I’d told her.
I’d told her everything I could, leaving out the incident that caused me to leave home.
My father’s involvement with Agent Peterson’s murder would be something no one would hear from me.
It made me seem dirty indeed, like Sinclaire accused, but I had my reasons.
My father had never told me in his own words that he’d killed the man. He’d never confessed or admitted it. That was how I justified it in my mind.
Selfish, I knew it was selfish, and it was probably the thing that had destroyed me all these years. Knowing the truth of something and hiding it, so I could be free.
Maybe it would come out over the next few weeks.
Who knew what could happen?
Right now, I was concerned that my friend, my best friend in all the world, would be mad at me because I’d kept my secrets from her all these years.
I’d told her who my father was, my real surname, that my mother was killed, and how she died. I’d told her about my former life as a dancer, and about Luc. She’d really hung on to my words when I started talking about Luc. Probably because that part was fresh and filled with new emotion. Maybe I’d explained more than I wanted to, and she could see how conflicted I was.
“I prefer the name Rossi. It suits you,” she said to the table.
I straightened, waiting to hear what more she would say.
“Do you?”
“Yeah. You’re Italian. It’s a pretty name. Amelia Rossi. I think…” She looked at me now. “I think I must have thought your father was non-Italian. That’s where the surname Taylor came from. But no.”
She was hurt. I could tell. Gigi was one of these pure-spirited people who wore their heart on their sleeve, showing it to the world. That’s what she was like. She didn’t deal with lies of any form.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I lied to you this whole time.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t lie... to hurt me.”
“But I was a lie.” Déjà vu. This was the conversation I’d had with Luc weeks ago, when I found out who he really was. A man sent by my father to protect me, with the promise of getting the whole empire if he married me.
“You did what you had to. We all have to sometimes.”
I bit the inside of my lip to keep from crying. As understanding filled her features, relief washed over me.
“I wished that I’d told you sooner.”
“Me too, because I could have been a better friend when you needed me. Especially on the anniversary of your mother’s death.” Her eyes watered, but tears didn’t come. She reached out to take my hands into hers. “I understand that you needed to keep certain things from me, like who your father is, and who you were, but you could have told me about your mom. I guess, though, that I’m probably guilty too. So, I have to understand your reasons for not sharing.”
I’d been looking down at our hands joined together, but my gaze shot up to meet her eyes when she said that.
The water in her eyes spilled over and ran down her cheeks.
“What do you mean? What happened to you?”
“My…” She stopped and gazed off into the open space before us. She then pulled in a breath and continued. “My father wasn’t always the best. He left my mother when she was pregnant with me and tried to get back into our lives when I was four. She didn’t want to know him, but he still tried to get back in. Then he went to prison for manslaughter for ten years. It was actually an accident. He got into a fight trying to save a woman from being raped. He pushed the guy he was fighting with too hard, and the guy fell and knocked his head straight on an exposed nail. It killed him instantly. My father went down for that. We were the first thing he sought after when he came out. I was then fourteen, and I wanted to know him. My mother forbade me to see him. She never forgave him for leaving her when she was pregnant with me. He then promised he would show her how much he’d changed. He set up a home for troubled teens and devoted his time to helping people. That showed her he’d changed, plus I knew deep down she loved him but was scared of being hurt.”
I held my breath, holding on to her words.
“She gave him a chance a year later and one day, he was trying to help a boy who was desperate to get out of a gang he’d been drafted into. My father got caught up in the mess, and they killed him. They shot him. Just like that, he was gone. All those years gone just like that.”
Tears ran down my cheeks.
“I am so sorry. I am so sorry.” I gave her hands a squeeze. “Oh… Gigi.”
“It’s okay. It killed me for a long time, and I managed to deal with it with my focus on damn witchcraft, which I know probably is a load of bullshit. But it keeps me sane. It gives me something. I feel like my father’s spirit is near and always with me. That part I honestly feel. The rest may be crap. I guess too, now that I know what happened to you, it’s kind of comforting to think that maybe something, some force, put us together because we have a similar background.”
I nodded.
Since I couldn’t come up with anything that could refute two friends with similar pasts meeting, I had to agree.
“We were nearly the same ages when your father and my mother were taken from us.” Both by guns.
It was times like this when I reminded myself of all the reasons why I’d become a cop.
“Yes. I’m sorry your mother was taken from you in such a violent way.”
“I’m sorry your father was taken from you too. It breaks my heart to know that something like that could have happened to you.” It did, and I felt bad that I was only just finding out. “That shouldn’t have happened to you.”
“Nor you, Amelia. Nor you.”
I shook my head. “How did I not know all of that about you?”
“I guess we were both holding back on the things that caused us the deepest pain. I don’t talk about what happened to my father, ever. I was proud that he turned himself around, and even when he was in prison, it didn’t embarrass me. I knew he was there because he was trying to save someone. The pain, though, from his death is just too much to bear sometimes. Too much to understand. I still don’t think I can wrap my head around it. So, I don’t think about it.”
