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

by Suzanne Hart

  “How’s Felix?” I asked, genuinely glad to find out as well as change the subject.

  “He’s… he’s doing fine.” She had looked away as soon as I said it, like there was something else.

  “Are you sure everything’s alright?” I asked, searching her eyes for more. She squeezed my hand gently.

  “It’s fine. Let’s just get through this dinner, alright?”

  If the restaurant looked empty, dark, it’s because it was. The car we rode in had been stopped a few streets away, with three huge men stepping out in front, transferring us to a limo after frisking both of us. Bernardi seemed like a cautiously-smart guy. The whole restaurant, probably his, had been cleared, a table at the back, by the kitchen was set for just the three of us.

  If I had reservations about dealing with my own father, they were amplified by about a thousand, walking from the limo to the huge glass doors with oversized brass handles, swinging inward as they were held true by strong but unseen hands.

  The maître d' practically groveled before us, taking Natalia’s fur and handing it to another subservient. It was like stepping into a movie set, or award ceremony. The entire room was beaming with fragments of light which danced from crystal glassware, silver cutlery and lavish gilt gold and brass fixtures. The light was dim, but the effect was stunning. The table at the end of the roped-off walkway was bathed in a halo of soft yellow light. At the head of the table, illuminated like a Franciscan friar, was Don Bernardi. He was pretending to busy himself with a spot on his lapel as we approached.

  His eyes met mine first, they were dark, suspicious, powerful. There was such a fury in them that I felt my stomach turn to jelly. I had purposely avoided touching Natalia on our way in, and I was glad, his eyes were like flames, seeking anything between us to which he could draw further offense from.

  His eyes betrayed his words. His smile blossomed, and perfect rows of high-end veneers glistened like pearl slabs in the soft light. His lines were happy, his figure broad and welcoming as he stood up, opening his arms to welcome his daughter. All the while, his eyes stayed on mine, dissecting me with a surgical precision that could never be faked or rehearsed. This was a dangerous man and I instantly regretted coming.

  “Natalia! My darling! Come, come! Sit! And you must be Mikey!? Welcome! Please, have a seat.”

  We sat, aided by the appearance of more staff which had crept from the shadows only long enough to guarantee our comfort. I had considered offering my hand, but there was not one extended. I simply sat down, relieved when his eyes finally turned away from me and to his daughter. What startled me the most is that they didn’t change. He was looking at her in exactly the same way he had been looking at me. I could see Natalia was aware of it, but she seemed to know her own father better than anyone.

  Don Carlo Bernardi startled us both; the booming, single clap from his hands was the same as a gunshot. An impeccably dressed man was at his side in a second, bending down to hear his whispered instructions. A magnum of vintage champagne appeared, glasses poured for each.

  “Drink!” he ordered me, waiting for me to consume before he put his own glass to his lips. “And another!” I knocked back the second, feeling Natalia’s foot under the table kick me as I felt the tingle of the bubbles rise to my head, flicking the switch with that arrow between them. One side read Mikey, the other side: drunk asshole.

  Game on.

  Thirty-Three

  Natalia

  Watching Mikey get drunk, plied with alcohol and promises from my father, was nauseating. I had never seen Mikey drink, but got the picture within the first five minutes. He changed, his whole persona changed. The only thing that stayed the same were his eyes.

  It was unnerving to watch, I was kicking him under the table, with him just giving me those sorry eyes. He and my father hit it off instantly, with my father treating him like a long lost son rather than the son of his sworn enemy. He had a motive for doing that, but I had no idea why at the time.

  The magic we had shared a few hours earlier had disappeared. When I’d first seen Mikey at the club, he was high as well as drunk. But just drunk on its own, well, Mikey was a sad sight. He was like a little boy who had too many sweets. Hyperactive, loud and way too daring. It was a dangerous mix with my father, who was able to hold his own drink better than any man I’d seen.

