by Metsy Hingle
“You might as well give up, Conti,” Shane told him. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about these Barone women, it’s that they make up their own minds.”
Steven relented. “All right. Let’s go.”
“Thanks again,” Maria told her, hugging her close. “Take care of my cousin, Shane.”
“You can count on it.”
“Steven,” Emily called out as they started to leave.
He paused, turned back to look at her and waited.
“Derrick has—” She swallowed, tried again. “He used to have a gun.”
He nodded. “I appreciate the warning. I’ll be careful.”
“And please,” she said to their retreating backs, “please try not to hurt my brother.”
Maria’s heart ached for her cousin as they left the office building and headed to the garage for Steven’s car. How would she feel if it were one of her brothers who had betrayed their family? Suddenly her stomach sank and she couldn’t help wondering if everyone would think her a traitor when they learned about Steven and the baby.
“I know the area where Derrick’s got the apartment,” Steven said tightly. “It’s probably going to take us a good thirty to forty minutes to get there.”
“Are you going to call the FBI and Ethan and tell them what we found out?”
“Not yet,” Steven told her as they approached the car.
“But I thought you told Ethan that you’d call if we found out anything.”
“I did and I will call him.” He unlocked Maria’s door. “Just not yet.”
Maria narrowed her eyes. “What are you planning to do?”
“I’m going to go to the apartment, then I’m going to call Mallory. He can tell the feds. That way it’ll be too late for them to order me to stay away.” He shut her door, walked around to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel.
“I don’t guess there’s any point in my asking you to let the authorities handle it?” she asked as she buckled her seat belt.
“No. Bianca’s my sister. I have to do this.” He started the engine, looked over at her. “But I wish you’d reconsider and let me take you someplace where you’ll be safe until this is over.”
“I’m going with you.”
“Dammit, Maria. You heard Emily. Derrick’s got a gun. The man’s dangerous. I don’t want you putting yourself and our baby at risk. If you don’t want to go to your place, let me take you to my apartment. The minute I know something, I’ll call—”
“No.”
“But—”
“I understand that because it’s your sister, you feel the need to go yourself. Try to understand that Derrick’s my cousin. If he’s responsible for this, I need to be there, too. I need to do this for my family. For Emily.”
“All right,” Steven said. “But I don’t want you taking any chances. Now that I’ve found you again and we’re so close to having a life together, I don’t want anything to happen to you. Or to our baby. Promise me, you’ll be careful and follow my lead.”
“I promise,” Maria said and prayed that she’d be able to keep that promise as they exited the garage and headed out into the cold night.
Twenty-five minutes later they pulled onto the block and parked across the street from the apartment building. “Why would Derrick rent an apartment here under an assumed name?” she asked aloud.
Steven shrugged. “Any number of reasons. He may have decided it was safer to meet here with Baronessa’s competitors than to risk being seen with them in public or at their offices,” he suggested. “Or he may have been planning this kidnapping and ransom demand for a long time.”
“Derrick’s never been big on planning or patience. Maybe Emily was right about him seeing a married woman.” It certainly seemed to fit with her cousin’s character. For as long as she could remember, he’d always wanted what someone else had.
Steven took out his cell phone, auto-dialed a number. “It’s Steven. I’m in Boston and I think I’ve found where Barone’s holed up with Bianca.” Steven held the phone away from his ear and Maria heard a man swearing on the other end of the line. “You want to shut up a minute and let me give you the address or not?” He rattled off the street and number, then replied, “Too late. I’m already here and I’m going in.”
Maria heard the man yell, “Conti! You son of a b—”
Steven ended the call and turned to her. “Ethan and the feds are on their way. I need you to wait here, explain everything that’s happened when they get here and tell them that Derrick may have a weapon.”
“But what about you?” Maria asked. “Where are you going?”
“Inside.”
“Steven, wait! Don’t you dare go without me,” she cried out, frustrated that her pregnancy caused her to move more slowly. She battled with the release catch on the seat belt. But by the time she’d disarmed the safety lock on the door and opened it, Steven was already across the street and running toward the apartment building.
