by Stacy Gail
Damn it, Kon, I need you.
“So.” Emily had taken a seat opposite me, perching her purse neatly on her lap. She couldn’t have looked more out of place than if she’d been wearing a nun’s habit. “I read up on Chicago’s Future before I got here. It’s such a worthwhile charity, and it’s so needed. I would love to be a part of—”
“Forgive me, Dr. Scorpeone, but how did you get my name?”
She bit her lip like a chastised child. “I described you to Tiffany Stoddard-Fanning, actually. She seems to know just about everyone in Chicago, doesn’t she?”
“Only those she can milk for donations.” At that, Bruno offered a snort of quickly stifled amusement, and it made me miss Kon all the more. He would have laughed at that too. “Let’s get right to the point. Why are you here?”
She took a deep breath, like a cliff diver about to jump. “When I met my husband Matt, it was pretty much love at first sight, for both of us. We dated for about a year, and the day I received my Doctorate of Dental Surgery was the day he proposed. It was the happiest day of my life.”
While I found her personal history kind of cute—honestly, who wouldn’t go a little gooey over the dentist and the crime boss?—it didn’t answer my question. “Dr. Scorpeone—”
“Emily, please. Is it all right if I call you Dasha?”
Geez, she was really too adorable. “Please, feel free. Emily—”
“I said yes, of course,” she rushed on, and I gave up with a soundless sigh. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Shona at her desk, shaking her head in silent disbelief. “I mean, from the moment I laid eyes on my Matt I knew he was The One, you know? But then... well, he finally told me everything about himself, including his family’s, uh, colorful history. He’s such a good man, you know. Conscientious. He felt it was important that I went into our marriage knowing absolutely everything, so I’d know what I was getting into. And...that’s when I broke things off with him. I didn’t see him for almost a year.”
I blinked. I hadn’t seen that one coming. “You dumped him?”
She nodded, looking momentarily grief-stricken. “You have to understand, I grew up on a farm in Indiana. Not one of those big, corporate-owned farms. Just a small one that had its own storefront, specializing in organic foods and clover honey. My parents are still together. My father continues to work the farm as best he can and my mother is the official treasurer of her crochet and knitting club. What Matt was describing... it was another world to me. A dangerous world. And as he at last revealed everything that he’d kept hidden while we were dating, he suddenly seemed like a stranger. A stranger who frightened me.”
“That man should’ve told you straight-up where he was from and spared you all that unpleasantness,” Shona offered, shaking her head. Then, when all eyes turned to her, she held up a hand. “But that’s none of my business, so whatever.”
Emily turned back to me. “Life was barely worth living without him. I know that sounds pathetic, and believe me when I say I’m usually much stronger than that statement implies. I’m not a weak woman.”
Damn, my natural defenses were melting fast. “Of course you’re not weak. It takes one hell of a woman to attract a man from my world, much less land one. The last thing you ever could be is weak.”
Emily’s blue eyes widened in surprise before they became as warm as a summer sky. “I just loved him all the way to my soul, you know? Cutting him out of my life was like cutting off a part of my body, but...I had to do it. If I’d tried to ignore who he was and what horrific things were going on around me, it would have twisted my love for him into something ugly. I’d rather not have him in my life at all while still loving him, than have that happen.”
“I understand,” I said softly, seeing the truth in her eyes.
“About a year later, he showed up at my office. Made an appointment to have his teeth cleaned and everything. That was when he told me he’d divested the majority of the Scorpeone family business, turned the rest of it legitimate, and was officially out of the mob. He’d been in the process of doing that anyway when he’d met me. Our split just sped things up.”
Forget the rug—it was as though the entire floor had been pulled out from under me. I stared at her, unable to process her words, because they flat-out didn’t make sense. What she was claiming wasn’t the reality I knew. “Emily, I...I don’t know what to say to that. I’ve been told your husband is the head of the Scorpeone crime organization.”
“He was before we were married, but he hasn’t been for nearly a decade. He now owns and runs a company that supplies linen service to all the major hotels in Illinois. He also has a side business that’s more of a hobby—collecting and selling rare and vintage Italian cars. He’s a frustrated grease-monkey.”
