Crooked Heart (A Death So Sweet Book 2)

by Candace Wondrak

  Never mind me, of course. I didn’t care about the money or the power. I liked the danger.

  “Why didn’t she have kids of her own? With what you guys do, family seems to be one of the most important things,” I spoke, shrugging. I’d never be able to have kids of my own, but that was just fine. I didn’t want them. Not now. Not after everything I’d been through.

  Could you imagine me as a mother? No, sweetie, you’re not supposed to sucker-punch boys in the throat when they look at you wrong—at least, not while the teachers are looking. If you’re alone, by all means, kick that boy’s ass. Here, why don’t you take a knife to school tomorrow. Yeah, I didn’t think I’d be motherly material.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe she can’t. She’s always had plenty of suitors, especially after…” He stopped himself, his eyebrows coming together.

  “After what?” God, getting the whole story out of him was like pulling teeth, only a lot less more fun. At least with the teeth, there’d be screams and pain, but this? This was a different kind of torture.

  “She had a sister, but she died a long time ago,” Sylvester whispered.

  Ah. Okay, well that didn’t explain anything, but at least I knew a little bit more now than I did before. “If Carl dies, and she takes charge of the family, do you think she’ll start a war with the Lucianos?” Daddy Luciano certainly seemed to think so.

  Those pretty, luminous blue eyes landed on me. Sylvester stood less than two feet away from me, and yet the distance felt as if it stretched for miles. “Yes,” he muttered, frowning. I wanted so desperately to reach out to him, to hold him, to tell him that everything would be okay—because I knew what he was thinking when he imagined a war between the two families.

  Death. So much death. The deaths of his father, of his last brother, of his other friends and family. His own. All because of me and what I’d done, stupidly.

  “And it’s all my fault,” I said, taking a step back from him. I’d wrong this family, I knew, but I didn’t feel guilty about it. I would never claim to regret choosing Dickless that night. He’d wanted to take advantage of me, and if he did it to me, he surely would do it to others. I did not feel an ounce of guilt over that.

  But this? This war the Lucianos faced, this thing that hinged on an old man on his deathbed miraculously pulling through instead of succumbing to the slow-acting poison I’d given him? I’d be a liar if I said I felt the same way about this. I didn’t. I felt guilty. I regretted listening to Tony, because I didn’t want to see these men dead.

  I cared for them, as much as my crooked, broken heart could allow, and I might’ve signed their death warrants by doing what I did at the Gilded Rose.

  Sylvester didn’t try to deny my words. He only looked at me and said, “Yes, but you’re still here, so I’m going to take every little victory I can.” With that, he closed the distance between us, took my head in his hands, and kissed me so hard and so passionately I almost forgot why we were here in the first place.

  I liked kissing him, and I’d just killed him and his entire family.

  Chapter Seven – Viper

  Mike and I were sent out to look for Tony. We didn’t know the whole story, but if Richard Luciano told you to look for someone, you went out and you looked. You looked as hard as you could, hardly eating or sleeping as the hours ticked on. Those same hours turned into days.

  Carl DeLuca was dying. There was no hope left for him, as far as I’d heard. The underbelly of the city was rife with gossip, of who could’ve done this to him. No one knew. No one imagined it was the girl from the club, because he hadn’t taken sick right away.

  I didn’t know the whole story, but I knew Lola had met with Carl. I knew Tony had given her something for him, and she poured it in his drink. I knew all that, and yet I didn’t know why. Why Lola would listen to Tony without hesitation, why Tony would dare to upset the balance that has kept this city moving for the last twenty years.

  Twenty years. I was ten when things were crazy around here, but I could barely remember those days. The Milanos owed the Lucianos a debt, and it was one my brother and I paid every single day, one we would continue to pay until we died. Blood debts were not something you paid back easily, but I knew they’d helped us, so much more so than the DeLucas ever did.

  Neither family was without its dangers, but I would remain on the Lucianos’ side forever, as would my brother.

