by Cassia Leo
He lets out a gruff chuckle and his breath tickles the hairs on my neck, sending a chill through me. “You don’t know me, so don’t bother sifting through those pretty little thoughts.”
“Pretty thoughts?”
Crap! One-word answers, Becky! Don’t let him get to you.
He rounds me so I can see him, but he faces away from me as he pretends to look around the empty garage. I get a strange urge to bite the back of his strong neck, which only makes me think of August. Who knows what he’s up to? Probably sitting in the café writing about the advantages of wool socks over cotton. Maybe he’s in his apartment right now, having his wool socks slowly pulled off by some trust-fund hussy.
August lives in his perfect bachelor pad on the lower east side. He can flip his blond hair back while sipping a cappuccino in a dusky coffee shop and no one will judge him because he’s surrounded by hipsters. Tapping away at his keyboard, he writes about vintage sweaters and suede oxfords for his highly successful men’s fashion blog. I, on the other hand, live in a quaint—code word for crappy—studio apartment in midtown—okay, Hell’s Kitchen—where I can occasionally gorge on Doritos while watching CSI without August’s judgment.
Knox turns around slowly and fixes me with that steely glare that once again halts my breath. “Here’s the deal, Rebecca.”
He pauses when he sees my eyes narrow. No one has called me Rebecca in years. When I left Bensonhurst, I became Becky. Someone sweet and innocent and, yes, maybe even a bit naïve. The fact that he called me Rebecca tells me this guy truly is here on my father’s behalf. Suddenly, I feel sick to my stomach. This is serious.
His glare softens as he reaches for my arms. “You look pale.”
My fingers are tingling. I’m going to pass out. I take a few quick breaths to rush some oxygen to my brain. Within seconds, the tingling goes away.
“Shit,” I whisper.
He lets go of my arms and his eyes harden. “As I was saying, here’s what you’re going to do, Rebecca. You’re going to go home right now and pretend as if this never happened. Come Monday morning, you will walk to work with your preppy boyfriend and pretend as if this never happened. You’ll sit down at your desk in the evidence locker and, again, you’ll pretend as if none of this ever happened… until you receive a phone call at precisely 8:12 a.m. Then you will do everything that is asked of you. You will follow every instruction to the letter. Is that clear?”
Every morning, August greets me at my front door with a skinny latte and a kiss. Then he walks me to work while we catch up on the previous day’s news. After that, he takes the subway to his lower east side sanctuary and the cycle repeats. Sometimes he’ll show up at my apartment early, so he can make love to me before work. Come to think of it, we never really see each other in the evening anymore.
I stare into Knox’s cold blue eyes, ready to let him have it. “Okay, Knox. I think you have me mistaken for someone else. Someone who capitulates to my father’s every whim. I’m not afraid of my father.”
He breaks into a smile again when I say this. He doesn’t believe that for a second.
“I’m not afraid of him!” I insist, sounding like a petulant child. I might as well start jumping up and down and plugging my ears with my fingers. “I’m not helping you or my father. Now please take me home. I have to rest for work tomorrow.”
“I can’t take you home until you agree to my terms.”
“And if I refuse to agree to your terms?”
He looks into my eyes, one of his eyebrows cocked, daring me to follow through on this threat. “Then you’ll never go home.”
I don’t question this. I don’t protest. Because I can see it in his eyes. He’s serious. He’ll keep me here as long as it takes.
Chapter 5
“Well, you can’t hide me here forever. You obviously need something from me. Something time-sensitive or you could have sent me a handwritten letter via pony express. So I think I’ll just wait it out.”
He laughs, a hearty sexy laugh, even throwing his head back. God, he’s way too sexy for words. The more he laughs, the more uncomfortable I become. He’s one step ahead of me. And something tells me he always will be.
“Your disappearance will only lend credence to your father’s cause. And it will be most advantageous to my mission. So you can stall all you want. It won’t make your situation any easier.”
