Bratva Sinner: A Possessive Mafia Romance

by B. B. Hamel

  I wanted him to take me like that. I wanted to fight—and I wanted to lose.

  What did that say about me?

  Nothing good.

  I got up and showered. I heard him stir as I pulled on a pair of yoga pants, a sports bra, and a dark tank top. He stood in the hallway shirtless and gorgeous when I stepped out to head downstairs.

  “Morning.” He looked at me and something seemed to click. “You look good.”

  “I’m in workout clothes.”

  “And I love it.” He cocked his head. “But you could lose that top.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You never give it a rest, do you?”

  “Not when you look like that.”

  “I’m making coffee. Want some?”

  “Definitely.” He disappeared into the bathroom.

  After the fight, a doctor showed up, a squirrelly little guy with a lisp. He stitched up Luke, checked over German, and left with a wad of cash. The little man barely gave me a second look, like he was afraid or something, but the stitches seemed good enough.

  I made coffee and toast then stared out the back window at a tree cresting up along the back fence. It had long, tear-shaped leaves and skinny gray bark. There was a tree like it in the empty lot near my house growing up, and I remembered climbing it once, getting much too high, the branches bending under my weight. Get the fuck down from there, my dad yelled. You fat little cow, you’re gonna break some shit and I’m not gonna be responsible for it, you hear me?

  I hated him for that. All I wanted to do was to climb a tree.

  Luke came in, his hair still wet from his shower. The bandage over the cut on his eyebrow was gone and the stitches looked ugly, though he managed to pull it off. “That’ll scar,” I said.

  “I’ll look tough.”

  “You already do.”

  “Are you hitting on me?” He poured some coffee and grinned. “I guess you don’t need to hit on me, not after yesterday.”

  I stared at the table. “I was just playing around.”

  “I was too. It’s my favorite game.”

  “What are we going to do?” I blurted out suddenly. The guilt was getting more intense, a stabbing feeling in my right side, like a knife slid deep between my ribs. “Maher’s going to keep coming and the Lionettis still want me. How are you going to help me without getting one of your guys hurt?”

  He sat down slowly. “You really care if they get hurt?”

  “I don’t want anyone to die for me. My dad was bad enough.”

  “Your dad didn’t die for you, he died for his own stupidity.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” I stared into my mug, unable to meet his eye. “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Saying those words broke some kind of block inside of me. I’d been wanting to confess the truth to him for a while now, but I kept coming up with some reason to delay, some stupid excuse to keep everything quiet. Now though, after watching him fight for me, bleed for me, hurt for me—after feeling his hands pin my wrists above my head—I couldn’t keep it inside anymore.

  “Go ahead,” he said, not sounding surprised.

  “Don’t get mad. That’s all I’m asking.”

  He sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “I know you’ve been lying or keeping something from me. All I want is the truth, Cara.”

  “I know where the dossier is.”

  His eyes went wide. “What?”

  “That’s why my dad called me to that bar. It wasn’t to say goodbye, or I guess it was partly to say goodbye.” I felt it spill out like a broken hose and it felt good to get it off my chest. “He was going to leave town he said, but he didn’t want to bring the files with him. He called me down to ask what he should do with it all. I don’t know why he wanted to ask me, but he showed me the stuff and I just, I panicked a little bit.”

  “Where is it?” he asked quietly.

  “The women’s room,” I said, still unable to look at him. “There’s a drop ceiling. I stood on the toilet and hid it up there.”

  He laughed once, sharply. “Fuck. It’s been there the whole time.”

  “I’m sorry.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I don’t think you’d want it though, Luke. I looked through it.”

  I opened my eyes again and he leaned toward me almost eagerly. “What’s inside?”

  “Blackmail,” I whispered.

  He let that hang in the air while he took a long sip from his mug. “Blackmail,” he repeated.

  “I didn’t go through it all, but I recognized a politician in there. It was a picture of him sitting on a hotel room bed and there was a woman, uh, between his legs, she was—”

  “Sucking his dick?” he finished for me.