  As we searched the city for Tony, as the hours turned into days and we still had neither hide nor hair of him, I found myself worrying about Lola more and more. It was her fault this was happening, but she didn’t know. She didn’t know the history she was stepping into. She was a girl that acted without thinking, that much we already knew, so something like this shouldn’t come as a shock.

  Mike and I were in a bar that was neutral territory. Neither the Lucianos nor the DeLucas owned it or the management. I knew Tony had visited this bar a few times, but I didn’t know whether he’d come here recently. Tony and I, we weren’t exactly buddies. We weren’t close friends. We worked with each other when we had to, we knew of each other, but his disloyalty would not cause me any lost sleep.

  Now, Lola, on the other hand? There was no way the DeLucas had turned her, so I didn’t doubt her loyalty to the family that pretty much owned her, body and soul. Still, I worried for her safety. Richard wouldn’t take this lying down, and the last time I’d given Sylvester a call to update him—basically to tell him that we were still empty-handed when it came to Tony—I’d asked about her as nonchalantly as I could.

  I’d done my best to take a step back from her, to not let my mind and body get ahead of myself, to not let feelings swallow my heart, but it was so fucking hard when I looked at her and saw how broken she was. The crazy facade she put out was just that: a front, a show. It wasn’t her true self, and anyone who didn’t realize that was stupid.

  But she wasn’t mine. She would never be mine. I belonged to the Lucianos as much as she did, so to let myself grow feelings for her was foolish. Yet here I was, worried about the serial killer.

  Richard hadn’t killed her, though how long he would hold himself off from her had yet to be seen. The man was not known for his patience.

  Mike and I headed to the bar counter, where the owner stood, drying some glasses with a rag. It was in the middle of the day, so hardly anyone else was here. I could tell he was trying not to stare as Mike and I approached him. My brother and I were not as well-known as, say, Maddox, but if anyone knew the Lucianos, they knew us.

  My viper tattoos and my brother’s unnaturally big frame tended to remind people of that.

  “Hey,” I spoke, leaning on the counter. We had weapons tucked beneath our shirts, should the need arise, but more often than not, all that was needed was a strong word or two, and some threatening postures. Most business owners simply wanted to stay in business. Alas, operating in a neutral area in this city was not enough to keep the families from appearing every now and then.

  The barkeeper set down the glass he was currently cleaning, staring at me, finally. He was an older man, maybe in his fifties, with thick grey hair and a beard that was well-trimmed. “What can I do for you two gentlemen today?”

  I glanced at my brother, who stood stoically behind me, his arms folded over his chest. He was an intimidating guy, unless you knew him. Sure, he would do whatever the job required, but if Big Mike had the choice, he’d stay home and watch cooking shows all day. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my brother, but he and I were two very different people, even if we were twins.

  “We didn’t come to drink,” I told the bartender. “We actually came here looking for a friend of ours.”

  He leaned on the counter opposite me, staring me square in the face as he said, “I don’t get involved with your type.”

  See, normally I wouldn’t care, but the type of tone he took with me just now, as if he thought less of us because of who we worked for—that irked me something fierce, and with the stress I’d been f
eeling lately, I was so not in the mood to deal with someone like that.

  “Yeah, well, we’re here, and we’re not going anywhere until you tell us whether you’ve seen this man.” I pulled out my phone, where, upon unlocking the screen, a picture of Tony popped up. He was not looking directly at the camera, and it was a few years old; it wasn’t like we took pictures of each other all the time like college girls going out clubbing every weekend, but it was the best we could do, given the circumstances. It wasn’t like we had picture day every year like the kids did in school.

  The bartender’s beady eyes fell to the phone, and he took a moment to study the screen. His expression gave nothing away, and I couldn’t tell just by looking at him whether or not he’d seen Tony. Honestly, I doubted Tony had been in public at all since news broke of Carl DeLuca’s sickness. He had to have known that Lola would eventually talk, that the finger would eventually be pointed at him. He had to have a plan ready, an escape route.

