Merciless Queen: A Dark Mafia Romance (Varasso Brothers Book Book 4)

by Sophia Reed

  Luca smiled at me, and it was oddly warm. “It’s okay, Gabe. You focus on—”

  “Last year, you handed me a gun and told me it was time to prove I was a Varasso.” Luca opened his mouth to respond, but I kept talking before he could get anything out. “I didn’t do it then, but I want to do it now. I want to prove that I’m a Varasso. I want to prove you can trust me with this shit. You’re…” I sighed, trying my best not to get too emotional. “You’re not on your own. Let me help.”

  “It’s a biggie,” Luca replied. “Anthony Carducci.”

  I tried not to show the way my world tilted around me. Anthony Carducci was the nation’s most notorious crime boss. He hailed out of Chicago, but he had operations in every state and even a few overseas. I’d heard his name mentioned a couple of times by my dad before he died, but never again after that. Luca had been careful not to pull on any of the strings my dad left dangling—there was no telling which ones had balloons at the top and which ones had anvils—but if we needed backup and Carducci was willing to honor what my dad had started, it could be a game-changer.

  “I can do it.” Even though I was at least half certain I might get my hand chopped off, I reached onto Luca’s desk and helped myself to the folder. He watched me with piqued curiosity but ultimately left the clever commentary out of it. “When’s the meeting?”

  Luca still looked unsure, but still took a breath and said, “At two. A place downtown called Surento’s.”

  I peeked at the watch on my wrist. I’d inherited it from my dad, and this was probably the first time I was looking at it practically and not just to try and remember the man who’d left it to me. It was a quarter after one, just enough time to finish up with Luca and get to the meeting. Though I’d volunteered, it did make me wonder if it was better suited to the family. I’d already opened my mouth, so too late to take it back now.

  “You sure you got it?” Luca asked.

  I was reviewing the notes in the folder. Doesn’t like being challenged. A stickler for time. A control freak. “What do I offer him?” I asked.

  “Whatever he wants,” Luca said. “There’s no price too high.”

  I nodded. “I got it.”

  “Then go. Time is a huge deal for him.”

  I did exactly as I was told. I was still cutting it close when I was pulling up in front of the restaurant, but I had five minutes to spare. I could go in, get a table, and start focusing on breathing, preparing myself for the most important task I’d been given by my brother, ever. I scurried from my car, and as I rushed towards the restaurant door, I barely caught a glimpse of a couple of bodies leaving. I pulled the door open and held it, and the next thing that happened screeched my world to a halt. A familiar scent filled my nose, followed by the flick of golden blond hair in my face.

  “Stacy,” I murmured, not even having told my brain to say the word.

  Stacy looked back at me and the woman at her side, a slightly shorter woman with a bob haircut, raised an eyebrow and said, “He is beautiful.”

  Stacy continued down the sidewalk, and I damn near tripped over myself trying to get to her. I grabbed her arm, but she yanked it from me. I hated that she looked at me like some demon now.

  “You haven’t answered my calls.”

  “I don’t have anything to say to you,” she replied.

  “Please, just give me a chance to prove myself to you,” I begged. “I don’t want you to be mad at me anymore.”

  Stacy shook her head. “I have nothing to be mad at, Gabriel.”

  The woman at Stacy’s side squeezed her arm and continued off down the sidewalk. Stacy waited until the woman was climbing into her car to continue. She looked back at me, her expression telling me that she felt as strained as I did to be apart.

  “I’m just disappointed in you,” she said, at last. “I thought you were a better person than that.”

  “I am.”

  Stacy shook her head. “No good person could ever do that stuff, or even think about it.”

  That time, when I reached out for Stacy, she relented. I took her hand in mine and kissed the back of it gently. “Family is—”

  “Family would never ask that of you.” She stared at her hand in mine. It went slack, at first, and I could tell she didn’t want to pull it away, but she finally did. She looked up at me with pain in her eyes. “Goodbye, Gabriel.”

  I couldn’t get any words out as she turned around and walked away.

