The Man in Black_A Standalone Mafia Romance

by Soraya Naomi

  “And which guard is assigned to her?” I inquire, because I requested that the best guard be put on her.

  “She’s being guarded by Corrado. Often, since she started dating Ivo.”

  She’s dating him!

  Thrown for a loop by the information, my palm constricts around my glass, but outwardly, I remain calm.

  “Where does she live?” I release my glass.

  “Why?” Fallon retorts.

  “Idle curiosity,” I counter, making her smirk.

  I remain relaxed, yet she seems entertained, clearly not able to read me, which pleases me since I feel like my old self. I’m the head guard of the Chicago Syndicate, so I can’t afford to let emotions cloud my judgment. I’ve always known this, but I forgot it momentarily due to Rachel’s death.

  I shake my head to concentrate and since only the core members remain, I say, “Let’s start now, before anyone else Fallon has invited to join these weekly dinners shows up. And to answer your earlier question, I came back because I was summoned.” Then I look at Adriano, ready to listen to whatever he has to say.

  “John called me. Reymario’s spy is reporting to him, because he overheard his men mentioning the Syndicate but no specifics. I’m still not sure if it’s just insurance or if Reymario is planning on fucking with us. And we still don’t know who the spy is or what he’s reported. Now more than ever, I want to know who it is, and then I want to drill him so that I can stay a step ahead of Reymario. At present, he’s probably one step ahead of us, and since no one else seems to be able to catch him, I needed Michael to come back.”

  “Have you checked all the new regulars?” I ask him.

  “Yes, most check out.” Luca leans forward. “However, there are so many customers, it’s impossible to be sure.”

  “Have you had the host look out for unusual activity?”

  “No,” Adriano responds. “No involving of non-Syndicate restaurant staff.”

  Drumming my fingers on the table, I scour the first floor below and notice the man who bumped into me immediately looking away. “Then maybe you guys need a vacation, because I can already tell you that he”—I signal toward the entrance—“is watching us.”

  Luca and Adriano turn their heads as I toss back my drink and set it down.

  “Let’s see what he has to say.” Standing up, I make my way down the stairs, purposely ignoring our target and taking a detour past the right side of the bar while Adriano takes a path by the banquettes on the other side.

  When I’m halfway across the room, the man glances at Adriano and then whips his gaze to me, his eyes widening in alarm before he dashes into the kitchen. Adriano jerks his head as he careens around the tables, and I go through the kitchen door where Gianni and many of the servers are busily at work. But when I see the fire exit door closing, I rush forward and throw it open, searching the entrance of the alleyway, which is empty.

  I step outside, yet a shadow hurls into my left side and we topple to the ground, my shoulder hitting the concrete. With a grunt, I throw him off me, rolling over as he lands on his back.

  Grabbing the lapels of his jacket, I dig my knee into his stomach. “Who the hell are you?!”

  He struggles against me, so I push my knee deeper into his abdomen, making him howl in pain.

  “Ahh! Stop!”

  “Then talk,” I hiss, both of us breathing hard while he keeps kicking his legs.

  At that moment, the fire exit opens and Adriano jumps outside. But when I look up, I accidentally loosen my hold on the guy and he head-butts me, knocking me backward, although I manage to catch my fall. Black spots blur my vision before I see the man wrestling with Adriano, but when I lunge upward, a shot suddenly rings out and a searing pain blasts against my temple as a bullet flies right past me.

  “What the fuck!” I roar, touching my cheek and seeing blood on my fingers just as Adriano shouts, “He has an accomplice!” Then he dodges an uppercut without being able to grab his piece from his ankle holster.

  I snatch my Smith & Wesson from the back of my waistband just when someone comes sprinting into the alley. Lifting his gun, he shoots recklessly and the bullets hit the ground right at my feet, his silencer muffling the noise, but I have one as well.

