Dancing with the Mob: A Dark Mafia Romance Two-Book Collection

by Suzanne Hart

  I paced the room, casting dark eyes from the crucifix, to Don Leone, and then toward the doctor. I was feeling trapped by ignorance, by not knowing. Not knowing what to do even.

  “Here, take these.” The doctor handed me two, small, white pills. I shook my head.

  “Asprin,” he said.

  Within two minutes I was being helped back into the bed by the doctor and nurse. I was grinning like a fool, wagging my finger at the doctor.“Fuckin aspirin. I’ll fucking...” I was slurring my words, then the white came on me again. It was peaceful. I could stay in it for a while.

  Fourteen

  Mia

  After Carlo Bernardi left the room, I tried to cry, but simply passed out from the lack of breathable air. I worked out later; that the size of the room had given me a full day’s breathing air. If they kept the sealed door closed for a full day, or more, I would die. Not the scariest torture, or do what we want, or else threat. I ended up lapsing into a near coma every time they shut the door again, so I had to be revived. Again, I was from the better family. Not a lot of smarts in the Bernardi basket.

  I didn’t know how much time had passed since I’d arrived. My hair and privates told me it had been many days. My period in four or less days was worrying me more. Premenstrual week from hell? Check.

  I was so weak, I was only in and out of consciousness before being revived, it seemed. Either from the oxygen mask, or having the door left open for a time. I was too weak to put up a fight anymore. Even if the door was left open, I would have had trouble standing, let alone walking out of it.

  I had heard Carlo Bernardi at the open door, swearing at his men, demanding they make me see reason and comply with his wishes. A doctor was there, he advised against further oxygen deprivation, citing inevitable brain damage. If I’d had the strength I would have laughed out loud.

  Was that his plan? To make me a Bernardi too?

  It was scary as fuck to not get enough air, but I figured out pretty quickly that they weren’t going to kill me. Far from it. If I was dead, there was no bargaining chip, no company for them to take over. Nobody knew about my own arrangements if anything happened to me, even when the time came that I would die naturally. And the company’s future wasn’t so geared toward being hijacked by the likes of Bernardi, or anyone else, I’d seen to that.

  So what the fuck did they want? My brain was shrinking, I could feel that, but every time I was lucid enough, and getting some decent air, I began to think about why, why he was really doing this. It didn’t make sense. I had a chance when the doctor seemed to finally convince Bernardi to lay off for a few days. He did, trying a different tact.

  The door swished open, and the guards were accompanied by a nurse who was pushing a trolley laden with fresh linen and clothes. The door stayed open, with the brutes either side. She kept her head down without looking at me, and I got the feeling the nurse was as scared as I had been the past few days. I wondered what motivated these people to work for such a pig. I didn’t have to use my imagination too much. None of it was good.

  I was treated to some more oxygen as I got used to the change in atmosphere again. The nurse went into the bathroom and started to run a bath. I lay back, feeling relieved that I could at least breathe again, for now. I wondered, too, what Bernardi had in store for me next. I hadn’t thrown away my family’s share of a multi-billion-dollar company when the room got a little stuffy, and I was sure he would do something more hardball.

  I felt myself dozing off, when I felt a sharp pain in my left arm, which was being held firmly by the nurse. I tried to sit up, but was too weak.

  “Some fluids, Ms. Leone. Vitamins and minerals. You’ve had a rough few days. Just lie still for twenty minutes or so. I’m running you a bath to get you cleaned up. I’ll go get some water and more food for you, too.” Something in the voice… it was familiar. The face was a blur. I was sure there were more than vitamins in whatever was going into my arm, but my mind had already gone to places over the past few days that I didn’t want to revisit.

  Lying still, with the cool air from the corridor pulsing over me, hearing the soothing jet of oxygen that I still gulped and coughed on occasionally, was the best luxury I’d had in ages. Money couldn’t buy the feeling I had at that moment. Being able to breathe, the sound of water running, with food on the way. I felt like I was a kid again, Christmas eve, opening all my presents early.

