by Bethany-Kris
Brennan.
Her father’s right-hand, and best friend.
Charles was not playing now.
“Your father wants you to know this won’t happen again,” Brennan told her as she slipped on the shirt to cover her breasts. She was still trying to wake up. What time was it? How had they even found her here? “He’ll make sure of it, Gabbie. Do you understand me? Are you feckin’ listening, lass? If you pull this shite again, he’s going to take care of the issue permanently.”
Fear cut through her heart.
Nothing had ever hurt so badly.
Yes, she heard him.
She heard his threat perfectly fine. Michel’s life was now determined by her behavior. It was a simple threat, sure, but effective.
“Don’t hurt him,” she whispered.
The man glanced Michel’s way. Struggling with the two men holding him against the wall, still naked, his wild gaze met hers.
She knew this was risky. It was only a matter of time before her father found them.
“Gabbie—”
“It’s okay, Michel,” she told him.
He shook his head. “It’s not.”
She knew how this worked.
How this could end …
Gabbie turned to Brennan again. “You won’t hurt him, right?”
“Not if you leave right now … no fighting, lass.”
Done deal.
She would do what she had to.
Michel would do the same for her.
“Okay, let’s go.”
“Gabbie!”
“He will kill him,” Brennan murmured to her, shaking her resolve a little more. “He is not going to play these games, not after this stunt. Is that what you want—for the man to die because you won’t stay away from him?”
No.
“It’s time to leave,” she was told.
Gabbie nodded, saying nothing. She left the hotel because she didn’t have a choice. Not when the only options for her were staying there only to know it would mean Michel’s death, or leaving to give him one more chance.
They’d figured it out this far, right?
Surely, they could do it again.
She didn’t look back as she left, either. Not even when Michel called out for her again. She couldn’t—her heart just wasn’t strong enough.
Stupid heart.
FIFTEEN
It was only once Gabbie had left the hotel room that the men keeping hold of Michel let him go. With a punch to the face. He hadn’t been expecting the hit, or he might have been able to prepare for it a bit better. At least, it might not have hurt nearly as much had he been able to see the fist coming right for his mouth.
Instead, it sent him sprawling to the floor. He snarled under his breath, an ache like nothing else spreading over the side of his face. Great. He bet that was going to bruise, and he’d be the stupid fuck brushing it off all week when people asked about it at the college. Blood bloomed in his mouth, coating his tongue and telling him they’d busted something. The throbbing in his bottom lip didn’t really fucking help, either.
Jesus Christ.
What had he gotten himself into here?
He didn’t have much time to think on the fact Gabbie was gone. Oh, sure, it hurt like nothing else. His chest felt like someone had ripped it open and tore his heart right out of his body with a laugh, but he couldn’t spend time on it.
Not when these idiots were still looming over him, and he didn’t know what in the hell was going to happen next. With them, it could be anything. Michel didn’t trust them to let him go alive, certainly not after all this. They’d come for what they wanted, and yeah, they got it by taking Gabbie away from him. That didn’t mean the assholes weren’t planning something extra for Michel, too.
How did they find them?
Had he fucked up?
Michel refused to even consider that it had been Gabbie. And if it had been her, by chance, he didn’t think for one second that she would purposefully do this. She wouldn’t lead them to the two of them here—he knew that for a fact. So how in the hell did they find them when he was certain they had both been careful about this meet up?
“Stay down there, lad,” one of the old men said when Michel put his hands to the floor, ready to push himself back up to his feet. He didn’t plan to fight, but he didn’t want to stay on the floor when he had a handful of men above him. The least they could do was let him get to his feet and try to … do something. “Ye forget the Irish be like dogs when we dig for the bone—savages.”
Michel hadn’t forgotten anything. Hadn’t he been the one to be hesitant when the Irish came up as an issue the first time? Well, for the rest of them, anyway. He’d never for even one second thought Gabbie was dangerous.
For his heart, maybe.
Not the rest of him.
Michel spat his mouthful of saliva mixed with blood to the floor, wanting the taste out of his goddamn mouth. He let out a bitter laugh, and shook his head because this was ridiculous. “Couldn’t knock, assholes?”
That probably wasn’t the brightest idea he’d ever had. One of the Irishmen confirmed that thought by kicking Michel right in the ribs. The force of the hit sent him rolling over, and sprawling to his back on the floor.
His mouth kept bleeding.
Now, his chest hurt, too.
Stop running your smartass mouth, his mind snapped. Like he needed a reminder that it was always his attitude and arrogance that got him in trouble more than anything else. He knew how this worked.
Didn’t mean he could change it.
Besides, he’d much rather die giving them the shit he could than crying on the floor like a damn baby. He was a Marcello—they didn’t give anything; they only took. This included, and Michel refused to shame his name for anyone else.
“You’re not a very smart lad, are you?”
