“You were on TV about that niece of yours. I need to make some charitable donations. I could use some suggestions.” George spread his hands.
“I might have a couple for you,” Ian said slowly. His stomach churned at the thought of taking this guy’s cash, even for charity. Still, if he was going to get to the bottom of this, he’d need to play along.
“Tell Taylor, and I’ll have her handle it then.” George grinned and grabbed his cell phone, tapping at the screen.
“How long has Taylor been with you? I didn’t find much on her.”
“Oh, she’s as good as they come. Really helped me out when my last assistant couldn’t handle Stacey. Taylor was a friend of a friend of a friend. Good girl.”
“How long has she been with you?”
“Oh, eight weeks or so? Not long, but she fits here, you know?”
It’d been maybe five weeks since that night at the bar. He’d need to create a timeline. Either he had an unwise fixation, or Taylor was smack dab in the middle of all this.
Ian heard the office door open. He didn’t dare turn around. She had to be staring daggers at him.
“Yes, sir?”
“Taylor, get one of the guest rooms ready for Mr. Kelly. He’s going to be coming on staff for a little while. You can get him set up, can’t you?” George stood and shrugged into his suit jacket. “I’ve got a meeting to get to. Will you be here tonight, or starting in the morning?”
Ian shoved the files into his briefcase and stood.
“I should be able to get things situated tonight so I can start tomorrow.” Ian turned, catching a glimpse of Taylor out of the corner of his eye.
If he had to guess from her stiff posture and frown, she wasn’t excited about this turn of events. Because she thought he was a threat? He hoped that in time she’d see him as an ally, and that she wasn’t involved in whatever the hell was going on.
3.
Julia Lucchese skipped the elevator and took the stairs down to the basement, her heels clicking on the concrete.
“Are you sure?” She glanced over her shoulder at the man who was quickly becoming her right hand. She would need to kill Ciro Merlino before much longer. He was a man with ambition, which she appreciated—to a point.
“Our guy said he saw Taylor a week after Vito was supposed to off her. I saw the pictures. Taylor’s alive.” Ciro was a large man with a nose that’d been broken one too many times and a to-the-death loyalty to the family. He was some sort of second or third cousin to Julia’s late husband, but the way he looked at her, it was clear that he had eyes on becoming husband number four.
Julia kept her curses to herself.
Taylor.
That bitch couldn’t even die properly.
Julia should have known Taylor wouldn’t be that easy to get rid of, but Julia had other problems to deal with, besides her errant step-daughter. Like keeping her seat of power in the family. She’d worked hard to claw her way to the top of the Lucchese family, even going as far as to ensure the death of the previous Mrs. Gaetano Lucchese. Now it was Julia’s turn for control, and that whore of a step-daughter would not take it from her.
If Julia didn’t plug this hole soon, if anyone outside of her inner circle found out all of the financial records were gone, she wouldn’t just lose her seat at the table, she’d likely lose her head, too.
A young man sat tied to a chair in the remodeled basement. Her deceased husband had put in another layer of concrete to hide the years of caked-on blood. Mobsters couldn’t just beat a guy up in the streets anymore, they had to do it in private.
“Vito, Vito, Vito.” Julia came to a stop a few feet away from the young man. Sweat dampened his brow, and someone had given him a shiner.
Vito was her nephew by marriage. His dad was in prison and his mother was likely hopped up on pills. He’d been a permanent fixture in the house ever since Julia started her campaign to become Mrs. Lucchese. He was a spineless young man who at least knew to do what he was told. Or at least that was what she’d thought. Had he really let Taylor go and lied to Julia’s face about it for over two months? There was only one thing to do with someone like that.
“I hear things, Vito.” She planted her hands on her hips and stared into his one good eye. “I thought I could rely on you.”
Julia had picked Vito for the job because of all the family, he was the one Taylor wouldn’t suspect.
“I—I don’t...please, ma’am? I didn’t do anything. You got to believe me.” Vito pulled at the cuffs holding him to the chair, a desperate, wild look in his eye.
