Indiscretions of a God

by Sunniva Dee

  My people are on it. I don’t want her around for a minute longer than she needs to be. Even with the tracker destroyed, she’s in danger of being found, and I need to get on with my own business. I’ve got money to make, a cross-promo in the making.

  An hour in, I’ve refilled my coffee twice. Ten phone calls down, and I’m jittery with caffeine but feel more settled in terms of my affairs. The filming of Sexman is on schedule, and all is quiet at the studio. I’ve got Rain scheduled to fly to India by jet, and fake papers are being made as we speak. I’ll only have to keep her here for another twenty-four hours.

  Romano appears in the doorway again, small eyes peering. “Sir?”

  The revised Clown Irruption contract just shot into my email inbox. I’m curious about their comments.

  “What is it?”

  “The girl’s awake. You wanted me to inform you when she got up? She opened the door to her room, but when she saw Bully, she freaked out and ran back in again.”

  Bully. He’s one of Il Lince’s younger guys, mid-twenties. Hulk-sized and simple-minded, he’s lethal to the enemy but sweet as a sleepy bear around la famiglia.

  “I’ll handle it.” Pressing my palms against the desk, I stand and walk through the hallway toward the guestrooms. I knock on her door. “Rain. It’s me, Isaias.”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Rain. Listen. I’ve got great news for you.”

  The door clicks open slowly, showing one fearful eye through the crack.

  I take a step back and smile a little, showing my empty hands. I’m not packing, see? “It’s just me.”

  She doesn’t object when I push the door open and walk in. “Did you sleep well?”

  Rain bobs her head.

  “How are your stitches?”

  “They don’t hurt very much.”

  “That’s good.” I exhale and look her over. There is a lightness to her now that wasn’t there last night. “So. Are you ready for the good news?”

  “Yes… please.”

  “You’re leaving the U.S. tomorrow night.”

  Panic rears in her gaze again, but I jut a palm out against her reaction. “I’m sending you to Mumbai, via private jet. One of my girls will keep you company on the way there, and she won’t leave you until you’re safe in your family’s arms. Which brings me to my question. Would you like to call home?”

  Rain lets out a wracked sob, shoulders hunching as she cradles her face in her hands. She’s trying to talk, mumble out her gratitude, but the exact words are hard to make out.

  “I can’t hear you?” I say softly, smiling so she understands I’m teasing her. When she giggles through the tears bathing her face, the day suddenly feels a lot better.

  Of course, Tatiana isn’t at work. With the police flooding every inch of it, packing shit in sample bags, I’m sure, and taking notes, the church has been shut down.

  Bruno’s in lockdown with the rest of the guys who were in on last night’s action, while Moroder’s in for questioning. Ma’s my source to this information, because Il Fucking Lince is busy re-strategizing. I laugh silently at that, because how do you strategize when your enemy consists of Neanderthals?

  McRoy calls me from the city of Ventura. “Boss?”

  “Yeah. Did you find her?”

  “No, the nuns haven’t seen her since yesterday morning.” He sniffs. “If you don’t mind me saying so, seems to me she doesn’t want to be found, and if a woman doesn’t want to be found, a guy’s better off spending his energy elsewhere.”

  “Thanks for the insight. When are they picking up Rain?”

  “At four. We’ve been given an opening to fly out at six fifteen from the Hollywood Burbank Airport.”

  “Good.” That’s in three hours. The St. Tatiana confrontation’s blown up on the news, so we have to lay low for now, and with the cops and feds busy in the Valley, I doubt anyone will be looking for me in Hillside.

  My alarm system sets off, blaring through the house. White lights erupt above the front door, the upper corners of the living room, and the kitchen. Which means they’re blinking in all rooms—which means security breach.

  Bully and Romano run to the front rooms and drop to their knees, crawling up to the windows. I see it fine from where I stand, the black vehicle slamming against the front gates over and over, backing up and trying again. That’s not going to happen. The beams are reinforced steel for a reason. No way they’ll budge.

