Ruthless Empire: A Dark Mafia Collection

by Seth Eden

  So that was the plan.

  I left Marco in a deep slumber, but not before taking a moment to appreciate the exquisiteness of his naked form from the suite’s bedroom doorway. He’d kicked off the covers during the night, revealing him in all his glory as he lay on his back. Clothed or unclothed, the man was a sight to behold.

  I was sorely tempted to crawl back in there with him, but I had to get going. The appointment took much of the day, just like I expected. It was also a case of hurry up and wait. So, by the time I got her out of the taxi and settled again, I was more than ready to leave. My toleration for being at the apartment had diminished a lot since Marco and I had gotten together. I was anxious to be back in his presence.

  I had just opened the door to leave when David strode in. It was an awkward moment. My brother and I hadn’t been on speaking terms since our last conversation, the one where he blew up at me for being with Marco.

  I’d feared that he might cause trouble for us, but I’d heard nothing from him over the past couple of weeks. Which was how it should be. I’d begun to realize that David had no right to dictate the direction of my life. Marco was right. I was a grown woman who could make my own choices, and I’d chosen to be with the man I loved, no matter what my brother accused him of.

  “You can sit yourself down,” he ordered me in his cop voice, which royally ticked me off.

  “Newsflash, Officer Carr. You’re not the boss of me.”

  He gawked at me as if I’d tasered him. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

  I had the answer on the tip of my tongue, and I almost said it, inappropriate and tacky as it might be. Marco has. But I didn’t. There were some boundaries I remained unwilling to cross. “What do you want, David?”

  Only then did I spot the fact that he’d carried in a briefcase. “I want to apologize,” he said as if it cost him a great effort to do so as he sat down and set the briefcase on the kitchen table. “I was upset when last we spoke, and I… ” He shoved a hand through his short light brown hair. “I’m sorry, all right?”

  I felt myself soften towards him. My brother and I had been known to disagree sometimes, but we’d never had an argument like our last one. I sat across from him. “Apology accepted.”

  “Good. I need to talk to you, Kelly. I know you’ve been spending a bunch of time with… Well, away from home, and I need to know that you’re okay.”

  “I’m perfectly fine,” I told him, putting some of my exasperation on display. “Better than fine, I’m happy. I wish you’d believe that.”

  His features told me he didn’t. He wore one of his sorrowful expressions, one that he reserved for teenagers he encountered who were going down the wrong track, his forehead wrinkled upwards. “I have a favor to ask, and it’s a biggie, but I need you to hear me out here.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Spit it out then.”

  He pinned me with his gaze again, seeming torn between a smile and a frown. “Using my own methods against me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Here’s the deal. I get that you’re not going to believe me about… your new boss. You like him, I get it. But there’s a way I can prove what I’m saying is true if you’ll let me.”

  I huffed out. I was so sick of hearing this from him. He was like a dog with a bone, but then, maybe it shouldn’t have surprised me. He’d always been hard-headed. “David…”

  “Please, Kelly. I need to do this for you. I need for you to comprehend the position he’s put you in, the danger he’s put you in. I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for the sake of your safety.”

  “I’m not in any danger,” I protested, but he interrupted me.

  “You are and you don’t even recognize it.” He’d raised his voice a little, but now he lowered it and took a long breath. “Listen, I know he gave you this great promotion and he’s being nice to you, but he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Don’t let the fact that you enjoy his company pull the wool over your eyes.”

  “There’s no wool to pull.”

  He reached out and touched my arm. “Yes, there is, and I’m losing sleep at night knowing he’s taking advantage of you.” My brother spoke softly, as if to keep from startling me, but I wasn’t startled, I was angry. I used to not let my annoyance or fury ever surface, thinking it would be somehow detrimental to me, that it’d turn me into my ever-bickering parents.

  But now I saw how misguided that was. I saw how my anger made me feel capable and strong. “Marco is not taking advantage of me. He basically worships the ground I walk on.”

  David stood up, pacing like a caged tiger. “It may seem that way, but it’s all just smoke and mirrors. He—”

  Now it was my turn to interrupt. “He loves me. He loves me, and I love him.”

  My brother brought his pacing to an abrupt halt. “And you believe he loves you because…”

  “Because he told me,” I finished for him, incensed.

  “He’s lying to you. He’s lying about everything.”

  “No, he’s not!” I yelled, straining my voice enough that it made my throat hurt. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so enraged. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever felt this way in my life.

  “Kelly?” My mom’s voice came from down the hall. Our argument must’ve woken her. “Are you all right?”

  Glaring at my sibling I hurried halfway down the hall and called, “I’m fine, Mom. Just having a discussion with David. We’ll try to keep it down.”

  I stormed back into the kitchen and began pacing like my brother was, making sure to keep the table between us. If that barrier hadn’t been there, I wasn’t sure what I might’ve done. He just wouldn’t let this go.

  “I can prove it,” my brother promised me again, his expression intent. “Do this favor for me, and it’ll provide the evidence I’m after.”

  “And if I do this favor, and it doesn’t provide that evidence after all?”

  “Then, I’ll drop it.”

