by Danae Ayusso
“His twin pissed him off,” she said with a chuckle. “While working in the Organized Crime Unit, Frankie and I found ourselves waist deep in an apparent struggle for power in the underground. None of the Families took responsibility for it, and Administration had many sit-downs in order to try to figure out where it was coming from and why. But even then, they had no answers and only a staggering body count and many accusations. But I knew who was behind it; I just couldn’t get the evidence to tie him to it.”
Now it was starting to make sense.
“The alley?” he surmised.
She closed her eyes, trying to get the images out of her mind.
“Daniele wasn’t…he didn’t intentionally try to kill us. Frankie’s only protection from the Families was me, and it was well known that if something happened to him I’d turn my attention to busting every single one of them, not just the Calandriello Family, and that I’d make their lives a living hell more so than I already have. Plus, Micheli Calandriello, the Don of the Calandriello Family, put Frankie under his unspoken protection without Frankie knowing it. I’m sure it was a favor from mio padre to try to win my affections, but I wasn’t going to fight him on that one because I loved Frankie and I was worried about him getting caught in the crosshairs.”
Colt didn’t understand in the least. “So what happened?”
She chuckled once, humorlessly. “Daniele wanted to talk. He never grasped the purpose of a phone, so he arranged for a babbo to get us to chase him so he could get me alone where we could talk. He wanted me to stop trying to bring the Family down. I told him it was never going to happen. He admitted to the seventy bodies he was responsible for that year. I knew he was baiting me, playing games was his specialty, and that was when Frankie caught up to us. Frankie didn’t know it was Daniele, if he would have, he wouldn’t have been so quick to join us because he knew better. But Daniele saw an opening, and he wanted to make me pay. I threw myself between them, but it was too late. Frankie didn’t see the gun in Daniele’s left hand, and as the shot fired from the right went wide, ricocheting off of a dumpster, the round from the left found its mark on Frankie’s right temple. Frankie died instantly. Me, on the other hand, the ricocheted bullet found the spot on the side between my bulletproof vest and tore through my uterus and up through my lung where it settled.”
He nodded and struggled to keep from reaching out and trying to console her, but he knew she didn’t want consoled.
“Daniele is the one who called 9-1-1. He…he never meant to kill me. If the Boss found out, Daniele would have been iced real fast. I died before the paramedics arrived, but they kept working on me. After thirteen-minutes and twenty-three seconds, my heart started to beat again. I was in a coma for two months. The case wasn’t closed, but the D.A. had no place to go with it since the only witness was in a coma. The babbo that Daniele used to lure me to make a marriage in that alley was captured on security cameras ten blocks away when the 9-1-1 call came in from a burner phone so the D.A. was sure that he wasn’t the one who shot two cops. They found him iced in the Hudson four days later; the kid wasn’t even sixteen and had no idea who in the hell I was. When I woke, I made a call to a friend in the FBI that owed me and he helped to fake my death and covered my tracks while I disappeared into the wild.”
Colt’s eyes widened. “You aren’t in witness protection?”
Cat shook her head. “No. Daniele’s reach is surprisingly long. The last four people that we put in the hands of the Marshalls ended up iced along with their protection detail. The man is a genius. He’s as ruthless as they come, his heart is made of ice, soul black as death, mind calculating and always two steps ahead, but his only weakness was the fact that he wasn’t Micheli Calandriello’s favorite, and he quickly found out he never would be. I’m sure the Don knows that it wasn’t some babbo that iced me and Frankie, but he’s hit nothing but dead ends because Daniele was always three steps ahead…the bastard even tried to have me whacked in the hospital to cover his tracks. You really have to admire his dedication to seeing a job through.”
Colt glared at her. “That isn’t funny.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t,” she agreed. “Now do you understand why I can’t settle down? I’ve been out here for six months and that’s five months too long. And now with the FBI nosing around, especially with Donato Salvati hanging around...I trained him! The world is way too small to allow coincidences to pass without giving them a second thought.”
