Madame Moll (Gun Moll Book 3)

by Bethany-Kris

  She hadn’t.

  She wouldn’t.

  Not even today.

  Today the attorney Mac had hired would be speaking for her at arraignment. Despite not allowing her to call or see her husband, the pricks running the jail hadn’t been able to deny her right to an attorney. Melina glanced at the man now as she watched him walk into the courtroom. Short but stoic with sharp black eyes, Jonathan Olivera, was a man of few words, but he got things done. Her arraignment had originally been scheduled for nearly a week later. Jonathan had threatened to sue the entire police department and jail staff and had her arraignment immediately rescheduled … today. She would be the first one before the judge. A blessing and a curse. He walked over to where she stood handcuffed near a waiting guard.

  “Judge Allgood will be presiding over today’s proceedings. He has a reputation as somewhat of a hard ass, but I will do everything I can to try and get you released on bond.”

  Melina nodded, but dread tightened around her heart. It seemed she couldn’t catch a fucking break. Jonathan motioned for her to follow him to the podium where they would wait for court to convene. She did, looking around as the room started to fill up rapidly. The state attorney had already taken her spot at the podium across from them. Tall, thin, and brunette, the older woman stared at Melina like she was something dirty on the bottom of the woman’s shoe.

  Melina pointedly rolled her eyes.

  Her annoyance level rose as she noted members of the media slinking in with their cameras. They were like a bunch of damn hyenas waiting for something to feast on. In this case, it was her. Melina could see them practically salivating as they stared at her.

  “Ignore them. I didn’t think they’d bother to show up for an arraignment.”

  “They were at my last one. Sharks always smell blood in the water,” Melina said.

  Jonathan raised a thick brow, but before he could say anything else a door opened at the front of the room, and a uniformed bailiff walked out. The courtroom immediately became quiet.

  “All rise for the Honorable Judge, Theodore Allgood.”

  The old, white-haired man took his seat in the front of the room and motioned for the bailiff. Melina knew the drill. The judge would look over the docket before he’d call for the first case. A minute later Judge Allgood did just that. He didn’t even glance up when they called her name.

  A good sign.

  Maybe.

  Then her charges were read.

  That made him look up from his papers and scrutinize her. She didn’t melt under his gaze, but simply stared back without blinking.

  “And because of the seriousness of the charges leveled against her and the financial means Mrs. Maccari has at her disposal, the state moves to have bail denied. Mrs. Maccari is a flight risk,” the state attorney argued.

  “Mrs. Maccari is not a flight risk. What she is, is a wife and mother who never was allowed a phone call upon her initial arrest, and denied visits from her husband. She has an infant son at home waiting for her. Besides that, Mrs. Maccari does not even have passport. Circumstances being what they are, I believe my client is more than entitled to bail.”

  “These are serious charges. People like Mrs. Maccari pose a danger to society. If not a physical one, then definitely a moral one. It wouldn’t set a good precedent if we allowed someone like Mrs. Maccari, to be free on bail. Bail denied. Clerk, call the next case.”

  Just like that, she was dismissed.

  Just another case number.

  Just another criminal in the eyes of the law.

  Melina didn’t say anything as Johnathan placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry. I promise, I’ll fight this.”

  “No need,” Melina said.

  She turned as a guard appeared to lead her down the center aisle of the courtroom, past all the gathering onlookers.

  Another calculated move designed to remind her yet again, who really ran the show. Despite the whispers, Melina kept her head held high as she walked unhurriedly through the crowd. If they wanted to look, let them. Each step seemed to take her past someone more curious about her, than the proceedings that had already started again behind her. Melina didn’t bother to hide the annoyance that boiled her blood until she met a pair of hazel eyes.

  Mac.

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  Working to control her sudden, labored breathing, all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around her husband. His expression was grave as his eyes drank her in. Melina’s steps deliberately slowed. The guard, Johnathan, and everything else forgotten. She wanted to run to him.

  To feel his arms around her.

  To feel his kiss.

  To get lost in his scent.

  But she couldn’t. Instead she just stopped in front of him, her handcuffed hands held out in front of her. No doubt the cameras were trained on them, waiting for something to report. Some tidbit that they could turn into some salacious lie to garner more ratings for their subpar evening news.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Melina shook her head. “Don’t be. I …”

  Her words were cut off when something caught her eye near the doors as they opened. A pair of sly eyes met hers as the door closed. Melina’s nostrils flared and her hands clenched into fists. Truth dawned. In the midst of her incarceration, she’d given a lot of thought to her arrest. The real reason behind it, and why Anthony had been under constant surveillance in the first place.

  Anthony Corelli was an “alleged” crime figure, but he was hardly the highest profile Cosa Nostra member in New York. There were others that the cops could be watching more closely, but they hadn’t. Instead they’d chosen Anthony, specifically him coming and going in and out of her establishment. And there was only one reason he’d been there so frequently in the first place.