  “You’ll drop it,” I pursed my lips. He was going to have to do better than that.

  “I will. I’ll never say another bad thing about the guy. But on the other hand, if what I’m saying proves out, if the evidence I’m looking for ends up being there, you’ll know. And then you can make an informed decision.”

  I shook my head. “What is this favor that you want so bad?”

  He opened his briefcase, riffling around inside. He brought out a small plastic zip lock bag with a tiny black device about the size of a dime. “Sometime when he’s out of his office, you go in there and put this inside his landline. It’ll record all conversations, incoming and outgoing, as well as any voice in the room.”

  “You want me to bug his phone?” I asked, incredulous. “That’s a colossal infringement of his privacy!”

  “If you’ve got nothing to worry about, what’s the harm?” he challenged. “If he’s all above board and such a standup guy, there won’t be anything in those discussions that’ll hurt anything. His credibility with you will remain intact. But if I’m right and some incriminating evidence pops up, then you’ll know. You’ll know the truth.”

  I couldn’t believe what my brother was asking of me. All this lunacy just because he didn’t like that I was with Marco. I stared at the bug, feeling half sick to my stomach. “I don’t know about this, David.”

  “Hey, if Varasso’s innocent, I’ll admit I was wrong and never mention it again. I hope I am wrong, and that he is innocent. That would take a huge load off my mind. I’d place the thing myself, but Ian has a security camera by the door, right?”

  I nodded. There was only one camera, but it was pointed in such a way that anyone entering Marco’s office would be visible. I didn’t know how my brother knew that, though. Had Ian told him when he’d still been the owner?

  “So I can’t,” David said. “It’d raise too much suspicion. You stepping in there for a minute won’t draw anyone’s attention. As his office manager, you probably do that all the time anyway.
”

  I said nothing. My brother didn’t need to know what Marco and I had done in that office.

  “Please do this, Kelly. For me. It would make me feel so much better.”

  I wanted to say no, I really did. But David was peering over at me with this concerned expression, and I couldn’t bear it, especially since it was causing him to lose sleep over it. I could do it, prove Marco’s innocence, and then my brother would know I was right. That everything I’d told him about the man I loved was the gospel.

  I closed my eyes and released a gusty sigh, holding out my hand. I felt the bag land in my palm.

  “You won’t regret this,” David promised me, and I felt this cold icky feeling saturating my bones. I waited until he left, then I looked down at the device.

  “I better not.”

  20

  Marco

  I sat back in my office chair, kicking my feet up on the desk. Life had been incredibly indulgent with me of late. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this rejuvenated in every single way. But then, I received a text from my eldest brother.

  Yeah, should’ve known my little high wouldn’t be allowed to last.

  Missed you at dinner last Sunday. Going to be here day after tomorrow?

  I’d enjoyed the elation of two entire days with Kelly in various states of undress this past weekend. Something I’d hoped to reenact this weekend, too.

  Something important going on I should know about?

  Luca’s response made me grimace.

  You tell me.

  Goddammit. So much for another forty-eighty hours of bliss.

  I’ll be there.

  I planned to keep my time at home short, though. I knew the family was probably wondering what I was up to, curious about why I’d become MIA so often recently. But as much as part of me desired to shout my love for Kelly from the rooftops, that would never be practical.

  In actuality, it’d be positively stupid.

  I didn’t want my family to know yet. Maybe ever. As soon as they did, they’d start asking about her, expecting her to show up at the mansion for family gatherings like our Sunday dinners. Yet, Kelly couldn’t do that. Being in that house would make what we did too easy to detect, too obvious. She’d catch on immediately if she were there.

  Between the basement where we sometimes got rid of threats to the family and the headquarters on the third floor, omitting certain pieces of information from her would no longer be enough. And I didn’t want to bald-faced lie to her. I loved her too much to do that. It’d feel too much like a betrayal.

  Now I had to tell Kelly I needed to cut our weekend short, which sucked. She’d had to take her mother to some doctor’s appointments today, so I hadn’t seen her after I’d fallen asleep. I’d awakened to an empty, cold bed, and it’d made me feel kind of hollow inside. I couldn’t wait for her to show up here at the bistro so I could have her in my arms again.

  As if me concentrating on her so fiercely had summoned her out of thin air, she arrived. I hopped up to greet her.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I said as I draped my arms around her, but her posture felt oddly taut, like a rubber band about to snap. “Everything okay?”

  “My brother came over while I was there at the apartment.”

  Well, shit. That couldn’t be good. “What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, if that’s all right. I just want to focus on something else.”

  “Want me to shoot him? I could make it look like an accident.” I’d meant these words as a joke, as a throw away to make her smile, but it had the opposite effect. She peered up at me as if I’d said something unforgivable, as if I’d just slapped her across the face. “I’m kidding, of course. You know that.”

  Yet she continued to study my face as if she didn’t know that. As if she felt unnerved by something.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked her again, feeling worried now. I wanted to hold her, to kiss away whatever this was, but she pulled back.

  “I’m going to go work on the deposits.”

  “Baby, wait…”

  But then my cell chimed with an incoming text, this time from Dante Bianchi.