This is where I crap my pants. Not literally, but almost. I have to get some leverage in this situation.
“What do I get if I cooperate? Besides my freedom.”
He reaches up and brushes his thumb across the corner of his mouth as he smiles. It’s an incredibly sexy gesture. As if I’ve just asked him an embarrassing question. But I haven’t. He’s just amused. Amused with my naiveté.
“You’re not really in a position to negotiate.”
“Then how do I get in that position?” I cover my mouth when I realize what I’ve said and he lets out another heart laugh. “That’s not what I meant!”
My face is burning hot with embarrassment, but he just continues to chuckle.
“Your dad told me you might be a tough sell. But there’s no one who can’t be bought.”
He reaches for my hair and I bat his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”
He smiles at my defiance. “Interesting hair color. Matches your eyes… I guess.”
I glance down at my shoulder where my brown hair flows down over my coral silk tank top. “What’s so interesting about it?”
He shakes his head and turns away from me. For a moment, I get a strong feeling Knox knows me. Does he know my real hair color? No, that’s ridiculous. He’s too young to be one of the goons who worked for my father four years ago.
“Have you ever heard the name Frank Mainella?”
He’s still facing away from me, walking toward the corner as he asks this question. I’m surprised he doesn’t want to look me in the eye to gauge my reaction. He strikes me as the kind of guy who would want to see my eyes widen and my body trembling at the mere mention of a name.
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Don’t lie to me, Rebecca.”
“Why do you keep calling me Rebecca? My name is Becky!”
He turns on his heel and glares at me. “Don’t lie to me, Rebecca! Do you know Frank Mainella?”
The trembling in my hands intensifies as he strides toward me. “I don’t know anyone named Frank!”
He grabs me by the arms and his face is inches from mine as he roars, “What do you know about Frank Mainella?”
“Let me go!”
My struggling only makes him tighten his grip. “Tell me what you saw and I’ll let you go!”
My heart is pounding as his fingers dig into my biceps.
“Stop it. You’re hurting me.” I murmur these words and he loosens his grip on me just slightly. “Please,” I beg, my chest heaving, not sure what I’m begging for.
His eyes soften into a mesmerizing sky blue. The kind of sky you could lie back and get lost in for hours. And suddenly I’m lost in a memory.
Chapter 6
Eight Years Ago
I’m fifteen years old and lying on my bed doing my homework. The doorbell rings and, as usual, I wait for my mom to answer it. A couple of minutes later, the ding-dong of the doorbell comes again. And again I wait.
On the third ring, I resign myself to the fact that I’m going to have to leave my room and possibly face my father. He won’t answer the door; not even if he’s sitting in the recliner right next to it. It’s not because he’s lazy or chauvinistic. It’s a security measure.
Security. As if anyone could ever feel secure around my father knowing the things he’s done.
I race down the steps and I’m relieved to find the living room empty. I shoot toward the front door and glance through the peephole. What is Marco doing here?
Technically, I’m not allowed to answer the door when I’m home alone. But this isn’t a stranger. My dad loves Marco Leone li
ke a son.
I sigh as I pull the door open. Marco’s blue eyes quickly glance over my body before he speaks. “Your dad here?”
“No. He’s probably down at the shop.”
My dad owns Veneto’s on 9th Street, but no one ever calls it a restaurant. It’s the shop. Because there’s a lot more than food getting cooked over there.
Marco glances over his shoulder nervously. “Can I come in and wait for him?”
“He might not be home for hours.” He looks anxious, but it’s the desperate plea in his eyes that gets me. “Come in.”
I’ve seen Marco around the neighborhood for years, but I haven’t seen him around much since his mother was killed two years ago. His father left when he was a kid. So when his mom died, there wasn’t anything tying him to Bensonhurst. He must be twenty now if he was eighteen then.
“Have a seat,” I say, motioning to the sofa. “You want something to drink.”
