by Bethany-Kris
“I’ll make a few calls.”
Good, good.
Time for the show to start.
The Philly restaurant most famous for its cheesesteaks wouldn’t have been Aria’s first choice for a meeting with the Accardo crime boss, but that had been Angelo’s demand once Nico had finally made contact with the man a few days earlier. He wanted to choose the location, one unrelated to either of their respective organizations other than perhaps by association, and they could arrive first to greet only him before his men would enter.
That worked for her.
Except … Angelo hadn’t quite followed the rules.
“Three of his men are inside, and the boss is waiting in the private dining area,” Nico said, glancing at Aria in the rearview mirror. “Or, at least three that our men recognized. Unarmed. One of them is Caesar, and his little friend that we had the run-in with a while back.”
She heard him, but she was still staring at the missed call on her phone.
Raffe, the caller ID read.
She’d opted to ignore her husband’s call if only because she simply couldn’t afford the headspace he would put her in should she actually spend two minutes talking to him. She couldn’t afford to be off her game at all today.
No doubt, she was going to pay for that choice later. Raffe always made her pay for anything he considered a slight or misstep.
“You all right?”
Aria finally dragged her gaze away from her phone, and met Nico’s gaze in the mirror. “Of course, I am.”
“So, I have been having a conversation with myself for the last ten minutes for no particular reason, then.”
“You don’t have to be a bastard about it.”
Nico smirked. “Who would I be if not a bastard?”
“My friend.”
“Well … that’s fair.”
“And I did hear you,” Aria said, staring at her reflection in the dark tint of the glass as they passed familiar Philadelphia streets. “Three men inside—that we know of, but there could be more. Unarmed as far as they can tell, but that’s a toss-up depending on what you consider to be armed. Angelo is in the private area. I’m not concerned.”
“Not even a little bit?”
“I hate when you do that, you know. Just because you’re my friend doesn’t mean you can get away with the same shit I’ll cut someone else for doing, Nico.”
“What did I do?”
His false innocence almost made her smile. “You question me. Don’t question me.”
“Someday, you’re going to be grateful to have a friend who does question you, De Rose Regina. Someday, it may be that one friend who keeps you from going a little too far when it comes to certain things because they make you stop and consider other options.”
“This is the only option.”
“This time, yes.”
Aria fixed one of her stray curls in the reflection of the window, and checked her carefully applied makeup at the same time. A perfect mask of beauty that was sure to be enough to distract any man, or at the very least, soften them to her.
There was only one she really needed to get to today.
“I’m not concerned about the fact he put men in there because we have been watching the restaurant since the day Angelo agreed to the meeting, and told us the location. Nothing has been happening; I’ve had people on it for twenty-four hour rotations. It’ll be perfectly fine.”
“I certainly hope so.”
“Hope is for the weak. Faith is for the confident.”
Nico said nothing.
Aria didn’t need him to.
It was another five minutes of driving before Nico smoothly pulled the car to a stop between two black sedans waiting in front of a modern-looking restaurant. The moment their car pulled in, the doors on the sedans opened and two men Aria had chosen to attend this meeting alongside her and Nico stepped out, and moved to the back passenger door of their vehicle. Nico stepped out, then, and moved back to open her door for her.
A purposeful move on her part.
She only wanted someone from the Accardo side of things to see the De Rose boss when she decided it was time. With three tall men flanking her front and sides, she was practically hidden from view entirely.
“The private dining area, yes?” she asked.
Nico glanced back, and offered her a nod.
“Good. And the others are not in there?”
“No.”
Even better.
Nico knew that for now, he was to appear as the one running their side of things until she said differently. It was how he posed the meeting to begin with. She was attending—as far as the Accardo boss knew—because she was Jac’s daughter, and because she had been the one to be approached first.
Simple as that.
And all a lie.
Inside the business, the restaurant bustled with patrons, and activity. Aria didn’t bother to pay attention to the décor or the seating arrangements as she wasn’t there to eat, or enjoy the place. She couldn’t care less what it looked like, or how good their food was.
She did, however, look for the one man she would recognize on the spot. Nico and her other two men were still flanking her, but between their shoulders she was able to get just a peek of Caesar sitting at what appeared to be a small bar. His friend sat beside him. She wasn’t sure where the third man Nico had mentioned was.
“Nico, let the others go in ahead of us,” Aria said.
Silently, he stepped back at her request. The other men moved forward, and moved to the left where the private dining area was located behind two frosted glass French doors.
It was then that Caesar looked.
It was then that he knew.
She stared him head-on, and let him take a good fucking look at her. She enjoyed the way his sky-blue eyes widened momentarily, and his jaw fell slack. His rough, handsome features were softened briefly as the realization washed over him, and nothing had quite looked better on him.
Except for maybe when he was fucking her.
That had been quite a sight.