I stared at her, half-expecting her to say she was kidding. When she didn’t, I glanced over at Bruno, who returned my regard with a meticulously held poker face. That got my brain in gear. “I think your husband might have some other hobbies as well, like hosting illegal poker games. Not that I’m complaining. Until the most recent police raid, I was a big fan of those.”
Emily’s brow puckered. “I don’t understand.”
“The floating tables are Angelina’s husband’s racket, not Matteo’s,” Bruno cut in, sounding bored. “When Matteo divested himself of the family’s interests, his brother-in-law Fabian Moretti took a good portion of the gambling racket. Needless to say, Fabian’s no Scorpeone. Don’t get me wrong—he tries, God bless him, but he’s a schmuck from the top of his shiny bald head to the bottoms of his cheap-ass squeaky shoes. I’d be willing to bet he doesn’t know half the people who work for him.”
“But...this isn’t what I know to be true. Not too long ago, Chicago’s Future—a business that was created to help the community’s underprivileged—was raided by the police on some trumped-up search warrant. That search was headed by a Scorpeone-owned cop by the name of Schott. My brother told me—”
“Oh, your brother.” Bruno’s made-for-theater voice filled the room with an ominous darkness that wasn’t just heard, but felt. “Now there’s a true Vitaliev for you. Are you all born psycho, or do you have to work to get that way?”
“Bruno.” Emily snapped around to glare at him, and the steel behind the all-American good-girl veneer was suddenly there for me to see. “That’s not exactly helpful. I’m sorry,” she added, turning back to me with pleading eyes. “Really, I mean that. The last thing I wanted to do today was ruffle any feathers and make things worse.”
“What did you want to do today?” I focused my attention on her so that I wouldn’t be tempted to flip a middle finger Bruno’s way. “Why did you come here? It wasn’t just so you could reminisce about when you first met the love of your life, was it?”
“Matt and I have a good life—a quiet, ordinary life. He works on his cars in his spare time, and I’m on Castlemont country club’s board of directors when I’m not making pretty smiles even prettier. We have four beautiful children that we love beyond anything, and we all enjoy being with each other more than any other activity in the world.”
The children again. “Look, you don’t have to worry about—”
“Our firstborn is named Marco Polo, after his uncle,” she went on, shocking me into silence. “I didn’t even know about the man you call Polo until the night our son was born. Matt told me the heartbreaking story of his lost baby brother as he sat by my hospital bed and held his son for the first time. And for the first time since I’d known Matt, he...he cried.”
“Wow,” Shona murmured from across the room, and I had to admit I agreed with her.
“It destroyed the family, losing Polo,” Emily nodded, as if she could read my mind. “No one could respect Sergio Scorpeone after that. Not his crime family, or his biological one. To give up your own child to the enemy to save yourself—much less the baby of the family—made him weak and untrustworthy. I mean, if you could give up your own child to save yourself, who wouldn’t you give up? Not
to mention he obviously hadn’t been the sharpest knife in the drawer, since he was the one who’d had you and your brother kidnapped in the hopes that he could strong-arm your father out of his territory.”
“You never allow the business to touch the kids,” Bruno intoned, shaking his head in obvious disgust. “I never met the guy, but it’s obvious the only thing he ever did right in his life was to end it.”
I frowned. “End it? I know Sergio Scorpeone is dead, but I never learned how. Did he...?”
“He shot himself in the head.” Emily shuddered delicately, looking queasy. “Matt’s mother, Linda, found him. She was already in a frail state, according to Matt—she became an alcoholic after losing Polo, and would go on these crying jags for days on end. Then, when she found her husband dead, she had a total breakdown. She’s recovered quite well since then, but Matt says she’s still not the woman she used to be. When we visit her with the kids, she has a tendency to get confused, and she always asks where Polo is before she remembers he’s gone. It’s so sad to see that realization hit her.”
I tried to keep my heart hardened as Emily spoke, but it was impossible. Sure, I hated the Scorpeones for a great many reasons. But this Linda woman had clearly lost so much in the war between our families that it was impossible not to feel something.