  Three men jump out. They scan the wilderness, quickly realizing mine’s the only house on this side, I’m sure. Then, they fire off round after round against the intercom. Idiots. One guy shifts his aim at the frame of the gate, blasting off granite. Still not happening; the granite’s fortified too.

  “Romano, backdoor,” I bark. “Take the right side around, and the shrubbery’ll hide you.”

  He pumps a fist in the air, eyes alight, and it’s the reason why he’s been with my father for thirty years. He disappears down to the ground level, the door slamming on his exit.

  My safe’s in a cupboard next to the microwave. All I have to do is open the cabinet, and it’s there. It buzzes open to my warm fingerprints.

  I pull my Glock out for the second time in twenty-four hours. Adrenaline courses through me as I bolt to the window. I bark at Bully to shove it open in a small courtesy to a home that’s about to get demolished. It slices through me how much I’d rather be punishing Belen or selecting still-shots with Gianni.

  The fuckers are fast. I can’t believe how quickly they throw themselves over the fence. Bully snipes one of them. The guy’s halfway to my front door before he drops, and as the second guy rounds the left corner—not the right one where Romano is—my phone rings. I hurl it against the wall.

  Rain screams. No way anyone’s in her room yet, but the sound of her anguish curdles my blood. There’s fucking nothing more intense than petrified females. It’s in your DNA to do something about it.

  “Get the guy in the red shirt,” I shout to Bully, who takes aim and starts blasting my front yard with his AK-47, ripping up a trail behind the third guy. I rush to the windows on the left, scanning the side yard for the grey shirt. I can’t see him. Bet he’s running along the wall.

  Glass panes splinter in the front where Bully is. Guess red-shirt has made it that far. I need to get downstairs for a better view. Maybe I can get grey-shirt from the backdoor before he gets inside.

  I leap to the stairs, taking them three at a time. The backdoor is wide open. Rain screams again, and this time she doesn’t stop. Fuck. Fuck, fuck. He’s inside, isn’t he? I bolt back, and at the end of the hallway, her screams intensify.

  “No, no, please, no! Let me go.”

  I get to her door and watch grey-shirt lock his arm around her throat from behind until he’s choked her scream. Eyes popping with terror, she pleads with me without words. Shit! If I can’t save her, that look will haunt me forever.

  I leap forward to wrangle her out of his grip, but he presses his gun against the side of her head. “Don’t even think about it. She’s worth a hell of a lot of money to us, but if you make this difficult, I’ve got standing orders to eliminate her.” He cocks his gun.

  “What’s it gonna be, Isaias di Nascimbeni?” he mocks when I relax my stance. “You wanna keep her here—bleeding out in your house, or you want her alive and kicking with her new owner?”

  She shakes her head, body trembling, but he jerks her still, grin widening. Idly, I notice one of his front teeth. The tip of it is a poorly made lump of gold.

  My heart beats in my throat. I breathe heavily, in need of time I don’t have. Smalltalk. “How did you find her?”

  “She had a tracker—as you clearly know by now.”

  “Right, we removed it.”

  “You sure did. T’was a little late by then, wasn’t it?”

  It’s two o
’clock. A few hours later, and she’d have been on her way.

  “Now”—he jostles her toward me and the door—“it’s been fun, but we gotta get going.”

  The shooting has stopped in the front rooms. “Mr. Nascimbeni?” Bully roars. “Are you okay?”

  I shut my eyes, while grey-shirt chuckles. “Not the brightest bulb, huh? Don’t answer him, or I’ll be making a few modifications on our girl, here.”

  “Randolfo wouldn’t be happy about that,” I mutter.

  “Oh, there’s a market for that too.”

  “I can’t…” Rain whispers. “I just can’t. Please kill me instead.”

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “You know what, dude?” I say calmly. “I don’t like your game.” He doesn’t have time to answer before his head explodes in blood, pieces of meat, and bone. Rain is a heap, struggling to get out from under him as he falls, and I catch him last second. His gun goes off belatedly, hitting nothing while it sails under the bed.

