Vendetta: A DeLuca Family Novel (The DeLuca Family Book 2) (3 page)

“A-line for sure, something that flows. The wedding is at the end of April and I’ll probably be big as a house by then,” Mia said rubbing her belly.

The woman blinked, looking from Mia’s belly to her face and back again. “I see,” she said critically. “Well, that’s very short notice; most dresses we sell are custom to order. Usually, a bride picks out her dress anywhere from six to twelve months in advance. Along with the quick alterations you’ll need leading up to the wedding, it might be difficult to find what you’re looking for
here
.”

Oh, hell no.

I was about to jump in and give this judgmental bitch a piece of my mind when Mia spoke up, ice dripping from her words as she addressed the attendant.

“What’s your last name Helen?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry, did I fucking stutter? What is your motherfucking name?” Mia’s voice was steady but she was livid.

Oh shit, there’s a lot of white in this room. It’d be a bitch for our cleaner to take care of a mess in here.

Helen stiffened and looked down her nose at Mia. “I really don’t think— “

“I didn’t ask you to think, you fucking cunt! I asked you what your fucking last name is!” she screamed, advancing on the woman.

“J-Jones,” she stuttered, taking a step back.

Hearing the commotion, another woman rushed to the front of the store. “Is there a problem?” the younger woman asked, her eyes round as saucers as she took in Mia’s aggressive posture and the trembling older woman in front of her.

“Yes,” Mia said. “This woman was incredibly rude and disrespectful to me and my friend.”

“I’m terribly sorry, what can I do?” the younger woman asked.

“Nothing…” Mia said, waiting for her to introduce herself.

“Amanda,” she said hurriedly.

“You don’t need to do anything, Amanda. I’m handling it,” Mia said without breaking eye contact with Helen as she pulled out her phone.

She snapped a picture of the startled woman, fiddled with her phone a bit and put it to her ear. “Angelo? I just sent you a picture. Her name is Helen Jones. Get on the phone with the owner of…” she leaned over and caught sight of the sign on the front desk, “La Rouge Boutique and have her fired,” she demanded. There was a pause, then, “I don’t give a fuck if you have to buy the motherfucking store to do it. Get. It. Done.” Mia ended the call and turned back to Helen, “You might as well pack up your shit now. You’ll be unemployed within the hour.”

“W-what? W-who are you?” Helen asked.

“I’m the future Mrs. Carlo DeLuca,” Mia said haughtily, and then as if a switch had been flipped, she turned to Amanda with a sweet smile. “I’m looking for an A-line dress, something flowy.”

“O-Of course, I’ll pull a few things for you. Follow me,” Amanda stuttered.

Holy fuck. Mob Queen bridezilla is a million times scarier than the shit they play on those reality shows.

“
I
come bearing money
,” Leo said as he walked in and set a duffle bag on my desk. We were in my office at the hotel where all my enforcers brought the loan payments in to be counted and recorded.

“Everyone paid?” I asked, opening the bag and starting to sort the bills. I had a process with my men. They’d bring me the cash and wait while I counted and recorded all the payments. If they were short we’d find out together. That way no one was even tempted to skim off the top.

“Sacks gave us a little action but we got what was due,” he said getting comfortable in the chair on the other side of my desk.

“What kind of action?” I asked, more curious than worried. Sacks was a skinny little dickhead who was almost always into us for at least a couple grand, and as soon as he was paid up, he couldn’t wait to borrow again. The guy had a serious gambling problem.

“Tried to slip out the back at Casa, but Michael was there waiting. Didn’t take much convincing before he coughed it up,” Leo said with a smile. I nodded my approval.

“You and Michael working well together?” I asked as I placed a stack of twenties in the bill counter. Matty, Leo’s old partner, had been laid up after the warehouse explosion a few months ago and wasn’t up to chasing around people that owed money quite yet. I put him with Michael, Gina’s father, thinking both of them might learn a thing or two, and I was right. Since they’d started working together, they’d become one of my best collection teams.

“Really good, actually. He’s kind of old school but some of his tricks still work,” he grinned.

“Good. Here,” I said, handing him a piece of paper as I finished recording the last payment.