  I didn’t want to say goodbye.

  11

  Gabriel

  All at once, I was slapped with a reminder of what I was doing. I checked my watch, and it was a minute past two.

  “Fuck,” I hissed. Stacy had completely made me forget everything but her.

  I ran back to the restaurant and threw back the door. I stepped in, trying to catch my breath and scanned the restaurant. The tables were all packed, and I couldn’t make out any sign of Anthony Carducci. He wasn’t a small man, known as The Beast in our circles for standing at six-foot-two and weighing three hundred pounds. If he was inside, I would see him, for sure.

  I was about to pick up my phone and try to figure out how to get in touch with him when the hostess looked up at me. “Hello, sir. You wouldn’t happen to be Mr. Varasso?”

  My skin crawled at the question. “I am.”

  “I have a message from Mr. Carducci.” She reached under her stack of menus and handed me a napkin that had a message scrawled messily across it in pen.

  I do not like to be kept waiting, Mr. Varasso.

  Consider this matter resolved.

  I crumpled the napkin in my hand. I fucked up, big time. Luca was going to come and do it. He wouldn’t have gotten distracted by heaven on legs, and he would have walked into the restaurant, sat down, and secured our alliance with the Carduccis. It was probably in my best interest to just make a run for it. I had enough money in my name alone, my father had always seen to it in case my brothers weren’t willing to share. I could use some Varasso contacts before word spread, change my name, and move to Mexico. If Carducci didn’t put a hit out on me for wasting his time, Luca was definitely going to. The Carduccis were our one chance for a little padding against the Binachis, and now, because I couldn’t keep my eyes in my skull, I’d ruined that chance.

  I walked out of the restaurant and started for my car when I noticed someone leaning against it. There, with one leg tossed over the other, his arms folded around his chest, and his hair cut almost down to a buzz, was Marco. I actually smiled when I saw him, the same way he smiled back at me. It’d only taken twenty years, but I was finally making nice with my brothers, and that felt good. At least, until Luca put me through a woodchipper for fucking up the Carducci deal.

  I greeted Marco with a brotherly clap of our hands. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Marco scoffed. “Are you kidding? After that call with you and Sandro, it was obvious I had to come do some damage control.”

  “How’d you find me?” I asked.

  Marco waved his phone through the air. “Locator.”

  “Weren’t we supposed to disable it?” We’d discovered the year prior that a breach in our locator system was what led to the leak of information that the Binachis used to start stalking Marco and his family, even with them in Witness Protection. “It’s not safe.”

  “I got my own and transferred you guys codes. Just the three of you and Kelly.” He slid his phone back into his pocket. “After all that shit went down last year, I couldn’t sleep while knowing I had no way to keep an eye on you.”

  I was more relieved than I was skeptical. If the network was contained, the risk was gone, and it was nice to see Marco one last time before Luca murdered me. I looked over my shoulder at the restaurant where I was supposed to meet Carducci. I still had a reservation, and I may as well take my final meal. “Wanna get a bite?”

  Marco hunched his brow. “That place looks packed.”

  “I have a reservation.”

  Tha
t didn’t ease Marco’s confusion. “Weren’t you leaving?”

  “Look, do you want food or not, Varasso? Fuck. What’s with the fifth degree?”

  Marco held up his hands with wide eyes. “My bad, damn.”

  I did not like that. Luca had always been the most like my dad until Alessandro snapped. The closer I got to being like him, the closer I got to being like my dad. “Sorry. I’m just stressed out. I fucked up things with this girl. I’ll explain inside.”

  “Oh, women. They are the bane, aren’t they?” Marco said, leading the way. “Yet, we happily eat out of the palms of their hands.”

  “It’d be easier if they were uglier,” I grumbled, “or less perfect.”

  Marco let out a loud laugh as I pulled the door open. “Ain’t that the fucking truth?”

  A waitress led us to the table in the back that had been reserved for Anthony Carducci and me, left us some menus and glasses of water, and then walked away. I hadn’t realized that I’d dropped my hands to my head until Marco was saying something.

