But he’s not a stranger either.
I realize with a jolt that nearly knocks me backward.
It’s Bruno.
Bruno has my disgusting john pinned to the floor, the guy’s flabby arms twisted behind his back with his face pressed into the stained carpet. I quickly move closer to the end of the bed to see what’s going on. Just in time to see Bruno calmly, smoothly wrap his hands over each side of the guy’s head and twist it violently, fatally to the left with a sickening crack.
“Oh my god!” I shriek, feeling bile rise in my throat as I clap a hand over my mouth. Bruno looks up at me, his green eyes flashing aggressively. He doesn’t look like the romantic, attentive guy I shared a candlelit dinner with weeks ago. He doesn’t look like the sweet, smooth-talking boy who poured me an illegal drink in the back of a construction van over the summer. This Bruno is a different one. A stranger. Someone I should never be involved with.
He looks… like a cold-blooded killer.
Who is this guy? Where is the Bruno I fell for? Have I been wrong this whole time? Is he involved with all this… this crap? Is he a mobster, too?
But then, just as quickly as it arrived, the darkness in his eyes fades away and he blinks a few times, clearly confused. He cocks his head to one side, never looking away from my face.
“Serena…?” he murmurs, like he just can’t seem to understand how he’s seeing me in this context. Like he doesn’t believe I’m really here. The feeling is mutual.
He stands up, brushing off his hands on his dark pants. He’s wearing all black, with a hooded sweatshirt hugging his muscles. He slowly steps around the fresh corpse on the floor and walks over to the side of the bed, his eyes locked onto mine. But I’m still afraid. I just watched the boy I thought was my prince charming kill a man with his bare hands. Sure, the guy was a slimy scumbag and it’s probably better that he’s no longer a threat to the community, but… still. That’s generally an issue for the justice system to handle, not some handsome teenaged vigilante.
“Serena, what are you doing here? How did you—? Is this—?” he asks, shaking his head in confusion but never able to finish a whole question. I can feel the tears wet and sticky on my cheeks as I scoot backward away from him.
“Is he—is he dead?” I whisper, my whole body shivering. It isn’t cold. I’m just terrified.
Bruno nods. “Yes. He’s dead. Clean and easy. That fucker can’t hurt you anymore. Did he—did he hurt you?”
“He tried to,” I answer meekly.
“Merda, Serena. I wish I’d gotten here faster,” he says bitterly. He reaches out to touch my face but I shy away. I can see the hurt in his eyes. “You’re safe now. It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry, but you just described a murder as clean and easy,” I snap, my voice muffled slightly by sobs. “I-I don’t understand what is going on. How did you find me?” I question, feeling totally confused.
“Don’t worry about that right now. You’re shivering. Where are your clothes?”
I point wordlessly across the room to the ripped and torn Moschino dress crumpled up on the floor. Bruno looks over at it and sighs, his jaw tightening with anger. “I’m so sorry he did that to you,” he says softly. Turning back to me, he adds, “Take my hoodie.”
He takes it off and gently hands it out for me to take, respecting my boundaries. I put it on and slide off the bed to stand up. The sweatshirt is huge on me, nearly falling to my knees. I zip it all the way up to my neck. Bruno and I stare at each other for a long moment, him too afraid to frighten me further, and me trying to decide how I feel. I’m so confused and overwhelmed. Is he one of them? Everything is happening so quickly and I don’t know who I can trust.
But right now, I know what I need.
I race around to the other side of the bed, flinging myself into Bruno’s arms. He holds me tightly as I sob, running his hands down my back, smoothing my hair. “It’s okay. I’m never going to let those fuckers hurt you again. You’re safe with me. I don’t know how this happened, but I’m damn well going to fix it.”
I push back to look up into his face. He’s gazing down at me with immense pain in his green eyes. Those beautiful eyes. “I’m going to make this right,” he says resolutely.
There’s a soft patter of footsteps and I seize up with terror, leaning around to look toward the door. There are two men coming in, walking softly. They’re also dressed in all black, but carrying duffel bags which they set down on the floor. They pull their sleeves back to reveal bright yellow gloves, like the kind our maid wears to clean the bathrooms.
