Thirty minutes and buckets of sweat later, he pulled up in front of Grace’s ranch house in North Las Vegas and instructed Paolo to keep watch out front while he escorted her inside.
Larger than it appeared, the house was warm and homey, with two overstuffed red couches in front of a big TV, an easy chair covered in blankets, polished wood floors, and a big-ass kitchen leading to a dining area with a huge oak table covered in sheet music.
A German shepherd bounded over to him, barking and growling. “That’s Trevor,” Grace said. “He belongs to Ethan. Or, actually, Ethan belongs to him.”
Mike let the dog smell his hand and gave him a pat. He’d had dogs all his life and there was nothing he liked better than to meet a happy, well-cared-for pet.
“This is Ethan,” she said, pointing to a tall blond dude. “And that’s Miguel over on the couch.”
Grace excused herself to get dressed, and Ethan followed her down the hallway. At the back of his mind, Mike told himself he should probably follow her. Maybe the dude was up to no good. But he couldn’t tear himself away from his position in the front entrance. If he couldn’t guard the door at Frankie’s place, he could at least guard it here.
He chatted with Miguel about the game on TV until Grace returned. She had changed into a loose flowery top, a pair of skin-tight jeans, and those fucking sexy boots. She looked feminine and bad-ass at the same time and if hadn’t just met the woman of his dreams, and been scared as fuck of Frankie, he might have considered making a move.
“Let’s go.” Grace picked up her purse, but when she made a move to leave, Trevor pressed himself against her side and barked at the door.
“Sorry, Trev,” she said, laughing. “I can’t stay.”
Trevor growled, and the skin on Mike’s neck prickled. He knew dogs, and that wasn’t Trevor wanting Grace to stay home and play. It was Trevor warning them of danger.
His hand drifted to the weapon he had holstered beneath his jacket. Where the fuck was Paolo and why hadn’t he texted a warning?
Trevor’s hackles rose and he growled again, a deep, low rumble that had Ethan and Miguel look over in alarm.
“Miss Grace, you’d better…”
Boom. The door splintered and exploded open. Mike drew his gun and ran to put himself between Grace and whatever force of nature had just bust down the door.
“Where is she?” Frankie stormed into the room, his leather jacket creaking with every stride of his long legs. Trevor surged forward, the sound of his barking echoing through the house. Frankie froze, dropped his gaze, and stared the dog down. Within moments Trevor was on the ground, nose between his paws, tail tucked between his legs.
Jesus H Christ. Mike had had dogs all his life and he’d never seen anything like that.
“What did you just do?” Grace shouted into the silence as the door swung loose on its hinges. Her friends stared open mouthed, and Mike reluctantly tucked away his gun. Trevor inched across the floor, pushing a squeaky toy toward Frankie’s shoe.
“What part of ‘stay in my apartment’ did you not understand?” Frankie snarled.
Shit. He’d seen Frankie pissed before, but never like this. The dude was seriously going to explode, and Mike knew when the dust settled he would be the first casualty.
“The part where I was supposed to sit around waiting to find out what happened to my dad. I called around and I found him. I told Mike to take me here so I could change before we went to the hospital.” Her hands found her hips and she glared.
Frankie’s eyes sliced over to Mike. “You had one fucking thing to do.”
“She wanted—”
“One. Fucking. Thing.”
Mike’s stomach tightened. He didn’t mind the dressing down. Hell, when he’d been an associate, he made plenty of mistakes, and Luca called him out on every one. But he didn’t want Grace to hear. She was the underboss’s daughter. If she said anything to anyone about how he’d failed to do his job, whatever life Frankie left him with wouldn’t be worth living.
“Don’t yell at him. It’s not his fault.” Grace walked right up to Frankie and poked him in the chest. “And this is not okay. Not. Okay.” She emphasized each word with a poke of her finger. If Mike hadn’t been so worried about what Frankie was going to do to him, he would have laughed at the shock on Frankie’s face. The most feared enforcer in the entire Gamboli crime family and she was in his face poking at his chest like he was a little kid.
