Kane: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Mob Daddies Book 2)

by Alexa Hart

  As she walks down the depot corridor to the bathroom my phone pings. Whoever Maddie texted earlier has just replied.

  “Maddie! You little shit! You know how much trouble you got me in with your grandparents? They threatened my allowance for you disappearing like that! You and your dad will be sorry about this.” I scroll up and read Maddie’s original text. Mom, sorry I left early. I missed home. Don’t worry, I’m safe. Sometime, let’s bake a cake together?

  I stare at the phone in utter disbelief. How could her own mother talk to her like that? The idea of a mother being anything but warm and loving is so foreign to me, I fight back tears. I think maybe this feeling is what compels me to do what I do next. Because as I fight back my tears at the way Maddie’s mom has just replied, more worried about losing an allowance as a grown woman than if her daughter is okay, I look up from my phone and see Maddie arguing with someone. No, not just someone. A very big, very masculine, I don’t know… thug! I mean he is tall, easily over six feet, and even fully clothed he is obviously hiding serious muscles under a tight white t-shirt and brown leather jacket, well-worn dark jeans that hug his body in all the right places, and heavy work boots. His hair is thick and dark and tucked under a wool cap, his jaw square, and his eyes dark and piercing. True, objectively, from a female perspective, maybe the tall, muscular, handsome, chiseled bad boy look would make him sort of sexy, just not in a way I like. Dangerous men are more Becca’s cup of tea. When I still thought I was going to London, I was hoping for a nice Oxford grad student to fall in love with in London and after five years or so get married and have cute English babies with. I thought maybe I’d even get into drinking tea. My mom had a great recipe for lemon scones. This guy is not someone you’d ever see drinking a cup of tea, though maybe you’d see him crush a teacup with one hand. But Becca would be all over him. I mean, she’d be all over him if we weren't in a bus station in Chicago and if this man didn’t have his sleeves rolled up to reveal wrists covered in inky, black tattoos and the knuckles of his right hand crusted with blood. And maybe in a world where he wasn’t totally threatening Maddie. Because they are clearly arguing about something. I stand up, every maternal instinct in me alight.

  Maddie turns away from the man to come back over to me and he starts to follow after her. His eyes are angry. He reaches out toward her and something about it, the way I feel that she has no one to defend her… and her mother’s text… and her absent dad… I do the first thing I can think of.

  “Maddie,” I say, waving for her to get away. “Run!”

  And then I pick up the cookie tin and I throw it at him. It glances off him without much of an effect, I never had much of a throwing arm, but I hope at least the distraction will give us both time to get away. Instead of Maddie running like I’ve commanded, Maddie freezes and stares back at the man and for a moment I think she almost laughs in horror, like I’ve just done the dumbest thing she has ever seen. The way this strong, muscular and angry man is glaring at me makes me think she might not be wrong.

  “What the fucking hell?!” The man growls as he stares at his shoulder. The tin missed his head, I’ve also never had good aim, and bounced off his very strong shoulder onto the ground with a loud rattle. He leans down and picks up the cookie tin as if it is the strangest thing he has ever seen. His reaction is clearly one of surprise and annoyance, and he lifts his eyes from the tin to my face with a look that says he has murder on his mind. I feel my knees buckle under the intense drill of his dark, piercing eyes.

  “Maddie,” the man said, still staring at me. “Do you want to explain why this lady just assaulted me?”

  The way he says lady doesn’t feel like a compliment. Actually, it feels as withering as the look in his eyes. Which, I guess, considering the circumstances, could be fair. Still, my maternal instincts are on overdrive.

  “Don’t swear in front of her, you...you...thug!” I say. I don’t know why I say this, because at this point I already know my assumptions must be all wrong, but I’m still upset about her mom swearing at her on my phone and the whole damn situation. I get my phone out of my pocket. “I’m calling the police if you don’t get away from her right now.”

  “Great,” he nods at my phone and takes a step closer. I feel myself inadvertently take a step back, though a part of my body is drawn forward. I try to look him in the eyes as bravely as I can even though he looms over my small frame by almost a foot.