“That’s the point, Vito. You didn’t do what you were supposed to. Tell me this” —she leaned forward, gripping the back of his chair and getting up in his face— “did you really kill my step-daughter like I told you to?”
“I did. I brought back her heart, just like you asked me for.” Vito’s face creased and he stank of fear.
He’d always been a painfully sweet boy. Which was why she’d been surprised when he’d shown up with a mangled heart in a bag as his proof that Taylor Lucchese, mafia princess, was dead.
“Ciro?” Julia straightened and crossed her arms over her chest. “Get the heart out of the freezer. Have someone look at it. And check again to see if Taylor’s body has shown up.”
Vito’s eyes went wide.
Why? Because Taylor wasn’t really dead?
Julia was beginning to believe that. Despite Taylor’s errant ways and attempt to rat out the family, there were still people who believed her blood was more important because her great-something-or-other was the first Colombo boss.
Taylor was the worst kind of rat. The one who turned on her family. Her blood. The very people who’d raised her. The families might not be as tightly woven as they once were, but when it came to dealing with people like Taylor, they would come together. Anyone who opposed Julia unseating Taylor as the presumed head of the Lucchese family would do the right thing and support Julia now, especially when she told everyone the truth. The girl had never cut her teeth in the business. She’d turned her nose up at it, while Julia had nurtured her husband’s work, helping him in all matters.
“Where’s Vito’s phone?” She was pretty sure she’d find some sort of damning evidence on it.
“Here.”
“Oh, you’re on our family plan, are you, Vito?” Julia smiled.
Last year, she’d kindly made the offer to foot the bill for people’s phones, calling it a work expense. The truth was, people were so damn connected via their mobile devices that if she wanted to have proper tabs on her acquired family, then she needed a leash.
“T-that’s personal,” Vito stammered.
“Here’s a lesson for you, young man. I’m the head of this family. You don’t get to keep things from me.” She pulled out her phone and brought up the network app, the one that gave her a backdoor access point to all connected devices.
With a flick of a finger she disabled the password keeping her from Vito’s phone.
“Let’s see what we have here, shall we?” Julia smiled, but it wasn’t kind.
Vito had betrayed her. The spineless coward. If he’d do that, what would the rest do? She’d known her hold over the Lucchese clan wasn’t complete, but this was a slap in the face. She’d needed something to go right, but damn it, even this simple job was blowing up in her face.
Why was blood more important than talent? Didn’t the Commission see that Julia was willing to do everything for the family? And yet, because Colombo blood ran through Taylor’s veins, they considered her more important.
It was enough to create a damn wrinkle in Julia’s Botox.
She tapped the text messages and scrolled.
A dozen or so messages down was one to a Jane Doe.
Really?
Julia tapped the string of messages.
“She-she got away from me. I didn’t want to admit it. I mean, a girl knocked me out. How embarrassing is that, am I right?” Vito glanced up at her, his face twist
ed into a painful expression.
“Two months ago, Julia wants me to take you out...for ice cream.” She began pacing as she read the exchange.
Julia didn’t need confirmation that the heart in the walk-in freezer upstairs wasn’t human. No, she had all the evidence she needed right here to prove that Vito, of all people, had betrayed the family to help a rat. With each message documenting their plan to fake her death and secure an anonymous trip away from New York, Julia’s blood pressure rose.
“Love and miss you. You sent that to her today.” She turned the phone and shoved it in Vito’s face. “You’ve been lying to me all along.”
Vito stared up at her with the same eyes as her dead husband.
Things would have gone so much easier if Julia hadn’t lost her temper and killed the old bull.
Vito, though... He was such a young, stupid boy. But he was a Lucchese, and in this world, that meant something.
“Did you think she would care about you?” Julia leaned in close once more. “Did you think she loved you? Let me tell you a secret about my step-daughter. She’s a selfish cow who could never love a pathetic piece of shit like you. At least Taylor has balls. I’ll enjoy taking care of her. You?”