“What’s this?” he asked looking at the single name and amount due on the paper.

“Franco. He’s been dodging the other guys for a few weeks now. Need a fresh set of eyes on him; it’s time for him to pay up—either cash or flesh.”

“Got it,” Leo responded, nodding in understanding, his face finally turning serious.

Yeah buddy, this is a big deal, better start fucking acting like it.

“Dismissed,” I said. I looked back down to the ledger and noted I still had two more deposits expected to come in before the end of the day.

My phone buzzed on the desktop and I picked it up to see a text message from Angelo.

Angelo: Next time, you get wedding duty

Me: What did she do this time?

Angelo: Couldn’t just complain about a rude employee, made me make an offer on the fucking store so she could fire the lady herself

Me: You’re joking

Angelo: Wish I was

Me: Still, not taking on your babysitting duty

Angelo: At least your girl is behaving

Me: Not my girl

Angelo: Yeah okay

I locked my phone and slammed it down on my desk with more force than I’d meant to. Frankie wasn’t my girl—never really had been—but that had been my own stupid mistake. I had no one to blame for the one that got away but myself. Shaking my head, I tried to focus on the ledger in front of me, but it was useless. The numbers on the page blurred into memories I’d long since locked away.

I
was finally home
after nearly two years of weekly letters and sporadic satellite calls home; I was finally standing in my childhood home surrounded by practically everyone I knew. Friends and family packed wall to wall into our tiny townhouse drinking and eating. Some girls I remembered vaguely from high school were dancing in the middle of the room.

Everyone was there to welcome me back from my first overseas tour, I should feel grateful that so many people wanted to celebrate with me, but I felt trapped. The press of bodies all around me, laughter filling my ears, and all I wanted to do was lock myself in my old bedroom and be alone. Well, maybe not completely alone.

Frankie had written to me every week, sometimes with news about what was going on back at home while I was stuck in the middle of nowhere, sometimes questions about what I was doing. I’d looked forward to her letters, even the ones that were just a single page, telling me what they’d eaten for dinner and about the exams she was studying for. Seeing her messy handwriting scrawled across the page was comforting.

I wrote her back, but not as often as she wrote to me. There wasn’t a lot to tell her about, at least not a lot I
could
tell her. If I let her know just how dangerous things really were she’d lose her mind with worry, and I didn’t want that. I didn’t want any of them to worry; it was useless. Their concern wouldn’t make me any safer. It was up to me and the men in my unit to worry about IEDs and insurgents—not the people we left at home. I didn’t tell her about the roadside bombs, the snipers, or the active shooters. Even thousands of miles away I was protecting her, the same as always.

Instead, I wrote to her about the crappy food and the fine layer of dust-like sand that covered everything out in the desert. I told her about the characters in my unit. Hooch, the awkward hillbilly from West Virginia, who would tell us stories about his great granddaddy who still made moonshine up in the mountains. Ortiz, the consummate ladies’ man, who had seven different women from his home town sending him care packages and nude pictures to ‘keep his spirits up’. Tarzan, the resident jokester of our group, and the time he got extra duty for 45 days after running naked around camp yelling ‘the red coats are coming’ at the top of his lungs.

I painted the picture of a bunch of guys out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do to pass the time but act like idiots, which was partially true. There was enough down time for us to swap stories and basically act like the 20-something guys we were. There were plenty of times though, when shit got serious fast and those same men completely transformed in the span of seconds. One minute someone was dancing around with a pair of skivvies on his head making us all laugh and the next he was assembling his rifle and donning his gear ready to be the soldier he’d been trained to be.

A group of people to my right burst out laughing, pulling me from my thoughts. Scanning the room, I caught sight of her by the back door talking to some guy that I’d gone to school with and my blood started to heat. I didn’t like the way his head was bent close to hers, and I definitely didn’t like the way his hand came up to move a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

Not. At. All.

Setting my beer down on the side table, I pushed my way through the crowded room a little more forcefully than was probably necessary. Coming up behind her I placed a hand on her small shoulder and glared at the guy. I couldn’t remember his name, but I knew he was a couple years younger than me—maybe Eddie’s age—it really didn’t matter. What mattered was he knew she was off limits. His eyes widened when he saw me standing there, and he made up some excuse about getting a refill, even though his cup was clearly full, before taking off for the backyard.

