I held up my hand. “That’s enough. I get it.”
Sal’s dedication to presenting the facts and the evidence was why he would always be my number one. Well, that and his undying loyalty.
I leaned forward in my seat and slammed a hand against the headrest in front of me. “Did we recover the rare meat?”
He took a deep breath. The sausage was just a cover for the most precious of powders that we sold, hidden inside the frozen shipments of chow. It was a genius operation, and thus far no one knew the truth besides Sal, myself, and a few other top dogs we kept in the loop. Benny didn’t even know it, but he had just lost me a few million dollars’ worth of the white stuff.
“Our guys got to the site of the crash, but there wasn’t an ounce of the powder left. All dissolved into the river.”
“Fuck!” I steamed. Another Chicago secret disappeared into that dirty water.
“That’s not all, though,” Sal added. I raised an eyebrow.
“The police are getting warrants. Snooping around the books to see where our money is coming and going. Plus, with that Irish fella’s death—what was his name…” Sal trailed off.
“Kyle,” I finished his sentence. I never forgot the name of a man who’d died under my watch, enemy or friend.
“Right. The cops are looking into Kyle’s death. Apparently his mom isn’t playing by the rules and letting it go, she went and spilled the beans to the police. I don’t doubt the Irish are pissed, but this doesn’t bode well for us. It all depends on who the MacNamaras went to for the funeral, and if the detectives push for an exhumation. I don’t have to tell you it ain’t exactly coming up roses and daisies. We need a plan of action to stop the bleeding. You may need to get Drake to tell them to back off.”
I contemplated Sal’s advice as we pulled up to our office in the middle of downtown Chicago, right on the river.
Before we could even get to the security entrance to be scanned in, I was mobbed by a horde of reporters, firing out questions like a pack of hungry dogs looking for a bone.
“Mr. LaRosa, is it true that your driver killed two of the men who tried to stop him?”
“Mr. LaRosa, was the truck carrying bags of cash from your casinos in Indiana?”
The voices ran together, and my gaze was straight ahead until I heard the last question.
“Mr. LaRosa, what’s this about you being seen with a new girl? Is she one of your new concubines?”
Sal tried to push me along, but I turned and gave the man who had asked the question an incredulous look. “What did you just say?”
“You have a new concubine, the skinny, red-haired girl. Are you adding her to your harem?”
My eyes widened. What fucking planet did these reporters live on to get such misinformation?
“Come on, Boss,” Sal grabbed hold of me and pushed me through security as I gritted my teeth.
“Did that motherfucker mean what I thought he did?” I muttered to Sal as we took the elevator up to my top floor office.
“Since when do you give a shit about what the press thinks?” he replied. “With all due respect, you have a soft spot now. Don’t let them exploit her.”
I gave Sal a hard expression, but he didn’t budge. “Kelly’s not a fucking weakness,” I shot back.
The elevator dinged at the top floor and we got out. The entire floor had just three offices plus my secretary’s desk. Deanna smiled from behind her computer as I walked in.
“Good morning, Mr. LaRosa,” she said with a sweet smile as she handed me a list of possible meetings for the day.
“Morning, Deanna,” I said as I scanned the piece of paper. I usually made our Vice President do all the day-to-day grunt work. I only came in when absolutely necessary. Translation: when there were fires to be put out that required some not-so-legal strategies to be dealt with.
“I started the coffee five minutes ago in your office, so it should be ready,” she went on. “Oh, and I let Detective M in like you asked me to.”
I froze. I’d asked no such thing. “Detective M?” Sal and I made eye contact.
“Yes, the one who is going to figure out what happened for you this morning. He’s in your office.”
As if he could read my mind, Sal moved swiftly toward the door of my office, his hand on the hidden piece tucked at his side into a holster, and peaked in. The blood ran out of his normally dark face, but he waved for me to come.
“Is something wrong?” Deanna said with a worried expression.
“Everything’s fine, Deanna. As you were.”
