Fearless: Mob Boss Book Two (Volume 2) (18 page)

48

She parked along the curb and got out of the car, careful not to pull her stitches. The cemetery was illuminated by a half-moon, and she had a sudden flash of that last moonless night on the beach. She remembered it like it was yesterday; Nico’s hand in hers, his lips brushing her skin like a whisper, the last time she’d felt like everything might be okay.

A week and a lifetime ago.

She walked up a small hill to the marker, still surrounded by flowers from the service earlier that day. She’d been there, of course. Had attended the mass and then continued onto the gravesite with everyone else, watched as black suited men spoke in low tones about the massacre in Los Angeles, about the fate of the Vitale family, the Syndicate.

But she hadn’t looked at the casket. It made everything too real to think of Nico, her Nico, there. She still wasn’t ready to imagine him gone, but she needed to be with him, needed to tell him the things she hadn’t said when he was alive. She would have liked to go to Maine, to walk their beach and look at the lighthouse. But there was too much to be done.

She touched her hand to one of the scarlet roses propped up next to the marker, rubbed the silken petals between her fingers, then lowered herself to the grass. She looked at the words etched into the granite.

Nico Anthony Vitale

Son, Friend, Warrior

November 20, 1986—April 16, 2015

She wished there was a word that encompassed everything he’d been to her; lover, challenger, protector. It was true that he’d been the instrument of her lost innocence, but that would have happened anyway. She was glad it had happened with him. That he’d been there to help her find the way, to teach her that she was stronger than she ever imagined.

Now, finally, she knew who she was.

She plucked the grass around her legs, remembering that last night. Would anything have been different if she’d stayed in the house with Sara? She shook her head. She knew it wouldn’t. She’d been over it a hundred times. Nico only would have died sooner, and she wouldn’t have been able to look into his eyes one last time. She was glad she’d been able to do that. She’d felt his love in that moment, and she had to believe he had felt hers. Believing that made everything worthwhile—the emergency surgery to remove the bullet in her belly, the stitches that would leave scars, David’s PTSD, the hole in her heart.

She would gladly do it all again if it meant Nico had felt her love in the end.

She would live. David would live. Luca was wrecked, but he would live, too.

It was only Nico who was gone. Or the only one gone that they would miss.

She leaned her forehead against the granite marker, let it cool her skin as hot tears leaked from her eyes.

“I love you, Nico,” she whispered. “I’ve loved you since the beginning, will love you forever. You were better than all of us.”

She could still feel him. Could still smell him. Could still conjure his touch, his kiss, the way he looked at her. It hurt so much to remember. She felt like the pain of it would stop her heart cold. But it hurt worse to think there might come a day when she would forget. When Nico’s image would be nothing but a faded memory.

People will tell you who they are if you listen.

Nico had told her who he was from the beginning. She just hadn’t been listening close enough. He’d been a man who loved her with his whole heart. Who would compromise everything he worked for, everything he believed in, for her.

A man who would die for her.

She swiped at her tears, touched her fingertips to her lips and pressed them against the valley of his name, fought the sobs shaking her body. He’d told her who he was. Had shown her.

Now it was time for her to show him.

49

Her heels clicked on the marble floor of the Prudential building as they made their way past the guard desk to the elevator; Luca in front of her, Elia and Marco on either side.

They got into the elevator. Luca pressed the button for the forty-eighth floor, and they rose upward in silence. She surveyed her reflection in the mirror without emotion. It should have been strange to see herself in the slim gray skirt, the blood red jacket over the white blouse, the heels that gave her an extra four inches. Her hair was pulled back into a neat chignon, her makeup understated but polished enough to make her look a couple years older than her twenty-five years. But it was her eyes that had changed the most. They were still green, only now there was something hard and flinty in them, and she remembered Nico’s animal eyes, the danger she’d seen lurking there the first time she’d seem him.

The elevator slowed to a stop. She caught sight of the gun holstered under Luca’s suit jacket as he maneuvered in front of her and knew Marco and Elia were similarly armed. It reassured her, but not because she was scared for herself. They had made her unbreakable. Nothing they could take from her would hurt as much as losing Nico.