  At some point in the very awkward proceedings, Mikey excused himself to go to the bathroom. My father gave a subtle jut of his chin to the men in the shadows, who followed him to the restroom. It gave us a few minutes alone.

  “Well, Natalia, Mikey seems like a fine young man!” He was being deliberately over-friendly. The act was almost vaudevillian.

  “Why are you doing this, Papa?” I asked, my bitterness spilling out. “Is it because you don’t want me to be happy, or because you have a plan to get back at the Leones using their son, or is it both?!” His eyes darkened for a moment, but he couldn’t afford to lose the face of his act.

  Mikey’s sniffing and giggling before he reached the table, and knocking over an ice bucket stand, announced his return from the bathroom. He was high. I stood to leave. My father shot me a look of such venom. I sat down again and stayed put. The rest of the next two hours were heartbreaking for me to watch.

  I was sent away when my father had grown drunk enough himself. I was taken to the car, parked a few streets away. My father had announced before bidding me goodnight, that he and Mikey had some business to discuss and that they would probably be going to some clubs later. Something I wouldn’t be interested in.

  I remember crying in the car for about a half hour, before I saw the limo cruise past me. I knew both Mikey and my father were in it, I could sense it. I drove past the restaurant and, sure enough, it was empty. The last staff staying behind to clean up after Don Bernardi’s business meeting.

  I hope you know what you’re doing, Mikey. Because I sure don’t!

  The next few days, then weeks, saw Mikey spending more and more time with my father, one on one. Nobody had ever spent so much time with him. My brothers and the other men were the first to protest, some men even threatening to walk out. A meeting was called, without Mikey, and five hours later, everybody was happy again. I still don’t know what happened at that meeting, but from that day; all the men, even my brothers, developed the same, over the top friendliness toward Mikey.

  Mikey couldn’t see it, he was either drunk or high, or so hung over he didn’t know what was going on. He had been kept in a constant supply of everything he wanted, except a way out. He was taken from club to hotel, to party; all at my father’s expense. I rarely got to see him, I wanted him to come home to me, but my father had stopped answering my calls. The only news I got of Mikey was through my brother Nicholas.

  Aunt Pippa had returned from vacation. I had been so upset with what was going on that by the time Felix was released from hospital, I begged her to take him away, somewhere safe and far away. I hated myself for sending them away, but something so terrible was coming, I could feel it; I didn’t want them to be in the same state, let alone the same city when it finally went down.

  Mikey appeared one afternoon, at the house. I had just settled into having the place to myself again, Pippa had taken Felix, just for a few days, or so we had told Felix, to relatives of friends in Montana.

  I jumped out of my skin when I saw Mikey in the kitchen. I thought he was a prowler, but remembered he still had a key. He looked a bit shaky, but otherwise fine.

  I went to hug him and he recoiled. He smelled like he’d been drinking non-stop for a week without washing. “Let me clean you up at least,” I offered, noticing his embarrassment, not wanting me to hug him. That hurt, but I couldn’t help but want to help him still.

  “It’s alright. I’ll get cleaned up later. Before we go,” he said shyly. He seemed smaller, frailer. I wanted to hold him so badly, and it was utter torture to see him like that.

  “We?” I cautiously asked. “Are we going somewhere?”

>   He scoffed, a little too loudly. “No, no,” he said absently, “I mean later, before we go to the islands. Your dad has asked me to go away with him for a while, like on a holiday.”

  I felt the pit of my stomach collapse. My hands started to tremble. I was so angry but so scared, all at the same time. It was impossible for me to consider I was even related to my father at that moment.

  “What do you mean, holiday!?” I spat. “Your whole life now is one big fucking holiday! Look at yourself, Mikey. You’re a mess!” He rolled his eyes and turned, opening the refrigerator to fish for a beer or two that wasn’t even there. His eyes came back to mine, flashing panic that there was nothing to drink.

