Machiavellian: Gangsters of New York, Book 1

by Di Corte, Bella

  My teeth bit at her neck, working my way to her ear. “I got a deal,” I said. “You should have demanded more.”

  “Ah.” She sucked in a breath and hissed it out when I bit her neck harder. Her nails sunk into my skin, and the burn made me even hungrier. “Maybe we should go back to the table.”

  “I’d need unlimited funds, because, fuck. Un estimabile valore.” There wasn’t a price I wouldn’t have paid to have her. No term that I wouldn’t have agreed to. She might have come into the deal with nothing monetary, but complete power stood in her corner. There was something about her that possessed me. Made me obsessed.

  Then a strike of something else, something foreign, burned me deep.

  Jealousy.

  The word seemed to come at me like a shock of lightning during a storm—right as I stood in a puddle and next to a tree.

  Rocco’s face at City Hall, his words, suddenly clicked together.

  I was old enough to know better, but I didn’t give a fuck. I was jealous when Harry Boy told her that he loved her. When he had called her that pathetic nickname. Strings.

  The thought made my fingers dig into her hips, pulling her even tighter against my dick. Something wild drove me to claim. To possess. To control. To dominate her scent with my own. My lips drifted down her chest, my tongue savoring the taste of her skin, and when I took her nipple in my mouth, she bucked underneath me.

  “Just,” she breathed out, “don’t cover my mouth.”

  My pace slowed, not to make her feel that she had caused me to stop with her words. I looked up at her from my position. Her hands fisted my shirt, but her claws had retracted. Her eyes were closed tight. The heart in her chest seemed to beat in my ears but not in pleasure—from fear.

  Her wings tried to fly, but she was rooted at the same time.

  She wanted me. Wanted this. But that fucker had done something to her that she’d never recovered from. It was the first time I had ever heard vulnerability in her voice. Even at The Club, when she had no clue what she had signed up for, she was martyr-strong.

  Vivo o muoi provando. I live or die trying.

  At my slowing, she seemed to relax some, and the moment passed. She had agreed to give me time. I had agreed to the same.

  “Mariposa,” I said, my voice low and gruff.

  It took her a moment to open her eyes. When she did, what I saw shocked me. Shame.

  I lifted her up, keeping her close. “When you’re ready to have sex with me, wear something red. Consumami.” Consume me.

  “You want a fire in your bed.”

  She said this like it was questionable. Like fire was a bad word. Like it was something to fear. Maybe to her it was. A butterfly was a fragile creature and could easily be engulfed by flames, but not if they carried it within them. She did. She carried the strength to make the change. “Yeah,” I said. “A fire. That way I know you’re ready.”

  “I want to be,” she whispered.

  “You will be. We’ll work on it.”

  I felt her smile against my chest. She kissed me there and then underneath my neck, around my scar. I froze, but she didn’t notice. Thank fuck. She yawned and wilted against me.

  “Time for bed.” I lifted her from the desk, carrying her toward the master.

  “We’ll sleep in the same bed? I want to. You said during the meeting that it was my decision, once I got here.”

  That was why I’d made the other room so unappealing. She needed to be next to me.

  I set her down in the middle of the monstrous bed and she took the robe off, setting it on the bottom of the mattress. Crawling under the covers, she got closer to the pillow, and then she stuck one leg out. She was looking all right, her one bare leg sticking out like that. Her ass was a soft handful, too. It was the first time I was able to get a good look at it. I wanted to bite it until she cried out. Then I wanted to fuck it.

  “You coming?”

  I cleared the tightness from my throat. “Later. I have some work to do. If you need me, your watch is on the nightstand. Press the button on the side and say, ‘call Capo.’ It’ll connect you to me right away. You can call for Giovanni the same way.”

  “Call him Capo, too?”

  “No. That’s just for me. You just say his name and it’ll connect you to him right away.”

