“Damian Citrione?”
I clench my fists. I can already tell from the voice that it’s a cop or a fed. Still, I know better than to say anything, so I just wait.
“Right,” says the voice. It drips with condescension. “Your type always seems to think the law can’t touch you. Well, what would happen if someone tipped off the Anastasios or the Sanatores? What if they knew you were trying to get them to tear each other to pieces? Hell, what if a dead Ricci showed up and your prints were on the murder weapon?”
I squeeze the phone so hard that the glass screen cracks. This fucking… “What’s your name?” I ask. My voice is a hoarse whisper.
“Agent Conway. We’ll be getting to know one another very soon. Don’t worry about that, Mr. Citrione.”
“I don’t know who you think you’re fucking with, but I’m not the kind of guy you want to make an enemy of.”
“Maybe you should just start worrying about what’s going to happen when three of the most powerful crime families in the Northeast try to find a way to hurt you. Where do you think they’ll start?” I hear papers ruffling over the phone. “Miss. Beccaccio, is it?”
I hang up the phone and slam my fist against the freezer door, denting the thick metal and sending a jolting pain through my arm. Fuck. There’s no way the feds caught wind of our operation on their own. No way in hell. A sinking feeling in my gut tells me Greg was involved. It couldn’t have been Benny. If he was meeting with the Cristiano Ricci like Brooks thought, that could explain why they are tailing me. Even if he had a reason to, he wouldn’t dare go to the feds though. He’d be crucified before they could even start the witness protection paperwork.
I step out of the freezer and hear the faint sound of Callie humming from inside my office. Cold dread spreads through me. I know what I need to do. Agent Conway was right about one thing, if the families come after me, they will start with her. I can’t put her through that, not after everything she’s already been through. It hurts even more because I’ve never been so driven to keep someone safe as I am with Callie. It tells me that she really is more to me than just a casual fuck. She worked her way deeper in me than that, and now I have to throw away the only real connection I’ve ever had with a woman. It’s the only way to keep her safe.
I open the door and she looks up at me, smiling. “I made a Twitter account for the restaurant. Do you want to see our first official tweet?”
I take a deep breath. “I made a mistake getting involved. This won’t work. I can get you a few month’s pay, anything you need, but you have to go.”
Her face freezes, somewhere between shock and disbelief. “I don’t—what do you mean?”
“I mean it’s over. We’re done. You need to leave. You should go back home, just get out of town. I’ll make sure you have money until you find another job.”
She closes the laptop slowly, holding her hand on it and staring at the wall. Callie purses her lips, stands, and rushes from the room without another word. I watch her go, hoping I’m doing the right thing, hoping this is the best way to keep her safe.
10
Callie
I stare at the ceiling, feeling completely numb. I lost track of how long I’ve been here on Aubriella’s couch. I was going to just grab the few things I have and leave, but Julia saw the way I left and risked her job to leave the restaurant and come over to talk to me. My head is in her lap and she’s running her fingers through my hair. I don’t think about my parents much anymore, but her fingers on my scalp bring me back, reminding me of how my mom used to play with my hair while we watched TV.
“My mom used to run her fingers through my hair like this,” I say, closing my eyes. “Before everything went to shit.”
“What happened?” asks Julia.
I laugh humorlessly. “What didn’t? I was ungrateful, she was spiteful. We clashed. A lot.”
“What about your dad?”
“He was like her lapdog. Once she kicked me out, he disappeared. They both did. I had to grow up real fast. It’s how I ended up settling for a guy like Greg. I was seventeen, homeless, and about to graduate high school with no money to pay for college or a place to live. I was sleeping on friends’ couches and skipping meals to save money. It seemed like Greg had everything, money, connections, good looks...I actually thought I was lucky when he wanted to date me and solve all my problems.”
“Why did they kick you out?”
“My mom took out as much money in loans as she could under my name with no intention of paying them back. I even tried helping her pay them off but she just kept taking out more debt in my name as soon as I freed up the credit. When I went to the police about it, she disowned me, said I was ruining her life.”
“You have to be kidding,” says Julia. “She did that to her own daughter?”
“I wish I was kidding. I never would have ended up with a guy like Greg if they hadn’t kicked me out. Greg seemed like the answer to all my prayers. For a while I relied on him to pay for college, then he made sure I got a really good job with his father’s company, and then the house and bank accounts were in his name. I had everything, but I knew it’d all go away if I left him.” I sigh. “And then I caught him cheating.”
“Men are assholes.”
“So was the woman who thought it was okay to fuck him on our kitchen table.”
Julia laughs. “Good point.” She grabs a pillow and slips out from under my head, sliding the pillow in to take her place. “I think you could use another Cosmic Brownie.”
“Twist my arm, why don’t you,” I say, smiling.
She comes back with the brownie and a glass of water. I thank her and sit up, taking a long gulp of water.
There’s a look on Julia’s face when she sits down. She’s holding something wrapped in a paper towel. My stomach clenches when I realize what it is. I’ve been doing everything I can not to think about it, but seeing it in her hand is like a slap in the face from reality. I can’t just throw it away. I can’t hide from it. Somehow I know when she says what she’s about to say, it’s going to become real.