  “Do you even hear me?” I pleaded. “You have changed Mikey and not for the better! I thought we had something… something magical. Then you took up with my father for whatever reason, now you don’t even want to know me?!” I was crying. I was trying to avoid a scene, but I’d felt so hormonal in the days leading up to seeing Mikey again. It all spilled over.

  Mikey ran his hands over his eyes, and they twisted as they moved across his temples. A cold sweat broke out on him and his eyes began to bulge. “You… you sound like my father,” he said, his voice cracking and quavering.

  I regretted raising my voice, I went over to hug him, but he pushed me away, turning and rushing for the door. I cried out for him but he was gone. I felt like I’d been king hit in the stomach. The ache, the void I thought had been filled by having Mikey enter my life, it had been suddenly removed. I cursed my father’s name in my mind. I cursed myself for letting Mikey meet with him in the first place.

  After crying some more, I became tired of the sound and feeling it gave me. My throat hurt, my eyes were puffy and I felt like shit. I was feeling sick and tried to throw up, but nothing came, just the same depressing waves of helplessness. I had curled up on the couch, hoping a nap would help, when I heard movement in the kitchen again.

  “Mikey!? Mike--”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Natalia.” I froze on the spot, my mouth still open.

  Claridge.

  “I have just popped by to pay you a little visit. It would seem you have forgotten our little… agreement. I am a patient man, Natalia, but like everything else, even virtues have their limits. It’s what separates them from anything else, like say, a vice or evil. Murder.” He ran a dry tongue over his bottom lip, relishing my fear. I was paralyzed with it.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I whimpered, not daring to break eye contact with him.

  He tittered to himself, running a long finger across the edge of the leather chair opposite me. “I’m not doing anything. Yet.” Then his eyes flashed with rage. “And neither are you! I might as well have that halfwit Leone boyfriend of yours to help me, if he wasn’t so drunk or high. Even he could do a better job than you. You have done nothing to even begin to look like you are holding up your end of the bargain. I never heard a word from you regarding our arrangement.”

  “I never agreed to anything, just leave us alone! Leave Mikey alone, leave Felix…” The smile had returned to his lips. His hand gripped at the leather now, his fingers like talons.

  “Yes, your son. I think it would be a great shame if Dr. Claridge had to make a house call… all the way out in Montana.” My look turned to one of horror, delighting him. “Lot of space out there. In Montana. You could scream your head off and nobody would hear a thing…”

  His eyes had passed mine, like he was daydreaming, still smiling to himself. He stopped abruptly, coming too again. He gave one of his short, split-second smiles. “And I needn’t have to; just get me the information I asked for, soon. I’ll be in touch. Ta-ta!” And he was gone. I didn’t hear the door close.

  I breathed, finally. Long enough to realize I was about to get sick again. Racing for the bathroom, I heaved and then cried until I felt the dull, cramping ache in my belly. The metallic, hormonal taste that was affecting my mood since my last period.

  My last period. I’m not… I can’t be!

  Rummaging through the cabinets in the main bathroom, mostly Pippa’s stuff, I found what I least expected. A pregnancy tester kit. With trembling hands, I read the directions.

  Pee dammit! You’ve been going every twenty minutes for three days! Gimme something here!

  I went out later, buying a dozen tester kits, different brands, from different drugstores. There was no way around it. No matter which one I looked at after a sleepless night and peeing ‘til it hurt, it was unanimous.

  Blue was now officially my least favorite color.

  Thirty-Four

  Mikey

  Before I even opened my eyes, I could tell the room was still spinning. Or was I spinning? Maybe both. I cringed internally; the first stabs of nausea gripped my throat and stomach. I wanted to open my eyes, but I was afraid of what I’d see, of where I’d find myself that time.

  Carlo Bernardi had proved a more than generous host. As dumb as I was most of the time, even I knew it was all an act; that he was playing me for whatever reasons of his own that he had planned. My weakness for all things party, including drink and drugs was no secret and it had taken Bernardi five minutes to see how he could manipulate me without effort. What’s a few thousand in drink and drugs, when you have the son of you arch enemy, literally eating out of your hand?