I stepped inside and closed the door to my giant office. I stared down Tommy fucking MacNamara as he sat at my desk. His feet were up, fucking Timberland boots on my orderly desk as he sipped a mug of coffee with one of my office mugs.
“Well, hello there, Vince!” he spoke with exaggerated cheer. “Nice view from up top here. Oh, and thanks for the coffee. I helped myself. I was sure you wouldn’t mind.” He walked to the coffee machine and grabbed another mug. “I’ll pour another for you. Irish hospitality and all. How do you take it?”
“With cream. I’ll get it myself,” I grunted.
“Aww, that’s sweet. I’m a black coffee man myself. I prefer the taste of the pure stuff,” he said as he poured me a cup, ignoring my request to get it myself.
“And I like to mix.” I let the words hang in the air. Tommy could attach whatever symbolism he wanted to them as he handed me the mug.
What the hell are you doing here, Tommy?”
“Oh, not much. I just have a simple request, and you weren’t taking my calls. Maybe you were too busy.”
“I think you should go.” I motioned to Sal, and he approached but still stayed on the periphery.
“Touch me, and I throw this coffee on my arm and tell Kelly you did it.” He raised an eyebrow, daring me.
“Fine. What do you want?”
“It’s simple, really. I’m just asking that you stay the fuck away from my sister like a good little Italian boy.”
“Whom I date is none of your concern. That’s between Kelly and me.”
He smiled. “Oh, but it is my concern. Especially when it’s my little impressionable sister you’re making an impression on.”
“Kelly is twenty-four. She’s not some little girl whom you can control.”
Although my cock left quite an impression on her last night, I wanted to say. I managed to hold my tongue.
“Well, if you want to keep seeing her, I wouldn’t be surprised if you lose a few more sausage shipments.”
I stepped closer to him and took another sip of my coffee. “You know, I really do like this coffee mixed with cream. Cuts down on the asshole.”
He turned away and looked out the window. “You’re playing with fire, you son of a bitch. You trying to start an all-out war this summer?”
“Fuck you. I’ve been trying to end this war for years, and you know it.”
“Killing Kyle is a hell of a way to end it. But fine, I’ll leave. You know where I stand. Stop seeing my sister and we’ll end things.”
I gritted my teeth. “That’s not going to happen.”
He shrugged. “Fine. I guess I’ll have to do this the hard way, then. By the way, aren’t you curious how I got in here?”
“No. But tell me since you seem hell bent on letting your secret out.”
Tommy grabbed the doorknob, opened it, and smirked. “Turns out you aren’t the only one who has a knack for charming women to get insider information.”
As Tommy walked out the door, he winked at Deanna. “So nice to meet you today, Deanna! Hope your daughter has a great ballet recital tonight.”
I couldn’t lie, I was a little fucking stunned as he walked out. Tommy was no Greg pussy-ass Cooney, that was for sure. He was a worthy adversary. Still, I’d win.
Because now that I’d had a taste of Kelly, there was no going back.
I was addicted to a MacNamara and I had to have her.
As the elevator closed behi
nd Tommy I stood in my doorway, looking at the woman who manned the front lobby. There was no fucking way I could let this go. If all it took was a good-looking man to let her flout my security rules, it would be bad for business.
Back in the day the old guard would have taken her out and retired her with a bullet to the head. She was lucky I was modern. “Deanna, pack your bags. You’re fired.”
Christ. What did it take to get good help these days?
Deanna blinked at me. “Wha…what?”
“Did you even ask him for fucking ID?” I shook my head as anger poured off me. “Forget it. Sal, if she doesn’t get her ass moving, call security.”
I popped back into my office and kicked the chair Tommy vacated.
“What are you gonna do, Boss?” Sal asked. He knew I wasn’t a man to rest on my laurels in a crisis. And today we needed action more than ever.
“Get me a secure phone line. I’m going to give our old pal Mayor Drake a call.”
It was time to eliminate this problem by doing what I did better than anyone in the city: getting my hands dirty as all hell.
