Cesare and the other guy were involved in a discussion about where to go for lunch, arguing over burgers and fries versus going to Rita’s house for homemade lasagna. They seemed calm, unruffled, like abducting someone at random was just another day. For them, it probably was.
“I don’t know what he wants with this one,” Cesare said. “I really don’t. Too feisty for my blood.”
“You just like women you can control,” the other man said. “Probably why you’re still single.”
Cesare grunted a laugh. “Being single is a personal choice. Strapping myself to a single broad isn’t nearly as much fun as lovin’ ’em and leavin’ ’em. You should try it sometime.”
The other man said, “I have a classy lady at home. And I’m happy. Maybe you should try that sometime.”
“Feisty or not, this one will break. They all do, eventually.”
“This one can hear you,” I said.
“This one better shut her mouth if she doesn’t wanna be stuffed in the trunk,” Cesare replied.
“Do it. I don’t care.”
“You don’t have any idea why we nabbed you, do you?” Cesare asked. “No idea who you’re goin’ to see.”
“Would it matter if I did?”
“S’pose not.”
Cesare laughed. “You scared?”
“Leave her alone, Cesare.”
“Do I seem scared to you?” I asked.
“I dunno. I’d have to look into those pretty, brown sparklers of yours. You don’t sound scared. I’ll give you that.”
“What’s your name?” I asked. “Not Cesare, the other one.”
I had nothing to lose. Why not ask?
“Vincent.”
“Vincent…what?”
“What’s it to you?”
“I like to know the name of the man before I end his life.”
Cesare roared with laughter. “Girls got balls.”
“You plan on killing me, eh?” Vincent asked.
“The first chance I get.”
CHAPTER 8
I was escorted—and by escorted, I mean Cesare had me by one arm, and Vincent by the other—into a building of some kind, possibly a house. The way everyone’s voices carried, if it was a house, it wasn’t a small one. On the way inside, I heard a gate open and close. Wherever I was, it wasn’t the woods.
I was taken to a room, strong-armed onto a chair.
“Don’t make any stupid moves,” Vincent said. “There are two men at the door. You seem like a smart girl. I don’t need to explain what will happen if you’re dumb enough to think you can get out of here. You’ve got nowhere to go.”
The door closed.
I waited.
“Is anyone there?” I asked.
No reply.
I raised myself off the chair a few inches, tested the waters.
“Sit back down,” a male voice said.
The voice was male, someone other than Vincent or Cesare.
I sat. “Who are you? Why am I here?”
The door reopened. I heard the distinct sound of women’s heels clacking along the stiffness of a solid floor. A heated exchange ensued between the woman and two men. Several sentences were shouted in Italian followed by the woman switching to English, saying, “I said do it! Now!”
A few more minutes passed. I had no idea who was still around and who wasn’t. Something rattled on the floor next to me. A cool, damp cloth was applied to my leg, dipped into water, wrung out, and applied again. Scissors sliced through the zip-ties. I was free.
“Who are you?” I asked. “Why are you helping me?”
“I’m so sorry, Sloane.”
Her voice. I recognized it. I’d heard it before. I lifted the mask from my head, saw the long, raven-colored hair flowing past her shoulders. I blinked a few times, allowed my eyes to shift back into focus. “Daniela?”
Daniela was the sister of my ex-boyfriend, Giovanni Luciana. He ended our relationship shortly before his brother, Carlo, an FBI agent, was gunned down on a case Carlo and I were working together. I was present when Carlo died. I witnessed his death. My inability to save him haunted me even now, hovering over me like a bad habit I couldn’t break.
The split, while initiated by Giovanni, was a choice he made after the choice he’d already made to get close to me, but not too close. I’d long suspected Giovanni of having a secret life, a life outside of the one we’d been building together. At the time, part of me didn’t want to know the truth. Another part of me knew I had to know. I just had to. I’d never stop wondering unless I did. Never fully trust.
In an ongoing effort to get to know him better, I pushed. Asked questions. Never received the answers I wanted. Not from him anyway. Daniela had been the one to set me straight, the one to confirm her brother was the man I’d suspected he was all along. The mob, while diminished and not as talked about, was still alive and well in New York City, among other places. And my sweet, loving Giovanni wasn’t just part of it, he was the underboss, first in line to assume his father’s position as the head of the family.
In truth, if Giovanni hadn’t ended things, I would have. He knew the choice he had to make, and he made it. I’d never look at him the same way again. Never trust him again. That part of my past was over.
“What the hell is going on?!” I questioned. “Why go through all the trouble of staging a kidnapping when you could have just picked me up and brought me here?”
“Trust me … none of this was supposed to happen. Giovanni sent Vincent and Cesare to pick you up. No harm was supposed to come to you. I swear.”
“No harm? You saw what those two idiots did to me.”
She started to speak then halted when a pair of muscular men entered the room, their hands wadded around the back of the shirts of Vincent and Cesare, who walked in front of them. Vincent and Cesare were thrust down, knees smacking the ground as they were forced to kneel before me.
