I nodded because I couldn't bear to say a word, not now. Emotions were bubbling up in my throat like acid, burning my esophagus, making me want to choke. I wasn't sure if it was anger, fear, or despair—most likely it was a mix of all three.
“Show the boys what you want to take with you. This is your last day living in this dump.” Vincent gestured at his men as I pulled my robe tighter around me. “Start packing.”
“Follow me,” I managed to say, the hand holding my screwdriver trembling as I led them into the bedroom. “You can grab all the clothes in here,” I continued, kicking my silver dresser with bare toes. “And here.” I pointed at the closet. “Take the books in the living room, and all the good glassware from the kitchen.”
I smiled tightly.
“I basically moved in here with nothing—this is all Bo's stuff. My furniture's in storage.”
Blatant lie, that. But I wasn't willing to give up on the idea of having my own life, of having Bo, of living in this apartment. I would find a way back here, somehow, someway. So I'd take just enough personal effects to convince Vincent and Carlo that I was moving out, but not so much that it'd be difficult to move back in.
“Excuse me while I change my tampon,” I said purposefully, noticing several of the men wrinkling their noses. I grabbed a stack of clean clothes off the dresser and smiled tightly. “Misogynistic pigs,” I muttered under my breath, making sure the bathroom door was closed and locked before I flipped the switch for the fan.
With the loud whirring covering up the sound of my movements, I pulled open the top drawer of the vanity and extracted a box of tampons, pulling the few wrapped ones off the top so I could get to the phone underneath.
Need to hide something from the mafia? 'Macho' men never want to go through a lady's personal effects. Too icky, I guess. Maybe they're afraid of cooties? Whatever the reason, I was just glad to have a lifeline to the outside world.
Remember how we discussed cleaning out the apartment to make room for a dog? Well, I took a bunch of books to the used bookstore today for credit. Oh, and I've managed to purge most of my clothes. Yay! I'll be out of town for a few days on a business trip. Came up last minute. I just don't want you to worry.
I sent the wordy text with a quick selfie of me kissing my phone, and hoped Bo didn't think too hard about it.
Next, I messaged my boss, my secretary, and my girlfriends, wondering how much time my lame excuses would really buy me.
Not a lot would be my guess.
I checked one last time to make sure my information was stored in the cloud, turned the phone off, and tucked it back in the tampon box.
After a quick shower and a change of clothes, it was time.
I approached the front door and wasn't at all surprised when Vincent asked to take a look inside my purse. He rifled around, withdrawing the Taser I'd bought in California as well as my pepper spray, and handing those over to one of the men. He paused briefly on the box of tampons, opened the top and peered inside, but as soon as he saw pink, gold, and blue wrappers, he closed it back up again.
I had to hold back a sigh of relief. One single little tell and he'd know.
Vincent was an expert at reading people.
But I'd grown up around him; I knew exactly what to do.
“Where are we heading?” I asked as we made our way to the elevator. I'm not even sure why I asked. I knew.
Vincent just smiled tightly.
And so off to my father's house we went.
The Costello family home was a sprawling art nouveau style mansion buried in the vibrant countryside of upstate New York, about four hours outside of the city. Thirty manicured acres spread out around the house, a sea of vineyards on one side and several themed gardens on the other. One entire wall showcased a mosaic and stained glass mural of the Italian countryside, a Tuscan tribute that was as gaudy as it was beautiful. From the front lawn, if you squinted just right, you could see a yellow-orange stained glass window serving as the summer sun in a blue, blue sky. That was the only window on the front of the house that let light into my bedroom.
And it was about as comfortable as a jail cell.
My room was on the third floor, last door on the right, the very same room I'd lived in all my life. I was even born in this house.
I sat down on the side of my bed, curling my fingers around the edge of the mattress as I stared at the floor and tried to think my way out of this. I was really good at that, thinking myself out of terrible situations. I'd been doing it my whole life.
My father's real goals here were what?
First and foremost, he needed to find out which of the old families had finally sold out and partnered with a cartel from across the border.
Second, he wanted to strengthen his numbers and bolster his power by adding the might of the Costello crime syndicate to another mafia family.
The first part, I was pretty sure I could help with. It might take some … maneuvering to get that sort of information without actually having to fuck my way to it, but I'd figure it out. I wasn't about to whore myself out on my father's whim.
Sorry, but this was the twenty-first century and there were better ways. There had to be a better way.
But number two on dad's list of priorities? I needed to find a way out of that one—and quick. Marrying a mob boss not only ruined the life I had now, but pretty much ensured that I never had a life of my own again.
Temporarily, I could deal with the family and their bullshit.
Forever though … forever was far too long.
A knock sounded at the door.
As expected.
I stood up and made my way over to answer it, finding a woman with a dress wrapped in plastic and a man behind her holding several very expensive looking boxes.