“Following me is not okay. Breaking down my door is not okay. Blaming Mike when I’m the one to blame…” Poke. Poke Poke. “Not. Okay.”
Frankie grabbed her hand, drew it away from his chest. “You were gone.”
“I was gone?” Her voice rose in pitch. “That’s your excuse? I was gone so you feel justified in hunting me down and turning into a one-man wrecking ball? Is that your way of saying you were worried about me?”
Frankie didn’t answer. Instead he walked over to Mike and stared him straight in the eyes. “Get the door fixed.”
“Sure, Frankie. I’ll get someone over right away.” He swallowed hard. Was this it? Was Frankie going to let him walk out of here with all his limbs attached?
“Paolo is outside. He needs medical attention.”
Mike frowned. “What kind of medical attention?”
Wham. Frankie’s fist slammed into his face. Mike staggered back from the force of the blow, lost his balance, and fell to the floor. It wasn’t often he was knocked down, but Frankie knew how to throw a big punch, and exactly where to hit to cause maximum pain.
“That kind of medical attention,” Frankie barked. “The fucking kind of medical attention you’ll need after putting my fucking woman in danger.”
“Oh my God.” Grace grabbed a tea towel and knelt beside Mike. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He took the tea towel and held it to his bloody nose. “I’m good.”
“That was also NOT OKAY,” Grace snapped at Frankie, as she stood. “I can’t believe you. I am so not your woman. And punching your friends in my house because they helped me out is NOT ACCEPTABLE.”
Mike swallowed, tasted blood. How could she speak to him like that? Did she not have a care for her own safety? Or her life? He glanced over at Grace standing straight and tall, glaring up at Frankie who had at least seven inches on her. She didn’t look afraid. She looked angry. Damn angry.
“Grace,” Ethan called out softly. “Do you want me to call the police?”
Mike gave him an approving look. Ethan at least had some balls. Miguel was a pussy, cowering on the couch while a crazed Mafia enforcer broke down his door to find his woman.
“No. There’s no need to call the police,” Grace said without taking her eyes off Frankie. “He’s just leaving.”
“Not alone.” Frankie held out his hand. “Come.”
“Holy crap,” Miguel said, finding his voice. “Are you with him Grace? A biker?” His nose wrinkled. “Isn’t he too old for you?”
SQUEAK. Trevor’s squeaky toy flew across the room and hit Miguel in the center of the forehead. Miguel staggered back, and his face turned red. Mike laughed through his pain. He hadn’t even seen Frankie bend down to pick up Trevor’s toy.
“ROCCO!”
Tension curled in the air between them. Mike thought it telling that not even ballsy Ethan dared interfere now. Frankie was the alpha dog in the room and even Trevor knew it.
“Come,” Frankie demanded, making an abrupt gesture with his fingers.
“No.”
Everyone in the room sucked in a collective breath. They clearly didn’t know who Frankie was, but they’d all picked up that he was a very dangerous man. What they didn’t understand was that they were witnessing something unprecedented. A De Lucchi had actually lost control.
“Grace.” Frankie made an impatient gesture with his hand.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” Grace folded her arms across her chest.
Frankie froze and for the first time since Mike had met him
, the enforcer didn’t seem to know what to do. Mike hoped he lived long enough to tell the tale.
NINE
“You aren’t going alone,” Rocco said. “That’s final.”
It took Grace a few moments to identify the cause of the heat surging through her body.
Anger.
She was angry. Not just angry. Furious. She allowed the feeling to fill her, reveled in the sensation.
When her mother died, she’d been lonely and lost, but never angry. When the kids at school had given her a hard time—which didn’t happen after she met Rocco—she turned the other cheek. And when Cesare had hurt her, harmed her, showed her who and what Rocco was, she’d felt nothing, until nothing gave way to a grief that wouldn’t end. Her life had been dominated by loss and sadness. But anger was something new.