  She made her hand seem like a gun, pointing it at me, and then she winked at the same time she made a click noise with her mouth, her “gun” tilting a bit. “Got it.” Then she laughed, and I realized she had been fucking with me the entire time. It had been a while—years—since I’d spent this much time with a woman. And none like this one. I was going to have to speed up to keep up.

  She sat up, rubbing at her eyes, the covers falling. Her nipples were still hard. “Are you one of those people who can’t sleep?”

  I shrugged. “Depends on the night.” And if you’ll be willing to fuck me all night.

  “So I really did come to live at the bat cave.”

  Far from it, but if it meant that she felt safer here with me, I let it ride.

  “Hey,” she said, stopping me before I left. “Do you have time to watch a movie before you go to work? Maybe we can make root beer floats? I’ve always wanted one. We have all of the stuff.”

  This place was big. It was new. She was having trouble adjusting. Then I thought of the house on Staten Island, how comfortable it was, and that forbidden word flashed through my mind again. Jealously. Harry Boy had thought that out ahead of time. The place was comfortable for her.

  Back to the point. She’d just have to get used to it.

  I removed my shirt, holding it out to her. She moved up on the bed, taking it from me. Our hands brushed and that electrical storm that had been brewing inside of me all night seemed to send a shockwave up my arm. She took my offering, but her eyes raked over my bare chest as she did.

  “Put that on,” I said, my voice low.

  She nodded and slipped it on. It hung like an oversized dress. “So that’s a yes?”

  “What’ll it be?”

  “How about Freddie Scissorhands? And I’ll make the floats!”

  12

  Capo

  The lights of my car lit the garage at one of my buildings. A second later, it opened and I pulled in, putting the car in park. One of Mariposa’s ridiculous songs came on the radio. I felt my brain shrink each time the chick hit a note. Mariposa loved it, though. And sometimes, when a particular line would play, she’d point at me and lip-sync the lyrics.

  It was one of the weirdest fucking things I’d ever seen anyone do. But then I’d have to remind myself that she was young. That innocence I wanted desperately to save had somehow been preserved, and when she felt free enough to reconnect with it, it came out at times like those.

  My boots were silent against the pavement as I made my way inside. Donato had sent two guys over to keep watch, so my eyes narrowed on a third figure before they relaxed.

  I held out my hand and Donato took it. He pulled me in and we slapped each other on the back.

  “I hear congratulations are in order,” he said in Italian. He lifted a glass from the table and we clanked before we both said, salute, and then downed the excellent whiskey.

  “He still singing like a canary?” I slipped my gloves on. I’d be hard to see at first, dressed head to toe in black.

  “We are past this. He is angry now. Demands to speak to the man who has ordered his taking. He assures us that he will pay any ransom.”

  We both grinned. I patted Donato on the shoulder, and he took his men and left. We both grinned. I patted Donato on the shoulder, and he took his men and left.

  I slipped a ski mask over my face before I stepped into the room. The light was faint and only lit the table and two chairs. Other than that, there was only a cot. A bathroom stood off to the side, bare to the bones, only a flushing toilet. There were no windows in either room, only brick walls.

  The man I came to see stood from the bed, trying to be quiet but fail
ing. He was breathing heavily. “I got you now, you fucker.” His voice had a little thrill about it. “You leave a gun behind and you don’t expect me to use it on you?”

  He cocked the hammer and then—

  Click.

  Click. Click. Click. Click.

  I laughed as he hurled the gun against the wall.

  “Son of a bitch! You played me!”

  He charged me and I stopped him in his tracks, using my fist to impale his stomach. His mouth opened and closed as he gasped like a fish out of water. I took him by the collar and threw him toward the table. He landed on the floor, and instead of getting up, fighting back, he stared up at me.

  “Take a seat,” I said.

  His eyes narrowed. “Do I know you?”

  “Nah,” I said.

  He licked his lips and held his dirtied hands up. “I told the other guys, the ones without the masks, I’ll give you anything you want. I’m connected. I’ll do whatever it takes. Whatever you want is yours. All you have to do is say the word.”

