Black Skies Riviera: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance

by Catherine Wiltcher

  “What do you mean?”

  He fixes his jacket and slides his necktie into his pocket. “I’ll be out of town until tomorrow.”

  My heart leaps, and then stumbles with a misstep I never saw coming. Does he have a lover?

  “Well?” He pauses in the doorway, his cool gaze casting aspersions about my response. “Happy?”

  Of course he has a lover. This man oozes sex. I can’t expect him to be faithful to a new wife who refuses to sleep with him.

  “Ecstatic,” I mutter, refusing to look at him, drawing my knees up to my chest for a modicum of comfort, turning myself into a shaking red and pink stain on his white bedsheets. I’ve never felt so unwanted, which is quite an achievement considering my childhood was devoid of parental love.

  “This is your own cabin. You’ll find your clothes and belongings hanging in the closet. Despite what you might think, you are not a prisoner here. There’s a speedboat waiting to take you to shore at any time. Go and buy yourself some more dresses.” He pulls out a black wallet and I watch in horror as he tosses a thick wad of notes onto the bed. He’s right. It’s going to take more than a couple of taps from that hammer to change his opinion of me.

  “Get out,” I hiss.

  “Ielena...”

  “Will you leave a wad of cash on the bed for her, too?” I say, refusing to look at him. “I said, ‘get out.’”

  There’s another pause, and then he erupts with the deepest, richest, most contemptuous laugh of all.

  It’s still resonating around the room long after he’s gone.

  Chapter Nine

  Aiden

  The best time to drink an espresso in the Piazza Del Campo is between seven and eight a.m. Tourists have yet to swallow up the fishbone-patterned red bricks in front of the Torre del Mangia, and the day is only a promise of heat, not the red-hot burn of deliverance.

  There’s a café to the north-western corner that’s mostly cast in shadow before the late-morning gelato rush. It’s not an impressive place. The windows are cracked and the olive-green awning above my head is ripped and faded. There are far nicer tourist traps on the outskirts of the Campo, but with only a handful of chairs and tables outside, and most of them empty, it’s a good place to sit and plot a man’s execution.

  Behind me, a couple of guys are constructing metal bleachers for next week’s Palio di Siena horse race. Their crude jokes and hammer blows are keeping all the early risers entertained. Across the main thoroughfare, a souvenir vendor is setting up his stall of over-priced shit for the day. The sky is blue, the clouds are white, and my intentions are as black as my coffee.

  It’s a strange moment to be present in, standing on the cusp of achieving something I’ve wanted for so long. Somewhere in my head there’s an aircraft coming in for landing, and it’s the final, few, weightless seconds before touchdown. My target is less than twenty meters away. He’s leaning over the handrails in front of the Fonte Gaia, the rectangular fountain in the heart of the Campo. Black T-shirt and blue jeans, he’s young enough not to look like a sleazy dick in nightclubs, but not old enough for café bar retirement yet.

  He’s smoking a cigarette like a carefree asshole—like a man who didn’t set my life on a course to Sicily fourteen years ago—sucking and blowing and tapping ash at the water. The early morning sun catches the tips of the ripples, and my mind flits to Ielena and the accusation in her soft, brown eyes last night. Will they glisten with damage or harden with payback when she finds out that I’m abandoning her on her wedding night for something far more satisfying than pussy?

  Fuck that. I don't feel guilt for anyone.

  I’m finishing up the last dregs of my espresso when my cell rings.

  “Frankie.”

  “Can you see him?” he says, cutting straight to chase.

  “In sight. The info was good.”

  “Good.” He blows out a breath in relief. He’s feeling the beats of this moment back in France, as well.

  “I’ll call you when it’s done. I need a clean exit out of Italy in the next hour.” I chuck a ten-euro note on the table and feel the solid press of my Glock against my stomach.

  “I’ll make the calls.”

  “One last thing. I want you to swing by The Cristo later.”

  “Why? I have the surveillance on her like you requested.”

  I glance toward the fountain again. She hates water and I’ve left her on a fucking boat. “Just check on her, okay? See if she needs anything.”

