Deadly Ink: A Dark Mafia Romance (Omerta Series Book 3)

by Roxy Sinclaire

  When we got to what would be my new apartment for an indeterminant amount of time, I was almost even more pissed off at how nice it was. It was just a one bedroom apartment, but it was spacious, especially for this city. It was immaculate with all new appliances and electronics. The pantry came fully stocked and the fridge was filled with beer. It was everything I could ever want.

  That’s why I hated it so much. I didn’t deserve fancy things like this. I had no money and no life. My shitty place in Vegas, as much as I disliked it, felt more like home than this place.

  “Who lived here before?” I asked John. “There’s no way that Giorgio bought this just for me.”

  “Don’t ask me questions, and I won’t tell you lies,” he answered simply.

  I rolled my eyes behind his back. I was getting fed up with this shit.

  “Is there anything else you need?” John asked. I could tell that he wasn’t amused that he had to play host to an underling.

  “Nope,” I replied coldly. “Except a few explanations might be nice.”

  “Your meeting with Giorgio is tomorrow. Be ready.”

  “What time?”“It’s not up to us. You just better be ready when it’s time.”

  “I’ll be right here, not moving an inch,” I said, trying to put a damper on my sarcasm.

  “Good,” he responded, matching my tone. He tossed a cell phone at me. It looked used.

  “This is yours for work purposes only,” he said. “Remember, you never want to be too specific when talking about anything.”

  “Can I use it to order pizza?”John looked at the fully stocked kitchen and then back at me. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  John turned to leave, clearly anxious to get back to his own life.

  “If you need anything, there are some numbers programmed into that phone. Don’t call Giorgio unless it’s an absolute emergency.”

  Then, he briskly walked out of the apartment and shut the door behind me. Once he was out of earshot, I stuffed one of the fluffy throw pillows into my mouth and screamed. I hoped I got a moment alone with Giorgio soon. I didn’t know how much of this I could take. It was one thing to relocate one of your employees. It was another to keep him under house arrest and leave him in the dark.

  Mom’s Drunk

  Sierra

  Thursday was my day off. Luckily, my work schedule was so insane that I managed to forget that I was pregnant a few times. The morning after I took the pregnancy test, I found a lab that would give me a blood test, just to confirm what I had suspected. Sure enough, I had a message on my phone midway through my shift, telling me that I was, in fact, pregnant.

  By that point, I had no feelings left to feel. I wasn’t really in denial, but I was too cool, even by my own standards. It wouldn’t be real to me until my body started changing. It wouldn’t feel real until other people knew.

  I still wasn’t ready to broach that subject with anyone. I hoped that my friends and family could chalk up my weight gain to stress eating and that I wouldn’t have to announce it until month five or so. Maybe by then, I’d have come to terms with the whole situation.

  For my day off from the hospital, I wanted to stay in bed all day and watch TV. My father had different plans.

  “Sierra,” he said cheerfully through the speaker of my phone.

  “Daddy,” I greeted him. I knew I was way too old for this pet name, but he loved it and I loved to make him happy.

  “Why aren’t you at work?”

  “Day off. What’s going on?”

  “I was going to see what your schedule was like. Your mother and I want you to stop by the house and have dinner.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I’m pretty tired.”

  “Please, darling? I want to hear all about your trip. I don’t think we’ve seen you in a month.”

  He was good at making me feel guilty. “Fine,” I said. “What time?”

  “Stop by whenever, but I think your mom is planning on finishing her cooking by six.”

  “Six it is,” I replied and hung up the phone.

  I carried on with my morning, eating my bowl of cereal in bed and surfing the web for baby supplies. I even read a few articles on childcare before slamming my laptop shut. It was just too much to think about.

  Even though I was a nurse and I’d helped women deliver babies, the thought of doing it myself was horrifying. I absolutely loved kids too and loved every shift in pediatrics that I was assigned to, but I didn’t have to spend my whole life with the kids. At the end of the day, I could clock out and go home. As a parent, that just wasn’t an option.

  I had always dreamed about having kids of my own one day, but when I imagined it, I was always married and the kids were planned. This was so different from my life plans that I didn’t know how to go with the flow. I lived my life by schedules and timetables. I wasn’t great at spontaneity.

  Around four that afternoon, I decided that I had done enough moping around and got ready to go to my parents’ house. They lived in a gorgeous mansion outside of the city limits, and if I hadn’t grown up there, I would have found the experience much more magical. But, it was home, and to a certain extent, home was comfortable. At the very least, I could burrow into my parents’ arms where everything was safe.

  Or so I thought.

  When I arrived, my dad greeted me at the entrance with a big hug. I rested my head on his chest and breathed in his cologne.

  Then, a crash from the kitchen sent my attention across the hall. My mom walked out, her typically perfect hair disheveled. Her mouth was stained a deep purple and her eyelids were drooping.

  “Your mother has had a little too much to drink,” my dad said nonchalantly. “The wine is supposed to go in the food, Alice, not in your mouth.”

