Untraceable (37 page)

Jonathan simply laughed. “Too bad, Ms.
Moretti,” he began, “but I am afraid you cannot have everything
your wicked little heart desires. She is mine now; you have no say
over what I do with her.”

She started another rampage when he
cut her off.

“
They are dead; all of
them, as I am sure you will also be in a few seconds because I know
he is right beside you and can hear every—”

He paused briefly and then said the
words that made the pace of my heart stutter.

“
Hello Micah.”

“
No Micah, don’t!” I
yelled. My hand dropped to release my seatbelt as I lunged for the
phone. This wasn’t what I’d been planning for an escape, but it
might be my only opportunity. I was grabbing for the phone with one
hand as he tried to push me away and steady the wheel with his
knees; the SUV swerving dangerously into the other lane, but there
wasn’t any traffic in this desolate area. I toppled onto him, but I
could tell, even in the wild struggle over the phone, he was trying
to be careful and not hurt me. We were off the asphalt and skidding
slightly sideways through the grass as we came to stop and hit
against a couple poles in a barbed wire fence. Cattle scattered and
then froze to stare at the vehicle.

He’d ended the call during our battle,
but what I had actually been after, surprisingly enough, he didn’t
notice until I pointed it at his head—I’d grabbed the gun from his
lap.

“
You are not going to
shoot—”

At that moment I blew the driver’s
side window out with a deafening blast. The cattle bolted and
bellowed as the glass showered down like rain. Jonathan wore the
most genuine look of surprise I’d ever seen.

“
The hell I won’t” I
growled. Could I have shot him? No. Did he know that? I doubted
it.

I could only give myself a fraction of
a second to glance at the phone in my hand. One icon caught my eye,
“Puttana.” That had to be Sharon’s number.

“
No!” he stated, trying to
snatch the phone, but when I leveled the barrel at him, he stopped
his advance. What happened next sucked the air from my lungs and
the will-power completely from my spirit. I stared at the screen in
disbelief; tears immediately swelling onto my lashes.

“
You were not supposed to
see that,” Jonathan stated gently. He removed the gun from my hand
without resistance as the sound from the couple on the screen
seemed to fill the tiny space. “
No. God,
please no,”
I choked as I watched Micah
and Sharon’s tangled bodies in a graphic and violent sexual
exhibition.

“
I am sorry Annalisa. Are
you okay?” he asked, his hand gently touching the side of my face.
There was no anger in his voice over what had been my attempted
escape and near shooting of him.

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. My
eyes still fixated on the screen in my hand. He took it away from
me and then smashed it, screen side down, onto the steering wheel,
shattering the display and cracking the phone case nearly in two.
He threw it out the window.

I couldn’t control the sobs that
welled up from inside my chest. His arm was around me as he told me
it would be okay—New York wouldn’t be this difficult. I heard him
crank the vehicle and maneuver back onto the road, but I couldn’t
even lift my head as I lowered my face to the seat and wept the
last of my will-power from my existence.

She’d won.

By the time we boarded the private jet
for New York, I felt numb—a literal physical numbness and an
intangible emotional numbness. I couldn’t stop replaying what I’d
witnessed. Jonathan sat beside me with his arm warmly around my
shoulder and my head pulled against is chest. I think he’d been
talking to me for quite a while, but I hadn’t heard what he was
saying until he rose up and I no longer had someone to lean
against.

He was only gone for a minute or two,
but when he returned he told me to relax as he reclined my seat and
then reclined the seat in front of me. He lifted my legs and placed
my feet and vine-scratched, bloody ankles on the other seat, making
a lounge chair of sorts and then he covered me with a jacket he
borrowed from the pilot.

“
Your pulse is fast and
weak, and your skin is cold,” he stated, holding my hand. “Stop
thinking about it, Annalisa. He is not worth the anguish and shock
you are experiencing. Think about your child’s health.”

I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t cry. I
simply stared at him. I felt an odd sense of detachment, as if I
was somewhere else watching our conversation.

He brought my hand to his lips and
kissed the back of it slowly, “You are safe with me—my word of
honor is given,” he whispered. “Do not be afraid of going to New
York. No one would dare touch you; neither the Capo dei Capi nor I
will allow it. Gavarreen will pay for his—”

“
No,” I stated, finally
finding my voice. “I love him. Don’t let anyone hurt him,
Jonathan—
please
.”
My eyes stung with the need to cry, but my tear ducts felt as if
someone packed them with sand.

“
You should hate
him.”

“
Why? Because I’m
hurt?”

“
You know why; you saw the
video.”

“
I don’t know the
reason.”

“
I am a man—I know the
reason.”

“
Not Micah. He wouldn’t
have—”

“
But he did.”

“
Have you slept with her,
Jonathan?” I had a feeling he didn’t expect that question. His
silence gave me his answer.

He finally smiled, “You are right,
Leese. I am beginning to see a side to myself I never knew existed:
Jonathan has not slept with her, but, yes, Giovanni
has.”