  I vaguely made out the shape of the nurse leaving the room, a guard poked his head around the doorway, craning his neck for a quick look-see, then back to his standing there, making sure I stayed put. A different-shaped, blurry figure appeared in the doorway. Blocking the light. I heard a sniffing, neurotic-sounding noise.

  Sniff. Sniff.

  Cocaine, much?

  Mikey.

  I strained my eyes, trying to sit up; it was useless. I had definitely been drugged. The room swam, like a film had been painted over everything, moving on its own and making it hard to focus on anything. I knew Mikey’s coked-up sniff anywhere, though. I let my head fall back onto the single pillow. Maybe I was dreaming again, but it was hard to tell. Everything was too hard all of a sudden.

  Then I heard it again, the fumbling of a vial, then the sniffing again, deeper this time. A sharp breath in, then a long breath out. Trembling fingers fidgeting to put the stopper back onto the vial.

  I opened my mouth to speak, I knew what I was saying, but could only hear a scratching squeak. The side of the bed went down, as weight was put on it. A restless leg started up.

  “Ikey?” I managed.

  Sniff.

  I reached out for his hand, but saw him moving it away, a shadow pulled back, leaving me tracing my weak hand over denim. He stood up quickly, pacing the room. I was trying to speak, but had lost the power... of all the times. Wouldn’t they be glad at the office?

  Sniff. Sniff.

  “Mia, it’s Mikey...” He started to speak, sounding afraid of the sound of his own voice, like he was talking on a telephone everyone could hear, or meeting a blind date for the first time.

  I wondered how long they’d been dosing him up with coke. Once he started, he wouldn’t stop. It never ended well. He’d agree to, and do anything to get more.

  “I’ve been speaking with Bernardi, he wants us to go into business, all three of us together, using Mia Bella as a holding company. I could have a real job for once, Mia. I could do stuff. We could be together again, with nobody telling us...” I had put my hand up.

  It was a massive effort, but I couldn’t tell him to stop; and years of mob boss father doing the same to silence him now seemed to work. His pacing had stopped when he saw my hand, then he turned away from me. I could hear the bath water running. I wanted to get up and go check on it, but was feeling more and more drowsy by the second. I mustered all my focus into staying present within the room. I was using the sound, the urgency of the running water as a hook to keep me there.

  “Papa’s dead, Mia. He’s gone. Mr. Bernardi says he’s heard through the family’s lawyers that he passed, and nobody’s saying anything. We need to act quickly before… before… sniff… sniff.” I heard the vial lid again.

  “Mr. Bernardi?! Mikey, what the fuck did you just say?” I was sitting up. I had taken the oxygen mask off. If he wanted to see business Mia, then fine. He could have her, both barrels.

  Mikey’s eyes did this thing when he got worried, where his eyes seemed to pop out a bit, all while his forehead wrinkled back some. I always thought it looked funny, but he only ever looked like that when he got scared. Like when papa would hit him, or if he was high, too high. Like he was now. Bordering on psychotic.

  I heard my own voice as if it was coming from behind me. I was suddenly furious, and a part of me had managed to find words for Mikey. “Don’t you dare come to me at any point in this life and refer to that as Mr. Bernardi, understand?” He looked down, nodding meekly. Then I held out my arms, he fell into me and we both began to cry, each for different reasons, but it didn�
��t matter for a few moments. We were, at last, together again. Twins.

  I was still so weak, I couldn’t say anything again. Mikey was blubbering, then fumbling for more coke, then laughing, then blubbering again. His normally beautiful brown eyes were like two black marbles, crazed with thin red veins in the whites, bulging and darting. He was so thin, and he stank. He smelled terrible. Toxic. I wanted to tell him everything would be alright, or to call someone and get him to a treatment center. But I could only hold him, stroking his soft dark hair, trying to calm him down a little. I was rasping hushes into his ear. It tore me apart to see him like that; it killed me inside to have to see him being held by the same monster.

  “Is Papa really dead?” he asked, pulling back from me to look into my eyes. His own swelling up with fresh redness, tears spilling over his lids, falling like crystals that left dark webs on the sheets underneath us.