Ten
Steven knew it was a lousy trick and that he’d probably have hell to pay later for tricking Maria as he had. But it would be a small price to pay to keep her safe, he reasoned. He’d meant what he’d said. He didn’t trust Derrick Barone. It was bad enough the man had his sister. No way did Steven intend to let Derrick anywhere near Maria.
He waited for the couple he’d seen approaching the building to unlock the main door and enter. The moment they did, he dashed up the stairs and caught the door before it closed. Once the elevator doors closed behind the pair, he located the stairwell and then, taking the stairs two at a time, he started for the eighth floor. When he reached the fifth-floor landing, he checked his watch. Knowing Mallory, he figured he had maybe seven minutes tops before his former brother-in-law and the feds converged on the building. He just prayed that they’d manage to keep Maria away from Derrick’s apartment.
Pulling open the door to the eighth floor, he started down the carpeted corridor. The place was as quiet as a church, he thought as he checked the numbers on the apartments on both sides of the hall in search of number 805. He found it at the end of the hall. From his quick glimpse of the building when they’d arrived and parked across the street, he estimated that the fire escape he’d seen was on the other side of the apartment. That meant the apartment door and the fire escape would be Barone’s only exit routes, he reasoned. Adrenaline pumped through him as he pressed his ear against the door and listened for movement inside.
“Look out,” Bianca screamed just as the door opened and Steven stumbled inside the apartment.
“Isn’t it just like a sneaking Conti, listening at keyholes,” Derrick told him with a sneer that emphasized his hawklike features.
But it wasn’t the man’s taunt that had Steven’s heart in his throat. It was the sight of Derrick with his arm wrapped around Bianca’s throat and a gun aimed at her head. “Let her go, Barone,” Steven commanded.
“I’m the one calling the shots here, Conti. Not you,” Derrick told him, waving the gun at him with jerky movements.
Still lying on the floor, Steven gauged his chances of rushing Derrick before he could get off a shot and decided it was a risk he couldn’t take. Not with Barone still holding Bianca.
“Put your hands where I can see them and get up. Real slow.”
Steven did as he said. He had never come face-to-face with a madman before, but he knew from the wildness in the other man’s eyes that Derrick Barone was on the verge of snapping. “Why don’t you put down that gun and let my sister go, then you and I can talk. Man to man.”
Derrick laughed and the crazed pitch had the blood in Steven’s veins running cold. “Unless you’ve got ten million dollars cash on you, we have nothing to talk about.”
“I don’t have it with me. But I can get it,” Steven said, buying time. “But first you have to let my sister go.”
“No,” Derrick said and tightened his grip around Bianca’s throat.
His sister coughed, clutched at Der
rick’s forearm to keep the pressure off of her windpipe. “You’re choking me,” she managed to get out.
“Let her go,” Steven demanded and started toward him.
“Stay where you are,” Barone shouted and aimed the gun at Steven. “I swear, you take another step and I’ll shoot you and then her.”
“Derrick, don’t!”
Steven whipped around at the sound of Maria’s voice as she came rushing through the door. “Maria, get out of here,” he ordered.
“Well, well, well,” Derrick said, a maniacal grin spreading across his face. “If it isn’t my dear cousin. Back from your little vacation, Maria? And what’s this,” he continued, motioning to her belly with the gun. “Don’t tell me that Baronessa’s little sainted Maria has gotten herself pregnant? I wonder who the father is.”
“Leave her alone,” Steven said, stepping in front of Maria.
Derrick’s gaze went from Maria to Steven and then he laughed again. “Oh, if this isn’t rich. I don’t believe it. You went and got yourself knocked up by a Conti.”
“Shut your mouth,” Steven snapped. He curled his hands into fists at his sides, when what he wanted to do was smash them at Barone’s face.