Frankie swiveled around, her mouth practically hanging open in shock.

“What’d you do that for?” she asked incredulously.

I glared down at her, my jaw set. She was so small compared to me, especially since I’d filled out quite a bit while I was away. She’d filled out too, I’d noticed, but in a completely different way. She was still petite, but the cut-off shorts and tank top she wore left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

“Come here,” I grumbled, taking her hand and pulling her up the stairs and into the hallway away from the party.

“Ouch! Shit, Enzo. What the fuck?” she complained once I released her.

“Stay away from that guy,” I growled, knowing full well that I had no right to demand anything from her, but I couldn’t help the possessive instinct I’d felt when I saw her talking to him.

“Why? We were just talking,” she said, her brows furrowed in confusion.

“Bullshit! He was trying to get in your pants,” I said, raking my eyes down her body and back up again before continuing, “what little of them there’s left, that is. Jesus, why don’t you go put on some fucking clothes?”

“Excuse me? There is nothing wrong with what I’m wearing. Why are you being a fucking asshole right now?” she asked, punctuating her question with a shove to my shoulder.

I could feel my jaw tick with anger. “Every guy down there has been eye-fucking you all goddamn night, and I’m sick of fucking watching it. Go put on some clothes so I don’t have to fucking kill someone, okay?” I ground out through gritted teeth.

She blinked up at me in shock, then she burst out laughing. I waited, stunned as she continued to laugh, going as far as to bend over and hold her stomach. “Oh my God,” she breathed, when she’d finally caught her breath again. “You almost had me going there for a minute. Jesus, Enzo, you have the overprotective big brother thing down, but you can stop now,” she said, patting my chest before turning to walk away.

That just pissed me off. My arm shot out and hooked around her middle pulling her back toward me before I backed her into the wall, stepping in close and invading her space.

“I am not your brother,” I growled an inch from her face.

Her eyes widened and her cheeks started to burn. “I know, I just meant— “

“I know what you meant, and you’re wrong,” I said bending my head closer to hers. Frankie’s breath caught when I placed my hands on her hips. “Franny—“ I started, but was interrupted by a voice at the end of the hall.

“Frankie, your mother wants you,” Eddie’s strained voice called out. I jerked my head up and immediately took a step back, letting my arms drop to my sides.

What the fuck was I doing?

Eddie was staring hard at us. No, he was staring at Frankie, like he was pissed about something. None of us said anything for a long uncomfortable minute, and then Frankie broke the semi-standoff, squeezing past Eddie and rushing down the stairs. I watched her go and dread filled my stomach. I had a feeling I’d just seriously fucked up.

I
stood still
as a statue watching them. He had his hands on her hips, their heads pressed together and I wanted to kill him. The rage built in my body, crawling up my limbs, and the buzzing in my head increasing. It was wrong. She was mine. He didn’t get to touch her.

“Frankie, your mother wants you,” I said, my voice coming out strangled with thinly-veiled anger.

Enzo’s head snapped up, and he took an automatic step away from Frankie, his arms falling to his sides. I watched as her face fell for just a moment at the loss of his touch before she fixed her expression to neutral. My eyes bore into her; I was sure she could feel the fury in my gaze. She held my eye for just a moment before casting a cursory glance at Enzo out the corner of her eye and squeezing past me towards the living room.

Her arm brushed against mine, and the tropical scent from the lotion she wore filled my nostrils, causing my eyes to involuntarily close for a moment. I knew exactly which scent she used; I knew everything about her. I’d watched her, memorizing every detail. In the past two years since Enzo had left, my fantasies had gotten more vivid and detailed, and my compulsion to watch her—to fill every moment with her—had become impossible to ignore.

“What are you doing?” I spit out harshly.

Enzo’s head drew back in shock at my tone and his eyes narrowed on me. “What do you mean?”