Giovanni walked in behind them, arms folded, his eyes screaming a kind of internal rage he was fighting to keep suppressed. He looked at me, at the cut on my leg, the zip-ties littering the ground’s surface. He questioned Vincent and Cesare about what happened, why I’d been tied up.
“We just did what you said,” Cesare said. “Picked her up like you wanted.”
“I asked you two to escort Miss Monroe back to the house, not turn it into some kind of circus event.”
Giovanni gave a slight nod to the muscle men. They began kicking Vincent and Cesare from behind. Once, then again, and again.
“Giovanni, stop! Please,” I begged. “Don’t do this. I’m fine.”
It was if I hadn’t spoken at all. He didn’t look at me. Didn’t acknowledge me in any way. His attention remained focused on Vincent and Cesare. “Did I ask you to tie her up, to cover her face? Did I?!”
“She resisted,” Cesare said. “We didn’t know how else to get her into the car. What were we supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to accompany her to the car and drive her here, unharmed,” Giovanni replied. “You’ll both apologize to Sloane.”
Vincent immediately followed through with Giovanni’s request. Cesare glared at me, offering a look that said any kind of apology was beneath him.
“You’ll apologize, Cesare,” Giovanni repeated. “Now.”
Cesare grunted the weakest apology known to man. He was told to say it again. I’d had enough.
“Everyone out,” I said.
Every man in the room appeared to hold their breath at the same time, appalled I’d made a command in front of their fearless leader. I revolved around, looked each one of them in the eye. I walked up to Cesare, dug my hand inside his pocket, yanked my phone out. I got within a couple inches of his face. “I said … GET … OUT.”
Giovanni flicked his wrist, and the men filed out of the room, heads shaking, eyes wide with disbelief.
I looked at Daniela. “You too.”
“We need to talk,” she said.
“We will. Later.”
I waited until the room was vacated and then did what any woman in my position would do. With all the force I could muster, I struck Giovanni across the face.
CHAPTER 9
“Get that ridiculous grin off your face,” I said. “None of this is funny. I thought I was being led to some abandoned forest somewhere where I’d be raped, murdered, left for dead, buried. Do you have any idea what that feels like? What it does to your mind?”
I talked and simultaneously texted Maddie at the same time, telling her I was all right, urging her to go to the hotel. I’d meet her there later, explain everything.
“It was never my intention for you to get hurt. They were rushed. They didn’t understand my instructions. I apologize for the way you were treated, cara mia.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said.
He leaned against the wall, pushing the tips of his fingers into his pockets.
“Why did you send those two jerks to pick me up in the first place?” I continued. “And why not have them tell me who they were and avoid all the confusion?”
“If they told you the truth, would you have come here, willingly, without question?”
He was right. I wouldn’t have.
“How did you know I was here, where I was staying?”
He took his time before answering. “Why is it all roads lead right back to you?”
If he believed there was any road, anywhere on earth that would repair the damage of the past and put the two of us back together again, he was mistaken. “Answer the question.”
“What are you doing here—in New York City—with Madison?”
My turn to play coy. “It’s none of your business.”
“You just spoke to the police, which makes it my business.”
“Is Rachel, or whatever her name is, your business too? Was it you? Did you have her killed?”
“Is that how you see me, as some kind of killer?”
Round and round we go.
“Aren’t you?”
He moved behind a desk, sat in a brown leather chair, laced his fingers together. “I never lied to you about who I was.”
“That’s right. You don’t lie. You hide things. And then you convince yourself there’s a difference between the two.”
“Even after all this time, you’re still upset.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’ve been fine for a while now.”
“Is that why you ran to Wyoming, into the arms of the country lawman?”
I closed my eyes, felt a staggered breath escape my lips. “Leave Cade out of this.”
“Who’s hiding things now?”
“The life I lead doesn’t involve you anymore.”
“If that’s how you truly feel, I’ll respect your wishes. Now you must respect mine. I need you and Madison to leave New York City immediately.”
“Tell me why,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I can’t.”
I spread my fingers, raised my hands in front of me. “Then I can’t leave.”
He slammed a fist down on the desk. “You must. It’s for your own safety. Don’t test me.”
He wasn’t getting what he wanted. A rarity.
“Did you kill Rachel?” I asked. Again.
“I did not.”
I realized the question itself was open to interpretation. Maybe I needed to ask it in a different way.
“Did you have her killed?”
He shook his head.
“Who did? Rocco?”
He raised a brow, surprised I spoke his name so freely. “I’ll ask you once more to leave the city. If you don’t, I’ll put the two of you on a plane myself.”
“And I’ll come right back. I’m not leaving here without answers.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but you won’t get them.”
“Do what you have to do,” I countered. “I will find out who she is, and I will find out what she was doing at that hotel tonight.”
A bookcase on the left side of the room opened, and Daniela stepped out from behind. “The girl in the hotel. She worked for me. For us. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.”
CHAPTER 10
Giovanni aimed a finger at Daniela. “Not another word.”