  I blushed and nodded. “I think so. I guess it wasn’t his wife.”

  “What else?”

  “More pictures like that. Men with women, I guess prostitutes, doing sexual stuff. I didn’t recognize most of them, just that one guy.”

  He let out a long breath. “The Lionettis run a lot of girls. It makes sense that they’d build a blackmail portfolio, but god damn, how did your father get his hands on it?”

  “I don’t know, but that’s everything, okay? I hid the file in the bathroom because I freaked out when I looked inside. Then when I came back out, my dad was gone, then I heard the gunshot, and—” I had to take a few breaths to calm down.

  “And we killed him,” Luke said softly. “Bad timing, or maybe good timing, depending on how you look at it.” He tilted his head, eyes narrowed. “You think it’s still there?”

  “I haven’t moved it.”

  “Then let’s go get that thing and end all this.”

  I didn’t get up. For some reason, I desperately didn’t want to go back to that bar—probably because it was the last place I saw my father alive. I kept thinking about him sitting in that rundown dive with his elbows splayed out and a drink in his hand, his skin sallow and aging, his eyes red-rimmed and baggy. His voice was laced with desperation like he knew how badly he fucked up and how much trouble he was in.

  “I’m not sure I can face it.” I laced my hands together nervously.

  “Look at me.” When I didn’t react, he moved into my line of sight. “Cara, look at me.”

  I stared at him, heart thudding a fast patter against my ribs like raindrops on a fast-moving car. “It’s just, if we go back there, I’ll remember his body in that alley.”

  “Think about what he did to you.” He spoke quietly but intently, his jaw tight like he was angry as hell. It caught me off guard.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He knew what he had,” Luke said. “Think back to when you talked to him. How was he acting?”

  “Afraid,” I admitted.

  “I bet he was fucking terrified. He knew what he had and he knew what that dossier meant. And worst of all, he knew how much trouble you’d be in if he gave it to you. Think about that for a second, Cara. Your father couldn’t handle holding on to it because he was afraid for his life, so he decided to pass it off to his daughter.”

  I blinked slowly and feel a cold pooling in my gut.

  He was right. It was horrible, but he was right, and I hadn’t noticed until right now. I accepted that my father wanted to hand that dossier over to me, but I didn’t stop to ask myself why.

  Maybe I didn’t want to know.

  “He could’ve thought they wouldn’t come after me.” The excuse sounded weak, even to my own ears.

  Luke only grunted. “Yeah, maybe, or maybe he knew you’d hide it, or maybe he didn’t give a shit who took it so long as he wasn’t on the hook anymore. There are a lot of reasons why your dad would give that folder to you, but not many of them are good.”

  I leaned forward and buried my face in my hands. I dug my fingernails into my skin and tried not to let the tears roll down my cheeks because that old bastard didn’t deserve my anger or my sorrow. He didn’t deserve to make me feel anything anymore, because he was dead, dead and in the ground where he be
longed.

  Luke stood and crouched next to me. He put an arm across my shoulders and tugged me against his chest. I bit back the tears harder and took deep, gulping breaths to keep myself under control, but I felt it slipping away.

  “It’s okay,” he said softly. “I know this isn’t easy. Family’s never easy, but your old man, he didn’t do you any favors. You don’t owe him anything anymore. He’s gone.”

  I pulled away and stared at him. “Gone because of you. I haven’t forgotten that.”

  He smirked, head tilted. “If you’re looking for an apology, you won’t get one. Your father deserved what he got and probably should’ve gotten worse. He treated you like garbage then left you for dead as his final act. All he wanted in the world was to drag you down with him. Let it go, Cara.”

  I pushed my chair back and stood. I walked away, tears rolling down my cheeks and hating myself for it—I shouldn’t cry, shouldn’t mourn my dead dad. I should’ve let all the days and weeks and months of torture he put me through harden my skin and toughen my hands, all those nights he came home wasted and tried to steal from me, the close calls and the near misses, the stress and worry when winter rolled around and he was still out on the streets, with me wondering if he’d freeze to death in a puddle of his own vomit, but it was all over now, it was all gone.

