Fallen Angel, Part 1: Fallen Angel Series - A Mafia Romance

by Tracie Podger

  “He shot Mark in the chest, in front of us,” I said, the memory painful.

  “Why did Mark help him?”

  “We won’t know, but everyone has a price,” Robert said, sadly.

  I didn’t want to know what happened to Gabby.

  “I thought I was going to die,” I said quietly.

  “It’s over, Brooke. He can’t hurt you now.”

  “What was the significance of this?” I said, touching the stitches on my eyebrow.

  “He said you would appreciate the significance.”

  Robert looked at me, then Travis. He closed his eyes but shook his head. Travis left and, Robert turned to me, his fingers ran down my cheek.

  “If you want to leave me, Brooke, I’ll understand, I won’t like it. I love you, I always will, but I’ll understand. You didn’t deserve to get caught up in this,” he said sadly.

  We sat quietly for a while.

  “That wasn’t the first time you’ve killed someone, was it?” I asked.

  He closed his eyes for a moment. “No, no it wasn’t.”

  I nodded gently, “I’m glad,” I said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A couple of days later, I was curled up on the sofa with my feet tucked under me, and logs blazed in the hearth, warming the room. I had my books, magazines, and Evelyn fussing over me like a mother would. I thought back to the previous night, how tender and caring Robert had been. I needed him to make love to me, to erase the memories of the past couple of days. He hadn’t wanted to at first, he was worried he would hurt me. My back, legs, and neck were still bruised, my face was scratched from running through the woods, and the stitches still stung from where Joey had cut my face, split my eyebrow.

  I needed Robert; I needed our lovemaking. I needed him to know I was not going anywhere, despite what I knew about him, and despite someone from Robert’s dangerous past trying to kill me.

  I looked out the window, people moved in the shadows. I saw a cigarette being lit, lighting the face of Gary, my new security. At least that time I’d had a say in who shadowed me. The house and grounds had been full the previous day, security teams changed cameras, modified, upgraded, and as much as it felt like I was living in a prison, I was grateful for it. The girls would come by that morning and I was looking forward to seeing them. I’d heard that Rosa had headed home, back to Ireland, just for a holiday, I was told. The events of the past couple of weeks had been too stressful for her, put too much of a strain on her and Paul’s relationship, and I could fully appreciate that.

  I wanted to take a shower, I wanted to put my makeup on and cover the scratches and the scars on my face. It was time to get up, acknowledge that my life was never going to be the same again and plan for my new one.

  Five weeks prior, and it felt like a lifetime, but only five weeks, I had arrived in Washington. In that time, I had fallen in love with the dangerous Robert Stone, had the greatest sex of my life, lost my job, been shot at, and then kidnapped and nearly murdered. I’d only come for a three-week holiday to visit my best friend. If I didn’t have the scars or the bruises, to prove it, it could have been a movie.

  I wandered downstairs to the bedroom and stripped out of my clothes. I took a shower, my face stung a little from the hot water and I tried to keep the cast on my broken wrist dry. I knew the cut on my eyebrow would leave a permanent scar, a reminder of that time, and of who I now was. A member of one of the most powerful families in Washington. Although not blood related, they were a family.

  “Keep telling yourself, Brooke,” I said in the mirror. “There is no Mafia in Washington, anymore.”

  I looked through my closet. There were rows of clothes I could have only dreamed of owning before, and selected a pair of trousers and a white shirt. I carefully dried my hair, conscious of the cut to the back of my head and applied some makeup. Dressed, I made my way back upstairs. Evelyn had prepared lunch for us and I waited for my friends to arrive.

  I heard the crunch of tyres on the drive outside, knowing the gravel was deliberate, another security device. You could always hear someone walk or drive over it. Opening the front door, I welcomed in the women who had become so important to me.

  I was pulled into an embrace, first by Taylor, then Patricia, and finally Susie. Heading back upstairs to the lounge, I opened a bottle of wine and we sat.

  “Honey, how are you? Look at your poor face,” a concerned Taylor said.

  “I’m okay. I’m not allowed out yet, Robert’s orders, but to be honest, right now I don’t want to. Not until my face heals.”

  “Oh, God, Brooke, we were so worried about you,” Patricia said

  I smiled, “So was I for a while.”

  “Can you talk about it?” Susie asked.

  I told them what I could remember, bits were a blur to be honest. I remembered the betrayal I felt when I realised Mark, my driver, was in on the kidnap plan with Gabby. I told them about Joey and how I had fought for my life.

  “Fuck, Brooke, you must have been scared witless,” Susie said.

  “I was. Until I felt Robert, I thought I was going to die.”

  Evelyn informed us that lunch was ready and we made our way into the dining room.

  “Anyway, what about you guys, what’s happened?” I asked.

  “Well, Mack is distraught, he employed Mark and feels it was his fault. Robert keeps telling him that he wouldn’t have known Mark would turn, but he feels, I guess like they all do, that they took their eye off the ball a little. Things have been so good for so long, they feel they relaxed a little too much,” Taylor said.

  “I spoke to Sam last night, told him that I’d fallen while going for a run through the woods. I don’t want him to know anything, he would go into total meltdown,” I said.