The laughing stopped. So did the smile. “No one tells me to shut up,” he countered. “And no one gives me orders, not anymore. I’m the one who gives the orders now. Understand?”
“Understood,” Steven said through gritted teeth. He needed to buy time, keep him talking until Mallory and the Feds arrived. “Why don’t you put that gun down and we’ll talk.”
“I don’t think so,” Derrick told him.
Maria moved from behind him and faced her cousin. “Why, Derrick? Why are you doing this?”
Derrick laughed again. “Why do you think I’m doing it? For the money, of course.”
“The ransom money?”
“God, but you’re a stupid bitch,” he said, disdain in his voice, in his expression. “How Grandmother could have picked you to run Baronessa is beyond me. Of course I did it for the ransom money. The way I figure it, you all owe me for the way you’ve treated me all these years. Ten million dollars will help me make a fresh start somewhere else, away from this stinking town, away from all of you.”
Maria flinched at the venom in his voice. “My God, you really hate us.”
“That’s right.”
“Is that why you set the fire at the plant?”
“Just covering my tracks, cousin. I couldn’t let Carlo or anyone else find out that I’d been meeting with Snowcream and offering to sell Baronessa’s recipes.”
“But you might have killed Emily,” Maria accused.
“It’s her own fault she got hurt. She wasn’t supposed to be there. As it was, she screwed things up for me and I had to improvise.”
“Improvise?” Steven said, noting movement out of the corner of his eye near the fire escape.
“Yes,” Derrick said, a satisfied smile curving his lips. “I just blamed it on you Contis.”
“How could you?” Maria demanded. “How could you have risked everything Marco and Angelica worked so hard to create? You could have destroyed our legacy.”
“Not our legacy,” he corrected. “Your legacy. And Daniel’s and Emily’s and Claudia’s and all the rest of you.”
“And yours,” Maria insisted. “You’re a Barone, too.”
“No, I’m not. I’m Disappointing Derrick.”
Steven caught sight of a second shadowy figure on the fire escape that he thought he recognized as Reese Jackson, one of the FBI agents on the kidnap case. He tried to pay heed to the conversation and prayed that Derrick wouldn’t notice the activity.
“I’m the one none of you ever thought was smart enough to be trusted with anything important,” Derrick continued.
“That’s not true. You’re a member of Baronessa’s management team.”
“A token job,” he fired back. “I should have been the one at the helm of Baronessa. Not Nicholas or Joseph and certainly not you. I’m smarter than all of you. And I had good ideas, great ideas that would have put Baronessa on the map. But none of you would listen to me. Not Grandmother or Uncle Carlo or even my own parents. They all thought that Nicholas and Joseph and you were the smart ones who should run things. Well, you weren’t. It should have been me.”
“Maria’s listening now, aren’t you, Maria?” Steven said, not liking the way the man’s arm tightened around Bianca’s throat as he became more and more agitated. Nor did he like the way his tiny sister kept clutching at Barone’s arm to keep the pressure off her windpipe. “Why don’t you tell her some of those plans you have for the company now?”
“Yes,” Maria said, obviously taking his cue. “Why don’t you tell me about those plans now, Derrick?”
“It’s too late,” Derrick told her.
“No, it’s not,” Maria insisted. “Don’t forget, I’m pregnant. My baby is due in February. I came back to tell the family and to resign.”
“They won’t accept your resignation. You’re their golden girl.”
Maria shook her head. “Not anymore. You know how much bad blood there is between us and the Contis. Once they know that Steven’s the baby’s father, I’m not sure they’ll want anything to do with me.”
“Serves you right,” Derrick told her.
“Regardless,” she said. “Someone has to manage Baronessa Gelateria once I’m gone. That someone should be you.”
Derrick narrowed his eyes. “You’re lying. You put Karen in charge when you went away. And when she left, you put her assistant Mimi in charge.”
“I made a mistake,” Maria told him. “I’m sorry. I was wrong not to put you in charge of things. But we can fix that. I’ll tell Nicholas and Uncle Carlo and everyone that you should have the job. They’ll give it to you. I know they will.”