  All because Luke put a bullet in his head.

  “I’m not going to thank you,” I said, staring at the floor and getting myself together. “But let’s go get that dossier while we can. Maybe it’ll do some good now that my father isn’t around to mess everything up.” I turned back to face him.

  He straightened and nodded once. “All right then. Let’s go bring it home.” He walked into the living room and I followed.

  The Daly Drinker looked even smaller than I remembered. I’d been there only days earlier with my dad, but in my memory, it was somehow more spacious, like all the emotions I kept locked up inside filled the space in my mind, fleshing it out and making it larger.

  In truth, the place was a dump. Peeling wood paneling, ugly Christmas lights, beer stains on the floor. It was the sort of place my father frequented, where the drinks were dirt-cheap and the clientele didn’t bother lifting their heads up from whatever bottle they were falling into. He liked being just another anonymous drunk in one of a hundred crumbling dives scattered all over Philly.

  Now he was just another anonymous corpse buried in a public lot.

  Three people sat at the bar. It was still early and the place must’ve just opened, but all three had nearly empty beers dripping condensation. The bartender nodded and I nodded back, and I wondered if he remembered me from that night—probably not. Just another drunk and his little girl.

  I went back to the bathrooms. Luke followed, not saying a word. If he had something on his mind, he didn’t show it, only scanned the place like he was pulled taut and ready for any trouble. I liked that about him—the constant edge of his strength, like at any second he might explode and destroy everything around him in a massive burst of raw masculinity. It was dangerous and alluring.

  The women’s room was surprisingly clean. The far toilet even still had blue stuff in the bowl. I climbed up and stood on my toes as I reached toward the drop ceiling. I pushed it up and felt around—but there was nothing.

  I sucked in a breath and got down. I went to the next toilet, tried again.

  “You okay in here?” Luke stepped inside.

  “It’s the women’s room,” I said, as if he cared about that. I reached up and found nothing.

  I got down and went into the last stall.

  “You sure it’s up there?” he asked.

  “I’m positive.” I repeated my performance: stand on seat, up on toes, lift drop ceiling, feel around.

  Nothing. Nothing at all.

  I went back to the last stall, checked again, went through all three, checked them all five times, but nothing.

  “Fuck,” I said, throwing my hands up.

  Luke watched me carefully, eyes narrowed, arms over his chest.

  “Are you sure you hid it there?”

  “I’m sure,” I said, glaring at him. “Now you think I’m a liar, but I’m not. I freaking swear I put it up in that stupid ceiling. I remember I got dust in my eyes and it stung and I thought it might be freaking asbestos, I mean, look at this place, it probably was.” I walked to the sink and turned on the water, splashing water over my hands then onto my face, trying not to panic. I dried off with a fresh paper towel.

  Then I stepped back and looked around.

  “What’s the men’s room look like right now?”

  Luke shrugged. “Haven’t checked.”

  “Go look.”

  “You want me to see if it’s in the ceiling?”

  I shook my head. “No, just see if the place is clean or not.”

  He hesitated, frowning, but he listened. A few seconds later, he came back in. “Pristine,” he said. “Toilets look scrubbed.”

  “Clean in here, too. Those paper towels are brand new. There’s still blue stuff in that one toilet and the mirror’s practically sparkling.”

  “Someone cleaned in here,” he said slowly.

  “Exactly. Who’s most likely to notice if a ceiling tile got moved?”

  Luke turned and left the bathroom. I hurried after. He approached the bartender, pulling himself up to his full height like a cobra preparing to strike.

  “Got a question for you,” Luke said.

  The bartender scowled. He was an old guy, tufts of white hair sprouting from his ears, face pitted and craggy like the moon. “Whatcha need?”

  “Who cleans these bathrooms?”