“Bruno,” I murmur, frightened.
“It’s okay. They’re the sweepers. They’re just here to clean up the scene, make all of this go away so nobody finds out what happened,” he explains calmly.
I have so many questions. Why is he so calm? How does he know what’s going on? Why is he involved with something this horrible? How many times has he done this before?
And most terrifyingly, what does this mean for us?
“Come on,” Bruno says, interrupting my dark train of thought. “Let’s get you out of here.”
He puts an arm around me protectively and leads me out of the room. As we walk out, one of the sweepers says, “You know what to do.” Bruno stops for a moment and nods, without looking back at the sweepers, who have already begun the unenviable task of cleaning up a murder scene. Bruno and I walk out of the motel and into a big black company car not unlike the one that picked me up from school what seems like ages ago.
I slip into the passenger seat, pulling my knees up to my chest. Bruno turns the heat on, noticing that I’m still trembling. “What did he mean by that?” I ask suddenly.
“What?”
“That guy—the sweeper—he said you know what to do. What is that? What are you supposed to do with me?” I press on, reluctantly looking over at him across the console. He heaves a deep breath. Then he looks back at me, with a weary look on his face.
“Serena, I never wanted to get into this shit. I mean it. I don’t want you to have the wrong idea, okay? Let me explain,” he begins. I wait patiently. When he realizes I have nothing to say, he goes on. “Things are not good back home. In Italy. My family is poor, very poor, and the mafia runs everything back home. All the guys my age are being sucked into some really dark shit. There’s just no other way to go. There’s no alternative. But my parents, they didn’t want me to fall into all that, so they sent me here to America, to work for my uncle. To give me a chance at a clean life. Only, the problem is, it’s expensive to come here. I needed a passport and a visa and a plane ticket. Those things cost so much money, Serena, and my parents didn’t want me to know how much they were sacrificing for me to have this shot at a better life here in New York.
“I’m glad I came here. I have a job. There are so many opportunities. I met you. But as it turns out, my parents didn’t have the money to send me here on their own, so they had to ask the mob for money. To save me from the mafia, they put themselves in debt to them, thinking they could just pay it off over time. If I had known what kind of risks they were taking to send me here I would never have agreed to leave Italy, but they kept it hidden from me. My parents didn’t want me to worry, and besides, they expected they could take care of it without my ever needing to find out. But it didn’t work out the way they planned. Things have gotten worse since I left, and now the mafia is calling in those debts all at once. My parents can’t pay. My uncle can’t pay. And the mafia came to me out of the blue, threatening to kill my uncle and my whole family back home if I don’t pay them back myself,” Bruno says, gritting his teeth.
I reach over and set my hand on his arm. He takes my hand in his and squeezes it tight.
“Apparently, the Costa family sees something in me. They think they can turn me into some kind of mindless soldier or mercenary. I get it. They think I’m just some dumb kid who will do whatever they tell me to do. I’m the right age. I’m the right type. And they have leverage, Serena.” He
looks over at me meaningfully. “I can’t let them hurt my family.”
“Of course not,” I murmur softly.
“So they came to me with a proposition, a way to clear my debts. I was told to come to this location. They gave me a room number and a time. They made me kill that guy tonight,” he says.
“Well, then,” I start slowly. “That means it’s over. Right? You did it. You—you killed that guy. He’s dead. It’s all done now. Your debt is cleared. Maybe mine is, too.”
The look on Bruno’s face breaks my heart. It clearly hasn’t occurred to him until now that the mafia is the reason I was here tonight, too. I stare down at my lap, fighting back tears as I begin to explain. “Turns out I had a debt, as well. My father’s debt. Apparently, all these years he’s been stealing money from the mafia. All this time I thought my dad was just a great businessman, maybe with some sketchy associates, but still a businessman at the heart of it. But I was wrong, I guess. He’s been keeping this from me my whole life. And now it’s over. They killed him. My father. He’s dead now. I never even got to say goodbye.”