  There’s a pause. “I thought you said ‘It’ was so irrelevant you were hanging ‘It’ next to your Warhol?”

  He’s angling at something I don’t have the time or the inclination to dwell on.

  “Just sort the transport,” I tell him. “And her name is Ielena.”

  Two smokes later, and Lorenzo Gambino is on the move. I track him across the Campo and through the narrow side streets, past the brown signposts for the Duomo di Siena and toward the small pizzichera he owns. The front window of the store is typically overcrowded. There are hanging lines of cured meats and huge magnums of Chianti, but all I see is my father’s severed head and a pool of crimson blood. Gambino paid for this place and its contents with two large payments that appeared in his bank account the day after my parents died.

  Who ordered the hit on my parents and why?

  Zaccaria hasn’t volunteered that information, so it’s up to me to connect the dots. I plan on extracting a few answers before I’m done.

  The cobbles are beginning to swell with chatter. Delivery trucks are beeping to pass. I watch him enter his store from under the awning of a nearby alimentari. I wait for ten, and then I’m crossing the street and entering myself. Flicking over the sign and sliding the bolt across, I catch the eye of the man behind the counter. He nods once, and then jerks his head in the direction of the back room. Money favors the avaricious. I offered this guy a hundred thousand bonus if he turned a blind eye to what’s about to unfold, and he nearly bit my hand off for it.

  He busies himself with his meat slicer as I pull out my Glock and twist on the black silencer. Once done, I brush past the counter and down a short flight of wooden steps. It leads to a cellar doubling as a small storeroom, and a quick scan tells me that the only exit is the route I just traveled.

  The rat is cornered.

  Gambino looks up as I enter, sees the gun and panics. He stumbles backward over a wooden stack of fresh lemons and oranges in his haste to put some distance between us and shit goes flying everywhere. Up close, he even looks like a rat, with his scrawny face and twitchy eyes.

  “Qualcuno mi salvi!” Someone save me! he cries, picking up random pieces of fruit and throwing them at me. I duck easily. His aim is as pathetic as his existence. “You shouldn’t be here! I’m protected by the Villefort!”

  “Your protection just got revoked, sunshine.”

  “Did Rossi send you?”

  “No one sent me, Gambino,” I say, slipping into Italian. “It’s just me and an unforgiving bitch called revenge.”

  Frankie was right. We’re caught up in a mafia war and we’re picking over rotting carcasses.

  He pauses his assault and blinks rapidly. “You’re British?” A misplaced sense of relief overcomes the rat-like features. “I love the British!” Instead of fruit he starts lobbing culture references at me. “Big Ben! The River Thames! Ah, ah the Queen!”

  “You didn’t love my father much,” I say grimly. “Or what you left of him.”

  “Who is—?”

  “Jacob Knight.”

  I watch with a dark satisfaction as those same features descend into chaos. “No,” he whispers. “No no no. You disappeared from England. They thought you were dead.”

  “I was.” I raise my gun to shoulder-height. “But then I was resurrected as the goddamn anti-Christ… Why did you kill him, Gambino?”

  “I didn’t! I never laid a finger on him!” He’s gibbering and pleading, and pissing his dignity all over the concrete floor.
<
br />   “Don't hang your guilt on semantics, Gambino. I can make this quick or I can make you scream for your mamma at the top of your fucking lungs. That decision rests on the next words that fall from your mouth. Why did you do it?”

  “I was in the car outside the whole time!”

  “Wrong answer.”

  The first bullet makes a dull fleshy sound as it pierces his left thigh. Gambino goes crashing to the ground again, along with more crates of lemons and oranges. A sickly-sweet smell starts mixing up with all the piss, reminding me of a bargain struck for this very moment fourteen years ago.

  His pleading and screaming are bouncing off the mildewed walls in an endless song.

  “Shut up, Gambino. No one’s coming to help you.” I aim the muzzle at his right thigh, smelling metal and savoring victory. The moment is here. The aircraft is hitting the ground and it tastes like the greatest fuck I ever had. Almost as good as my new wife tastes. “Who ordered the hit?”