  Yes.

  Everything was clear now.

  “Get moving,” the guard growled at Melina, grabbing her arm.

  Mac made a move towards the guard, but Melina shook her head.

  “Beware of those who have offered help and kind words. It was here that our ruin was already set in motion,” Melina warned.

  And then she was dragged away by the guard, towards the doors and out of the courtroom leaving her husband behind. As the doors closed behind her, Melina was left with one last glance at Mac and Johnathan. She could only hope that Mac would piece together the meaning behind her cryptic words and understand what needed to be done next to save their family.

  Mac stood frozen in time as his wife was taken away from him yet again. It seemed like something in life was always scheming to take her away from him. When she was gone, his world was not right. Off-center, axis tilted, and on shaky ground.

  He hated it.

  All around him, noise continued to grow. The gathered reporters asking questions, and hoping for some scrap of information to be tossed their way. Like vultures. The judge, irritated that his courtroom had been turned into a three ring circus, banged on the large desk and again shouted for the next case.

  Mac was just … frustrated.

  Exhausted.

  So alone.

  “Did you catch those last words?” the lawyer asked.

  Mac passed Johnathan a look. He was a good defense attorney—worth his weight in gold, according to anyone Mac asked. His win to loss ratio was twenty to twenty-five. There wasn’t another defense attorney in the state with that kind of margin.

  He did not want Melina to fall on the losing side.

  Mac could not afford for her to.

  “Did you catch what she said?” Johnathan asked again.

  Beware of those who have offered help and kind words. It was here that our ruin was already set in motion.

  “I did,” Mac replied.

  In fact, Melina’s words wouldn’t get out of his damn head. All that she said, from beginning to end, rattled around in his mind. He took it in like gifts and soaked it up. He had no other choice. The fucking police weren’t giving his wife her ba
sic human rights in jail.

  “What did she mean?” Johnathan asked.

  Mac shook his head as he eyed the reporters. “I don’t know.”

  He hadn’t had the time to figure it out. It was still new words to him—something important. For all that she could have said to him, she chose something like that. Something vague when put against their current circumstances with no name attached, yet very pointed in meaning.

  Beware of those who have offered help and kind words.

  Who, though?

  Who betrayed them like this?

  A reporter came a few steps closer to Mac, and suddenly his fingers itched at his sides. He greatly wanted to take that fucker’s camera and smash it into bits when he threw it on the goddamn floor. Mac had already been pre-warned about the profile of Melina’s case, given the state of the Pivetti Organization, and the amount of attention that had been on it as of late.

  This was expected.

  He still hated it.

  “I have to get out of here,” Mac grunted under his breath.

  Johnathan’s hand smacked him on the back before the lawyer led him out of the courtroom. “Yeah, it’s not like we can afford for you to have your own set of charges at the moment, now can we?”

  “Ha, funny.”

  “I really wasn’t joking.”

  “Even better,” Mac deadpanned.

  Outside the building, Mac found it less circus-like. He and Johnathan stood behind a pillar as some of the reporters flooded the outside. Already, they were setting up their cameras, ready to go on live for the five o-clock news with their up-to-date information on the case.

  It was all bullshit.

  “Even if it does go to trial,” Johnathan said, dragging Mac’s attention back to the man, “it’ll be a hard one for them to prove without a body. It’s damn near impossible to prove murder without a body, and no evidence of a killing.”

  “The Dollhouse room,” Mac reminded him.

  “Technically, circumstantial. Like most of their case.”

  “It’s unlikely they’ve gotten this far with only circumstantial evidence,” Mac pointed out.

  “True. In cases like these, they almost always have a witness or two.”

  “A direct one?”

  Johnathan pursed his lips. “A mole, yes.”

  “We call them rats.”

  “Yes, well, should you find said rat,” Johnathan murmured, “It would be very wise to be rid of it. However, I would not want to know that was the case.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” Mac said, blowing out a hard breath.

  “Hmm, about what?”

  Mac nodded towards the circus of reporters. “In America, there have been far too many court cases tried on the steps of a courthouse instead of inside. Cases where a husband had a solid alibi, witness collaboration, no evidence of a crime, yet he was still the one put behind bars and crucified by public opinion when his wife’s body washed up on a shore. Or a child’s parents, indicted and almost charged because public opinion felt they were the guilty party simply because their red-rimmed, swollen-from-crying eyes could no longer produce tears for a camera five times a fucking day.”

  Johnathan cleared his throat. “Those are not no-body cases, Mac.”

  “Fair enough, but I don’t think they needed to be. I don’t think this one needs to be, either. Body or no body, it is the media and the amount of attention that can convict my wife on these steps before she ever gets her day inside that building. Make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “Perhaps you should help me out, then,” the lawyer suggested.

  “I will be doing just that.”

  It was a fucking guarantee.