  The sound of commotion, yelling outside the door; forced my eyes open in a blinding start. They burned with the heat of daylight, which didn’t exist. It just felt like they were burning. Like the rest of me, they were dry, dehydrated and feeling terrible.

  I had a vague memory of the first night with Bernardi, at the restaurant with Natalia. We’d drank, I did a little coke, then we drank some more. Bernardi had wanted to talk about a peace between the two families. Sick of all the warring and squabbling over territories, he wanted to take me under his wing, to tell me his vision for a unified east coast, under the combined protection of the two families, Leone and Bernardi.

  Natalia, I’m sorry baby. I’m doing this for us. I don’t expect you to understand, hell, I don’t even understand it half the time, but I know it’s all for you. For us.

  Since that first night, it was one endless party, or so it seemed. Don Bernardi was able to out-drink anybody, without the use of drugs. He had spoken to me several times, but looked disappointed, annoyed even, that he couldn’t seem to get much more out of me than me asking for another drink. I had felt really awful the past few days and wondered if they had been drugging me. That sounded stupid, but I mean, drugging me. I knew the Leone’s used a combination of alcohol and sodium pentothal, and the threat of a beating to get information. If one didn’t work, a combination of all three usually did.

  I could hear raised voices, shouting outside the door, which was always locked from the outside. “For your own safety, Mikey. You sleepwalk, don’t you know?” Or so said the men and even Bernardi himself.

  The bedside was a hotel cart, laden with fresh bottles, some food and a silver domed tray I knew contained a lethal amount of cocaine. This was the breakfast that awaited me every day as I awoke from the night, or sometimes; the previous days of partying.

  I shuddered at the sight. Once it would have filled me with satisfaction. Now it made me feel ill. I was, or slowly had, passed the point of taking stuff for fun. I needed it now, just to stop the symptoms of withdrawal.

  Bernardi had me and I knew it. Trouble was that I told myself I was still in control because I had a plan. The plan I had still failed to even begin to execute, gathering any information on the Bernardi finances to give to Claridge. I told myself that day would be the day I focused on getting as much information as possible.

  Having a large tumbler of something hard that made me gaga, then a beer, I listened at the door. A full-scale argument was in progress. It was about me.

  “I don’t know how you could let that scum in the house! He tried to kill me! I demand you open this door, wait ‘til my father hears of this!” an unfamiliar voice
screamed. There were the sounds of a physical scuffle outside the door.

  “Easy, Nathan, it’s your father who put him in the house in the first place! We’re not happy about it either. Hasn’t he discussed this with you yet? C’mon, Nate. It’s me! Let’s go downstairs and get you straightened out…”

  The ruckus dissolved and I heard it retreating down the corridor. I was not too surprised, most of the men in the house had been more than pissed when it became known they had to babysit me, let alone have me in the house. If any of them hurt me, it was the death. Those were Bernardi’s personal orders. I had felt special for about a half a day, then I realized I was nothing more than their prisoner.

  Annoyed that I had been woken up, I had another drink and picked at the food laid out for me before taking a shower and changing. There were always fresh clothes, everything I could have wanted, laid out for me every day. I was never conscious enough to see who’d brought them in.

  At a certain time each day, the door would open and I would be invited to join Bernardi himself, or some of the others in small talk and the general goings on in the house. I knew it was all staged, but I couldn’t figure out why he’d be going to such lengths.

  That day, I had suggested a trip to a club I knew. It wasn’t a Leone club, or a Bernardi club. The men agreed readily, Bernardi was hesitant, but agreed. I was to have an escort the whole time and be brought back by a certain hour. I was thrilled.

  The club, Venison X, was owned and run by a motorcycle gang who used to be controlled by the Leones in Miami. Since the Leone drug operations moved interstate, the M.C. had a disagreement with my father, but were allowed to keep the club as compensation, something they appreciated as it gave them a legal and credible standing in the eyes of the community and the law.