  Fuck, I still couldn’t believe this was happening. When you lived through things every single day, you tended to get used to them. You became accustomed to your situations and circumstances, and you started to believe that they’ll never change.

  But they did. Things always changed, and sometimes not for the better. This change wouldn’t be for the better, we all knew it. I couldn’t fault Lola for not knowing; it wasn’t like she’d grown up around us. She didn’t know what would happen if Carl died, whereas we did. We knew what bloodshed the Bloody Princess would wreak—and with a smile on her face, too.

  “No,” the bartender spoke, shaking his head once. “Never seen him.”

  “Well, if you do happen to—” I was moments away from saying if he ever did see Tony around here to contact us, but the door to the bar opened, shadows entering. Both Mike and I turned our heads to see a group of four men walk in, their grizzly faces wearing frowns and barely concealing their hatred for us.

  DeLucas. Not by last name, but men loyal to them. The grunts. The ones who did the dirty work, kind of like us, as much as I didn’t want to admit it.

  My back straightened, and I pushed off the bar, sliding my phone into my pocket as the group of men approached us. The swagger they held, it was almost comical, but I knew better than to laugh. We were outnumbered here. Even if I pulled out my gun, at most I’d be able to shoot one of them, maybe two, before the others shot me. Same with Mike. Not good odds, and nowhere nearby to take cover, unless you counted the bar—in which case, hopping over it and ducking would take entirely too much time. Bullets were a lot faster than that.

  “What do we have here?” The man in the front of the group cocked his head as he spoke, eyeing Mike and me up as if we weren’t welcome here. A ridiculous notion, since this was neutral territory.

  Or, at least, it used to be.

  “We ain’t here to start a fight,” I said, knowing it would be best to mitigate the situation, otherwise all of us might not leave here alive, and I didn’t want to take the chance that me or my brother would be the losers in this fight. The odds weren’t good. “We’re just—”

  The men wore all black, their hair greasy and their chins full of stubble. They looked just as you would imagine grunts would: almost faceless, uniform. The world would not miss them if they died, though I couldn’t help but wonder if the world would indeed miss me if I died, or Mike.

  Would we be mourned? Would we be missed? Some days I did wonder.

  “I don’t give a shit why you’re here,” the man in the front spoke, approaching us with a confidence he should not have. But he did. The DeLucas and their followers… they grew ballsier by the day, even though their head honcho was on his deathbed. Seemed ass-backward, but who was I to judge? These guys were probably waiting for Carl to die, itching for war with the Lucianos.

  It was a war we wouldn’t win. We didn’t have the numbers anymore, and with traitors in our midst… we definitely didn’t have enough to win. Even with a serial killer on our side, it wouldn’t be enough.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he added, narrowing his eyes.

  Behind the counter, the bartender said nothing, but I could tell he flicked his gaze between us, wondering if there’d be a shootout, if his business would get fucked because of two families colliding.

  “Last I checked,” I growled out, resisting the urge I had to reach for my gun, knowing it wouldn’t be smart, “this was neutral territory.”

  “Yeah,” the man said, nodding once, “but you know what they say, right? Things are a-changing.” Behind him, his cronies laughed.

  I wanted to roll my eyes at him, but I held back. To my brother, I said, “Come on. It’s getting too crowded in here.” I started toward the door, and the cronies behind the leader of four parted—but the man himself didn’t.

  I stopped when I stood before him, a bit taller than him and a hell of a lot more impressive. Whereas he was a thin, greasy man with skin so pale he looked sick, I was the opposite: thick, solid, tattooed and intimidating.

  “Times,” I growled out when the man wouldn’t get the hell out of my way.

  His tough guy exterior faded somewhat as he blinked. “What?”

  “Times,” I repeated, Mike standing like a mountain behind me. “It’s times are a-changing, not things.” As the man was thinking on it, I pushed past him, Mike right behind me. We left the bar, and started toward our car, which was parked a little ways down the street. Fortunately, those idiots didn’t follow us.

