Nico

by Sarah Castille

  “Hey, baby. What are you doing up so late?” He scooped her up and gave her a hug, careful not to bruise her. She was too thin, but it seemed no matter how much money he gave Ginger, Daisy never filled out.

  “Are you finished catching bad guys today? Did you bring something to eat?” She wrapped her skinny arms around his neck and bounced against him. “There was only beans in the cupboard for dinner today and I had them three times already this week for dinner.”

  “Ginger.” He shouted her name, both out of anger and because he knew she’d be in the bedroom with Gabe and he didn’t want that train wreck of a relationship in his face. “I got a sandwich in my bag. Daddy’ll feed you good.”

  He only ever regretted his career choices when it came to Daisy. He’d been undercover with the mob four years when he met Ginger in a bar and took her home for the night. The nature of his undercover police work meant he couldn’t have a normal relationship so he lived for his one-night stands. He hadn’t expected that one night to lead to a lifelong commitment in the form of a little girl.

  “Yeah.” Ginger stepped out onto the porch, and crossed her arms beneath her generous breasts, almost busting out of her hot pink tank top. Those breasts were how he’d wound up in her bed in the first place. Daisy was how he wound up in her life.

  “What the fuck did you do with the money I gave you last week? Daisy says you’re only feeding her beans.”

  Ginger didn’t even have the good grace to look guilty. Instead, she just shrugged. “Things are expensive. I gotta pay rent, utilities, car payments, the dog had to go to the vet…”

  “You took the dog to the vet instead of feeding our child?”

  “I knew she’d live. Scamper wouldn’t.” She gave him the look—that fucking look that drove him out of his mind, the look of a scheming woman who told a man she was on the pill when she wasn’t because he was the first decent man to cross her path and she wanted to keep him. “You got no right to come in here and criticize how I raise Daisy. You chose your work over raising your kid. The criminals of Vegas get to spend more time with you than her.”

  He hugged Daisy to his chest. “I told you a hundred times, Ginger. It’s not the hours. It’s the danger. I’m doing stuff that could come back on you and Daisy, and I don’t want either of you to get hurt.”

  She snorted a laugh. “What? You’re afraid someone’s gonna beat down our door ’cause you handed out a parking ticket? You just like to big yourself up when we both know you’re a nobody. A beat cop who’s never gotten off the street.”

  One day he’d tell her the truth. He’d tell her how he’d moved up quickly through the ranks of the Las Vegas police to become a detective, and how even that wasn’t enough to feed his need for adrenaline. He’d tell her how he’d been offered an undercover job, and after it was done, he was hooked because the rush he got when he was shoulder to shoulder with the criminals, walking their walk and talking their talk, was like nothing he’d experienced before.

  And he was good—damn good—able to fit into almost any social group, mimic their speech and body language, wear their clothes and drive their cars. No one had ever made him for cop, and no one ever would. He’d been undercover in the mob for ten years now, answering to another name, living another man’s life. Although he wasn’t a made man, he was a trusted associate. If they found out who he really was, they’d kill him where he stood. And then they’d go after his family—but only if there was a family to find.

  Which was why he’d given up custody of Daisy to Ginger. Now all he had were visitation rights—every Tuesday evening, and weekends, if he was free.

  The door banged and Gabe appeared in the doorway wearing only a ratty pair of sweatpants, a gold chain, and a ball cap. Ben had never seen him with his shirt on, and he felt surprisingly jealous of Gabe’s rippling muscles, giant revolver chest tat, and washboard abs. Sure, Ben kept himself in shape. Although he was undercover, old habits died hard and he’d never missed a workout when he was a uniformed cop. He still worked out every morning, and ran five times a week. But Ben wasn’t twenty-two any more. Nor did he take steroids that could be the only reason Gabe looked swollen like a circus balloon.

  Gabe threw an arm over Ginger’s shoulders and Ben caught the shadow of a tattoo on his arm. If he ever became a made man, he’d get a tattoo to mark the occasion, maybe a daisy for his daughter. Or not. As far as Ben knew, only one undercover cop had ever been made, and Ben was damn sure he would never be number two because his assignment was finally supposed to be coming to a close.