  Need to move up the date to ASAP. Can we meet Sunday at midnight?

  Fuck.

  I’d intended to plan out his exit strategy before now, but since I’d made Kelly my priority lately, my progress on the Dante exchange front was nil. It would take time to put this together as well as considerable effort. Not to mention collecting favors from people who’d undoubtedly want one back.

  “It’s fine,” Kelly spoke to me from my threshold, keeping her back to me. “You’ve got work to do, and so do I.”

  Then, she was out the door.

  After our rather uncomfortable interaction at the bistro on Friday, things between Kelly and I seemed a bit tense. We went to bed without making love that night, and I couldn’t get her to tell me what was wrong. Saturday, too, felt off.

  She seemed preoccupied and stressed, and I desperately wanted to kick her brother’s ass. Everything had been wonderful until she’d spoken to him. He’d been a thorn in our sides since the get-go, and now whatever he’d said was affecting our precious time together. I would’ve given everything I owned to find out the contents of their discussion.

  Luckily, Sunday morning I’d awakened to find her nuzzling up against me in her sleep, and everything escalated quickly from there. We’d basically attacked one another like starving people attacking an offering of food. After that, things sort of equalized and we went back to taking delight in one another. I was so relieved to have everything return to normal.

  I’d told Kelly I had to run some errands and wouldn’t be back at the suite until late tonight, which while technically wasn’t a falsehood, it still made me feel sleazy.

  I already had to conceal so much from her, to cover up so many of my family’s secret dealings as they related to the endless amounts of money being filtered through the bistro. Cash that went through her sweet, innocent hands. I hated to add yet another omission to the pile, but it couldn’t be helped.

  I’d already finished a serving of Rosa’s excellent antipasto salad and was most of the way through her stuffed rigatoni when Alessandro started snooping.

  “You going to leave the plate, Marco?”

  I ignored him and kept shoveling in the food. The sooner I was done, the sooner I could get out of here and prepare for my meeting with Dante. Besides, I really was hungry. Multiple sexual encounters all day long would do that to a guy, and earlier, Kelly and I had attempted to make up for our lost time.

  “Haven’t seen you put it away like this since before the fire,” Gabriel added, never one to pussyfoot around a difficult subject.

  Usually during these dinners, Luca kept the majority of his focus on his wife and children and only entered into conversation with the rest of us intermittently. Unless there was some sort announcement he wanted to make, the five of us adults tended to split into two camps. Gabriel, Sandro and me on one end of the table and Luca, Molly, Anna and Antonio on the other.

  Tonight, however, the patriarch decided to make an exception.

  “Yes, it’s nice to see your appetite returning,” Luca said, as serious as Sandro had been facetious.

  I paused and glanced up at them. Everyone was staring at me, even my niece.

  “And you’ve been busy, barely coming home at all. Whatever you’re doing is working for you, though. You look good,” Molly chipped in, but I knew her concern was as sincere as her husband’s.

  “And relaxed,” Sandro pointed out, peeking over his glasses. “Like a man who’s been able to kick back and truly unwind.” He waggled his eyebrows obnoxiously.

  Asshole.

  “You going to tell us what your secret is?” Gabriel asked.

  “Yes, dear brother, do tell. Inquiring minds want to know.”

  Note to self: punch Alessandro in the nose at the next available opportunity.

 
“Things have been going along fine at the bistro. Busy,” I threw out, hoping that would be the end of it. I should’ve known better.

  “And by things do you mean a certain waitress turned office manager?” Sandro, of course.

  If I could’ve caved his head in right then, I would’ve. But my niece and nephew being exposed to such violence would be unlikely to go over well with either Luca or Molly. Hell, I was actually more scared of Queenie than my eldest brother, anyway.

  I had no idea how Alessandro had found out about Kelly, but clearly, he had. And from the interested looks everyone else at the table was giving me, he’d shared his work with the class. Fan-fucking-tastic.

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” I told him through gritted teeth. The only reason I was being this polite was because I wasn’t alone with my youngest brother. If I had been, he wouldn’t have been wearing the smartassed smirk he had plastered to his face.

  “We’re not trying to pry,” Molly said, lifting Antonio up to her shoulder since he was starting to fuss. “We’re just excited for you. Especially if this turns into anything more substantial.”

  “Well, except for Sandro. He’s being a bit of a J.E.R.K.” Luca had recently taken to spelling out words since Anna had proudly repeated the word “dickhead” after a different family dinner.

  Refusing to deal with this right now, I shifted to my feet. “Well, this has been…” I glanced over at Anna’s big blue eyes. “Yeah. But I’ve got to go.”

  As I headed out, I could hear Luca ask, “You coming next week?”

  Molly’s words followed on his heels. “Because there’s plenty of room if you want to bring someone.”

  Then, Alessandro. “Especially your little work fling.”

  Hastening my pace to a jog, I hurried away.

  Dante Bianchi kept glimpsing over his shoulder as he sat across from me there at the bistro. I’d have to go back and erase the security footage so there’d be no trace of his presence here tonight, just like I already had from his first visit. He acted as if he thought someone would burst in on us at any second.