  “What, you want her number?” One of the old drunks laughed. “I doubt she’s into guys like you.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Jimmy,” the bartender said then looked at Luke again. “Her name’s Marie. I can give you her number if you want.”

  “I’d appreciate that.” The bartender rattled it off and Luke typed it into his phone. “Got it, thanks.”

  “I just don’t want no more trouble, okay? Cops were sniffing around here after and my regulars don’t like cops.”

  “Oink,” Jimmy said, grinning a gap-toothed smile.

  “You won’t see us again,” I said.

  Luke nodded to the bartender and left. I followed him quickly, and out on the sidewalk, he looked around like he expected the police to come swarming out from the drain pipes.

  “What are the chances she’s got it?” he asked me, frowning at his phone. “I mean seriously.”

  “I don’t know, but it’s worth a phone call.”

  He grunted and lifted the phone to his ear.

  7

  Luke

  Marie was a small woman with light brown skin and dark hair with the tips dyed red. She wore jeans, a simple cotton shirt, and dark yellow rubber gloves that looked well used.

  “You the guy that called?” she asked, frowning at me.

  “Luke,” I said. “I’d shake your hand, but—” I shrugged, gesturing at the gloves.

  She snorted. “No problem, no problem.”

  “This is Cara.” I gestured toward her. “We were hoping you’d talk for a minute.”

  Marie frowned at the pair of us. We stood in the bathroom of a barbecue restaurant on South Street, a popular spot that got a lot of foot traffic. Marie was about halfway finished with the men’s room and a light sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead. She looked forty, maybe younger, it was hard to say, and her English was pretty good, though lightly accented.

  “You want to talk, you put on gloves and help.” She gestured toward a utility bucket with cleaning supplies. A pair of blue rubber gloves and a pair of red gloves hung over the side. “You clean, I talk. Deal?”

  Cara snorted and walked over. “This wouldn’t be my first bathroom.” She grabbed the red gloves and yanked them on.

  I sighed and pulled on the blue pair. Cleaning a restaurant bathroom wasn’t exactly something I wanted
to do, but I was willing to get my hands dirty if it meant finding that dossier.

  Marie disappeared into a stall. Cara winked at me and started on the sinks with a spray bottle and a brush.

  I grabbed a spray bottle, an extra rag, and went into the last stall.

  “You clean a lot of bathrooms around here?” I asked as I sprayed and started cleaning. Fortunately, the toilet wasn’t all that bad.

  “Lots of places,” she said. “Bars, restaurants, whatever. I do some houses. Why, you got a house? You need someone to clean it?”

  “No, nothing like that. You ever do the bathrooms at the Daly Drinker?”

  “Sure,” she said and the toilet flushed. “That place is no good, you know what I mean?”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “I mean, it’s real dump. Not nice people go there. I don’t mind cleaning though so long as I do it before it opens.”

  I smiled to myself. “Sounds about right. The Daly’s not exactly a classy establishment.”

  “Dump,” she repeated. “Toilets always dirty, filthy, I don’t know why. I clean it every day, still filthy. Some places, I clean them, they get used, they still look fine the next day. I clean them again, they stay clean, you know? But the Daly, everything filthy. I don’t like that place.”

  “We’re looking for something, Marie,” I said and flushed the toilet. It was clean enough. I stepped out and glanced at Cara who was rubbing down the sinks while watching out of the corner of her eye.

  Marie was still bent over her toilet. “What, you lost a wallet? I don’t take money. I give anything I find to the owners, so you’ve got to ask them.”

  “It’s just an important folder, that’s all. I think you might’ve found it in the ceiling.”

  She stopped scrubbing for a few long seconds, staring down at the floor, then started scrubbing again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I looked at Cara. She mouthed, lying.

  “Are you sure about that?” I pressed. “Whatever you found is very dangerous, Marie. I don’t know if you looked inside, but that folder belongs to very, very bad people. If you think the Daly’s no good, the Lionettis are much worse.”