Forbidden Kiss (4 page)

“Seems like you’re paying for a lot of services lately. Too bad you aren’t getting your money’s worth.” If his barb found a mark through Mascaro’s treacherous skin, it didn’t show.

“I don’t know what you’re referring to, but if you’re smart, you’d heed my advice before this thing gets any uglier. Stay away from the Casales.” Rapping his knuckles on the railing with a departing sound, Mascaro started to turn away.

“It will get mean, my friend. But don’t worry, you’ll see me coming,” he said with a deadly emphasis, letting Mascaro know it wouldn’t be a dark alley, but full out sunlight when Rom came for him.

Mascaro’s control snapped. Cold calculation narrowed his dark eyes and his features pulled together in a mean sneer. “Is that a threat? Because I’d be careful issuing threats against a lawyer.”

Rom ignored the question. “Jule doesn’t like you. Stay away from her.”

He left the fuming attorney in the foyer and made his way up the stairs. Jule stood in an open doorway, her face worried.

“What did he say to you?”

“Nothing important.”
Only that he plans to sleep with you and he paid your father for the privilege.

“Pio’s not my uncle and he’s not the kind of a man you want to mess with,” caution thickened her voice.

“Neither am I.”

Chapter Five

Pausing with his hand on the brass door-pull of Carl’s Bar, Rom listened to the surrounding street noise. The “EL” train rattled across its ancient track a few blocks over, and steam hissed up through the grated vents of the city’s sewer system.

In between the squish of tires on wet asphalt and the random foot traffic flowing in and out of bars on the street, he’d picked up the steady sound of a tail.

And they weren’t very discreet about it. The scuff of heavy work boots rasped against grit covering the sidewalk.

Crossing the threshold into Carl’s, Rom took a quick look up and down the street. Nothing. His tail had paused, probably scuttling into a shadowed doorway.

Ben sat at the end of the polished mahogany bar watching a soccer game on the wall-mounted television. The ashtray next to his right hand was full of squashed cigarette butts and cold ashes. He’d been there a while.

“I hope a girl made you late,” Ben said as Rom approached, his eyes still glued to the TV.

Rom straddled the barstool, nodding at Carl behind the bar. “As a matter of record, it
was
a woman.” He checked the score in the upper left-hand corner of the TV screen.

USA 0, Mexico 0.

“Good game?”

“Sure, if you can stand to watch it on TV instead of the sidelines,” Ben said sarcastically, cramming another cigarette butt into the ashtray. “But let’s not talk about me. Tell me about the girl.” He threw Rom a look as he lifted a fresh smoke to his mouth and motioned for Carl to bring him another whiskey.

“Don’t settle in for a good story, Ben. There isn’t one.”

“The hell there isn’t. I’ve never known you to be late for a meeting because of a woman.” He punctuated his remark with a long exhale, smoke curling around his head on its way to the ceiling.

“I suppose then, there’s a first time for everything.” Rom kept an eye on the door as it swung open and a young couple came in out of the cold. Their breath frosted as they shed coats in the dark vestibule, looking through to the crowded bar.

“So what’s the story? Are you two going out?”

“No.” Rom almost laughed. Even if she didn’t bear the name Casale, the woman was taboo. If only because she was the poster child for big, dysfunctional Italian families. A woman like her would never be content with his solitary lifestyle.

“But you like her?”

Rom gave Ben a look that had his
old
friend watching the TV again, his eyes glued to the screen with renewed, if not coerced interest.

After several moments, he gave Ben a break. “Maybe. Maybe I like her a little.”

Ben’s head turned amid a cloud of smoke. “Well, crap. That’s more than I’ve gotten out of you in ten years. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up and realize life isn’t over. You’re rich, smart, not bad to look at if you like dark and brooding—which, hey, don’t get me wrong, lots of women do.”

“Ben, shut up.”

Rom hid his smile by watching the door.

“You just need to make up your mind that women don’t equal doom. They can be fun, you know. Loads of fun if you give ‘em a chance.”

What could he tell Ben? He’d met a hardheaded, beautiful woman he wanted to protect? And maybe cherish a bit?

But, ah hell, little things stood between them, like her father trying to kill him and the fact she claimed to know Juliet’s dagger. Impossible.

He knew it. Christ, even she knew it.

The knife had never,
ever
been out of his possession.

So why did he have the sinking feeling she told the truth? He’d looked into her eyes and seen her honesty. Either Jule Casale had lost her mind. Or Rom had. Or…

“What’s your take on reincarnation?” He voiced the thought to Ben before he talked himself out of it.