  “Ben.”

  “Gabe.”

  “Kinda late to be showing up to take our little princess out on the town. A person might think you don’t give two fucks about your kid.” Gabe lifted his chin toward Daisy, and Ben’s skin prickled. He’d had a bad feeling about Gabe the first time they met, and the feeling got worse every time Gabe looked Daisy’s way.

  “She’s my fucking princess, and I got no say when I gotta do overtime.”

  “Don’t swear in front of the kid.” Ginger lit a cigarette and leaned against Gabe.

  “I’m Daddy’s fucking princess,” Daisy said, delighted, knowing Ben wouldn’t correct her. She was smart for a six-year-old. She already knew how to work Ben’s guilt.

  “And pretty like her mama.” Gabe groped one of Ginger’s breasts, and she laughed.

  “We just went at it for two hours straight, and you’re wantin’ more?”

  Bile rose in Ben’s throat. He didn’t want Gabe thinking Daisy was pretty, or calling her anything other than her name. Hell, he didn’t want him anywhere near his little girl, but what the fuck could he do? He thought he was doing the right thing, giving up custody to keep her safe. Now he was beginning to think he had failed her.

  Gabe grinned. “Maybe Ben will take her out for a midnight ride and I can fuck you on that pretty princess bed he bought for her birthday.”

  Ben didn’t know if Gabe was a sick bastard or just messing with him, but unless he had probable cause he couldn’t touch the fucker, nor could he call his handler, Jack Freemont, and ask him to send someone to arrest Gabe for being a dick.

  Fuck. He needed to get out. Once the damn job was over, he would challenge the custody order. He’d go back to detective work. Regular hours. Steady income. Nice house in a nice neighborhood with good people around. No judge was going to deny him custody, especially after he explained how Daisy’s home life had gone downhill since Gabe came on the scene with a full-on swagger and a car full of blow.

  He checked his watch and shifted Daisy to his back so he could piggyback her to his car. He had a blue Volvo and a work truck he drove when he was in his Mafia skin, but when he drove out to the sticks to see Daisy, he used the Chrysler 300 the police had bought for him as a bribe the day he met Gabe and threatened to take Daisy and walk off the job.

  Although he loved the thrill of undercover work, Ben was tired. It was becoming harder and harder to file reports about the activities of guys he’d come to like and respect—guys who considered him a friend. Yeah, they did bad shit, but most of it was done to other bad guys, and you had to be in the life to really understand. If criminals were whacking criminals and civilians weren’t getting hurt, what was the benefit in locking half of them up? There would be an imbalance on the street, and that’s when civilians would be at risk. And wasn’t that supposed to be his job? Protecting civilians?

  “C’mon, baby.” He carried Daisy to his car. “We got about an hour before I have to go back to work. I’ll take you for a quick bite to eat and then I’ll bring you home and put you to bed.”

  “Don’t hurry back ’cause her bed will be occupied for a bit,” Gabe shouted after them.

  “I don’t like Gabe,” Daisy whispered as he helped her into the car.

  “I don’t like him either.” Ben didn’t believe in hiding things from kids. He figured they were pretty smart these days, smart enough to know if an adult was lying to them.

  “Can I come and liv
e with you?”

  He put her down beside his vehicle and crouched down on the sidewalk beside her. “I promise you, princess. As soon as my job is done, I’ll find a way to get you outta here. We’ll leave the city and go someplace where it’s green all year ’round and there’s trees and lakes and you’ll never eat another can of beans again.”

  “As soon as all the bad guys are in jail?”

  Ben opened his mouth to say yes, but nothing came out. He’d collected enough evidence in his first few years undercover to convict the top Vegas mafia bosses of multiple crimes. But the top brass in the police department had done fuck all with it. Whether it was greed or politics, Ben didn’t know, but they refused to act. He’d had a hard time dealing with all the excuses and noise, the requests for evidence that wouldn’t end, so he’d just put his head down and resigned himself to keep working until they got whatever it was they were looking for.