  “Ah.” I breathed out. “Your people aren’t going to kill us anymore?”

  He had been mouthing off about how connected he was and how we were all dead men when I first picked him up. Dead men. He had no idea there was only one man who had taken him. Me. The rest were just guard dogs until I came back to finish this.

  His eyes narrowed even further, almost closing, trying to see past the darkness that cloaked me. “No, they’ll go easy on you if you let me go now. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Why didn’t you use the gun, Quillo?”

  “I tried to! It had no bullets.”

  “I meant before. On yourself. You didn’t even check for bullets.”

  He tried to make it subtle when he scooted away from me, but I noticed everything. “What good is a gun without bullets?”

  “You know the game,” I said. “I was giving you an easy way out.”

  One of Donato’s men had left the gun on the table. He had given him an option: Take the easy way out, put one bullet in his brain, or it would be me who ended it. Except Donato’s man didn’t mention me by name. He called me Fate and told him what a cruel motherfucker I was. But the problem with men like Quillon “Quillo” Zamboni is, they think they own the world. Therefore, he thought he’d make it out of this alive.

  He was connected. His father had been before him. But he knew how the game was played, and if someone powerful enough wanted you dead, you’d be dead. And if you were a coward, putting the gun to your own brain and blowing it out would be easier than whatever fate had planned for you.

  He never once tried using the gun on himself. Never even contemplated it. One of Donato’s men stood guard at the door, and not one click had gone off. If it had, he would’ve been given a bullet to try again.

  A sick fucking joke. If he made his mind up to end it all before the torture really began, he had to go again because the gun didn’t have one bullet. It was my way of fucking with him a little more.

  It took a moment, but when he realized what I’d called him, he stood up, swaying like he was on a boat during a storm. “You called me Quillo.” His head tilted to the side.

  “What? You too good for Quillo, Quillon? You were always a prick, but you never showed off how much of a pompous prick you were until you ran for office. Quillon sounded more proper than Quillo, I’m sure. You political fucks who start in the trenches are all the same. Trying to prove you’re something you’ll never be.” I picked the gun up from the floor before I took a seat at the table, across from him. I sat the weapon down and relaxed in my seat. “Honest. Sincero.”

  He swallowed hard, taking a step closer to the table. “Show your face,” he said. “I know you.”

  “Ah.” I took the top of the ski mask in my hand. “You thought you did. No more.” Then I removed the mask completely.

  He gasped, his feet automatically bringing him back, right into the cot. It slammed against his knees and he went down, then popped back up.

  “No!” He shook his head, his hands waving frantically in front of him. “No. You’re a ghost! I’m dead. They must have killed me. I’m in hell. With you. I need forgiveness. Dear God, deliver me.” He fell to his knees and started praying the Holy Rosary. His fear scented the air with bitterness. It had the same tang as fresh blood.

  “Stop being dramatic.” I used my leg to shove the other chair closer to him. “Sit. Let’s have a chat. It’s time we catch up.”

  “Vittorio.” He shook his head, like he was trying to wake up. “You’re a ghost. What do you want with me?”

  I called him a fool in Italian. “You’re afraid of a ghost. You should be more afraid of me. I still bleed. I can be killed. Again. So you know what that means? I’m dangerous. I’m the living ghost you should fear.”

  He stood, still swaying some, and pushed the chair closer to the table. Even though he wasn’t at ease, he had relaxed some, thinking he could talk me out of this. Thinking he could try and play on our history to squash whatever this issue was. He assumed it had to do with business.

  “May I?” He put a hand close to mine.

  I nodded, and he used his pointer finger to touch the pulse in my wrist. He pulled back when he felt it.

  “You’re not dead.”

  “Apparently.”

  Then he smiled, and it lit up his face. A wave of relief washed over him. “Son of a bitch! You’re alive.” He stood for a second and then, too excited to stand any longer, took the seat. “And when was that ever an issue? You not being dangerous? Tell me something I don’t know, like why I’m here.”