  “You shot him?” Rain whispers. How does this surprise her? Wasn’t she there yesterday, when everyone shot everyone?

  “It was him or you,” I say, pulling her up before he lands in a bloody heap on the floor. One of his eyes is still in his skull. It looks worse than the empty socket next to it. “Look away, Rain.”

  She’s a bundle of feeble limbs struggling to remain upright. She’s hyperventilating too, which isn’t good.

  “Come here.” I wrap my arm around her shoulders and guide her toward the hallway. “I promised you I’d get you out of here, and I keep my promises, okay?”

  Her breath shivers.

  “Your family is waiting for you. They were happy when you called them this morning. They’ve missed you so much, remember?”

  She brushes a messy lock behind her ear. I draw back to inspect the stained skin she reveals. Thankfully, the blood isn’t hers.

  “They won’t miss you much longer.” I steady her out of the room and shut the door behind us. “In”—I check my watch, purposely doing something mundane—“two hours, my people will be here to pick you up. They’re friends I’d trust with my life, and all they want is to return you to Mumbai in one piece. But before that, we’re going to get you cleaned up again, and we’re going to find you a new dress. You want to look good for your flight, don’t you?”

  “Yes…” Her voice is tiny.

  Bully meets us in the hallway. “You all right?” he asks me, then flashes his gaze to Rain.

  “Yeah. We’re good. I’ll need cleanup in her room, though.”

  “Ah. Got messy?”

  “Very.”

  The TV room still looks pretty good. Just a few tipped-over pieces of furniture I straighten real quick. I take my shirt off and lay it over the still-white couch so Rain can have a seat.

  “All taken care of?” I send Bully a glance while I open the bar cabinet and fish out the whiskey.

  “Yes, sir. But Romano didn’t make it. Il Lince’s not gonna like that.”

  “Ah. That’s a goddamn pity. He was family.”

  I give Rain a glass with a generous amount of whiskey. Unsure, she eyes me. I bob my head. “Take it. You need to calm your nerves. Once I can trust you on your legs, I’ll let you shower.”

  Slowly, she lifts it to her lips and takes a small sip. I let a few swallows of burning comfort roll down my own throat while I pass a third glass to Bully. He grabs it greedily with both hands, the crystal disappearing in his oversized fists.

  “You good here for a moment, Rain? We need to take stock of the damage.”

  Rain bites her lip, eyes glossing over. She still gives me a brave thumbs-up.

  “We’ll be fast,” I murmur, scanning her expression; I don’t want her to have a panic attack again in my absence. “You probably shouldn’t come along for this.”

  “Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

  The front door stands ajar, and red-shirt lies facedown over the threshold, forming an efficient roadblock. I nudge him with my foot. “Dead.”

  “Totally dead.”

  “Do we know who he was?” I ask Bully.

  “He has a half moon tattoo on his knuckles.”

  “So he’s Santa Colombini. I don’t recognize his face,” I say, tilting his head to the side. “Definitely not famiglia.”

  Once outside, I stare out over my shot-up front yard. Enough rounds of bullets can cause serious damage to lawns and fountains, apparently. There’s no way I’m paying for this myself. It’ll be Daddy dearest who gets this bill.

  Romano sits along the left side of the house. Head tipped forward, he looks like he’s sleeping. I see no blood either, until we’ve passed him. A small wound at the side of his head is all it took. The bullet hole in the concrete behind him will have to be covered. As a matter of fact, I’ll get the whole house painted white. I don’t need any reminders of my darkest day in years.

  My Hillside home has become less of a home. You do what you gotta do, though. If only it weren’t so damn inconvenient to haul everything I need into the car to hole up in my father’s safe house. He’s got safe houses in several places, but even his Malibu apartment is far from everything I need.

  Rain has showered up and wears another to-the-ankles dress. I acknowledge her with the wag of two fingers as she returns to the living room. The new dress is green, and she’s a sight to feast on with her long, ink-black hair that rolls down over shoulders and breasts.

  Il Lince’s cleanup crew is on the way. My father had, as expected, a meltdown of grief over Romano, but also as expected, he was back to his calculating self within minutes.