  “What can we do, to help?” Patricia asked.

  “Just being here helps. I have so much going around my head right now, it’s difficult to process it all. I guess what I really need to know, is Joey the only one, the only one who can come back from the past?”

  “Honey, no one can you give you that assurance, all any of us can say is that for a long time there have been no problems, nothing like this has ever happened to one of us,” Taylor answered taking my hands.

  “Guess I’m just the lucky one,” I said with a smile.

  “What are you going to do, about you and Robert?” Susie asked and I imagined it was a question they all wanted answered.

  “I’m not leaving, he gave me the opportunity to, said he would understand, but I can’t, not now,” I said.

  I’d seen the man I loved with such passion kill someone without emotion, without remorse, in front of me. He’d done it to save my life, and I was grateful that he could kill, otherwise I would have been dead. What also happened was the inexplicable bond between us was so much stronger than before. To look into Robert’s eyes and see the depth of love he has for me, enough to kill a man without a second of hesitation, made that bond so much stronger. It could never break, no matter whether I left or stayed. Why torture us both by leaving.

  “I propose a toast,” I said raising my glass.

  “To a long friendship, and to gangster molls,” I laughed.

  I sat at the breakfast bar after the girls had left. Evelyn was making pasta.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked her. It was her brother after all that Robert had killed.

  “I’m doing okay, Brooke, I think,” she said with a sad smile. “Robert did the right thing, Joey would have killed you.”

  “Why wait all this time though? Why has he not tried to do something before now?” I asked.

  “Well, to be honest, he might have. The boys are looking into all sorts of things, any problems they met with in the past to see whether he was involved or not. I have to say that Robert has been untouchable until now.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, he has you now, Brooke. Perhaps Joey thought you would be his weakness.”

  “Am I always going to
be his weakness?”

  She nodded, “I guess so, but there’s nothing either of you can do about it. He needs you like he needs to breathe.”

  Me too, I thought.

  “I need to tell you something,” I said.

  “I feel Robert. I don’t think I can explain this very well. I feel him long before I see him. It’s like he has some sort of presence that goes before him. Something deep inside me knows where he is and it’s a comfort, but there’s something else. I’ve known him before. This is going to sound mad, but I’ve known him forever.”

  She had stopped making her pasta and looked intently at me. Her fingers caressing the cross she wore around her neck.

  “I don’t know what to say, Brooke. I mean, some believe that when God created a soul, He created its mate but....”

  Evelyn looked at me, she had no answers to give, but I saw something in her eyes, she understood exactly what I’d just said. I left it at that.

  Returning to my book, I snuggled on the sofa waiting for Robert to come home. I had insisted that he return to work, show the world we were okay. I took a call from Sam, telling him yet again about my fall. I didn’t want to make plans to meet up despite him wanting to come over and check out I was fine. I didn’t want him to see the stitches or the bruises. He would know I was lying, and I already felt bad about that.

  It was as if I was leading a double life. The life Sam thought I was having, and the life I knew I had with the knowledge of Robert’s past. It was hard, Sam has been my best friend for over twenty-five years, and to think that I couldn’t share my secrets with him, saddened me a little.

  I looked out the window, knowing Robert would be returning soon. I would see his car any minute come through the tree line onto the driveway, and I wondered if feeling him would ever go away. I hoped not, but equally I was spooked by it. Sure enough, headlights blazed as the Range Rover pulled onto the drive. I made my way downstairs to greet him.

  I didn’t think I would ever tire of the sight of him as he got out of the car in his customary black suit, white shirt, and red tie. But it was when those dark eyes focused on me that my insides melted, every time.

  “Hey, baby, how are you feeling?” he said, as he pulled me into an embrace.

  “I’m okay, my wrist aches a little, maybe I used it too much today, but other than that,” I said with a shrug. I followed him into the bedroom.

  The first thing Robert always did when he returned from work was to change out of his suit and into his jeans. I sat on the bed and watched him strip. My eyes lingering on his back, on the ripple of muscles, and I laughed out loud when he turned to face me.

  He had a new tattoo, two small letters on his chest, entwined. BS. My initials were tattooed across his heart.

  I walked to him and although it looked sore, I ran my fingers over my name, “Branded, just like me,” I said.

  “I was going to surprise you later with it,” he said as he undid the buttons on my shirt, he bent down and kissed my neck.

  My stomach flipped as he pushed the shirt from my shoulders, undid my trousers, and hooked his fingers inside my panties, pulling them down. He gently pushed me onto the bed, my feet were still on the floor, and he knelt in front of me. He lowered his head to kiss my stomach, his lips trailed further down until he found what he was searching for.

  As his tongue danced around my clitoris, his hands held my hips still and I moaned. He was able to produce the most wonderful feelings inside me, a bubbling of desire and want for him. I felt the rise of an orgasm, the clench in my stomach, and the flush creep up my neck, and he would have felt it too. His tongue licked and his mouth sucked harder. I called out his name as I came.

