Skin

by Karin Tabke

  Slowly Anthony shook his head.

  Frankie was still reeling from Anthony’s accusations.

  “Anthony, what are you talking about? I didn’t sanction anything. And for the love of God, why would I?”

  “The embezzlement, Frankie. The millions of dollars in your accounts.”

  This was a nightmare getting worse. “What accounts? I have my piddly-ass savings and checking accounts.”

  Anthony laughed and pulled a gun from the small of his back. He aimed it directly at her chest. Frankie swallowed hard.

  “Really? I’ve seen the statements. I have to hand it to you. You were smart, burying them in your mother’s maiden name. But technology today is an incredible thing.”

  “You’re crazy.” What else could she say?

  Connie cackled. “What deal did you cut with the feds?”

  “I didn’t cut any deal! I’d never betray the family,” Frankie cried.

  “Liar,” Connie said.

  “I’m not lying!” She turned to her brother. “Anthony, you’re wrong, I didn’t kill Father. I loved him.”

  “You told him he was dead to you.”

  Words she regretted in more ways than one. “I was angry and hurt.”

  Anthony shrugged, unmoved. “As the cops would say, big sister, you had motive, means, and opportunity.”

  “I didn’t kill him! If I did, then who has been trying to kill me?”

  “I don’t know. Who else have you pissed off?”

  His response stopped her cold. Up to that point, although he denied it on the plane, she assumed he was lying to string her along. But now, under the heat of pressure…“You mean you didn’t put a hit out on me?”

  “He doesn’t have the stomach for it, Francesca,” Unk said, coming in from the hallway.

  Connie shrieked and hid behind her son.

  Two goons she didn’t recognize followed in behind him, both with semis trained, one on New York Sal, and the other on Anthony.

  Sal cursed loudly, then charged, and one of Unk’s men capped off a round. Shots echoed in the atrium. Frankie hit the stone floor. Connie pushed Anthony into the lagoon and Unk’s boys made hash out of Sal. Jimmy bolted into the room, gun drawn. He slid to a halt when he saw the occupants.

  Frankie scurried up and ran to her uncle, who took her into the circle of his arms. “Unk!”

  “Cara mia, are you all right?”

  His warm cigar smell enveloped her in its safe scent. “Yes, but I don’t understand any of this. Why does Anthony think you killed Father?”

  “Because, ’Cesca, your shit-for-brains brother isn’t as stupid as we all thought.”

  Frankie gasped at the new voice. “Mama?” This was getting too bizarre. “What are you doing here? How did —?” The how didn’t matter, what mattered was her mother was here for her — finally.

  “Puta!” Connie spat as she dragged her drenched self from the lagoon, Anthony helping her. They both stood drenched at the edge, water pooling at their feet.

  “Lucia,” Unk purred. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  Frankie looked at the man who was more of a father to her than her own had been, then back to the woman who gave birth to her. Of all the players in the room, her mother, dressed as always in chic Chanel and sporting a matching leather portfolio, looked as unperturbed as a saint.

  Frankie made a move to her mother, but Unk’s large hand restrained her. “Stay here with me, cara. Just for a moment.”

  “Leave her out of this, Carmine,” her mother’s stern voice demanded.

  “Lucia, come now, I mustn’t neglect the family’s interests.”

  “And what would those be, Uncle,” Anthony asked.

  “Preservation. Without a current will, I retain control of the family, and I’ll do things a bit different.” Unk laughed. “You see, Anthony, your father was old school, he kept the family business too close, too legit. No hard-core drugs, no arms, no business with countries that don’t have the same religion as us. In short, he had no vision.”

  “And you did?”

  “Yes. The family has diversified over the past few years, and very profitably so.”

  “And part of that includes my sister cooking the books at Skin so you could siphon off profits to the tune of millions to launch your new enterprises?”

  “I didn’t cook the books!” Frankie said.

  Anthony shook his head. “Stop lying, Frankie. The trail leads right to your computer.”