  With nowhere to hide, I manage to evade a shower of bullets while I wildly pull my trigger five times in a row, hitting his shoulder and causing him to stagger. Then when I take another shot, a bullet flies past me from behind, ending up in the attacker’s forehead so that he falls backward.

  Spinning around, I see Adriano with his gun in hand and redirecting his aim to the man on the ground, his boot pressing into his groin. “Don’t push me any further! Hold still.”

  After spitting out blood, the guy brings up his hands and goes still, but Adriano keeps his foot on him.

  Swiping my cheek, I feel blood tricking down from where my temple burns. “They fucking shot me!”

  Adriano examines my wound. “It just grazed you, right?”

  “Yeah,” I answer before we both peer down at our captive.

  Wiping the perspiration from my upper lip, I irately wave with my gun. “What the fuck was that?! Please enlighten me!”

  The man steels his jaw in defiance.

  I carry on in a low tone, “Patience is one thing I don’t have, so you better talk because I’m in the mood to torture someone, and it seems like you’ve been sent to me to fulfill that need...” Deep down, I don’t need to guess why I feel the need to punch someone when I was relaxed before I saw Brielle with him.

  Adriano smirks at my theatrical way of speaking, coolly lifting his foot from the guy’s crotch but keeping his gun directed at his forehead.

  “Torture? Who the hell are you? We came here to find my cousin.”

  Adriano and I exchange a glance before I ask, “What cousin?”

  “Jack was last seen here. He’s been missing for weeks, and the police don’t do anything!”

  Christ. This is about the idiot soldier who visited Palermo and we had to end – that’s why this guy seemed familiar. “So you were watching us?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who was that?” I point at the corpse behind us.

  “You mean my friend who you killed?! Jesus Christ! Jack was right; you’re the mafia! That’s what the Syndicate is, isn’t it?”

  Adriano glares as my eyes thin since no one’s supposed to speak about the Syndicate.

  “Yeah, Jack texted me that he was having issues with the Syndicate...” he reveals, signing his own death warrant like a moron.

  Adriano addresses me, “We need his phone.”

  I go down on my haunches, letting my gun dangle from my hand. “Where’s the phone with your cousin’s text message?”

  “You’ll never find it.” He raises his head and attempts to spit on me, but I quickly dodge it while he watches me with malice.

  The silence thickens as we hear an ambulance in the distance, and when I blow out an impatient sigh, he trembles.

  Then I jam the butt of my gun against his face and there’s a crack before he clutches his bloodied nose and cries, “Motherfucker!” He tries to sit up, but Adriano knocks him in the chin, and our captive topples backward while gulping in air.

  I remain quiet, soundlessly ordering him to answer me, yet he sends me an arrogant glare, so I raise my arm and smash my gun into his nose again.

  Leaning over him as he falls back, I inform, “I don’t repeat myself.”

  When his scowl deepens, I grin cruelly at him, and his expression falters as I grab his hair on top and bang his head against the ground, once and then again.

  “Don’t fucking play with us! You chose to piss off the wrong guys on the wrong night!” I smash his head on the pavement once more while he kicks his legs and struggles weakly.

  “Michael!”

  I look up at Adriano and he holds up his hand. “Wrap it up before someone comes.”

  “That was for shooting at me,” I snarl, rolling him to the side and reac
hing inside his pocket where I find his phone and steal it.

  Swiping open the screen, I check the messages and see there is indeed one text from Jack mentioning the Syndicate. “Got it.” I rise and stash my gun after handing the phone to Adriano, snarling to the guy, “This could’ve been avoided.”

  “Fuck you! You’re crazy,” he yells, and I notice a wet spot where he’s pissing his pants.

  “We’re not crazy,” I retort, grabbing my handkerchief and dabbing some of the blood from my cheek. “We’re the mafia. If you come into my territory, I don’t let you leave alive.”

  Adriano pulls the trigger and the bullet penetrates his chest, blood saturating his shirt, and he goes limp.

  Luckily, our silencers made this entire mess virtually inaudible to the restaurant kitchen staff, but we need to erase all traces of this mess right away.