My heart is pounding as I realize I’m alone in my house with a guy who’s five years older than me. My father would probably kill me if he knew I answered the door while I was home alone.
Marco shakes his head as he sits back on the brown leather sofa. “I’m not thirsty. I’ll just wait here.”
I sit a couple of feet away from him. The sofa exhales a puff of air that smells like cigar smoke. I pull both my legs up and face Marco as I sit cross-legged.
“You haven’t been around much since….”
He stares at the floor in front of his feet. “I’ve been busy.”
“Doing what?”
Some would call me nosy. My father would call me inquisitive.
Even after my father discovered I saw what he did to Uncle Frank, he still refers to me as his inquisitive, perfect princess. My father knows I’d never tell a soul what I saw. But that doesn’t mean I still feel the same way about my father. He’s no longer the hero of the neighborhood to me. When I look at him now, I see a two-faced thug.
There’s something magnetic about Marco. Just sitting there with one arm draped over the arm of the sofa, looking around so he doesn’t have to look at me. There’s an intense energy pulsing off of him. Pulling me toward him.
Without realizing it, I’ve reached my hand out to touch the tattoo on his forearm. His skin is so warm and stretched taut over his firm muscles.
“What are you doing?”
I look up from the tattoo of his mother’s name—Ella—and he almost looks angry.
“I’m sorry.” I pull my hand away. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
He stares at me for a moment before his gaze falls to my lips. He shakes his head and looks away. Am I giving off that same energy?
I clasp my hands in my lap so I don’t accidentally touch him again. “So what have you been up to?”
“I’ve been in prison.”
His voice is hard and I know he’s telling the truth. One thing I’ve learned from being part of the family is that you don’t ask people about their crimes. There’s a paranoia about wires that runs thick through this community. Asking someone for specifics about a crime they’ve committed is like wearing a sign that reads, I’m a rat.
But I can’t help myself.
“What did you do?”
He glances sideways at me and a tiny smile curls the left side of his mouth. “Nothing.”
“How long were you in prison for doing nothing?”
He chuckles and it’s such a sexy sound, my arms sprout goose bumps. “Nineteen months.”
“You must have done a whole lot of nothing to serve nineteen months.”
He turns to me and his smile is gone. “Listen, Rebecca, you can’t tell anyone you saw me here. You understand? After I see your dad, I’m leaving Bensonhurst for good.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s nothing left for me here.”
A sharp pain sparks inside my chest. “You’re never coming back?”
He shakes his head and once again his gaze falls on my lips. “Nah. I’ve got some business to take care of.”
My heart thumps in every inch of my skin as I stare at his lips. It would be so wrong for me to kiss him. But it’s all I want to do. If this is the last time I’m ever going to see him, there’s no harm in just a kiss. Right?
“When did you get out of prison?”
“This morning.”
He got out this morning. That means he hasn’t kissed a girl in at least nineteen months. No wonder he keeps staring at my lips.
Suddenly, I’m in his lap, my hands clutching his face, my mouth on his. We’re both breathing so heavily I can hear the air whooshing inside our mouths.
“Stop,” he insists as his hands slide over my hips. “We can’t do this.”
“Why not? I’m not a virgin.”
It’s a lie, but when am I going to have an opportunity like this? After today, I’ll never see him again. Then I’ll always wonder about that energy.
He grabs my face and forces my head back so he can look me in the eye. “You’re fifteen and you’re not a virgin?” He looks appalled. “Who was it? Who the fuck did it? Tell me and I’ll fucking kill him.”
I can’t help but smile at this reaction. For a moment, I consider making up a name. But I can see from the fierce glare in his eyes, he would probably hunt down this fictional guy and tear out his eyes.
“Okay, fine. I’m still a virgin.” He easily lifts me off his lap and sets me down on the sofa next to him. “But I don’t want to be a virgin anymore.”