“Serena, I’m so sorry,” Bruno says, squeezing my hand. “I had no idea.”
“Me neither,” I reply bitterly. I take a deep breath and force myself to stop crying. I’m running out of tears at this point anyway. There’s nothing else to be done about it. I have to be strong. “Anyway, I guess it’s over now. I did what Claudio told me. I was… I was bait for that horrible guy. I was supposed to pretend to be a sex worker and make him think he was gonna get lucky, you know. And I did. I fulfilled my end of the bargain. Now both of us are free.”
To my dismay, Bruno shakes his head. “It’s not over yet.”
“What do you mean? We both followed orders. It’s done.”
“No, Serena. Killing that fucker was only half of my instructions. I was supposed to come here, kill the john, and take the… the girl to a drop point,” he reveals.
I feel my skin go cold. “Wait. So, you’re supposed to take me away… back to—”
“Back to the mafia. Yes,” Bruno says sorrowfully.
“They were never going to let me go, were they?” I ask quietly.
“I don’t think so. You—what you represent—you’re too valuable. I think they’re planning to make you do this again and again. And the other times, you might not just be acting as bait. Serena. I think they want you to do what you were pretending to do tonight, but for real.”
Suddenly I feel like I might vomit, and I grind my teeth hard until I regain my composure. I look over at Bruno, resigning myself to whatever fate I have to embrace. It’s out of my hands. It’s out of Bruno’s hands, too. This is bigger than both of us.
“I understand. Do what you have to do,” I tell him emphatically.
He blinks in confusion for a moment, narrowing his eyes. Then it dawns on him what I’m saying, and he shakes his head vigorously. “No. No, Serena. That’s not how it’s going to happen. I’m not going to just hand you back to the wolves like they want me to. Fuck that. I agreed to this before I knew... before I had any idea you were involved. I can’t believe I accepted this fucking offer in the first place. They used me.”
“They used both of us,” I mutter sadly. “And I can’t let you disobey them. They’ll kill your family, Bruno. They already killed my father. Hell, for all I know, they killed my mother, too. But you still have a family. People who care about you. Don’t sacrifice them to save me. I’m not worth it, Bruno.”
He glares out the window for a minute or so, not replying. Then, suddenly, he jams the keys into the ignition and fires up the engine. The car peels out of the motel parking lot and down the street. My heart sinks. He’s doing what he has to do, I tell myself. I can’t hold this against him.
The car rumbles down the highway back into the city, leaving the motel far behind us as I fall silent, trying to keep myself from crying. I already told him I’ll accept whatever punishment is coming my way. I won’t go back on that promise. But after some time, it occurs to me that Bruno doesn’t seem to be driving me to some mysterious location. We take a turn toward Manhattan and I realize we’re going toward my apartment. Why would the drop point be anywhere near my house? Aren’t the police looking for me at this point? It seems too risky. Suddenly, Bruno’s deep voice punctures the silence.
“I’ll be damned if I let those fuckers turn me into a monster. I can’t hurt you, Serena. I refuse to. They can threaten my life and my family’s lives, but I won’t let them turn me against the only girl I care about,” Bruno says angrily.
“What? But you said I’m too valuable. They’re not just going to give me up that easily,” I protest. A crazy, impossible idea pops into my head. “But what if we just run away? We—we can go somewhere far off, where they’ll never find us. We’ll leave all of this behind and start over.”
“Serena, I wish we could do that. I would do it in a heartbeat if I thought it would work. But this is the mafia. They have people everywhere, in the least likely of places. We could run, but we could never hide from them. Even if we had all the money in the world, they would find us, and we’re both broke now,” he explains.
“Then what are we going to do?” I ask. Bruno is silent again, thinking.
Finally, he answers. “They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and now it’s my turn to do the same. I think I know a way to make myself more valuable to them than you are. In fact, I have a feeling I might be the one they’re after in the first place” he growls. He takes out one of his usual burner phones and dials a number quickly, putting the phone to his ear.
“Who are you calling?” I whisper, bewildered.
“I demand to speak to Claudio,” Bruno says into the receiver. “No, you don’t need to ask who the fuck I am. Claudio will know. Let me speak to him. Now.”
