But she was right. She would fare better if she kept her guards up. The dress, the heels, the makeup, it was all warpaint. Taking any of that away might shake her confidence, make the whole thing worse.
My hand went to her lower back, making her body jolt at the contact, but not move away, as I led her into the parking garage.
There was no fighting, no trying to get away. We both knew we were beyond that now.
Hopefully, this would all be over by the end of the night.
And no permanent damage would be done.
It was a short drive to my father's brownstone, but my stomach worked itself into painful knots all the same, my mind unable to think of anything but the fear and pain in her eyes if I was ordered to turn on her.
My father had three of his guards around. With Christopher and Emilio there for me, despite not being expressly told to follow.
Leon would be shitting himself walking in. Or maybe he was just delusional enough to think he could charm the lot of us, and work his way back into our good graces.
At my side, Giana was ramrod straight, but her gait was calm and confident as we made our way up the front stoop. She didn't even bother to glare at my father's guards who were openly eye-fucking her before we disappeared inside.
"The fuck is this shit?" My father's voice boomed through the house, high-pitched and irritating, and my gaze went to Giana to see if she was surprised by the lack of depth there.
"The fuck is what shit?" I asked, facing my father as he came down the hall.
"What? We don't lock up prisoners anymore?" he asked, giving Gigi a cold once-over. She did the exact same thing, but slower, picking all the pieces of him apart, examining them, finding them lacking. Judging by the way his jaw started to tick, he saw this as well.
"She wasn't resisting, but if you wish it," I said, digging into my breast pocket where I'd tucked the cuffs in case she got cold feet between my apartment and the brownstone.
I slid them open, and Giana turned to face me, holding her wrists out in front of her, letting me click them on.
I tried to catch her eyes while I did it, but she refused to look at my face.
"Is Leon here yet?" I asked.
"He's not supposed to be for another half an hour," my father said, turning and walking into the dining room, leaving all of us to follow. "Why did you bring Emilio and Chris?" he asked, moving to the liquor cabinet.
"They pull guard duty when I need to handle business."
"I have my own men here."
"I see that," I agreed, then walked over to make my drink. My father was not someone who played host. And maybe in his position, I wouldn't either.
"Sit down," he demanded, glancing at Giana. "No, the other side of the table," he commanded as he took the head. He wanted her in the back near the wall facing the doorway, so her father would see her when he came in. My father wanted to watch Leon sweat. He got off on that shit.
I didn't wait to be instructed, taking the spot next to Gigi. I figured if I was the one right next to her, I would be the one my father commanded to put their hands on her if it came to that.
"So how has our little prisoner been behaving?"
"She's been a model prisoner," I lied easily, as I had been doing to him for years, my whole life, even. "Quiet as a mouse," I added, watching as Emilio and Chris bit into their cheeks to keep from smiling. "You'd almost think she enjoys imprisonment," I added, seeing Gigi's brows draw together slightly, not understanding why I would make that statement .
Until my father spoke, of course. "Well, where's the fun in that?"
I didn't know much about how my father interacted with women. My mother up and disappeared when I was young, so I never got to really study their dynamic.
I had no delusions about my father, though.
Chances were, my mother hadn't disappeared.
She was dead, tossed in the ocean or the woods somewhere.
That was how my father handled problems. With a bullet and a grave.
I had always assumed he would see women as a problem. He was simply validating something I had thought all my life.
He was rough with women.
Yet another thing I thankfully hadn't inherited from him. Maybe I had never treated women seriously, had always thought of them as temporary, but I had never treated one poorly, let alone hurt one.
"Always good to have fewer problems," I said, shrugging. "We always have a lot going on."
To that, he grunted, toying with his drink.
"So what do you think? Did the stupid bastard scrounge the money up, or what?" he asked, seemingly to the room at large.
But it was Giana who spoke up, surprising us all.
"I wouldn't count on it," she said, glancing over at my father.
"Your life isn't worth a couple grand?" he goaded.
"To him? Probably not."
"Oh, I would probably even pay a couple grand to get him back," he said, waving his glass at me.
I could feel Emilio's gaze on me, angry for me, but I had long since stopped being offended by my father's lack of regard. I just needed to stay in his graces enough to keep my position, so that when he died, I got the family. Everything else? It didn't fucking matter anymore.
In a strange way, I felt like Gigi and I were kindred there. I wanted my family legacy, she hers. And we would put up with damn near anything to get that for ourselves.
Time ticked slowly, marked by the grandfather clock wedged in the corner, that had been in our family as long as anyone could remember, but—like the rest of the place—in need of some love.
But my father just didn't have any of that to give.
Then, finally, we could hear the front door opening, making all of us—save for my father—straighten.
Beside me, Gigi took a slow, deep breath. I shouldn't have noticed the way it made her breasts strain the front of her dress, but I would be a liar if I said I didn't.
Leon walked in, the carefree gait of a man who was invited to dinner, not one who owed money to a mafia boss. He even took a second to offer my guards a nod and tight smile before making his way into the room, focus intent on my father.