Now she could survive anything.

The elevator doors slid open, and Luca led the way into the lobby of Rossi Development. The receptionist stood, her mouth open in alarm as they bypassed her desk. Then they were walking down the long hallway Angel remembered from the last time she’d been there.

She opened the double doors to her father’s office as Luca, Elia, and Marco continued next door to the office occupied by Frank. She could hear Frank’s protests as she made her way around her father’s desk. She couldn’t tell what he was saying, but he was obviously agitated, and a moment later she heard the wet thwack of a hard a punch. A few seconds later, Elia and Marco dragged Frank past the open door of her father’s office.

Her office now.

She stood at the desk, ran her hands along the leather blotter. Frank was just the beginning. The men had a long list of people who would experience similar exits—both from the legal and illegal arms of the Rossi businesses. The three men would stay with her in Boston until they’d cleaned house. Angel would work until every one of the people responsible for Nico’s death, every single person who had turned on him, paid with their lives.

Then she would burn the whole operation to the ground. New York, too. Nico deserved a better legacy. She would give it to him.

She sat at the chair behind her father’s desk, took a deep breath.

How far would you go to protect the ones you love?

Not too long ago, she hadn’t known the answer. Now there was another part to the question; how far would you go to avenge the ones you love? As she leaned forward in her father’s chair and reached for the phone, she finally knew the answer.

As far as it took.

HATE CLIFFHANGERS? READ AHEAD FOR A SNEAK PEEK OF LAWLESS, THE FINAL INSTALLMENT OF THE MOB BOSS TRILOGY, OUT OCTOBER 22, 2015.

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Lawless (Mob Boss Book Three)

1

Angel Rossi opened her eyes all at once, fighting disorientation in the moment before she remembered where she was; the sofa in her office—formerly her father’s office.

It wasn’t unusual for her to sleep a couple of hours on the sofa and then work until morning when she would run home for a shower and change of clothes. In the four months since she’d taken over her father’s businesses—and the Syndicate’s Boston territory—she’d spent almost every waking hour at Rossi Development.

She stretched on the sofa and checked her phone. Two am, which meant she’d been dozing for almost three hours. She would need to work through the night to finish auditing the financials on the offshore company that looked to be an off-the-books payroll service for the crooked cops who worked for her father.

She wondered if Luca was still in the office next door. He’d been her almost constant companion since Nico’s death, but she knew he missed Sara in New York, even if he thought he was being slick about keeping his feelings for her under the radar. Angel would have to send him back soon. Allow him to run New York properly, the way Nico had intended when he’d appointed Luca Underboss before his death.

Nico…

She shouldn’t have worried that she would forget him. She could see his face as clearly as if she’d seen him yesterday, could still feel his hands on her naked body, his breath against her hair when he pulled her close in the middle of the night. He was as real as ever, and sometimes the permanence of his absence hit her out of the blue, the worst kind of surprise. She would double over then, heaving, gasping for air, sure the blood was turning to sludge in her veins, that her heart was slowly coming to a stop without him.

She was always surprised when she woke up, still breathing, the next morning. She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other even when it seemed impossible. It was what Nico would want, and she focused with obsessive single-mindedness on remaking her father’s empire—and plotting revenge against the people who had supported Dante in his bid to oust Nico.

Raneiro had come to visit shortly after she’d removed Frank Morra. The head of the Syndicate had been impassive as he’d quizzed her about her plans for the Boston territory. She wasn’t fooled. Possession was nine-tenths of the law, but she knew he had concerns. Her father hadn’t intended for her to take over when he died, hadn’t even bothered to tell Angel about his business with the Syndicate. She knew what Raneiro was thinking.

What does this girl think she’s doing? She’s in way over her head.

It might have been true in the beginning, when she’d been driven more by fury than ambition. But her anger had fueled a sustained determination to dismantle the machine that had taken Nico from her and ruined her chances of having a normal life. That had traumatized David to the point that he could hardly leave the brownstone even now, months after Dante kidnapped him and cut off two of his fingers in an effort to gain control of the New York territory.