  “Great,” I gulp, not sure why we are agreeing on this. In fact, I am feeling very unsure at this moment. His eyes are making me feel uneasy, and not in a bad way. He cocks a smile like he knows that my traitorous body is reacting to him and I nearly lose my breath.

  “When they come, they can arrest you for assaulting me with…” the man examines the tin with a confused look on his face. “A cookie tin? That’s a first.”

  Maddie takes the cookie tin from the man’s hands. “Summer is a baker. If you broke any of the cookies you are so dead,” she says to the man. No part of her is remotely afraid of him.

  “How would that be my fault?” He asks. “She threw the thing at me.” His voice isn’t angry anymore either. It’s almost...soft.

  “To protect me!” Maddie says. “I told you, you come off as way too scary!”

  “Maddie?” I freeze with the phone half to my ear. The man blinks at me and there is something familiar in the warm, intense gaze and the long lashes. His eyes are like smoldering, intense versions of someone else blinking up at me right now. Shoot! I feel my cheeks redden. “Do you know this man?”

  Maddie frowns. “Unfortunately.”

  “You’re Maddie’s dad,” I say. Not a question now. It’s all becoming humiliatingly, painfully clear.

  “You sound surprised.” He says.

  “Um… It’s just, you don’t look like a CPA.”

  “CPA?” he laughs. “Maddie?”

  “I said you were in finance,” Maddie shrugs. “That’s true.”

  The man rakes me up and down. I pull my cardigan closer over my blouse and attempt to look my most poised and in control, the opposite of how this man’s gaze makes me feel.

  “You must be disappointed I turned out to be a thug then,” he says. His eyes drop to my lips and I find myself unable to formulate a sentence. He seems to find my silence annoying or angering because his eyes grow hard again and he picks up Maddie’s backpack.

  “Let’s go, Maddie. You’re in enough trouble already. I told you to be careful talking to strangers.”

  “Wait a minute,” I sputter. “I’m...I’m not…” I step in front of him. “Maddie, are you really okay going home with him?”

  The man steps between us. “No, she’s not okay. For starters, she’s grounded. Not that this is any of your business. And lady,” the man says. “I’m really starting to lose my patience with the stuck-up, good Samaritan act. You don’t know me at all.”

  I gulp. He’s right. Maddie puts the cookbook in my hand apologetically. “It’s okay, Summer. He’s my dad and his bark is worse than his bite.” I look at his bloody knuckles and am not sure I agree. He looks down and follows my glance and I can see his eyes flare.

  “Unfuckingbelievable,” he says. He stuffs his hand into his jacket pocket.

  “You shouldn’t swear, Daddy.”

  “What?” he glances down at Maddie.

  “Summer said when she was growing up her parents kept a swear jar and anytime they swore they had to put a dollar in it. Because swearing is bad.”

  “Summer told you that, huh?” He looks at me with such disdain that I can’t help but feel like I am as naïve and prissy as he must think.

  “I’m just saying I could be rich by now if you had to do that,” Maddie says. “Bye, Summer!” She waves as he takes her hand and they turn from me.

  “Bye, Maddie,” I say.

  The man looks over his shoulder and gives me one more look, half-withering, half something I don’t want to think about even if it makes my knees a little weak, or maybe because it
makes my knees a little weak. I give a small apologetic wave and he turns his head back like I’ve slapped him. I hear him growl at Maddie, “I told you a thousand times Maddie, you should be more careful who you make friends with.”

  Chapter 4

  Summer

  When I arrive at La Florentina, my grandparents’ old bakery that’s now owned by Uncle Rudy, I’m immediately filled with worry to find the store open but nearly completely empty of customers. When I would visit the bakery with my parents as a little girl back when my grandparents still ran the place, I remember the bakery was always bustling with customers and sometimes the line stretched out the door and around the corner. The wood-paneled walls were always polished to a shine and the windows a little foggy from the heat of the ovens in the back, baking everything from bread to cookies and cannoli. The air was always a mix of the most wonderful smells, like fresh bread baking in one of the ovens in the back and chocolate chip cookies cooling on the counter. Before my grandparents passed away, you could always find my grandmother in the back frosting cupcakes and chopping crystallized ginger for her famous ginger cookies and my grandfather working the counter and talking to everyone who came in like they were his long lost best friend. The warmth was everywhere. The place, the people, they radiated it. When we’d visit, my mother and I would always be put to work baking, and my father assigned some odd job like fixing a broken step or repainting the sign, though it hardly felt like work at the time to any of us. La Florentina was my favorite place. It was like a second home. Now my grandparents and parents are long gone. The bakery and Uncle Rudy are all that is left of what was once a happy family.