It was the same for me. “I still don’t know the full story of my mother’s death, and I’m scared to find out and find it makes less sense than what I know. I don’t know why my mother would have gone to the docks. I still have no idea why. She had no reason to be there.”
“She wouldn’t have been there for no reason, Amelia,” she surmised. “There’s some reasoning behind everything. It just sucks that you don’t know.”
My father knew what happened in full detail. He knew it all. Tears pricked at my eyes again, and I swallowed hard.
How would I feel seeing him again?
What would it be like?
When I thought back, all I could see in my mind was the person who looked like my father shooting Agent Peterson. I heard his voice ringing through my mind like an echo on repeat. It kept saying I’ll have his head, then I’d conjured up an image of a headless body. Agent Peterson’s headless body.
It was all so evil. My father had killed someone, and that was something I wouldn’t be able to get past.
The foolish thing about it, though, was that Agent Petersen was just one person I knew about.
My father was the head of the mafia in Chicago. He practically owned the state. The people and the land. What made me think that he’d only killed just the one man?
It was all so against me, my nature, my personality.
Being with Luc was… against me too.
What a joke. The cop and the mobster.
I couldn’t be a cop and be romantically involved with a man who I knew was a criminal.
Things were happening though. Serious things that were above me and whether it was right or wrong for me to be with Luc.
Gigi wiped her tears, and a small smile inched across her full lips.
“You’re s
miling.” I raised my brows. Gigi could have such a difference to her moods sometimes.
Here we were, mourning our losses, and she was still able to manage a smile. I, on the other hand, just wanted to go back to bed.
Back to bed with Luc.
Damn. I needed to get a hold of my mind.
“Because you’re thinking about Luc.”
“How the hell do you know that?” I raised my brows.
“I can tell.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed, slouching back against the chair with my hand on my head.
“How’d this happen to me, Gigi?”
“What part?”
“Everything, but specifically Luc. It’s like I can’t control my mind. Why can’t I just get a grip on reality and see the situation for what it is? He works for my father. The man came here to try to win me over, marry me, and get claim over my father’s empire. That alone should piss me off.”
“But you know he doesn’t want your father’s empire. You know he wants you.” Her smile brightened.
That’s what Luc told me when he told me the truth and revealed that my father had sent him.
“What if it’s a lie?” I laughed. “Why wouldn’t it be a lie? My father has a billionaire’s fortune. Money that keeps on giving.”
When I’d checked everything out, I realized that our little real estate business was a gold mine. As time went by, it became so clear to me that there were so many benefits to our business.
I knew Dad had started it with money laundering. Found that out when I did some research. I had a friend who worked in the FBI. Candace Kent.
People thought I was a real hardass, but I looked like an angel compared to her.
The woman was fierce and took any help she got from local police when the big criminals came about.
I met her in my second year of joining the force, and then I thought to use the resources at my fingertips to do some research on my father.
He’d come up on the feds’ hit list a number of times, especially back in the eighties, but there was never enough evidence to get him. Always, which suggested he had control over people in high places who could tamper with evidence and make certain things disappear.
It all helped him make his fortune.
Money, power, practical invincibility.
If Luc took the lead on the business, he’d have that too.
Why would he give that up for me?
“It could be a lie,” I repeated more to myself than to Gigi.
“Really? Is that what you truly feel?” She inclined her head to the side and gave me a knowing look, which said she knew I didn’t fully believe that.
“I don’t want to, but I’d be stupid not to consider it.”
“Do what your heart tells you.”
I smirked. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No.”
“Gigi, I can’t just be with Luc. I’m a cop. I stop bad guys, and I’m supposed to stand for truth and justice.”
“What’s the definition of bad?”
“If he works for my father, then he’s bad news. Sinclaire found all that stuff on him too.”
“Sinclaire?” she asked with distaste.
“It was all true things.” I’d met Luc as Luc Smith, not as Lucian Morientz.
Sinclaire had found out that not only had he used a dead person’s social security number, but there were issues around fraud, racketeering and, surprise, surprise, money laundering.
“And my father used to be a big-time drug dealer, went to juvi, then prison, was inside many times for armed robbery and then manslaughter. But he changed.” Gigi added.
“Exactly, he changed. He took steps to change. Luc telling me that he wants me is not changing.”
“Amelia, if he wants to be with you, I think he would know that he’d have to not be a criminal to make that happen.” She nodded and looked at me as if that was so obvious.
I opened my mouth and closed it again. What did I say to that?
Any answer I was going to give was interrupted when the kitchen door opened and a handsome dark-haired Italian man with olive skin walked in wearing a leather jacket.
That’s when my mouth dropped.
Gigi jumped up out of her chair and grabbed the rolling pin from the holder on the counter.