  “Ma, you don’t have to—”

  “It’s fine,” Cynthia interrupted with a wave of her hand.

  She didn’t even look up from the counter she was wiping down. Every day for almost a week, his mother had shown up in the morning with food in hand, or bags of groceries to cook, and ready to clean.

  Or do something—anything.

  Sometimes, she came alone. Other times, she brought his sister.

  Mac was grateful, of course, and he loved his mother to death. He knew exactly what Cynthia was trying to do. She barely mentioned Melina’s current predicament because she had not been raised to do that sort of thing, but she was helping and supporting Mac through a difficult time in her own way.

  “I made two of those casseroles so you could have an extra,” Cynthia said as she wrung out the dishcloth. “It’s wrapped and in the freezer. Directions are written on the top.”

  “Okay,” Mac said.

  “It’s good up to six months in there, if you need it.”

  “Ma, it’s going to be fine. You know that, right?”

  Cynthia turned on her heel, and eyed the napping baby boy in Mac’s arms. “Will it?”

  “We’re working very hard to make sure it is.”

  “I’m sure you are, my boy.”

  Mac looked over his son’s peaceful expression. It was the only time the boy was peaceful at the moment. Marquise absolutely knew something was wrong in his small world. He absolutely knew someone important to his entire life and being was missing. Each time someone walked into a room, Marquise would light up. Quickly, that joy would fade when his son looked behind the new person in the room only to find his mother wasn’t following behind.

  And then the wailing would start.

  It was taking longer and longer to soothe Marquise during those spells. Each time his mother did not come when he thought she would, his tiny heart broke a little more.

  Mac was dying inside.

  For himself.

  For his son.

  For his wife.

  “It will get easier for him,” Cynthia said softly.

  Mac looked up from his son. “Will it?”

  “It did for you.”

  “Is it the same thing?”

  “Not at all,” Cynthia said in a long sigh, “but as a baby, at that age, your father was still very much around when he was not piddling our money away or sleeping off a hangover in someone else’s bed. You adored James. Lit up like a little angel whenever he came into the room.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “You would not have wanted to know.”

  “Fair enough,” Mac admitted.

  “And then he came less and less,” Cynthia said, “because we fought more and more, and his behavior became worse and worse. You would perk up at every person, and smile wide the way your father always liked, but it was very rarely him. You taught yourself not to get excited. You perked up less and less. There came a time when it was your father, but you were more interested in the noisy toy on the floor than your father asking for a smile.”

  “That’s … awful, Ma.”

  Cynthia smiled a sad sight. “Isn’t it? My heart hurt for you, and then again, for your sister.”

  Mac used the pad of his thumb to stroke along Marquise’s chubby cheek. “My father chose to do those things, though. This isn’t the same.”

  “Resentment can feel the same, especially when you are a young child who does not even understand what you feel is resentment.”

  Well, then Mac would make sure his son didn’t feel that at all. Or rather, that he didn’t have time to feel it.

  Knowing he wasn’t going to get his mother to leave anytime soon, Mac decided to go put Marquise in his crib and help Cynthia finish up cleaning. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do at the damn moment. A distraction was always good.

  He turned to head out of the kitchen.

  “Did she do it?” his mother asked very quietly.

  Mac hesitated in his steps. “Ma—”

  “I watch the news. I hear things from friends. I may not be a mob wife now, but I am still very much on the outskirts of that world, Mac. When I ask things, I would like an answer. When I ask, I intend to know.”

  “Sure, but …”

  “Did she do it?”

  �
��Only because I couldn’t,” Mac finally said.

  “I always thought there was supposed to be a reason why women did not involve themselves in their men’s affairs. Especially Mafiosi men.”

  Mac laughed dryly. “Melina is not like most women.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Where’s the principe today?” Enric asked. “I have to give my godson extra attention with his mother gone, don’t I?”

  Mac rolled his eyes upward, but smiled all the same. “Victoria took him out, actually.”

  “She’s not bringing him back, or what?”

  “I’m sure that’s crossed her mind.”

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know.”

  Mac glanced at Enric as the man wheeled his chair next to the table. Leaning on the island, Mac had a good view of the obvious displeasure in Enric’s features. He was not good at hiding how he felt in regards to Victoria, it seemed.

  “My sister blow you off, or what?”

  Enric frowned. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “If you say so …”

  “I said so,” Enric replied.

  So be it.

  “How’s Melina?” Enric asked after a moment.

  Mac sighed. “I haven’t seen her since the courthouse a few days ago. She was finally allowed to call Johnathan. She didn’t feel safe to talk as they had detectives on either side of her. She did tell him the same thing she told me, though.”

  “What is that?”

  “Beware of those who have offered help and kind words. It was here that our ruin was already set in motion,” Mac said, not able to forget the words. They slipped out far too easily. “I’m still trying to figure out what she’s attempting to tell me.”