  “I —”

  “In Frankie’s defense, you can thank Tawny for that,” Unk offered.

  “Tawny?” Anthony, Frankie, and Connie said in unison.

  Carmine nodded, a smile tugging at his lips. “She has proven to be quite the little spy.”

  Frankie stood, shocked to the bone. “You killed my father?”

  “Si, cara, and I was also the one who told him you were skimming money. I’m sorry, it was necessary. The fool believed me. He knew how close we were.”

  Frankie felt the hot sting of angry tears. “You son of a bitch.” And it occurred to her from the evidence against her, Reese also suspected her of her father’s death and embezzling. He was a cop. How could he not?

  “Why?” she asked, her voice tight.

  “Why do you think, Francesca? Control. The only way to achieve that is to erase those who stand in my way.”

  “Did you kill Aldo Geppi?”

  “Of course, and destroyed the notarized will your father had drawn up the night before he died.”

  Frankie looked at her mother for strength. Her mother’s deep brown eyes held compassion in them but there was something else. Whatever reason her mother had for showing up, she was not ready to reveal it. Lucia nodded slightly, urging Frankie to keep going. She looked at her brother and for the first time in her life felt an emotional connection to him. They’d both been played by Carmine all these years.

  Frankie turned back to the man she had loved like a father. Her gut twisted painfully. She just wanted him to curl up and die. “How long have you planned this?”

  “Since you were born. I’m a patient man, cara. And now it’s paying off.” He nodded to his nearest thug, who did not hesitate to train his gun from Anthony’s head to his heart.

  Connie shrieked and Lucia’s voice, calm and direct, cut through the tension. “You forgot one minor detail, Carmine.” She stepped further into the room.

  Carmine stiffened next to Frankie. “I think not, Lucia.”

  Lucia set the portfolio down on a nearby table and unzipped it. She pulled out a sheaf of papers and held up what appeared to be a legal document. “Sonny made sure there was more than one notarized document.”

  Frankie, Connie, and Anthony gasped in surprise.

  “Bogus. Why would you have a copy?” Carmine asked, his hand tightening around Frankie’s arm.

  “Because my husband sent it to me, knowing he could trust me with our daughter’s interests, just in case something happened to Aldo.” She smiled confidently and gave Frankie an apologetic look. “I would have produced it sooner, ’Cesca, but he sent it to my old address. It took a little time for it to get to me.”

  “He’s not your husband!” Connie spat.

  Lucia smiled, saccharine. “We’ll get to that minor detail, Constance, but first, would you like to know how the last will and testament of Santini Marco Donatello reads?”

  “It’s of no consequence,” Carmine said.

  Lucia laughed, the sound light. “Oh, but Carmine, it is.” She flipped the first page and began, “To my daughter Francesca, I leave you my regret for believing your uncle, my brother Carmine, and my regret for not making you more a part of my life. I hope you can forgive me. I also leave you full control of Skin, to do with as you please, but remember to always, despite your uncle’s nefarious nature, uphold the family name. I also leave you the deed to Casa di Falco, and all items on the grounds and within the house.”

  “This is my house!” Connie screamed, stepping forward. Two gun b
arrels turned on her. She halted, her eyes wide.

  Standing in shock, Frankie looked at Anthony. And so did her mother. “I’m afraid, young man, Sonny was not only duped by his brother in the end, but by Carmine and your mother in the beginning.”

  “Shut your mouth, Lucy,” Connie warned.

  “What do you mean?” Anthony asked.

  Frankie’s stomach roiled. It couldn’t get worse.

  Lucia looked at Carmine, a smug smile twisting her lips. “Would you like to tell your son or should I?”

  Frankie gasped so hard her chest hurt. She felt like she was going to throw up. She looked at Anthony, whose face lost all color. Connie screeched. “You’re a lying bitch. It’s why Sonny had your marriage annulled.”

  Lucia smiled and from the look, Frankie knew what the next shock was going to be. “My marriage to Sonny was never annulled.” She let the words sink in before continuing. “The archbishop didn’t feel there were grounds, especially with a child involved.”