“I’m not sure why you’re here now, though,” I said finally, keeping my proverbial cards close to my chest. As sad as this story was, my father had taught me too well to not give anything away to the enemy...even if it felt like Emily was no enemy of mine. “There’s nothing I can do about the past. It’s done.”
“But there can still be a future for Matt and Polo,” came the ready reply. “Matt didn’t sleep the entire night after running into his little brother. It shook him up so much—what Polo had said, the seething hatred in him, how he doesn’t remember anything good from his childhood. Matt’s a father now, and he’s a good one. He can’t imagine any of his kids going through what Polo was forced to go through. It’s eating him up inside that the boy he knew and loved is completely destroyed, and the man who stands in his place is an unrecognizable monster.”
My jaw locked. “Polo’s not a monster.”
“I know that, because he’s got a good woman who loves him, and that’s why I came to see you. I saw how you tried to protect him when our bodyguard got gun-happy, so I know Polo means a lot to you,” she added quickly when I opened up my mouth to tell her that what I felt for Polo was none of her damn business. “Just as Matt means everything to me. More than anything, I know my husband wants to reconnect with his brother, even if it’s only to have a civil conversation with him. I’m hoping you and I can figure out a way to make that a reality.”
I couldn’t have stifled my sigh if my life depended on it. “Emily, it’s a nice thought, but they’re strong men with even stronger personalities. Hell, that’s why we love them.”
Emily’s smile was brilliant. “Can’t argue with that.”
“So you know as well as I do that we can’t make them do anything. If Polo and Matteo want to reconnect, they’ll find a way to do it. Until that happens, no outside influence is going to make that happen until they’re both ready.”
“That’s where we come in. We both work on getting them ready—”
We both jumped when the door suddenly burst open, and for a full second my brain could only seize on all the guns that had suddenly appeared.
Chapter Eighteen
My throat locked on a useless scream at the light bounced off the barrels of guns. Polo and Alex Rodin surged through the front door, while simultaneously from the open doorway leading into the food pantry, came Rudy Panuzzi from Private Security International. I froze, as did Bruno and Shona, while Emily hopped to her feet to back up behind her chair, her eyes huge. I couldn’t blame her. If I were from an Indiana farm that sold its own clover honey, I’d be freaked out about three armed men bursting into the room, too.
Who was I kidding? I’d grown up with guns and I was still freaking out.
“Don’t.” Polo had the muzzle of his .9mm in Bruno’s face the moment the bodyguard made a move to unbutton his jacket. “I really want to kill you, so don’t...fucking...move. Don’t even fucking twitch, because that’s all it’ll take for me to end you.”
“Oh my God,” Emily whispered, shaking like a leaf and looking like she was about to throw up. “Oh my God, oh my God...”
Enough. “What the actual fuck is going on around here?” I packed as much Vitaliev menace as I could into my low growl as I also came to my feet. I rounded the desk while Alex collected Bruno’s gun, then did a professional pat-down as Polo and Rudy covered him. “One of you muscle heads better answer me, now, before I kill all three of you for scaring the shit out of us.”
“You don’t get to be mad,” Polo snapped back without looking my way or lowering the gun held an inch away from Bruno’s temple. “No fucking way do you get to be mad. Not when you allow a legendary hitman like BB to make himself at home in your goddamn office.”
“Hitman?” I repeated, horrified. Maybe it was because Emily was so wholesome, but I’d somehow thought Matteo would put someone nicer on bodyguard duty.
“You should talk,” Bruno snarled. If looks could have killed, it would have been Polo’s last day on earth. “That’s fucking hilarious coming from you, Scorpio.”
“BB’s short for Bloodbath, right? News flash, asshole—back in the day I was never so messy in my work. But I could be right now, if you decide to push me.”
“You don’t got the fuckin’ stones, the bat-shit crazy mother—”
“Enough.” This time I said it out loud, and with so much force it hurt my throat and rang in my ears. To my shame, Emily was now crying and even Shona looked like she was ready to snap. I stalked over to Polo, all the while staring down Rudy and Alex, who had lowered their guns but still had murder in their eyes. “Bruno is Emily Scorpeone’s bodyguard. They were both asked to come into this office so we could talk like a bunch of civilized human beings. Do you understand? They’re my guests.”