"Lastra," my father greeted. "Do you have my money?" he asked, not one for small talk.
"Well," Lastra started and I could feel my eyes rolling already. "I have some of it. Unfortunately, it seems like our safe was robbed a few nights ago," he added, and my gaze went to Giana, knowing it had likely been her, to get what she needed to get out of town, to get away from us. That said, if it had been any significant sum of money, I was sure she wouldn't have gone down to Cape May to collect her things. At least not right away. If it was anywhere near what Leon owed the family, she would have been able to sat pretty for days or weeks in a nice hotel room somewhere before taking that chance. Whatever she got from that safe was likely only enough to get her through a few days comfortably.
"You're telling me things that aren't my fucking problem, Lastra. I don't care if you had to steal your grandmother's brooch she brought over from the old country to get me my money. If you had to rob a fucking bank for it. We already discussed this."
"I know, I know," Leon said, grabbing the back of the chair across from me, actually lowering himself down as though this was a normal social call.
It hadn't escaped me that he hadn't so much as glanced his daughter's way.
"We told you what would happen if you didn't pay this time."
"I have some of it, Art. Quite a bit of it, in fact," he went on, tapping fat fingers on the tabletop. "I can get the rest within a week. Two tops."
"In two weeks, you would owe me for next month," my father reminded him.
"Yeah, but you know me. I'm always good for it. Have I let you down yet?"
To be fair, that was true. The money eventually always got scrounged up. If it hadn't, Leon would have been dead years ago. My father was just sick of the runaround. It was always a problem, always late.
I had a sneaking suspicion the only reas
on it was ever paid in full at all was due to Giana finding a way to swing it. And with her in our possession, Leon had no fucking idea how she had managed it all those years.
What a poor fucking excuse for a man.
It would work out for everyone involved if I just put a bullet in him. Then Giana could be freed, and she and I could put our deal into motion. Then my father would never have reason to look at her again.
Win/win.
Except, I was pretty sure there was a part of my father that got off on Leon's ass-kissing, his desperate desire to be an associate of the family's. It made him feel bigger, since the community as whole knew what a dick he was.
Arturo Costa didn't have the respect the old dons did, back when they always protected their neighborhoods and made sure their people were taken care of. Back then, there was loyalty and admiration from the community. They kept their eyes cast down when they saw something illegal, and they kept their mouths shut when the cops came around.
That wasn't the kind of empire my father had.
The neighbors feared him, wanted him out of their nice neighborhood, wanted his leering guards with their ass-pinching fingers off the stoop and sidewalks.
So he had to get his adoration elsewhere.
From small men like Leon Lastra.
"Boss," one of my father's guards said, stepping into the room.
"Can't you see we're busy here?" my father shot back, reaching into his jacket, producing a gun, placing it down on the table—a silent threat, one that Leon didn't outwardly react to. For all I knew, my father pulled a gun on him often.
"It's Paulie. Says you wanted to see him."
My father had forgotten all about it. That truth was plain on his face, at least to me, someone used to a lifetime of his half-truths or full lies.
"Yeah, yeah. But tell him he has to be quick," my father said, rising to his feet.
The guard left for a moment, and then there was another figure moving into the room. Freakishly tall and thin to the point of gauntness, Paulie's suits hung off of him like a scarecrow's in a field
My father had stacked his books full of questionable characters. There was none I disliked as much as Paulie—a man with a strangely monotone voice and shifty eyes.
He worked as a debt collector, had likely graced Leon's door more times than he could count over the years.
His stare was on my father as he moved in the room, seemingly ignoring us all.
I thought nothing of it until Paulie reached into his pocket, his port-wine birth-marked hand producing a fat envelope he passed to my father.
But right in that second, everything about the air in the room shifted.
And it all radiated from the woman sitting at my side.
She'd been stiff before, but she was brittle now. One touch would splinter her.
My gaze lifted, curious, finding her focused on Paulie's hand, her lips parted, her eyes round, her breathing ragged.
Most worrisome of all, though?
She was shaking.
Hard enough that her teeth were clacking together.
This was a woman who had been kidnapped, who had been chased across state lines, then caught , bound, and dragged back.
She'd never shown me fear like this.
She always showed me fire.
Spirit.
Beside me now, she was shrinking into herself, becoming small right before my eyes. It was right then that I realized how little I knew about her connection to the family, about her interactions with major players.
Had Paulie been sent to threaten her? To press her for the money owed?
It wouldn't surprise me. Paulie didn't give a shit who he had to lean on to get the money he was owed. Even if that meant scaring small women.
Still, the reaction seemed over the top for her, this woman who had given even my father a little lip.
There was a short, whispered conversation between Paulie and my father before Paulie turned, seeming to notice everyone gathered around for the first time.
His gaze went right to Giana. And those shifty eyes warmed. His lips curved into some semblance of a smirk.