“Not another word?” she responded. “This concerns me too. You can’t keep me quiet like you can everyone else, Gio. This is our family we’re talking about. Our life. My life. Yours. Our future. Our children’s future.”
Children? Did Giovanni have kids?
“Sloane doesn’t need to be caught up in this. It’s not her affair.”
“Why are you discussing me like my choices are your decision? When you made the decision to bring me here, your problem became mine.” I turned to Daniela. “I’ve seen three dead bodies in the last several hours. What’s going on?”
Giovanni and Daniela faced one another, engaging in some kind of silent stare-off to determine whether the truth was about to be unraveled or not.
Daniela spoke first. Of the two, she’d always been more outspoken. “I’m telling her.”
Giovanni exhaled a long, unsatisfied breath. He turned toward me. “If we tell you, will you leave New York City?”
“I’ll consider it.”
The words “I’ll consider it” carried the same kind of weight a mother’s did when responding to a child asking the same question for the twentieth time. Translation? No.
My answer didn’t please him.
I didn’t care.
Daniela motioned to a pair of chairs perfectly aligned next to one another in front of Giovanni’s desk. “Sit down, Sloane. Please.”
I sat. She did too. Giovanni fidgeted, tapped his thumb and pointer finger on the desk. He was used to control, used to having it, always remaining in charge. I wondered how it must have felt for him to be spiraling out of it.
“About six months ago, our father was shaken down by the feds,” Daniela started. “Since our brother Carlo died, we don’t have anyone on the inside. We’ve lost our FBI connection. Our family is unprotected, vulnerable.”
“What do you mean shaken down?”
“The feds can prove our family is tied to online sports gambling.”
Sports gambling? Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned murder? Seasons change, decades change. It was possible their organization had changed, evolved with the times. In their father’s lifetime, I couldn’t fathom the amount of dead bodies he must have racked up over the years, whether by his own hand or by ordering someone else to do it for him. Recently, their father had even threatened my own life, alluding to what would happen if I didn’t steer clear of Giovanni. I was a disruption, a distraction, the one woman who’d almost managed to convince Giovanni to give it up, run away from it all. Almost. “Sports gambling doesn’t seem so bad. What’s the punishment?”
“Worse than you think.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The truth is, they don’t want to put him away at all. At his age, he’s a small blip on their radar compared to what he used to be. It would almost be a waste of time.”
“Why are they pressing him? What do they want?”
“To make a deal,” Daniela said.
“For?”
“Rocco.”
It made sense. Why go after aged meat when fresher is better?
“So they approached your father—what did he say?”
“He said no,” Daniela said. “He’s never squealed on anyone a day in his life. He’s not about to start now.”
“How did that go over?”
“They arrested him just to give him a taste of how serious they were. Dad’s free now. We got him out, moved him somewhere safe while we sort everything out. But his freedom won’t last. We’re running out of time.”
I thought about their father, a dominating tormentor who had an air about him like he was untouchable. The thought of him wasting away in a cell suited me just fine. The thought of Daniela and Giovanni suffering because of it stirred what litt
le feelings for Giovanni I still had left.
“Why did they come to you, instead of asking someone else? Why your family?”
For this answer, Daniela turned to Giovanni. He released another hefty breath. For a minute, I thought he wouldn’t answer the question at all. Then he said, “For the most part, the businesses we operate are legitimate, clean. This keeps the focus off of us and transfers it to families the government would rather invest the time and money in to take down.”
“Rocco’s running heroin,” Daniela stated. “And not just any heroin—heroin spiked with lethal amounts of fentanyl.”
“Excuse my ignorance,” I said. “I’m not familiar.”
“Fentanyl is an opiate. It’s eighty percent stronger than morphine. Even the smallest dose can be fatal. We were told the supply Rocco is dealing is half fentanyl, half heroin. Users shoot up, never knowing how much of the opiate has been mixed with what they assume to be straight heroin. Most have no idea about the risk they’re taking.”
“Shouldn’t this be a DEA issue, not an FBI one?”
“People are dying,” Daniela said. “And not just a handful. Several handfuls. The FBI and the DEA are working together. That’s how bad they want it stopped.”
“If they know Rocco’s distributing the drugs, why not arrest him?”
“Rocco only acts as distributor,” Daniela said. “They want to identify the source, find out where the drugs are coming from, how they’re being smuggled into the states. Arresting Rocco might stop one man, but it won’t stop the entire operation. Head of the Romano family or not, if Rocco goes down for this, someone else in his family will step up to the plate. He’ll be replaced. They’ll lose a day, maybe a few days, and then the drugs will find their way to the street again through someone else.”
CHAPTER 11
Daniela had hired Misty Coulter, a.k.a. Rachel, several months back. She’d known Misty for a couple years. They’d taken spin class together at a local gym downtown. Several months earlier, Misty confided she’d lost her job. She joked to Daniela, saying she’d do “just about anything” to make ends meet. If she didn’t, bankruptcy was her only way out. Too bad she didn’t realize her end would meet a lot sooner than she planned.
Sloane Monroe 5.5-Flirting with Danger Page 3