Colt struggled to keep from getting out of the tub and getting a gun and going after Daniele Calandriello, not to mention, silencing FBI Special Agent Donato Salvati as well.
“Donato is a good kid,” Cat assured him, sensing he was getting ready to go off. “He has no ties to the Five Families. But, he has ties to New York and the force. I didn’t clean out all of the meat eaters while I was in I.A. and I know that Daniele still has an ear out since the D.A. is taking him in front of the judge next month for the deaths of Catalina Rossi and Francesco ‘Frankie’ D'Avanzo. Everything the D.A. has is circumstantial, but he’s hoping Daniele might slip up between now and then… Daniele won’t.”
“And you’re going back to testify,” Colt surmised.
She gave him a look. “Hell no. What good would it do? Frankie’s dead. I died out there as well. All it’ll do is cause more blood to be spilt. The war between the Families has quieted, the blood that was staining the streets has been forced back underground where it belongs, so what would be the point? Besides, the Defense would twist it into my personal vendetta against Daniele and that I was trying to avenge Frankie so I’d lie about what happened since I could never get anything to stick to the bastard while I was alive. The babbo did it, plain and simple.”
Colt shook his head. Never did he think it was possible, but he was disappointed in her. “I’m not entirely sure what to say about that, Rossi.”
“There’s nothing to say, Fury. I told you I was damaged. That isn’t even the tip of the iceberg… I can’t go back there. Once I do, I’ll never leave again. There is no way in hell that Daniele would allow me out of the courthouse alive, and then they’ll go to the mattresses all over again. How many people have to die before enough is enough? Frankie knew this, and as disappointed as he is in me, he knows that I’m right. You can’t change the past… God knows I wish that I could. I wish that it was me that died and not Frankie. I wish that I had told him to cut south instead of east so he would have been as far away from that alley as possible. I wish that I could have told him that I loved him, that he was my best friend and that he deserved better than to die at the hands of Daniele Calandriello! But I can’t. I can’t face Daniele…that’s all it amounts to. If he thinks I’m dead, and he finally accepts that he succeeded in killing me, than I can start to live my life for me instead of for revenge and atonement for everything that’s been taken from me…for those who’ve been taken. You of all people should know what that’s like.”
Colt nodded. “I want atonement for Vicks’ death, and I’ll get it, and I won’t stop until I get it, even if it means putting myself in harm’s way to get it.”
“Even if it means putting me in harm’s way?” she countered.
His eyes widened before they narrowed.
“Exactly,” Cat whispered. “I know what set Pope off. The last entry in Vicks’ diary stated that she was finally going to do it. Vicks was going to give herself physically to you. After years of fighting with Jimmy about it, about her being ready, she doubted if what she was feeling was intimate love towards you or just brotherly love as she had with Jimmy. Vicks took her promise ring off and slipped it between the cover in back of the diary, and that night when you picked her up from work she was going to take your relationship to the next level regardless of what Jimmy said or thought. Either it’s you that set Pope off or if was Vicks, maybe both, but it’s personal to say the least. And if Pope discovers that you love me, that I feel deeply for you, and we hit the sheets, it will make both of us a target. Can you
handle that, Fury?”
Colt looked away from her and to the dancing flames in the fireplace. He hadn’t known that about Vicks, and he isn’t entirely sure if he would have allowed her to take that next step with him. It just wasn’t there, regardless of how much he wished that he could say that it was. He remembered each time they kissed, and how more and more distant the passion and feeling of heated love was becoming between them. He thought it was him, and it might have been, but now he realizes that it was both of them. They had grown apart and Vicks’ last ditch effort to save their relationship was to sacrifice what she had held most dear to her—her virginity—and that didn’t sit right with him.
“That’s what I thought,” Cat whispered and climbed out of the tub.
He watched her walk away from him; her long, wet hair clinging to her wet skin, her black panties riding low, and her skin glistened like olive-tinted molten gold from the water still clinging to it.