Michel eyed the man looming over him now. He wasn’t nearly as old as the others. If anything, the man looked younger than Michel by a couple of years. And maybe a bit familiar, too, although Michel couldn’t place his face for whatever reason.
“I’m quite smart,” Michel replied.
Even to his own ears, his voice was hoarse.
He’d not gotten nearly enough sleep, and then to be woken up only to have Gabbie yanked from the hotel room before they kicked the shit out of him … well, it wasn’t looking like it would be a great day.
He was tired.
Of everything.
“Aye, tell him, Aidan,” one of the older men said.
Michel’s brow dipped.
Aidan.
Suddenly, he remembered where he knew the younger guy from. At the club that first night when he was fixing Gabbie’s arm up, Aidan had come to the doorway with the girl … Aine. Weren’t they … cousins of Gabbie?
What did it even matter?
“Last warning from the boss,” Aidan said, “because he won’t feck around a second time, Italian. Stay away from his daughter … all you Italians want is a war, and he won’t have you using her as another pawn to get what you want. You feckin’ hear me?”
Michel blinked.
He didn’t want a war at all.
“Are you deaf, lad?”
Michel glanced up at the guy still hovering above him with fists ready to rain down on him once again. Like every other man that still remained in that room. He really didn’t give much of a shit about any of them.
He had other things to consider, now.
Both sides still thought he was … playing for the other side. The truth was a hell of a lot simpler than that. Michel was fucking Switzerland, here. He respected the life his father brought him into, even if it was from the outside looking in, when it came to the Italian side of things. And he loved Gabbie like nothing and nobody else, so he had no interest in causing her or the people she came from any harm, either.
But they thought he did.
Michel’s decision was set, then. He couldn’t be Switzerland anymore, and expect to come o
ut of this thing a winner. And to him, being a winner meant having the thing he wanted more than anything else.
Gabbie.
He was going to have to do whatever he needed to do to get her—pick a side, make it easier for someone to win … or something else entirely.
Michel didn’t know yet.
He needed a plan.
• • •
Gabbie’s phone was either destroyed, trashed, or hidden away somewhere. It had to be—otherwise, why two weeks after being pulled out of the hotel room would she still not be answering his calls or texts? And she had made no effort to attempt to contact him in any way, either.
Michel didn’t think that was her choice. There was no way his girl would purposely keep a distance from him unless she was being forced to do so. Which only pissed him off even more.
So, he put those two weeks to use.
Or … tried.
Something was happening that Michel didn’t understand at all. Just a couple of months ago, he could have called any number of Italians—including Sal, and people in the man’s crew—and they would have picked up his calls in a heartbeat. If he asked for something, they would make sure he had it. He’d been invited into their spaces and allowed to be near when business was happening.
Now?
Fuck.
Now, he couldn’t even get a phone call through. No one was picking up. Which, in a way, Michel would have brushed off because he knew all the places where he could find Sal and any other number of Italians with connections to the Capo.
The problem with that?
Simple.
“You’re not coming in,” the enforcer at the front of the restaurant said. “Besides, Sal ain’t even around today, man.”
Bullshit.
He wasn’t stupid, despite what these idiots might think about him. And there was no way in hell he was going away again. There were questions he needed answered, and he bet Sal was the only one who could do it.
If he couldn’t get to Gabbie, or an Irishman, then he was going for the Italians first. Depending on what he got from them, or what he thought he could use, then Michel had more choices to make. Possibly more options.
Except, he didn’t know what he could do at all when he knew nothing and could speak to no one.
Michel’s jaw ached from how hard he was clenching his molars in that moment. This was the third time in a week that he had been turned away from Sal’s restaurant. The man’s usual meeting place. In fact, he knew Sal was here for sure because the enforcer was watching the door, and Sal’s black town car was in the parking lot.
“I know he’s here,” Michel returned, “and the place is open for business, so—”
“You’re still not coming in.”
Goddammit.
Michel was very close to letting his anger spill over which wouldn’t be a good thing for him, or the people here. Acting out of anger never led to anywhere good, so he tried to tamper the reaction down a bit.
At least, for a second.
“At least go ask him if he’ll see me,” Michel argued.
The enforcer rolled his eyes upward. “I don’t have to ask. I know what I was told.”
“You know I can stand here all day, right?”
Not that he had the time. He was missing out on a day of classes for this, and he couldn’t afford that. It didn’t matter—eventually, Michel would get back to what was important in his life once he got the other important thing back.
Gabbie.
“It’s gonna be a boring day for you, then,” the enforcer replied.
Michel’s gaze narrowed, and he had the greatest urge to punch the cocky fucker right in his throat. “If you don’t go ask Sal—”
“Michel.”
The smoothly cool, yet still annoyed, tone coming from deeper within the entrance of the restaurant had the enforcer sighing. Then, the man stepped aside to allow Michel to see Sal had come to stand just beyond the doorway. The woman who usually worked the podium was gone, leaving just the three of them standing there alone.