  I held his face in my hands with all my strength. I had to get this part through to him. “No, Mikey. Bernardi is lying. He’s trying to trick us. It’s alright. Someone will come get us soon. Don’t worry, Mikey. It’ll be...” He jerked away from me, storming to the other side of the room. I could hear the bath, almost full.

  “He said you’d tell me that, he said you’d lie!” Mikey clutched his forehead with both palms, crying out. He slunk to his knees. I tried to get up off the bed, but only felt myself lurching sideways.

  I saw the nurse coming in first. She hurried through to the bathroom, turning off the water, leaving a tray on the side of the large bath.

  I heard Mikey cry out again, a crimson line drew a terrible line from his nose, and it trickled down to his chest. He clutched at one eye, crying out again, before collapsing. The nurse rushed over to him, the guards from the door pushed her aside and, picking Mikey up like a sack, they carried him away down the hall as two more men took their place outside the door.

  I was trying to cry out, clawing at the air in front of me, trying to get out of the bed, to rip the needle from my arm. All at once I was trying to do everything, to help Mikey, to make sense of what had just happened.

  Oh Jack, where are you!?

  Two strong hands gripped me by the shoulders. And now the oxygen had been fixed back over my mouth. I was struggling to resist, but the nurse was just trying to help me, to do her job. I had to get up, they had taken Mikey. This had to end, right now, business be damned!

  “Mia, please! Listen, I’m here to help.”

  Giles?

  Fifteen

  Jack

  Coming up from such a deep sleep, it’s like climbing up the stairs in the Mia Bella building. Dirty, grimy walls, which turn to packed dirt, crumbling downward as I’m pushed up. Muffled voices, sounding like people speaking underwater. There’s a brilliant rectangle of light, a wooden casket. I look up, Mia is screaming down at me. I can’t get out, I scramble up the sides of the grave, the ground gives way, leaving me scratching at clods of earth, catching mouthfuls of dirt as I try to call out.

  I wipe my face, brushing away the dirt which has turned to webs, with smears of a fading light as I chase a little girl down a tree-lined path, calling out to her. I know her, but I can’t hear the name I’m calling.

  I follow her into a huge hallway; my parents lay dead in one doorway as the girl rushes up a giant flight of stairs, opposite. I pause to look at my parents. I see instead that Mia and Don Leone are laying there in the cold light of a doorway, small waves lapping at their frozen features. The room beyond them is a vast, dark sea, with a tropical storm raging over a tiny island.

  Don Leone clutches the olive crucifix from his room. Mia suddenly turns her face to me, screaming...

  Jack! Jack!

  I feel I’m up another level. I can sense the space behind my closed eyes, and I can hear the movement of shapes outside of myself. The odd rhythm of a cardiac monitor.

  “Jack, Jack! Wake up!” Rollins was shaking me gently by the forearm.

  I gasped as I opened my eyes, feeling like I hadn’t taken a breath since he’d laid me out with those fucking pills. I tried to grab him by the collar, but he was too quick, moving back from me in triplicate, now a trail of himself with each movement he made.

  “Now, none of that, Jack!” he said, matter of factly. He moved over to a trolley to fetch something I couldn’t make out. Another shot by the looks of it. I couldn’t be bothered fighting anymore. I felt at a complete disadvantage and just wanted to get some sleep.

  I felt the dull sting in my arm, then things became clearer by degrees fairly quickly. I blinked repeatedly, my mouth felt like an asshole filled with dirty, dry sand.

  “Drink,” the doctor commanded me, thrusting a large paper cup into my hand. I swilled it down without thinking, some of it finding its way down my front. “More?” he asked, earnestly. I nodded furiously, repeating the ritual.

  I slumped back. Rollins slowly came into a better sort of focus. I tried to speak, but could see the look in his eyes. I’d wait a while. Beyond Rollins I could make out the shape of Don Leone’s bed, surrounded by shapes, and his family. Their backs to me. Low murmuring and the odd cough from Don Leone. I heard him asking for a cigar. Rollins went over to speak with him.