  “This is all over a girl, or are you as stressed as Luca?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I fucked up, Marco.”

  When I said the words, I honestly didn’t know which fuck up I was referring to. There had been so many. I’d fucked up with Stacy, I’d fucked up with Luca, I’d fucked up with Alessandro. I’d just fucked up.

  “What happened?” Marco asked, and I was equally unsure which happening he was referring to.

  “I went out with this chick,” I started, opting for Stacy, too afraid to cop to Alessandro or Anthony Carducci. “Everything was great. I mean, it just felt like she was, you know, the one or something. After just one day. That’s fucked, right?”

  Marco crossed his thick arms. “No. I’d tell you, and I think Luca and Sandro would, too. Sometimes you just feel it. It’s cruel, isn’t it? For people like us? It’s like fate is dangling a dream in front of us that we can’t have.”

  I hunched my brow. “You do have it.” Marco’s head bobbled to and fro. “Wait. You and Kelly aren’t…”

  Marco took a sip of his water. “No, I mean, it’s not like how things are with Luca and Molly or Sandro and Willow. Or even you and…”

  “Stacy,” I filled in.

  “But, uh…” Marco hissed out a breath. “I have to apologize to you.”

  It was a drastic change in subject and made me think Marco wasn’t ready to approach the other one yet. It scared me. I didn’t need another thing falling apart in our family. “For what?”

  “For what?” Marco repeated. “For everything. I resented you all this time. You were just as much an innocent bystander in our dad’s shit as we all were. I could have spent all this time preparing you for this life, and instead, I bullied you. Then I packed up and left you with more than the lion’s share of the organization and expected you to adjust. It’s not fair.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. Luca and Marco had been experiencing guilt over me lately, and I didn’t know what the source was. I wasn’t about to pull that band-aid, but I did wish I knew what put it there so that I could look out for whatever could potentially come and snatch it off.

  “Thanks, Marco. You know, I never blamed you guys. I don’t think I’d behave differently if I was in your shoes.”

  “You would have because you’re a much better person than the rest of us, Gabe. Seriously. Each day that passes, I feel like I should be back here in Philly so that you can be the one running off with the love of your life. That’s what you deserve.” He sighed. “But I’m selfish. I think about it, and I imagine how that would mean I’d have to give up my life now. Kelly and the kids. I can’t do that.”

  I leaned forward a little. “Kids? More than one?”

  Marco hadn’t noticed the slip but breathed deeply when I pointed it out. “Yeah. Kel’s pregnant.”

  My jaw dropped. “Holy shit. Seriously?”

  “We got into it pretty bad before I left. I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea.” Marco ran a hand through his hair. “It’s just bad timing. Sandro, things with Luca and Molly, you’re a fucking wreck. We should all be together getting through this shit, but Kelly’s never gonna go for it. Certainly not with another kid on the way. I mean, I love being a dad, but I got so caught up being Kevin Peterson that I forgot I’m actually Marco Varasso.”

  “You’re out now, though. If you can stay out, I can bear this burden,” I replied, and I meant it. I didn’t want to drag my brothers back in, not after they had so painstakingly clawed their way out.

  “That’s not fair,” Marco said again. “After all the shit we put you through, how can we ask you to uphold our bullshit? If it wasn’t for all this, you’d be off with that Stacy girl, I bet.”

  I didn’t respond. He wasn’t wrong.

  “You’re just too soft for this world, man.”

  I puffed up. It was a random insult thrown into what had been an otherwise pleasant, bonding conversation.

  Marco chuckled and waved his hand at me. “Simmer down, Donald Duck. It’s a good thing. I wish I was softer.” He let out a sudden burst of laughter. “Good god, dad would have beat the shit out of me if he heard me say that.”

  “I’d rather take on more than my share,” I said. “I’ll step up. I promise.” I thought about what had happened today. “If I survive long enough.”

  Marco furrowed his brow. “Why wouldn’t you?”