“Shit,” Rudy muttered, his stance relaxing, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him tuck his gun into its holster. Alex did the same, muttering a litany of Russian curses under his breath.
Polo, however, looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel. He stepped back from Bruno but kept the gun in his hand, pointed down at the floor. “Are you telling me...to my face...that you fucking invited a Scorpeone into your office?”
I lifted my chin. “Yes.”
“Voluntarily?”
“Yes.”
“And you did this without Konstantin here with you?”
Anxiety slammed into me full force at the mention of my best friend, and suddenly I was the one who wanted to burst into tears. “Yes. How did you know that Emily and Bruno had dropped by for a visit in the first place?”
“A visit?” Polo looked like he just might pull his hair out by the roots, which in my opinion would be worse than defacing the Mona Lisa. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I think you’ve forgotten about the security cameras, Dash.” Looking decidedly uncomfortable, Rudy Panuzzi nodded his dark head toward the nearest bubble of glass on the ceiling. “Whenever someone enters any room on the premises, the video begins and someone is always watching on our end. When one of our people noted you stood away from your desk with your hands up in obvious submission, we rolled.”
“Did you call the police?” At long last Emily had pulled herself together, thanks to Shona, who had left her desk to put her arm around the other woman.
Rudy’s dark gaze bounced briefly to Polo. “It was decided that we could get here to lock the scene down more quickly than the police. Which reminds me, I need to call this in and let my employer know they can stand down and not send in any more cavalry.”
“That’s some kind of personal security.” Emily’s awkward observation filled the silence, and the strength in her voice made me do a quick reassessment of
her while Rudy turned back toward the pantry to make his call. Emily might look like she was fresh off the farm, and there were still stressed-out tears in her eyes, but there was a steel core in her that made me understand what Matteo saw in her. “They’re remarkably efficient. Do you happen to know their basic rates? I could use a new security system for my office.”
“I’m sure Matteo will get you anything you need when it comes to security, Em.” Bruno was still eyeing Polo like he had one hell of a lot more to say and it was killing him not to say it. “But for now, we’re out.” He held out his hand to Alex, glaring hard. “Gimme my piece.”
“Certainly, BB.” Looking like a blond angel ready to fall, Alex smiled and pulled the door open. “Once you and Mrs. Scorpeone are outside and well away from Ms. Vitaliev.”
“Call me,” Emily said hastily, pulling a card out from her purse and laying it on my desk before she moved to the door. “We need to put an end to this, Dasha. I know we can do it if we just try.”
There it was, that steel core.
It had to be said. Scorpeone or not, Matteo had excellent taste in women.
“I don’t even know what the hell just happened here.” With her beautiful face more furious than I’d ever seen it, Shona marched to her desk and snatched up her jacket and purse. “I didn’t work my ass off to get out of the projects just so I could have another type of gang-banger come in and shoot up the damn place. I’m the wife of a super-hot, successful businessman and the mother of the sweetest baby girl who was ever born, and they both fucking need me to keep on breathing. I do not need this shit, so I will not be having this shit.”
My heart plummeted to my feet and I clapped my hands to my mouth to stifle a cry of dismay. “You’re quitting?”
“Hell no, I’m not quitting. I’m getting the fuck out of here for today before I kill all these fools for daring to bring this unworthy bullshit into my world again. You need to get your house in order, Dash,” she added, her voice vibrating with rage as she paused just long enough to shrug into her jacket. “And I’m saying this as a friend who loves you and would miss the hell out of you if anything ever happened to you. I don’t care what you have to do—change your name, cut ties with your brother, kick sex machine out of your life. Whatever. I don’t care. Just find the source of trouble and get the fuck rid of it, because you deserve better than the life you’ve got going on now. You’re a good person with a beautiful soul, and you do not deserve this.” Ignoring the sex machine like he wasn’t standing right there, Shona punched an impressive fist at the door and made it explode open, leaving heavy silence in her wake.