Naoi Deug
The next couple of days when I walked into the bar to head back to look at the accounts, Pops didn’t say much to me aside from “hi” and “bye.” He could sometimes get into stoic moods, so I figured he was getting over the whole me-and-Vince thing in his own silent way, and maybe it would blow over in a short while.
On Wednesday I was finishing up tracking our money for the day, and, as Pops called it, “making some creative adjustments to the numbers.” It wasn’t difficult to cook the books when you owned a bar. Just add a few hundred more drinks sold here, a few there, and voila—the money was laundered. Although my family wasn’t big on selling drugs, it was a nice extra pop of income to take a ten percent cut on any money that went through us. And our cousins who were doing the drug running sure did appreciate it.
I spaced out for a moment and looked out my single window again. All I had been able to think about since Sunday night was when Vince and I were going to have another get-together. Apparently, something had gone wrong that needed his attention, and he wasn’t able to see me for days. Then those days turned into almost a week.
He’d been out of my life for years. It’d been only a few days, and I was already feeling jumpy and anxious. It wasn’t like me to feel this uneven, but Vince had a calming presence about him. He had a plan, and he was so sure everything was going to be alright.
I needed that reassurance right now, since every time Pops laid eyes on me I could feel his disappointment searing through me. As much as I disagreed with him, it hurt to know my father felt that way about my actions.
There was a knock on the door and I spaced back in. “Come in.”
Tommy entered with a serious look on his face.
“Oh, hey, big brother,” I said with a joking smile.
“Kelly,” he answered, without returning my smile.
If Pops had been disappointed, Tommy was straight up surly. Half the time I wanted to strangle him. The other we just ignored each other. I knew I was flouting tradition by mixing it up with Vince, but it was my fucking life. My fling with Vince might have an expiration date, but it would be worth it in the end. I just had to keep telling myself that so I didn’t forget my long-term plan of heading west.
“I’m just finishing up the books for the day. Have a few more things to do here, and then I’ll start my bar shift at five until Elaine gets here at eight.”
Tommy rubbed his forehead, his expression still grim. “We need to talk. This isn’t the easiest thing in the world so I’ll just say it. If you don’t stop seeing Vince, we can’t let you continue to be our accountant.”
I blinked. Had I just heard him right? Anxiety overtook my whole body, nearly paralyzing me. “Are you fucking kidding me? I would never give up—”
“Would never give up our family secrets? Or never give up your fling with Vince? Because that’s what it’s looking like right now. You would choose him over your whole damn family. How long have you been secretly seeing each other? A week? A month? Hell, a year wouldn’t surprise me, the way you’ve been sneaking around.” His words cut like nails on a chalkboard, slicing away at my soul.
“It’s only been less than a week!”
“Only a week and you two are already fucking? Have you no class?”
Oh, hell no. Those were fighting words. I stood up ready to brawl it out with my older brother. “That’s none of your fucking business, Tommy.”
With fire in his eyes, he lurched toward my desk and slammed his fists on it, shaking my laptop and making me flinch. “Goddamn it, Kel! People are dying! This isn’t some fun fucking summer fling, he’s using you! You really think a guy like him can truly care about some lower middle-class, Irish girl? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the only reason he’s interested in you is so he can bring us down.”
His words slammed into me, stealing my breath. I stared at my computer screen with unfocused eyes, holding back tears. “You don’t know that. You don’t know Vince like I do.”
“You’re goddamn right I don’t know Vince like you do. Because I know what the man is—he’s a fucking monster, Kelly! I know full well I sound like an asshole right now. But as your brother, I can’t stand by and watch this billionaire fucking playboy mess with my sister’s head! You need to stay away from him, Kelly.”
Tommy ran a hand through his short brown hair. I’d expected push back from the family. But this? This was beyond anything I’d dreamed of. My lower lip trembled. I wasn’t going to cry. Except, dammit, I was.