“Ma’am, please?”
Julia wanted so badly to kill him, but she was already in enough hot water over Taylor and there were whispers about her husband. Julia needed to be careful. And that meant not killing this pathetic excuse for a human being. The only thing keeping Vito alive was his last name.
“You’re going to be my guest for the foreseeable future, Vito. Hope you’re comfortable.”
She turned and strode toward the stair, not seeing it.
The mafia was still a network of families with supervising bosses, underbosses and capos. The Commission was the board of bosses from the five head, families who governed their lives. To them, the patriarchy and blood were important. Julia was a threat because she was female and ambitious. So long as her late husband was the face of things, they’d all gotten on well enough, but without him in the picture, was the old boys’ club feeling the heat?
The easiest solution was to marry Vito and make him her figurehead. That would appease their male pride, but damn it, Julia did not want to be saddled with yet another useless dick. At least Vito was fit and young. Physically, he was several steps up from the older Lucchese model, but he would never be a partner. Not one like she deserved.
Ciro was more like it, but he was too much like her. Ambitious, and with eyes on the ultimate prize: working his way up to be a boss.
Julia had spent too long making another man look good to give up now. She wanted a seat at the table of the Commission for herself, and no one else.
Taylor laid in the grass watching the clouds roll in overhead. It was going to rain soon and then she’d be stuck cleaning up puppy poop indoors. She wanted to enjoy the dry ground for as long as it lasted.
One puppy was trying its best to steal her shoe, while two others were slowly forgetting they were play-fighting as they slumped against her side.
If only life were as simple for her as it were the pups.
Hell, she’d settle for a boring, routine existence.
How long until someone from the family found her? Until there was a bounty on her head? Until she couldn’t afford to pay the blackmail to keep people quiet?
Eventually, someone would talk, and she wasn’t sure George would deter them from coming after her. She’d had this misguided idea that George was a west coast powerhouse who would scare the family, that they wouldn’t want to cross George. She’d been wrong. About a lot of things.
It’d been so simple in the beginning.
Do the right thing.
That was all she wanted to do. As if that would make up for generations of troublemakers, killers, gangsters, and thieves. She’d been so stupid. So naive.
The chunkiest puppy lurched to his feet at her side, growling and yapping toward the house.
“Grumpy, shh.” She stroked the little dog’s back.
“How do you tell them all apart? They all look the same to me.”
She peered up at the figure silhouetted against the house.
Well, fuck.
Taylor had been so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t heard Ian’s approach.
“Hey, little dude. Hi.” Ian knelt and reached over the corral fence to offer his hand to Grumpy.
The puppy growled at the proffered hand while Bashful and Doc pounced on Ian’s fingers. They were more like kittens than pups.
“Some fierce guard dogs you’ve got here.” Ian chuckled, that sound stirring up memories.
How long until he figured her out? She’d been positive that the background check would yield some damning evidence. Yet, he didn’t seem to know the first thing about her.
“I’m goin’ to be around for the next two weeks, lookin’ into those threats George got. I thought...maybe we should get on the right side of each other. I want you to know I mean to do what’s best for you and Stacey.”
Taylor swallowed.
He thought she was an innocent in all of this, when in reality, those threats were for her. Could he save her from herself?
“Mind if I join you?” Ian stepped over the fence without her permission and sat next to her, much closer than he had to.
She didn’t need to ask to know that Ian had a law enforcement background. It was in the way he acted, how he asked questions. He should suspect her. If she hadn’t met him at that bar, if she hadn’t lost her head and spouted her fears, maybe he still would.
“How’d you come to work at a place like this?” Ian’s voice was softer, the question genuine. It didn’t mean the answer wasn’t dangerous.
“I didn’t have a lot of options. A friend of a friend got me a lead on a job here, and I took it.” Bits of truth layered in lies. That was how she had to spin this.