“Why were you touching her? You don’t get to do that. You’re leaving again. Are you trying to make it harder on her?”
Guilt
. Guilt always worked on people, especially the weak ones. It was the easiest way to get someone to do what you wanted. I’d learned long ago that too many people cared too much about what other people thought and guilt was one of the strongest and easiest emotions to play upon.

Enzo’s face hardened. “It’s none of your business, Eddie,” he said angrily and went to walk past me, but I stepped in front of him, blocking his path.

“It
is
my business; I’m the one that has to pick up the fucking pieces!” I seethed.

“It’s only two more years,” Enzo argued, glaring down at me.

“Then she goes off to college. Are you going to follow her? Or convince her to stay home? That’s not fair.”

“We can figure it out,” Enzo said running a hand over his shaved head.

“She’s sixteen, what the hell do you think you’re going to figure out?” I pressed, noticing his frustration.

“Why do you care? She said you haven’t even been around since I left!”

I narrowed my eyes, biding my time as I thought of a reasonable excuse. I couldn’t tell him about the fantasies, the thoughts whirling in my mind of all the things I wanted to do to her. All the things I knew I would give into if I was alone with her for too long.

“I’ve been busy. This isn’t about me,” I gritted out. “You’re too old to be lusting after a teenage girl. You need to back off.” Satisfaction bloomed in my chest at the stunned expression on Enzo’s face.

“It’s Frankie. It’s not like I’m trolling the fucking high school. Nothing is even going on yet, so don’t give me that shit.”

Yet.
That word stuck in my head. No, it could never be. I wouldn’t allow him to ruin her for me. “You’re right, it is Frankie, and you don’t own her.”

He blinked, tilting his head to the side and inspecting me closer. Yeah, we’d grown up together, but he didn’t know me like he thought he did. No one did. No one knew the things that played out in my head; I kept them secret, hidden from everyone. They only got the Eddie I wanted them to see.

“You don’t…” he started then paused before squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head. “You can’t be serious, Eddie; you just can’t. How long?”

“How long what?” I asked, confused for once at what he was talking about. I didn’t like it. I was always three steps ahead. I didn’t like not being in control of the situation.

“How long have you wanted her?” he asked, defeat in his tone.

I looked down at the dingy carpet of the hallway, the same cheap brown carpet that had been there since we were kids, parts of it bald from years of traffic. The whole house was run down and stank of mildew and age. I hated this place.

I swallowed hard and looked back up at my cousin. “For as long as I can remember,” I said keeping my voice low.

The truth was the fantasies had started out tame when we were children and increased as we got older until every night I would lie awake playing out the most disturbing of my fantasies while I touched myself. Finally finding sleep when my mind was filled with images of her bloodied body and my own release filled my hand. I knew it was wrong—not normal—but I also knew that eventually I wouldn’t care. In the meantime, he couldn’t have her.

“Jesus Christ!” Enzo growled, turning to slam a heavy fist into the wall. The music from the party drowned out his outburst, but the hole in the drywall remained as evidence.

“Please don’t do this to me. Please,” I pleaded with him. My resentment toward my cousin had grown exponentially over the past two years and it turned my stomach to grovel, but it was the only card I had left to play.

“Are you sure?” he asked, begging with his eyes for me to deny it.

“I love her,” I said simply. It was about the only honest thing I’d said to him the entire conversation. In my own twisted way, I loved her.

Enzo looked away from me, the muscle in his jaw ticking as he stared at the wall covered in pictures from our childhood without really seeing any of them. Finally, he turned back to me, eyes shuddered and face blank. “Fine. I won’t make a move, but neither will you. You’re my blood, and I’m not going to fuck with that over a girl, even if it is Frankie. But you have to promise me you won’t go there either,” he demanded.

I felt my eye twitch, a reflexive response to being told I couldn’t have what I wanted but I nodded my head, aware that I wasn’t going to actually follow through with it.

Enzo let out a breath and tipped his chin to me. “I need a fucking beer,” he said pushing past me to join the party.

Once he was past me, I let the grin I’d been holding in spread across my lips. I’d won. Enzo was nothing if not loyal and he’d given me his word that he wouldn’t touch her. I, on the other hand, wasn’t loyal to him; I had no reason to be.

Frankie was mine and I’d have her one day.