I could tell. Someone who I knew had been broken hearted since this whole nightmare began—Mom. “Can I use a phone?”

  Neither man moved.

  “I just want to call Mom,” I added.

  My dad smiled slightly, “I can’t wait to see her in person.”

  The look on his face caused my heart to flutter. Oh no! That was an ‘I still think she’s hot and available,’ kind of look. David. This was so not good. “She’s engaged,” I said very softly.

  “Since when?” he said with clear annoyance, “And to whom? I hated that last son-of-a-bitch she married!! I should have killed him too and then you both would have been safe.” He took a cleansing breath, “So who’s the lucky guy? What does he do?”

  “She really loves him.”

  “Great,” came his disingenuous response, “what’s his name?”

  “Their getting married in December.”

  “Is there something about this guy you don’t want to tell me? I’m really not used to someone avoiding my questions—matter-of-fact, no one ever dodges my questions. What is his name?”

  “D-David,” I answered with a swallow.

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it? So what does this ‘David’ do for a living? An accountant or a florist perhaps?” he said with a chuckle. “As long as it’s not David Gavarreen, we’re good,” he said laughing at his own remark. He stopped laughing when he saw my expression. “It’s not David Gavarreen… Shit! It is David Gavarreen, isn’t it?!” His face dropped down into his palms and then he raked his fingers back through his hair. “She’s not marrying him!”

  “Wait a minute. You have no right…” That was when I realized no one ever spoke to him this way. I decided to continue and find out exactly what kind of person my father was. Could he accept what I was about to say? “You made your choice and stepped out of our lives. David treats her like she’s the most important thing in his world.”

  “Well he should!” he barked at me.

  “He loves her enough to stay,” I added.

  Ouch!

  I could tell the remark stung.

  He shook his head, “Loving someone enough to leave is harder.”

  “Whether you disapprove or not, David Gavarreen is going to be her ‘happily ever after.’ Don’t do something to ruin it. She’s had enough misery with Robert—and you.”

  His face was still hard, his jaw muscle pulled taut, and his temple vein protruding, “We’ll see.” He handed me his cell phone. “I’ll be in the other room when you’re done.” He motioned to Jonathan to follow him and I was left alone.

  I dialed the house phone in Florida. It rang several times and then went to voicemail. I called her cell phone with the same resul
t. I guessed, if it even showed, that she wouldn’t recognize the number I was calling from, so it was possible that she didn’t answer by choice. I decided to leave a message telling her that I would try back in fifteen minutes.

  Fifteen minutes later, there still wasn’t any answer.

  I walked around the corner from the living area into what appeared to be a den. The men were leaned forward and speaking in quiet voices, their faces serious.

  “Does your number appear when you call someone or is it blocked? I wanted to leave Mom your number, but it’s not stored in the phone anywhere.”

  “My phone number never appears,” he stated. He grabbed a piece of paper and wrote it down and handed it to me.

  I went back out to the couch and called a third time and left his number. Within minutes, the phone was ringing. I didn’t recognize the number, but I answered it anyway.

  “Leese? Is it really you?” she cried out. “Baby, where are you? Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  “Mom,” I managed to get out. My vocal cords were quivering, but then I broke down into sobs and couldn’t continue. I was trying to compose, but I couldn’t. The baby had begun to kick against me, evidently a little of my tearful joy over hearing her voice spread to him.

  I felt someone removing the phone from my hand. I looked up to see Dad nodding for me to let go.

  “Let me,” he said, putting the phone to his ear, “Nadia?” He paused. “Nadia?” he repeated to the silence. “Leese is safe. She’s with me. It’s Lee, sweetheart,” he said in response to what I couldn’t hear. “No, this isn’t a joke. It really is me. Nadia… Nadia, please don’t start crying. I want you to come to New York. I’ll arrange a flight for you and your little girl.” He listened for a moment.

  His expression was difficult to read until I heard his response, then I knew it was a mix of anger and jealousy.

  “No, don’t tell him! Is he there? Good, then he doesn’t need to know. Tell me where you’re at. Nova Scotia? Yes, it really is me. Here she is again.”

  I was finally composed as I took the phone. She kept saying she needed to call David and tell him, but I was certain that was a bad idea. First, no one wanted to deal with my father, and second, David would go crazy if he knew she was meeting the man who swept her off her feet when she was seventeen. She eventually agreed that she and Kimmy would fly to New York.

  CHAPTER twenty-nine

  When the news broke that Micah had murdered Botachelli, no one in his Family could believe it. And, even more unbelievable was Rizzo’s announcement that their Family would be meeting with Sharon Moretti in a possible merger.

  David requested a private meeting with Rizzo, but it was denied. His parents and his sister were in a state of shock as David told them not to give up hope. He assured them Micah couldn’t have done what everyone said. His brother wasn’t that freaking crazy; what good would it do to get Leese back only to lose his life for his crimes?

  What could he do? Micah had inflicted more damage than he could repair this time and, once again, Micah was giving him the silent treatment.

  He was mentally exhausted by the time he reached his home on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. He had recently put his house on the market because it didn’t fit his lifestyle anymore. This place had been the same as his life: wild. He was within walking distance of some of the finest French cuisine, and he did frequent the restaurants, but his favorite haunts on this street had been the bars and strip clubs; those were the places he frequented nightly—when he wasn’t on a job. He’d had his regular prostitute’s for company when he was high rolling or getting drunk. But now the craziness that had been his persona no longer interested him; he found something so much better, and he couldn’t wait to be her husband.