Yes, clearly some sort of history. Bad on her side, pleasant to Paulie.
His gaze roamed over Gigi for a long moment before shifting to her father who rose to his feet, holding out his hand to be shaken by Paulie's.
"Long time no see, Leon," Paulie said, further confusing me. "What's it been? Five? Six years?"
There was something in his words, an undercurrent that I couldn't quite make out, heavy with meaning hanging thick in the air.
"Yes, somewhere around there," Leon agreed, giving the man a hearty handshake before dropping it.
My gaze shifted to Giana, finding her gaze on her father, disbelieving, then shifting to Paulie's hand once again.
I was so distracted by her reaction that I missed whatever occurred between the two men before Paulie was saying his goodbyes and walking out of the room.
There was a pause, then the slam of the front door.
And, somehow, that seemed to penetrate through whatever fog was swirling through Giana's mind.
It happened so fast.
I was watching her and I couldn't have predicted it, couldn't have stopped it.
One second, she was sitting beside me, confused, shocked, completely and utterly still.
The next, she was on her feet, her handcuffed hands reaching across the table, grabbing my father's discarded gun, lifting, aiming, and emptying the magazine.
Into her father.
Her fucking father.
There was collective cursing from all of us in the room, the rushing in of my father's men.
My hands immediately went for Giana's, pulling the gun from her shaking hands, putting it down on the table at my side.
"What the fuck just happened?" my father asked. It was rare for him to sound shocked, but there was no denying it in his voice right that moment. It was in all our minds, in fact.
What the fuck just happened?
There was no need to rush to Leon's body. Clearly, Giana had spent some time in a range in her life. Because all but one of the bullets had landed in her father's chest cavity. He was dead before he hit the ground. Still, Chris went over, bent down, checked for a pulse, and gave us a head shake before standing.
"Fuck!" my father snapped, reaching up to rake a hand through his hair. "Get her the fuck out of here for a minute. I can't think straight with her shaking like that," my father demanded, his guards moving forward.
"I got it," I said, holding up a hand.
"Basement," my father added as I grabbed the small chain between Giana's hands, pulling until she fell into step with me.
I wanted to reach for her.
I wanted to pick her up, carry her against my chest.
There was something genuinely broken in her right that moment. And part of me responded, wanted to grab some glue, and put her back together.
But no one could know that.
No one could see that.
It was a surefire way to sign her death sentence. And things were already bad enough for her right then.
I pulled her down the hall, into the kitchen, then down the first step before reaching for her, and lifting her up to carry her down.
Her body was strangely loose through all of this, as limp as a child who's deep asleep.
The basement was partially finished, the area around the landing and to the left was a game room with a pool table, card table, a massive TV, and a full bar. A couple leather armchairs were sitting in the opening.
Guard chairs.
Because the other side of the basement wasn't just where the furnace and water heater were situated.
It was where my father had a holding room set up.
For people he wanted to question.
People like Giana.
Fuck.
No.
That couldn't happen.
I had to somehow convince him that I would be the better choice. Mayb
e spout some shit about having gained her confidence, that she would give me the truth with less fuss.
Which was true.
But it would also allow me to take whatever truth she fed me, and twist it, to make my father think twice about how he would handle the situation.
I moved in through the security door, feeling the cool and damp already start to penetrating me. It seeped in through the cement floor, the cinder block walls.
My father had the furnace and water heater closed off in their own space, likely doing so to prevent any prisoner from ripping some piece of it in desperation, and using it for an attack. The rest of the space was sparse, unfinished floors and walls with a wooden beam ceiling. And a couple sets of shackles attached to the wall.
My stomach twisted, at the idea of putting them on her, but also at knowing I didn't have much choice.
I bent down, carefully placing Giana on the floor, grabbing one of the lower shackles, attaching the cuff to one of her ankles, leaving the other free.
"Giana," I called, voice soft, reaching for her chin, lifting it, waiting for her gaze to find mine. "What the fuck just happened?" I asked when she finally looked at me.
Chapter Ten
Giana
It was the hand.
That hand.
That one I remembered well.
All too fucking well.
It was a hand I had described in acute, painful detail to a female police officer while my legs were spread in stirrups.
I was one week shy of my sixteenth birthday. My mother and I had been spending time after school planning on a way to make it a big, happy affair. On a tiny, sad budget.
That was what I always remembered from childhood. My mother constantly trying to find ways to cut corners, to make a dollar stretch as far as possible. It didn't matter how rough a year we had, she always had found ways to make Christmas and Easter and birthdays something special. Maybe I'd never gotten name brands or expensive electronics like some of the kids I went to school with, but I had beautiful memories of brightly-colored packages on Christmas morning, of simple park birthdays full of amazing baked goods and close friends.
We'd never had much by way of family. My mother had grown up in foster care and had never found her forever family. Until she met my dad. She always said that, if nothing else, she would forever be thankful for me, and for the parents she gained through marriage, and for the grandparents as well.
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