  “Fuck off,” my mom retorted as she stormed back into the kitchen. She was usually so put together. It was strange seeing her this way. I knew she drank more than the average middle-aged woman, but she didn’t have to work. Every day was like a vacation to her.

  “Come, sit,” my dad said, motioning to the couch like nothing was wrong. “Tell me about work.”

  “It’s fine, I guess,” I said. “It’s a lot of hard work, though.”

  “I’m so proud of you,” he said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “But you know, if you ever decide it’s too much for you, I have some money set aside with your name on it that will last you quite some time.”

  “Thanks, Dad, but I don’t need it. I want to be a nurse. I really love it, but I’m just adjusting to my new schedule now.”

  “Okay,” he said, patting my knee. “If you change your mind, you can always come back home. Maybe you can talk some sense into that mother of yours.”

  My ears perked up. “What do you mean?”

  My mother has always been extremely practical and level-headed despite her lifestyle. Ever since I came along, she’s stayed at home. Even after hiring cleaning staff and nannies for me, she’s never really had a career of her own. She just never really needed to get a job. I never really asked her if she was happy this way.

  “She’s been a mess lately,” my dad said softly. “Drinking too much and yelling at me. The other day, she got so drunk that she fell down and hit the kitchen counter. Her eye swelled up like a balloon, all black and blue. Can you believe that?”

  “Seriously?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he sighed.

  I heard my mom coming around the corner, but that didn’t stop my dad from going on with his story.

  “I keep thinking, maybe if Sierra were here, she wouldn’t act this way. She’d try to set a good example for her only child, you know? I don’t know what to do with her anymore—she’s become difficult to deal with. I think it would really help her if we sent her to some rehab program upstate. She can have a little rest away from the booze, and maybe not act this way when she gets back.”

  My mom glared at him, her wine glass in hand. Wit
h a sudden burst of rage, she smashed it to the ground.

  “Do you know what would fix me?” she growled, pointing her long, manicured nail at my father. “A divorce!”

  She stomped away, leaving the shards of broken glass on the floor. I rushed over to clean them up, in case she came storming back in.

  “Leave it, Sierra,” my dad said wearily. “It’s not your mess to clean up.”

  “It’s always my mess to clean up,” I said under my breath.

  My biological need to take care of others was the reason why I was I became a nurse in the first place. I had something to offer people, whether it was my intelligence, my caring, or my cool head in a crisis. I wanted to give people everything I had when they needed it the most.

  But sometimes, I wished that there was someone to take care of me, too.

  “She’s not serious, Sierra,” my dad said, a grim expression on his face. “She gets this way when she drinks. You know that.”

  “I’m not sure that I did know that,” I answered. My mom drank, but I had never seen her this upset before. Why would she say she wanted a divorce if she didn’t mean it?

  I felt tears well up in my eyes, but I didn’t want my dad to see. I hated being vulnerable, a trait that I no doubt inherited from him.

  “I’m going to make sure the food isn’t burning,” I said, trying to keep my voice from cracking.

  “Good thinking,” he replied. “I think your mom went upstairs to rest for a little bit. We’ll let her sleep for an hour or so, and then she’ll be just fine. Besides, you might be an even better cook than your mom,” he said with a wink.

  “I learned it from you,” I returned with a half-smile.

  Once I was in the safety of the kitchen, I let a few tears loose and wiped them with the back of my hand. Now that my parents were a mess, there was no way I could tell them about my secret. I’d have to hold on to this one and wait for a better time to tell them about it. I just hoped that time would come soon—I hated keeping secrets.

  Fate

  Apollo

  When the driver stopped at a humongous house on the outside of town, I knew that we had arrived at Giorgio D’Angelo’s home. It was bigger than every other house on the block and it made me hate him even more. Some people worked hard for their money. Others just sat idly by and waited until their parents’ money magically entered their bank account. What Giorgio D’Angelo did was worse—he bullied and threatened people into giving him money to buy ridiculous properties to flaunt his wealth and power to the world.

  Just as he instructed, I waited at the back door of his house with John for him to come get me. No matter what I was doing, there was always waiting involved. I was getting really tired of it.

  Finally, Giorgio opened the door to his back garden and greeted us like old friends. He leaned over to mutter a few words in John’s ear, and then John turned around and left, returning to his car. We were alone.

  My hand slipped into the pocket of my jeans, feeling the knife that I purchased the night before. I wondered if today would be the day to seek my revenge.

  “How’s the apartment?” Giorgio asked me, the smug look on his face wanting me to be impressed. I couldn’t be rude to him, but I didn’t want him to think I was so floored by his generosity either.

  “It’s good,” I said casually. “The TV has a lot of channels.”

  He laughed. “I’m glad to hear it. I need you to follow me to my study so I can tell you about your new job. We must be quiet, though. My wife is sleeping in the bedroom upstairs and she is not pleasant when she gets woken up.”

  I dropped the knife. I couldn’t kill a man when his wife was home. How terrible would it be for her to wake up to find her husband covered in blood? I didn’t know the lady, but I bet I would be doing her a favor in the long run. Still, I couldn’t make that call. Not yet, anyway.