She smiled, and waved two fingers.
A tease, really.
Caesar’s strong jaw tightened, and she bet his molars were aching from how fiercely he was clenching his teeth. That surprise in his gaze melted away to show a blazing disbelief mixed heavily with anger.
He kept staring.
She tipped her chin up at him.
A silent, Try me.
Caesar didn’t disappoint.
“Ah, shit,” Nico muttered when Caesar pushed off the barstool.
“Relax,” she told her friend. “What’s he going to do? This is what I wanted, remember.”
“Still trying to figure out why, though.”
Because he could help her.
Or, she could blackmail him into it.
Either way.
“Let’s move,” Aria murmured as Caesar came closer.
The two of them headed for the private room where the Cosa Nostra Accardo boss would be waiting for them, but she didn’t even reach the entryway—as she expected—before Caesar caught up with her. His warm, calloused palm wrapped around her elbow, and tugged her backwards. Aria didn’t even get the chance to catch her footing before Caesar was pulling her upright, and moving them down a dim hallway where bathroom signs flashed overhead.
She breathed, and he spun her around. Her back hit the wall hard before both of Caesar’s hands came to land on either side of her head with a hard smack.
Aria didn’t blink.
Neither did Caesar.
God.
The blues of his eyes were amazing this close.
All sea-deep with flecks of black.
“What do you want?”
His words came out through sneer-twisted lips that had kissed and tasted the most intimate places on her body. She was hyper-aware of just how close he was to her. His heady cologne soaked into her lungs wi
th every inhale; a deep, spicy scent that smelled like sex and heaven all at once. He really was a Godly man.
She never denied that.
“Well?” Caesar demanded harshly. “What do you want, Aria?”
“Ah, figured that out, did you?”
“Don’t mess with me, you crazy woman,” he murmured in Italian.
“Your Italian is … heavenly.”
It really was.
Or maybe it was because it was him.
“Stop fucking with me,” he uttered.
“Oh, yes,” she countered, grinning, “I’ve heard it’s usually you doing that to other people. I suppose this is a new thing for you, huh?”
A tic showed in his jaw.
She almost had him.
“Aria,” came a quiet word from Nico at her right.
She didn’t even turn her head to look at the man. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not. You’ve been down here for at least a minute. You’re supposed to be in the room already. Simone or Jonny could come out to look for you, and you know what they’ll see. You’re in private with a man—where you cannot be.”
Caesar’s gaze narrowed at those words.
Aria didn’t look away from him, but she had to speak now. Get her demands out, and get it over with. Nico had a good point.
“Would your father care to know that you fucked the enemy, Caesar?” she asked, never breaking their gaze. “How would he feel to know while you were put on our tail to clean up our mess, you were actually fraternizing with one of us—and not just any one of us, but the acting boss. Me.”
Caesar didn’t flinch, and even sounded a little too haughty when he replied, “That’s not even close to the worst thing my father knows I have done.”
And even as he said that, she still found a flash of worry in his gaze. Maybe in all his fuck ups, this man was now walking a very thin line.
“Do you want to test that theory?”
He swallowed.
She smiled.
“We want territory—more, you could say. I need it for a bigger purpose, and your family is strong holding it, as they usually do. You’re going to help me in that regard.”
“You have high hopes and big dreams.”
Aria laughed.
Like Nico, this man was wrong, too.
Men usually were.
“Hope is for the weak. I never hope.”
“Aria,” Nico hissed.
She didn’t need to be told again the risk she was taking, but she had said what she said, and now it was time to move. Before Caesar could think to stop her, she slipped out from beneath his arm, and headed for a waiting Nico.
Aria didn’t even look over her shoulder as she came out of the hallway. The two of them walked straight into the private dining area to find the Accardo boss’s men had finally arrived—five of them, it seemed.
That made them a bit outnumbered, all things considered.
Angelo Accardo stood in the middle of the room like the formidable man she had expected him to be. Large, a bit too round, and as tall as his son with dark eyes that glared daggers into the man standing beside Aria.
He barely even looked at her.
“You’re late,” Angelo said, his tone colored with irritation. “And I do not like to be made to wait on anyone, let alone a Camorra boss.”
“My apologies,” Aria said sweetly.
It took a beat of time as Angelo’s gaze swung in her direction, and then a another second or two as he blinked. “I beg your pardon, girl?”
“I prefer Aria—or De Rose, even. Whichever you prefer.”
She bet she was quite a sight in her Versace dress and Valentino heels. Her neck was roped in the diamonds her husband had given her on their wedding night. Right before he bent her over the closest flat surface, and fucked her hard enough to make her bleed—God, Raffe had taken great pleasure in doing that to her, and then trying again the next night. She’d swept her unruly curls back into a messy chignon, but left a few loose strands down, and made sure her face was free to be seen and especially beautiful.
She was a woman.