“Miss Costello,” she said, pushing her way into the room and gesturing for the man to set his packages down on my old vanity table. Once he was done, she waved him away and he closed the door on his way out.
I didn't recognize the woman which was surprising since my father hated to change out members of his staff—every new person that set foot in this house was an unknown, a liability just waiting to happen. And each new person had to be indoctrinated into the organization, threatened or bribed (usually both) to keep everything that happened at the house quiet, discreet. It was a lot of work.
“Who are you?” I asked blatantly, folding my arms across the front of my red t-shirt and watching her as she hung the dress on the rack hanging off the bathroom door. As she unzipped it, I caught a glimpse of a sleek, black dress inside. Something wicked, dangerous.
A weapon.
My throat went dry and I pressed a pair of fingers to my temple.
“What's all this?”
“Vera Caprice,” the woman told me brusquely, her Italian accent so thick it was a struggle to understand. I spoke Italian, too, but I wasn't about to start engaging her in my grandparents' language. My dad called himself Italian, but I considered myself an American, through and through. “I'm here to dress you for your engagement this evening.”
“Engagement?” I asked, and then paused again as another knock sounded on the door.
“Are you decent?” Vincent asked, but he didn't wait for an answer before opening it. “Ah, Adelasia, I see you've met Vera. She's your father's new … interior decorator.”
His smile told me everything I needed to know about that.
“Tonight, you're having dinner with Marcell Moran,” he continued, thrusting me into this nightmare with little preamble. I could feel the color draining from my face. I'd known this was coming obviously, but it was just so … sudden.
And Mr. Moran?
He was notorious.
“He'll be here to pick you up in two hours. As soon as you're dressed, come downstairs and we'll talk. Your father—bless his old heart—thinks there's nothing more to this than makeup and a pretty face, but you and I know different, don't we, topolina?”
“Give me fifteen,” I told hi
m, but Vera was already looking at me in my faded jeans and t-shirt like I was crazy.
“One hour,” she said, in the dripping European vowels of her homeland.
My nostrils flared, but Vincent nodded like my father's courtesan's word was final and left, tipping his hat at me before he closed the door.
Vera turned to look at me, her skin kissed by the sun, her dark hair lying in gentle waves around her face. She looked like she belonged on a Victoria's Secret runway, not standing in this coffin surrounded by death and crime. I wanted to ask her her age, but I decided I'd rather not know.
My guess? Twenty-one, twenty-two at most.
And my father was sixty.
My mouth pursed tight.
Vera looked at me for a long moment, her red lips puckering slightly at the dastardly state of me. I expected her to ask something about my hair or makeup. Instead, I got this …
“Are you on birth control?”
I tried not to scream. Really, I did. But in the end, I had to hide myself in the bathroom and shout every curse I knew in both English and Italian into the sweet smelling folds of a towel.
Dinner with Marcell Moran.
The underboss of the Moran Crime Family.
Thirty-one years old, dressed in blood and sin. A man wanted by the FBI, but so disconnected from the actual acts of his organization that even RICO charges couldn't be brought against him. He was a manipulative son of a bitch with a fortune equal to my father's own, a sharp temper, and a face that could melt the panties off a nun.
Fuck me.
The dress that Vera pulled from the bag was an Armani evening gown in silk, its dark folds more of a charcoal than a true black. It draped over my body like a glove, kissing my curves in all the right places and bringing out the rich, olive tones of my skin. I'd been putting in so many hours at the office lately that I'd gotten pale, almost ashen. But wearing this dress, there was no doubt I was one hundred percent an Italian girl.
I sat in the small white chair in front of the vanity and let Vera do my makeup. I'd always thought I was pretty damn good at it, but seeing her steady hand made me wonder if I'd been doing an amateur job on my face all these years.
I was given lips as red as blood, a wicked sexy cat eye with gold shadow powdered across my lids, and lashes that curved up so far I could feel them brushing my brow.
My dark hair was twisted into a chignon on the back of my head, a few artful pieces curled around my face. And the jewelry? Well, if I wasn't essentially being held against my will, I might've enjoyed it.
My father had spared no expense in making this evening right—I was wearing over two million dollars in diamonds around my slender throat, dangling from the lobes of my ears, glittering like ice from my wrists and fingers.
Even the shoes were lovely, these gold strappy sandals with little diamond charms hanging down the back and teasing the skin of my ankle.
When I next looked in the mirror, I didn't recognize myself.
My breath caught and I felt this sudden, sharp tugging inside my chest.
This, this is what I wanted to look like for Bo. I wanted to put on an outfit like this and go to dinner at our favorite restaurant, watch him smiling across the table at me, maybe even get up the courage to propose to him—or wait and see if he might propose to me.
But in light of the situation, I felt like a glittering doll, like a knife with a hilt dressed in jewels. It might look pretty, but it's only purpose is to kill.
The most disturbing part of the whole getup was what I was wearing underneath it.