  Once we were inside the car, me in the passenger’s seat and Mike in the driver’s, I let out a sigh. That whole encounter was a bad omen, I knew. As much as I didn’t want that guy to be right, he was. Times, they were a-changing, and not for the better. Not for the Lucianos, at least. They were a family constantly struggling to maintain the hold they’d had on this city for the last few decades, the power and prestige that came with it.

  And they were losing, slowly but surely.

  “Big Richie’s not going to like that,” I muttered as my brother started the car. We pulled out onto the road, heading to our next destination. I was starting to lose track of where we’d been and where we still had to go. All for Tony. All because of Tony.

  All my brother did in response was grunt.

  I leaned on the side door, my elbow propped up, my chin against my fist as I watched the city go by. “I’m worried,” I muttered. I wouldn’t dare tell anyone else that; only Mike, and that was partially because he was usually so silent. I wasn’t concerned with him telling anyone what I was about to say. Plus, the big lug was my brother, and blood was everything.

  That got Mike to say, “Tony?”

  “No, not about Tony. I’m worried we’re at a turning point,” I bit out, frowning to myself, my face mirrored on the window. “A war will erupt between the DeLucas and the Lucianos, and it’s only a matter of time until they wipe us out. They have the numbers. We don’t. As much as Richie wants to posture and act like we haven’t lost any power these last twenty years, we have.”

  It was a long while before Mike said, “We’ll do what we can.” There was a long, pregnant silence before he added, “That’s all we can do, really.”

  I chuckled at that. He didn’t say much, but he wasn’t wrong. At this point, there was no going back. We were on the path to destruction, and it was up to us how we handled it. Mike and I, we were Milanos. My family had a history of going down fighting, and Mike and I wouldn’t break that tradition.

  You know what they said: if you stood for nothing, you fell for anything. And Mike and I, well, we would stand for the Lucianos until our legs could not hold us up any longer.

  Hours later, with empty hands and not a single clue as to where Tony was hiding, my phone rang. Night had fallen, and it was as Mike and I were leaving a warehouse that my phone began to buzz in my pocket. I expected it was Richie, calling to see if we had any luck in locating and procuring the elusive Tony Torio, but as my eyes fell to the screen, I saw it wasn’t the big man.

  It was his
son, his adopted one, Sylvester.

  Sylvester and Maddox were supposed to stay in the house, just in case. With Carl dying, there was no telling that the DeLucas would wait until their patriarch died before starting the war. They might just decide to rev it up and get it going, and Maddox and Sylvester would be the biggest targets, along with Richie. With Mario dead, they were all that was left of the Lucianos and their legacy.

  A sad thing, because their family used to be so big, even bigger than the DeLucas.

  “Sylvester,” I spoke as I answered the phone. Mike and I walked back to the car, and my brother got in, but I waited near the door, listening to the man on the other line. It was wrong, but I thought of Lola then, how she’d been with him and Maddox at the house these past few days. I shouldn’t have feelings for her, but I did. I did, and no matter how much I fought them, they never seemed to disappear.

  That was just another disaster in the waiting.

  “Viper,” he said. “I assume since you’re not back yet, you haven’t found him? I haven’t heard anything else from any of the others.”

  “No,” I said, hating that we were empty-handed. There were only so many places in this city one could hide… and yet, there were places that Mike and I could not go to, lest we risk getting shot on sight. The DeLuca house, for one—but there was no way Tony could’ve holed himself in there, right?

  “I figured. That’s not why I called, though. I can’t find Maddox. I’ve looked everywhere in the house.” Sylvester paused, and I imagined him pacing as he usually did when he was anxious about something. He, unlike Maddox, was the one who thought things through. Mad Maddox, on the other hand, always did things without thinking of the consequences. Or caring.

  I held in a sigh, knowing what he was going to say. Instead of searching for Tony, we’d be on a mission to retrieve Maddox. Great. It wouldn’t be the first time he went off the rails, but now was not a good time for him to go off and play at having no responsibilities.