Ben looked sideways at Rom, his whiskey halfway to his lips. He didn’t even blink. “After what I know about you, pal, I’d say anything’s possible.”

Rom continued to watch the door for lack of anything else to do. Old instincts proved hard to break.

He didn’t like where his thoughts headed. He didn’t believe in reincarnation. He wouldn’t even believe in immortality, if he weren’t living it.

“The rebirth of old souls. Sounds a little too mystic for me,” Rom said smiling, trying to dispel his own bad mood.

“Hey, if I were you, I wouldn’t knock the mystic thing. You might suddenly be turned into a frog or something.”

Rom chuckled. Ben was his oldest friend. At the moment, his only friend. “So tell me what you know about Mascaro and Casale.”

Swiveling on his stool, Ben faced him, all business. “Mascaro’s good. A highly sought after corporate lawyer in the business for twenty-five years, but one that takes few new clients.”

“Why?” Rom asked.

“He doesn’t need to. His established clients keep him busy. But the interesting thing is
when
he takes new clients.”

Rom thought of Casale standing in his living room. Tired, old and desperate to belong to Mascaro’s club of prestige and wealth.

“When his old clients run out of money,” he finished Ben’s thought.

“You got it,” Ben said, turning back to the soccer game as the U.S. made a kick for the goal. “So the question is, why’s he still representing Casale? He’s broke.”

Rom knew why. “Casale has something Mascaro wants.”

Ben lifted an eyebrow in curiosity, but kept his focus. “Casale was a real estate giant who had the golden touch during much of the last two decades, but overextended himself on too many speculative real estate deals. When the bubble finally burst, he was left with mortgaged properties, no income and no way to leverage them. Now everything Casale touches turns to mud. No one will work with him, his credit is shot, and it’s rumored he’s in league with some very unethical businessmen.”

Rom had bought a warehouse, the one now lying in smoking ruins, from Casale last year. It was one of the dozens of historic structures along the river that developers were converting to loft living and galleries. This particular one however, Rom’s warehouse, Casale and his boys had used in a brownfield cleanup scam, milking local, state, and federal governments for tens of millions of dollars. Money that was long gone, poured into some other immoral and probably illegal deal Casale was hoping would rebuild his fortune.

Rom had uncovered the fraud when he did his own environmental assessment. He didn’t turn Casale over to the Feds—provided the foolish bastard actually did the environmental cleanup he’d committed to.

But he’d underestimated Casale and five people had died for it. The way it played out in the local media, Rom’s warehouse had been burglarized and sabotaged—the perps an unfortunate victim of their own crime.

The front door swung open again. Three men walked in, the two in back pausing as the lead looked around the bar.

He locked eyes with Rom.

With their target identified, the group moved as one to the far end of the bar. Right for Rom.

Reluctantly, he faced them.

The front man slowed, standing a few feet away while the other two flanked his back. He was dressed casually in jeans and a large flannel coat with a stocking cap pulled low over his eyes. His thick arms hung loose at his side, his giant hands curled into fists, emphasizing considerable knuckles.

The two in rear weren’t as large, shorter and leaner than Rom, but they had the same hard edge as the front man.

Shades of another time, another family brawl echoed through his head. Words like fate, reincarnation, and destiny rolled around.

“Which asshole is Montgomery?” the man with the large knuckles snarled, his dark eyes shining like polished glass in the dimly lit bar.

“Who the hell are you?” Ben asked over his shoulder. Always the articulate lawyer.

Knuckles leaned in towards Rom, grabbing the lip of the bar with a skull-crushing grip while he lodged a booted heel on the bottom rail. “Jule Casale is a good girl. Stay away from her.”

“Why?”

The question confused Knuckles. Imagine that.

“You’re bad news and she’s had enough of that lately. So do yourself a favor and stay far away,” he commanded, the two in rear moving in close.

Ah, the divorce. Her ex must have been a bastard.

“I’m bad news?” Rom questioned. “Have you met her family?” The air around the trio crackled with anger. He’d struck a nerve. Make that a vein.

“I’m guessing from your dumb looks, you are family,” Rom purposely crank started tempers.

“Easy, Rom. We can do this somewhere else,” Ben said cautiously.

But why? Rom felt like beating a little sense into these unfortunate messengers. It’d help take the edge off his run in with Mascaro. And besides, he didn’t take well to be warned off.

“What do you know about the Casales?” Knuckles hissed, clearly offended and ready to tear Rom’s head from his shoulders. “Nothing!”

