Ruthless: Mob Boss Book One (10 page)

She slipped her feet into the ballet flats. They fit perfectly, just like everything else Nico had sent. Luca handed her a leather jacket.

“You might need this. It’s getting cold.”

“Thank you.” The jacket was too big, but it would keep her warm. She thought she caught Nico’s scent when she put it on, but it was gone a moment later.

He took the gun from his belt. “Let’s go.”

She lowered her eyes to the weapon. “You don’t really need that, do you?”

He seemed to think about it. “Not really, no,” he finally admitted.

“Noted,” she said. “And now I know that I can’t out your little operation here without outing my father, so I don’t think we need the pillowcase either. I’d rather not play games from now on, if it’s alright with you.”

He hesitated before stuffing the gun back under his belt. He covered it with his jacket. “Don’t make me regret it, Angelica.” He leveled his significantly intense blue eyes at her. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

He held open the door, and she stepped through it. They made their way to the stairwell at the end of the hall and walked up the narrow flight of stairs. They emerged on the second floor, right outside the mysterious double doors. A grunt emerged from inside the room, and the floor shook as something crashed from behind the closed doors.

“What is that?” she asked Luca.

He opened a door that led to an alley behind the building. “Gym.”

“A gym?”

He nodded.

It was the last thing she had expected him to say. “Like… a gym where you workout and stuff?”

“That’s the one,” he said. “Come on. We’re going to be late.”

She stepped out into the alley and was relieved to find the waiting SUV empty. No Dante. Just like Nico had promised.

She headed for the back door, but Luca opened the passenger side instead.

“I guess I’ve moved up in the world,” she said drily.

Luca shrugged. “You’re one of us.”

“I will never be one of you,” she snapped, slamming the door closed.

He came around to the driver’s side and started the car, and then they were moving out of the alley and into traffic. It didn’t take long to realize they were in Brooklyn. Interesting. Brooklyn had become a haven for hipsters. Not the location she would have expected as headquarters for one of the country’s most notorious mobsters. Then again, maybe that was the point.

Luca drove around Prospect Park, pulling to a stop in front of a granite and brick archway on Flatbush Avenue. BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDENS was etched into the top of the archway.

“The Botanical Gardens?” Angel said, looking out the window.

Luca nodded. “Nico’s inside. I’ll be waiting right here.”

“But… how will I find him?” She didn’t say the other thing she was saying; why are you trusting me? What makes you think I won’t scream for help? Tell someone what you’re doing to me?

“The park’s been cleared until ten,” Luca said, as if reading her mind. “He’ll find you. Just go through the door there.”

He’ll find you.

As certain as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. She didn’t want to think about the thrill that coursed through her body at the idea of Nico finding her. At the implication that he would always find her.

She stepped from the car, and for a minute, she was giddy with the freedom of it. She was outside. The sky was blue, so blue, and the air was sharp with the perfect crispness of fall.

She heard a hum behind her. When she turned, Luca was watching her through the open passenger window.

“I’m going,” she said, stepping through the archway.

Sidewalks marked a path in either direction, and lush green spaces sprawled like giant carpets dotted with splashes of color. But it was the silence that got her attention. The traffic of the city was muffled in the distance, but the gardens were deserted. It was early November—not exactly prime garden season—but the quiet was still startling.

She looked around for Nico but didn’t see him.

He’ll find you.

She started walking, She had just passed a large open field on her left when she came to the buildings that were used for food service and restrooms. A large INFORMATION sign stood above a closed window. Luca hadn’t been kidding. The whole park had been cleared, and she felt a thrill at the realization of Nico’s authoritative reach. What had it taken?

A bribe? A favor? A threat?

She immediately scolded herself. None of those things should impress her.

She stepped into shade as she neared the end of the low slung buildings that served tourists. A pale yellow building rose into the sky on her left, it’s circular, multi-paned windows staring back at her like giant eyes. She craned her neck as she looked up, following the line of the building to a turret-like structure that seemed to pierce the autumn sky. When she lowered her gaze, Nico was standing in front of her.

Her breath caught in her throat, and her earlier resolve to keep her distance seemed to drift away on the fragrant air of the gardens. He was back in casual clothes, although she wasn’t sure anything really looked casual on Nico Vitale. His gray slacks fit his body like they’d been made for him. Who knows? Maybe they had.

He wore a long sleeve sweater under a black leather jacket, and she suddenly wondered if the one Luca had given her was on loan from Nico. She had to fight the urge to bury her face in it, try to catch his scent again.

For a split second, she was happy to see him. Then she reminded herself that he wasn’t her friend. He was her captor. A criminal of the worst sort.

Like your father.

“Hello,” he said. The greeting seemed all wrong for the way he was looking at her. Like he wanted to eat her whole.

Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

“Hello,” she said.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked.

She nodded.

He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. “Let’s walk then.”

17

They continued on the path in silence at first. She was acutely aware of him next to her, his presence so commanding she had to fight not to lean against him. She kept her eyes forward, reminding herself with every step that she didn’t care about Nico. Wanting him was something different.

Biology. Chemistry. Whatever.

But it didn’t mean anything, and she needed to focus on getting out of the situation alive. That meant finding out all she could about what Nico wanted with her father, about whether he was still alive and what would happen to her if he didn’t come forward.

“You really didn’t know,” he finally said.

“No, I really didn’t.” She felt ashamed saying it aloud. Her ignorance placed her squarely within a group of her peers that she had no desire to be part of; rich kids who never gave a thought to what their parents did for a living as long as the money kept flowing their way. It’s not the way she’d seen herself.

“I trust you understand why it became necessary to tell you.” He didn’t look at her as her spoke.

“Not really. It doesn’t change anything. I have no idea where my father might be hiding. Clearly I don’t know much about him at all.” She sighed. “But that doesn’t mean I wish you hadn’t told me.”