He shakes his head as he stands from the sofa. “I can’t stay here.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re fifteen years old and I don’t want your dad to murder me. Like I said, I’ve got shit to take care of. And I need to be alive to do that.”
He heads for the door and I follow after him. “But I thought you had to see my dad.”
He looks me in the eye as he thinks. “Just tell him I came by and I’ll get in touch with him soon. But only tell him. Don’t tell anyone else. Understood?”
I nod, pressing my lips together to try to hold back the tears of rejection. He lets go of the door handle and turns to me. He takes my face in his strong hands and forces me to look at him.
“Don’t just give yourself to any asshole who’ll have you. You’re too beautiful for that. Promise me you’ll wait.”
I nod again as the first tear rolls down my cheek and he leans in to kiss me. This is not the hungry kiss we shared a couple of minutes ago. This is a slow, tender kiss; the kind that will be burned into my memory forever. He pulls away and lays a soft kiss on my forehead.
“Tampering with evidence in a federal investigation,” he whispers with that crooked smile that makes the dimple in his chin more pronounced.
Then he kisses my temple and walks out of my life forever.
Chapter 7
“Marco?”
There’s a flash of recognition in his eyes, but it’s gone in an instant. “That’s not my name.” His mouth is set in a hard line as he tightens his grip on my arms again. “What do you know about Frank?”
We’re so close, my chest is pressed against his. I should knee him in the crotch, but I have nowhere to run to. And I’m losing my resolve. I should never have walked Lita to the train today.
Who am I kidding?
If they hadn’t found me on 42nd Street, they would have found me in my apartment. Knox works for my father. And if Knox is really Marco—I think I’d recognize those blue eyes anywhere—then he’s been working for my father since before he was sent to prison for tampering with evidence. Ten years can do a lot to a man in this line of business.
“Tell me who you are—who you really are—and I’ll tell you about Frank.”
He loosens his grasp and shakes his head. “You think this is a game? I’ve already told you, you’re in no position to negotiate.” He smiles and tilts his head. “And you know that.”
The heat of his breath on my nose makes my heart race. I can’t outtalk him or outsmart h
im.
“Okay. I’ll go to work tomorrow and do whatever you want me to do. Can I go now?”
“No.” He finally lets go of my arms. “You’re going to sit down and tell me everything you know about Frank Mainella. Then you can do whatever I want you to do.”
He points at a stack of three tires for me to sit on. I sigh as I walk over, pulling up my skirt so I don’t get tire dust or grease on it, and take a seat. The hard rubber is cool against the backs of my bare legs.
“Tell me what this is all about.” He glares at me, angry that I’m still making demands. “Please,” I plead softly. “Is my father in trouble?”
His chiseled features soften. “Yes. Your dad’s in a lot of trouble. He’s being arraigned tomorrow afternoon for the murder of Frank Mainella.”
I cover my face with my hands and will myself not to cry. This is what I wanted, isn’t it?
“I need to know everything you know about Frank Mainella’s death and the weeks leading up to it. Can you do that?”
His voice is softer now, as if “angry Knox Savage” was just a role he was playing. I draw in a deep breath and look up. His eyes are pleading with me to cooperate. He doesn’t want to keep me here any more than I want to be here.
“I saw him do it.” I suck in another shaky breath. “My father killed him, in our living room, ten years ago.”
He kneels before me and looks up into my eyes. “Rebecca, you have to tell me everything you saw.”
That look. Those eyes. The way he lays his hand on my knee. That’s all it takes for me to tell him everything. Because that’s what my father wants. Isn’t it?
When I finish, his hand slides off my knee and I nearly gasp at the way his touch feels so electric. Not at all clumsy the way August’s touch often feels.
He stands and offers his hand to help me up. “I’ll drive you home.”
“That’s it?” I ask, taking his hand.
He pulls me up and my body feels as exhausted as my mind. It must be close to midnight. But, suddenly, I’m not ready to leave.