  “Text a Capo to clean up the back alley and dispose of the bodies at the warehouse up north,” Adriano instructs.

  Getting my phone from my pocket, I message our first captain and he replies immediately that he’ll be here within ten minutes.

  “Jack was an even bigger idiot than we thought, texting about the organization to outsiders,” I grumble.

  Adriano’s lips thin. “Finding good soldiers is becoming increasingly difficult, which is why it would benefit us to downsize the organization and unload only one shipment of cargo a year.”

  As we each catch our breath and assess the two dead bodies and the pool of blood on the ground, Adriano smirks at me. “Was the excessive violence really needed?”

  “I thought it was my welcome home gift,” I say, feeling better after letting out my irritation and surprised about how this night has progressed.

  In reality, I’m not a man who protects people. Quite the opposite. I’m a man who kills anyone who interferes with my business. This is who I am; remorse is a useless emotion for a Syndicate member.

  Chuckling, he replies, “I see that you’re completely back to your old self.”

  “Yes, I am. Due to Rachel’s death, I forgot for a moment that this is who we are.”

  “We have to be ruthless, and we’ll always be this way. Accept it and don’t forget it again when you grieve, because in this life, we’ll probably grieve a lot.”

  “Understood,” I assure him as I suddenly hear a click, like the fire exit has fallen closed.

  Adriano and I look behind us in unison and then back at each other.

  “Was someone there?” Adriano demands around a glare. “Go check it! I’ll wait for the Capo.”

  I rush forward to go inside. We can’t have any witnesses, and if we do, we sure as hell don’t leave them alive.

  CHAPTER 26

  Brielle

  AFTER EXCUSING MYSELF from dinner due to a headache, I arrive at my apartment with Ivo trailing behind me. I’m not in the mood for company, so I swivel around in the doorway to prevent him from coming inside.

  “I’m just getting a Tylenol and going to bed,” I say, hinting that I want to be alone.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? I can stay if you want.” He studies me with doubt, his brown eyes narrowing as he towers over me – he’s almost as tall as Michael.

  “It’s just a headache from the sun,” I lie, absolutely not wanting him to stay because I need to gather my thoughts. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay. Call me if you need anything,” he offers kindly, and a flare of guilt strikes me before he leans forward to plant a kiss on my lips.

  But he doesn’t grip my hair in the heady way Michael does.

  Pulling back, I smile timidly as he turns around and walks down the hall toward the elevator. I shut the door and let out a strained breath, completely unhinged by the man in black as I march into the living room and hurl my keys onto the walnut coffee table. Then I irritably return to the entry to look out the window at the apartment on the fifth floor of the Blackhall across the street, about half of a football field separating us.

  I glare at the dim windows and think about earlier, despising the way Michael paid me no attention while he spoke animatedly to Marliya. I hate that I’m allowing emotions I buried over the last few weeks to float to the surface – I’ve moved on, or so I thought. But I keep standing there until I force myself to go to my bedroom and change into my nightgown, although I still go back to the entry to torture myself some more.

  Unexpectedly, the windows across the street light up, and when the dark outline of an arrestingly muscular man stops in front of one of them, I jump back in the doorway, not sure if he saw me.

  So after I get up the nerve to see if the coast is clear, I peek around the side of the window, bit by bit, my pulse beating wildly.

  CHAPTER 27

  Michael

  I PUSH DOWN THE HANDLE of the fire exit to yank it open, but the doorway is blocked by two servers who each walk past with a large box in hand.

  One of them glances at me while I remain in the shadows of the alley to hide the wound on my temple.

  “Oh, sorry,” he says. “We’ll be out of the way in a minute.”

  “It’s okay. I’m leaving anyway. I’m just locking up from out here,” I comment and move back, closing the door and entering the code into the keypad that gives access from the outside to lock it.

  Then I return to Adriano at the back of the alley and we continue surveying the entrance.