  He went up to his bedroom and tossed his keys onto the nightstand and then flopped, back first, onto the bed. He was too tired to think about Micah’s errors. All he wanted was to call Nadia and hear her voice. He wanted to listen to her tell him how much she loved him and how she couldn’t wait for him to be with her.

  And then there was Kimmy. She had recently started calling him daddy; he would have never believed that a word could make his heart swell so hard that it felt as if it could literally burst. He never thought he’d ever be anyone’s ‘daddy,’ but now he was. He’d never even considered children—ever—until he fell for Nadia. Did he truly want children? God, yes. He wouldn’t tell her his feelings because he knew it would upset her, but after being around Micah and Leese, and watching Leese’s body expand to hold the incredible miracle of life inside of her, he wanted to share that same experience with Nadia—but they couldn’t.

  Silently he thought about it every time he took her into his arms and buried himself inside of her. He wanted to create a life with the woman who showed him there was more to be experienced in this world than Bourbon Street and blowing people away.

  All the problems in the world vanished and he found himself smiling as he dialed her number. When she answered, he immediately sensed something was wrong. Being a hitman all his life, David noticed all the things that most would not: Nadia tentatively uttering his name, fear in her voice, and the sounds in the background being different from what he expected. A cold spike gouged into his gut and caused him to sit up quickly on the edge of the bed. “Nadia, where are you? What’s wrong?”

  “David, I know you’re going to be angry, but…”

  He didn’t realize until that very second that he didn’t like the word, ‘but.’

  “Kimmy and I are flying to New York.”

  “What?! No, no, Nadia! What the hell is going on?! Why are you going to New York?!”

  “Le—Leese called me. She’s—”

  “Nadia, I told you not to bring your old cell phone!”

  “I didn’t, David. I—I’ve just been checking my voicemails and—”

  “No, baby, no,” he pled. “Don’t try going to her. Get a hotel room when you land and I’ll be there as fast as—”

  “David, this isn’t a commercial flight,” she stated and then paused.

  The pause was enough to let him know something worse was about to be shared.

  “Leese is with Jonathan and—and her dad. This is a private flight, and he’ll be waiting for me when we land.”

  The first mental explosion was over the fact that Micah already revealed to him that Jonathan was Mafia and, worst still, he worked for Leonard Caprizio. “No Nadia, baby please listen to me. She’s not with her dad—these guys lie so freaking good they could make a hooker believe she’s a nun!”

  “I spoke to Lee. I know it was him. It’s not a trick,” she tearfully added.

  “You don’t understand, baby,” he stressed, hoping she’d listen to what he was telling her. “This is what these guys do. They’ll research a person’s whole life and make you believe anything they say to lure you in. You told me Leese’s never met her dad. She’s—”

  “I told you; I spoke to him on the phone. It was him. It—”

  “Nadia,” he practically screamed at her, “you haven’t spoken to this guy in almost twenty years!! What makes you think you’d know his voice from anyone else out there?! It’s a trap! Damn it, it’s a trap and you and Kimmy are walking right into it!”

  The line clicked and all went quiet. He dialed her back, but it went straight to voicemail.

  Nadia would have never hung up on him. Someone had just taken her phone away.

  ~:~

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Winslett,” the young man stated as he removed the battery from her phone and placed it in his pocket. “Mr. Caprizio won’t allow any phone calls once we’re in New York airspace.”

  “Why?” she asked, trying to remain calm.

  “Phones are too easy to track,” he stated unemotionally. “Relax. We’ll be landing in a little bit and this will all be over with and you’ll be with your daughter.”

  She was so sure she had been right to do this, but what if David knew what he was talking about? What if she
had just made the worst mistake of her and Kimmy’s lives? She leaned her head against her sleeping child and began to pray.

  CHAPTER thirty

  The newest boss of the Moretti clan wasn’t careful, she was brassy. When Jerry called at seven in the morning, frantic to tell about Botachelli’s murder, telling her all that happened, what he heard, what he eventually saw, and what Micah threatened to do to Rizzo to ensure cooperation, she was impressed—and ready to show Micah exactly how impressed.

  She hung up the phone as a devious grin turned the corners of her lips, and she nibbled on her index nail. Soon she would tell her men it was okay to let Giovanni leave with Leese. Giovanni would show Leese the video, effectively breaking her stupid little heart. Even if Micah made the decision to go back to Leese, which she doubted, Leese herself would push him away, and then she would be waiting; Micah would be hers. The grin felt as if it went inside her all the way to her belly button. She loved her wicked plan.

  She was certain after her last night with Micah that she had convinced him he was no good for Leese. She didn’t think he’d actually be as easy to crack as he had been over this issue, but she sensed how truly, deeply, and madly Micah was in love with his wife. She also sensed that his love was so strong that he would do anything—anything—to keep from hurting her.

  She didn’t like the idea of him being so filled with emotion for that rich, rotten bitch. She’d rarely experienced true jealousy in her lifetime, but she was desperately jealous of Micah’s affections for Leese. The sensations and feelings were foreign and uncomfortable. She wanted Micah to feel that way about her, and she wanted it with a hunger that now surpassed all her ambitions. If she could have his heart, and could keep it all to herself forever, she would attain another foreign emotion: joy.