“Callie...I’m sorry for snooping, but I saw this when I went to throw away the brownie box.” She holds up the pregnancy test. “This is yours, right? It’s positive.”
Fresh tears roll down my cheeks. I nod my head, looking down and twisting my fingers together. “I don’t know if it’s his.” I say.
“Damian’s?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say, sniffing and wiping away more tears. “I never wanted children with Greg, but I caught him using a safety pin to poke holes in a condom once. I just...I don’t know.” I cover my face with my hands.
Julia sits beside me, hugging me tightly. “Hey. We’ll figure this out. Do either of them know?”
I shake my head. “I was going to tell Damian, before…”
Someone knocks at the door.
Julia hides the pregnancy test under a pillow and moves to answer it. I follow close behind, watching as she swings the door open to reveal two men in black leather jackets. “Oh,” says the first. He has a thick italian accent. My eyes trace his outline, noticing the bulge at his hip. A gun.
“Excuse us,” says the other man. He has the same accent. They both have dark hair and thick eyebrows. Brothers, maybe. “We must have the wrong house.”
Both men turn to leave, but one looks over his shoulder in a way that gives me chills. I don’t know what it means, but I have a feeling they knew exactly who would answer the door. I just can’t figure what message they were trying to send. Were they Damian’s people? Is he trying to make sure I leave? Or did he push me away because he’s in some kind of danger?
Julia closes the door and turns to me, giving me a puzzled look.
I hug myself tightly, wishing I could still go to Damian. I’ve known him for a little less than a month and he’s already upended my life. When it seemed like he wanted me unconditionally, it felt like I had all the time in the world to decide what I felt about him and how I wan
ted things to be between us. Now that he’s gone, all I can think of is how badly I wish I still had him. The way he ended things made no sense. One minute he was himself, and the next he was completely different, cold and uncaring. I don’t know who was on the other end of that phone, but I know they are the reason he threw me away.
“Thanks for agreeing to meet with me,” says Greg. He’s wearing a black polo with light pink khaki shorts and boat shoes. His blonde hair is slicked to the side and his face is clean shaven. I used to think he was attractive, now all I can see is his insecurity. He blinds everyone around him with money and hopes they don’t see through to the weakness beneath.
We’re in a small, family owned coffee shop. I chose somewhere public and busy on the off chance that Greg would try something stupid, like kidnapping me. There was also the distant creeping fear I felt after the two Italian men showed up at the house. Greg is drinking some foamy drink that took him several minutes to explain to the barista. I have a coffee with cream and sugar.
“I want to know what you did to him,” I say coldly.
“To who? That brute you were fucking?”
My fingernails dig into my knees beneath the table. With an effort, I control myself. “To Damian.”
The shadow of a self-satisfied smile flickers across Greg’s face, but he suppresses it, doing his best attempt at an innocent face. “I called a few people and got some information about him. I just wanted to learn more about this guy you were risking your future to be with. How much did he tell you about what he does?”
“He told me everything,” I say flatly. It’s a complete lie, but lying to Greg doesn’t feel wrong at all. It feels good, even.
Greg sniffs. “Right. So he told you about the drugs he was selling? Heroine, I think it was. You would know though, right?”
I shift in my seat. “He told me everything.” My voice is a little quieter this time. He could be lying. He probably is lying.
Greg senses my unease and his smile widens. “What were the charges again? Distributing narcotics to minors? Human trafficking? My memory is fuzzy, maybe you can remind me of the details?”
I slam my fist on the table, making Greg jump and several people turn their heads toward us. “Don’t fuck with me,” I say. “You cheated on me. You manipulated me for years. You didn’t want me when you had me, and now you’re just mad because you’re so fucking entitled that you can’t stand the idea of something that belonged to you being taken away. So drop the protective act. Quit pretending you care at all about what’s best for me.” And dear God, please don’t let this baby be yours.
He pulls his head back, lip twitching. He points his finger at me and opens his mouth to speak and then clenches his hand into a fist and grimaces. “I do care about what’s best for you. I’m best for you. That...thug certainly isn’t. I know that much.”
I push my chair back and stand. “That thug apparently agrees, because he fired me and told me he never wants to see me again. So you’ll have to find some other way to try to make my life miserable now. Just leave him alone.”
11
Damian
I push Ramirez up against the wall behind the restaurant. He’s got a few inches and a few pounds on me, but everybody knows not to fuck with me, and he looks as scared as he should be.
“What part of don’t buy anything excessive did you not understand?”
“I was going to buy a new car anyway, it’s only a few hundred a month more than the one I was going to get.”
“You bought a fucking eighty thousand dollar car. You think the feds knew you were planning on buying one anyway? You’re a fucking garbage man. Don’t you think throwing that kind of money around is going to set off some red flags for them?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
I grip his shirt tight, pulling my other hand back and trying as hard as I can not to punch him until he’s unrecognizable. I relax my fist, the only thing keeping me from violence is the thought of Callie’s face. “You should know because I told you. In plain fucking English. I didn’t even use any big words so there’s no reason it shouldn’t have sunk into your thick skull.”