Probably smart.
“You’re making a scene,” Sal told him.
Michel shrugged.
Was that a problem?
Good.
Sal was there.
That was the point.
“Maybe,” Michel said, pointing a finger at the man because he was just feeling that kind of mood now, “had you answered any one of my phone calls, or allowed me to see you earlier in the week when I came around, it wouldn’t have come to this today. Right?”
Sal’s lips flattened into a grim line. “I don’t owe you anything, Michel. And I also don’t answer to you. If you’ve forgotten that this still isn’t New York after all this time, that’s not my problem. That sounds like an issue you need to work on.”
Michel let that comment roll off his shoulders like it was nothing. Because frankly, now it was nothing to him. These fucking Italians here kept using that statement to throw at Michel like it was supposed to be an insult. He no longer took it that way—he couldn’t. He knew this place wasn’t New York. No one in New York would behave the way these people did.
“I have questions about—”
“I don’t care,” Sal interjected sharply. “You no longer have anything I need, Michel. I got what I wanted from you, and now here we are.”
Michel stilled on the spot, confused.
What in the hell was Sal talking about?
“You got what you wanted,” Michel echoed.
“That’s what I said.”
Except it didn’t make sense, did it? What had Michel really given Sal? He worked for the man as a dealer for a couple of months, but that was it. It wasn’t like Michel had any real hand in the man’s business, or anything of that nature. He’d rarely been allowed a seat at the table when business was happening.
It just didn’t click.
And then all at once … it did.
The Irish kept saying it, didn’t they?
The Italians only want a war.
Michel knew enough about the families in Detroit to know there had always been a tenuous relationship between the Casey and Vannozzo families. They barely tolerated one another on their good days, and the Italians always felt like the Irish had a little too much control in the city. A complaint they often voiced whenever the Irish came up in conversation.
Yet … there were rules in this world.
Peace was peace.
No one disrupted peace without a reason.
Had Michel been the reason?
Gabbie, too?
Had he given them a reason—as stupid and as petty as it might be—to cause a problem with the Irish that would eventually lead them into war? Because wasn’t that exactly what they were heading to, now?
Michel thought so.
The Irish wouldn’t budge. They refused to feed into the violence the Italians kept throwing at them. Michel might not be on the front lines, but he knew just enough people to get details about the current happenings in the city. He could also watch the news on any given day, and see the escalating violence playing out on the streets day in and day out, although they tried not to name names.
He didn’t need names.
He knew how this worked.
Michel grew up in this life.
“Are you talking about … the Irish?” Michel asked, arching a brow because he was silently daring this motherfucker to deny it. “Are you saying you used me as an opening to get to the Irish—you thought, oh, there it is, and you what, fucking took it?”
Sal chuckled darkly. “Michel, don’t be offended. It’s really not about you. I just saw the opportunity because I knew the girl’s father would be uncomfortable with an Italian from our side of things being so close to her … and so I took it. I got what I wanted.”
“Yeah, you want a fucking war.”
The man smiled. “And we’re almost there.”
But not quite.
The Irish were still holding back.
For now.
What would happen when they answered?
Who would be waiting at the proverbial door?
It scared the hell out of him because he knew how wars worked, and everybody was nothing more than collateral. He’d known it for a while, but the fact was, he tried to ignore it. He hoped it wouldn’t get this far.
Yet, here they were.
Gabbie on one side.
Him on the other.
Michel was going to correct that.
Starting now.
If he couldn’t figure out a way to get Gabbie back by going through the Italians, then he would go to the source that was keeping her away. After all, if what the Irish needed was to get rid of their problem with the Italians … then who better to give them every bit of information they needed to do it than the son of a Cosa Nostra boss?
Michel knew how la famiglia worked.
And he knew how to ruin it.
To his own legacy, that would be the greatest betrayal. What choice did he have?
SIXTEEN
“What are you reading, lass?”
Gabbie refused to look up at her father’s voice. Instead, she continued flipping to the next page in the thriller. Charles sighed at her silence, but he shouldn’t be surprised. Awkward silence or all out shouting could sum up the last weeks of their lives under this roof.
Her father’s roof.
Because she wasn’t allowed to leave.
Or have her phone.
… go to school.
Charles thought he was teaching Gabbie a lesson, but all she learned here was just how controlling her father could be when he wanted to. And she didn’t like it one bit. Sure, at first, she had been willing to play along. Like every other time when he got a little too overbearing, she figured he would get it out of his system quickly enough. He’d let her go back to her place and be normal.
Or as normal as she could be.
Nope.
Here they still were.
“Will you at least look at me?” her father asked, not unkindly.
Gabbie continued reading her book. Some might consider her behavior childish, but she no longer gave a shite. That was the problem—this was the only way she had to show her father how unhappy and disappointed she was in him for the things he was doing to her. She had tried literally everything else.