“Aw, Kel. Fuck. Don’t do that. It’s for your own good. Pops and I, we can’t have you seeing him anymore. Best to just nip this one in the bud and cut ties. It’s for your own good. It’s for the good of the family.” His voice softened at the end of his tirade like he was trying to play both good cop and bad cop on his own.
I pushed past him. “I think I’m going to get some air.”
“Kel, just tell me you won’t see him. Promise me, and all this stress goes away. Is he really worth that much?”
I walked toward the door wiping at the tears trickling down my cheeks but turned before I exited. “You’re going to end up just like him, aren’t you?”
He scoffed. “Just like who? Vince? The fuck are you talking about?”
“Just like Pops, with your old fashioned, nineteenth-century notions about race. We can’t go on like this. You men and your fucking big egos are the source of this whole damn conflict that’s been going on for generations. Kyle fucking died in front of me. And for what? Because you wanted to be the big dog?”
“Ha! You’re calling me out on having a big ego while dating the biggest prick in Chicago! Don’t pretend like you’re on some moral high horse, ya do-gooder.”
That one cut me. I couldn’t tell him about the whole reason I’d started this crazy arrangement in the first place—to get the hell away from Chicago and move to California where all this trouble could become a distant memory.
I swallowed around the pain knotting my throat. “You and Pops can’t control whom I date. So, stop trying to.”
I went to the bar to grab my things and walked past Steve in the process. “Hey! How’s the Italian stallion?” he giggled before hiccuping. It was mid-afternoon on a weekday and he was drunk as a skunk.
My jaw dropped. “Why did you say that?”
“Oh, we were all talking about it on Sunday when you missed your shift. That sausage CEO man, what’s his name? Victor, Valentine...”
“Vince.”
“I knew it was a ‘V’ name,” he said before laughing at his own dumb comment.
I realized that Steve was just the drunk who spoke without a filter. If Steve knew, if Tommy knew already—however, they’d found out—the whole fucking town might as well know. For the South Side Irish, bar gossip still reigned supreme.
Gripping my handbag as if I wanted to clobber him with it, I got in Steve’s face. �
��His name is Vince LaRosa. He’s twenty-six, rich, handsome, and he’s done more in the past week than you’ve done in your entire life.” I gave him an up and down. “Goodbye, Steve, thanks for the information, though.”
I fumed as I headed for the bar exit. “Wait!” His voice followed me toward the door. “You gonna be here on your shift tonight, gorgeous?”
I shook my head.
Steve’s eyes grew sharp, surprisingly for how drunk he was. “You’re gonna need to choose, girlie. Your family or your love.”
His words rattled me and I didn’t turn back as I walked outside into the bright summer light. I might never work in the tavern again. The one which bore my name, and had been my inheritance. The birthright I hated every damn day.
I took a deep breath and opened my arms. The trees were alive, flowers were out, and I decided that I no longer gave a shit about what my family thought about mine and Vince’s relationship. It was real, and it was here to stay for the summer.
My phone buzzed and I rushed to grab it. I was expecting Vince, but it was his style consultant, Crystal. She had a cancellation tonight and she was wondering if I had time to go shopping tonight.
I quickly texted her back in the affirmative. She said she’d meet me at the Magnificent Mile shopping malls on State Street, and would I need a ride?
I was beginning to like being the girlfriend of a billionaire.
As I waited for the car to pick me up, my mind drifted back to mine and Tommy’s argument. One phrase in particular, bothered me.
He’s using you, Kel.
I’d never felt a more real attraction in my life. Still, that was the beginning of a gnawing feeling that didn’t want to go away. I trusted Vince, but Tommy had managed to sow the seed of doubt in my mind.
An hour later, I found myself in a clothing store with a French name where the prices were so outrageous I wasn’t sure they could be real. Who really paid four figures for a dress?
Crystal was sizing me up for my strategy.
“You’ve got great legs, so we’ll want to highlight those as much as we can. And, oh my, is this your natural color?”
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