  But things had changed for him when he was taken into a new crew with a new capo that he couldn’t help but like and admire. His capo didn’t allow gratuitous violence. He wasn’t into prostitution or drugs. Although he loved the Mafia life, he craved respectability, and Ben understood that. As an unwanted foster kid, he had craved respectability too. Over the next few years, he earned the trust and respect of his new capo. His work on the crew was valued, appreciated, and rewarded. They were like the family the foster kid in him had always wanted, the friends he’d never made in the police department because he’d grown up wary of getting too close because he always knew he’d be moving on. It had been easy to agree to stay undercover year after year. But it became harder and harder to live with the fact he was betraying his capo’s trust.

  After ten years of guilt and deception, and constantly looking over his shoulder, thinking any minute he would be whacked, he wanted what everyone else had. A life. A family. Time to spend with his kid before she was all grown up. Friends he didn’t have to betray.

  “When I’m free, sweetheart, first thing I’m gonna do is come for you. I’ll get that custody order changed and you can be my girl all the time.”

  Daisy rested her small hand on her cheek. “I’ll hold that promise in my heart for when times are bad.”

  He didn’t know how much worse things could be for her with her Mom a druggie and deadbeat Gabe in the house, but it was all he could give her for now.

  FOUR

  “Darling. It’s been so long.” Gina Cordano, Mia’s mom, and the perfect mob wife, kissed Mia’s cheeks and ushered her into the cool marble foyer of their Italian Renaissance home in the exclusive Henderson luxury community.

  From the outside, the house looked like many of the other luxury homes in the gated area, all with awe-inspiring views and access to the canyon style golf-holes of the Rio Secco Championship Golf Course. However, security at the Cordano residence included wire fencing, CCTV cameras, and twenty-four hour guards as well as ten-foot high bushes for privacy.

  Alfio, her father’s top enforcer, closed the massive cathedral door behind her and punched in the security code. Before she understood what her father did for a living, Mia had always been amazed at her friends’ families who did not lock themselves into their homes at all hours of the day. They routinely left doors and windows open, and wandered outside in their yards without the benefit of bodyguards or cameras. They had a freedom she desperately wanted and knew she would never have.

  Mia wrinkled her nose at the overpowering scent of her mother’s perfume and gave her a dutiful hug, trying her best not to crease her mother’s linen dress. Not that it would matter. Her mother had a vast wardrobe and changed five or six times a day in her role as a symbol of her husband’s power.

  “You look nice, Mama. Is that Prada?”

  “New season.” Her mother smiled her perfect smile in her perfectly made-up face with her perfect haircut into a perfectly chiseled asymmetrical bob. Although Mia shared her mother’s thick, dark straight hair, she had gone for a blunt cut as soon as her hair reached her shoulders, a look she knew her mother despised.

  Her mother’s gaze drifted down over Mia’s black street-punk dress, the fake corset laced down the side, crinoline underlay and shoulder straps with silver buckles. Mia had paired it with lace stockings and her favorite thick-soled boots, calf-high with red roses embroidered on the sides.

  “Your father will be disappointed to see you dressed like a punk-rock star. I have some last season Chanel upstairs in the spare room. Why don’t you run up and find something to wear. He’s not in a good mood tonight.”

  “Not in a good mood” was family code to mean he’d already taken out some of his frustrations on Mama, which was probably why her foundation was so thick and her arms were covered with a sweater. Mia’s mother knew all the tricks for hiding bruises. It was part of being a good wife. Although her marriage had not been arranged, Mia’s mother quickly found out she had been taken in by suavity and charm. Her husband had married her solely for her looks and connections, and the love he professed to have died on the day she said “I do.”

  Still, she had done her duty like the good Mafia princess she had been raised to be. She had given her husband the required son—and two unnecessary daughters—found and decorated a house to befit his status as a mob boss, raised their three children, and ensured she was always well groomed and impeccably dressed—the perfect accessory for her husband’s arm at Mafia functions. She dutifully kept her mouth shut when he spent time with his mistresses, and in return enjoyed the benefits of his status as a Mafia don. It was a cold, empty existence and one Mia wanted no part of.