  “Rossi.” He sobs the name at me as he’s wiping the sweat from his eyes, smearing blood all over himself like the sacrifice that he is. “I don’t know the details. I was a soldato. I’d never seen the other man before in my life. I was given a time and a place, that's it!”

  “Should have paid attention, dickhead.”

  Another dull thud from my gun unleashes more of those piercing screams. “I don’t know anything else! I swear it! I swear it!”

  “Why did you run?”

  “I got scared.” He’s all-out crying like a fat kid who dropped his gelato. “There were rumors Rossi had violated some secret treaty between him and Tommaso Zaccaria by taking the Knights out—”

  “Zaccaria knew exactly where you were,” I snarl back. “He was the one who gave me your location.”

  “I don’t know anything else, I swear! I’m a useless man. I’m not even worthy of your bullets!”

  Near-death is the great revelator. Gambino’s finally grasping what a deadbeat he’s been all his life. As for me, you can only have so much of a good thing. This man isn’t a soldato. He’s not even the dried shit on a soldato’s boot.

  The basement floor is another crimson pool, reflecting shades of history back to me. Everything points to Rossi ordering the hit, so I want him to know I’m onto him. My mind flits to the window display of this pizzichera… That might be one way to get his attention.

  When I fire my third and final bullet right between Gambino’s eyes, I hear my father’s voice again.

  “Wait and hope, son. Wait and hope.”

  One down.

  One to go.

  Chapter Ten

  Issa

  I’m standing on the threshold of my new walk-in closet, frowning at all the clothes I brought with me from Paris. Sophisticated, stylish, with muted tones and expensive fabrics… They belong to another woman, to a good and obedient daughter who always did what she was told and never asked questions. When my father’s men beat me, they must have beaten that part right out of me, too. How else can I explain my newly acquired acid tongue and serpentine-like reactions toward a certain British non-gentleman?

  Still, the realization that I never have to wear a single linen or mocha item again brings the first smile to my lips since he bailed on our wedding night. A new wardrobe will be my disguise. One part of my life will be bursting with life and color, even if the rest of me is balancing on a knife’s edge. Karina used to tease me and say I could see the slivers of light under the door of any dark situation.

  Next to the closet there’s a luxury en suite, lined with white and gray calacatta marble. Forcing myself to face my fears, I melt under the shower for a hot thirty seconds before washing my hair at supersonic speed and wincing as the hot water splashes over my raw and aching skin. I can’t bring myself to look at the damage in the mirror. If I do, I’ll see the true price of betrayal.

  Afterward, I towel-dry my long dark hair and slip into white lingerie and the dress I bought yesterday. Choosing to keep my hair loose, I open up my valise and pull out a small sketchbook and my graphite pencils from the front pocket. It’s the set that Karina gifted to me on my twenty-first birthday last year, and these days it’s more precious than ever. The note that Maxim slipped into my hand yesterday is tucked away beneath the black velvet tray, and I’m feeling a sudden urge to draw white cottages with bright blue shutters, over and over until they become tangible.

  Collapsing onto the bed, I sketch a couple of lines with a 2H, my fingers skimming across the blank cartridge paper until the bare bones of the picture inside my head materializes in front of me.

  I work fast after that, creating fragile connections to a place I can only dream about visiting. I imagine her sitting in a shabby swing seat on a veranda with broken tread boards and a tatty red and white check throw tucked around her legs. The neglect is immaterial when the things that count are there in spades—the smile on her face, and a sense of freedom so animated I want it to dance me round and round an imaginary ballroom, until I’ve spun one for myself. It’s there in the sea breeze rattling the tattered screen door, and in the waves creeping up the beach to greet her.

  She loves roses, so I add trails over all four of the front windows. Plump pink buds with tangled olive-green stems come alive in shades of light gray graphite.