  Giorgio’s office was lined with bookshelves filled with leather-bound books that he probably never read. Like everything else in his life, it was all for show. His grand study probably went unused most of the time.

  I sat in an oversized armchair across from his desk. It felt strange being so formal about a job that would probably require me to punch people in the face.

  “Here’s the thing,” Giorgio said to me. “I need you to act as a bodyguard for a little while. I’ve gotten word that my daughter had some sort of relationship with a guy while she was on vacation. From what I heard, he’s probably no good, so I want to ensure that he doesn’t pop back into her life, okay?”

  “What do you need me to do?” I asked. This job seemed ridiculous, to begin with. How old was his daughter that she needed someone to make sure the guy she liked didn’t call her back?

  “Keep an eye on her. If you notice that she’s talking to any guy who looks a little rough, let me know. Basically, don’t let any guy come near her. If anyone gets too close to my little girl, you have my permission to break his balls. Got it?”

  I nodded. “Sounds simple enough.”

  “Perfect,” he smiled. “I knew I could count on you. I’ve always employed people close to my daughter to watch out for her. But, she’s older now and she’s caught on to what I’m doing. I thought it would be better if I hired someone she didn’t know. But, if she asks, I’m going to tell her that there are people unhappy with me and that she might be in danger. You cannot tell her that this is over some dirt bag from the desert. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I echoed.

  “Good. I’ll take you to meet her. She’s in the kitchen, finishing up dinner.”

  I followed him through the labyrinth of hallways until we reached the kitchen. A short girl with long, curly hair stood in front of the oven with her back turned to us. After everything I learned about Giorgio over the years, I bet that his daughter was a real piece of work. I knew that this job would be the worst one yet.

  “Darling, I want you to meet someone,” Giorgio said in a sickly sweet voice. “This is Apollo. He’s going to be your new bodyguard for a short while.”

  The girl swung around to face me and dropped her oven mitts on the ground. My hands started shaking uncontrollably when I saw her face.

  Giorgio D’Angelo’s daughter was Sierra from the tattoo parlor. I had one of the best nights of my life with Sierra D’Angelo, heiress to the D’Angelo family mob.

  “Dad,” she hissed. “What’s going on?”

  I tried not to make eye contact with her. If Giorgio found out that I was the one he wanted to protect her from, he would surely kill me. Then, all of the hard work I’d done over the past month would be for nothing. I silently pleaded with her to keep quiet. I think she felt the gravity of the situation from her end too because she avoided my eyes.

  “Is dinner ready?” Giorgio asked as if nothing had happened.

  “Yes,” Sierra stuttered.

  “Good,” he replied. “I’ll get your mother. Set the table for four. Apollo’s going to eat with us.”

  Never in my life had I felt so uncomfortable before, and I had been in prison for five years. There was nowhere to go, though. I was trapped. If I didn’t do this job—this meaningless job—then I’d be caught.

  Sierra waited until her father was out of earshot before whispering to me.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, panic in her eyes.

  I shrugged. “I can’t really explain.”

  Her dad returned with a thin, drowsy woman.

  “Apollo, this is Alice. Alice, this is the man that’s going to be watching after our daughter.”

  “Why do I need someone to watch me?” Sierra said, serving up portions of her pasta dish. “I’m an adult. I don’t think this is really necessary.”

  “There are dangerous people out there,” Giorgio replied. “These people want to try to scare me, and you’re my most valuable treasure. Apollo’s just going to hang around to make sure none of these psychos gets too close.”

  Sierra opened her mouth and closed it again. She looked defeated. I wondered if this
was a constant in her life.

  As different as my upbringing was from hers, I felt like she had it much worse. I didn’t have a lot of money, but at least I didn’t have to spend life wondering if someone was spying on me. I felt really sorry for her.

  But then again, if I didn’t have to turn to a life of crime to make ends meet, then I wouldn’t be in charge of protecting the boss’s daughter from myself. It was a strange position to be in.

  We ate dinner in uncomfortable silence, Giorgio completely oblivious to what was happening at his own table. If he could be this blind to what was going on right in front of him, I still had a little hope that I could make it out of this mess alive.

  What I didn’t expect, was for Sierra to look so displeased. Once the initial shock wore off, I thought she would at least be a little happy to see me. Instead, she wore a scowl on her face that frightened me a little.

  Before we parted ways in Vegas, I let her know that I didn’t have any intentions of making our hookup more than what it really was. But, I thought she agreed that it would never work and that we left on good terms. Apparently, she was still holding a grudge.

  While I did think about her from time to time, there was definitely no way we could make it work now. I would complete this job with the least amount of contact I could give to make it seem convincing, and then I would get the hell out of her way. This was more complicated than a one-night stand—this was life and death.

  Kissing Her

  Sierra

  I couldn’t even look at Apollo throughout the entire meal. I had completely lost my appetite, but I didn’t want my parents to think that something was up. I did my best to hide my scowl, but it was difficult. I was pissed.