I look closer and notice the salt-colored hair at his temples. He has brown hair that’s neatly coiffed. Contrary to the assembly line of scrubs I’ve been subjected to for the past few hours, he is dressed nothing like the hospital staff.
He’s fitted nicely, decked out in a casual navy tailored suit.
He would be handsome… if I didn’t want to cut him into a million parts.
I hold my breath as he approaches my bed.
“Don’t be afraid,” he says.
I try to laugh. “Of you? I’m not.”
“I knocked you out for your own good...”
“Didn’t you hear what I just said? I’m not afraid.”
“You would have drawn more attention to yourself… and to Bishop.”
The way he ignores my responses is deliberate. I stop replying and wonder just who the hell this man is.
His face is vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it. He regards me closely as if he knows me, and he has the wherewithal to call “Bishop” by his last name.
I know in my heart that that can’t be good.
I ask him again. “Who are you?”
“My name is not important, Dani,” he replies, shocking me. “What can I do for you is. We’ll get to the name part later. I just want you to know that you and Bishop are safe… and we are taking you back home.”
Back home?
“Back home where?” I croak.
“To New York, of course. The states. I’ll take you back. Get you set up and then I’ll do my best to secure you some protection from now on. Some real protection.”
He glances at Bishop, and his silent implication makes me want to slap the salt-and-pepper out of his hair.
How dare he insult Bishop like that?
“Protection? What kind of fucking protect-? You know what…?” I interrupt myself. “It doesn’t even matter. I don’t know who the fuck you are… and Bishop and I aren’t going any-fucking-where with you. You can bet on that.”
“Oh, I’m sure I will. You know I really appreciated your phone call, Dani… You were the reason I was able to track you here. And if they were tracking me—which I’m sure they were—then you two are up shit’s creek without a paddle.”
He leans in.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they sent one of their own already to bring the both of you in, Dani.”
The way he says my name rings a bell.
“Bishop’s fresh out of surgery, and I don’t think he’ll have much of a say. You, my dear, are also caught in a bind. You can return with me on your own accord… or they’ll be here and you can return to the U.S. in handcuffs.”
He taps a finger on the edge of Bishop’s bed.
“So what’s it going to be, Dani?”
Dani, Dani, Dani…
I close my eyes.
Oh, no… Not now.
A flashback hits me hard as hell. Déjà vu on crack speeding into my sluggish brain.
My hand, and my own name, teeters on the edge of an older gentleman’s lips. Gold and pink. Pink and gold.
A party.
And suddenly I can see the man from my Sweet Sixteen as if it were yesterday. He smirks playfully in my direction.
He touches me. And I let him.
I open my eyes.
I look straight at the handsome stranger.
“You…” I quietly accuse. “It was you… at my Sweet Sixteen. I’d thought you were my father. I’d thought you were… with me…”
He looks at me curiously.
“But you weren’t…” I finish. “You were with Bishop. You came with Bishop. I saw you on the street, outside of the party.”
I let the realization slowly sink in without throwing me under. It is all I can do not to cry.
“You’re Bishop’s father.”
The man laughs, and it is a frustratingly musical sound.
“I’m sorry… but Bishop’s father would probably roll over in his grave if he saw what I’m about to do.”
He puts one hand in his pocket.
“You see… when an FBI superior assigns you a case, you’re supposed to follow it to a fucking T, my Dani. You’re not supposed to question it… and you’re not supposed to skip town with your goddamned charge.”
He looks at me, his voice lowering with an intensity that makes me shiver.
“Maybe Bishop just skipped that day of training. I’m Ace Delaney, ma’am.”
His eyes scan over me then float to Bishop. The beeping in the room intensifies by a thousand-fold.
Stolidly and without thought, I search for the machines to shut it off.
I stop searching when I realize that the incessant bleeping is now only in my head.
AN AMERICAN GIRL IN PARIS
DANI
Donovan Bishop is a lie.
The name and the man.
For ten years, my father trusted him as his protector. For five years, I trusted him as mine.
And he was the biggest enemy of them all.
Christian Donovan Bischetti AKA “Bishop.”
A man known to the Gafanellis as “the Crow.”
A man known to others as “Donovan Bishop.”
Suspected of being the traitor to Robert Fletcher and the alleged right-hand man of Don Gafanelli, he was truly neither.
He was an outsider, a fraud and a fucking cop (or rather, FBI agent) who infiltrated into their camp of crime, politics and corruption to bring all of them down.
Including her… according to Delaney.
After all, she was a Gafanelli.
And what did that mean?
It meant that she would be charged as a Gafanelli, put on trial as a Gafanelli and ultimately convicted as a Gafanelli.
Stupid fucking Dani. I knew I hated her.
With her attack, her subsequent “disappearing act” and Robert Fletcher’s “betrayal,” the Gafanellis had apparently gone underground—according to Bishop’s now worthless word.
And when she made love to him—alright, fucked his brains out—she’d just assumed that he’d told her the whole truth. Everything there was to know.