My heart races. Why the hell is he calling Claudio? What is he doing?
There’s a pause and then I hear the faint crackle of a different male voice from the phone, even though I can’t make out the words he’s saying. Bruno replies in Italian, “This is Bruno Lomaglio, you fucking scab. You’ve been a big talker up until now, but this time it’s your turn to shut the fuck up and let me talk. Listen to me! I know what game you’re playing. I know what you really want, and it isn’t Serena De Laurentis. I am an asset, and all of you Costa fuckers know that. So, I’m going to make you an offer. If you swear to leave Serena and her mother alone, you will get something so much better in return. Do you understand what I’m giving you? I will work for you. Full-time. I’ll steal. I’ll fight. I’ll snap whatever neck you want snapped. I’ll belong to you. I’m from the old country, and my actions tonight should be more than enough to prove how valuable I can be. You let Serena go, and you can have me instead. As if that wasn’t exactly what the fuck you planned all along, you fucking snake.”
The car slams to a stop at the curb outside of my apartment building, and I sit completely frozen in place, staring at Bruno in shock. The voice on the other end of the line is speaking, but I can’t make out the words. Bruno closes his eyes and lets out a deep exhale. “Si, bene. Per sempre. Lo giuro,” he says resolutely.
I wish desperately I could understand what he said.
And then, he hangs up the call with a click. The phone slides out of his hand and down into the seat. “Bruno… what did you just do?” I ask breathlessly. He turns to slowly face me, giving me a faint smile. His eyes are shining.
“It’s over. You never have to worry about any of this again,” he says.
“What do you mean? You didn’t answer my question. What did you do?” I repeat, beginning to panic. Bruno reaches over and touches my face softly, lovingly.
“Your mother is upstairs in your apartment. She is unharmed. Go up and see her. I’m sure she is worried sick about you,” he says, still avoiding the question.
I shake my head. “No. No, you didn’t…”
“Serena,” he interjects firmly, “please don’t argue with me. I did what needed to be
done. It’s what they wanted, what they expected anyway. You were just a pawn. This was never about you, understand? They just used you to get to me. And it worked.”
“Bruno! You can’t!” I burst out. “I won’t let you!”
“It’s already done. I told you, it’s over. It was my choice, and I made it. I chose you.”
Tears burn in my eyes and this time I just let them fall. “It’s not fair. They can’t do this— we’ll just go to the police. We’ll fix this. We—”
“No, Serena. No police. Don’t even think about it. This arrangement is… delicate. The Costa family need to know that they can trust me. I’m brand new. I pulled a power play by making this call tonight, and I need to build back that trust before anything else can happen,” Bruno explains. “You’re free now, mia passerotta. You’re going to survive.”
“Without you,” I murmur, my voice cracking into a sob. “I will never be free, not without you. I can’t. I won’t.”
Bruno gives me a warm, pitying smile and smooths the hair back from my face.
“Serena, listen to me. I could never turn you over to them. And even if I did, they would never let me go. Don’t you see? This was the whole point. To make me give in. To bring me to my knees. I was never going to get out of this. But I found a way to get you out, and that’s what I need you to focus on. Please,” he adds, tracing his finger down my cheek to land on my bottom lip. I gently kiss the tip of his finger, closing my eyes. I can feel my heart shattering into pieces, but I know he’s right. There’s nothing I can do to change this.
I open my eyes again and Bruno pulls me close, pressing his lips against mine in a soft, passionate kiss. When he breaks away, he says softly, “The best thing you can do now is leave. Go. Live your life. Try to forget any of this ever happened. And if you can… forget me, too.”
“I don’t think I ever could,” I reply, leaning my forehead against his.
“Serena, my world has been so bright since you came into it. You’ve given me exactly the kind of hope and happiness my parents wanted me to find here in America. But some things, dark things, have followed me all the way from across the ocean. I refuse to let those dark things overshadow your light like they have mine,” Bruno tells me.
Bound to the Mafia (Bound to the Bad Boy Book 2) Page 7