Over the Line: A Second Chance Sports Romance

by Celia Ryan

  I pushed open the heavy door, and when I entered the dark bar, the smell of beer overwhelmed me. There was a long wooden bar on the side wall, and there were several small tables and booths. The walls were a dark wood color and the floor was made of stone. The place was practically empty, which didn’t surprise me, since it was a Sunday afternoon. There weren't any TVs hanging over the bar, just more bottles. Obviously this wasn't a place for the sports crowd.

  I walked up to the bar and signaled the bartender to come my way. I sat down at one of the stools at the end. Hopefully no one would sit down next to me. I could drown my sadness in a pint alone.

  “What can I get for you?” an older gentleman asked me.

  “Anything.” But then I thought about it further and touched my stomach. “Actually a soda.”

  He gave me the once over. “A soda, huh? Are you here to celebrate something? Or to chase the demons away?”

  Demons. More demons than I would actually like to admit. “The latter, but… I can’t drink if you get what I mean.”

  He simply nodded and wandered off. Within a couple minutes, he was back with a short glass of cola and a large square ice cube.

  “Good luck honey.”

  I lifted the glass to my lips and took a small sip, letting the liquid flow through my body. The bartender gave me a small smile and walked away from me as I looked around the place. There were maybe only five people in the bar with me. A group of men were sitting at a table in the back, talking amongst themselves, and there was a lonely couple at the bar with me. This was the perfect place to hide.

  I took another sip of what I assumed was some off brand bar cola and tried to move my thoughts past Roberto, wrapping my head around what Luka had done.

  He killed my father.

  He was the one that began a chain of events that took my family away from me, and I knew that deep down, I truly hated him for that.

  As much hatred as I had for his actions, a small part of me always wanted him to be the Luka I fell for when I was a teenager. I never wanted to really admit that he was a monster that destroyed my family. Ever since I'd made the decision to stay, I buried those feelings of hatred so deep that I didn't think anything could bring them back up. But here I was, waves of sadness rushing over my body. At this moment, I never wanted to see him again. But on the other hand, I was still his. It was maddening.

  There was absolutely no denying the fact that I had completely fallen in love with him. I lusted after every touch of his strong hands, and I waited for him to call just to hear his strong, seductive voice. He completely owned me. Every moment not spent with him seem wasted.

  I held the necklace that I had taken from my mother between my fingers, rubbing the silver back and forth. For the first time since she died, I felt truly alive again. He had given me a gift. He had given me my life back. And we were building a new life together, the two of us and our unborn child.

  Before Luka came back into my life, all I had was anger and resentment toward him, brought on by Roberto’s tirades. But now, hearing Luka’s admission, I started to understand his reasons, and I knew he was telling me the truth. My father had been a complete drunk. Luka had said that he'd even beat my mother. She had gone to the Giotis for help. But in the end, they couldn't keep her safe.

  So how could Luka ever keep me safe? And what about keeping me safe from himself?

  I hardly noticed as the group in the back of the bar broke away from their table and stood around the bar. Whatever business they had been discussing clearly was over. I watched as a few of them exited the bar. I recognized the way they were walking. It was like they had an extra ten pounds of weight on them, but none of them looked overweight. They were packing. I looked around me again, almost as if I had finally started to notice my surroundings. Where was I? I tried to think of what street I had walked down, where I had turned. I wasn't sure anymore. Did I walk into another mob family’s territory?

  Shit.

  “Enjoying that drink, doll?”

  An older Italian man sat down next to me. I watched as two men flanked him. They tried to seem nonchalant, and if I hadn't been observant, I wouldn’t have noticed their protective stances around him. I'd seen men do that before.

  Too many times.

  “It's all right.”

  I shoved the rest of the cola down, trying to appear more interested in my drink than I was. I had to get out of here. It wasn’t safe, I could tell.

  “I have to get going. My boyfriend is waiting for me.”

  The man grabbed my wrist. “Sit. Have another drink. It's on the house.”

  He signaled the bartender and the old man filled up my glass. I saw him quickly make eye contact with the man sitting next to me. Clearly, the bartender wasn't the one in charge here.

  “No really, I have to get going.”

  “I insist.” He held up his stein and I lifted my glass slowly. They clinked together in an awkward way. He took a swig from his beer but I didn't drink anymore out of my glass. I no longer trusted that what was in my glass was only cola.

  “Haven't seen you in here before. You don’t come in here often, do you?”

  I shook my head. “No. I just took a wrong turn.”

  “I'm lucky you did. That's an interesting necklace.”

  “My necklace? Oh. It was a gift.” Suddenly, my lies were back running through my veins. He didn’t need to know about my mother. He was already fishing for information in an uncomfortable way.

  “From who?”

  “Boyfriend. He just gave it to me.” More lies. I prayed that he bought it.

  “Boyfriend?” I noticed the two security guards get closer to him. I'd made the wrong choice of words.

