Reckless: A Bad Boyz Anthology

by Anthology

  “You’re come in here, you look like one of us, but you’re just a dirty cop who was more than willing to bring down the Femme Fatale. Then you find out you’re actually sleeping with her. What could possibly possess you coming into my home like this?” he asks, his eyes beginning to burn with fire. “What is your business, Maverick? Spit it out so I can move on with my day.”

  “I want to work for you.” My response is vague and blunt.

  He chortles at me, but stops when he realizes how deadly serious I am.

  “You break my daughter’s heart, run like a cowardly bastard and have the cheek to stand in front of me and ask me to do you a favor like I owe you something.”

  There’s my cue to play all my cards.

  “You owe me everything.”

  For a moment there’s no response, just glances and sheer silence before Sal gains an incredulous look on his face.

  “How did you work that one out?” he asks, provoking my onslaught.

  “I ran because of you. My entire life fell apart because of you!” I bellow, unable to quell my bursting anger. “I met Amelia without ever knowing who she was or who you were. It started out innocently enough, but quickly our relationship turned sour because you couldn’t deal with the fact that she had fallen out of love with the life you presented her with and fell in love with the life she always dreamt of having!” I take a step forward, not even making it hesitant. It’s bold and forthright. “You are the reason she’s not here and I now am.”

  “If I’m the bad guy, why would you even anticipate joining my family, Maverick?” he questions, clasping his hands before him. “If I’m the reason your life is in such disarray, why would you beg like a desperate man for a meeting with me?”

  “Because I would rather pledge myself to you than run from you for the rest of my life.” I square my shoulders, bracing myself for the real fight. “I would rather work under your name to have even a single moment with Amelia, than miss out on ever having the opportunity.”

  “You don’t get to make such decisions,” Sal tells me, looking annoyed at my advanced approach. “Men like you have no reason to be here!” Sal bellows, advancing for me. “Men like you are reason empires fall. You’re the reason powerful woman become naive and dream of silly, pathetic lives.”

  I don’t realize at first his intent until I feel his fist hit me square in the stomach. All of the air in my lungs is pushed from me and I’m left exalted. I fall forward and he catches me, his fists clutching at me tightly. I feel his head move forward, steadying by my ear, his grip hardening.

  “You don’t die today, Maverick,” he mutters into my ear, venomously. “I’m letting you go so you can leave with the constant reminder that you are not enough... for Amelia, for Billy, especially not for my empire. Men like you are destined to meet your rock bottom at young ages because you aren’t strong enough to be a part of my family. You’re there and you’re desperate.”

  I flare my nostrils, trying to keep my strong guise on, but I’m struggling. He knows me like the back of his hand. He’s well versed in my current predicament, in how much I lost in loving and losing Amelia.

  “I know outside of these walls no one cares about you, Maverick.” His eyes twinkle, showing he knows more of me than I thought. “So I understand feeling like this is your final hope, but you were grossly mistaken. I am no one’s final choice. Now you’re without family, without a job, without Amelia, you come here and beg me for a chance. I don’t just pick anyone off the streets to be part of the Dio Lavoro. You have to earn the right and your track record has me seriously doubting how loyal you can be to me when I know just how you feel about me.”

  “I could prove myself,” I state, striving for a chance.

  “I don’t think so,” he chortles, shaking his head. “And do you want to know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you could never amount to the expectations of my men!” he shouts, making a display of me being here. “Now, I’m granting you the best bargain I can offer. It’s purely selfish for me, of course, but it’s very desirable for you.”

  “What?” I grouse.

  “I always wanted to watch you die, but watching you leave with nothing to your name is far more victorious. I’m letting you walk away alive.” He steps away, putting his arms out. “Take one last look at me and mine, Maverick, because if we meet again, I’ll do the virtuous thing and put you out of your misery. For now, I’d far rather have you leave jobless, loveless, and lonely. Enjoy the total abandonment because it’s a life you’ll learn to become acquainted with. Mark my words; you’ll never live in peace in this city.” He snickers, licking his lips. “And if you move, I’ll make sure my men follow. You’ll never have a semblance of a normal life after today.”