  Fucking A, I need a bigger car.

  “You travel like a chick, boss,” Bully says behind me, face spreading in a crooked grin as I turn my head. The grin falters when I just stare at him. “Sorry.”

  “Carry the rest of the crap to your van,” I mutter. It’s four suitcases, most of which don’t contain clothes. “You’ll get it to Malibu for me.”

  Rain and Aurora have become fast friends. It took a minute to find the cat after the attack, but now she’s back to purring loudly, nudging her head under Rain’s chin.

  We’re running out of time. Santa Colombini came with a surprisingly small crew, and it’s odd that they didn’t factor in how Il Lince’s son would have people stationed on his property. Makes me wonder how long they’ll wait for their dead buddies to report back before they send out reinforcements.

  Updates from Felix say there’s been no action in San Diego or Oceanside. Sounds like I’m the only one they’ve been after for now. A new rumble of misgivings stirs in my chest at the thought of Tatiana. No one has seen her since she left early this morning.

  “Isaias. A car,” Bully alerts. I pull out my gun and take position by the window. The vehicle is small, maybe a Corolla. It’s pearly white, clean, the opposite to everything around me. Doesn’t look like any car coming from the famiglie.

  Bully and I have manually pushed the front gate open—Il Lince will have to pay for rewiring too—and the car slows down enough for the driver to study the deserted Santa Colombini van on the other side of it. Then they stop to take inventory of the broken intercom.

  Slowly, the Corolla rolls up and parks in front of my door. I hear her pull the handbrake before she pushes the door open, ducks out, and straightens. She looks me smack in the eye. “What happened here, Isaias di Nascimbeni? You been playing Mafia Wars again?”

  I feel a small smirk growing on my face as I fold my arms over my chest. My gun points toward the sky. “What made the nun of the year honor me with her presence again? Do you know how stupid it was of you to leave this morning?”

  She smirks back, ruby red lips plump and edible. “Seems like staying wasn’t all it was cracked up to be either.”

  My smile fades. I uncross my arms and wave her closer, drinking in her beautiful features. Sh
e wears minimal makeup, just that smooth heart-shaped face, brass locks flowing down… over all-white business attire?

  She wears white pumps too; Tatiana is a sexy as hell bundle of innocence and femininity, and for the first time today my cock hardens. I feel him twist in my pants, ready to play.

  “What’s this about?” I don’t hide the hunger in my eyes as I scan her curves, perusing her from the tip of those fuck-me heels up to the perfectly coiffed waves of her hair. “Are you taking a break from the sacred life of nuns?”

  She lowers her eyelids, gaze simmering on me. It matches her heels more closely than the white purity of her clothes.

  “Actually, I am. The St. Tatiana doesn’t need me while it’s under restoration, and Pater Altermatt has been arrested.”

  “Odd,” I say, squinting at her. “I wonder who tipped off the cops.”

  “Mobsters love to squeal on each other, I’ve read.” She shrugs as her eyes go to red-shirt. We’ve tucked him against the hedge at the side of the house. “Where’s Rain?”

  I jerk my head toward the door, where Rain appears, anxiously peering out. She lights up at the sight of Tatiana. My ice queen strides up to her without a word and hugs her close. I can’t take my eyes off them, gold and ink melding, slender pearly arms entwining with bronze.

  I come to my senses at the sigh next to me. Apparently, I’m not the only one entranced. Bully’s in a gorilla pose, hunched forward with his eyes glued to the girls. His hands hang loose in front of him like he’s forgotten what to do with them. Oh, fuck no.

  I ram an elbow into his stomach. “Enough stalling, asshole. Load up the van and we’re outta here.”

  “What about the chicks?” Dude can’t stop staring. I give him a good shove to set him in motion, but he’s huge and barely rocks.

  “We’re bringing them with us.”

  Now he turns, gaze brightening with hope.

  “They’ll be in the car with me,” I murmur.

  His expression falls.

  “They’ll be in Tatiana’s car with Love Child,” Tatiana says without turning.