  “Yeah.” I had to convince them now. Hopefully, they wouldn’t mess with me if I was the girlfriend of a mob son. Or maybe that was the wrong move to make. I wasn’t sure. But right now, I had to hold on to the fact that I was in love with Luka. It no longer mattered what he had done to my family. I was his. I only hoped now that it didn't end my life.

  “I know that’s a lie. I also know that necklace was your mother’s. Why are you here? Where’s Roberto?”

  Shit.

  “Roberto?”

  “Yes your uncle. I know he’s in town. Not our arrangement, he was expected to stay in Jersey and I was supposed to keep an eye on things here. I don’t need him nosing around in my business.”

  “Wait, what? You’re an Agnelli?”

  The men around us laughed. “A friend. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Nothing, I haven’t seen him. I just had a fight with my boyfriend and I came for a drink. This is a coincidence, I promise.”

  “Ah yes, Luka.” He smiled at me crookedly. “Well, isn’t that advantageous? I’m meeting with his family tomorrow night. Perhaps you should stay with us until then.”

  I put my hands up. “I don't want any trouble. If you have a message, I can make sure that it is delivered to them. But I’m not involved in his business. I don't know anything.”

  “See, the last time that he sent us a message, he shot one of my security, and he carved up one of my best sellers. So if I send you back with a message, I don’t want to hurt you. That pretty little face of yours looks good the way it is.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. What would he do to me? What had I gotten myself into?

  “Now, I think I'll just keep you. I like leverage at these meetings. Maybe we can even get Roberto there and solve all of our problems. Get rid of the Gioti’s for good.”

  I tried not to panic.

  “You,” he said, pointing to one of his guards. “Call Roberto and tell him we have his niece. I want him at this meeting for back up. And you,” he said, turning toward me. “You stay here until we get further instructions. This just made the meet with your boyfriend a lot more interesting.”

  I reached for my cell phone, but he snatched it out of my back pocket. “Do you have anything else on you? A weapon, maybe?”

  I shook my
head. “No. Just my phone.”

  He smiled at me again, and this time, it almost seemed genuine. “Wonderful. Drink! It is going to be a long night ahead of us.”

  I tried to inspect the drink before I threw it down the hatch, but I hardly had a chance. He was watching me too closely.

  I had ended things with Luka on such an uncertain level. What if he didn't come for me? What if this meet went bad? What if this had been for nothing?

  Chapter 25

  Luka

  I made a call to make sure Roberto was taken care of.

  “She said that she never wants to see him again. Make sure of it.”

  Marco nodded at me before shoving Roberto in the back seat of his car.

  “She also made me promise not to kill him. See that that doesn't happen.”

  “Got it. So where is she?”

  I shook my head. “I don't know.”

  “I can't believe you found Vienna. After all this time.” He looked at my closely. I could tell he was annoyed I had lied to him.

  “Marco you know I never stopped caring about her. I had to make her mine.” But now as quickly as I had found her, I had lost her. And that was on me and my secrets.

  “What about her father? I can’t imagine she feels too great about all that.”

  “She doesn't. It's why she's not here right now. Why I’m praying that she comes back. I won’t force her to make a decision. It's all up to her now. As much as I want to, I can't force her into this. But there’s something else man.”

  “What?”

  “She’s having my baby.”

  “Uh dude. You sure know how to pick ‘em. Congrats though.”

  “Thanks. Women, man, they’re tough.”

  Marco nodded. “That is the purpose of having women in your life, man, to make things difficult.”

  “I know.” I stifled a chuckle.

  I watched as he drove away, Roberto in the back seat practically slumped over. I hoped that I would never see that asshole again. It took everything I had to not kill him. I told Vienna I wouldn’t, though, so I didn't. I may have landed a couple more sucker punches to his stomach while I waited for Marco to pick him up, but I kept my knife away from his flesh. And that took some serious restraint.

  I waited for her to come home that night. But she never showed. I called her cell phone again and again, trying to explain to her my side of the story. About how I had to keep her safe, and doing what I did was the only way to make sure of it. After trying to reach her for several hours, her phone started to go directly to voicemail. Everything had fallen apart.

  I'd always been a broken man; it was just the life that I had. Vienna made me feel whole. And without her, darkness clouded every inch of my life. The next morning, I looked in the closet, touching the clothes that she had worn only a couple days ago. I wondered if she would come back for them. If she would ever come back at all.

  Finally, that afternoon, I had to go to the office to prepare for the meet with the Armani. I called her again, but it went right to voicemail. I would try one last time before we left for the restaurant. If she did not answer, as much as I hated to do it, I would give her the space that she wanted and leave her alone.

  When I arrived at the office, I found Marco sitting in the strip club. I walked up behind him. “Is it done?”

  He looked up at me. “It's done. I dropped him off at a hotel and called the Agnellis. I waited until someone arrived for him. But they’re staying another night. He’s not in any type of shape to travel. Good on you, by the way.”

  “Thanks. He deserved every hit.”

  He nodded. “His family was pretty happy to have him back. They said he went off the deep end about a year ago. He was harassing Vienna. Setting her up to kill you. Did you know that?”