  “How will Amelia feel about that decision?” I dare to ask, keeping hold of my one final piece of hope.

  “She doesn’t have a say,” Sal enlightens to me. “I made sure the girl you first met was slowly and surely chipped away at. After this stint in Italy, you won’t ever be able to look her in the eyes again. The girl that is coming home is a product of your love, Maverick. She doesn’t care anymore because the man she loved and let love her, tore her heart out twice. That’s far too many times for one lifetime. I allowed her to follow her heart and let it lead to you, after the first heartbreak I thought I could use that to get rid of any trace of you ever living. I may have failed, but you helped sign the death warrant written for you breaking her heart how you did all those months ago.”

  “But I need this to prove to her that I lo-”

  “I don’t want to hear it!” he bellows, silencing me midsentence. “Remove him from my house,” Sal orders, dismissing me completely. Two men react, and he watches with a smile as they grab me and start to force my out of the room. “Oh, and Zane... if I see you back, I won’t hesitate to think of the worst death possible.”

  Message received.

  ***

  “I can’t do this.”

  The words tumble from my mouth far easier than I expected.

  I watch the expression fall from her eyes, the devastation setting in as quickly as the vacant look entered. I watch her inhale, struggling to keep the tears lining her long lashes at bay. She swallows hard and refuses to look away from me.

  “What decided it?” she asks me, braving herself to sound assertive. “Me or him?”

  “Him.”

  My statement forms clarity for her, offering her enough of a response that she doesn’t need any further explanation, but in the same sense, she looks like she wants all the answers in the world to help understand the heartbreak I’m thrusting upon her.

  “Your father will always have a hold on you that is too strong to break. I can’t compete with it.” I force myself to look away, if only for a moment, before looking back at her. “I want to offer you the world, Amelia. Foolishly, I want to offer you that house with the picket fence, but that isn’t something made for us. We come from two totally different worlds. I see that now.”

  “I could’ve loved you the most,” she utters, not putting up much of a fight. “I’m just sorry I wasn’t worth the wait.”

  “Sweethea-”

  “Don’t,” she tells me, cutting off my nickname for her. “I thought you’d be the proof I was worth fighting heaven and hell for.”

  I met a girl and I fell in love with her in a heartbeat, but I also prepared for the fact that breaking myself away from her meant in doing so, I broke both our hearts.

  I watch her walk away. The first woman I found myself ever truly able to love and I threw her aside because of my own prejudices.

  Because of the weak man I am, I broke two hearts today – hers and mine.

  I don’t know if I’ll be granted a second chance, but I deserve this pain as penance.

  Besides, I was never worthy of her in the first place.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AMELIA

  “WERE YOU BORN stupid?”

  I bristle a
s the conversation becomes directed at me. I’ve done a good job to just ignore the two idiots I’ve sent on a job with, but now we’re out of headquarters and on a job, I’m now no longer off limits. We’ve just finished dropping a package off for Alberto, but now I just want to go back to the mansion and waste another day.

  “Or was it what happened when your father killed your mama?”

  I stop, turning to face the two little bastardos, shocking them both.

  “What did you just say?”

  I should smirk as I watch their bravado loosen and disappear on them entirely, but I don’t. I keep my face stone-like and emotionless. I take a step towards them, they take a step back. What pathetic excuses for men they really are.

  “Don’t you ever mention my mother or my father in the same breath or to me ever again. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes,” one of them replies.

  I turn back and walk into the abandoned building where our car is parked.

  “Why did you fall for a cop?”

  I stop at the question – that same fucking question. I swear, if I had a dollar for every time someone asked, I would be rich in my own right by now.