Is loving Rossi wrong? She has her reasons to be concerned, but where does that leave us? I don’t need to make love to her to know that I love her, and I don’t need to physically express the sentiment, which has left my lips more than once since kissing her. So what’s the problem? Why is she pushing me…
“Huh, that I didn’t see coming,” Colt grumbled and climbed out of the tub and quickly followed her to the bedroom area. “You’re scared,” he accused, grabbing her arm and forcing her around to face him.
The tears streaking down her cheeks broke his heart but it flooded it with something else; something was between them, even if she was too stubborn to admit it: she loved him.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered and tenderly wiped her tears away with his thumbs. “Are you scared for me or for you?”
Cat glared at him and it caused him to smile: She loves me.
“Rossi, Pope’s actions have nothing to do with me or who I love. He’s a sick sonuvabitch that needs put away. For too long I’ve allowed him to control my life and heart, and I’m not about to let him take away the only person I love. I want to make love to you more than anything, to feel and taste you, to worship every inch of you, but I can’t do that unless you want me to. The choice isn’t Pope’s, it’s yours.”
Cat opened her mouth more than once to argue with him, but the words never left her lips.
Colt smiled. “The small town Montana Detective rendered the big, bad New York Organized Crime Unit Lieutenant speechless,” he teased.
She nodded.
“Rossi, your past is just that, the past. If you allow it to control your future, you will keep repeating those same mistakes and reliving it over and over. Isn’t that what you told me?”
She huffed. “Yes.”
“And if I wasn’t listening to your very sound advice, wouldn’t you have smacked me upside the head or shot me…hopefully just a flesh wound but with you it could go either way.”
The corners of her mouth twitched.
“See, you’ve already figured out what you need to do. Now you just have to let go and do it. Stop being scared,” he scolded.
Cat smacked him in the chest. “I’m not scared.”
Colt looked contemplative for a moment before he smiled. “Yeah, you are. You love me. That’s why you’re scared for me. You’re only scared for people you love. You weren’t scared for Frankie, even though you loved him, you weren’t in love with him, thus his actions and fate was his own, regardless of Daniele Calandriello pulling the trigger or not. Do you concur?”
‘He’s a smart one,’ Frankie said.
I know. Why couldn’t I find a blond badge?
‘Technically, Rossi, he is blond.’
Shut up, you know what I mean.
‘You wouldn’t love him if he was stupid. You know this. And the fact that he listens to your life lessons and actually applies them and then throws them back at you when you’re being hypocritical is hilarious. I would have liked to have shaken this mountain of a man’s hand.’
Good God, you sound like you have a crush!
‘I wouldn’t be the only one. I think that badges are drawn to him; me, you, Jimmy, Probie, Raven…maybe he’s that badge magnet you’ve been looking for. He isn’t like your father so you can trust him.’
“Rossi?” Colt asked, concern flooding his face.
“Yeah?”
“You okay?”
She shrugged. “Sorry, I’m just arguing with Frankie in my head.”
He chuckled. “You do that often, don’t you?”
She sighed. “Yes and no. Frankie likes you and thinks you’d be good for me.”
A smile filled his face. “I’m not a shrink, Rossi, but did you ever think that possibly Frankie’s voice is in your head because it’s your own subconscious trying to tell you that it’s okay to let someone in, just as Frankie would have if he were alive today?”
‘Seriously, Rossi, marry this man. He knows you too damn well.’
“If that’s true,” she whispered, “then he’s really gone.”
Colt’s smile fell. “I’m sorry, Rossi. He is gone, you know he is, but he’ll always be with you in your heart. The two of you had something that most people will never find in another: their other half. Regardless of it being completely a-sexual between the two of you, you were best friends and not many can boast that they have a friend who’d die for them and not think twice about it, a friend who would do anything to protect them. Frankie loved you and that’s why he’s gone; because he knew that trying to protect you was the right thing to do. You can’t blame him for doing what you would have done…what you tried to do for him. You have to forgive yourself, Rossi.”
Cat’s bottom lip quivered, and when she closed her eyes, the tears she was struggling to hold back stained her cheeks.