Derrick hesitated, his grip on Bianca’s neck loosening. Steven eyed him closely, held his breath as the arm holding the gun lowered a fraction. He slid a glance to the window by the fire escape, waited for the Feds to make a move and swore silently when he saw the man with Jackson struggling to open the window. Damn them, he thought as an angry-looking Jackson said something to the other agent. They were going to blow it. Derrick might be crazy, but he wasn’t stupid or deaf. He’d hear them. “Listen to her, Barone,” he said, wanting to distract the man long enough so that he could charge him. “She’s telling you that you can have what you want. You can be the top dog at Baronessa now. But that won’t happen if you do something stupid and hurt Bianca or us. So why don’t you put down the gun?”
“I’d be in charge of Baronessa?”
“That’s right,” Steven told him.
The window squeaked.
And Derrick went ballistic. He jerked his gun arm up, pointed it at Maria. “Liar! It was a trick. You tried to trick me.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Maria insisted.
Glass shattered and Jackson and the other man came through the window shouting, “FBI!”
“Get back,” Derrick yelled and Bianca screamed as he yanked his arm up and around her throat again. Tight. So tight, her face was turning red.
“FBI,” Jackson said again as he rushed into the room. He aimed a gun at Derrick. “Put down the gun, Barone, and let the lady go. We’ve got the building surrounded. There’s no way out.”
“Wrong. I’m going to walk out of here and she’s going to be my ticket,” Derrick said, yanking Bianca tightly against him and causing her to gasp for breath. “Call them off now or I swear I’ll snap her neck.”
Bianca started to choke again. She clawed at Derrick’s arm and Steven saw blood, but the man seemed oblivious to his injuries. “For God’s sake, do it,” Steven shouted at Jackson, fearing for his sister’s life.
“Pete, tell the team to stand down,” Jackson called out.
“Now you put down your weapon,” Derrick ordered as he waved his gun at the agent. When Jackson hesitated, he tightened his arm around Bianca’s throat.
“All right,” Jackson said, putting his weapon down on the floor in front of him.
“Him, too,” Derrick said, motioning to the other agent. Once he’d complied, Derrick told them, “Real slow now. I want you to slide them over here toward me. And I swear if you try anything, I’ll snap her neck and put a bullet in my cousin.”
“All right,” Jackson said after he and his partner had done as instructed. “Now why don’t you let the lady go?”
“I don’t think so,” Derrick said, a feral look in his eyes. “I told you, she’s my ticket out of here. Now I want you to—”
Suddenly Bianca elbowed Derrick in the gut and when he grunted, she followed through with a karate back kick to his shin that sent him stumbling back against the wall. Maria screamed. Bianca swung free, spun around and karate kicked his arm. Steven and Jackson both rushed toward Derrick, but Barone was already on his feet, waving the gun wildly at them.
“Get back,” he screamed. “Get back or I’ll start shooting. I swear I’ll do it.” Steven and the agents froze. “Now all of you, move over there together.”
“Give it up, Barone,” Jackson said as he and his partner moved near him and the two women. “There’s no way out for you now.”
Derrick’s gaze darted from one to the other. His eyes were those of a madman, Steven thought. The arm that Bianca had kicked drooped and was covered with bloody scratches. He began backing up, moving toward the broken window to the fire escape.
“Listen to the man, Derrick,” Maria pleaded. “Put down the gun before anyone else gets hurt.”
“No,” Derrick said. “I’m not going to jail.”
“Derrick, please,” Maria tried again as her cousin reached the window and began to climb out onto the fire escape.
“Don’t do it, Barone,” Jackson said.
Suddenly Steven realized what Derrick intended. “You’re making a mistake,” Steven told him, not wanting Maria and his sister to witness what was about to happen. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do,” Derrick told him. He put his other leg through the window. “I told you, I’m not going to jail,” he repeated. “I can’t.”