“
Giovanni’s idea or
Sharon’s?”

“
I will say she persuaded
me, but I did not have a reason to refuse—Micah did.”

“
And maybe that’s why he couldn’t,” I stated and then closed
my eyes and rolled away from him onto my side. I wouldn’t open my
eyes again until I heard the wheels touch down in New
York.

CHAPTER twenty-eight

I’m not really sure what I expected
other than perhaps the stereo typical ‘Godfather’ idea. I guess I
was expecting a Marlon Brando type with cotton-thick jowls and gray
receded hair, and a voice like gravel. I think I also expected,
although I’m not sure why after being around Micah’s family, a
dark, seedy, smoke-filled room in the back of a dirty alley, or
perhaps a funeral home, but I was so very wrong.

The moniker outside the modern glass
and steel office building was for the La Parte Del Leone
Investments and Securities Corporation. Our private limousine
pulled into the underground garage and parked beside the
elevator.

Jonathan smiled and squeezed my hand,
“Home.” He seemed to sigh as he uttered the word, as if he truly
was.

“
Don’t tell me Italy was a
lie and all of a sudden you’re going to talk like a New
Yorker?”

He gave a big smile, “No.
I am from Italy and my father
does
own a large Architectural firm. But my
grandfather was very high in the chain of command in the Italian
Mafia. He worked with the Capo dei Capi’s whole family thirty years
ago. He said he had never met a young man so dedicated, careful,
and wise as Leonard Caprizio. He wanted me to learn from the best,
so he sent me here four years ago.”

“
Leonard
Caprizio?”

“
Yes, and I am afraid now
that you know his name, I have to kill you.”

He uttered it completely
straight-faced and emotionless, but I knew that in some strange
sense of mafia humor, he was making a joke. “Very funny,” I stated
with the driest expression possible.

He actually burst into laughter,
finding my ability to understand the joke hilarious, “You two will
get along very well, I am sure.”

I repeated the name once more, softly
and to myself. Why was his name familiar to me? I’d heard it or
something close to it before, but I was certain that Micah had
never uttered it.

Although the two uniformed men
standing on either side of the elevator appeared to simply be
elevator operators/doormen, I quickly figured out they were mafia
guards. This place had all the sharpness of Wall Street, kind of
like walking into Celeste’s office that day in New Orleans; this
was all business—mafia business. We stepped inside and Jonathan
pressed the button for the top floor.

When the elevator opened, we were in a
lavish penthouse with a beautiful view of the financial district. A
tall, muscular man who appeared to be in his mid-to late forties
approached me. He had thick, rich brown hair that showed gray, and
keen brown eyes that revealed he was a quick study of character. He
wore a suit, minus the jacket, and his white sleeves were rolled
back to his elbows. For his age, he was handsome and also, oddly
enough, familiar to me. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I’d
never seen him before in my life, but somehow I felt I knew him.
Immediately, all my fears and apprehensions about this meeting
evaporated and all that was left was curiosity.

“
Annalisa,” he said,
breathing out my name as if he had waited a long time to say it.
“How is your mother?”

“
Pardon me?”

“
You’re so beautiful. Just
like Nadia was when she was your age.”

“
Annalisa Gavarreen,”
Jonathan spoke up, “I would like to introduce you to Leonard
Caprizio, known to his closest friends as
Lee C
.”

“
Leese?”

“
Almost. I never liked Leo
so I chose to use Lee.”

My mouth gapped open, my trembling
hand trying to cover it. “Lee? You’re my… Mom said my dad’s name
was—was—”

I watched his eyes tear as he nodded.
“You mother told me when she found out she was pregnant with you
that if you were a boy she was going to name you Lee and if you
were a girl you’d be Annaleigh—I’m glad she went with Annalisa
instead, but I guess she decided to keep me, at least in memory,
when she nicknamed you Leese.” He took a deep breath and then
started again, “I know how difficult this moment must be for you
because I know how hard it’s been for me all these years, but if
you’ll allow me,” he said, his arms moved hesitantly and then he
paused.

He wanted to hold me, but
I think he realized that I would have every right, and perhaps
every reason, to tell him no—but I couldn’t.
My dad—oh my God—my dad!
“I’ve
wanted to meet you forever!” I said, breaking down in tears and
opening my arms.

I felt his arms around me, my head
tucked against his chest as he kissed my hair and told me he had
loved me and had watched over me since I was little. “I thought I
was doing the right thing,” he said sounding choked. “Your grandpa
asked me to choose; did I want Nadia and you to be pulled into the
mafia lifestyle or did I want to give you something better. He was
a very good man, and I listened to him. I don’t think I’ve ever
respected someone as much as I respected him. He wasn’t in the
Family, but he worked with us to secure business deals. Strongest
man I’d ever met. He had no fear of us, but being a person of his
caliber of integrity, he didn’t need to be afraid. I didn’t want to
leave you or your mother, but I wanted you to have a chance at his
type of life, not mine.”

“
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.