  But as I step inside the bakery now, the teenager working behind the counter scrolling through her phone doesn’t even look up at me. I wheel my suitcase up to the counter and one old man reading a newspaper in the corner is the only apparent customer. He at least looks up at me, though he gives me something not exactly equal to a smile. I look down at the sparse display of baked goods and am upset to see the pastries in the glass case all look as if they’d been baked a few days before. The air is as stale as the food and I can tell the ovens haven't even been turned on yet today. I run my hand across the counter and it is dusty. This at least gets the teenage cashier’s attention.

  “Can I help you?” she asks with almost palpable annoyance that I have taken her away from her Instagram feed.

  “Um, is Rudy here?” I ask.

  “Nope,” she snaps the gum in her mouth. “He’s not here,” she says.

  “Do you know where I can find him?” I had thought Rudy was supposed to be home from the hospital by now, but I begin to worry that there might have been complications. I haven’t heard from him in a few days.

  She looks at me like I’m some sort of spy and she won’t leak secrets no matter how hard I go at her. “Do you have an appointment, or whatever?” she says. I know I’ve only traveled a few hours from Wisconsin to Chicago but darn it if this isn’t the unfriendliest city.

  “I’m his niece, Summer,” I say. “He’s expecting me.”

  “Summer?” She pops her gum again. “Never heard of you.”

  “Okay. Is Angelo here? He knows I’m coming too,” I say.

  The girl snorts like I’ve just made the joke of the year.

  The old man reading the newspaper looks up. “Rudy’s still in the hospital. Chicago General.”

  The girl glares at the man. “What are you doing, Al?”

  “It’s Summer,” he points his newspaper at me. “Rudy’s niece. Good to see you, Hon. You look just like your mom.”

  “Whatever,” she rolls her eyes. “So are you, like, here for a reason?”

  “I’m here to help Angelo with the place while Rudy recovers,” I say.

  The girl laughs again.

  “Is that funny?” I ask.

  “Just the part about Angelo,” she shrugs. “I’m sure Rudy will be glad you’re here.”

  “Maybe I should go see him now?” I say. I look around. “Things seem different than I was expecting.”

  The old man shakes his head. “Visiting hours are over for the day. Tomorrow at 9 is your best shot. You staying upstairs?”

  My grandparents had lived upstairs, raised my mom and Rudy there, and now Rudy and Angelo shared the apartment.

  “Yes,” I nod. “I was going to stay in my mom’s old room.”

  The girl just snorts again. “When was the last time you came to visit?”

  I frown. I don’t know how to say that I haven’t been back since my grandfather’s funeral five years ago. I can’t say how painful it was to even think about this place, all the lost happiness. I look around. All gone, like so much else in my life. The girl can see some pain in my face and gives me a momentary reprieve of snarkiness. “You want something, to like, eat or whatever?”

  I nod. I’m not really hungry but I also feel like I’ll take what forms of friendship I can find in this city. “Sure, um, what do you recommend?”

  The girl pulls the last croissant out of the display with a piece of cellophane paper and drops it in a small white bag. She folds it over and hands it to me.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I’ll save it for later. I think I’m going to head up and get some rest.”

  I head behind the counter and up the stairs to Rudy and Angelo’s apartment. My grandparents had always loved living above the bakery. They said mixing business with pleasure had always been the great pleasure of their life. My mom and Rudy had grown up there, and my mom used to joke that baking was in her blood. I hope I have inherited enough of it to help turn this place around. It clearly needs it.