Powerful.
And Rocco had awakened it.
Her heart pounded in her chest, sending blood rushing through her veins. Muscles twitched and tightened. Her breaths came in pants. And hot. She was so hot. Burning bright like the sun. When she had counseled patients during her internship, she talked about anger. She taught people to control it, suppress it. But she’d never felt it. Never understood it’s power. Never felt the need to embrace it and make it her own.
“Fuck off.”
She felt almost giddy letting the words fall off her tongue—words she’d never said to anyone before. Harsh words. Swear words. Angry words. She felt almost drugged with the emotion, reckless. Rocco was a dangerous man, and yet when she looked at him, she remembered how he used to be. She remembered laughter and singing, whispered kisses and gentle touches. She remembered her first time and how hard he’d tried to make it good for her. Even after all these years, she knew in her heart that Rocco would never hurt her, and that gave her the courage to push back against a man who had a reputation for making even the most hardened wiseguys weep.
If she’d expected him to respond the same way, she was mistaken. Instead, he studied her for a long moment and then dropped his hand. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”
It was more than she’d hoped for, and yet she was reluctant to let go of the new emotion and the confidence it gave her. “No more violence.”
His lips twitched at the corners. “Don’t push it.”
This time when he held out his hand, she threaded her fingers through his, and heat of a different kind sizzled through her body.
“You don’t pull shit like that on me again.” He yanked her forward toward the broken door. “You stay where I tell you to stay. You don’t leave so I don’t know where you are.” He went on and on as they left the house. It was probably the most he’d said at once since she’d seen him again, maybe ever. Rocco had never been a talkative man and sometimes having a conversation with him was like squeezing blood from a stone. But she didn’t need a psychology degree to read between the lines. He’d been worried about her.
He cared.
His hand tightened around hers. So warm. So strong.
They walked past a young man leaning against a vehicle parked at the side of the road holding a balled-up sweatshirt against his nose. She opened her mouth to ask if he was okay, but Rocco pulled her along.
He stopped in front of his bike and unclipped a helmet from the back of the seat. Their hands touched when he handed it to her, and he drew in a ragged breath.
“I’m okay,” she said softly, straddling his bike.
His hand curled around the side of her neck, and he yanked her forward, his mouth crashing down on hers, his tongue skimming her trembling lips. Heat, desire, fear, and anger all coalesced in the fire of his kiss. His lips were firm and insistent, his tongue gentle. Responding to his need, she surrendered to him, letting him know with her body that she was okay. His groan vibrated through her as his tongue swept inside her mouth, possessing her. His hand fisted her hair, holding her still.
When he finally broke away they were both breathing hard.
“You were gone,” he said.
Then he climbed on the bike, pulled her arms tight around his waist, and the engine roared to life.
* * *
St. John’s Hospital was a maze of white corridors, speeding gurneys, the cloying scent of antiseptic, and people in scrubs and white coats rushing in all directions.
“Papa’s in the ICU, but no sign of Tom.” She pulled out her phone after filling in the paperwork at the front desk and checked it for the hundredth time, hoping to see a message from Tom. “Last night I tried all the police stations, hospitals, the morgue … I’ve texted and called. I don’t know where he could be. Unless…”
“Unless he’s lying low,” Rocco said quickly. He hadn’t told her where he’d been all night or what he had done, only that he had also found her father at St. John’s. “Worry about him later and go see your dad. He needs you right now.”
They found the intensive-care unit, but were stopped by a formidable looking nurse at the entrance.
“Are you family?”
“I am,” Grace said. “And he’s with me.”
The nurse pointed to a chair in the hallway. “Your friend will have to wait outside. Family only.”
Rocco lifted an eyebrow in censure and Grace quickly patted his arm. “I’ll be okay. I’m pretty sure the ICU isn’t a dangerous place.”
He gave an irritated grunt and folded his arms. “I’ll be right here.”