I wasn't wearing a bra, but I had on a garter belt, a thong, and thigh-highs whose only purpose was to be seen after the floor length dress came off.
I didn't plan on using that particular part of my arsenal, but the very fact that I had the lingerie on disturbed me.
When Vera was finished, she simply packed up her makeup, opened the door and left. She'd done her job; now it was time for me to do mine.
With a sigh, I stood up and headed into the long stretch of hallway, childhood memories assaulting me as I made my way toward the curved length of staircase that led to the second floor.
As a little kid, I was scared of this house and all the monsters I just knew were hiding inside of it. When I got a little older, I never stopped being scared of the house, but by that point, I'd learned that monsters weren't real. No, it was people that I had to be scared of, that I needed to worry about.
My own darkness most of all.
That was the most frightening thing I'd ever encountered.
Squeezing my eyes shut tight, I pushed the cobwebs of old memories to the back of my mind and put them to bed. Thinking about the naivety of my childhood and the sin of my young adult years would not do me any good here tonight.
My eyes flicked open and I kept my gaze straight ahead, focused on the task at hand.
Slowly, I worked my way down to the second floor, ignoring my mother's shuttered bedroom door as I passed down to the ground floor and outside, to where my father was enjoying a moment by the pool.
He waved me over, holding Vera close by his side, and smoking a cigar.
“Polpetta mia, look at you, ” he said with a cruel laugh. “You are truly a woman now, aren't you?”
I pursed my lips. I'd always hated being called polpetta; it literally translated to meatball. When I was younger, I was substantially overweight, and my father had never let me forget it for a moment. Now that I was older and more slender, in control of my body and life for the first time, he just couldn't resist reminding me of who I used to be.
Young. Scared. Under his control.
And then later …
A nightmare of his own making.
“She cuts quite the figure, my daughter,” Carlo said as he stood up and walked over to me, his dark eyes twinkling as he took me in like just another commodity, another soldier in his army. “Don't you think, Vincent?”
“Assolutamente,” he said, pushing through the etched glass doors that led onto the patio and securing them open with a pair of latches on the side the house. Vincent made his way over to us and quirked a small, sad smile. “The spitting image of her mother, is she not?”
“She is,” Carlo said, but his voice was tight all of a sudden, almost broken, like shattered glass in a blender. “Are you ready?” he asked me, turning my entire life upside down with a single sentence.
Yesterday, I'd been in my office, working on a proposal that would stop publicly funded shelters from ever using a gas chamber on their animals again … and then I'd gotten that call, that awful call I'd been dreading my whole life.
An invitation from Carlo.
An invitation that lead to a conversation that lead to this.
So, when he asked if I was ready, the answer to that question was no.
No, I was not ready.
I would never be ready.
“Yes,” I heard my perfectly manicured lips say, moving solely out of a sense of self-preservation.
“Good,” Carlo said, leaning over to give me a tobacco scented kiss on my forehead. “I'll see you tomorrow for lunch?”
I nodded and watched as he moved away, gesturing for Vera to follow along behind him like a dog.
“Alright,” Vincent said as I turned around and looked at him, pulling out a piece of paper from his checkered suit jacket. “As I said, tonight's dinner is with Marcell, Mario Moran's only son. He's been one of your father's most outspoken supporters for the past few years, even going so far as to deliver Antonio Lucchese's head on a platter.”
I didn't ask if that was literal or figurative.
There was a good chance it was very literal indeed.
And I remembered Antonio Lucchese from my years working with the family—he was a fucking rat. The world was better off without him, even if the idea of his decapitated head gave me goose bumps.
“He's been in charge of arms trafficking in the city for years; poor Mario doesn't have shit to do over there in that big old house o
' his anymore.” Vincent scribbled something down on a sheet of paper and showed it to me.
Highly suspect—take it slow, is all it said. And then he was lighting the scrap with the silver Zippo from his pocket and tossing it into the pool.
“Since you have a standing appointment for breakfast with me, and another one for lunch with your father, I'd like to see you back here tonight.”
I just stared at Vincent's wrinkled face and wondered if, in another life, he might be that grandfatherly figure I'd always wanted. But I knew that at least right here, right now in this particular life, that all his joviality served to do was hide his cruelty.
Apparently I was not only condemned to date three criminally adept devils, but I also couldn't set my own terms for a night out with one of them. I had to wonder if the next slip of paper that Vinny flashed me might tell me what positions to use during sex, or if I should start with a hand job or a blow job instead.
“Any questions?”
“I don't understand how I'm supposed to talk a man into telling me all his secrets when I don't know a goddamn thing about him.”
“You're a smart girl,” Vincent said, but he was looking at the slit in my dress instead of my face. It was a pointed look, a reminder. Seduction was my weapon, and I would not be allowed to forget that. “Get to know the guy. Figure him out. You know what they say, right? Behind every powerful man, there's a woman between the sheets that knows all his dirt.”
Lure (Mafia Queen Book 1) Page 2