  I go up the stairs and enter the apartment and I can see that the downstairs bakery isn’t all that’s suffered the last few years. Rudy’s back has been giving him pain for a long time, and I had hoped, and assumed, that Angelo was doing his best to help his stepfather out as his body kept him more and more from doing the work he needed to do, but it is clear that whatever Angelo was up to, it wasn’t helping Rudy at all. The apartment is filthy and the kitchen of the apartment is overloaded with dirty dishes and carry-out containers. A few flies buzz near the sink.

  The living room isn’t much better. I can see where Rudy must have spent much of his time, laid out on the couch with a stack of crossword puzzle books and the television remote nearby. I wonder how painful it was for him to move from one room to the other, let alone go downstairs and bake all day on his feet. The room is filthy with trash and laundry. I walk carefully across the floor and down the hallway. I knock on Angelo’s door first, the room that had once been Rudy’s when he was growing up. There’s no answer and I open the door, calling out Angelo’s name just in case. Truth is, I’ve never liked Angelo. He always stares at me just a little too long and likes to brag a little too much. But I always hoped my dislike was because he joined the family later in my life and I just hadn’t had a chance to know him. His mom lives out in Las Vegas now and even after she and Rudy divorced, Rudy looked after Angelo even though they aren’t blood related. I think maybe Rudy hoped it would bring her back to him, or maybe, like me, he’s hanging onto what little family remains. I feel a sense of relief that Angelo isn’t home, and a sense of fear that this isn’t a good feeling to have about your future roommate and work partner. Angelo’s room is empty and as messy as the rest of the apartment. I go down the hallway to Rudy’s room, which was once my grandparents’ bedroom. This room is empty too, cleaner but also stale and dusty. Rudy kept some of my grandparent’s old furniture and it feels, more than anywhere else I’ve been since arriving, like the place I remember. I walk over to the old granite vanity table that belonged to my grandmother and that Rudy always joked was too heavy to get rid of. I look in the mirror and frown. Nothing about this place or my reflection feels familiar.

  When I get to my mom’s old room, I can see why the girl at the front counter laughed. For a long time, the room was left as it had been before her death. But Angelo has moved in a bunch of weights and exerc
ise equipment, and a few Playboys are strewn about on the ground and on her old wooden desk. The whole room reeks of smoke and a full ashtray is tipped over on the bed, staining a quilt my grandmother made for my mother when she was a girl. I walk over to the closet and find most of my mother’s old things stuffed into boxes. Her wedding dress hangs on a rack, encased in plastic. It at least, thanks to the plastic, is untouched by Angelo’s man cave grossness. I shut the door to my mother’s old room and lean against the wall. I am exhausted from the travel but I’ll need to clean this place before I can even think about sleeping.

  I take off my cardigan and fold it neatly away in my suitcase, trading in my blouse and skirt for jeans and a t-shirt. I find an apron in the small pantry next to the kitchen and some plastic dish gloves under the sink. Before I get to work I text Angelo’s number telling him I’ve arrived and asking him to let me know when he’ll be home. I tell him we have a lot to discuss. I give a frown emoji, which is the closest I come to showing my disapproval of this whole situation. Then, with a sigh, I rearrange my long wavy brown hair in a pert ponytail and get to work.

  Chapter 5

  Kane

  When Maddie and I get home from the bus station, she stomps up to her room with a dramatic door slam. I head first to the bathroom where I bandage my hand and then to my own room. I don’t slam the door, but I sure as hell feel like punching another wall. Instead, I do a few reps of pull-ups to diffuse my anger at the prissy, cookie-tin-throwing baker I just ran into. I feel something other than anger when I think of her, something harder and more lustful, and that needs to get worked out of my body too, and fast. The way she looked up at me all stern and sweet. Does she know she bites her lip when she’s embarrassed? I have a strong, sudden urge to find her and bite that lip myself--naked of the bright, garish red lipstick that Trixie and her cohorts prefer. And the look I got of her legs when I picked up the cookie tin, nothing prissy about how those legs would feel underneath me. This feeling is not the kind I need right now. She is not the kind of woman I want.