  Now the shapes around Don Leone’s bed moved aside, letting the light spill out and across the room. I saw Don Leone; he looked so small, fragile. I didn’t know everyone standing around him, but I recognized Don Lucias Leone, his brother. Mostly called Lucias. At 300 lbs he was hard to miss.

  As the small group parted, Lucias’ eyes met mine, and darkened. He moved over to my bed, looming over me and blocking out the light. “Slade. Can you understand me?” he rasped. I nodded. “You needed to call me sooner, not like this. This is bullshit. Why you wait so long to call for help? I hear about things on the news, cops come to my house. Who the fuck do you think you are? You’re not even proper family.”

  He was halfway through motioning to spit on the ground next to me, when I heard Don Leone’s voice booming from the other side of the room. “Enough! Lucias, you fucking pig! How dare you spit in my house! Leave us, all of you! Get out!”

  Lucias was a huge bull of a man, but Don Leone was head of the family. Everybody cowed and filed out of the room, even the doctor. Don Leone beckoned me over.

  “Look at us, Slade, a couple of old fucking women! You have to come over here, I can’t get up.”

  I used all my will to get up out of the bed. Rollins was smart enough to have left my clothes on. I gingerly hobbled over to Don Leone, taking a seat by his bed.

  He gripped my hand and patted it. “Don’t let Lucias bother you. He’s a big bully. I know you did your best, Jack. Black told me about Mia, it nearly killed me. I had a small heart attack, they say, but I can’t rest until she’s safe, Jack. You must bring her home.” He tightened his grip, which was still feeble, and his eyes burned into mine. “You must!”

  We sat in silence for some time, my head was still swimming, plus I was trying to formulate a plan without any knowledge, or any clue as to where Mia was. All as I could see in my mind’s eye was that storm from my dream, how she had...

  I stood bolt upright, clear as glass. My mind felt as if a thorn had been removed. I gently released Don Leone from my grip, looking down at him, glad to share my realization.

  “Thank you, Don Leone, your faith in me gives me new strength.” His eyes shone. “I know where she is! At least, I know where to look now.”

  Don Leone beckoned me closer, he kissed my forehead. “My son,” he managed, before losing consciousness again, the monitor alarms signaling the arrival of the nurse, Rollins, and most of the crowd which had been gathered around his bed.

  “Everybody, please. Get Out, let us work,” cried Rollins as I pushed past them, making my way to the security office, and the nearest computer.

  How stupid of me! This is why I don’t let my emotions take the wheel. Slade, you fool! You genius fool!

  Black was in the office when I burst in, he didn’t flinch, only raised an e
yebrow, obviously noting my manic look as I feverishly brought up weather satellite data from the nearest thousand miles around us.

  “She’s there! She’s fucking there, Black!”

  Black stood up and crossed over to look over my shoulder. I was stabbing the grainy image of a tropical storm cell, next to a group of tiny islands.

  “Ooohhh-kaaay. Mr. Slade, Doctor Rollins tells me you’re not quite yourself today. How ‘bout we get you back to bed, maybe a glass of something nice and warm to help you sleep?”

  Black wasn’t listening to me as I stabbed at the screen with my finger, ranting about Mia’s picture, the dreams I’d had. I stopped myself mid-sentence. I realised how out of control I’d become. I stood still for a moment, closed my eyes and collected myself. Black was buzzing for the doctor, I knew he would.

  I knew Rollins was busy with Don Leone, plus, I was in charge after all. Black could go fuck himself. I snatched up the phone, dialing Rich’s number from memory. I wanted to get him on a number he didn’t recognize, if he picked up at all.

  “Black,” he answered, which left me dumbstruck for a second. “Black?”

  I hung up.

  Black was giving me a curious look, an invitation almost. I sat down again, calmly, and buzzed through to the roof, the helipad.

  “...How soon can you be ready? I need a thousand miles of fuel, so arrange any stops along the way...” I gave the pilot the rough co-ordinates, then listened to his speech on bad weather and how dangerous it was out there.

  “Will you take me or not? Or do I have to go revive Don Leone to tell him that our pilot is having second thoughts about flying out to rescue his daught--” The pilot began back pedaling, faster than a rotor blade in rewind.