Delicate looking, all things considered.
Distractingly beautiful.
Entirely unassuming.
Nothing that this man expected when it came to a boss, and it put her at every possible advantage over him because of it.
“I did not mean to make you wait, Angelo,” Aria said, smiling sweetly.
“I …”
The man was speechless.
Unsure.
Wary.
Hesitant.
Everything she wanted.
Aria didn’t fidget or move at all as Angelo’s gaze drifted over her and took every bit of her in with a slow, confused expression drifting over his old features. “Do you prefer to sit when you do business, or stand? I don’t mind either.”
That question broke the man from his daze.
“Neither,” he snapped. “Not when it comes to a woman.”
She could feel the change in the room.
The way Angelo’s men became uncomfortable.
“You did agree to a meeting,” she pointed out, “and with the boss. Until my father is released from his sentence, or my husband returns from business in Italy, that is me.”
“I was led to believe—”
“That you would be meeting with the boss.”
“I talked to a man!” Angelo snapped.
Aria tipped her head in Nico’s direction. “I find men are more amicable to other men when details need to be hammered out for these things. I am sure you understand.”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
“Shame, then.”
“Yes,” Angelo barked, snapping a finger at one of his men, and making a motion with his hand. She knew right then that this meeting was over. “It is a shame. I had hoped to finish this.”
“We still can.”
He scoffed. “No.”
“Then you should know, Angelo, it will only get worse. The streets, and the issues. Your people dying. And oh, sure, mine are too. The difference? Mine are a dime a dozen, and can be easily replaced. It’s how Camorra works, and why we are so resilient. Your Cosa Nostra cannot say the same, can it? There will be more blood in the streets, Angelo, until you give me what I want. It’s a shame you won’t even stay long enough to hear what it is.”
And he didn’t stay.
He couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
“And what is our next move?” Jonny asked. “How do we go at them from here?”
“Yes, a plan is needed,” Simone agreed.
Nico looked to Aria for direction, but it was the ringing of her phone that stopped her from speaking to the gathered men so that they could discuss the failed meeting with the Accardo boss. She didn’t even need to look at the screen to know who was calling her.
She had been waiting for this.
“Raffe,” she greeted, not unkindly, as she picked up her husband’s call.
“Skype, now,” he snarled.
No one at the table could hear the way he spoke to her, and she didn’t give the waiting men any indication how unsettled she felt, either. “Two minutes, okay.”
“One, Aria, or I will be on a goddamn flight tonight.”
“One, then.”
She hung up the call, but only after Raffe did. Hanging up on him would do her no good when she did finally get on Skype. Standing from the table, she offered nothing to the confused men but for a quiet, “Excuse me, but I need a few minutes.”
Or however long he wants.
It took Aria almost the entire minute just to get to the privacy of her bedroom, and to close the door. The Skype call from her husband was already ringing through. The bastard couldn’t even give her the one minute she asked for.
Aria answered the call by hitting the accept button, and sat down on the edge of her bed. She forced her face to remain a blank mask of no
thingness even as her husband’s angry, scowling face came into view on the video call.
Raffe Ferri was six foot, five inches, and two-hundred-fifty pounds of anger. Handsome, sure, with his olive complexion, boyish grin, and dark, wavy hair. He could dazzle a woman with one of his wide, white-toothed smiles, and just as quickly terrify her with a harsh hand. He was demanding, and difficult, and hateful.
And he was her husband.
“You ignored my calls today,” he said.
Aria nodded. “I was doing business.”
“For what—what that you couldn’t speak to me?”
Behind him, the Four Seasons hotel room looked as though a tornado had ripped through it. Likely him tearing things apart in his rage. It wasn’t uncommon, and frankly, she was just grateful that he was on an entirely different continent from her. There was less casualty to her that way.
Small blessings.
“The Accardo family, actually,” Aria said. “We are still trying to gain more coverage in our territory. You wanted that.”
Raffe’s sneer lifted a bit, but not by much. “And how did it go?”
“Pretty well, all things considered.”
He would have considered today to be a step forward even with the way it ended. She wasn’t entirely lying to him.
“I could always cut this deal with the Cambria—”
“We really need that contact, Raffe,” Aria said softly, “as our deal with the Mexican cartel fell through, and our supply is low.”
Because she fucked up the contact with the Mexicans. Not that Raffe knew that. Either way, she was running on a short timeline, and had needed to get him the hell out of Philly at least while her father was still in prison, so she could get this plan of hers to move forward. Sometimes, things just worked.
“I know that,” her husband muttered darkly.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
Raffe softened a bit at her apology. “How are you—missing me?”
“Always.”
Lies.
Never was more like it.
“Mmm, I bet. Stand, would you?”
Aria didn’t even question him, and stood from the bed. She saw his gaze lift and lower on her in the video, and then he nodded.