Dante had been the instrument, but he hadn’t been alone. Men had defected from every family in the months before Nico’s death. All of them had worked with Dante in one capacity of another. Offered him help, support, resources. She had made it her mission to destroy every one of them.

She was learning the books at Rossi development inside and out. Learning where the money was hidden, how it was laundered. Learning which cops were on the payroll, which men had aided her father in the murder of Nico’s parents. And now she knew who was involved in the most despicable of the Syndicate’s income streams—child pornography, human trafficking, bad loans to people who were already down on their luck, identity theft of innocent people.

She was slowly picking at the threads that would unravel everything.

She sat up as something rustled nearby. Was it outside the office? The janitors usually didn’t come until later, and everyone else was gone except Luca. He rarely left her alone, and when he did go back to the apartment he was renting downtown, he made sure Marco or Elia had eyes on her. It had been disconcerting at first, but she’d gotten used to it. After what happened in Los Angeles, she didn’t trust anyone, and she needed to stay alive long enough to finish the job she’d started and make sure David was back on his feet.

She heard the sound again, then saw something shift out of the corner of her eye. She stood, heart pounding, and reached for the gun she’d set on the coffee table before she’d gone to sleep. She’d rejected David’s suggestion that she might have PTSD, too. That she could benefit from counseling. She’d gone to the shooting range instead, hired an instructor, practiced until she had a ninety percent kill ratio at seventy-five feet.

She scanned the office, her eyes coming to rest on a shadowy figure leaning against the wall across from her.

She raised the gun, thumbed off the safety. “I suggest you identify yourself,” she said. “Unless you’d like your DNA to do it for you.”

The figure stepped forward, arms raised in surrender, hands empty. But that was all easy to register, easier than the face that slowly came into view in the faint light spilling from the lamp on the desk.

She shook her head. “It… It can’t be.”

He stepped closer, and she was assaulted by the smell of him, the scent of leather and soap and something else now. Pine?

He gently took the gun from her hand and set it back on the coffee table. Then he met her gaze, and she knew it was true. His face was thinner, but it was him, the amber eyes piercing hers in the darkness, the set of his shoulders as uncompromising as ever under his white T-shirt and a familiar leather jacket.

He touched his knuckles to her face, ran them gently down her cheek, his eyes locked on hers. She couldn’t breathe, didn’t dare move. She registered with detachment that her face was wet, tears streaming from her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Angel,” he said.

She lifted a hand and cracked it hard across his face.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Since beginning this journey with Ruthless, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet countless people who have supported me in ways big and small.

Special thanks go to friend, mentor, and author M.J. Rose, who continues to light the way by supporting and encouraging countless writers with her own special brand of kindness and innovation. I don’t know where I would be without her, and without AuthorBuzz, who gave Ruthless the push it needed to land in the hands of so many readers its first month.

Much gratitude to all the romance writers in the Indie community who have gone before me and have shared information on covers, formatting, readership, and marketing. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a more generous group of people. It feels in many ways like coming home.

Thanks to Caitlin Greer for her beautiful formatting, and to Laura Benson for line editing, both of which had to occur on a very tight deadline. You guys have the patience of saints!

Thanks also to Isabel Robello for my gorgeous covers (and for also being patient when I change my mind—I’m sensing a theme here). Can’t wait to get started on covers for the next series!

Thank you to Kenneth, Rebekah, Andrew, and Caroline, who graciously gave up a lot of summer fun so I could get the Mob Boss books out on time, and who cheerfully listen to me talk about characters, plot summaries, deadlines, and marketing. It’s pretty awesome when your kids care enough to ask, “How’s the book doing, Mom?”

And of course, my biggest thanks of all go to you, dear reader, for taking a chance on my books, rooting for Nico and Angel, spreading the word, reviewing online, and warming my heart with your enthusiasm and support. I mean this in the most literal sense possible…

I couldn’t do it without you.