She’d never guessed that his “truth” was a different version than hers.
She’d once thought that she was the fraud…
Bishop was really the Fool’s Gold all along.
And now I have to figure a way out of this. Alone.
Because the man who raised Bishop, the man who handled the federal murder case of his long-deceased parents, was none other than today’s little hospital guest…
Ace Delaney.
He raised Bishop since Bishop had lost his family at ten, groomed him for a position in the FBI, and, when his young successor hit that eligible age of twenty-three, he had done his part to ensure that his prized student would worm his way into the lives of the Gafanelli’s—one of the most dangerous crime families in all of the United States.
The young Bishop had wanted revenge… and Delaney had taken steps to ensure that he got it.
He taught Bishop how to move, act and think. He taught Bishop how to build an airtight case.
And it was all for one purpose: to take down the one man who had murdered Bishop’s parents.
The head honcho. The big boss.
And my father.
Don Gafanelli.
Bishop wanted him dead. Or rather, wants.
And in my case, it’s starting to seem that whole godammned world wants me dead.
Well, at least the parts of the whole world that really matter.
It’s almost like a bad joke.
The FBI, a U.S. senator and your family of criminals walk into a bar… and then they poison your drink and put a bullet in the back of your head just for good measure.
Ta-da! Cue the laugh track.
And now I navigate through Barcelona’s busy metro lines still in my dirty red party dress with a grand total of three thousand dollars on my person.
Three thousand lousy dollars.
The money that Ace Delaney gave me to get
lost.
Get lost and never come back.
He treated me like a poisonous seed, one who’d come to corrupt his prized possession—the apple of his eye.
Bishop. The boy he’d raised when no one else could.
A part of me respected him, if only for Bishop’s sake, but I still couldn’t make up my mind on him.
Showing concern, recounting the entirety of his history with Bishop, he was either telling the truth… or he was a masterful liar.
Either way, Ace Delaney, the man I’d inadvertently invited back into our world, seemed to be concerned with his own agenda.
He’d hired Bishop to take down my criminal father… and according to him… the plan had never stopped.
According to him… Bishop had been using me the entire time.
And I’d been the fool.
I take out the money, counting it for the thousandth time.
Could be worse. The only thing worse than a regular fool was a broke one... and at the moment, I was only half broke.
Still… I travel as far as my money-stuffed shoes will take me.
Buying replacements at a nearby outdoor market, I change clothes en route to Paris. Before I hop a rail to France, I slip into denim shorts, a white t-shirt and Converses—just like every other American tourist.
I ditch my phone, tossing it in a nearby river.
And then I’m gone.
I send myself smoking on the next high-speed RENFE-SCNF train leaving the station, wondering just how the hell I’m going to pull this off.
How long can I run from the freaking FBI? How far?
My feet are sore, my nerves are shot and my stomach is rumbling so loudly that it’s probably distracting the other passengers.
I barely have enough money to budget in the purchase of a candy bar.
The daughter of an infamous Mafioso, you couldn’t tell me that money didn’t grow on trees, that diamonds weren’t merely trinkets and that birthday gifts didn’t come with stacks of hundred dollar bills.
Spoiled wasn’t the word.
I’d seen the worst of humanity… and, because of my family’s lifestyle, benefitted most from it.
I hated that I hadn’t been strong enough to get out of the life sooner.
I hated what my family did… but when you are born into money, it’s a hard thing to walk away from, and I hated that I had to nearly die to make a change.
I hate that Bishop was the change.
I wish that I could despise him. I wish that I could want him dead.
But instead I curl my feet towards the edge of my train seat, hugging my knees, thinking of nothing but him.
Wondering how he is, where he is, if he’s still alive and knows that I am gone. I even wonder if what happened between us in our time together was real.
Was any of it?
I had wanted him for so long, lusted for him since the minute I was legal. I wanted to believe that he wanted me the same way.
When he touched me, was the lust I saw in his face real? Was the heat, the passion true?
The gritty way he spoke my name. The long kisses. The hard thrusts…
I lose myself in the memory when all of a sudden the train slows down into a station. It gives a few squeaks and puffs and then unceremoniously stops.
Next station: Paris.
Packing up what little I have left, I leave my seat, my head swimming and my heart fluttering. I’m in a city I never thought I’d see again.
Just a stop back on the way to Annecy…
As I exit the train amidst the throng of passengers, I can only imagine the many ways I’m going to get myself killed…
CRITICAL CONDITION
BISHOP
“You’re fucking out, Donovan.
You jeopardized the entire op for a piece of criminal pussy. The next time you go off the reservation, you’re out. For good. You’re lucky I got to you first and not the rest of the Feds. Otherwise, you’d be under the jail.”
He leans forward.
“Are you listening? Do you understand me, Agent Bischetti?”
The words don’t even register to me. Nothing but the pain does, actually.