  “It was nothing. Just an employee,” I say.

  Although my temple burns, at least it’s stopped bleeding, which means I won’t need any stitches. However, with the way Adriano’s pacing, I can tell he’s worked up anyway.

  “What’s wrong?” I inquire. “The men will be here soon to clean up.”

  “I’m not worried about that. These idiots”—he waves his hand dismissively at the dead bodies on the ground—“we can handle. I’m just becoming increasingly annoyed that we can’t find Reymario’s spy.”

  “Why? If the spy has revealed anything, it’s that we’re going about business as usual – since that’s what we’ve been doing.”

  “But it could be that Reymario is planning something for during the drop-off; there’s been a change in the schedule.”

  “What change?”

  “He wants the captains to pick up the cargo two hours later at the docks.”

  “But it’s still coming in four weeks, on May twentieth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s normal. If anything changes with customs, then we have to adapt. The drug distributor knows that.”

  “Regardless, we need to take control over this partnership, and I need to catch that spy because I’m not waiting around for this to become an issue when I could’ve prevented it. This is much more of a priority than any of my men seem to understand,” Adriano advises.

  “We get that, but we have no idea what to look out for. There’s no lead as to who it is. You know that from John – he’s not giving you much to go on either. But it’s definitely someone who’s successfully remained on the down-low while gathering info on us...”

  “Or someone who’s hiding in plain sight?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Too many people are getting close to the wives. We should check the staff again,” he proposes.

  Is he referring to Brielle? “The only person I know of who’s been invited to our dinners is Brielle. Do you suspect her?”

  “I suspect everyone. And because Cam and Fallon befriended them, Gianni, Marliya, and Ivo have joined us as well,” he grumbles, and I chuckle.

  He sends me a feigned scowl. “My wife makes it hard for me to protect her this way.”

  “Yeah, Fallon and Cam need friends outside of us though.”

  “I know. But I want you to covertly investigate everyone on the staff more closely during the next few days. Suspend all other duties – Carmine will take them over. Begin with the ones I mentioned. Like I said, we’re paying a shitload of money for this one drop-off, and our business depends on it since it’ll be our supply for a yea
r.”

  “Ivo’s my first suspect,” I put in, making him frown.

  “Is that because he’s with Brielle or because you have grounds to believe so?”

  “Grounds to believe so.” Granted, seeing him with Brielle has thrown me for a loop. “Associates are always looking for ways to make more money, so they’re easily bribed for intel. Brielle, Gianni, and Marliya have no motive or previous encounters with the underworld.” I steer him away from Brielle because I’m positive she’s innocent.

  “Money is always the motive. For everyone; watch them all. I don’t think Brielle, Marliya, or Gianni is really involved, but I don’t want to leave anything to chance.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” I concede just as a black SUV turns into the alley and parks halfway in.

  Then a soldier jumps out, dipping his chin at us as we walk by, and executes his job.

  We stop at the curb around the corner where my BMW is parked and since my jacket is filthy with dried blood and I need to clean my face, I say, “I’m going home.”

  “Okay. I’m going too. Just messaging Cam to come outside and I’ll call Luca from my car to update him. I’ll be in late tomorrow, so check to make sure the alley is entirely clean in the morning,” he finishes before continuing toward the front entrance.

  After I give him a nod, I get inside my car and grab my phone from the inside pocket of my jacket to call one of my best guards.

  “Hey, Michael.”

  “Corrado, update me on Brielle. Adriano told me you’ve been watching her for the last six weeks.”

  “Yes, but after she moved to the Ivory, I was ordered not to follow her twenty-four seven anymore. And since she often hangs out with Fallon, she’s also being guarded then.”

  She lives across from me! That’s why Fallon evaded telling me. “What floor does she live on?”

  “Third floor, apartment three fifteen,” he replies. “I’ve been keeping tabs on her and she’s home now.”

  “What’s she been doing while I was gone?” I find myself asking.