He scowls. “So what am I supposed to do?”
“Get rid of it.”
“You know how much money I’ll lose if I sell it now?”
I jab a finger at him. “You’re going to lose a lot more than money if you don’t.”
I watch Ramirez leave a minute later, feeling empty inside. Before I met Callie, there was nothing I wanted more than to head my own familia. More than that, I wanted revenge against the fuckers who got me locked up. I don’t know how many times I pictured it: looking at the Sanatore rats tied up in chairs, bruised and bloody, sliding a gun inside their mouths one by one and pulling the trigger. If it wasn’t for the Sanatores, I never would have gone to prison, never would have become so distant with my family. They royally fucked up my life and they need to pay for that.
Now it all seems so distant. I still want to kill those pieces of shit, but it doesn’t seem as important anymore. I only had Callie for a little while, if I even had her at all, and now she’s gone. Losing her has made everything else seem less. I don’t know if I realized it at the time, but being with her made me start to picture a future where I could be happy, even if I never get the power and revenge I’ve been after.
If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that good things don’t last. Not for people like me, at least. Maybe I don’t deserve them. God knows I’ve done terrible things. Bloody things. Maybe this is my punishment. I get a taste of what life could be like for someone else, and then it’s ripped away.
My phone rings. I sit down on a crate behind the restaurant, sighing. Unknown number.
I pick up but don’t say anything.
“Cristiano Ricci sends his regards,” says the voice. It’s a calm voice, no accent. Not a voice I recognize.
“Is that right?” I ask.
“He has a proposition for you. Come to 1486 Leaf Street in thirty minutes and come alone.”
“How about I shove a stick up my ass and put an apple in my mouth too and save you assholes the trouble?”
“You won’t be harmed.”
I laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure. If he wants to meet me, he can find me at The Spot. If he doesn’t know where it is, he has thirty minutes to find out where it is and get here.”
I hang up the phone, letting out a long breath through my nose. It’s reckless to even agree to meet him on my own turf. The Riccis are about as trustworthy as feral dogs. At the same time, having a feral dog on my side when my back is against the wall might not be a terrible thing. It might even get the feds off my back some if the Riccis get into the fray. There will be so much blood in the streets that I’ll seem like a small fish. Maybe then I could try to patch things up with Callie. It’s a long shot. It’s reckless. But I don’t really have anything left to lose.
I’m about to give up waiting for Cristiano when I see a black sedan pull up to the restaurant. The place is relatively busy, which gives me a little confidence that the Riccis won’t come in and try to kill me. Not right now at least. It all depends on how much they know. If they think I’m just some small-time player who is in the wrong place at the wrong time, they might try to put me on their board and use me. If they realize I’m the one who is actually moving the pieces, things might get complicated.
A man in a white suit and sunglasses steps out of the car. He’s thin, in his forties with black hair that’s slicked back and wet with product. He pops the wrinkles out of his jacket and then strides toward the restaurant. I can see the vague outline of other people waiting in the car behind the heavily tinted windows.
Before he even reaches the restaurant, I see a black SUV slowly come to a stop across the street. Two guys in baseball caps turn their heads toward the restaurant. Feds. They are so fucking obvious it hurts, but I guess they don’t care. We can’t touch them, and they know it. I just wish I knew if they were watching me or Cristiano.
<
br /> He finds my table and sits down. If anyone in the restaurant knew how much potential violence was brewing, they would be trampling one another to get to the exits. They have no idea.
“Damian,” says Cristiano. “I’ve heard so much about you.” He has a subtle Italian accent and perfectly white teeth, except for a slightly yellowing canine that I can’t seem to look away from.
“Good things, I hope.”
He spreads his hands. “That depends whose side you’re on.”
“And whose side are you on?”
Cristiano leans back, twisting something on the watch he wears. The gears tick and wind as his manicured fingers swirl it again and again. “That depends. Who killed Carlito? Maybe you don’t know this, but his sister is married to my little brother. She was highly distressed when she heard the news.”
I nod. My mind races, running through the possible ways I could play this. On one hand, Cristiano may have already decided I killed Carlito. In that case, I’m fucked either way and he’s just hoping to figure out who I was working against. On the other hand, he might actually think I know something. If he takes my word for it, I have the opportunity to sick the Ricci dogs on the Sanatores or the Anastasios.
“What makes you think I know who killed him?” I ask.
“The feds seem to think you know.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Why would they tell you. Unless you’re ratting to them.”
Carlito’s calm evaporates in an instant. He leans forward, eyebrows drawn and lips curled. “I’ve killed men for less.”
“Yet here I am, still breathing,” I say. “I’m not interested in threats. If you want to fucking go, we’ll go. Otherwise, why don’t you just skip the tough guy shit.”
Carlito takes a deep breath, lips still twitching. “We have some connections. Money in the right hands.” He gives me an impatient look, clearly telling me more than he planned.
Mine (Citrione Crime Family #2) Page 7