My gun, where was it?
“Oh, don’t mind me. Just coming in to make breakfast.” He smirked and held his hands up.
“Who the hell are you?” I balked, now standing up.
Shit, I was still in just the damn dressing gown, the flimsy, skimpy dressing gown.
“Maurice Vitali at your service.”
“At whose service? What are you doing in my house?”
“Well, the thing is, you two broads are usually gone by this time, so I’m kind of in here every day.”
“It was you?” Gigi snapped. “Eating all the food in my cupboard. My brownies.”
“Doll, I come here just for those. Yumm, yumm. They taste like heaven.” His eyes fixed on Gigi.
I grimaced when her face softened, and she smiled. “You think so?”
“Yes, doll, a hundred percent. I plan to ask you to marry me, by the way.”
Her mouth dropped, and then she looked from me to him.
This was ridiculous. I grabbed the rolling pin from her, walked over to him, and poked him hard in his chest with it.
He was just a little shorter than Luc, same muscle, and that cocky confidence reminded me of Luc too.
“Why are you here?”
“Boss’s orders. I’m your bodyguard. I’m supposed to be at your side for the next two days. Me and a few of the boys.”
“What!” Unbelievable. What was my father playing at? “You can tell my father I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“Oh no, no, not that boss. I’m talking about Luc. And when he gives an order, he expects it to be done. Especially when it comes to you.”
All I could do was stare.
Chapter 8
Luc
“Claudius, don’t play with me. Where the fuck are you?” I snapped, pressing the phone to my ear.
“Hiring a bike man, chill out.”
My brother could be such a prick some… No, most times. It was most times, especially when he knew I’d be well and truly pissed off at him.
I got desperate and called him on Wednesday about an hour after I left Amelia.
It was that damn feeling I kept getting that something was about to happen. My guys were doing their best, keeping watch over the girls and making sure everything was fine.
It was, and that was the problem.
Things were too quiet, and I was starting to suspect trouble on the horizon. I wished I’d taken Amelia now and left Wednesday.
We were leaving later this evening. Flights were booked and everything. It was planned.
The problem with planning was the risk of others finding out what that plan was and infiltrating it.
“Claudius, why the hell do you need a bike?”
“Never can tell when you need a powerful Kawasaki engine. You know this. Plus, do you expect me to get around by taxi? Or bus?”
My stomach churned, and my pulse quickened. He found this whole thing funny.
I wanted him to be here right now with me. I’d gone upstate to a warehouse complex with a few abandoned buildings. My sources said there’d been some activity in one of them over the last few weeks and there was a possible match to Victor.
I hadn’t stopped looking for him, and any possibility was good enough for me to try.
There was nothing yet, just the usual trucks pulling in with deliveries.
I’d found a good spot on the roof of the nearest building to the one I suspected was their base.
“Claudius, you’re a fucking prick, you know that?”
“Luc, you worry too much. You think with your heart and never with your head.”
“What the fuck? No, I think just fine. You, on the other hand, are too blasé. This is Victor we’re tal
king about. He must know we’re planning to leave tonight.”
“Okay, so I have the day to look around, then.” Claudius chuckled.
“I wanted you here with me.”
“Don’t you have backup? Maurice or one of your other lackeys.”
“They’re not lackeys.” I hated that word. “Maurice is with Amelia.”
The two were not getting along, and I couldn’t wait for us all to be in Chicago.
I had everything all set up.
Plan was to draw Victor and his men to Chicago.
I’d leave some guys here to look after Gigi, but the majority of my crew would be with me there.
“Luc, you need to chill. I appreciate your need for me, but honestly, bro, you’re lucky I came. I hate LA probably more than you.”
Because of Mom.
Neither of us had returned since the day we left.
I’d felt that angst when I first arrived. Like I was going backwards to a place that kept me trapped and stopped me from being who I was.
“Thanks for coming. I just wish you were here though. You being wherever you are kind of defeats the purpose of coming here.”
“You know you don’t actually need me, right, little bro?”
I might not, but I felt better with him here. This was the first time I’d not been able to locate someone. Granted, this was Victor we were dealing with. The elusive pain in my damn ass.
“Hey, have you looked her up since coming here?”
I sighed, and my stomach twisted in knots.
Her was our mom, and no, I hadn’t looked her up. I didn’t want to, but I knew why he was asking.
I took my mother’s betrayal the hardest. I was the youngest, clung to her more than Claudius, who was like a carbon copy of my father, and I took the longest to accept that she wasn’t coming back to us.
I knew enough. She’d abandoned us to live the glamourous life and married a rich old guy who gave her everything. Her and their children. The children she wanted in her life.
What more did I need to know?
We were the scourge of her past, and I was certain she kept us well hidden.
“No brother, I have not. Was that something you wanted to do?”
Mafia Scars (The Accidental Mafia Queen Book 2) Page 7