Ian was going to be here. She had to deal with that, no matter what. George would pay her Friday. Once she had some cash in hand, she could see what doors might open for her. Canada was an option, maybe somewhere in Europe, but what then? She couldn’t just return the files and pretend like her plan hadn’t been to turn the whole family in all along. The moment she popped up on someone’s radar, she was as good as dead.
“There’s a lot of other jobs you could do. I could point you in the direction of a few.” Ian tickled a puppy’s belly.
“Don’t pretend I’m a good person, Ian.” She stroked Sleepy’s back. “Just about everyone under George’s roof is a bad person.”
“Good people do bad things sometimes.”
“I’m not good.”
“People rarely see the good in themselves when they’ve hit rock bottom.”
She chuckled. He had no idea how rock bottom she was.
On the run from her own family. Turned on by the FBI. And what little she had went to paying off the rats who would eventually turn on her. If things could get worse, she hoped she didn’t survive that long. A surprise execution would be a mercy at this point.
“Maybe you think there’s nowhere for you to go, but I promise you there is. Whatever’s goin’ on, I can help you.”
Taylor closed her eyes.
She’d heard those words before, from a well-meaning twenty year old.
Her ex-husband was like Ian. He’d wanted to rescue her, and she’d thrown herself at the first Prince Charming with dented armor and a lame horse. What a mistake that’d been. No, she had to save herself. Which meant using whatever came her way.
Ian was a man with the means and drive to protect.
Her conscience said to push him away for his own good. Because that was the right thing to do. But that sort of thinking was what had gotten her into trouble in the first place. If she were being as cutthroat as she needed to be, she’d use Ian. She’d let him think he was saving her, and the whole time, she’d use his good intentions to build her a boat out of this mess.
God, she knew what she should do, what the easy w
ay was, and yet...this would destroy her a bit more. Was her life worth it? She still had the building blocks for a case that would bring down not only her family, but others. But who could she trust? Not the FBI. Not the cops. She’d tried those already.
He should have remained her bit of midnight comfort. She’d gone out that night, looking for someone to hold her, to chase away the shadows, and she’d found him. An Irishman with an easy smile, rough hands and a quick laugh.
Ian didn’t know what she was, that she was worse than George or any of his thugs by the simple virtue of her bloodline.
“I still want to call you Anne.” He chuckled. “Guess it wasn’t a total lie.”
“Anne was my mother’s middle name.”
“Yeah? She wonderin’ where you are?”
“She’s dead.”
“Sorry.”
“Me, too.” Taylor didn’t want to end up like her mother, which meant she had to do what she didn’t want to. Taylor had never understood the Catch-22 she grew up in until now. To keep the sister no one knew about safe, and to buy a little time, Taylor would have to seduce Ian. Blind him to the truth, until Taylor could get away.
4.
“Ian?” Taylor sat up, scattering the puppies.
“Hm?”
“I didn’t know who you were at the bar.”
“How could you? This job wasn’t even a job then.” He waved a bit of grass at a puppy.
“Right. I just...figured this must look bad.”
“Or it’s kismet.”
“That’s a scary fate.”
“Oh, come now. I’m not that bad-lookin’.” He made a face at her, the shadows playing to his favor.
Taylor chuckled, her nerves winding tighter.
Deciding she needed to seduce Ian and actually doing it were two very different things. What had happened at the bar was entirely driven by Ian. Oh, sure, she was the one who saw him first, but after sending him a beer, she’d chickened out. He’d taken the liquid invitation with both hands. Literally.
She could still remember the moment he’d slid up to the bar, looking at her like she was dessert, and sipped the gifted beer. There were very few times in her life she’d felt the immediate, chemical reaction as powerfully as she had in those moments. Looking into his bright eyes, she’d known she was in over her head with him, and she’d dived in anyway. The way he made her laugh, the gentle touches... She’d initiated it, but he’d sure as hell taken the lead. For a couple of hours, he’d swept her off her feet. Made her feel like a normal girl, at a normal bar meeting a guy.
Alpha Prince (Twisted Royals, #1) Page 3