  “I’m wearing a dress so he doesn’t beat me,” Mia said bluntly. “Unless he decides he now wants me in pink or Chanel when I come to visit, that’s as far as I’ll go. I wouldn’t even come home if it wasn’t for you and Kat.” Or the fact her father would send his soldiers to hunt her down simply because he wouldn’t tolerate disobedience in any form.

  Her mother’s lips tightened. “You need to accept who you are and the responsibilities that come with being a woman in a Mafia family. We have our place, and your life will be much easier if you just accept it and—”

  “Don’t.” Mia cut her off. She had never been able to understand how her mother could want the life she led for her daughters. How could she not want them to be free to make their own choices?

  “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, darling.”

  “Then you should have stopped him every time he hit me, or when he broke my arm and beat me so badly I had to spend five days in the hospital pretending I’d been mugged.” Her voice rose in pitch with the distress she always felt when she thought about that night. “You should have been there the night he killed Danny and left this mark on my throat.” She touched the scar on her neck. “But you weren’t. And the only reason he didn’t kill me that night is because Nico Toscani saved me and lost his father as result.”

  She drew in a shuddering breath and brushed past her mother to head up the grand staircase as the memories flooded back.

  Papà had been so angry when she burst into Luigi’s restaurant that night, desperate to save Danny even though she knew there was no chance. And yet the blows he had dealt her when she pleaded for Danny’s life in front of Don Toscani and his son were nothing compared to what he did to her to ensure her silence after Danny died—a silence to shield Dante from the deed he was commanded to do. Nico hadn’t been able to save her as her father marked her with his blade. He had been on his knees, cradling the body of his dying father who had tried to save Nico from her father’s wrath.

  “Your father wants to see you when Dante arrives,” her mother called up. “There’s been a change of plans for dinner. Tell Kat it will just be her and I tonight. You and Dante are going out with your father.”

  Mia hesitated, tempted to ask why her father would want to waste an evening having dinner with her and Dante. He had never spent time with her without the rest of the family present except when he was beating on her for some perceived b
reach of the rules. But did she really want to know? Nothing to do with her father was good, so why ruin these few precious moments she got to spend with her sister worrying about something that she’d find out about soon enough.

  “Kat?” She walked down the wide, carpeted hallway and pushed open Kat’s bedroom door, only to be enveloped in a sea of pink. Kat was everything a Mafia daughter was expected to be, and, as a result, she had escaped their father’s abuse growing up. But even if Kat hadn’t embraced her girliness with the same passion with which Mia despised it, not even their father would have hurt her. Slim and fragile, with dark hair and wide, hazel eyes, Kat had a kind nature, a soft voice and a sweet, gentle disposition. She was the peacemaker in the family, empathetic to the point she would curl up and cry whenever Mia suffered her father’s anger. Mia never understood why he directed all his abuse at her, but she willingly endured his punishments if it meant Kat would be spared.

  “Mia.” Kat jumped off the bed and threw her arms around her big sister. With Mia working in the city, and Kat busy with school and activities out in the suburbs, they communicated mostly online, but whenever they did meet, Mia realized just how much she missed her little sister, and how guilty she felt leaving her in the house alone. Dante had moved out long ago, and as Papà ‘s underboss, he helped manage the Toscani family capos as well as run his own crew.

  “You cut your hair.” Mia ran her fingers through Kat’s thick, straight hair, now hanging just below her shoulders. “I like it.”

  “I did it for my eighteenth birthday, but Papà hated it.” Kat sighed. “He said men like women with long hair, not women who dress and act like boys. I had to promise not to cut it again.”

  Mia’s hand froze in place. “He didn’t—”

  “No.” Kat let her go. “He doesn’t hurt me like he does you.”

  Mia let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and sat on Kat’s fluffy pink duvet. She had protected Kat when she lived at home, taking the blame when Kat did something wrong, intervening when she thought their father might lose his temper. When she’d finally had enough and walked out the door, she begged Kat to come with her, but Kat assured her Papa wouldn’t touch her, even with Mia gone, and she’d been right.