After talking to the doctor about the operation to remove the bullet in her father’s chest, Grace sat beside her father’s bed and held his hand, careful not to touch the tubes or wires. Not for the first time did she wish she could have spent more time with him over the last eight years, but he was part of something she couldn’t accept. From the death of her mother to the brutal night on the bank of Newton Creek when she’d lost Rocco, the mob had destroyed everything she loved.
Grace adjusted her father’s bedclothes and smoothed his hair off his forehead, her finger tracing the furrows in his brow that hadn’t been there when he’d been with her mom. Unlike many mobsters who married for political reasons, or wanted Mafia princesses as trophy wives, he had loved her mother deeply, and he had never been the same after she died.
After sitting with him for half an hour, she left to find a nurse to discuss her father’s care. When she returned to her father’s room, Rocco was standing beside her father’s bed, hands in his pockets, staring at him with a thoughtful expression. At first, she was taken aback by his presence, but then she remembered that her father had hired Rocco as a driver in the beginning and continued to call on him over the next few years when Grace or Tom needed a ride.
“How did you get past the mean nurse?” she whispered.
“Tied her up and put her in the closet.”
She glanced over at him, slightly disconcerted when she didn’t even see his lips twitch. “Don’t forget to let her out before we leave.”
Still no response. When a quick visual search of the room didn’t reveal a closet, she relaxed. “Do you think he needs a guard? The people who are after him might come back to finish the job.”
“I called Nico and asked him to send two men to keep watch in the hallway, and another two outside.”
Her tension eased the tiniest bit. “Thank you.”
“Pleasure.”
“Did Nico know why someone wanted to kill my dad? It’s not like anyone in Vegas can take over as underboss in New York.”
He stared at her and it took her a moment to remember that Mafia business was never discussed with women. But this was her father and she couldn’t help him if she didn’t know what was going on. She felt the flame of anger flicker bright inside her again and welcomed it in.
“I have a right to know if he’s still in danger. He’s my father.”
His jaw twitched almost imperceptibly. “I don’t have an answer for you.”
“Who benefits if he’s gone?” She mused out loud as they walked down the hall. “Most likely one of the New York capos. Some of them are very powerf
ul. Maybe one of them sent someone out here. Or hired someone.” She stopped mid-step. “That would make sense. Get someone to do the dirty work, and with Papa out of the way, whoever it is can take over as underboss.”
She glanced around as they left the ICU. No sign of the mean nurse. Her heart kicked up a notch, but before she could voice her concern, Rocco’s warm hand clasped hers, pulling her out of her thoughts. “I’ll handle it, but I think it is better if you don’t go home just yet. You can stay with me.”
“You don’t need to protect me, Rocco. Papa has friends here—the Forzanis. And once the don finds out…” One of the benefits of becoming a made man was that your family was cared for by the mob if something happened to you. So much for not getting involved. If Papa died, she would be swarmed by mobsters.
They walked in silence to the vehicle through the hazy afternoon. “I didn’t protect you before,” he blurted out. “I need to protect you now.”
“There wasn’t much you could have done,” she said softly, bile rising in her throat at the reminder of the night at Newton Creek. “Cesare would have killed me and felt nothing. I looked into his eyes, and I saw evil. When he was holding the knife at my throat, he whispered in my ear that he hoped you would refuse him because he wanted to feel my life trickle through his fingers.” She didn’t tell him what else Cesare had said, that he didn’t love his adoptive son, that Rocco was nothing but a tool, and that he could have as easily pulled the trigger and taken Rocco’s life as he had slashed and disfigured her face. She suspected Rocco knew it, but if he didn’t, who was she to take that illusion away?
“Fuck.” Without warning, Rocco turned and slammed his fist against the brick wall.
“Rocco. Stop.” She grabbed his wrist, her heart aching at the sight of the blood and torn skin.
“I should never have been with you. I should have pushed you away. I was old enough to know better.”
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