  He lifted his head, his mouth found mine and I tasted me on him. I shuffled across the bed with Robert above me and wrapped my legs around his waist, forcing him inside me. I loved the feel of him as he moved slowly, his hips grinding against my thighs.

  “I love watching you come,” he whispered after, his head resting on my shoulder. “Every time, it’s like the first time you ever did.”

  I smiled. I was always embarrassed when he spoke to me that way. “I love that you make me come,” I said.

  Biting me hard enough on the shoulder to make me squeal, he rolled off and headed to the shower.

  “We’re going to have to talk about this biting thing, again,” I said to his retreating back.

  “Just marking my territory, baby,” he said, with a laugh.

  I shook my head and followed him. Cleaning myself up a little, I put on a t-shirt and jeans. I was upstairs, laying plates on the breakfast bar when he came up. Evelyn dished up dinner before heading off to her apartment, leaving us alone for the evening.

  “How was your day?” I asked between mouthfuls of the most wonderful ravioli.

  “Good. We have the permissions for some new building work in New York. I need to fly out there soon. I want you to come with me,” he said.

  “Sounds great, I’ve never been there.”

  “I have a day with the planners, maybe you might want to check out Taylor’s store, it’s different to the one here. There are some people I have to meet though, people like me,” he said, looking for a reaction.

  I nodded, understanding but I quietened.

  “You thinking about him?” he said turning to me having finished his meal long before I was even halfway through.

  “I keep seeing his face, Robert, when I shut my eyes.”

  “Baby, what you went through, what you saw, is going to take some time to get over.”

  “Can we go out somewhere? I’ve been stuck in all day, I want to get out, just for an hour.”

  He took my hand and led me downstairs. He grabbed his biker jacket and placed it around my shoulders, zipping me up. I loved the smell of it; leather and him.

  “Come on, let’s go for a ride.”

  We climbed on his bike and he pressed for the engine to fire. I felt that surge of the engine between my legs. I wrapped my hands around his waist, my fists bunched into his shirt and with no helmets on, we headed off into the night.

  It was exhilarating and just what I needed. The cold wind whipped into my face and my hair streamed out behind me. I felt the most immense sense of freedom sitting on the back of that bike; it was like we were flying. We stayed local, just riding through the parkland surrounding the house, the roads empty at that time of night. Eventually he slowed and pulled up near a monument and killed the engine. We’d stopped on top of a hill; Great Falls was spread out below us. The noise of water cascading down rocks and the smell of fresh rainfall on the grass and the leaves of the trees, filled my senses.

  “I come here when I want to think,” he said, and I rested my head on his shoulder.

  “What happened to them, Robert?” I asked.

  “I know this is a cliché, but what you don’t know can’t hurt you. What would happen if one day you were asked that question, say by the police, and you knew the answer, how would you feel?”

  I hadn’t thought about it that way.

  “Are the police likely to come after you?”

  “No, because they won’t be found. There are going to be things I won’t tell you, Brooke, not because I don’t want to, but because it’s better that you not know.”

  “Let me guess, they’re swimming with the fishes,” I joked.

  He smiled, shaking his head. He climbed off the bike then back on facing me. His hands were on my waist.

  “You seem to be doing okay but are you really?” he asked.

  “I thought about that today, after the girls asked, and the thing is, I am. Maybe it’s still the shock, I don’t know. I see the image of his face, which I don’t like, but I don’t feel anything about what happened. Is that wrong?”

  “It’s probably your way of dealing with it,” he said, while his fingers stroked my cheek, comforting me.

  “What about you, how are you? We haven’t talked about you,” I asked.

  He thought for a moment.<
br />
  “I felt, for the first time in years, utterly powerless.”

  He paused, looking out to something I couldn’t see. All the time I studied his face, watching the pain in his eyes.

  “There was never a moment of doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t get to you, how much he hurt you first though, was tearing me apart.”

  “I felt you, I knew you were there. It’s not a horrible feeling, more a comfort. It’s like when you snuggle under a duvet on a cold winter’s night, a feeling of protection.”

  He sat looking at me, his dark eyes reading whatever was showing in mine.

  “What do you think it means?” I asked.

  He didn’t speak, just shook his head gently, maybe he knew the answer, maybe not, but he wasn’t ready to share his thoughts with me yet.

  “What did you think of when you shot him?” I asked.

  “Nothing, my mind empties of everything except the task. Even if he’d dropped his knife and run, I would have still killed him, because of what he did to you.”

  “Tell me more about Joe.”

  Robert’s face softened when he spoke. “He was a good man, Brooke. As much as it’s hard to believe, bearing in mind what he did to earn money, but he cared for his children as well as for Travis and me. He had rules; he was old school. He wanted an environment his children and others could be safe in. He wouldn’t tolerate violence to women or children but he would beat a man to a pulp if he had to.”

  “Did you enjoy what you did for him?” I asked.

  “Yes. Having the money, having the respect, it’s addictive. No one had respected me before and that man did, and what he allowed me to do, meant others did. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not stupid. Some people respected me because they were scared of me, that’s still the case. But when you’re a testosterone-fuelled teenager with anger issues, people did what I wanted. I got used to it. Yes, I enjoyed it.”