  “In time,” I said, watching him ease into being this close to me again. Being next to him felt like old times, but this time, I was going to rip his throat out and watch as he bled out at my feet. Or maybe I’d get more creative. “You need to tell me things. First.”

  “Wait.” He held a hand up. “You’re the one starting the wars between all of the families. Did your father order you to? My Pops is in real hot water. I thought maybe this had something to do with him, but then I thought on it some more. He’s been in hot water since Angelina—” He stopped there, not going further.

  Yeah, his old man had split town after what happened. Quillo didn’t have time to react, so Arturo started using him for whatever he needed. Quillo was the equivalent of an indentured servant. He had to pay for the sins of his father and the sins of a sister who screwed two brothers. The fact that she screwed us both didn’t matter. It was that she’d been passing secrets—secrets no one asked for—and then set one of us up. Her loyalty had been tested and proved to be as thin as water. You want to stay in this game, you need blood.

  “I have no father,” I said. “I have nothing but enemies.”

  “Shit.” He ran his hands through his hair, making the blonde strands stand up in thin spikes. “So you’re orchestrating a massive war. You killed the heads of those families. Their sons. You’re fucking insane! What you’re doing. It’s insane. A suicide mission. After your death, well, not death but—”

  “My death,” I said.

  “Arturo has gotten even stronger with Achille at his side. He doesn’t care who he kills. He’s a savage. He takes the lives of innocents without even blinking. He’s a fucking rabid wolf. The only family the Scarpones ever backed down from is the Faustis, but no one takes them on.”

  I opened and closed my arms. “It seems my life has always had a short expiration date on it. Achille made sure of it. Arturo went through with it.”

  “He had to. You can’t give orders and have your men disobey you.”

  “Disobey.” I tested the word. “Is that what you’d call saving a little girl from a fate she didn’t deserve?”

  He seemed to sense something from me then, but he had no idea what, unless he knew who she was, and I doubted he did. If he did, he would’ve handed her over to the Scarpones when he had the chance.

  His gaze landed on my scar, and then he met my eyes again. “Why did you save her? Palerm
o’s kid? He’d never done you any favors. He tried to kill Arturo right in front of you. The only man to ever wound Lupo.” Wolf. “Palermo worked for your old—Arturo for years. Arturo trusted him, like a son. And he double-crossed him in the worst way. So why?”

  “I had my reasons,” I said.

  “Reasons. And where the fuck did those get you? Living like a ghost in your own town? Silenced?” We watched each other for a few minutes; the only sound was the toilet running in the bathroom. Then he spoke up again. “I get it now. You’ve come back to take them all out. You’re starting a war so they have no idea who to trust anymore. One family trying to destroy another. Even the Irish have gotten involved. What did they ever do to you?”

  I smiled. “It’s mayhem, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded once. “You can say that.”

  “I said that. Now you tell me something I don’t know.”

  “You seem to know everything. The only thing you never knew was that Achille would seize on the opportunity to run back to Arturo and rat you out for not killing Palermo’s kid in front of him. That wife of his, too.”

  “Ah.” I smiled again. “I knew.”

  “Then I really don’t understand why you did it. Some say they’d rather face hell than face Arturo Scarpone.”

  “I faced hell and I survived.” I sat forward a little, getting closer. “Tell me about the girl you fostered five years ago.”

  He bit the inside of his lip and looked up at the wall. It was his fucking political thinking face. He looked like he was taking a shit.

  I stood so abruptly that the chair fell over behind me and he didn’t have a chance to react. I grabbed him by his throat and squeezed until his eyes started to water. When I let him go, he fell back into his seat, gasping for breath. I picked my chair up and set it down, sitting again. “You know me, Quillo. I’ll snap your neck for fucking less than playing stupid.”

  “Five years ago,” he choked out. “Five years ago…”

  I wondered how many innocent children he and his family had fostered over the years, and how many of those children he had touched while his bitch of a social-climber wife ignored it. She came into Macchiavello’s regularly with her fake friends. He had fucked half of them.