  “Liar!” Connie screamed.

  Lucia shrugged. “No, but you can blame Sonny for this one. I didn’t realize it until I received the paperwork in the mail this morning.”

  “So, my brother sent you everything?”

  “Yes, I guess he knew I would always have Frankie’s best interests at heart and set the record straight. He also sent copies to the San Francisco DA and to one of his judge friends.”

  So Anthony wasn’t her brother at all.

  Frankie looked up at her uncle’s tight jaw. “You’re Anthony’s father?” That meant that Connie — Frankie looked at her. She stood damp and pale, and there were no words necessary to confirm what her mother had said. Frankie’s heart went out to Anthony, she expected him to look defeated but instead he looked — relieved.

  “How did Santini know the DNA results were bogus?” Carmine casually asked.

  “The clerk you paid off to falsify the report got a conscience.”

  Carmine nodded, his manner seemingly unconcerned. “So, now it appears there will be a slight change in my plans.” He nodded to the two thugs. “However, my plans for all of you remain the same.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Wait!” Frankie yelled, her voice reverberating against the slanted glass ceiling. She turned to her uncle, no fear in her heart, only anger as the last of the devastating realizations hit her. “Was the car meant for me and Anthony?”

  Carmine nodded. Frankie didn’t need to ask about the other attempts. It was understood.

  She turned and squarely faced her uncle, and slapped him with everything she had across the face. A collective gasp rang out around her. But Unk remained stoic, unmoving, a white imprint of her hand flaring on his cheek.

  She spat at his feet. “You disgrace me and our family name. How dare you! How dare you and that woman” — she pointed at Connie — “cuckold my father and allow him to raise your bastard! How dare you lie to him and steal from him! Have you no shame, no honor?” She moved closer to him, her anger mushrooming. “How dare you lie to him, about me, his only child!” Hot tears swelled in her eyes. “How dare you so cavalierly destroy lives!” She swiped at her cheek. “And for what? Money? Control? Power?” She spat, this time in his face.

  She turned to Anthony. “Cousin, should you survive this treacherous man, Skin is yours. I want no part of it.” She turned back to her uncle; fury stamped his features. “You won’t get away with this, Uncle, you can’t kill us all.”

  As he opened his mouth to speak, Frankie lunged at him. He wasn’t much taller than her and her effort caught him by surprise. They went bowling backward. In the slow motion of the action, she heard gunshots, screams, and bodies hitting the ground.

  Carmine grabbed her neck, rolling over onto her, his weight keeping her immobile. His fingers wrapped tightly around her throat, cutting off her air supply. Her brain waves slowed and she asked herself what Reese would do.

  She grabbed Carmine’s hands and pulled his hands from her neck just enough to give herself the breath she needed. His eyes narrowed to slits. Then she closed her eyes, said a prayer, and head-butted him in the nose. A warm spray of blood sprinkled across her cheeks. Carmine howled and let go of her. She heaved him away from her and rolled to her side. It took her a few seconds to get her breath. Scurrying to her feet, she turned and ran straight into a hard, unmoving chest.

  “Frankie!”

  Reese?

  He grabbed her to him before pushing her behind him. Reese leveled his gun and aimed at Carmine, who was up and coming at them like a wounded bull. “Another inch and you’re a dead man,” Reese said.

  Carmine slid to a halt, his wide eyes darting around the room. Blood ran freely from his broken nose, and at that instant Frankie saw him as the monster he truly was.

  A swarm of federal agents and local cops filled the room. Frankie recognized Jase and the other one, Ricco. Her mother ran to her. Frankie held her arms out in welcome as her gaze swept the room. Connie lay in Anthony’s arms, a bloodstain spreading at her shoulder. Jimmy lay on his back, looking at the ceiling, blood blossoming from the gunshot wound on the left side of his chest. One of Carmine’s goons floated in the lagoon, the other held his bleeding arm and growled at the fed handcuffing him.

  “’Cesca, bella, you are okay?” Lucia asked.