  I work like this for hours, chasing the sun as it moves from one side of my window to the other. My hand keeps cramping up, and I’m reluctant to shake the stiffness out. I don't want to stop drawing. I can’t break the connection, but I don’t have a choice when there’s a sharp rap at the door.

  “Come in!”

  “A little light lunch, madame?” Felix enters my cabin with a tray of fresh fruit, bread and cheese. He places it down on my nightstand and I watch him glance sideways at my sketchbook.

  “Thank you,” I say, turning my drawing face-down on the bed. Awkward.

  Raising his eyebrows, he gestures to the window. “We’re moored up on the edge of Port Pierre Canto, madame. Would you like to see for yourself?”

  I make my way over and I’m momentarily spellbound. The view of the bay of Cannes is like a movie scene. The troughs and peaks of the Esterel Mountains have formed emerald halos around all the pretty white and tan buildings in its foothills.

  “It’s beautiful,” I breathe.

  “Quite.” I catch him giving me strange look. “Mr. Knight informs me that you have a fear of water.”

  “Trust me to be stuck on a yacht, right? I seem to be okay behind glass panes and steel handrails, though.”

  “Are you seasick?”

  “No, thank goodness.” I’m learning to love the gentle rocking motion as passing waves lap against the side of the hull. There’s a strange comfort to it, like the warm nook of a mother’s arms.

  “Perhaps madame would like a walk around the yacht later? It’s a beautiful day outside.”

  Perhaps madame might. I haven’t left my cabin since I arrived and I’m suddenly itching to feel the sun-drenched deck boards beneath my feet.

  “Sounds good.”

  “Then I shall see you outside.”

  Once he’s gone, I drag a brush through my nearly-dry hair, reflecting on the weirdness of our conversation. I’ve grown up with servants all my life, but I’ve never met anyone who gives me the creeps quite as much as he does.

  Grabbing my sketchbook and pencils, I make my way down a corridor that leads to a large saloon area with bleached wood floors and smooth white columns. Beyond the doubles doors is an empty sundeck with a jet-black Jacuzzi, surrounded on all three sides by white couches and smart lines of monochrome parasols, all rippling in the breeze.

  I step into the sunshine and fill my lungs with salty-sweet air, feeling the strength of the sea filter down through my body. Is his decision to live on this yacht all about that sense of freedom again? Is he as trapped by the consequences of life as I am?

  Sinking down onto the nearest couch, I resume my drawing, pausing every so often to lift my face to the patch of sunlight that�
�s fallen in-between a gap in the parasols. The solitary cottage becomes a hamlet of three, the horizon sprouts a line of fishing boats, and there’s another person sitting next to Karina now who—

  “Would you like a drink?”

  Startled, I drop my pencil. It starts rolling toward the sinister black edges of the Jacuzzi. I manage to grab it just before it drops into the water, and then I’m backing away quickly, my stomach churning at the sight of the gleaming, sun-tipped ripples.

  “Pardon-moi,” I croak, clambering back onto the couch. “I didn’t hear you approach.”

  Felix looks as deadpan as ever. “I’m sorry I alarmed you, madame.”

  Madame.

  Madame.

  Madame.

  I glance at my finger and realize I’ve left my ugly engagement ring in my en suite next to the faucet.

  There’s a polite cough. “Drink?”

  “Oh, yes… Um. Juice please.”

  “What kind of juice?”

  “Orange.”

  “Certainly M—”

  “And I’ll have scotch,” interrupts a second voice. This one is deeper and familiar, and bitingly British, as well. “Single malt, on the rocks. The usual.”

  Felix nods at the newcomer and disappears into the saloon.

  “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced.” The man strides over to me, removing his sunglasses, the sheer size of him making me shrink down further into the couch. He’s huge in every sense of the word, filling out the chest and arms of his white dress shirt with solid, unyielding muscle. His short, dark hair is almost military in its neatness and precision, and his penetrating gaze is taking no prisoners.

  He stops in front of me and my mannerly smile drops like a stone. He’s the man from the wedding ceremony yesterday. The one Aiden insisted on as his witness, and who held a gun to Maxim on the steps of the Town Hall.