“I know what everyone knows, man. If you do business with that family, you better watch your back and count your money twice.”

Knuckles blew up. He grabbed Rom’s shirtfront and tried to swing him off the barstool. Rom wasn’t moving, not while Ben sat behind him.

With Knuckles off balance and his arms extended, Rom shoved him hard, forcing him back into the arms of his brothers.

“Cool it guys, or Carl will call the police,” Ben shouted from beside Rom. Rom spared a glance for Carl, who was standing as far away from the phone as he could get.

So much for the kindness of strangers.

Knuckles pushed away from the other two, stepping forward into Rom’s personal space again. “Keep your fucking hands off my sister,” he shouted, his face contorted in rage.

So that was it. Casale—correction—Mascaro more likely, had set the brothers on him for being seen with their sister.

“Or what?” Rom retorted.

“We’ll fuck you up.”

“Keep making threats like that. We’ve got plenty of witnesses to testify when your butt ends up before the judge, boy,” Ben used his courtroom voice to cut through the hostility.

Knuckles paused. “Yeah, we can also tell the judge this asshole has been harassing our sister. We have witnesses, too.”

“Who? Mascaro?” Rom asked. “Why don’t you ask him what his interest in Jule is? He seemed pretty intent in keeping her all for himself.”

“You fucker!” Knuckles yelled. He swung a volleyball sized fist at Rom’s head, missing by inches as Rom sidestepped to the right.

As his gaze swept to the side, Rom noticed Ben was gone. Hopefully somewhere out of the way.

Stepping into Knuckles, he grabbed his throat and squeezed the pulse points with enough force to make him to go slack-jawed. Knuckles clawed at his hand, but Rom clutched his groin in the other, incapacitating Jule’s brother.

He shot a warning look to the others. “Back off, or he loses the ability to have children.”

He leaned in close to Jule’s brother, almost feeling sorry for the idiot. He could understand defending family, if it was anyone else’s.

“If you want to do this, we can go out back,” Rom’s voice was quiet and low despite the music playing from the front of the bar.

He felt the muscles in Knuckles’s neck working, but no sound came out. He loosened his grip.

“Fuck you, Montgomery.”

He threw Knuckles backwards. The other two were immediately on him. The first furrowed a punch up under his ribcage while the second lunged in an attempt to topple him.

He remained on his feet, but barely.

“BREAK IT UP!” a voice yelled from across the bar. Rom looked up to see two cops headed in his direction.

He forced the two younger Casales back as the cops made their way to the end of the bar. They withdrew and stood sullen.

After one look at the Casales, the older cop, obviously a veteran, spat. “This is the third time I’ve been called to a scene where you guys are causing trouble. I don’t even want to hear it. I’ve warned you twice and now I’m going to haul your asses in.”

Frowning down at Knuckles, the cop shook his head. “Angelo, you don’t learn, do you? What’s your father gonna say this time?”

Angelo ignored the cop and stared icily at Rom. Two additional cops, apparent backup, joined the huddle and helped pick Angelo up off the floor.

The older cop’s partner disappeared to a hallway beyond the bar.

“You’ve got to stop getting your balls in a bunch over every bad word said about the family,” the gray haired veteran said.

The cop gripped Angelo’s elbow and led him to the front door, but Jule’s brother pulled away before leaving, facing Rom one last time.

“If I hear of you messing with Jule again, I’m going to pay you a visit.”

The cop slapped Angelo upside the head, ringing his ear. Angelo tensed, but kept his hands to himself. “Not tonight you don’t. Now move it.”

Angelo went quietly, his brothers following behind.

Ben emerged from the back hallway, pocketing his phone as the other cop trailed in his wake.

“If you want to press charges we can follow them to the station,” Ben said, gesturing to the last cop leaving the bar.

“I don’t. Let’s drop it.” Since Jule had shown up on his doorstep, his night had gone to hell. Shades of another woman turning his world upside down danced at the edge of his thoughts.

Once the bar cleared of cops and Casales, Ben rejoined Rom at the bar. Rom stared hard at Carl, who busied himself at the other end, cleaning glasses and avoiding any unwanted questions. He looked up for the score on the TV, only to find the game over. Mexico had won, 1-0.

“You want to tell me about this girl? The one with the old soul?” Ben asked for a second time that night, all traces of humor gone with the Casales.

Rom swiped Ben’s unfinished whiskey, downing its contents. Setting it quietly back in front of Ben, he looked over at his friend.

“What can I say? She’s Casale’s daughter.”