  Frankie choked back a sob. “How did you know I was here?”

  Lucia’s dark eyes softened and swept across the room to Frankie’s cousin on the floor. “Jimmy called me. He was loyal to the end, ’Cesca.”

  Frankie’s heart swelled and she couldn’t bear to look at her dead cousin. She owed him her life.

  The enormity of what just happened and the emotional roller coaster of her life and the last week with Reese had taken everything she had.

  She could only nod, unable to form a word.

  It was over. All of it. And what was she left with? Nothing.

  “Frankie?” a familiar voice said from beside her. Its deep timbre once stirred her senseless. Now it left her cold.

  With tired eyes she looked at Reese. “You thought I was up to my neck in this?”

  “I didn’t want to believe, but my intell —”

  “Stop it! I don’t want to hear your excuses.” She looked around the room, and her eyes clashed with her uncle’s; he was now standing handcuffed in the corner. “You’d better kill him along with the others, because I refuse to testify if it means I have to look at your face ever again.”

  She turned from her mother and walked over to Anthony, who had moved away from his bitch mother. “I meant what I said. Skin is yours. Do whatever the hell you want with it.”

  She wheeled around and walked out of the room, out of the house, down the long driveway, and off the property. And she kept walking. Even when she heard Reese’s calls to her to stop, she kept walking.

  Angry tears blurred her vision. Every last person in her life who meant something to her, except her mother, thank the Holy Virgin for her, had used or manipulated her for their own gain. And the worst of it all was the damn son of a bitch she’d fallen in love with.

  Was there something about her that bred distrust or that screamed “fuck me over”? She was sick of her family and sick of her life. She’d take her little bit of savings and settle somewhere where no one had heard the name Donatello. Better yet, where the word spaghetti was a foreign word. Someplace where she could lick her wounds and heal. Someplace far away where there were no people.

  Maintaining her pace, Frankie glanced to her right. She stopped at the view of the churning blue Pacific, and for once didn’t think of a camera. The picture meant nothing to her.

  Stiffening as a car pulled up behind her, she refused to look and see who it was.

  “’Cesca,” her mother called. “Get in. I’ll take you away from here.”

  Epilogue

  Three weeks later

  “Father?” Reese said to the man staring out the window. The old man’s hand resting on the cane-back chair flinched.r />
  Reese hid his shock. In fifteen years the man who could single-handedly run a quarter horse ranch had shriveled up into a shell of a man. Watery brown eyes looked up at Reese as he came around to look the old man in the eye. A gnarled hand reached out toward him and Reese swallowed hard when a single tear ran down his father’s cheek.

  Reese took the hand and squeezed it. “How have you been, Father?”

  The old man nodded and opened his mouth as if to speak, but he coughed. Reese held his hand and waited for the spell to pass.

  “Son,” he said, his voice raspy, as if little used.

  “I’m here.”

  The brown eyes bored into him. “I’m sorry.”

  Reese patted the old man’s hand. “Me too.” And for so many things.

  His father stared out the window and smiled a slow, sad smile. “It was my fault your mama left. I promised her excitement. I promised her the moon. I couldn’t deliver.”

  “You can’t take the blame for her actions. It took me a long time to realize it wasn’t us, Dad, it was her, we were never enough. I’m sorry for you we weren’t.” He knew the feeling well. He wasn’t enough for Frankie. She’d made the same choice as his mother. To live a life without him.

  “Missy didn’t understand,” his father said.

  “No, she was too young. I thought the truth would make her see, clarify things.”

  Sam squeezed his son’s hand. “It wasn’t your fault, boy. I reacted out of my own frustration. You were right to tell her the truth.” He coughed, then cleared his throat. “Soon I’ll see her. But I want you to know the ranch is yours. Old Midas has been holding down the fort, waiting for you to come back.”

  Reese sat, stunned by the news.

  The old man coughed and shook his head. Tears welled in his tired eyes. “You belong to the ranch, it will always be there for you, don’t forget it.”