  As if on cue, my phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket to look at who it was, but I didn’t need to. I stared at Luca’s name on the screen until it stopped ringing and continued to stare until it started up again. Luca’s name appeared on the top a second time.

  “Is it Luca? You know he hates being ignored. You better get it,” Marco explained.

  A waitress came by to drop our food, and I looked up at her. “I’m sorry, can you pack it to go? I’m so sorry.” She nodded kindly and took the plates back. I looked at Marco. “I’m in trouble.”

  “What’d you do?” he asked.

  “Luca had a meeting planned with Anthony Carducci today. I begged him to let me do it. I’d already broken the news to him that a documentary has been released with us in it, though all the information is exaggerated or false, and he’s so stressed. Stacy saw it, and that’s how I know. Also, she won’t talk to me.” I grumbled, not even wanting to admit the next part out loud. “This reservation was for the two of us, but then I bumped into Stacy and chased her down. When I got back, the hostess handed me this.” I fished the napkin out of my pocket and handed it over.

  Marco read it, and his eyes widened. His gaze crawled up to me. “You stood up Anthony Carducci?” My phone stopped ringing in my hand, but then a few seconds later, it started again. “Just get it. He’s not going to kill you. Hopefully.”

  “Thanks,” I grumbled at Marco, and then finally mustered up the courage to answer my phone. “Hello?”

  “Get your ass home now!” It was all I heard of Luca’s angry voice before the line went dead.

  The waitress came back with our food, boxed up and in a bag for easy transport. Marco pulled out his wallet, slammed a couple of hundreds down on the table—way more than was necessary, so the waitress’s eyes nearly fell out—and then grabbed the bag. He motioned towards the door, and I dragged myself up from my chair and led the way down the aisle towards my funeral.

  “You told me you fucking had it!” Luca screamed at me when Marco and I were sitting in his office thirty minutes later. Molly was standing just behind him, and her usually warm expression was severe and cold. She was pissed at me too—a true sign that I’d caused irreparable damage. “I told you that time was a thing with him. I told you not to be late. What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured, knowing that this was one of those times where an apology was warranted. “I fucked up.”

  “Yeah, you fucked up!” Luca barked back. “Not only did you cost us a powerful ally, but Anthony Carducci isn’t called
The Beast for nothing. He’s sunk people into the Atlantic for less, do you realize that?” He waved the napkin Carducci had written his note to me on. “Do you get what this shit means? Consider this matter settled, means we’re enemies now. We already had the Binachis on our backs, and now we fucking have the Carduccis, too. Are you trying to get us all killed? What the fuck could be more important than protecting your family? Why the hell were you late?”

  “It was my fault.” Marco had leaned forward in his chair and was looking at Luca and Molly, staunchly avoiding the shocked stare I was now throwing him. “I showed up out of the blue. I used my app to track him.”

  “Why couldn’t it wait?” Luca bellowed before turning his attention back to me. “Why wouldn’t you tell him where you were going?”

  “I took him by surprise,” Marco defended again. “Kel’s pregnant.”

  Luca and Molly’s eyes shot to Marco.

  “Really?” Molly asked.

  Marco nodded. “We really had it out. I told her it wasn’t a good time, and she can’t believe I’d ask her to get rid of it. I didn’t know what else to do, so I came here.” He finally looked over at me. “Gabe helped Sandro through all that shit with Willow, so I thought he could give me some advice.”

  I knew he was just weaving a lie, but it didn’t keep my mind from wandering to how false he was with the word help.

  “I barely let him get a word in edgewise,” Marco continued. “I’m sorry.”

  Luca seemed to accept Marco’s explanation but glowered at me regardless. “You need to grow a pair. You should have told him to shut the fuck up so you could work.”

  I nodded. “Yes, boss.”

  Luca scoffed. “Fuck.”

  “I promise it won’t happen again,” I muttered. “I won’t let anything distract me from serving this family again.”

  Stacy’s glowing eyes and her marvelous smile faded from my mind. Getting rid of all distractions started with her.

  12