A fire, dull and unforgiving, burns to the left of my heart and in my shoulder. An even deeper fire burns behind my blazing eyes.
I train the flame right at Delaney.
Delaney let her walk out. He let her walk out for good with no fucking questions asked.
Delaney doesn’t give a fuck. The FBI never gave a fuck.
None of them.
Not about me… and definitely not about a Gafanelli, though Delaney never specifically said as much.
He’d been my idol as long as I could remember.
A lonely kid in a police station, he’d approached me with promises of vengeance.
At ten, he’d given me a sense of fulfillment, a goal in life.
At twenty-three, he’d introduced me to the assignment that would change my life.
I’d once believed every single thing the man said. At thirty, I know now better not to.
They’d used me.
An inexperienced kid from Jersey with murdered parents and Mafia connections, I’d been nothing but the perfect puppet for them.
No ties. No excuses. No future.
Until Dani changed all of that.
I’d stayed past the initial term of my assignment, sticking it out for a sense of duty. Not to the FBI, not to the Gafanellis.
Not even to my own fucking self.
I’d done it for her… because she was different.
Like me, she was born into a world she shouldn’t have been, a life she’d never have chosen for herself if given the chance.
Raised by a thief of a father and a co-conspirator of a mother, I’d been just ten years old when they’d been killed for allegedly having ties to the feds.
My fate was set… and I never stood a goddamned chance.
I’d hoped that Dani did.
And now she never will… because the men that pursued her outside of the Regency the night of her father’s party, the ones who’d crashed our cab and tried to put holes in us are still out there.
And now so is she. Alone.
I’ve gotta get word to Jackson immediately.
I reach over for my wallet.
“Donovan…”
“Where the fuck is it?” I grunt under my breath.
“Donovan! Do you hear a goddamned thing I’m saying?”
I glance at Delaney. “Maybe…”
“Donovon, get your fucking shit together, man. You’ve got bigger problems than…”
I can’t hear the rest. I swear I can’t.
All I can think about is Daniela… my wallet… my freaking cell phone.
The cell phone! Shit. I can track her. I sure as shit don’t see the little black box here.
My fingers find my cell on the nearby nightstand, and I start dialing before Delaney even finishes talking.
“Donovan!” Delaney practically screams.
I hold up a hand. “I’m dying over here, Delaney. Let me have my last phone call…”
“Who are you calling?” he asks.
I ignore him.
The phone begins to ring on the other line, and I wait. Delaney can’t keep his mouth shut. He puts an insistent hand over my own.
“You wouldn’t be calling your piece of runaway alleyway pussycat, would you?”
I shake his hand from atop of mine.
“I understood the consequences when I did it. I understand the consequences now… but if you ever refer to Dani like that again… I will kill you where you fucking stand. Tell me if you understand that.”
Delaney is taken aback. Fear flashes briefly in his eyes, but he quickly recovers from it. The self-important son-of-a-bitch.
“Or,” he continues without prompt, “maybe you’re even calling… that other no-good sonuvabitch, Jackson?”
He scoffs.
“I taught you both better than this. He’s ex-FBI for a reason,
Bishop…”
He shakes his head at me.
“And he just might not be on your side anymore… Not after what I’ve just learned…”
I narrow my eyes up at him as his cell phone goes to voicemail for the second time. I end the call.
“Not picking up, is he? Seems your little birdie flew the coup. He cleared out of London, left you and Dani to fend themselves.”
He takes a step.
“Your two-timing sidekick has been missing for the past two days.”
LUCK BE A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS
DANI
I’ve never been to a hostel before.
Daughters of infamous criminals don’t stay in hostels.
With my three thousand dollars down to twenty-five, a six-hour train ride, and a strange visit to a few more weird marketplaces under my belt, I splurge on a familiar comfort.
A hotel room the size of a large bathroom. It has a funny smell, white towels that feel like sandpaper and absolutely no goddamned hot water, but at this point, I don’t even care.
I treat the place like five-star luxury.
If I take a bath, it will probably make me shit icicles in the morning, but at least I ate a real meal today.
I combed my hair. I bought a fresh pair of underwear.
And I make it all the way into my cold shower before the tears, stinging behind my eyes all day, finally start to fall.
Prideful and stubborn for hours, they now flow down my face freely.
Salty. Warmer than the freezing water around me. I almost welcome them.
They’re the first real things I’ve felt in two days—two days where every emotion I’ve felt has been minced and diced, bottled up and sent soaring into outer space with a tag that says “Do Not Return.”
I’m tired of feeling.
I’m tired of being lonely and afraid, stepped on and stepped over.
I fell for a man who was the last person on Earth I should have cared for. I ran away from what is probably the most dangerous family on the planet.
Add one mean-looking Fed and a cash count nearing zero, and you had whatever was left of Daniela Gafanelli.
Former Mafia Princess. Soon-to-be beggar.
Neither one of which sounded the least bit appealing.
Fool's Gold: A Kisses and Crimes Novel Page 15