“Yes,” he said. “I suppose it’s good you know, although I wish there had been another way for you to find out.”

“That would have been nice,” she said bitterly.

“Does your brother know?” he asked as they rounded a bend in the walkway.

A circle of hedges ringed in stone lay beyond the pathway. The lawn in the center of the circle had turned brown, the long grass brittle and yellow with the impending winter.

“I don’t know. He’s never said anything.” She looked up at him and forced herself to ask the next question. “Are you going to hurt him?”

“I don’t think that would be very productive.”

For the first time she thought she caught shadows under his eyes. It didn’t make her happy like she would have expected. Instead she wondered if the situation was taking as much a toll on him as it was on her. Whatever he wanted from her father, he must want it badly to hold her hostage. The realization brought to mind another question.

“Isn’t this against the rules?”

He looked down at her, and she felt the same jolt of chemistry flow between them that had been present in his apartment. “What rules?”

“I don’t know… the mob rules?” She laughed a little, even though there was nothing funny about the situation. “Isn’t there some kind of rule against messing with members of someone’s family?”

For a split second, pain flashed across his usually calm features, and she saw such naked loneliness in his eyes that she wanted to cry. It was gone a moment later.

He looked away. “There used to be.”

“Not anymore?” she prodded.

“Not anymore.” He said it softly, and she had the sudden desire to reach out, lay her hand against his cheek.

They came to a wood sign that read SHAKESPEARE GARDEN. Nico stopped, tipping his head at the brick walkway that led to the hidden space.

“Shall we?”

She nodded, and they stepped onto the path. It wound away from the main walkway, leading them into a sheltered garden filled with dead or dying shrubs and flowers. She tried to see it as it must look in the spring and summer, when everything was blooming and fragrant. She’d never been here, and she promised herself that if she got out of this alive, she would take more time to appreciate all the magical things that existed in plain sight but which she’d never bothered to explore.

He stopped walking and plucked something from a nearby bush. When he held it up, she saw that it was a tiny pink flower. A miracle blooming amid the seasonal death and destruction in the rest of the garden.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to pick those,” she said.

He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and placed the flower there. “I do a lot of things I’m not supposed to do,” he said, his voice gruff.

He held her gaze, and her breath seemed to catch somewhere between her lungs and her mouth. He was violent. Dangerous. But beautiful, too. She couldn’t deny it. It took effort to form the question that had been burning in her mind.

“What exactly do you want from my father?”

He dropped his hand, and an indulgent smile touched the corners of his mouth. It was devastating, and she had to work not to look away. Letting him know how much he affected her was a losing strategy, maybe even a deadly one.

“That’s between us.”

He took her hand, leading her deeper into the garden. She didn’t pull away. She told herself it had nothing to do with feel of his slightly rough palm against the smoothness of her skin, with the false sense of protection it gave her. She just wanted to keep him in a conciliatory mood, try to draw him out.

They wound around the path. A fountain, dry and scattered with dead leaves, stood to the side. They continued deeper into the garden, farther from the main walkway. The distant sound of traffic had grown almost silent. Everything else seemed very far away.

“Maybe I can help,” she said, trying to keep the conversation focused on her father, on the things she needed to do to get out alive. “I might know something about what you want from him.”

He stopped walking. “Somehow I doubt that.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Nico.” Using his name felt oddly intimate, and she felt a flush of something like pleasure as she said it. “You let me in on this big secret, tell me I’m one of you, but you won’t tell me what you want so I can do something to help myself. You tell me I’m in danger, that you’ll hurt me if my father doesn’t come through, and then I have no choice but to feel scared and helpless, because you won’t tell me anything else.” She was angry now, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. It felt good to unload all of her pent up anger and frustration. “What do you want from me?”

“I told you; I need to find your father. That’s all you need to know.” His voice was laced with steel, and she had a glimpse of how formidable he must be in his business.

“It isn’t all I need to know! Tell me why you want to find him. Tell me what you want from him.”

“It’s personal,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yeah? Well, it’s personal to me now, too,” she said.

She regretted the words as soon as she said them. She’d been talking about her father. But Nico was right there, his body looming over hers, his chest close enough to touch, and the words suddenly seemed to imply something more.

He reached out, tracing a line from her temple to her chin, his eyes never leaving hers. Rubbing his thumb along her lower lip, his own mouth parted. She wanted to stand on her tip-toes, press her mouth to his, slip her tongue through the opening he had given her.

She didn’t have a chance. A moment later his big hands were on either side of her face. He tipped up her head and lowered his own, covering her lips with his. There was still no tenderness in his kiss. It was all passion.

She still didn’t care.

His tongue probed her mouth, sliding against her own, exploring every recess until she didn’t know where he ended and she began. She moaned in protest as he pulled back, and he nibbled at her bottom lip and went in for more, his hands working their way into her hair as he pulled her closer.

His erection pressed against her stomach, hard as stone, sending a lick of need to her core. She felt herself grow wet as a primal pulse began beating between her legs, calling for him to fill her.

He kissed his way up her jaw and took her earlobe in his mouth, nibbling and sucking until she moaned. His lips trailed down her neck, across her collarbone. He was mapping her, charting a course from which she would never return. Her legs would barely support her weight. She wanted to lay with him right there on the walkway, take the length of him in her hand, guide him inside her.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, he pulled back long enough to lift her into his arms. It hurt not to have his mouth on her, and when his lips founds hers again she sighed into his mouth as he started walking.

He met her sigh with a groan and deposited her on the bench. Then he knelt between her legs and hooked his hands behind her knees. He pulled her down so her ass was at the edge of the bench. She closed her eyes as his hands found her bare ankles, and he slid his palms up her calves, lifting her skirt inch by inch.