  “I mean, I understand fatal attraction, but with a cop? Nah, I can’t make my brain understand that.” He looks at me, his crystal blue eyes staring straight at me. “What was it that made you fall in love? The uniform or the way he hurt you the first time?”

  “Guess it was the fatal attraction,” I remark, an honest tone carrying my name.

  Fatal attraction – that’s my favorite expression when I think about my relationship with Zane. I should’ve heeded the warning that came with loving him once when I delved into a second chance romance with him, but I didn’t. I threw caution to the wind and love him so openly while struggling to balance love and life. My life – the one I’m thrust into here – would always eclipse whatever my heart felt, because no one is a match for the Dio Lavoro.

  I thought Zane Maverick could be it, but sadly he wasn’t.

  Everyone assumes that because he broke my heart, I should hate him, but love isn’t that easy. Love isn’t black and white. It’s cut-throat, it’s addictive. Love is full of so many colors, so many emotions that it isn’t that easy to cut it off when it ends.

  And the stupid side of me knows we aren’t done.

  Zane Maverick loved me so unconditionally while not knowing the full extent of my alter ego that I knew how it felt to be whole-heartedly in love. We loved without abandon.

  Just because it ended, doesn’t mean I lose hope, because if I do that then I have nothing to live for.

  He gave me two perfect times to love him, and now I’m pulled away from all I know, but that doesn’t mean I can stop what my heart desires. It’s not that easy. It won’t ever be that easy. He loved me at my best, adored me at my worst. I can’t forget how that felt. I won’t forget how it felt, because if I do then I lose my grasp on the true me, on the person I always wanted to become.

  They can make their comments, throw their jest mockery around, but believe me, I’ll be saving a taster of the Amelia Abbiati the Dio Lavoro wants just for them.

  After all, Zane isn’t here to calm my anger or distract me from getting even. No, Zane is back in America alone, hopefully running like I told him to and settling into a new life – without me.

  “You know one of the men I killed took one of my stilettos to his neck, right?” I ask, breaking my own reverie.

  “From what I heard he was trying to rape you.”

  “And you’re pissing me off just as much,” I state, grinding my words out. I watch him try to look me in the eyes, try with all his might to not look scared, but I know deep down they all worry about the volatile bitch that I keep on lock down. “Trust me, coglione, what I wouldn’t mind doing to you.”

  “I heard you did those last killings for the cop,” the one with blue eyes says, antagonizing me. “Called them your swan song, didn’t you?” He steps closer, clearly finding some courage. “You know what you are, Amelia? You’re a cop lover. You can’t be on our side and theirs. You can’t be both.”

  “Just get in the fucking car,” I order them, unable to continue this conversation. “Before I do something you’ll never forget.”

  I see the smirk that curls on his lips as he walks passed me, the look he glances at me with, but I ignored it, allowing my gaze to drop and my eyes flutter close while I muster some courage back. He thinks he’s won and my lack of fight clearly proves that.

  He’s right, I killed to protect Zane, and I even called those last three kills my swan song because after I was done with sticking my stiletto in Big Al’s jugular I knew I had no other reason to kill anyone else. He had beaten me, attempted to rape me, so his death held more meaning. It meant I was going out on a high, but it also meant I was now free to go to Zane and truly love him without waiting for my kill list to grow.

  I allow them to pass, but as they do I crouch down, picking up a sliver of broken glass.

  I plunge it deep into the bastardo’s neck, immediately feel the blood pour freely.

  “You never speak about my love life or my family again,” I hiss, making it ‘blue-eyes’ last memory. “You’re in the Dio Lavoro, not in the family. You’d have done well learning some respect for me.”

  His body drops as I withdraw the glass and his partner turns to me, horror in his eyes. All at once, my anger diminishes and I find peace. This is what chanced Zane off – allowing my heritage and birth right to rule. Being here in Italy, means I can do so without worrying about losing anyone as a repercussion.