  “I had my suspicions, plus some recent information shed some light on that.”

  He shrugged. “I guess he convinced her to come after you.”

  I walked away from him. No one would be able to see the emotion on my face in the dark light of the club. About how I really felt. Betrayed and lost. And now she chose to run away? Why?

  But I knew the answer.

  She had finally seen the truth.

  I couldn't blame her for not being able to handle it. I thought if anybody could, she was strong enough to. She should've understood that I killed her father to help her. To keep her safe.

  My father emerged from downstairs. He didn't look happy.

  “Luka, we need to talk.”

  I pushed all of my emotions about Vienna away and I followed him outside. He left the security at the door.

  “Pops, what's going on?”

  “You tell me. I just received a call that Vienna was seen at Armani’s bar. You know about that?”

  Armani and Vienna, what did they have to do with one another? Suddenly, it hit me, and my heart fell into the pit of my stomach. Fucking Roberto. That kid at the church was right. They were working together.

  She wasn't answering her phone. She hadn’t come home. It wasn't that she was done with me, it was that she couldn't come back.

  He had her.

  Oh my God. After everything I had done to get her back, to make her mine, they had fucking taken her? Like she was still theirs. Hell no.

  “What do you know?” I yelled at him, enraged.

  Pops squinted at me. “Tell me first. How long has she been in Baltimore?”

  “A few months, maybe, I’m not even sure.” I didn’t know enough of the truth to answer honestly, and it made me crazy. “The Agnellis sent her to set me up. To find out the truth about her father. She knows all of that now. And she still chose not to kill me.”

  “Why the hell would she kill you? Has she even seen you?”

  I saw the realization dawn on his face. It might've taken the old man a minute, but he knew what was going on.

  “You're sleeping with her, aren’t you? God, Luka! We don't have any kind of time for this shit. Armani is playing both sides, and we've got the Agnellis on the move. And you want to get into bed with an old flame?”

  “The Agnellis were only on the move because of her. But Marco and I took care of Roberto. Unless he got away, she asked me not to kill him Pops. So I didn’t. But that kid at the church, he said Armani is running guns under the Agnelli’s, taking his business when he was only supposed to be here to watch me. To watch us. He’s been ratting, and now he has her!”

  My father pulled a 9mm out of the back of his pants and cocked it. The loud click of the gun filled the silence between us. “You love this girl?”

  I nodded. “I have since the moment I laid eyes on her.”

  “You are a rebellious little son of a bitch, do you know that? I specifically remember telling you to leave that girl alone.”

  “I know. But I couldn't.”

  “Fine. If she means that much to you, then she is part of the family now. Let's go blow up some of these bastards. It's been a while since I've gotten blood on my hands, and I don't like to get boring in my old age.”

  He signaled to the security, and they came out of the building. The town car pulled up, and the driver got out to open the door for both of us. My father got in first, and I slid in after him.

  “It's just us?”

  “There’s security in the SUV behind us. Marco will follow that unmarked car. As far as the rest of the family goes? Yes. It's just us. For now. If things go south, the family will respond. You know they will.”

  “I do. But Pops, I don’t want you to get hurt over this. That's not how this has to go down. It’s my fight with them. Let me deal with Armani. I can handle him on my own.”

  “No. This is family. No one is allowed to touch our family. You understand?”

  No one could command a response like my father could. I didn't respect anyone more than him. “Yeah Pops, I understand.”

  He put his gun in his lap and he looked out the window. I knew we would ride in silence the rest of the way there. Both contemplating what we cou
ld gain, and what we could lose from this fight.

  I couldn’t lose Vienna.

  But I couldn’t lose my father either.

  I knew I was going to have to kill a lot of men. And that was fine with me.

  Blood on my hands wasn't new.

  Chapter 26

  Vienna

  I sat in the dark with my knees hugged against my chest. I had been there almost the entire day. I had never left the pub. I was such an idiot for walking in there. I should have just stayed with Luka.

  Armani had taken me upstairs and put me in a private apartment. If you could even call it that. The place was the size of Luka’s bedroom. It was a small studio with a bed, kitchenette, and attached bathroom. He had some thug watching over me the entire time. When I had asked to go to the bathroom earlier, I checked to see if there was a window I could escape out of. Unfortunately, there wasn’t. I was trapped, with no way to warn Luka about what was about to happen.

  They offered me food, but I barely ate anything. My stomach was tied up in knots, and there was no way I would have been able to keep anything down. All that I wanted to do was go home. I wanted to hear Luka's voice telling me that he would take care of everything again.

  For the second time in my life, he was going to have to kill for me, and I hated that. It wasn't fair to ask him to do that, to break little pieces of his soul by killing people to free me. But I knew he would have to. Armani wasn't letting me go that easy.

  I couldn’t believe Roberto had put out a hit on me. Somebody to kidnap me, and finish the job if I couldn’t. It was like he knew the whole time I wouldn’t go through with it. And he was that desperate to end Luka? How had he lost his way so much?