Colt pulled her into him and held her tight, tenderly caressing her head as she sobbed in his arms.
It wasn’t exactly what he was hoping would happen tonight, but on an emotional level it was a hundred times better because even if the stubborn woman couldn’t say the words, Colt knew that Cat loved him and was scared that she’d lose him like she lost Frankie.
That meant more to him then she’d ever know.
After a long, well overdue, cry, Cat was strangely at peace. Frankie’s voice no longer echoed in her head, and the part of her heart that constantly bled for him from guilt was slowly mending itself.
And that was solely because of Colt Fury.
Like a true gentleman, he laid her down in the bed and pulled the covers up around them, and just held her until it was out of her system. He didn’t try to kiss her, caress her breasts that were only covered by the sheet, or slip a finger or two into her panties…he was a perfect gentleman. And quickly, the guilt and grief she had finally exercised from her system turned into passion for the man who helped her heal. It scared her, but at the same time it was exactly what she needed and had been looking for from another her entire life.
Colt’s large body enveloped hers from behind, his chest pressing against her back, arms wrapped around her waist, holding her tight, while she struggled to compose herself. His warmth radiated through her body, and his strength made her feel small and delicate, almost fragile—all three a first. Never had she felt safer than she did at that moment and it was solely because of Colt.
Cat weaved her fingers through his then brought their joined hands to her lips and tenderly kissed each of his knuckles. His arousal was almost instantaneous and stabbed at her panty-clad backside but she wasn’t complaining. She needed him and he needed her.
Colt followed her lead and placed soft kisses along her shoulder and up her neck. His free hand slid up her stomach to her breasts and he cupped one, his breath coming out in a rush against her neck and it made her smile. His large, roughened hand softly kneaded the firm, pliable globe before he got the nerve to brush his thumb over the heated bud, causing Cat to gasp.
“Did that hurt?” Colt immediately asked, sounding apologetic as he pulled his hand away.
Cat grab
bed his hand and put it back to her breast. “Don’t ask, just do,” she said; trying to keep in mind that he’d never done that before, or any of the things she wanted to do with him, and have him do to her. They’d have to take things slowly until they found a rhythm.
“Do I need to remind you?” he asked, sounding slightly embarrassed yet amused.
She rolled to her back and looked up at him. “No, I remember. I’m torn about that, honestly, but I’m not torn about you.”
Her admittance made him smile.
“It’s been a while for me, so you’ll have to bear with me,” she said and pushed him back on the bed and rolled on top of him.
“You don’t have to make me feel better,” he grumbled from under her.
Cat smiled wide. “Trust me, Fury, I’m not. It’s been nearly twenty-four months since I’ve gotten laid, and it was drunken sex that I don’t remember entirely, but…never mind. I’m ruining this, aren’t I?”
Colt chuckled and caressed her head. “You’re adorable when you ramble and blush. I’m not in a rush, Rossi.”
She cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “He isn’t agreeing with you,” she informed him as she crawled down his body and ducked under the covers. “Just relax, Fury,” she whispered against his skin.
He swallowed loudly and nodded.
She blanketed feathery soft kisses down the center of his chest causing his breathing to catch in his throat. The feeling of her fingers caressing down his stomach before her lips followed was beyond words. And when she reached the waistband of his boxer briefs, he forgot how to breathe all together.
Cat teasingly pulled at the sides of his briefs and kissed each inch of flesh she exposed, and with a little silent prodding, Colt raised his hips enough so she could slide his briefs down his thighs. Once freed, his throbbing erection sprang upward, demanding her entire attention.
That is impressive…and will most likely hurt.
Cat wrapped one hand around the thick shaft and Colt gasped and knotted a hand in the back of her hair. Cat, liking the control she obviously had over him, purred in perverse pleasure before pulling the tip of her tongue up the length of rigid shaft, getting another gasp in return. It’d been a while since she’d done this, but, like Frankie always said, it was like riding a bike so she opened her mouth then enveloped the swollen head of Colt’s hot, distended flesh with her lips.