  “You can explain to Alberto what you did to piss me off,” I say, tossing the bloody shard of glass aside and go up to the young man. I put my bloody palm to his shirt and begin to wipe the crimson away from my skin. “Unless I have to be the one to drag both of you back to him and do all the talking?”

  “No, no...” he stammers. “I’ll tell him.”

  “Good,” I say taking my palm from his chest to fix his tie. “Let’s go home.”

  ***

  “What am I meant to do with him?”

  “I don’t know,” I say with a shrug.

  I casually grab my glass of wine and take a long sip, indulging in sweet nectar and close my eyes as I swallow. I open my eyes to see my uncle getting angrier

  “The bastardo shouldn’t have been so quick to judge me,” I say, placing the glass down I stand up. “You know, as an Abbiati, I thought I would have a little more respect around here, regardless of what I did back in Manhattan.” I walk towards the dead body on the veranda, poking it with my foot. “So, I tried to kill my father... but the lying coglione had it coming!”

  “Don’t talk about your father like that,” Alberto is quick to growl at me, trying to make me back down.

  “Why not? I was told to speak the truth and the truth of the matter is that my father, Salvatore Abbiati, is a fucking liar!

  “Then that makes you one,” Alberto remarks.

  “Why?” I ask, cocking a brow. “Because I loved a man not suited for me. I admitted that. I had every intention to kill him too, sometimes reality isn’t what we’re told, but what we live. I was told he had to die, much like all those men before him, but when I lived in the moment I found out none of those men really had to die.”

  “My father morphed me into a killer and called it my birth right. I wasn’t the unhinged one, nor was I the one doing any of it with a real malicious intent.”

  “You did it for family,” Alberto counters, folding his arms over his body.

  “That’s right!” I say, exclaiming the point. “I did it because I would have done anything to save and protect my family, but that was a lie!”

  There’s a deliberate silence between us, but Alberto shakes his head and begins to speak all over again.

  “Don’t worry, Amelia,” Alberto starts, leaning against the stone wall of the balcony. “I’ll get you to break sooner rather than later and by then you’ll finally see your worth.
”

  “We’ll see,” I argue. “For now, I’d work out where in the garden you want to bury that bastardo.” I point to the dead body. “Or if you like, there’s a perfect point at the bottom of the mountain where you can throw him out.”

  “You killed him,” Alberto muses. “That wasn’t my order, Amelia. That was what you wanted to do in that moment. That’s a Femme Fatale mentality.”

  I roll my eyes, walking away from him, but the thought had crossed my mind before.

  This is the woman I was scared of letting out, but only because I don’t know if there is any coming back from this once she takes full reign.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ZANE

  NO ONE PROTESTED against the manner of my departure. Not that I expected it. It was just in those moments I was tossed from the front door and onto the gravel drive, I realized how alone I had come to be in the world.

  Sure, Enzo, Carlo, and Billy had been there for me this morning, but in front of Salvatore their ranking means they have to abandon me. I don’t blame them. I’ve heard of the horrors Salvatore unleashes onto men who are delinquent.

  It’s with the realization, I’m quick to stand back up and get ready to leave.

  There’s nothing here for me. All manner of arguments would never win Salvatore around. I showed my strength with Giovanni the other night, I proved my arguments back there in front of men who would kill me at the simplest of order, but I’ve scorned Salvatore Abbiati.

  I was a fucking idiot to assume it’d be easy.

  “On second thought, I’m not quite done here!” Sal’s voice booms out. The sound echoes around the land around the house. “I felt we weren’t quite done.”

  “Oh no, I think we were,” I say, continuing to walk away. “You said enough! I’m leaving.”

  “If I say I’m not done with you, you don’t continue to walk away!” My insubordination causes Sal to chuckle out, but it’s not mirthful. His laughter is full of ire. “You and my daughter are so alike in that instance.”

  “But unlike her you can’t ship me off,” I argue, feeling the anger boiling me in again.